He looked down at the Sword of Shannara, suddenly aware that he was carrying it, that he had taken it from Coll. Why had he done that? The Sword was not meant for him. It was meant for Coll. He wasn’t even able to use it.
And then suddenly Rimmer Dall was standing before him, wolf’s head gleaming in the light, dark robes shredded and falling away. His hood was thrown back, and his red-bearded, craggy face was washed in blood. He blocked Par from the light, rising up before him. The gloved hand pulsed with crimson fire. When he smiled, it was a terrifying grimace.
“Come down to find what we keep hidden here?” he asked, his voice whispery and rough.
“Get out of my way,” Par ordered.
“Not anymore,” the other said, and Par suddenly realized that the gloved arm was no longer gloved at all, that the fire he was seeing was all there was of the arm, was what had laid beneath the glove all along. “I’ve given you all the chances you get, boy.”
There was no pretense of friendliness or concern now. Loathing glittered in Rimmer Dall’s eyes, and his body was knotted with rage. “You belong to me! You’ve always belonged to me! You should have given yourself to me when you had the chance! It would have been easier that way!”
Par stared openmouthed.
“You’re mine!” Rimmer Dall swore in fury. “You still don’t understand, do you? You’re mine, Par Ohmsford! Your magic belongs to me!”
He came forward in a lunge, and Par barely had time to cry out and throw up the wishsong’s magic to slow him. And slow him was all it did. The First Seeker came through the shield as if it were paper, and his hands locked on Par’s shoulders like iron clamps. Par was vaguely aware of thinking that this was what Rimmer Dall had wanted all along—the magic of the wishsong and Par’s body in which to wield it. All the pretenses of wanting to help him control the magic had been a screen designed to hide his ambition to own it. Like all the Shadowen, Rimmer Dall craved the magic in others, and few had the magic of Par.
He was thrown back by the other’s weight, bent down, and forced to his knees. The Sword of Shannara dropped from his nerveless fingers. He brought his hands up to fight the other off, summoning the magic to his defense, but it was as if all his strength had been leeched from him. He could barely breathe as the other’s shadow enfolded him. Rimmer Dall began to come out of his body and enter Par’s. The Valeman saw it happening, felt it beginning. He screamed and fought to free himself, but he was helpless.
Not this! he thought in terror. Don’t let it happen!
He twisted and kicked and tore at the other, but Rimmer Dall’s Shadowen self was pressing into him, entering through his skin. The feeling was cold and dark and filled him with self-loathing. Once, he could have prevented this, he sensed. Once, when the magic was out of control and driven by his fear and doubt, he would have been strong enough to keep the other away. Rimmer Dall had known this. The First Seeker’s thoughts brushed up against his own, and he shrank from what they revealed. Someone help me! He caught a glimpse of movement to his left, and Morgan Leah surged forward, howling. But Rimmer Dall struck out with his gloved hand, releasing Par for the barest instant, and Morgan disappeared in a flash of red fire, tumbling away again into the dark. The hand returned, fastening on Par anew. The Valeman had retreated down inside himself where his magic was strongest, gathering it into an iron core. But Rimmer Dall closed on it relentlessly, pressing in, squeezing. Par could feel even that part of himself giving way...
Then abruptly the First Seeker was jerked backward, and his Shadowen self tore free of Par. Par gasped and blinked and saw Walker Boh with his good hand closed on Rimmer Dall’s throat, the Druid fire racing down its length. He was singed and scraped, and his face was as white as chalk beneath the black beard and streaks of blood. But Walker Boh was a study in raw determination as he brought the force of his magic to bear on his enemy. Rimmer Dall surged upward with a roar, flailing with his gloved hand, the Shadowen magic scattering everywhere. Something in what Walker was doing to him was keeping Rimmer Dall separated from his corporeal body, his Shadowen self held just outside and beyond. Both parts struggled to reunite, but Walker was between them, blocking them from each other.
Par staggered backward and then came to his feet again. Walker’s fingers closed into a fist, squeezing something within the Shadowen. Rimmer Dall thrashed and screamed, his rangy form surging upward and shuddering with fury. Shadowen fire burned downward into the floor, coring into the stone. Other Shadowen raced to give aid, but Rumor lunged between them, tearing and ripping.
“Use the Sword!” Walker Boh hissed at Par. “Set it free!”
Par snatched up the blade and raced for the light. He reached it in seconds, unchallenged now, all eyes on the battle between the Druid and the First Seeker. He came up to it, this vast, pulsing mass with its scarlet-ribboned chains, and holding the Sword of Shannara in both hands, he laid it flat against the light.
Then he summoned its magic, willing it forth, praying it would come.
And come it did, rising up smoothly, easily, free of the constraints the wishsong’s magic had imposed when his fears and doubts and Rimmer Dall’s trickery had convinced him he was a Shadowen. It came swiftly, a white beacon that speared into the light before it, then raced back again to swallow Par whole. Par saw anew the truths of his life, the truths of his magic, of his Shannara and Shadowen heritage, and of his Elven ancestry. He breathed them in like the air that gave him life and did not flinch away.
Then he saw finally the truth of the light before him. He saw what the Shadowen had done, how they had used their magic to subvert the Four Lands. He saw the meaning behind the dreams of Allanon, and the reason for the summoning of the children of Shannara to the Hadeshorn. He saw what it was that he must do.
He drew back the magic of the Sword and dropped the blade to the cavern floor. Behind him, Rimmer Dall and Walker Boh still thrashed in a combat that seemed to have no end. The First Seeker was shrieking—not in pain at what was being done to him, but in fury at what Par was about to do. There were Shadowen closing from everywhere, fighting to get past Morgan Leah, back on his feet once more, and Rumor, who seemed indestructible. But it was too late for them. This moment belonged to Par and his friends and allies, to all those who had fought to bring it about, to the living and the dead, to the brave.
He summoned the magic of the wishsong one final time, brought all of it to bear, the whole of what burned within him, evolved out of his birthright into the monster that had nearly consumed him. He summoned it forth and shaped it once more into that shard of blue fire that had first appeared when he had fought to escape the Pit, that shard that seemed a piece of azure lightning come down from the sky. He raised it overhead and brought it down on the crimson cords of magic that bound the light, shattering them forever.
Par shuddered with the force of the blow and with what the effort took from him, a tearing, a rending, a draining away.
The light exploded in response, blazing forth into the cavern’s darkest corners and from there upward into Southwatch. It chased the shadows and the gloom and turned what was black to white. It shrieked with glee at finding its freedom, and then it sought retribution for what had been done to it.