The World of Shannara Read online

  Allanon, Master Druid.

  Allanon has written in the Histories that his father did not die; driven by the guilt of his order as well as his own, he made a greater sacrifice for the good of the land. “He bound his spirit to the world in which his body could not stay, so he could reach beyond life’s end to see the fulfillment of the pledge he had made … exiled in a world of dark where past and future joined, where summons could be had when the need was there. Never to be freed until it was done, until both of us have passed.” Allanon took his father’s pledge very seriously, dedicating his life to the final destruction of the Warlock Lord. His father’s guilt became his own heavy mantle.

  After Bremen’s death, Allanon spent nearly five hundred years waiting for the chance to make good on his pledge. During that time, he perfected the discipline that had given his father longevity, the Druid Sleep, taking the art to a new level. He traveled the lands, gathering and sharing knowledge, single-handedly continuing the traditions the Druids had originally been created to fulfill. He brought Paranor back into the world, probably in preparation for the task of rebuilding the Druid order, and placing the Sword of Shannara, key to the Warlock Lord’s defeat, safely within its walls under guard. He did not know that this would prove to be an almost disastrous mistake.

  Upon the Warlock Lord’s return, Allanon discovered that his adversary was cunning and quick. The Druid barely managed to save the last Shannara heir, Shea Ohmsford, before Brona’s minions could find him.

  The Druid became a driven man, determined to see the Warlock Lord destroyed despite the advantages he had lost. He became secretive, intent on personally controlling the rest of the campaign. The journals of those who traveled and fought with him are full of accounts of Allanon’s refusal to share information or give trust, though he demanded both from his companions. Fortunately, the champion left to him, Shea Ohmsford, proved able and brave. The young man managed to destroy the Warlock Lord, despite Allanon’s inability to be with him at the final moment.

  With the death of Brona and his sworn debt discharged, Allanon disappeared from the Four Lands to sleep. Shea Ohmsford was the last known person to speak to him for many years, though there were claims that the tall Druid had been seen in other lands.

  Allanon reappeared in the Westland fifty years later, showing no signs of the years that had passed, to warn the Elves of the collapse of the Forbidding and the death of the Ellcrys. Once again, he was in the forefront of battle, helping to unite the Elves, the Dwarves, the Gnomes, and even the Trolls against their common enemy, the demons that had escaped their prison. It was the first time the Elves, Trolls, Dwarves, and Gnomes had ever fought together on the same side.

  After the War of the Forbidden, Allanon once again disappeared. It was almost twenty years before he was seen again, drawn out of seclusion by the discovery that the evil he had thought eliminated was still within the Four Lands.

  Though the Warlock Lord had been killed, the dark magic that had twisted him still remained active within the book known as the Ildatch. If Allanon was ever to discharge his father’s sworn oath and find peace from the guilt that haunted them both, he had to see the Ildatch destroyed. Together with Brin Ohmsford and Rone, the Prince of Leah, Allanon set out to find and destroy the ancient tome of evil. It was a quest that he would never complete.

  While passing through the Wolfsktaag Mountains, at the waterfall known as the Chard Rush, the party was attacked by a Jachyra, an almost invincible creature from the time of Faerie. Knowing he was the only one who could possibly be a match for such a beast, Allanon engaged and fought the creature. Using every bit of magic lore and power at his disposal, he eventually managed to destroy the Jachyra, but not before receiving mortal wounds to body and spirit.

  According to Brin Ohmsford’s diaries, Allanon may have known in advance that he would not survive. He spoke to her of a vision that told him, “When I go from the Four Lands this time, I shall not come again.” Before he died, Allanon marked Brin, telling her he had chosen her line to carry on the Druid tradition.

  But death did not end the debt. After Brin and her brother, Jair, succeeded in destroying the Ildatch, they returned to the Chard Rush and were greeted by Allanon’s spirit, “almost as if he were still alive.” He told them that because of their victory, he and his father were released from their vows and able to find peace.

  But was Allanon at peace? It seems that the Druid was not willing to succumb to final oblivion. There were further sightings of the Druid three hundred years later, both haunting the dreams of the Ohmsford descendants and rising as an apparition from the Hadeshorn. It has even been suggested that it is his spirit come again in Walker Boh to take up the mantle of the Druids. If so, Allanon may be the first true immortal.

  Walker Boh: DARK UNCLE

  Known as the “Dark Uncle,” Walker Boh was the only reluctant Druid to be initiated into the order. A direct descendant of Brin Ohmsford through his father, Kenner Ohmsford, and of Kimber Boh through his mother, Risse Boh, he grew up resenting the Druids and all they had done to his ancestors. He resented his Ohmsford lineage, which left him with the distinctly Elvish features common in the Ohmsfords, though he also had the pale skin of the Bohs. Walker was the first of Brin’s descendants to manifest innate magical ability past childhood.

  As a child, Walker did not know he was different. He grew up with his parents in Hearthstone, the Bohs’ ancestral lands. With all of the wilds of Darklin Reach as his playground, Walker had plenty of room to explore his gifts. He discovered he could sense thoughts and feelings in other people. He could sense things from most animals and even plants. Sometimes he could make himself disappear. His parents supported him in his explorations. Though his mother told him that he was different from other children, he did not understand what that meant. A year later, she died of fever.

  When Walker was twelve, Kenner Ohmsford, realizing that his son was not going to grow out of the magic, as he had done, told him the story of Brin and Allanon. Walker did not like the idea that his abilities were tied to a dying Druid’s curse, but he was unwilling to stop using the magic. At the age of thirteen, he discovered that the magic could be destructive. When angry, he could summon blue fire or break things without touching them. Gradually a void grew between father and son as the differences between them became more obvious. There is some evidence that Kenner feared his son, though he tried to prevent Walker from noticing.

  Despite Kenner’s personal fears that the magic would eventually overwhelm Walker, Kenner refused to suppress the boy’s abilities, insisting that his son’s talents were a gift with a special purpose. He also encouraged Walker’s appetite for knowledge, maintaining a sizable library so that Walker could indulge his insatiable curiosity. From the first day he could read, the boy devoured texts on mathematics, science, and history. He understood almost everything he read and developed a passion for history.

  When Kenner developed a wasting illness, they were forced to move to Shady Vale to live with Jaralan and Mirianna Ohmsford and their sons, Par and Coll. It was there that he learned that he was different and that magic, especially when combined with Elvish blood, was something that most people feared and resented. As a young man, he was outcast and alone. He became known as the “Dark Uncle.” His father’s death a year after their arrival in Shady Vale only cemented his isolation. The magic, Allanon’s legacy, had become a curse.

  His only close ties were with young Par Ohmsford, who had begun to manifest innate magical abilities. Walker became his protector and mentor, knowing that he was the only one who could possibly understand what Par was facing. He stayed in Shady Vale for seven years, then left to return to his birthplace in Darklin Reach, leaving civilization and all its prejudices behind. He abandoned the Ohmsford name, calling himself Walker Boh, after his mother’s family—perhaps in the hope that a change of name would also spare him from the Ohmsford legacy. He even tried to escape the magic by avoiding its use. But the magic would not be avoided. After a
year spent without using any magic, it began to manifest in new and frightening ways, threatening to overwhelm Walker’s tenuous control. Fortunately, Cogline, Kimber Boh’s grandfather and a student of the Druid arts, arrived in time to help the young man. The old man began to train him in the use and control of his magic. He also gifted him with a moor cat named Rumor, who became his constant companion. For three years, Walker studied the Druid arts and lore, until he gained mastery over the magic and himself. But Cogline was not content to teach only magic. He went beyond the usual Druid teachings of Allanon’s time and began to teach the young man the mysteries of the Old World sciences as well. Walker was an apt pupil, soon going beyond Cogline’s teachings to experiment with combinations of magic and Old World science with surprising success. He was the first to ever attempt such combinations.

  Sometime near the end of his third year of study, something changed for Walker. He refused to allow Cogline to teach him more, claiming the old man’s attempts to continue were Druid manipulation. Whether his refusal to continue his education was based on his fear of the Druids who had manipulated his ancestors or whether he feared the limits of his own control is unknown. Cogline left Hearthstone, returning as an occasional guest but not as a teacher.

  For six years, Walker lived a solitary life within Darklin Reach, content to leave the rest of the world to fend for itself. He was drawn out only when Par Ohmsford came to him and challenged him to face Allanon, with the other Ohmsford descendants, at the Hadeshorn. His close ties with the boy forced him to face the dead Druid, despite his belief that Allanon was responsible for the magic that plagued him. Allanon’s shade charged him to find the Black Elfstone and bring back Paranor and the Druids. He finally decided to attempt the search, but lost his arm, and very nearly his life, on a misguided search for the Elfstone in the Hall of Kings. He sacrificed his arm to free himself, but even with Cogline’s aid could find no cure for the poison. The struggle forced him to come to terms with himself and reconcile with his mentor. He was forced to accept the fact that Allanon’s spirit had helped keep him alive so that he could complete his charge.

  Walker Boh, called the “Dark Uncle,” a reluctant Druid.

  It took the magic of the elemental girl Quickening to save him. He joined with her on her quest to stop the Faerie creature Uhl Belk and succeeded in discovering both the Black Elfstone and himself.

  Druid Rite of Passage

  The path to becoming a Druid has changed even as the Druids themselves have evolved and changed. In the early days of the Druid Council, the order was open to students from all the Races, though it was initially dominated by the Elves. Novices were required to study the Histories and assist in deciphering old texts. They served as apprentices until their mentors felt they were worthy to become full Druids. Mastery of at least one branch of knowledge was required to achieve Druid status. Magical abilities, while not required, were welcomed and encouraged. When ready, novices underwent a ritual ordination, including the use of magic, to welcome them to the Druid mysteries.

  In the aftermath of the First War of the Races, magic use was dropped from the list of viable subjects for study and from the initiation process. Druids were initiated based primarily on academic abilities. Some novices even hid their innate magical abilities.

  After the Second War of the Races, only one Druid survived: Bremen. His heir, Allanon, was initiated on a starlit night at the edge of the Hadeshorn after three years of learning the Druid mysteries of history and magic. He became a Druid as he watched his adopted father carried into the water of the Hadeshorn. While all Druids who use Druid magic are changed by it, no one can say how greatly it changed Allanon, since he became a Druid at such a young age.

  For the newest Druid, Walker Boh, there was no living Druid to initiate him. He was forced to undergo a rite created by Allanon centuries before. He had to use the Black Elfstone to absorb the essence of all the Druid Spirits into himself. The ordeal was more intense and dangerous than any initiation before, but it was the only way for the necessary knowledge to be passed successfully. Walker Boh came away from his initiation carrying the knowledge and the combined abilities of all who had gone before.

  He also came away physically changed. The magic increased his size and strength. Those who met him soon after the transformation could see Allanon in his face. Some say that Allanon, who cheated death at the Chard Rush, now lives on in Walker Boh. Ironically, the man who swore he would remain his own person was the one Druid who ended up bringing the spirits of all the Druids together within himself.

  Once armed with the Elfstone, and with new confidence in his abilities, Walker used the stone to enter Paranor where it existed within limbo. He found that Cogline and Rumor, whom he thought killed, had survived but had been transported to the keep by the magic within the Druid Histories. He discovered that the only way to save them and return them to the real world was to become the thing he hated most—a Druid.

  With Cogline’s aid, he studied the Druid Histories and deciphered the secrets of the rite of passage—different for each Druid. Walker managed to survive the ordeal, with Cogline’s assistance, to become the newest Druid and master of Paranor. He returned Paranor to the world and began life as a Druid with a vow that he would not be the same type of manipulator his predecessors had been.

  Walker Boh went beyond Allanon’s accomplishments to become the first of a new type of Druid—one who combined the magic of the new world with the science of the Old. Ironically, by accepting the heavy mantle that Allanon had left for him, the once reluctant Druid had accepted a charge to protect the very Races he had tried so hard to escape.

  Cogline: THE LAPSED DRUID

  No history of the great Druids would be complete without mention of the man known only as Cogline. Though he was never ordained or initiated, he studied with the Druids long enough to learn their lore, and he surpassed many of them in the use of Old World science and some of the arcane arts. Cogline lived for almost a thousand years with the aid of the Druid Sleep, a record no ordained Druid has ever matched.

  He was born fifty years after the First War of the Races, into a time when the Druids were at the zenith of their power. As a boy, he had an inexhaustible thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand how the world worked. His search led him inevitably to the Druid Council, where he enthusiastically joined in the search for Old World knowledge. He began his studies at a time when the council was focused more on the exploration of magic than on science. Cogline loved the reliability of science, the simple beauty of mathematics, and the creative power of chemistry. To him, magic was unpredictable and dangerous. He often compared it to a wild animal that was as likely to turn on its user as obey commands. But magic was part and parcel of what Druids were, so the novice resentfully studied the Druid arcane disciplines.

  As he neared the completion of his novice training, Cogline began to avoid magic altogether. Instead, he concentrated his research on rediscovering the most powerful of the Old World sciences. He learned the secret recipes for corrosive potions that could burn through metals, explosive powders, and chemical reactions that could shatter stone. Here was a form of power that could be controlled by anyone who understood it.

  Unfortunately, the Druid Council felt that these sciences were related to the very things that had helped to destroy the world during the Great Wars. They forbade Cogline from continuing his research. He was to focus on benign sciences—and magic. Unwilling to give up his work, Cogline chose to leave the Druids, forsaking all he had struggled to achieve within the order.

  Once he left Paranor, Cogline disappeared from known records for almost seven hundred years. Ironically, only a few decades after he left them, the Druids changed their focus and began to concentrate on Old World science rather than magic—until eventually magic was studied only in private, as a curiosity. It is certain that Cogline knew of the change, but he never returned to the Druids, probably knowing that his type of science would never be completely acceptable. Breme
n, a young man at the time, was the only Druid Cogline maintained as a friend, possibly because neither of them fit into the Druid hierarchy. It was Cogline to whom Bremen turned when he needed the formula for making steel suitable for the Sword of Shannara. Only Cogline had maintained such detailed technical knowledge from the Old World science.

  Cogline had rejected the Druid path but not all the Druid skills. He used magic to keep himself alive, constantly working to perfect those skills he deemed valuable, such as spirit projection and the Druid Sleep. The Sleep allowed him to have many lives, but he kept his history secret. No one close to him knew he had studied with the Druids—had, in fact, been one in all but name. They knew only that he had a knack for working with potions and powders, and that he preferred a life of solitude.

  Cogline, adept of science and magic.

  He found that solitude at Hearthstone, in Darklin Reach, which became his personal refuge for many years. He loved the wild land and seemed to have an amazing rapport with the animals there. It was said that wherever he went, there was certain to be one of the huge moor cats nearby. When one cat died, another would take its place. Anyone who came too near discovered how fiercely protective the cat could be.

  He built a home at Hearthstone and eventually adopted a girl by the name of Kimber Boh, who called him Grandfather, though it is unlikely that she knew his age. He was almost seven hundred years old at the time, but treasured Kimber as if she were his own granddaughter. By the time Kimber was a young woman, Cogline had become senile. Those who met him, such as Brin Ohmsford and Rone Leah, assumed it was because of his advanced age. It is now suspected that his mental eccentricities were caused by something that had gone wrong with the magic while he was in the Druid Sleep. He did recover his mental faculties, but not until after Kimber had married and left to live with her husband’s family.