First King of Shannara (7 page)

“Bremen . . .” Risca began.

“For another,” the Druid continued, motioning the Dwarf into silence, “she claims to have innate magic. I think that perhaps she is telling the truth. If so, we might do well to discover its nature and put it to good use. After all, there are only the four of us otherwise.”

“We are not so desperate that . . .” Risca began again.

“Oh, yes, we are, Risca,” Bremen cut him short. “We most certainly are. Four against the Warlock Lord, his winged hunters, his netherworld minions, and the entire Troll nation—how much more desperate could we be? No one else at Paranor has offered to help us. Only Mareth. I am not inclined to turn down anyone out of hand at this point.”

“You said earlier that she keeps secrets from you,” Kinson pointed out. “That hardly inspires the trust you seek.”

“We all keep secrets, Kinson,” Bremen chided gently. “There is nothing strange in that. Mareth barely knows me. Why should she confide everything in our first conversation? She is being careful, nothing more.”

“I don't like it,” Risca declared sullenly. He leaned the heavy cudgel against his massive thigh. “She may have magic at her disposal and she may even have the talent to use it. But that doesn't change the fact that we know almost nothing about her. In particular, we don't know if we can depend on her. I don't like taking that kind of chance with my life, Bremen.”

“Well, I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt,” Tay countered cheerfully. “We will have time to make up our minds about her before there is need to test her courage. There are things to be said in her favor already. We know she was chosen to apprentice with the Druids—that alone speaks highly of her. And she is a Healer, Risca. We might have need of her skills.”

“Let her come,” Kinson agreed grudgingly. “Bremen has already made his mind up anyway.”

Risca frowned darkly. His big shoulders squared. “Well, he may have made up his mind, but he hasn't necessarily made up mine.” He rounded on Bremen and stared wordlessly at the old man for a moment. Tay and Kinson waited expectantly. Bremen did not offer anything further. He simply stood there.

In the end, it was Risca who backed down. He simply shook his head, shrugged, and turned away. “You are the leader, Bremen. Bring her along if you like. But don't expect me to wipe her nose.”

“I will be sure to tell her that,” Bremen advised with a wink to Kinson, and beckoned the young woman over to join them.

 

They set out shortly afterward, a company of five, with Bremen leading, Risca and Tay Trefenwyd at either shoulder, Kinson a step behind, and Mareth trailing. The sun was up now, cresting the Dragon's Teeth east to light the heavily forested valley, and the skies were bright and blue and cloudless. The company traveled south, winding along little-used trails and footpaths, across broad, calm streams, and into the scrub-covered foothills that lifted out of the woodlands to the Kennon Pass. By midday they were climbing out of the valley into the pass, and the air had turned sharp and cool. Looking back, they could see the massive walls of Paranor where the Druid's Keep rested high on its rocky promontory amid the old growth. The sun's intense light gave the stone a flat, implacable cast amid the wash of trees, a hub at the center of a vast wheel. They glanced back on it, one after the other, lost in their separate thoughts, remembering events past and years gone. Only Mareth showed no interest, her gaze turned deliberately forward, her small face an expressionless mask.

Then they entered the Kennon, its rugged walls rising about them, great slabs of stone split by the slow swing of time's axe, and Paranor was lost from view.

Only Bremen knew where they were going, and he kept the information to himself until they camped that night above the Mermidon, safely down out of the pass and back within the sheltering forests below. Kinson had asked once when he was alone with the old man and Risca had asked in front of everyone, but Bremen had chosen not to respond. His reasons were his own, and he kept them that way, offering no explanation to his followers. No one chose to contest his decision.

But that night, after they had built their fire and cooked their food (Kinson's first hot meal in weeks), Bremen revealed at last their destination.

“I will tell you now where we are going,” he advised quietly. “We are traveling to the Hadeshorn.”

They were seated about the small fire, their dinner finished, their hands busy with other tasks. Risca worked to sharpen the blade of his broadsword. Tay sipped from an aleskin and sketched pictures in the dust. Kinson worked a fresh length of leather stitching through one boot where the sole was loosening. Mareth sat apart and watched them all with her strange, level gaze that took in everything and gave nothing back.

There was a silence when Bremen finished, four heads lifting as one to stare at him. “I intend to speak with the spirits of the dead in an effort to discover what it is that we must do to protect the Races. I will try to learn something of how we should proceed. I will try to discover our fates.”

Tay Trefenwyd cleared his throat softly. “The Hadeshorn is forbidden to mortals. Even Druids. Its waters are poisonous. One taste and you are dead.” He looked at Bremen thoughtfully, then looked away again. “But you already knew that, didn't you?”

Bremen nodded. “There is danger in visiting the Hadeshorn. There is greater danger still in calling up the dead. But I have studied the magic that wards the netherworld and its portals into our own, and I have traveled such roads as exist between the two and returned alive.” He smiled at the Elf. “I have journeyed far since last we were together, Tay.”

Risca grunted. “I'm not sure I want to know my fate.”

“Nor I,” Kinson echoed.

“I will ask for whatever they will give me,” Bremen advised. “They will decide what we should know.”

“You believe that the spirits will speak words that you can understand?” Risca shook his head. “I didn't think it worked that way.”

“It doesn't,” Bremen acknowledged. He eased himself closer to the fire and held out his hands to capture its warmth. The night was cool, even below the mountains. “The dead, if they appear, offer visions, and the visions speak for them. The dead have no voices. Not from the netherworld. Not unless . . .”

He seemed to think better of what he was about to say and brushed the matter aside with an impatient wave. “The fact remains that the visions will give voice to what the spirits would tell us—if they choose to speak at all. Sometimes, they do not even appear. But we must go to them and ask their help.”

“You have done this before,” said Mareth suddenly, making it a statement of fact.

“Yes,” the old man admitted.

Yes, thought Kinson Ravenlock, remembering. For he had been there on the last occasion, a terrifying night of thunder and lightning, of rolling black clouds and torrents of rain, of steam hissing off the surface of the lake, and of voices calling out from the subterranean chambers of death's mansion. He had stood there at the rim of the Valley of Shale and watched as Bremen had gone down to the water's edge and called forth the spirits of the dead into weather that seemed made for their eerie purpose. What visions there were had not been his to see. But Bremen had seen them, and they had not been good. His eyes alone had revealed that much when finally he had climbed back out of the valley at dawn.

“It will be all right,” Bremen assured them, his smile faint and worn within the creases of his shadowed face.

As they prepared for sleep, Kinson went to Mareth and bent down next to her on one knee. “Take this,” he offered, handing her his travel cloak. “It will help ward off the night's chill.”

She looked at him with those large, disturbing eyes and shook her head. “You need it as much as I do, Borderman. I ask no special consideration from you.”

Kinson held her gaze without speaking for a moment. “My name is Kinson Ravenlock,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “I know your name.”

“I stand the first watch and do not need the weight or warmth of the cloak while I keep it. No special consideration is being offered.”

She seemed put off. “I must stand watch, too,” she insisted.

“You will. Tomorrow. Two of us each night.” He kept his temper firmly in check. “Now, will you take the cloak?”

She gave him a cool look, then accepted it. “Thank you,” she said, her voice neutral.

He nodded, rose, and walked away, thinking to himself that it would be a while before he offered her anything again.

The night was deeply still and breathtakingly beautiful, the strangely purple heavens dotted thick with stars and a silvered quarter-moon. Vast and depthless, free from clouds and empty of conflicting light, the sky looked to have been swept by a great broom, the stars spread like diamond chips across its velvet surface. Thousands were visible, so many in some places that they seemed to run together like spilled milk. Kinson looked up at them and marveled. Time eased away with the smoothness of glass. Kinson listened for the familiar sounds of forest life, but it was as if all who dwelled within these woods were as awestruck as he and had no time for ordinary pursuits.

He thought back to when he was a boy living in the borderland wilderness east and north of Varfleet in the shadow of the Dragon's Teeth. It was not so different for him even then. At night, when his parents and his brothers and sisters were asleep, he would lie awake looking out at the sky, wondering at its size, thinking of all the places it looked down upon that he had never been. Sometimes he would stand before the bedroom window, as if by moving closer he might see more of what waited out there. He had always known he would go away, even while the others had begun the process of settling into more sedentary lives. They grew, married, had children, and moved into their own homes. They hunted, trapped, traded, and farmed in the country in which they had been born. But he only drifted, always with one eye on that distant sky, always with a promise to himself that one day he would see all of what lay beneath it.

He was still looking, even now, with more than thirty years of his life behind him. He was still searching for what he hadn't seen and didn't know. He thought that would never change. He thought that if one day it did, he would become a different man than he had ever imagined being.

Midnight arrived, and with it Mareth. She appeared unexpectedly from out of the shadows, wrapped in Kinson's cloak, so light-footed that anyone else might have missed her approach entirely. Kinson turned to greet her, surprised because he was expecting Bremen.

“I asked Bremen to give me his turn at watch,” she explained when she reached him. “I did not want to be treated differently.”

He nodded, saying nothing.

She took off the cloak and handed it to him. She seemed small and frail without it “I thought you should have this back for when you sleep. It's gotten cold. The fire has died away to nothing, and it might be best to leave it that way.”

He accepted the cloak. “Thank you.”

“Have you seen anything?”

“No”

“The Skull Bearers will track us, won't they?”

How much did she know? he wondered. How much, of what they faced? “Perhaps. Did you sleep at all?”

She shook her head. “I could not stop thinking.” Her huge eyes stared off into the dark. “I have been waiting for this for a long time.”

“To come with us on this journey?”

“No.” She looked at him, surprised. “To meet Bremen. To learn from him, if he will teach me.” She turned away quickly, as if she had said too much. “You had better sleep while you can. I will keep watch until morning. Good night.”

He hesitated, but there was nothing left to say. He rose and walked back to where the others were rolled into their cloaks about the ashes of the fire. He lay down with them and closed his eyes, trying hard to make something of Mareth, then trying not to think of her at all.

But he did, and it was a long time before he slept
.

 

V

 

T
hey rose before sunrise and walked east through the day until sunset. They passed along the base of the Dragon's Teeth above the Mermidon, keeping back within the shadow of the mountains. Bremen warned them that they were at risk even there. The Skull Bearers felt sure enough of themselves to come down out of the Northland. The Warlock Lord marched his armies east toward the Jannisson Pass, which meant they probably intended to descend upon the Eastland. If they were bold enough to invade the country of the Dwarves, they certainly would not hesitate to venture into the Borderlands.

So they kept close watch of the skies and the darker valleys and rifts of the mountains where the shadows left the rock cloaked in perpetual night, and they did not take anything for granted as they journeyed on. But the winged hunters did not show themselves this day, and aside from a few travelers glimpsed at a distance in the forests and plains south, they saw no one. They stopped to rest and to eat, but did not pause otherwise, keeping a steady pace through the daylight hours.

By sunset they had reached the foothills leading up into the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. They camped in a draw that faced back toward the plains south and the winding blue ribbon of the Mermidon where it branched east into the Rabb, the river gradually diminishing until it died away into streams and ponds on the barren flats. They cooked vegetables and a rabbit that Tay had killed, and ate their dinner while it was still light, the sun bleeding red and gold into the western horizon. Bremen told them they would go up into the mountains after midnight and wait for the slow hours before sunrise when the spirits of the dead could be summoned.

They kicked out the fire as night descended and rolled into their cloaks to get what sleep they could.

“Do not worry so, Kinson,” Bremen whispered to the Borderman once in passing on seeing his face.

But the advice was wasted. Kinson Ravenlock had been to the Hadeshorn before and knew what to expect.

 

Sometime after midnight, Bremen took them up into the foothills fronting the Dragon's Teeth where the Valley of Shale was nestled. They climbed through the rocks on a night so black that they could barely make out the person immediately ahead. Clouds had moved in after sunset, thick and low and threatening, and all signs of moon and stars had disappeared hours ago. Bremen led the way cautiously, concerned for their well-being even though the terrain they passed through was as familiar to him as the back of his hand. He did not speak to the others as they proceeded, keeping his attention focused on the task at hand and the one that lay ahead, intent on avoiding any missteps either now or later. For a meeting with the dead required foresight and caution, a screwing up of courage and a hardening of determination that would permit neither hesitation nor doubt. Once contact was made, even the smallest distraction could be life-threatening.

It was still several hours before dawn when they reached their destination. They paused on the rim of the valley and stared down into its broad, shallow bowl. Crushed rock littered its sides, black and glistening even in the deep gloom, reflecting back the strange light of the lake. The Hadeshorn sat at the center of the bowl, broad and opaque, its still, flat surface glimmering with some inner radiance, as if the lake's soul pulsed within its depths. It was still and lifeless within the Valley of Shale, empty of movement, devoid of sound. It had the look and feel of a black hole, an eye looking down into the world of the dead.

“We will wait here,” Bremen advised, seating himself on the flat surface of a low boulder, his cloak wrapped about his thin frame like a shroud.

The others nodded, but stood staring down into the valley for a time, unwilling to turn away just yet. Bremen let them be. They were feeling the weight of the valley's oppressive silence. Only Kinson had been here before, and even he could not prepare himself for what he must be feeling now. Bremen understood. The Hadeshorn was the promise of what awaited them all. It was a glimpse into the future they could not escape, a frightening dark look into life's end. It spoke in no recognizable words, but only in whispers and small mutterings. It revealed too little to give insight and just enough to give pause.

The old man had been here twice now, and each time he had come away forever changed. There were truths to be learned and there was wisdom to be gained from a meeting with the dead, but there was a price to be paid as well. You could not brush up against the future and escape unscathed. You could not see into the forbidden and avoid damage to your sight. Bremen remembered the feeling of those previous meetings. He remembered the cold that had worked its way down into his bones and would not leave for weeks afterward. He remembered his pervasive longing for what he had missed in the years gone past that could never be recaptured. He was frightened even now of the possibility that somehow he would stray from the narrow path permitted him in making this forbidden contact and be swallowed up in the void, a creature consigned to a limbo existence between life and death, neither all of one or the other.

But the need to discover what he could of how the Warlock Lord might be destroyed, of the choices and opportunities open to him in his effort to save the Races, and of the secrets of the past and future hidden to the living but revealed to the dead, far outweighed fear and doubt. He was compelled so fiercely by his need that he was forced to act on it even at the risk of his own well-being. Yes, there were dangers in making this contact. Yes, he would not emerge from it unharmed. But it did not matter in the scheme of things, for even giving up his life was an acceptable price if it meant putting an end to his implacable enemy.

The others had forced themselves away from the valley's rim and drifted over to sit with him. He made himself smile reassuringly at them, one by one, beckoning even the recalcitrant Kinson to come close.

“In the hour before dawn, I will go down into the valley,” he told them quietly. “Once there, I will summon the spirits of the dead and ask them to show me something of the future. I will ask them to reveal the secrets that would help us in our efforts to destroy the Warlock Lord. I will ask them to give up any magic that might aid us. I must do this quickly and all within that short span of time before the sun rises. You will wait here for me. You will not come down into the valley, whatever happens. You will not act on what you see, even though it might seem as if you must. Do nothing but wait.”

“Perhaps one of us should go with you,” Risca offered bluntly. “There is safety in numbers, even with the dead. If you can speak with their spirits, so can we. We are Druids all, save the Borderman.”

“That you are Druids does not matter,” Bremen said at once. “It is too dangerous for you. This is something I must do alone. You will wait here. I want your promise, Risca.”

The Dwarf gave him along, hard look and then nodded. Bremen turned to the others. Each nodded reluctantly in turn. Mareth's eyes met his own and held them with secret understanding.

“You are convinced this is necessary?' Kinson pressed softly.

The lines of Bremen's aged face crinkled slightly deeper with the furrowing of his brow. “If I could think of something else to do, something that would aid us, I would leave this place. I am no fool, Kinson. Nor hero. I know what coming here means. I know it damages me.”

“Then perhaps . . .”

“But the dead speak to me as the living cannot,” Bremen continued, cutting him short. “We need their wisdom and insight. We need their visions, flawed and bereft of understanding as they sometimes are.” He took a deep breath. “We need to see through their eyes. If I must give up something of myself to gain that insight, then so be it.”

They were silent then, lost in their separate thoughts, mulling over his words and the misgivings they generated. But there was no help for it. He had told them what was necessary, and there was nothing else to say. They would understand better, perhaps, when this matter was done.

So they sat in the darkness and glanced surreptitiously at the shimmering surface of the lake, their faces bathed in the weak light as they listened to the silence and waited for the dawn to draw closer.

And when at last it did, when it was time to go, Bremen rose and faced his companions with a small smile, then went past them wordlessly and down into the Valley of Shale.

Once more, his progress was slow. He had come this way before, but familiarity did not aid where the terrain was so treacherous. The rock underneath was slippery and loose at every point, and the edges were sharp enough to cut. He picked his way carefully, testing each step on the uncertain surface. His boots crunched and ground on the rock, the sound echoing in the deep silence. From west where the clouds massed thickest, thunder rumbled ominously, signaling the approach of a storm. Within the valley, there was no wind, but the smell of rain permeated the dead air. Bremen glanced up as a flicker of lightning splintered the black skies, then repeated its pattern farther north against the backdrop of the mountains. Dawn would bring more than the sunrise this day.

He reached the bottom of the valley and slogged forward at a more rapid pace, his footing steadier on the level ground. Ahead, the Hadeshorn glimmered with silvery incandescence, the light reflecting from somewhere below its flat, still surface. He could smell death here, an unmistakable mustiness, an arid and fetid decay. He was tempted to look back to where the others waited, but knew he must not distract himself even in that small way. He was already running through the ritual he must follow when he reached the lakeshore—the words, the signs, the conjuring acts that would bring the dead to speak with him. He was already hardening himself against their debilitating presence.

All too soon he stood upon the edge of the lake, a frail, small figure in a vast arena of rock and sky, all withered skin and old bones, the strongest part of him his determination, his stubborn will. Behind him, he could hear again the rumble of thunder from the approaching storm. Overhead, the clouds began to roil, stirred to movement by the winds that bore on their back the coming rain. Below, he could feel the earth shiver as the spirits sensed his presence.

He spoke to them softly, calling out his name, his history, his reason for coming to speak with them. He made the signs with his arms and hands, made the gestures that would summon them from the world of the dead to the world of the living. He saw the waters begin to stir in response, and he quickened his pace. He was confident and steady; he knew what would follow. First came the whispers, soft and distant, rising like invisible bubbles from the waters. Then came the cries, long and deep. The cries increased in volume, growing from a few to many, rising in tenor and impatience. The waters of the Hadeshorn hissed with dissatisfaction and need, and began to roil as rapidly as the clouds overhead, stirred by their own coming storm. Bremen gestured to them, bade them respond. The learning he had mastered in his studies with the Elves buttressed and enabled him, a bedrock on which to build the summoning magic.
Answer me,
he called to them.
Open to me.

Spray flew out of the center of the now violent waters, rising in a fountain, collapsing back, rising again. A rumble sounded deep within the earth, a groan of dissatisfaction. Bremen felt the first trace of doubt steal into his heart, and it was with an effort that he forced himself to ignore it. He could feel a vacuum forming around him, spreading out from the lake to encompass the whole of the valley. Only the dead would be allowed within its perimeter—the dead, and the one who had summoned them.

Then the spirits began to rise from the lake: small, white filaments of light given vaguely human form, bodies bathed in a firefly radiance that glimmered against the blackness of the clouded night. The spirits spiraled out of the mist and spray snake-like, lifting from the dark, dead air of their afterlife home to visit briefly the world they had once inhabited. Bremen kept his arms raised in a warding gesture, feeling vulnerable and bereft of power, though he had done the summoning, though he had brought the spirits to life. Cold ran down his brittle limbs in a rush, ice water through his veins. He held himself firm against the fear that raced through him, against the whispers that asked accusingly:
Who calls us? Who dares?

Then something huge broke the water's surface at its exact center, a black-cloaked figure that dwarfed the smaller glowing forms, scattering them with its coming, soaking up their fragile light and leaving them whirling and twisting like leaves in the wind. The cloaked figure rose to stand upon the dark, churning waves of the Hadeshorn, only vaguely substantial, a wraith without flesh or bones, yet of firmer stuff than the smaller creatures it dominated.

Bremen held himself steady as the dark figure advanced. This was whom he had come to see; this was the one he had summoned. Yet he was no longer certain he had done the right thing. The cloaked form slowed, so close now that it blotted out the sky above and the valley behind. Its hood lifted, and there was no face, no sign of anything within the dark robes.

It spoke, and its voice was a rumble of discontent.

—Do you know me—

Flat, dispassionate, and empty, a question without a question's inflection, the words hung upon the silence in a lingering echo.

Bremen nodded slowly in response. “I do,” he whispered.

 

At the rim of the valley, the four he had left behind watched the drama unfold. They saw the old man stand upon the shores of the Hadeshorn and summon the spirits of the dead. They saw the spirits rise amid the roiling of the waters, saw their glowing forms, the movement of their arms and legs, the twisting of their bodies in a macabre dance of momentary freedom. They watched as the huge, black-robed form lifted from their midst, enveloping them in its wake, absorbing their light. They watched the figure advance to stand before Bremen.