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By Root 968 0

have adequately prepared himself beforehand. We build too many walls to a completely honest with ourselves. And I don’t think that he ever really believed Bremen’s warning about what would happen when he finally held the Sword. Jerle Shannara was a warrior king, and his natural instinct was to rely on the Sword as a physical weapon, even though he had been told that it would not help him in that way. When he confronted the Warlock Lord and the talisman began to work on him exactly as Bremen had warned, he panicked. His physical strength, his fighting prowess, his battle experience — all of it useless to him. It was just too much for him to accept. As a result, the Warlock Lord managed to escape him.”

Shea looked unconvinced.

“It might have been different with me.”

But the Druid did not seem to hear him.

“I would have been with you when you found the Sword of Shannara, and when the secret of the talisman revealed itself to you, I would have explained then its significance as a weapon against the Warlock Lord. But then I lost you in the Dragon’s Teeth, and it was only later that I realized you had found the Sword and gone northward without me. I came after you, but even so, I was almost too late. I could sense your panic when you discovered the secret of the Sword, and I knew the Warlock Lord could sense it as well. But I was still too far away to reach you in time. I tried to call out to you — to project my voice into your mind. There wasn’t time enough to tell you what to do; the Warlock Lord prevented that. A few words, that was all.”

He paused, almost as if he had gone into a trance, his dark gaze fixed on the air between them.

“But you discovered the answer on your own, Shea — and you survived.”

The Valeman looked away, reminded suddenly that, although he was alive; it seemed that everyone who had gone with him into the kingdom of the Skull was dead.

“It might have been different,” he repeated woodenly.

Allanon said nothing. At his feet, the small fire was dying slowly into reddish embers as the night closed about them. Shea picked up the bowl of soup and finished it quickly, feeling the drowsiness slip through him once more. He was nodding when Allanon stirred unexpectedly in the darkness and moved next to him.

“You believe me wrong in not telling you the secret of the Sword?” he murmured softly. It was more a statement of fact than a question. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it would have been better for everyone if I had revealed it all to you from the first.”

Shea looked up at him. The lean face was a mask of dark hollows and angular lines that seemed the wrappings of some perpetual enigma.

“No, you were right,” the Valeman replied slowly. “I’m not sure I could have handled the truth.”

Allanon’s head tilted slightly to one side, as if considering the possibility.

“I should have had more faith in you, Shea. But I was afraid.” He paused as a trace of doubt clouded the Valeman’s face. “You don’t believe me, but it’s true. To you, to the others as well, I have always been something more than human. It was necessary, or you would never have accepted your role as I gave it to you. But a Druid is still a human being, Shea. And you have forgotten something. Before he became the Warlock Lord, Brona was a Druid. Thus to some extent, at least, the Druids must bear responsibility for what he became. We permitted him to become the Warlock Lord. Our learning gave him the opportunity; our subsequent isolation from the rest of the world allowed him to evolve. The entire human race might have been enslaved or destroyed, and the guilt would have been ours. Twice the Druids had the opportunity to destroy him — and twice they failed to do so. I was the last of my Peoples — if I were to fail as well, then there would no one left to protect the races against this monstrous evil. Yes, I was afraid. One small mistake and I might have left Brona free forever.”

The Druid’s voice dropped to a whisper and he looked down for an instant.

“There is one more thing you should know. Bremen was more to me than simply my ancestor. He