The Heritage of Shannara (247 page)

To one side, Rumor fought desperately to reach Walker, Shadowen closing about to finish him.

Morgan went to their aid without pausing, howling out his battle cry, bringing up the dark blade of his talisman in a trail of fire. The dark-haired woman went with him. Coll started instead toward the chained light, thinking to strike there, then was forced to turn aside to meet an attack from Shadowen launching themselves off the catwalk. He dropped Damson, and Par racing up from behind caught her up. The Shadowen closed on Coll and forced him back. The Sword of Shannara offered no threat to them, and Coll had no other magic. Par screamed at him to get out of the way, but instead Coll bulled into the cloaked melee. Par laid Damson down hurriedly and went after him. Coll stumbled and went down, rose again momentarily, and then went down for good. The Shadowen were all over him. Par howled in fury and sent the magic of the wishsong hammering into them, thrusting them aside. Fire burned back at him from above and on all sides, but from beneath his magic's armor he shrugged it away.

Coll was on his hands and knees when Par reached him, bloodied and torn. He lifted his face so that he could see Par and then shoved the Sword of Shannara at him.

“Go on!” he said, and collapsed.

Par snatched up the Sword and started forward, the acrid smell of ash and fire thick in his nostrils. Go on and do what? He was aware of Morgan standing alone now, the dark-haired girl fallen as well. He could no longer see Walker or Rimmer Dall. He felt his strength beginning to fail, the consequence of sustained use of his magic. He would have to be quick, whatever he did. He stumbled ahead, nearing the light, wondering anew what it was and what he was supposed to do with it. Should he free it? Wasn't that what Walker had said they had come into Southwatch to do? If it was a prisoner of the Shadowen, then it should be freed. But what was it? He was not certain of anything. He was barely free himself, and his own confusion still dragged at him with chains of its own.

He looked down at the Sword of Shannara, suddenly aware that he was carrying it, that he had taken it from Coll. Why had he done that? The Sword was not meant for him. It was meant for Coll. He wasn't even able to use it.

And then suddenly Rimmer Dall was standing before him, wolf 's head gleaming in the light, dark robes shredded and falling away. His hood was thrown back, and his red-bearded, craggy face was washed in blood. He blocked Par from the light, rising up before him. The gloved hand pulsed with crimson fire. When he smiled, it was a terrifying grimace.

“Come down to find what we keep hidden here?” he asked, his voice whispery and rough.

“Get out of my way,” Par ordered.

“Not anymore,” the other said, and Par suddenly realized that the
gloved arm was no longer gloved at all, that the fire he was seeing was all there was of the arm, was what had laid beneath the glove all along. “I've given you all the chances you get, boy.”

There was no pretense of friendliness or concern now. Loathing glittered in Rimmer Dall's eyes, and his body was knotted with rage. “You belong to me! You've always belonged to me! You should have given yourself to me when you had the chance! It would have been easier that way!”

Par stared openmouthed.

“You're mine!” Rimmer Dall swore in fury. “You still don't understand, do you? You're mine, Par Ohmsford! Your magic belongs to me!”

He came forward in a lunge, and Par barely had time to cry out and throw up the wishsong's magic to slow him. And slow him was all it did. The First Seeker came through the shield as if it were paper, and his hands locked on Par's shoulders like iron clamps. Par was vaguely aware of thinking that this was what Rimmer Dall had wanted all along—the magic of the wishsong and Par's body in which to wield it. All the pretenses of wanting to help him control the magic had been a screen designed to hide his ambition to own it. Like all the Shadowen, Rimmer Dall craved the magic in others, and few had the magic of Par.

He was thrown back by the other's weight, bent down, and forced to his knees. The Sword of Shannara dropped from his nerveless fingers. He brought his hands up to fight the other off, summoning the magic to his defense, but it was as if all his strength had been leeched from him. He could barely breathe as the other's shadow enfolded him. Rimmer Dall began to come out of his body and enter Par's. The Valeman saw it happening, felt it beginning. He screamed and fought to free himself, but he was helpless.

Not this!
he thought in terror.
Don't let it happen!

He twisted and kicked and tore at the other, but Rimmer Dall's Shad-owen self was pressing into him, entering through his skin. The feeling was cold and dark and filled him with self-loathing. Once, he could have prevented this, he sensed. Once, when the magic was out of control and driven by his fear and doubt, he would have been strong enough to keep the other away. Rimmer Dall had known this. The First Seeker's thoughts brushed up against his own, and he shrank from what they revealed.
Someone help me!
He caught a glimpse of movement to his left, and Morgan Leah surged forward, howling. But Rimmer Dall struck out with his gloved hand, releasing Par for the barest instant, and Morgan disappeared in a flash of red fire, tumbling away again into the dark. The hand returned, fastening on Par anew. The Valeman had retreated down inside himself where his magic was strongest, gathering it into an iron core. But Rimmer Dall closed on it relentlessly, pressing in, squeezing. Par could feel even that part of himself giving way …

Then abruptly the First Seeker was jerked backward, and his Shadowen self tore free of Par. Par gasped and blinked and saw Walker Boh with his good hand closed on Rimmer Dall's throat, the Druid fire racing down its
length. He was singed and scraped, and his face was as white as chalk beneath the black beard and streaks of blood. But Walker Boh was a study in raw determination as he brought the force of his magic to bear on his enemy. Rimmer Dall surged upward with a roar, flailing with his gloved hand, the Shadowen magic scattering everywhere. Something in what Walker was doing to him was keeping Rimmer Dall separated from his corporeal body, his Shadowen self held just outside and beyond. Both parts struggled to reunite, but Walker was between them, blocking them from each other.

Par staggered backward and then came to his feet again. Walker's fingers closed into a fist, squeezing something within the Shadowen. Rimmer Dall thrashed and screamed, his rangy form surging upward and shuddering with fury. Shadowen fire burned downward into the floor, coring into the stone. Other Shadowen raced to give aid, but Rumor lunged between them, tearing and ripping.

“Use the Sword!” Walker Boh hissed at Par. “Set it free!”

Par snatched up the blade and raced for the light. He reached it in seconds, unchallenged now, all eyes on the battle between the Druid and the First Seeker. He came up to it, this vast, pulsing mass with its scarlet-ribboned chains, and holding the Sword of Shannara in both hands, he laid it flat against the light.

Then he summoned its magic, willing it forth, praying it would come.

And come it did, rising up smoothly, easily, free of the constraints the wishsong's magic had imposed when his fears and doubts and Rimmer Dall's trickery had convinced him he was a Shadowen. It came swiftly, a white beacon that speared into the light before it, then raced back again to swallow Par whole. Par saw anew the truths of his life, the truths of his magic, of his Shannara and Shadowen heritage, and of his Elven ancestry. He breathed them in like the air that gave him life and did not flinch away.

Then he saw finally the truth of the light before him. He saw what the Shadowen had done, how they had used their magic to subvert the Four Lands. He saw the meaning behind the dreams of Allanon, and the reason for the summoning of the children of Shannara to the Hadeshorn. He saw what it was that he must do.

He drew back the magic of the Sword and dropped the blade to the cavern floor. Behind him, Rimmer Dall and Walker Boh still thrashed in a combat that seemed to have no end. The First Seeker was shrieking—not in pain at what was being done to him, but in fury at what Par was about to do. There were Shadowen closing from everywhere, fighting to get past Morgan Leah, back on his feet once more, and Rumor, who seemed indestructible. But it was too late for them. This moment belonged to Par and his friends and allies, to all those who had fought to bring it about, to the living and the dead, to the brave.

He summoned the magic of the wishsong one final time, brought all of it to bear, the whole of what burned within him, evolved out of his birthright
into the monster that had nearly consumed him. He summoned it forth and shaped it once more into that shard of blue fire that had first appeared when he had fought to escape the Pit, that shard that seemed a piece of azure lightning come down from the sky. He raised it overhead and brought it down on the crimson cords of magic that bound the light, shattering them forever.

Par shuddered with the force of the blow and with what the effort took from him, a tearing, a rending, a draining away.

The light exploded in response, blazing forth into the cavern's darkest corners and from there upward into Southwatch. It chased the shadows and the gloom and turned what was black to white. It shrieked with glee at finding its freedom, and then it sought retribution for what had been done to it.

It took Rimmer Dall first, sucking out the First Seeker's life as if drawing smoke into its lungs. Rimmer Dall shuddered violently, collapsed in a scattering of ashes, and ceased to exist. The light went after the other Shad-owen then, who were already fleeing in hopeless desperation, and swallowed them up one after the other. Finally it rose to consume Southwatch, racing up the black walls, into the pulsing obsidian stone. Par was dragged to his feet by Walker, who bent to snatch up the Sword of Shannara. Walker called to Morgan, and in seconds they were gathering the others as well, hauling them up, carrying those who could not stand. Rumor led the way as they surged toward a tunnel at the chamber's far end, racing to escape the cataclysm.

Overhead, Southwatch exploded into the morning sky in a geyser of fire and ash.

Stresa was the first to feel the tremors and hiss in warning at Wren. “Elf Queen. Phfftt! Do you feel it? Hsst! Hsst! The earth moves!”

Wren stood slightly apart from Triss, the Elfstones clutched in her hand as she watched the coming of the Federation army, awaiting her confrontation with the Creepers. They had reached the mouth of the Valley of Rhenn, and with the front lines of the Elves and their allies less than three hundred yards away, the battle she dreaded was about to commence. Barsimmon Oridio, Padishar Creel, Chandos, and Axhind had dispersed to their various commands. Tiger Ty had gone to be with the Wing Riders. Home Guard surrounded the queen on all sides, but she felt impossibly alone.

She turned at the Splinterscat's words, then felt the tremors herself. “Triss,” she whispered.

For the earth was shuddering more deeply with each series of quakes that passed through it, as if a beast coming awake to the rising of the sun, to the coming of the light. It shook itself from sleep, and its growl rose above the beating of the Federation drums and the marching of the soldiers' feet.

Wren caught her breath in dismay.

What was happening?

Then fire and smoke erupted far to the east and south, rising up against the sunlight in a wild conflagration, and the quaking turned to a desperate heaving. The men of the opposing armies paused in their confrontation and turned to look, eyes scanning the horizon, cries beginning to ring out. The fire and smoke grew into a cloud of black ash, and then suddenly there was a tremendous burst of white light that filled the sky with its brightness, pulsing and alive. It rose in a wild sweep, racing across the sun and back again, running with the wind and the clouds.

When it flew down into the earth again, the shudders began anew, rising and falling, filling the air with sound.

Then the light burst forth within the valley, spears of it breaking through the earth's crust, rising up through the terrified men. Wren gasped at its brightness and felt the Elfstones digging into the flesh of her palm as she gripped them tightly in response.

The light sped this way and that, yet not at random as she had first believed but with deadly intent. It caught the Creepers first, tore them asunder, and left them smoking and ruined and lifeless. It caught the Seekers next, enfolding them in shrouds of death, draining them of life, and leaving them in piles of smoking ash. It raced through the Federation army, weeding its ranks of Shadowen-kind, and in doing so stole away its purpose and courage, and the soldiers who remained turned and fled for their lives, throwing down their weapons, abandoning their fortifications and assault machines, giving up any hope but that of staying alive. Within seconds it was finished, the Creepers and the Shadowen destroyed, the soldiers of the Federation army in flight, the grasslands littered with the discards and leavings of battle. It happened so fast that the Elves, free-born, and Rock Trolls did not even have time to respond, too stunned to do anything but stare after and then to glance hurriedly through their own ranks to make certain that the light had not touched them.

On the bluff at the head of the valley where she had watched it all happen, Wren Elessedil exhaled slowly into the following hush. Triss stood next to her openmouthed. Stresa's breathing was a rasp at her boot. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat and then looked out across the Valley of Rhenn in astonishment as one final miracle came to pass.

All across the parched and barren plains, for as far as the eye could see, wildflowers were blooming in the sunlight.