And it let him see the rest of what the truth would reveal.
He saw that his Elven blood and ancestry bound him to the Shadowen, who were Elven, too. Come from the same lineage, from the same history, they were bound as people are who share a similar past. But the choice to be something different was there as well. His ancestry was Shannara as well as Shadowen, and need not be what his magic might make him. His belief that he was predestined to be one of the dark things was the lie Rimmer Dall had planted within him, there within the vault that held the Sword of Shannara, there when he had come down into the Pit for the last time with Coll and Damson. It was Rimmer Dall who had let him try the Sword, knowing it would not work because his own magic would not let it, a barrier to a truth that might prove too unpleasant to accept. It was Rimmer Dall who had suggested he was Shadowen spawn, was one of them, was a vessel for their magic, giving him the uncertainty required to prevent the warring magics of Sword and wishsong from finding a common ground and thereby beginning the long spiral of doubt that would lead to Par’s final subversion when the possibility of what he might be grew so large that it became fact.
Par gasped and reared back, seeing it now, seeing it all. Believe for long enough and it will come to pass. Believe it might be so, and it will be so. That was what he had done to himself, blanketed in magic too strong for anything to break down until he was willing to allow it, locked away by his fears and uncertainties from the truth. Rimmer Dall had known. Rimmer Dall had seen that Par would wrestle alone with the possibilities the First Seeker offered. Let him think he killed his brother with his magic. Let him think the Sword of Shannara’s magic could never be his. Let him think he was failing because of who he might be. As long as he unwittingly used the wishsong to keep the Sword’s magic at bay, what chance did he have to resolve the conflict of his identity? Par would be savior of the Druids and pawn of the Shadowen both, and the twist of the two would tear him apart.
“But I do not have to be one of them,” he heard himself say. “I do not have to!”
He shuddered with the weight of his words. Colls understanding smile warmed him like the sun. As it had been for his brother when the Sword’s truth tore away the dark lie of the Mirrorshroud, recognition became the pathway by which Par now came back to himself. Had Allanon known it would be like this? he wondered as he began to rise out of light. Had Allanon seen that this was the need for the Sword of Shannara?
When the magic died away and his eyes opened, he was surprised to find that he was crying.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Shadows and mist tangled and twisted down the length of the Valley of Rhenn, a sea of movement that rolled across the bodies of the dead and beckoned in grim invitation for the living to join them. Wren Elessedil stood at the head of the valley with the leaders of the army of the Elves and their newfound allies and pondered the lure of its call. From out of the corpses still strewn below, mostly Southlanders abandoned by their fellows, arms rose, cocked in death, signposts to the netherworld. The carnage spread south onto the flats until the dark swallowed it up, and it seemed to the Queen of the Elves that it might very well stretch away forever, a glimpse of a future waiting to claim her.
She stood apart from the others—from Triss and Barsimmon Oridio, from the free-born leader Padishar Creel and his gruff friend Chandos, and from the enigmatic Troll commander Axhind. They all faced into the valley, as if each was considering the same puzzle, the mix of mist and shadows and death. No one spoke. They had been standing there since news had arrived that the Federation was on the march once more. It was not yet dawn, the light still below the crest of the horizon east, the skies thick with clouds, the world a place of blackness.
Despair ran deep in Wren. It ran to the bone and out again, and it seemed to have no end. She had thought she had cried her last when Garth had died, but the loss of Faun had brought the tears and the grief anew, and now she believed she might never be free of them again. She felt as if the skin had been stripped from her body and the blood beneath allowed to run, leaving her nerve endings exposed and raw. She felt as if the purpose of her life had evolved into a testing of her will and endurance. She was sick at heart and empty in her soul.
“She was just a Squeak,” Stresa had hissed to her unconvincingly when he had found her toward midnight. She had told him of Faun’s death, but death was nothing new to Stresa. “They grow up to die, Wren of the Elves. Don’t trouble yourself about it.”
The words were not meant to hurt, but she could not help challenging them. “You would not be so quick with your advice if I were grieving for you.”
“Phhffft. One day you will.” The Splinterscat had shrugged. “It is the way of things. The Squeak died saving you. It was what she wanted.”
“No one wants to die.” The words were bitter and harsh. “Not even a Tree Squeak.”
And Stresa had replied, “It was her choice, wasn’t it?”
He had gone off again, deep into the forests west to keep watch for what might come that way, to bring warning to the Elves if the need arose. They were drifting apart, she sensed. Stresa was a creature of the wild, and she was not. He would go out one day and not come back, and the last of her ties with Morrowindl would be gone. Everything would be consigned to memory then, the beginning of who she was now, the end of who she had been.
She wondered that her life could evolve so thoroughly and she feel so much the same.
Yet perhaps she lied to herself on that count, pretending she was unchanged when in fact she was and simply could not admit it. She frowned into the gloom, searching the killing ground below, and she wondered how much of herself had survived Morrowindl’s horror and how much had been lost. She wished she had someone of whom she could ask that question. But most of those she might have asked were dead, and those still living would be reticent to answer. She would have to provide her own answer to her question and hope her answer was true.
Padishar Creel’s lean face glanced in her direction, searching, but she did not acknowledge him. She had not spoken with any of them since rising, not even Triss, wrapped in her solitude as if it were armor. The free-born had come finally, bringing with them Axhind and his Rock Trolls, the reinforcements she had prayed for, but she suddenly found it difficult to care. She did not want the Elves to perish, but the killing sickened her. Yesterday’s battle had ended in a draw, settling nothing, and today’s did not promise a new result. The Federation had stopped running and regrouped and were coming on again. They would keep coming, she thought. There were enough that they could do so. The addition of the free-born and Trolls strengthened the Elven chances of surviving, but did not give reason to hope that the Federation could be stopped. Reinforcements would be sent from the cities south and from Tyrsis. An unending stream, if necessary. The invasion would continue, the push into the Elven Westlands, and the only thing left undecided was how long the destruction would go on.
She bit back against the bitterness and the despair, angry at her self-perceived weakness. The Queen of the Elves could not afford to give up, she chided. The Queen of the Elves must always believe.
Ah, but in what was there left to believe?
That Par and Coll Ohmsford were alive and in possession of the Sword of Shannara, she answered determinedly. That Morgan Leah followed after them. That Walker Boh had brought back Paranor and the Druids. That Allanon’s charges had been fulfilled, that the secret of the Shadowen was known, and that there was hope for them. She had these to believe in, and she must find her strength there.