death could assuage. Par would be forced to fight. And be-
cause he lacked the magic of the Sword of Shannara, because
his conventional weapons would not be enough to stop the
Shadowen-kind his brother had become, and because he would
The Talismans of Shannara 5
be terrified that this was yet another trick, he would use the
wishsong’s magic.
Perhaps he would kill his own brother, but this time kill him
in truth, and then discover—when it was too late to change
things back—what he had done.
And perhaps not. Perhaps he would let his brother escape—
and be led to his doom.
The First Seeker shrugged. Either way, the result would be
the same. Either way the Valeman was finished. Use of the
magic and the series of shocks that would surely result from
doing so would unbalance him. It would free the magic from
his control and let him become Rimmer Dall’s tool. Rimmer
Dall was certain of it. He could be so because unlike the
Shannara scions and their mentor he understood the Elven
magic, his magic by blood and right. He understood what it
was and how it worked. He knew what Par did not—what was
happening to the wishsong, why it behaved as it did, how it
had slipped its leash to become a wild thing that hunted as it
chose.
Par was close. He was very close.
The danger of grappling with the beast is that you will be-
come it.
He was almost one of them.
Soon it would happen.
There was, of course, the possibility that the Valeman would
discover the truth about the Sword of Shannara before then.
Was the weapon he carried, the one Rimmer Dall had given up
so easily, the talisman he sought or a fake? Par Ohmsford still
didn’t know. It was a calculated risk that he would not find
out. Yet even if he did, what good would it do him? Swords
were two-edged and could cut either way. The truth might do
Par more harm than good …
Rimmer Dall rose and walked again to the window, a
shadow in the night’s blackness, folded and wrapped against
the light. The Druids didn’t understand; they never had.
Allanon was an anachronism before he had even become what
Bremen intended him to be. Druids—they used the magic like
fools played with fire: astounded at its possibilities, yet terri-
fied of its risks. No wonder the flames had burned them so of-
ten. But that did not prevent them from refusing their
6 The Talismans of Shannara
mysterious gift. They were so quick to judge others who
sought to wield the power—the Shadowen foremost—to see
them as the enemy and destroy them.
As they had destroyed themselves.
But there was symmetry and meaning in the Shadowen vi-
sion of life, and the magic was no toy with which they played
but the heart of who and what they were, embraced, protected,
and worshipped. No half measures in which life’s accessibility
was denied or self-serving cautions issued to assure that none
would share in the use. No admonitions or warnings. No
gamesplaying. The Shadowen simply were what the magic
would make them, and the magic when accepted so would
make them anything.
The tree-tips of the forests and the cliffs of the Runne were
dark humps against the flat, silver-laced surface of the Rain-
bow Lake. Rimmer Dall gazed out upon the world, and he saw
what the Druids had never been able to see.
That it belonged to those strong enough to take it, hold it,
and shape it. That it was meant to be used.
His eyes burned the color of blood.
It was ironic that the Ohmsfords had served the Druids for
so long, carrying out their charges, going on their quests, fol-
lowing their visions to truths that never were. The stories were
legend. Shea and Flick, Wil, Brin and Jair, and now Par. It had
all been for nothing. But here is where it would end. For Par
would serve the Shadowen and by doing so put an end forever
to the Ohmsford-Druid ties.
“Par. Par. Par.”
Rimmer Dall whispered his name soothingly to the night. It