The World of Shannara Read online

  One of the towers was built over the active volcanic vent and houses the most technically innovative construct of the building—its heating system. Designed using limited Old World technology combined with the natural properties of the volcano, the tower protects the machinery of the great furnace, venting the excess heat and smoke through its chimney top. The furnace itself lies several hundred feet below ground level. The heat from the magma below is drawn upwards and pumped through vents and shafts into all the main rooms and corridors of the keep. Wherever possible, the designers used existing lava flumes as the heart of the vent system below ground, and they built vents into the walls of the keep above.

  A catwalk platform system built onto the walls of the main pit allows access to the furnace from the underground corridors of the keep. Even here, in the depths of its stone heart, Paranor has suffered the ravages of battle. The catwalk has been severely damaged. Scorch marks from fire hotter than that within the furnace has scarred the walls around the walk in several places. Below the catwalk, metal rungs of an access ladder descend to the depths of the furnace and its fires. These rungs are useable only when the furnace is idle and the fires are only those natural to the volcanic vent.

  The second tower, more elevated than the first, was built to house the High Druid, so that he could easily survey his realm. It contains offices for support staff on the lower levels and the Druid’s Retreat on the upper floors.

  The third and tallest tower is rarely mentioned in old texts outside the Druid Histories. Below its heights lies the bottomless pit known only as the Druid’s Well. The doors that access this tower are usually kept locked and chained with heavy chains. Even at the height of the Druids’ power, this tower was kept locked away, an embarrassment, built by Galaphile and used by those the order wished to forget. At the top of the tower, accessible only by a precarious stairway built into the tower’s inner walls and lined with traps, lies a single chamber. Unlike the High Druid’s rooms, the windows of the Well Tower room are smaller, high up in the room, and covered with bars. The room’s original purpose is unknown, but it bears age and disuse like a shroud.

  Well below the tower level and away from the grandeur of the Assembly lies the single most important asset of Paranor—its library. Located at the end of a second-floor corridor—with no massive carved doors or statuary to mark its location—the room is the same as any one of a hundred others, as if the designers thought it unimportant. Despite its innocuous appearance, this room once held all the combined knowledge gathered by the Druids since the fall of the Old World.

  Though small when compared to the scale of the rest of the keep, Paranor’s library is large enough to hold several thousand books. At the height of the Druid Council, the shelves lining the walls overflowed with thousands of books, artifacts, and parchments. Most of the tabletops were stacked several feet deep. Today, however, there are only a thousand works remaining in the main room. Large numbers of irreplaceable records were stolen or destroyed during the keep’s turbulent past. Murders and battles have damaged the shelves and their contents. Unlike some of the other areas of the building, however, the Druids carefully restored the library to order each time the keep was regained.

  A volume of the priceless Druid Histories, the chronicles of the Druids and their magic.

  The reason for such extraordinary care lies behind a hidden door built into one of the large bookcases. The hidden door reveals a secret room, previously known only to the Druids themselves. But the room itself seems nothing special. Here, to any but a trained Druid, there are only barren granite walls with a single table and chair. Magic hides the true treasure—the Druid Histories. Here, since the time of Bremen, they have remained safe through all the ravages the keep has suffered, protected from all who would destroy or pervert the knowledge they contain. These volumes are the true treasure of Paranor and, perhaps, the key to the world’s future as well as its past.

  The Druids:

  Legacy of Mystery

  The Druids are the land’s conscience. They seek out what troubles the land and her people, and they help to put it right again. —Walker Boh, Druid

  alaphile created the Druids to be the wise men and educators of the land. He believed it was the first step toward his ultimate goal. He was determined to re-create the Old World that had been lost, while avoiding the corruptions of power that had led to its destruction. The Druids were to be the guardians who would keep the dangerous knowledge controlled.

  Unfortunately, the wonders of the Old World were not easily reconstructed, especially after having been lost for two thousand years. It was complicated by the fact that the world had changed drastically from what it had been. Magic and magical creatures were an integral part of the new world. The Histories reveal that the early Druids attempted to explore the magic, to determine whether it indeed could be used along with science to rebuild the world. They discovered very quickly that the use of magic was insidious and addicting. It had no easily definable rules, and the power it promised often had unforeseen consequences.

  Some of the Druids were completely seduced by its easy power and addictive character. They believed that magic should be used exclusively, instead of science. After discovering the insidious promise of the darker magics, they advocated that the power granted by magic should give the Druids the right to control the Races, rather than just educate and protect them.

  The majority of the order were alarmed by the dangerous nature of magic. They were appalled at the concept of becoming rulers rather than educators. The Druids favoring magic use rebelled and were banished from the order, only to return during the First War of the Races, corrupting the Race of Man as their pawns and using the might of their magic against the other Races. Though the Druids and the other Races prevailed, the dark magic used during that war caused a backlash within the Druid order. Magic was much too dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable to be used in any meaningful way. The order as a whole abandoned it as a serious subject for study. The goal of the order became tightly focused on the use of science alone to accomplish the rebirth, and the focus shifted so strongly to rediscovering the sciences that the leadership role of the Druids was almost lost entirely. In time, this shortsighted withdrawal led to the destruction of most of the order. After the Second War of the Races, only one man was left to carry on the tradition of the Druids.

  The history of the Druids since that time is the history of the few dedicated men who shouldered the mantle of the Druids as lone representatives of an otherwise extinct order.

  Bremen: FIRST MYSTIC DRUID

  The first Druid to actually succeed in promoting the combination of the study of magic with other disciplines was the Druid Bremen. Unfortunately, he succeeded primarily because he and his followers were the only Druids to survive Paranor’s fall during the Second War of the Races. Bremen is best known for his role in creating the legendary Sword of Shannara, a magic-imbued weapon he designed to defeat the Warlock Lord.

  Bremen, mystic Druid.

  Abandoned by his parents shortly after birth, Bremen was raised by his grandfather, a skilled metalworker, who was probably responsible for both the boy’s understanding of metallurgy and his dedication. Always searching for knowledge, Bremen was a student of history and ancient tongues, disciplines that made him an ideal candidate for the Druid Council.

  He joined the council as a young man and became active in assisting in the evolution and development of the Races. Over time, he watched as the Druid Council began to pull back from the rest of the world, disillusioned by its failure to re-create the old sciences.

  Druid Sleep

  The most obvious difference that sets the Druids apart from others is their apparent immortality. Some have lived five hundred years or more, with legends claiming that at least one may have survived for almost a thousand. This is possible through the art known as the Druid Sleep, first officially used by the Druid Bremen, who rediscovered and refined the art, which he later passed down to his successor.r />
  Druid Sleep is an extended regeneration, almost like a type of hibernation, that allows the trained practitioner to use magic to rejuvenate the body and restore what it loses to normal aging. It is unrelated to natural sleep and may last months, years, or even decades, depending on the need and the skill of the practitioner. For each day of waking and for each extreme physical or magical expenditure, a debt is owed that must be paid. Only complete immersion in Druid Sleep can restore the balance. If Druid Sleep is done correctly by a skilled practitioner, aging will slow to a point that the person will appear to have stopped growing older altogether. In cases where the damage is too great because the practitioner has seriously overextended himself or herself, aging can occur very suddenly. In such cases, even Druid Sleep will not repair all the damage. The sudden signs of aging brought on by such stresses are permanent. The Druid Sleep cannot restore youth. It can only delay aging.

  The art requires extensive training, great discipline, and sacrifice to ensure that body, soul, and mind are preserved intact. It is possible, however, to create the impression of immortality without the extreme sacrifices necessary for the Druid Sleep. Certain types of dark magic can provide apparent immortality with little or no effort, save immersion within the magic itself. Brona is known to have used such a shortcut to achieve his immortality and invincibility. But such immortality is an illusion, for the body and soul do not join the mind. The magic takes a heavy toll, eventually consuming the practitioner entirely. Though far more easily mastered than the more difficult Druid art, the ultimate price, as Brona discovered, is the humanity of the practitioner.

  Frustrated by the setbacks, Bremen began to look to magic as a possible alternative. In his early journal entries, now part of the Druid Histories, Bremen wrote: “Magic could provide a more manageable and durable form of power than that found through science. It has untapped potential beyond that of the sciences, even at the levels of scientific advancement found in the Old World.”

  At that time, the study of the arcane arts was permissible but discouraged. Magic was to be treated as a curiosity only, not a serious discipline. One group of Druids had already been exiled for their insistence on the use of magic as a tool to make the Druids the masters of all the Races. Bremen was warned against traversing the same path. The fact that magic had been used in the First War of the Races to ill effect did nothing to help his cause. He wrote, “It is quite unnatural to me to discard a possibility simply because it has once failed. Do we discard science because we have failed to re-create the wonders of the Old World? Of course not. Why then discard magic just because it was once blatantly misused? If we discard every possibility that is not immediately successful, we are left with no possibilities at all.” He believed that magic could be harnessed and controlled with enough discipline and training.

  A few of his fellows apparently agreed with him, but they were in the minority. Unwilling to risk censure, they backed away from the matter. Bremen did not. Eventually his insistence on considering magic a valid and serious alternative to science earned him banishment from the council.

  After his banishment, Bremen traveled to the Westland to study with the Elves, where he lived for many years. He believed the Elven libraries, which had the greatest collection of ancient writings in lost Elven dialects, held the secret to understanding the old magic from the time of Faerie. The Elves embraced Bremen and his search, since they too were interested in rediscovering abilities that had been lost. Certain magics, such as some degree of the Druid Sleep, were skills Bremen already practiced. But with his knowledge of ancient tongues, he was able to uncover treasures of magical lore and decipher otherwise discarded texts that increased his knowledge and abilities far beyond what he would have gained at Paranor.

  Inspired from his years of success with the Elves, Bremen left them to travel to other lands, seeking whatever lost bits of magic he could find, in much the same way as the early Druids had searched out the texts and lore related to the Old World sciences. According to his journals, he found an amazing amount of lost magic, though none as greatly concentrated or as highly developed as that within the Westland. In many cases, the magic he found was completely foreign to those who used it.

  At some point in his travels, probably while in the Southland, Bremen began to suspect that the First War of the Races had not actually been organized by the Race of Men who appeared to have started it. He found evidence that the leader—referred to only as Brona, which means “master” in Gnome dialect—who had long been thought by the Druids of his order to be a mythic figurehead, was in fact a real being. Bremen suspected he was the leader of the Druids who had broken from the council and renounced their brotherhood over the question of magic many years before. He also found evidence that Brona was still alive, despite the impossible number of years that had passed, and was planning another assault on the Four Lands.

  Unlike the rest of the Druids, Bremen had no trouble believing Brona could still be alive, because his own life had been lengthened beyond a natural span by his use of the Druid Sleep. But he knew he would have to have proof before the council would believe him.

  He spent the next several years tracking the elusive Brona, going so far as to travel to the Skull Kingdom. Upon his return to Paranor, both Bremen and his information were rejected by the council. He left with only the few who believed his warning of impending attack. Shortly after his visit, Paranor fell to the armies of the Warlock Lord, betrayed from within. Bremen and those who left with him—the Dwarf Warrior Druid Risca, the Elf Tay Trefenwyd, and the apprentice Mareth—were the only survivors of the order.

  Before he left, Bremen provided the magic that saved the Druid Histories from the invaders. The opened portion of the Druid Histories also credits him for preventing a long-term occupation by the Warlock Lord by triggering the magic of the Druid’s Well.

  By default, the death of the Druids left Bremen as the acting High Druid. But while he did rescue the Elit Druin after Paranor’s fall, he never formally accepted the title. He used the medallion in the forging of the Sword of Shannara, the magical weapon used to end the Second War of the Races and the War of the Warlock Lord.

  Of the Druids who followed Bremen from Paranor, only Mareth survived the war. She declined to complete her training as a Druid, leaving Bremen as the last of the Druids, even as he was the first to successfully balance magic with the good of the Races. He adopted a young man known only as Allanon, whom he had befriended during the war, and took him as apprentice, heir, and eventually son.

  Paranor vanished only a few years after the war, and some scholars now believe that Bremen, with his knowledge of magics, was responsible for that disappearance.

  While many consider Bremen to have died approximately three years after the end of the Second War of the Races, Allanon’s journal records that he did not die, but instead “doomed himself to an existence of half-life that may not end for all eternity” by entering the mysterious Hadeshorn. This interpretation is also found within the diaries of Brin Ohmsford, where she records seeing an apparition that was identified as Bremen while at the Chard Rush, decades after Bremen’s supposed death.

  Allanon: PROTECTOR OF THE FOUR LANDS

  For over half a century, the enigmatic teacher known only as Allanon moved among the people of the Four Lands, leaving a legacy of magic and mystery. Wise men knew him as a scholar and philosopher without equal. The common people knew him as a stranger who often paid his way with good advice. Others knew him as a widely traveled historian. Only a few were aware that the mysterious man in the flowing black robe was a practitioner of the mystic arts and the sole heir to the Druid tradition of Paranor.

  Allanon and his magic were an integral part of the history of the Four Lands. At over seven feet in height, the lean, dark-haired Druid had a commanding presence that kings and commoners alike found compelling. It was he who found the Shannara heir and enabled him to slay the Warlock Lord, ending the Northland War. His was the guidance that enabled the E
llcrys to be reborn and the Forbidding to be restored. His was the unseen hand that guided the quest to destroy the Ildatch.

  Born in the Borderland village of Varfleet, Allanon became an orphan during the Second War of the Races when the Northland army razed the village to the ground. The sole survivor of that massacre, he seldom spoke of his early years, and never revealed his family name. The legendary Druid Bremen found him in the ruins of Varfleet and was drawn to the intense boy with strange eyes. Together, outcast Druid and orphan boy were a formidable team during the last battles of the war. Eventually the boy was apprenticed and then adopted by the old mystic. Allanon claimed that a magical bond had been made between them, stronger than any blood tie could ever be—a bond that lasted even beyond the grave.

  After the Second War of the Races, Allanon studied the Druidic arts with Bremen within the walls of Paranor, becoming a Druid in only three years. He followed in the tradition Bremen had begun, concentrating on the magical arts—learning how to control and use them for the good of the Four Lands. His magical abilities and control soon surpassed those of his father. After three years, Bremen, who was failing from the dual weight of old age and battle scars, walked out of the world and into the Hadeshorn. Allanon was left to carry on the tradition of the Druids as the sole heir to their legacy. It is clear that Bremen felt that the Druids, and ultimately he, as last survivor, were responsible for the creation of the Warlock Lord. He had focused all of his later life on eradicating Brona from the world. The Warlock Lord’s survival and his own failing health forced him to realize that he could not fulfill his pledge, and he was obliged to pass the responsibility for Brona’s final destruction on to his adopted son.