The Sword of Shannara - Terry Brooks [314]
Mechanically, Shea sipped at the soup, unable to forget quite so easily the loss of the Elfstones. They had been with him from the beginning, protecting him every step of the way. Several times, they had saved his life. How could he have been so careless? He thought back for a moment, trying vainly to remember where he might have lost them, but it was useless. It could have happened anytime.
“I’m sorry about the Elfstones,” he apologized quietly, feeling that he had to say something more.
Allanon shrugged and smiled faintly. He seemed weary and somehow older as he seated himself beside the Valeman.
“Maybe they’ll turn up later.”
Shea finished the bowl in silence, and Allanon refilled it without being asked. The warm liquid relaxed the still weary Valeman, and a numbing drowsiness began to seep slowly through his body. He was falling asleep again. It would have been so easy to give in to the feeling, but he could not. There were still too many things bothering him, too many unanswered questions. He wanted those answers now from the one man who could give them to him. He deserved that much after everything he had been through.
He struggled to a sitting position, aware that Allanon was watching him closely from out of the darkness beyond the little fire. In the distance, the sharp cry of a night bird broke through the deep silence. Shea paused in spite of himself. Life was coming back to the Northland — after so long. He placed the bowl of soup on the ground next, to him and turned to Allanon.
“Can we talk awhile?”
The Druid nodded silently.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about the Sword?” the Valeman asked softly. “Why didn’t you?”
“I told you all that you needed to know.” Allanon’s dark face was impassive. “The Sword itself told you the rest.”
Shea stared at him incredulously.
“It was necessary for you to learn the secret of the Sword of Shannara for yourself,” the Druid continued gently. “It was not something that I could explain to you — it was something that you had to experience. You had to learn to accept the truth about yourself first before the Sword could be of any use to you as a talisman against the Warlock Lord. It was a process in which I could not involve myself directly.”
“Well, could you not at least have told me why the Sword would destroy Brona?” Shea persisted.
“And what would that have done to you, Shea?”
The Valeman frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“If I had told you everything that it was in my power to tell you about the Sword — remembering now that you would not have the benefit of hindsight, as you do now, to enlighten you — would that have helped you in practical terms? Would you have been able to continue your search for the Sword? Would you have been able to draw the Sword against Brona, knowing that it would do no more than reveal to him the truth about himself? Would you have even believed me when I said that such a simple thing would destroy a monster with the power of the Warlock Lord?”
He hunched down closer to Shea in the dim firelight.
“Or would you have given up on yourself and the quest then and there? How much truth could you have withstood?”
“I don’t know,” Shea answered doubtfully.
“Then I will tell you something I could not tell you before. Jerle Shannara, five hundred years earlier, knew all these things — and still he failed.”
“But I thought...”
“That he was successful?” Allanon finished the thought. “Yet if he had been successful, would not the Warlock Lord have been destroyed? No, Shea, Jerle Shannara did not succeed. Bremen confided in the Elven King the secret of the Sword because he, too, thought that knowing how the talisman would be used might better prepare the bearer for a confrontation with Brona. It did not. Even though he had been forewarned that he would be exposed to the truth about himself, Jerle Shannara was not prepared for what he discovered. Indeed, there was probably no way that he could