by Terry Brooks
Flick Ohmsford, reluctant hero.
Though just a valeman, Shea Ohmsford endured many hardships, including separation from his companions, before he found the Sword of Shannara. In the end he faced his fears to triumph over the Warlock Lord as his royal ancestor had not. It was the first of a series of quests and battles involving the heirs of Shannara and the sons of Leah that would span almost five hundred years.
The Ohmsfords
SHEA AND FLICK
Shea and Flick Ohmsford grew up quietly, with country values and simple tastes. Shea was only five years old when his dying mother brought him to Shady Vale. The people of the vale, who had known his mother and were all friends of his adoptive father, Curzad, accepted Shea’s half-Elven appearance. Shea made friends easily, while Flick, as the older brother, was much more cynical and reserved. Their closest friend outside the vale was the Prince of Leah, Menion.
Flick was a hard worker who loved his younger brother dearly and was desperate to protect him. As a young man, he was one of the few people in Shady Vale who enjoyed traveling beyond the safety of the valley to bring goods and services to people living in remote areas. Flick never considered himself a hero, just a practical man.
Shea, Flick, and Menion joined the Druid Allanon and his party of Elves, Dwarves, and Bordermen on the quest for the Sword of Shannara, despite the fact that neither valeman knew anything about wars or the outside world. Their only protection was a bag of Blue Elfstones, given to Shea by Allanon. Only Shea could use the Stones, an Elven talisman, but their magic provided protection and guidance that helped them survive.
Though Flick had vowed to protect his brother, fate intervened, separating the party when Shea fell from a high cliff into the swift waters of a river. Flick was unconscious at the time but could not forgive himself for being unable to aid his brother. That feeling of guilt drove him throughout the remainder of the war and is probably responsible for his courageous performance when he and his companions fought to stay one step ahead of the Gnomes and Trolls. When it was discovered that the Northlanders held the Elven king prisoner, it was Flick who, despite his terror of Gnomes and Trolls, masqueraded as a Gnome, infiltrating into the very heart of the camp of the Northland army to rescue Eventine Elessedil.
Shea survived his fall and was captured by Gnomes. He ended up in the Northland, where he found the Sword of Shannara and faced the Warlock Lord in his own domain, aided only by a brave Troll and an honorable thief. His own courage was severely tested as he faced the sword’s magic and the Warlock Lord’s power, but he prevailed.
After the war, Shea and Flick returned to the vale. Though they could claim credit for turning the tide of the war and saving the lands, they were content to have anonymity in the peace of their little village.
The experience gave Flick an abiding hatred for most Gnomes, which he never overcame. Shea and Flick both married, but Flick’s wife died childless. Shea had a son and a grandson, but both his son and daughter-in-law died from a fever when their son was very small. His wife died several years later, leaving Shea and Flick to raise Shea’s grandson, Wil.
WIL OHMSFORD
Wil Ohmsford inherited the steadfast nature of his grandfather, as well as his courage and Elvish appearance. The death of his parents left him determined to be a Healer. He was disillusioned with the skills of the Southland Healers, who had been unable to save his family. He was determined to be trained by the best Healers in all the lands—the Stors. He journeyed to Storlock and asked to be trained. The Stors had never accepted anyone outside their own village and rejected the valeman. Wil learned their language and applied again. They rejected him again. For over a month Wil applied once a week and was rejected every time until, finally, with no explanation, he was accepted. Wil Ohmsford became the first outsider ever allowed to study at Storlock.
That might have been legacy enough but for the fact that the Druid Allanon needed another hero. Demons were invading the lands, escaping the barrier between their prison and the world. The Elven Ellcrys tree, which held the magic barrier in place, was dying. Amberle was the last of the Chosen and the only one who could save the Ellcrys. He turned again to the Ohmsfords, asking Wil to aid him by protecting the Elven girl on her quest to find the legendary Bloodfire so that she might restore the tree and the barrier known as the Forbidding. Wil was a Healer, not a warrior, but he agreed despite Flick’s objections.
He was armed with nothing but his Healer’s skills and the Elfstones, which had been given to him by his grandfather. Wil braved unscrupulous Rovers, Demons, the witch sisters of the Hollows, and the Reaper to complete his quest to bring Amberle to the Bloodfire. With the help of a young Wing Rider, they made it back to Arborlon before the Westland was overrun by the Demons, but the price was high. Wil had fallen in love with the Elven girl only to lose her to the greater need of the lands. She sacrificed herself to become the Ellcrys and restore the Forbidding.
But Wil’s greatest legacy was not his protection of the Chosen, but the magic that he brought into the Ohmsford family. No Ohmsfords before Wil had had magic of their own. The magic that became a part of the Ohmsfords began when Wil used his grandfather’s Elfstones to save the lives of the two women he loved. Wil’s Elven blood was too thin to use the Stones safely, but his great need drove him to use force of willpower to activate the Stones. The Elfstones responded, but Wil was irrevocably altered in the process. The magic was absorbed by his body, becoming part of him, possibly to compensate for the resistance of his human blood. He knew he had been changed, though he did not know how until his children were born.
During the quest for the Bloodfire, Wil met a Rover girl, Eretria, who saved his life. Beautiful and brave, she became his friend and companion on the quest. He took her back to Shady Vale to be his wife. She joined him as a Healer, and together they were responsible for bringing the superior healing methods of the Stors to the Southland. They had two children, a girl, Brin, and a boy, Jair. Both children commanded innate magic. They had but to sing to bring it to life. Wil’s use of the Elfstones had created within the Ohmsford line a magic even greater than that of the Elves—in the case of his daughter, Brin, possibly the most powerful innate magic ever seen in the Four Lands.
BRIN AND JAIR
To Brin and Jair, however, the magic was simply a curiosity—a game. Brin named their magic the “wishsong.” In her writings, she explains, “We had but to wish for something, then sing while thinking of the wish, and the magic would do the rest. I would just start to sing. The words and the music were never planned or rehearsed; it just flowed out of me. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.” The name wishsong is still used to refer to the magic legacy of the Ohmsfords.
Brin’s and Jair’s abilities manifested using the same technique, but the effects were very different. Jair could create illusions that seemed very real. But Brin’s magic could actually affect the behavior of anything that lived. She was initially unaware of the significance of such magic, but the Druid Allanon needed a power greater than his own to destroy a dark magic, the Ildatch, that was slowly corrupting the land. He turned again to the Ohmsfords, and to Brin, believing her wishsong was strong enough to subvert even living darkness.
Brin agreed to aid the Druid, though the full extent of her magic was still unknown to her. Rone Leah insisted that he be her companion and protector, as his ancestor before him had been for Shea. There is reason to believe that the Prince of Leah did not fully trust the Druid, though Allanon apparently trusted Rone enough to transform the ordinary Sword of Leah into a weapon of magic—a weapon the Prince used valiantly to protect both Brin and the Druid from attacks by the Mord Wraiths.
While the Druid had no use for Jair because of his youth and the limited nature of his magic, the King of the Silver River did. The Silver River was being fouled by dark magic—the same dark magic the Ildatch had spawned. The King of the Silver River needed a champion who could carry his magic dust to the river’s source at Heaven’s Well and clean
se it. As a result, both Brin and Jair were sent, separately, deep into the Eastland to Graymark to fulfill their charges.
Brin Ohmsford, wielder of the power of the wishsong.
Before Brin’s party ever reached the Eastland, they were attacked by a Jachyra. Allanon was mortally wounded, and Rone Leah was badly injured. The young woman found herself suddenly without any guidance or protection other than her own, though, even on the verge of death, Allanon apparently believed that was enough. His last living act was to mark Brin with his blood, passing to her the legacy of his magic and telling her that she would bear his trust through her descendants. Whether it was the strength of Allanon’s faith in her or her own steadfast courage that enabled Brin to continue her journey, Brin finally managed to get Rone to a place of safety. The poison from the Jachyra’s claws was killing him. She saved him by using the wishsong as a healing force. It was the first time she had managed to use her magic for significant good.
She could not heal Rone’s dependence on the magic of his sword, however. The sword had been lost in the waters of the Chard Rush during the battle. He felt that they were helpless without his sword.
The pair traveled to Hearthstone, where they met Cogline and his adopted granddaughter, Kimber Boh. Brin and Kimber became fast friends.
With Allanon’s death, Brin had lost all guidance, and so she sought whatever advice Cogline or Kimber could give. From them, she learned of the Grimpond, a creature that could give true answers, though always twisted and couched in riddles so that they did the querist more harm than good.
With no one else to turn to for help, she sought out the Grimpond, despite the fact that she was warned that the creature would attempt to mislead her. But Brin had something the Grimpond had never encountered—the wishsong. She used her magic to force the Grimpond to give her the answers she sought, thus becoming the only person known to have gained true, honest answers from the ancient creature. Under duress, it told her how to access the Maelmord, where the Ildatch lay, and where to recover the missing Sword of Leah. The Grimpond never forgave her and is known to have nurtured a hatred of Brin and all her descendants ever after.
Brin had asked about the sword because she realized that Rone needed his sword’s magic, but while helping him recover it from the Spider Gnomes, she discovered a terrible truth about her own magic. She became lost in the Olden Moor, near the Spider Gnomes’ camp. When Gnomes attacked her, she panicked and turned her magic on her attacker, brutally killing one of the Gnomes. Brin writes: “It was then I realized what Allanon had been trying to show me—that the wishsong could destroy and kill as easily, or more easily, than it could heal. I had not meant to kill anyone, but I could not deny the shredded body that lay dead by my will. It brought me face-to-face with the darker nature of my magic, and myself.”
It was doubtless this discovery that led her to later mislead Rone, Cogline, and Kimber, so that she could leave them behind and enter the Maelmord alone. She wanted to protect them from her magic. The decision nearly cost her soul. Her doubts left her vulnerable to the power of the Ildatch, which hungered to consume her and use her magic. Had it succeeded, Brin would have been a greater force for evil than even the Dark Lord, Brona. It was only the timely intervention of her brother that saved her. He was nearby, at Heaven’s Well, cleansing the Silver River, at the moment when she faced the Ildatch in the Maelmord. Later he said that it was a gift from the King of the Silver River that enabled him to use his magic to travel to her side, face his sister’s magic with his own, and bring her back to herself before she was lost to the darkness of the Ildatch. He used his illusions to show her the truth of her life, her loves, and her home. He gave her the balance to find her own and destroy the Ildatch.
The King of the Silver River had given Jair the things he needed to save his sister, but it was Jair’s own courage and that of his companions that made it possible. Though just a boy, Jair witnessed the fall of Capaal and endured capture and imprisonment before he was rescued by his friends and allowed to reach Heaven’s Well. It was while protecting Jair that the great warrior Garet Jax fought his last and greatest battle.
Once the Ildatch was destroyed and the Silver River restored, Brin, Jair, and Rone Leah returned to Shady Vale. Brin and Rone had always been close, but their adventures and the connection to magic that both now shared brought them even closer. Brin and the youngest Prince of Leah eventually married and had children, cementing the bond between their two families that had begun years before.
Brin and Rone maintained their friendship with Kimber Boh, a friendship that continued through their children and grandchildren, with both families eventually intermarrying. Jair also married and had children. His descendants spread as far as the Westland, where they intermarried into the royal house of the Elves.
PAR AND COLL
By the time of Federation expansion, the Ohmsfords of Shady Vale included Jair’s descendants, Jaralan and Mirianna, their children Par and Coll, their cousin Wren, and Brin’s descendant, Walker Boh. Wren and Walker had both lost their parents, but Jaralan and Mirianna were happy to be parents to all. They did not always understand the problems Walker or Par faced with the magic within them, but they knew it was all part of the Ohmsford legacy, and did their best to understand and support all their “children,” never guessing that each and every one of them would become a hero in the war against the Shadowen.
As young men, Par and Coll Ohmsford became bards. Par had inherited the wishsong from Jair and used it initially to bring their stories to life for their audiences. The Ohmsfords had been storytellers since before the days of Curzad Ohmsford, though at that time the stories were told primarily for the entertainment of customers at the family’s inn. Wil had been the first to take the stories beyond the vale in his travels as a Healer. It was Jair who had begun using the wishsong to bring the stories to life, but always with the purpose of spreading the stories of the past so that the people of the lands would never forget their history.
Jaralan Ohmsford and his son Coll. The Ohmsfords were a tightly knit family.
Unfortunately, Par and Coll discovered that the Federation did not welcome magic, even such apparently innocuous magic as the wishsong. Both boys were hunted by the Federation, for practicing magic, and by the Shadowen, who wanted Par’s magic for themselves. Perhaps the Shadowen knew even then that Par’s magic had the potential to surpass even Brin’s.
Wren Ohmsford left Jaralan and Mirianna at the age of five to be trained by Rovers, according to her mother’s wish.
Walker Boh left them to find himself and come to terms with his magic in his mother’s ancestral home of Hearthstone.
All the Ohmsford children were reunited and drawn into the war against the Shadowen when the dead Druid Allanon called select members of the family. He required them to fulfill specific charges lest the world fall to darkness. Par was to find the Sword of Shannara, Walker was to find the Black Elfstone and bring back the Druids, and Wren was to find and restore the missing Elf nation. Though not called directly, Morgan Leah stood with them as a companion and protector, in the tradition of his family.
In the following year, the Ohmsfords were responsible for uncovering the Shadowen control of the Federation and defeating the Shadowen menace as well as returning Paranor, the Druid order, and the Elves to the land. Morgan Leah stood with them through the worst of their battles and was there at the final moment of triumph. No other family contributed so much during that dark time.
Wren became Queen of the Elves. Walker became the Druid of Paranor. Par married Damson Rhee, the daughter of rebel leader Padishar Creel, and with Coll continued to spread the tales of the history of the land.
BEK OHMSFORD
But all that was long ago. Today there are no Ohmsfords left, at least none that bear that name. In fact, however, it is another Ohmsford, Par’s great-great-grandson Bek, who joined with Walker to combat the darkness of this age. Adopted by the Leahs, Bek has the family magic and the ability to use the Swo
rd of Shannara. At his side is his brother and friend, Quentin Leah. Together they continue the legacy begun almost a thousand years ago by the Elven king Jerle Shannara—sailing into adventure on a ship bearing his name.
The Leahs
MENION LEAH
As a young man, Menion Leah seemed completely unfit for his responsibilities as Crown Prince. Menion’s mother had died when he was twelve, with Menion as the only son and heir, but he was a cocky idler who cared more for hunting in the highland forests than for the welfare of his people. His skills as a hunter were unmatched in all the Southland, but his father despaired of ever teaching him his role as a ruler.
It was undoubtedly his thirst for adventure that led him to join his friends Shea and Flick Ohmsford on their quest for the Sword of Shannara. His skill with sword and bow served him well, saving the lives of himself and his companions on many occasions during their quest. Menion was the first to carry the famous Sword of Leah in service to the Druids and the house of Shannara.
The War of the Warlock Lord changed Menion. The irresponsible youth became the man who is credited with saving the entire population of Kern from the Northland army. It was his plan that enabled the people of Kern to evacuate their city before the Northland army could burn it to the ground. He met his wife, Shirl Ravenlock, while rescuing her from kidnappers. He also rescued Balinor Buckhannah from imprisonment by his brother, the Mad Prince of Callahorn. In the final days of the war Menion stood side by side with the legendary Balinor Buckhannah at the battle for Tyrsis, holding back the Northland army from the rest of the Southland until his friend Shea Ohmsford could destroy the Warlock Lord.