Terry Brooks - The Darkling Child

BY TERRY BROOKS

SHANNARA

SHANNARA

First King of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara

The Elfstones of Shannara

The Wishsong of Shannara

THE HERITAGE OF SHANNARA

The Scions of Shannara

The Druid of Shannara

The Elf Queen of Shannara

The Talismans of Shannara

THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA

Ilse Witch

Antrax

Morgawr

HIGH DRUID OF SHANNARA

Jarka Ruus

Tanequil

Straken

THE DARK LEGACY OF SHANNARA

Wards of Faerie

Bloodfire Quest

Witch Wraith

THE DEFENDERS OF SHANNARA

The High Druids Blade

The Darkling Child

PRE-SHANNARA

GENESIS OF SHANNARA

Armageddons Children

The Elves of Cintra

The Gypsy Morph

LEGENDS OF SHANNARA

Bearers of the Black Staff

The Measure of the Magic

The World of Shannara

THE MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER

Magic Kingdom for SaleSold!

The Black Unicorn

Wizard at Large

The Tangle Box

Witches Brew

A Princess of Landover

THE WORD AND THE VOID

Running with the Demon

A Knight of the Word

Angel Fire East

Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life

The Darkling Child is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2014 by Terry Brooks

Map copyright 2012 by Russ Charpentier

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

The map by Russ Charpentier was originally published in Wards of Faerie by Terry Brooks, published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, in 2012.

ISBN 978-0-345-54079-9

eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54080-5

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

www.delreybooks.com

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First Edition

CONTENTS

Cover

By Terry Brooks

Title Page

Copyright

Map

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

About the Author

ONE

PAXON LEAH WAS SITTING ON A BENCH IN THE CORTYARD gardens of Paranor, paging through documents written more than five hundred years earlier that recorded the events in the life of the Elf King Eventine Elessedil, when Keratrix came for him. He could tell immediately from the scribes solemn face that something was wrong.

Shes asking for you, the other said without preamble. His eyes seemed tired and haunted. She says its time.

Paxon stared. On a beautiful, sunny day like this one? On a day when everything felt right, and it seemed that the world was at peace and life could go on indefinitely? How could this be?

That was what he thought as he measured the scribes words and let their meaning sink in. He didnt have to ask what Keratrix meant. He knew. He had known this was coming because she had told him herself.

Aphenglow Elessedil, Ard Rhys of the Fourth Druid Order, was dying.

He rose at once, wordless and shaken, and followed Keratrix from the gardens into the tower that housed her private chambers. The Ard Rhys kept to herself these days, weakened by age and worn down by both the demands of her office and the passage of time. She was housed on the lower floors, no longer able to handle the stairs and the climb that going to her former chambers and to the upper reaches of the main tower required. She had not been in the cold room in over a year. She had not used the scrye waters once in all that time, relying instead on her chosen successor, Isaturin, to carry out her duties. She was in stasis, waiting for the inevitable. If the truth were told, Paxon believed, she was anxious for it to arrive.

And now, apparently, it had.

Is she sure? he asked Keratrix as they walked. When he looked at the young Druid, he was reminded of Sebec. Not because the two were anything alike, but because five years earlier, Sebecthen scribe of the Druid Orderhad been his closest friend at Paranor, and the betrayal of that friendship was a wound that still burned in his memory.

Keratrixslight and small, scarcely a presence as he wafted ahead of Paxon like a wraith in the shadowed hallwaysbarely turned. She insists she is quite sure. I asked this, as well.

Of course he would. Keratrix was efficient and thorough; he would not leave something like this undone.

I cant believe it, Paxon whispered, almost to himself, though he knew Keratrix must have heard.

And he could not. Five years he had spent as the personal paladin of the Ard Rhys, as the High Druids Blade. She had brought him to Paranor at a time when he was drifting. She had offered him the position in large part because of his heritage as a bearer of the magical Sword of Leah. She had given him over to training and had kept watch from a distance as he struggled to find his place. When his sister Chrysallin had been taken by the sorcerer Arcannen, Aphenglow was the one who had helped him to get Chrys back and then found a home for her at Paranoreven though Chrysallin had been sent to kill her and had almost succeeded. And all the while, she had been beset by Sebecs betrayal and Arcannens scheming to gain control of the order.

But perhaps even more important than that, she had taken Chrysallin into the order as a student in training, aware of the importance of the gift she possessed and the need to find a way to manage it. For like her brother, Chrysallin Leah bore a legacy of magic. Paxons was the ability to unlock the power of the Sword of Leah. Chrysallins was the presence of the wishsong, which she had inherited as a direct descendant of Railing Ohmsford. However, Chrys remained unaware of her powers. Arcannen had kidnapped her in an attempt to use her as a weapon against the Ard Rhys, but the subsequent trauma of the events that followed had wiped away any memory of those powers. Still, Aphenglow was convinced that her memory would eventually return.

So she had let Chrysallin remain at Paranor, keeping close watch over her and waiting for the moment when her magic would resurface and she could be given over to members of the order who would help her learn to master itwho would train her in its usage and teach her of the importance it held not only in her own life but in the lives of those around her.

So far, that moment had not arrived. To this day, Chrysallin remembered nothing, and no sign of the magic had reappeared. Now, as the Ard Rhys prepared for the end of her life, the task of watching over his sister would fall to Paxon. He was ready to accept this, he believed. More ready than he was for what waited just ahead.