Free The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks Page A

wooden door. Allanon paused and bent close, his eyes studying the heavy iron bindings. After a moment, his fingers touched a combination of metal studs, and the door swung open. He stepped through.
    He stood in the furnace of the Keep. It was a round, cavernous chamber that consisted wholly of a narrow walkway encircling a great dark pit. A low iron railing rimmed the pit at its edge. About the walkway, a succession of wooden and ironbound doors were set into the chamber wall, all closed and barred.
    The Druid moved to the railing and, holding the torch before him, peered downward into the pit. The faint illumination of the fire danced off blackened walls crusted over with ash and rust. The furnace was cold now, the machinery that once pumped heat to the towers and halls of the castle locked and silent. But far below, beyond the pale glimmer of the torchlight, beneath massive iron dampers, the natural fires of the earth still burned. Even now, their stirrings could be felt.
    He remembered another time. More than fifty years ago, he had come to Paranor and the Druid’s Keep with the little company of friends from the Dwarf village of Culhaven: the Ohmsfords, Shea and Flick; Balinor Buckhannah, Prince of Callahorn; Menion, Prince of Leah; Dunn and Dayel Elessedil; and the valiant Dwarf Hendel. He had come in search of the legendary Sword of Shannara, for the Warlock Lord had returned to the Four Lands, and only the power of the Sword could vanquish him. Allanon had come with his little band into the Keep and very nearly had not come out again. In this very room, he had battled to the death with one of the Skull Bearers. The Warlock Lord had known he was coming. It had been a trap.
    His eyes lifted sharply, and he listened to the deep silence. A trap. The word disturbed him; it triggered some instinct, a sixth sense of warning. There was something wrong. Something . . .
    He stood there for a moment, indecisive. Then he shook his head. He was being foolish. It was the memory, nothing more.
    Carrying the torch before him, he moved along the walkway until he reached a tight spiral stairway that led upward. Without a backward glance to the pit or the furnace chamber, he climbed the stairs quickly and entered the upper halls of the Druid’s Keep.
    All was as it had been fifty years earlier. Starlight filtered through high windows in thin ribbons of silver, touching softly the heavy wooden panels and polished timbers that framed up the towering corridor. Paintings and tapestries hung the length of the hall, their rich colors muted into grays and deep blues by the nightfall. Statues of stone and iron stood silent watch before massive wooden doors with handles of brass. Dust lay over everything, a thick soft carpet, and long streamers of cobweb fell from ceiling to marble floor.
    Allanon moved down the hallway slowly, the torchlight burning through the haze of musty air that hung motionless through the Keep. All was silence, deep and penetrating. His footfalls echoed eerily as he walked, and small puffs of dust rose in the air behind him, stirred by the passing of his feet. Doors came and went to either side, all closed, their metal fittings glinting fire as the torchlight struck the mirrored surface. The hall he traveled intersected another, and he turned right. He walked almost to its end, stopping finally before a smallish door of white oak and iron. A huge lock secured this door. The Druid fumbled for a moment at the pouch about his waist, finally producing a large metal key. He placed the key in the lock and turned it twice. The mechanism creaked in protest, its workings rusty with disuse, but the heavy bolt drew back. The iron handle slipped free of its catch. Allanon stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
    The room he had entered was small and windowless. It had once been a study. Shelves of fraying, cloth-bound books lined its four walls, the colors of the bindings long since faded, the pages dried almost