The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [159]
It was the old man who spoke. “We are the bearers of a charge that transcends all else. We have come a long way to fulfill that charge. Our journey has taken us to many places, and even though you are important to its success, it will not end here. You are but one piece in the puzzle we must assemble. We have need of a sword, Urprox Screl, a sword unlike any other ever forged. It requires the hands of a master smith to shape it. It will have special properties. It is intended not to destroy, but to save. It will be both the hardest and finest work you have ever done or will ever do.”
The big man smiled nervously. “Bold words. But I don’t think I believe them.”
“Because you do not want to forge another weapon in your lifetime. Because you have left all that behind, and the pact you made with yourself will be compromised if you relent now.”
“That states it nicely. I reached an end to that part of my life. I swore I would never go back again. I see no need to change my mind for you.”
“What if I told you,” the old man said thoughtfully, “that you have a chance to save thousands of lives by forging this sword we seek? What if you knew that this was so? Would that change your mind?”
“But it isn’t so,” Urprox insisted stubbornly. “No weapon could achieve that.”
“Suppose that the lives of your wife and children were among those that you would save by forging this sword. Suppose that your refusal to help us would cost them their lives.”
The muscles in the big man’s shoulders bunched. “So my wife and children are in danger now — is that how you wish me to see it? You are indeed desperate if you are reduced to making threats!”
“Suppose I told you that all of this will come to pass within the next few years if you do not help us. All.”
Urprox experienced a whisper of self-doubt. The old man seemed so certain. “Who are you?” he demanded a final time.
The other stepped forward him, coming very close. Urprox Screl could see every seam in his weathered face, every stray hair on his graying head and beard. “My name is Bremen,” the old man answered, his eyes locking on the smith’s. “Do you know of me?”
Urprox nodded slowly. It took every ounce of strength he possessed to hold his ground. “I have heard of you. You are one of the Druids.”
Again, the smile. “Are you frightened by that?”
“No.”
“Of me?”
The big man said nothing, his jaw clenched.
Bremen nodded slowly. “You needn’t be. I would be your friend, though it might seem otherwise. It is not my intention to threaten you. I speak only the truth. There is need for your talent, and that need is real and desperate. It extends the length and breadth of the Four Lands. This is no game we play. We are fighting for the lives of many people, and your wife and children are among them. I do not exaggerate or dissemble when I say that we are all they have left to defend against what threatens.”
Urprox felt his certainty waver anew. “And what exactly is that?”
The old man stepped back. “I will show you.”
His hand rose and brushed at the air before Urprox Screl’s bewildered eyes. The air shimmered and took life. He could see the ruins of a city, the buildings flattened into rubble, the ground steaming and smoking, the air thick with ash and grit. The city was Dechtera. Its people all lay dead in the streets and doorways. What moved through the shadows picking at the bodies was not human, but misshapen and perverse. Something imagined — yet real enough here. Real, and in the vision of Dechtera’s destruction, all that would survive.
The vision vanished. Urprox shuddered as the old man materialized once more, standing before him, eyes hard and set. “Did you see?” he asked quietly. Urprox nodded. “That was the future of your city and its people. That was the future of your family.
That was all that remained. But by the time that vision comes to pass, everything north will already be gone. The Elves and the Dwarves will be destroyed. The dark wave that inundated them will have reached here.”
“These are lies!” Urprox spoke the words quickly, out of anger