The Sword of Shannara Trilogy the Sword of Shannara Trilogy

by Terry Brooks

  It did not take long. Doubts began to gnaw quietly, persistently at their tired minds—doubts that rose phantomlike from the fears and secrets the men concealed deep within. Locked away from one another by the cold and the roar of the rising wind, each man was cut off from his companions, and the inability to communicate only heightened the growing feeling of uneasiness. Only Hendel was immune. His taciturn, solitary nature had hardened him against self-doubt, and his harrowing escape from the maddened Gnomes in the Pass of Jade had drained him at least temporarily of any fear of death. He had come close to dying, so close that in the end only instinct had saved him. The Gnomes had come at him from every direction, swarming up the slope in reckless disregard, enraged to the point where only bloodshed would quiet their hatred. He had been quick, slipping back into the fringes of the Wolfsktaag, motionless in the brush, coolly letting the Gnomes overextend themselves until one had come within reach. It had taken only seconds to stun the unsuspecting hunter, to cloak his captive in his own distinctive Dwarf habit, and then yell for assistance. In the darkness, flushed with the excitement of the hunt, the Gnomes were unable to recognize anything except the cloak. They tore their own brother to pieces without realizing it. Hendel had stayed hidden and slipped through the pass the following day. He had survived once again.

  The Valemen and the Elves did not possess Hendel’s strong sense of self-reliance. The prophecy of the Shade of Bremen had left them stunned. The words seemed to repeat themselves over and over in the howl of the mountain winds. One of them was going to die. Oh, the words of the prophecy had phrased it differently than that, but the implication was unmistakable. It was a bitter prospect to face, and none of them could really accept it. Somehow they would find a way to prove the prediction wrong.

  Far in the lead, his great frame bent against the driving force of the mountain winds, Allanon was mulling over the events that had transpired in the Valley of Shale. He considered for the hundredth time his strange confrontation with the Shade of Bremen, the aged Druid doomed to wander in limbo until the Warlock Lord was finally destroyed. Yet it was not the appearance of the driven wraith that so disturbed him now. It was the terrible knowledge which he carried, buried deep among his blackest truths. His foot struck a projecting rock, causing him to stumble slightly, and he fought to keep his balance. A wheeling hawk screamed shrilly in the grayness and shot down out of the sky over a distant ridge. The Druid turned slightly as the thin line following struggled to keep pace. He had learned more from the Shade than the words of the prophecy. But he had not told the others, those who had trusted him, the whole truth, just as he had not told them the whole story behind the legendary Sword of Shannara.

  His deep-set eyes blazed with inner fury at the predicament in which he had placed himself in not telling them everything, and for a moment he even considered doing so. They had given so much of themselves, and the giving had only begun.… But a moment later, he wrenched the idea from his thoughts. Necessity was a higher god than truth.

  The grayness of dawn passed slowly into the grayness of midday, and the march into the Dragon’s Teeth wore on. The ridges and slopes appeared and faded with a dreary sameness that created the impression in the minds of the laboring travelers that no progress was being made. Ahead, a vast, towering line of peaks rose bleakly against the misty northern horizon, and it appeared that they were moving directly into a wall of impenetrable stone. Then they entered a broad canyon which wound sharply downward into a narrow, twisting path that broke between two huge cliffs and faded into the heavy mist. Allanon led them into the swirling grayness as the horizon disappeared and the wind died into stillness. The silence was abrupt and unexpected, sounding almost like a soft whisper through the towering mass of rock, speaking in hushed, cautious words in the ears of the groping travelers. Then the pass widened slightly and the mist cleared to a faint haze, revealing a high, cavernous opening in the cliff face where the winding passage ended.

  The entrance to the Hall of Kings.

  It was awesome, majestic, frightening. On either side of the rectangular black entryway stood two monstrous stone statues carved into the rock and rising well over a hundred feet against the dark cliff face. The stone sentries had been fashioned in the shape of armor-clad warriors, standing watchfully in the deep gloom, hands gripping the pommels of huge swords which rested blade downward at their feet. Their weathered, bearded faces were scarred by time and the wind, yet the eyes seemed almost alive, fixed carefully on the eight mortals who stood at the threshold of the ancient hall they guarded. Above the great entryway, scrolled into the rock, three words of a language centuries old and long forgotten served as a warning to those who would enter that this was the tomb of the dead. Beyond the vast opening, all was blackness and silence.

  Allanon gathered them closely around him.

  “Years ago, before the First War of the Races, a cult of men whose origins have been lost in time, served as priests for the gods of death. Within these caverns, they buried the monarchs of the four lands along with their families, servants, favorite possessions, and much of their wealth. The legend grew that only the dead could survive within these chambers, and only the priests were permitted to see that the dead rulers were interred. All others who entered were never seen again. In time, the cult died out, but the evil instilled in the Hall of Kings continued to exist, blindly to serve the priests whose bones had years before returned to the earth. Few men have ever passed …”

  He caught himself, seeing in the eyes of his listeners the unasked question.

  “I have been through the Hall of Kings—I alone from this age, and now you. I am a Druid, the last to walk this earth. Like Bremen, like Brona before him, I have studied the black arts, and I am a sorcerer. I do not possess the power of the Dark Lord—but I can get us safely through these caverns to the other side of the Dragon’s Teeth.”

  “And then?” Balinor’s question came softly out of the mist.

  “A narrow cliff-trail men call the Dragon’s Crease leads downward out of the mountains. Once there, we will be within sight of Paranor.”

  There was a long, awkward silence. Allanon knew what they were thinking; disregarding it, he continued.

  “Beyond this entrance, there are a number of passages and chambers, a maze to one who does not know the way. Some of these are dangerous, some are not. Soon after we enter, we will reach the tunnel of the Sphinxes, giant statues like these sentries, but carved as half man, half beast. If you look into their eyes, you will be turned to stone instantly. So you must be blindfolded. In addition you will be roped to one another. You must concentrate on me, think only of me, for their will, their mental command, is strong enough to force you to tear off the blindfolds and gaze into their eyes.”

  The seven men looked at one another doubtfully. Already they were beginning to question the soundness of this whole approach.

  “Once past the Sphinxes, there are several harmless passages leading to the Corridor of the Winds, a tunnel inhabited by invisible beings called Banshees after the legendary astral spirits. They are no more than voices, but those voices will drive mortal men insane. Your ears will be bound for protection, but again the important thing for you to do is to concentrate on me, let my mind blanket yours to prevent it from receiving the full force of those voices. You must relax; do not fight me. Do you understand?”

  He counted seven barely perceptible nods.

  “Once beyond the Corridor of the Winds, we will be in the Tomb of the Kings. Then there will be only one more obstacle …”

  He stopped talking, his eyes turned warily to the cavern entrance. For a moment it seemed he might finish the sentence, but instead he motioned them toward the dark entryway. They stood uneasily between the stone giants, the graying mist clouding the high cliff walls surrounding them, the black, yawning opening before them waiting like the open maw of some great beast of prey. Allanon produced a number of wide cloth strips and gave one to each man. Utilizing a heavy length of climbing rope,
the little group bound themselves to one another, the surefooted Durin taking the lead position, the Prince of Callahorn again assuming his post as rear guard. The blindfolds were securely fastened in place and hands were joined to form a chain. A moment later, the line moved cautiously through the entrance to the Hall of Kings.

  There was a deep, hushed stillness in the caverns, magnified by the sudden dying of the winds and the echoing of their footfalls along the rocky passageway. The tunnel floor was strangely smooth and level, but the cold that had settled into the aged stone from centuries of constant temperatures seeped quickly through their tensed bodies and left them chill and shaking. No one spoke, each man trying to relax as Allanon led them carefully through a series of gently winding turns. In the middle of the groping line, Shea felt Flick’s hand grip his own tightly in the blackness that surrounded them. They had drawn closer to each other since their flight from the Vale, bound now by ties of experiences shared more than by kinship. Whatever happened to them, Shea felt they would never lose that closeness. Nor would he forget what Menion had done for him. He thought about the Prince of Leah for a moment and found himself smiling. The highlander had changed so much during the past few days that he was almost a different person. The old Menion was still in evidence, but there was a new dimension to him that Shea found difficult to define. But then all of them, Menion, Flick, and himself, had changed in little ways that could not be readily detected until each man was considered as a whole. He wondered if Allanon had seen the changes in him—Allanon, who had always treated him somehow as less than a man, more a boy.

  They came to an unsteady halt, and in the deep silence that followed the commanding voice of the Druid leader whispered soundlessly in the mind of each man: Remember my warning, let your thoughts turn to me, concentrate only on me. Then the line moved forward, the booted feet echoing hollowly on the cavern floor. Immediately the blindfolded men could sense the presence of something waiting ahead of them, watching silently, patiently. The seconds flitted away as the company moved deeper into the cavern. The men became aware of huge, still forms rising up on either side—images carved of stone with faces that were human, but attached to the crouched bodies of indescribable beasts. The Sphinxes. In their minds the men could see those eyes, burning past the fading image of Allanon, and they began to feel the strain of trying to concentrate on the giant Druid. The insistent will of the stone monsters pushed into their brains, weaving and tangling into their scattered thoughts, working tenaciously toward the moment when human eyes would meet their own lifeless gaze. Each man began to feel a rapidly growing urge to rip away the restraining cloth which shackled his sight, to strip away the darkness and gaze freely on the wondrous creatures staring silently down on him.

  But just when it seemed that the probing whisper of the Sphinxes must at last break through the waning resolve of the beleaguered men and draw their thoughts completely away from the fading image of Allanon, his iron thought cut through to them with the sharpness of a knife, soundlessly calling to them. Think only of me. Their minds obeyed instinctively, wrenching free of the almost overpowering urge to gaze upward into the watching stone faces. The strange battle wore on without respite as the line of men, sweating and breathing harshly in the stillness, groped its way through the tangled maze of unseen images, bound together by the rope about their waists, the chain of tightly clenched hands, and the commanding voice of Allanon. No one lost his grip. The Druid led them steadily down the row of Sphinxes, his own eyes locked onto the cavern floor, his indomitable will fighting to hold the minds of his sightless charges. Then at last the faces of the stone creatures began to fade and fall away, leaving the mortals alone in the silence and darkness.

  They kept moving, winding through a long series of twisting passages. Then once again the line stopped, and Allanon’s low voice cut through the blackness, ordering them to remove the blindfolds. They did so hesitantly and found themselves in a narrow tunnel where the rough stone gave off a peculiar greenish light. Their drawn faces bathed in the strange glow, the men glanced quickly at one another to reassure themselves that they were all present. The dark figure of the Druid passed noiselessly down the line, testing the rope that bound their waists and warning them that the Corridor of the Winds still lay ahead. Stuffing bits of cloth in their ears and binding them with the loosened blindfolds to mask the sounds of the invisible beings Allanon had named Banshees, the men joined hands once more.

  The line wound slowly through the faint green light of the narrow tunnel, their footsteps barely perceptible to their tightly covered ears. This section of the caverns ran for more than a mile, then faded abruptly as the passage widened and grew into a towering corridor that was totally black. The rock walls drew away and the ceiling rose until both had disappeared altogether, leaving the company alone in a strange limbo of darkness where only the smooth cavern floor offered any reassurance that the earth had not dissolved entirely. Allanon led them into the blackness, showing no signs of hesitancy.

  Then abruptly, the sound began. Its incredible fury caught them completely unprepared, and for a moment there was panic. The initial shock grew to an enormous roar like the sound of a thousand winds combined in fury and biting force. But beneath this was the horrifying cry of souls screaming in anguish, voices scraping and twisting their tortured way through all the imaginable horrors of inhumanity in utter despair of any hope for salvation. The roar climbed to a shriek, reaching a pitch so far beyond the comprehension of the mortals’ stunned minds that their sanity began to break apart. The terrible sounds washed over them, mirroring their own growing despair, driving relentlessly inward and stripping away the tattered nerve ends like layers of skin until the very bone was laid bare.

  It had taken only an instant. In another instant, they would have been lost. But for the second time the hopelessly numbed humans were saved, this time from complete madness, as the powerful will of Allanon broke through the crazed sound to cloak them with protective reassurance. The screams and the roar seemed to lessen and fade into a strange buzzing as the grim, dark face projected itself into the seven feverish minds and the iron thoughts spoke soothingly, commandingly: Let your minds relax—think only of me. The men stumbled mechanically through the heavy darkness of the tunnel, their minds groping at the safety line of coherence and calm that the Druid held out to them. The walls of the corridor reverberated with the still-audible shrieks, and the massive stone of the cavern rumbled frighteningly. One final time the voices of the Banshees rose in feverish pitch, screeching violently in a desperate effort to break through the subconscious wall erected by the Druid’s powerful mind, but the wall would not yield and the power of the voices spent itself and faded into a deathly whisper. A moment later, the passageway narrowed once more, and the company was clear of the Corridor of the Winds.

  Visibly shaken, their faces streaked with sweat, the men stood dumbly as Allanon brought the line to a halt. Shaking their scattered thoughts into some semblance of order, they removed the rope about their waists and the cloth binding their ears. They were in a small cave, facing toward two huge stone doors laced by iron bindings. The rock walls around them emitted the same peculiar greenish light. Allanon waited patiently until everyone had fully recovered, then beckoned them forward. He paused before the stone portals. With only a slight shove from the lean hand, the massive doors swung silently open. The Druid’s deep voice was only a whisper in the stillness.

  “The Hall of Kings.”

  For over a thousand years, none but Allanon had entered the forbidden tomb. All that time it had remained otherwise undisturbed—a mammoth, circular cavern, the great walls smooth and polished, the ceiling shimmering in a green glow similar to that reflected by the tunnels they had already passed through. Along the circular wall of the giant rotunda, standing with the same proud defiance they presumably had exhibited in life, were stone statues of the dead rulers, each facing toward the center of the chamber and the strange altar that rose upward in the shape of a coi
led serpent. Before each statue was piled the wealth of the dead, casks and trunks of precious metals and jewels, furs, weapons, all the favorite possessions of the deceased. In the walls immediately behind each statue were the sealed, rectangular openings in which rested the remains of the dead—kings, their families, their servants. Inscriptions above the sealed crypts gave the history of the rulers interred there, frequently in languages unfamiliar to any of the wondering members of the company. The entire chamber was bathed in the deep green light. The metal and stone seemed to absorb the color. Dust covered everything, a deep rock powder that had settled over the centuries and now rose in small clouds as the footsteps of the men disturbed its long rest. For over a thousand years, no one had violated the peace of this ancient chamber. No one had tampered with its secrets nor attempted to unlock the doors that guarded the dead and their possessions. No one but Allanon. And now …

  Shea shivered violently, unexplainably. He shouldn’t be here; he could feel a small, distant voice telling him he shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t that the Hall of Kings was sacred or forbidden. But it was a tomb—it was a tomb for the ancient dead. It was no place for the living. Something gripped him, and with a start he realized it was Allanon’s hand touching his shoulder. The Druid frowned darkly at him, then called softly to the others. They huddled silently in the greenish light as he addressed them in hushed tones.