Free The Wishsong of Shannara by Terry Brooks Page A

first from the waters of the Rappahalladran and then from the waters of the Rainbow Lake had blunted temporarily their enthusiasm for fish. So armed with ash bow and arrows, a weapon Menion Leah had favored, Rone had gone in search of different fare. Brin had taken a few minutes to gather wood for a cooking fire, then settled herself on this rise and let the solitude of the moment slip over her.
    Allanon! He was an enigma that defied resolution. Committed to the preservation of the land, he was a friend to her people, a benefactor to the races, and a protector against evil they could not alone withstand. Yet what friend used people as Allanon did? Why keep so carefully concealed the reasons for all he did? He seemed at times as much enemy, malefactor, and destroyer as that which he claimed to stand against.
    The Druid himself had told her father the story of the old world of faerie from which all the magic had come along with creatures who wielded it. Good or bad, black or white, the magic was the same in the sense that its power was rooted in the strength, wisdom, and purpose of the user. After all, what had been the true difference between Allanon and the Warlock Lord in their struggle to secure mastery over the Sword of Shannara? Each had been a Druid, learning the magic from the books of the old world. The difference was in the character, of the user, for where one had been corrupted by the power, the other had stayed pure.
    Perhaps. And perhaps not. Her father would argue the matter, she knew, maintaining that the Druid had been corrupted by the power as surely as the Dark Lord, if only in a different way. For Allanon was also governed in his life by the power he wielded and by the secrets of its use. If his sense of responsibility was of a higher sort and his purpose less selfish, he was nevertheless as much its victim. Indeed, there was something strangely sad about Allanon, despite his harsh, almost threatening demeanor. She thought for a time about the sense of sadness that the Druid invoked in her—a sadness her father had surely never felt—and she wondered how it was that she felt it so keenly.
    “I’m back!”
    She turned, startled. But it was only Rone, calling up to her from the campsite in the pine grove below the rise. She climbed to her feet and started down.
    “I see that the Druid hasn’t returned yet,” the highlander said as she came up to him. He had a pair of wild hens slung over one shoulder and dropped them to the ground. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t come back at all.”
    She stared at him. “Maybe that wouldn’t be so lucky.” He shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it.”
    “Tell me how you look at it, Rone.”
    He frowned. “All right. I don’t trust him.”
    “And why is it that you don’t?”
    “Because of what he pretends to be: protector against the Warlock Lord and the Bearers of the Skull; protector against the Demons released from the old world, of faerie; and now protector against the Mord Wraiths. But always, it’s with the aid of the Ohmsford family and their friends, take note. I know the history, too, Brin. It’s always the same. He appears unexpectedly, warning of a danger that threatens the races, which only a member of the Ohmsford family can help put an end to. Heirs to the Elven house of Shannara and to the magics that belong to it—those are the Ohmsfords. First the Sword of Shannara, then the Elfstones and now the wishsong. But somehow things are never quite what they seem, are they?”
    Brin shook her head slowly. “What are you saying, Rone?”
    “I’m saying that the Druid comes out of nowhere with a story designed to secure Shea or Wil Ohmsford’s aid—and now your aid—and each time it’s the same. He tells only what he must. He gives away only as much as he needs give away. He keeps back the rest; he hides a part of the truth. I don’t trust him. He plays games with people’s lives!”
    “And you believe that he’s doing that