The World of Shannara

by Terry Brooks

  Magic first appeared at the dawn of time, when the Word made the creatures of Faerie. These first Faeries were given gardens to tend, gardens that covered the whole of the land, along with a charge to protect and preserve the land of the world and all the things that lived upon it, crawled within it, or flew above it. The world was a sacred Eden, and magic was within all the land as well as the creatures of Faerie that guarded and nurtured it. They had dominion over the land; their magic was second only to the might of the Word. These first Faeries had no names, for there was no need of names in that age.

  But the world changed. Other creatures of Faerie were born. These were also creatures of magic, but they were different from the first Faeries—their power was not as great, their ties to the land not as strong. Some of these creatures were the forebears of the Elves, others the ancestors of the shape-shifters, still others children of first Faeries, such as Morag and Mallenroh. They too were given the land in trust, that they would preserve and protect all that lived, though their charge was a voluntary one.

  Unfortunately, some among them became selfish; they forsook their charge from the Word and began to take from the land and its life for their own gain. Others discovered the darkness that balanced the light of the Word, and became one with it. The Faerie folk, still honoring their trust from the Word, fought against those who are now known as Demons. Constant battles between Demons and Faerie folk tore at the world, upsetting its balance. The struggle continued, unresolved, pulling at the balance of the world, until eventually the sides polarized into the army of light and the army of darkness. Their battle became a desperate war between good and evil. The Ildatch was born of this time, created by the Demons, who strove to harness all of the magic to their cause.

  The beings of good were victorious, their use of the magic strengthened by the willing sacrifice of one of their own, something the Demons could not understand, much less re-create. The Demons were locked away behind the Forbidding. But the conflict had brought darkness into the world and proven that the creatures of Faerie had a choice. Darkness was as much part of the magic as was light.

  The creatures of Faerie continued to protect and preserve the land, but the world aged and the Faerie people began to fade with the rise of Man. The evolution of the world took away almost everything that had existed in the beginning, including the first Faerie creatures. One by one they died away, lost in the passing of the years and the changes of the world.

  Some few managed to survive the age of Man, hidden within their gardens, lost to myth and legend. They secretly wielded the magic and held to the trust given by the Word. The Great Wars destroyed many of them. The Wars of the Races destroyed more. The younger creatures of Faerie were also affected, but they were more numerous and had a higher survival rate. Finally, of the first Faeries, there remained only two: the being Man has named the King of the Silver River, and the being who named himself Uhl Belk, the Stone King.

  The King of the Silver River

  All of the first Faeries drew their magic from the elements of the land, and each was tied to that element. The King of the Silver River derived his strength from lakes and rivers. He was attuned to all the waters that fed the earth, and he was grounded in the fluid waters of change. He survived the Great Wars much as he survived the age of Man, because of his ability to accept change, even catastrophic change. He watched, safe within his garden, filled with sadness at the loss of what had been and hope for what might be.

  At the birth of the new age, he emerged. There was magic in the land again. The first Faerie greeted it with his own magic, the magic of life. The myth of his existence gained acceptance as truth as he made himself known as protector to those deserving travelers in his land who were in need. He had no name, but the people gave him one. They named him the King of the Silver River, for his garden was placed near the Silver River and the waters of the Rainbow Lake. He built his garden near the river to nourish it, to give it life and draw life back again.

  Like all of the first Faeries, the King of the Silver River possessed magic that was almost invincible in his limited domain near the river. Beyond its limits, his magic faded. He made use of its strength within the Silver River region. Appearing predominantly as an old man or a young boy, always carrying the light of the Word before him, the King of the Silver River became a legend. No one knows his true form, for it is not one that mortals could understand, but one of wind and water and quicksilver life. No one can find or enter his garden without his permission or escort, for it lies beyond human senses.

  In this age, he has been generous with his attention. Many of the Ohmsfords have seen and spoken with him. Some were even privileged enough to visit his garden. Each was given rest and aid on his or her journey. Jair Ohmsford actually returned aid to the King of the Silver River, and in so doing helped save the lands. He was given the charge of cleansing the poison of dark magic from the Silver River. The young Ohmsford was the first mortal known to receive magic talismans from the Faerie king. He was given Silver Dust to cleanse the river and a Vision Crystal to aid in locating and assisting his sister. Bek Ohmsford was the only other human known to have received such a gift. Bek was given the phoenix stone by the same being.

  The King of the Silver River.

  Despite the limitations imposed through the waning of the ages, the King of the Silver River has proven that he is still dedicated to the land. Though he is the last of his kind to serve the Word, he has continued to keep the trust.

  The Stone King

  The King of the Silver River was one of two of his kind to survive into the new age. The other was the creature known as the Stone King.

  Whereas the King of the Silver River took his magic from the waters, Uhl Belk, his brother, took his magic from the earth’s stone. His strength came from constancy and immutability. The King of the Silver River was named by those he aided; Uhl Belk named himself, for he believed that a name would anchor his being and give him permanence.

  The Stone King was disturbed by the changes that racked the land. He survived by hiding from the chaos that reigned during the Great Wars, but he was shaken by the changes wrought with the birth of the new age. Everything he thought to be permanent had changed. Uhl Belk hid himself in the age of the past, making his home within the ruins of a city that had survived the Great Wars. Its structures were doubtless comforting to him in an age when all else was new.

  He could not accept the change that had become the only constant within the world. He became obsessed with creating permanence and ending all change. Embedding himself in the ways that sustained him, he became so focused on his own need to survive that he forgot his charge from the Word. He lost all connection with the living land and burrowed deeper into the ageless stone of the past. Life itself and the changes that were a natural and necessary part of that life became his enemy. He schemed to re-create the world as a place devoid of change—devoid of any life but his own.

  The wars and the changes they wrought had diminished his realm until he had only a tiny bit of land on the peninsula of Eldwist. He turned the entire peninsula to cold stone and made the city of Eldwist into a frozen monument to the age that was. It was not enough. He could still sense the changes throughout the living land, and they caused his fear to intensify. He began to hoard magic to make himself strong enough to extend his domain to the world of men.

  The Vision Crystal, given to Jair Ohmsford by the King of the Silver River.

  But he could not do it alone. He, like all the first Faeries, was tied to his home. His attempt to render himself more permanent had also tied him permanently to the transformed city. In order to continue the expansion of his domain he created a child to act in his place. That child was the Maw Grint.

  Maw Grint

  An elemental, formed of the rocks and soil rather than flesh, the Maw Grint was given the power to turn the land to stone, to feed on the land and all that grew upon it. Like most elementals, he was originally given human form. The Maw Grint set out t
o transform the world for his father. He succeeded, slowly expanding the stone until it consumed the isthmus and the edge of the lands it connected. But the Stone King’s fear made him impatient. To speed the process, he infused his child with greater and greater amounts of his own magic. The magic changed the Maw Grint. Over a period of only a few years, he was transformed from a man into a massive burrowing creature that was both slug and worm, though many thousand times larger than either. Not surprisingly, the Maw Grint went mad from the onslaught of too much power absorbed too quickly. Uhl Belk lost control of his child. The creature turned on his father, eager to usurp the power he now hungered for, hunting him when he was not feeding.

  Uhl Belk relied on the power of the Black Elfstone, stolen from the Hall of Kings, to control his creature. He could have killed his child, but preferred to control it and allow it to continue to feed.

  The King of the Silver River felt the changes in the land and learned about his brother. He learned of the fact that he not only had forsworn his oath to protect and preserve the land, but was actively destroying the life upon it. His was the only magic strong enough to stop the Stone King, but he could not leave his land.

  Quickening

  The King of the Silver River created a child of his own. He created a daughter from the things within his garden: a tree for bone, soil for form, metal ores for muscle, flower petals for skin, a unicorn’s mane for hair, and a living dove for her heart. The King gifted her with a part of his own magic and breathed life into her. Called Quickening, she was sent into the world to gather her champions and do battle with the Stone King.

  Aided by Walker Boh (who was not yet a Druid), Morgan Leah, the Tracker Horner Dees, and the assassin Pel Ell, she journeyed to Eldwist to face the Stone King. The allies managed to retrieve the Black Elfstone from the Faerie lord. Once he no longer had the stone to protect himself, Quickening let the assassin kill her, sacrificing herself to allow her magic to heal the land and end the Stone King’s reign. Because Quickening was an elemental, she could not kill herself, nor could she be killed by conventional means. The assassin was included in her party because he alone possessed a weapon that could kill a Faerie creature—the stiehl. The magic released at her death reduced the Maw Grint to the elements of which it was spawned, and returned the land to life. The stone city of Eldwist was absorbed into the renewed land, leaving the central dome as the only remnant of the lost city. Many believe that the Stone King still lives, imprisoned within the dome by Quickening’s eternal magic.

  Silver Dust

  When Mord Wraiths poisoned Heaven’s Well and the Silver River, the King of the Silver River created a magic that would cleanse his river of the pollutant if used at its source. This magic was given the form of river sand and placed within a leather pouch. The Faerie king could not leave his domain to travel to the source, but he could send his magic with Jair Ohmsford. The dust cleansed the river, eradicating the dark magic and its poison from the waters along the entire length of the Silver River.

  Silver Dust, Faerie magic.

  In the age of Faerie, there were more Faerie creatures and Races than there are humans today. Though most of them did not have the power of the first Faeries, they were all creatures of magic. Only a small number of these beings managed to survive the ages, usually by hiding in wilderness lands and places of power. After the Great Wars, the magic of the land pooled within these places of power. Some of the magic was somehow changed and strengthened in the aftermath of the wars. A number of the surviving creatures of Faerie emerged into the world from their hiding places, while others remain in their wild sanctuaries. Many of them, such as the Elves, still protect and preserve life, but most simply survive. The Elves evolved and changed until they were no longer recognizable as creatures of Faerie. Other creatures also changed but kept their nature and their affinity for the earth magic. Many still survive within the places of wild magic, such as the Wolfsktaag, Darklin Reach, and the Wilderun.

  The Stiehl

  In the age of Faerie, a weapon was forged that was the soul of death given form. A silver-bladed knife with its name engraved in the handle, the stiehl is the ultimate weapon. It can cut through any substance, breach any defense, and kill even creatures of Faerie. It was first discovered in a cave deep within the Battlemound Lowlands, amid a pile of human bones. Its magic has the ability to call to it those with the will to wield it. The stiehl is currently locked away in the depths of the Druid’s Keep.

  Morag and Mallenroh

  Deep within the Wilderun, within the depression known as the Hollows, lived two of these creatures of Faerie. Known by the names they gave themselves, Morag and Mallenroh, these sisters were two of the more powerful creatures to survive from the age of Faerie. They were daughters of one of the first Faeries, an Old One said to have long since departed the land. These witch sisters claimed to be the last of their coven from a Faerie Race of witches and warlocks, though that claim has since come into question. They lived in the protected land of the Wilderun, deep in the Hollows, watching from their hideaway as the world they had known was slowly destroyed and transformed.

  Those who saw them and survived reported that they were identical sisters, each possessed of stunning physical beauty beyond that of any mortal woman, and each twisted by a terrible ugliness of spirit. One legend says that they took their original form as humans in the early age of Man. At that time, they were still tied to the land and its needs, and interacted with humans when necessary for that purpose. Their beauty often swayed mortals to aid them in their task. As the world changed around them, they became reclusive, trapped in their land as the magic left the outside world. As the centuries passed, they became bitter, spiteful, and petty toward each other. They forgot their purpose. The charge to preserve and protect life was corrupted into the need to control it.

  Within the Hollows, they wielded the power of life and death. Those who pleased them were granted life, though they became living playthings. Those that did not found their deaths. Mallenroh’s favorite servant was an elf who had stumbled into the Hollows as a young man. He was transformed into a wizened Gnome-like creature of sticks and fur. Though he was given immortality, he paid the price with his sanity.

  Morag and Mallenroh, the witch sisters.

  As was the case with most of the more powerful creatures of Faerie, they were tied to their land and its magic. They ruled the Hollows with iron control but rarely ventured away from the source of their power. There are legends of one or the other of them occasionally visiting human men who wandered too close to their domain. If the man was lucky, he lost a portion of his life to the witch and spent the rest of it dreaming of her beauty. If not, he was killed.

  It was a mortal man who is believed to have caused the feud between the sisters that consumed their lives and eventually led to their deaths. Mallenroh claimed that she had found a handsome mortal to love and that Morag had killed him. Morag claimed the same. It is probable that the hapless mortal was literally torn apart in a struggle between the two greedy witches, each of whom was focused more on besting the other than on the well-being of any mortal.

  Evenly matched, their war lasted for centuries. Morag controlled the east of the Hollows and Mallenroh the west. They lived in separate stone towers at each end of the Hollows, each trying to destroy the other and take her sister’s land and power for her own. Spires Reach, in the center of the Hollows, marked the dividing line of their domain.

  The balance of power shifted when Wil Ohmsford brought Elfstones into the Hollow. Both sisters sensed the magic, and both knew that such magic would tip the balance of their eternal war. Though neither could use the Stones unless they were freely given, both wanted them. Mallenroh tried to force Wil to gift them to her, but Morag confronted her before she had succeeded. They battled, using all the might of their magic against each other. In the end, they destroyed each other and reduced Mallenroh’s keep to ashes.

  The Morgawr

  Despite the deaths of the witch s
isters, magic is still strong in the Wilderun. A warlock calling himself the Morgawr, which means “wraith” in one of the lost languages of Faerie, has claimed to be the heir to their magic. He has claimed he is their brother and also descended from a creature of Faerie.

  Unlike the witch sisters, the Morgawr has no innate magic of his own. His magic is nevertheless quite formidable for all that it has been leached from the land and built up over his lifetime. He can travel at will, though he prefers the Wilderun and the dark magic that thrives there. Those who have seen him report that he was once human in appearance but has become more reptilian over time, until he resembles a larger, more powerful Mwellret. With his magic to aid him, the Morgawr has mastered and surpassed the Mwellrets’ shape-shifting ability, though he relies primarily on deception and trickery to achieve his goals.

  The Dagda Mor

  As the age changed and the Faerie creatures died out, so too did time affect the Ellcrys and the Forbidding. Though it took far longer, the Ellcrys aged and failed and the Forbidding weakened. Ironically, the Demons of the age of Faerie survived and multiplied within their prison, while most of the Faeries who imprisoned them became extinct. When the Forbidding failed, there was none left to face them but the mortals who had inherited their land. Most of those had lost the magic long before. If the Forbidding had not been restored with the rebirth of a new Ellcrys, the Demons would have easily overrun the land.