“Shades!” he hissed in disbelief.
He had no idea when Walker had given it to him, no idea how long he had been holding it. He stared at its light, transfixed, watching it surge up and down the blade in small crimson ribbons that twisted and wound about the metal. He watched as it descended into the pommel and wrapped about his hands.
Then it was rushing through him in a wave of warmth and tingling sensation, spreading all through his limbs and body. It consumed him, swallowed him, wrapped him about, and made him its own. He was captured by it, and there was a slow leavening of thought, emotion, and feeling. Everything about him began to disappear, fading away into darkness which only the sword’s light illuminated. The airship, the ship’s company, the gloom and mist, the ice, the cliffs, everything was gone. Bek was alone, solitary and adrift within himself, buoyed on the back of the magic that infused him.
Help me, he heard himself asking.
The images began at once, no longer of the Squirm and its
crushing pillars, no longer of the world in which he lived, but of the world he had left behind, of the past. A succession of memories began to recall themselves, taking him back in time, reminding him of what had once been and now was gone. He grew younger, smaller. The memories became a rush of sudden, frightening images, rife with fury and terror, with distant cries and the labored breathing of someone who held him close before tucking him into a black, cold place. The smell and taste of smoke and soot filled his throat and nostrils, and he could feel a panic within that refused to be stilled.
Grianne’ he heard himself call out.
Blackness cloaked and hooded him once more, and a new series of images began. He saw himself as a child in the care of Coran and Liria. He saw himself at play with Quentin and his friends, with his younger brothers and sisters, at his home in Leah and beyond. The scenes were dark and accusatory, memories of his growing up that he had suppressed, memories of the times in which he had lied and cheated and deceived, in which his selfishness and disregard had caused hurt and pain. Some of these scenes were familiar, some he had forgotten. The weaknesses of his life were revealed in steady procession, laid bare for him to witness. They were not terrible things taken separately, but their number increased their weight, and after a time he was crying openly and desperate for them to end.
A wind of dark haziness swept them all away and left him with a view of the Four Lands in which all that was bad and terrible about the human condition was displayed. He watched in horror as starvation, sickness, murder, and pillage decimated lives and homes and futures in a canvas so broad it seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. Men, women and children fell victim to the weaknesses of spirit and morality that plagued mankind. All of the races were susceptible, and all participated in the savagery. There was no end to it, no lessening of it, no sense that it had ever been other than this. Bek watched it unfold in horror and profound sadness and felt it to be a part of himself. Even in his misery he could sense that this was the history of his people, that this was who he was.
Yet when it was over, he felt cleansed. With recognition came acceptance. With acceptance came forgiveness. He felt cleansed, not just of what he had contributed to the morass, but of what others had contributed as well—as if he had taken it all on his shoulders, just for a little while, and had been given back a sense of peace. He rose up within the darkness, strengthened in ways he could not define, reborn into himself with a boy’s eyes, but a man’s understanding.
The darkness drew back, and he stood again on the deck of the Jerk Shannara, arms lifted, sword outstretched. He was still masked back and sides by Walker’s magic, but the way forward was clear. The Squirm had opened anew, its pillars swaying seductively, beckoning him to proceed, to come within their reach. He could feel the cold that permeated them. He could feel their crushing weight. Even the air that surrounded them was infused with their power and their unpredictability. But there was something else here as well; he felt it at once. Something manmade, something not of nature but of machines and science.