held the Sword of Shannara, there when he had come down into
the Pit for the last time with Coil and Damson. It was Rimmer
Dall who had let him try the Sword, knowing it would not work
because his own magic would not let it, a barrier to a truth that
might prove too unpleasant to accept. It was Rimmer Dall who
had suggested he was Shadowen spawn, was one of them, was
a vessel for their magic, giving him the uncertainty required to
prevent the warring magics of Sword and wishsong from find-
ing a common ground and thereby beginning the long spiral of
doubt that would lead to Par’s final subversion when the possi-
bility of what he might be grew so large that it became fact.
Par gasped and reared back, seeing it now, seeing it all. Be-
lieve for long enough and it will come to pass. Believe it
might be so, and it will be so. That was what he had done to
himself, blanketed in magic too strong for anything to break
down until he was willing to allow it, locked away by his fears
and uncertainties from the truth. Rimmer Dall had known.
Rimmer Dall had seen that Par would wrestle alone with the
possibilities the First Seeker offered. Let him think he killed
his brother with his magic. Let him think the Sword of
Shannara’s magic could never be his. Let him think he was
failing because of who he might be. As long as he unwittingly
used the wishsong to keep the Sword’s magic at bay, what
chance did he have to resolve the conflict of his identity? Par
would be savior of the Druids and pawn of the Shadowen
both, and the twist of the two would tear him apart.
“But I do not have to be one of mem,” he heard himself say.
“I do not have to!”
He shuddered with the weight of his words. Coil’s under-
standing smile warmed him like the sun. As it had been for his
brother when the Sword’s truth tore away the dark lie of the
Mirrorshroud, recognition became the pathway by which Par
now came back to himself. Had Allanon known it would be like
this? he wondered as he began to rise out of light. Had Allanon
seen that this was the need for the Sword of Shannara?
When the magic died away and his eyes opened, he was sur-
prised to find that he was crying.
XXXV
Shadows and mist tangled and twisted down the length of
the Valley of Rhenn, a sea of movement that rolled
across me bodies of the dead and beckoned in grim invi-
tation for the living to join them. Wren Elessedil stood at the
head of the valley with the leaders of the army of me Elves
and their newfound allies and pondered the lure of its call
From out of the corpses still strewn below, mostly Southland-
ers abandoned by their fellows, arms rose, cocked in death,
signposts to the netherworld. The carnage spread south onto
the flats until the dark swallowed it up, and it seemed to the
Queen of the Elves that it might very well stretch away for-
ever, a glimpse of a future waiting to claim her.
She stood apart from the others—from Triss and Barsimmon
Oridio, from the free-bom leader Padishar Creel and his gruff
friend Chandos, and from the enigmatic Troll commander
Axhind. They all faced into the valley, as if each was consid-
ering the same puzzle, the mix of mist and shadows and death
No one spoke. They had been standing there since news had
arrived that the Federation was on the march once more. It was
not yet dawn, the light still below the crest of the horizon east,
me skies thick with clouds, the world a place of blackness.
Despair ran deep in Wren. It ran to the bone and out again,
and it seemed to have no end. She had thought she had cned
her last when Garth had died, but the loss of Faun had brought
the tears and the grief anew, and now she believed she might
never be free of them again. She felt as if the skin had been