He shoved aside his elation abruptly. Thinking of the Shadowen reminded him in no uncertain terms how precarious his position was. There would be time to congratulate himself later, when Coll and he were safely out of this rat hole.
There were stairs cut in a stone base on which rested the block of marble and the Sword embedded in it, and he started for them. But he had taken only a single step when something detached itself from the darkness of the wall beyond. Instantly, he froze, terror welling up in his throat.
A single word screamed out in his mind.
Shadowen!
But he saw at once that he was mistaken. It wasn’t a Shadowen. It was a man dressed all in black, cloaked and hooded, the insigne of a wolf’s head sewn on his chest.
Par’s fear did not lessen when he realized who the other was. The man approaching him was Rimmer Dall.
At the entrance to the vault, Coll waited impatiently. He stood with his back against the stone, just to one side of > the opening, his eyes searching the mist. Nothing moved. No sound reached him. He was alone, it seemed; yet he did not feel that way. The dawn’s light filtered down through the canopy of the trees, washing him in its cold, gray haze.
Par had been gone too long already, he thought. It shouldn’t be taking him this much time.
He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the vault’s black opening. He would wait another five minutes; then he was going in himself.
Rimmer Dall came to a stop a dozen feet away from Par, reached up casually and pulled back the hood of his cloak. His craggy face was unmasked, yet in the half-light of the vault it was so streaked with shadows as to be practically unrecognizable. It made no difference. Par would have known him anywhere. Their one and only meeting that night so many weeks ago at the Blue Whisker was not something he would ever forget. He had hoped it would never be repeated; yet here they were, face to face once more. Rimmer Dall, First Seeker of the Federation, the man who had tracked him across the length and breadth of Callahorn and had nearly had him so many times, had caught up with him at last.
The door through which Par had entered remained open behind him, a haven that beckoned. The Valeman poised to flee.
“Wait, Par Ohmsford,” the other said, almost as if reading his thoughts. “Are you so quick to run? Do you frighten so easily?”
Par hesitated. Rimmer Dall was a huge, rangy man; his red-bearded face might have been chiseled out of stone, so hard and menacing did it appear. Yet his voice—and Par had not forgotten it either—was soft and compelling.
“Shouldn’t you hear what I have to say to you first?” the big man continued. “What harm can it do? I have been waiting here to talk to you for a very long time.”
Par stared. “Waiting?”
“Certainly. This is where you had to come sooner or later once you made up your mind about the Sword of Shannara. You have come for the Sword, haven’t you? Of course, you have. Well, then, I was right to wait, wasn’t I? We have much to discuss.”
“I wouldn’t think so.” Par’s mind raced. “You tried to arrest Coll and me in Varfleet. You imprisoned my parents in Shady Vale and occupied the village. You have been chasing after me and those with me for weeks.”
Rimmer Dall folded his arms. Par noticed again how the left was gloved to the elbow. “Suppose I stand here and you stand there,” the big man offered. “That way you can leave any time you choose. I won’t do anything to prevent it.”
Par took a deep breath and stepped back. “I don’t trust you.”
The big man shrugged. “Why should you? However, do you want the Sword of Shannara or don’t you? If you want it, you must first listen to me. After you’ve done so, you can take it with you if you wish. Fair enough?”
Par felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle in warning. “Why should you make a bargain like that after all you’ve done to keep me from getting the Sword?”
“Keep you from getting the Sword?” The other laughed, a low, pleasant chuckle. “Par Ohmsford. Did you once think to ask for the Sword? Did you ever consider the possibility that I might simply give it to you? Wouldn’t that have been easier than sneaking about the city and trying to steal it like a common thief?” Rimmer Dall shook his head slowly. “There is so much that you don’t know. Why not let me tell it to you?”
Par glanced about uncertainly, not willing to believe that this wasn’t some sort of trick to put him off his guard. The vault was a maze of shadows that whispered of other things lurking there, hidden and waiting. Par rubbed briskly the stone that Damson had given him to brighten its light.
“Ah, you think I have others concealed in the darkness with me, is that it?” Rimmer Dall whispered, the words coining from somewhere deep down inside his chest to rumble through the silence. “Well, here then!”
He raised his gloved hand, made a quick motion with it, and the room was flooded with light. Par gasped in surprise and took another step back.
“Do you think, Par Ohmsford, that you are the only one who has use of magic?” Rimmer Dall asked quietly. “Well, you aren’t. As a matter of fact, I have magic at my command that is much greater than yours, greater perhaps than that of the Druids of old. There are others like me, too. There are many in the Four Lands who possess the magic of the old world, of the world before the Four Lands and the Great Wars and man himself.”
Par stared at him wordlessly.
“Would you listen to me now, Valeman? While you still can?”
Par shook his head, not in response to the question he had been asked, but in disbelief. “You are a Seeker,” he said finally. “You hunt those who use magic. Any use—even by you—is forbidden!”
Rimmer Dall smiled. “So the Federation has decreed. But has that stopped you from using your magic, Par? Or your uncle Walker Boh? Or anyone who possesses it? It is, in fact, a foolish decree, one that could never be enforced except against those who don’t care about it in the first place. The Federation dreams of conquest and empire-building, of uniting the lands and the Races under its rule. The Coalition Council schemes and plans, a remnant of a world that has already destroyed itself once in the wars of power. It thinks itself chosen to govern because the Councils of the Races are no more and the Druids gone. It sees the disappearance of the Elves as a blessing. It seizes the provinces of the Southland, threatens Callahorn until it submits, and destroys the wilful Dwarves simply because it can. It sees all this as evidence of its mandate to rule. It believes itself omniscient! In a final gesture of arrogance it outlaws magic! It doesn’t once bother asking what purpose magic serves in the scheme of things—it simply denies it!”
The dark figure hunched forward, the arms unfolding. “The fact of the matter is that the Federation is a collection of fools that understand nothing of what the magic means, Valeman. It was magic that brought our world to pass, the world in which we live, in which the Federation believes itself supreme. Magic creates everything, makes everything possible. And the Federation would dismiss such power as if it were meaningless?”
Rimmer Dall straightened, looming up against the strange light he had created, a dark form that seemed only vaguely human.
“Look at me, Par Ohmsford,” he whispered.
His body began to shimmer, then to separate. Par watched in horror as a dark shape rose up against the shadows and half-light, its eyes flaring with crimson fire.
“Do you see, Valeman?” Rimmer Dall’s disembodied voice whispered with a hiss of satisfaction. “I am the very thing the Federation would destroy, and they haven’t the faintest idea of it!”
The irony was wasted on Par, who saw nothing beyond the fact that he had placed himself in the worst possible danger. He shrank from the man who called himself Rimmer Dall, the creature who wasn’t in fact a man at all, but was a Shadowen. He edged backward, determined to flee. Then he remembered the Sword of Shannara, and abruptly, recklessly, changed his mind. If he could get to the Sword, he thought fiercely, he would have a weapon with which to destroy Rimmer Dall.