longer than the ones before them if I do not find a way to
unsettle the Federation!” He paused. “Fate, I told you. That’s
what I believe in. Fate made me what I am and it will unmake
me as easily, if I do net take a hand in its game. The hand I
must take, I think, is the one you offer. It is not chance. Par
Ohmsford, that you have come to me. It is what was meant
to be. I know that to be true, now especially-now, after
hearing what you seek. Do you see the way of it? My ancestor
and yours, Panamon Creel and Shea Ohmsford, went in search
of the Sword of Shannara more than three hundred years ago.
Now it is our turn, yours and mine. A Creel and an Ohmsford
once again, the start of change in the land, a new beginning.
I can feel it!”
He studied them, his sharp face intense. “Friendship brought
you all together; a need for change in your lives brought you to
me. Young Par, there are indeed ties that bind us, just as I said
when first we met. There is a history that needs repeating. There
are adventures to be shared and battles to be won. That is what
fate has decreed for you and me!”
Par was a bit confused in the face of all this rhetoric as he
asked, “Then you’ll help us?”
“Indeed, I will.” The outlaw chief arched one eyebrow. “I
hold the Parma Key, but the Southland is lost to me-my home,
my lands, my heritage. I want them back. Magic is the answer
now as it was those many years past, the catalyst for change, the
prod that will turn back the Federation beast and send it scur-
rying for its cave!”
“You’ve said that several times,” Par interjected. “Said it
several different ways-that the magic can in some way un-
dermine the Federation. But it’s me Shadowen that Allanon
fears, the Shadowen that the Sword is meant to confront. So
why . . . ?”
“Ah, ah, lad,” the other interrupted hurriedly. “You strike
to the heart of the matter once again. The answer to your ques-
tion is this-I perceive threads of cause and effect in everything.
Evils such as the Federation and the Shadowen do not stand
apart in the scheme of things. They are connected in some way,
joined perhaps as Ohmsfords and Creels are joined, and if we
can find a way to destroy one, we will find a way to destroy the
other!”
The look he gave them was one of such fierce determina-
tion that for a long moment no one said anything further. The
last of the sunlight was fading away below the horizon, and
the gray of twilight cloaked the Parma Key and the lands
south and west in a mantle of gauze. The men behind them
were stirring from their eating tables and beginning to retire
to sleeping areas that lay scattered about the bluff. Even at
mis high elevation, the summer night was warm and wind-
less. Stars and the beginnings of the first quarter’s moon were
slipping into view.
“All right,” Par said quietly. “True or not, what can you do
to help us?”
Padishar Creel smoothed back the wrinkles in the scarlet
sleeves of his tunic and breathed deeply the smells of the moun-
tain air. “I can do, lad, what you asked me to do. I can help
you find the Sword of Shannara.”
He glanced over with a quick grin and matter-of-factly added,
‘ ‘You see, I think I know where it is.”
XVIIl
For the next two days, Padishar Creel had nothing more
to say about the Sword of Shannara. Whenever Par or
one of the others of the little company tried to engage
him in conversation on the matter, he would simply say that
time would tell or that patience was a virtue or offer up some
similar platitude that just served to irritate them. He was unfail-
ingly cheerful about it, though, so they kept their feelings to
themselves.
Besides, for all the show the outlaw chief made of treating
them as his guests, they were prisoners of a sort, nevertheless.