Free The Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks

tell these stories, these tales of Druids and magic and your ancestors, all of it a kind of litany of what’s been and gone. That’s fine, but you don’t want to lose sight of the fact that what’s happening here and now is what counts. All the telling in the world won’t mean a whisker if that vision I showed you comes to pass. You have to live in this world—not in some other. Magic serves a lot of purposes, but you don’t use it any way but one. You have to see what else it can do. And you can’t do that until you understand it. I suggest you don’t understand it at all, either one of you.”
    He studied them a moment, then turned and shambled off into the dark. “Don’t forget, first night of the new moon!” He stopped when he was just a shadow and glanced back. “Something else you’d better remember and that’s to watch yourselves.” His voice had a new edge to it. “The Shadowen aren’t just rumors and old wives’ tales. They’re as real as you and I. You may not have thought so before tonight, but now you know different. They’ll be out there, everywhere you’re likely to go. That woman, she was one of them. She came sniffing around because she could sense you have the magic. Others will do the same.”
    He started moving away again. “Lots of things are going to be hunting you,” he warned softly.
    He mumbled something further to himself that neither of them could hear as he disappeared slowly into the darkness.
    Then he was gone.

 
    V
    Â 
    P ar and Coll Ohmsford did not get much sleep that night. They stayed awake long after the old man was gone, talking and sometimes arguing, worrying without always saying as much, eyes constantly scanning the darkness against the promise that
things
, Shadowen or otherwise, were likely to be hunting them. Even after that, when there was nothing left to say, when they had rolled themselves wearily into their blankets and closed their eyes against their fears, they did not sleep well. They rolled and tossed in their slumber, waking themselves and each other with distressing regularity until dawn.
    They rose then, dragged themselves from the warmth of their coverings, washed in the chilling waters of the lake, and promptly began talking and arguing all over again. They continued through breakfast, which was just as well because once again there wasn’t much to eat and it took their minds off their stomachs. The talk, and more often now the arguments, centered around the old man who claimed to be Cogline and the dreams that might or might not have been sent and if sent might or might not have been sent by Allanon, but included such peripheral topics as Shadowen, Federation Seekers, the stranger who had rescued them in Varfleet, and whether there was sense to the world anymore or not. They had established their positions on these subjects fairly well by this time, positions that, for the most part, weren’t within a week’s walk of each other. That being the case, they were reduced to communicating with each other across vast stretches of intractability.
    Before their day was even an hour old, they were already thoroughly fed up with each other.
    â€œYou cannot deny that the possibility exists that the old man really is Cogline!” Par insisted for what must have been the hundredth time as they carried the canvas tarp down to the skiff for stowing.
    Coll managed a quick shrug. “I’m not denying it.”
    â€œAnd if he really is Cogline, then you cannot deny the possibility that everything he told us is the truth!”
    â€œI’m not denying that either.”
    â€œWhat about the woodswoman? What was she if not a Shadowen, a night thing with magic stronger than our own?”
    â€œYour own.”
    Par fumed. “Sorry. My own. The point is, she
was
a Shadowen! She had to be! That makes at least part of what the old man told us the truth, no