Allanon's Quest Read Free Page B

Wait. Don’t tell me. All of them, right? All that you can find, in any case. If you need my help, it must be as a last resort. How did you even find me?”
    “An Elven Hunter searching for news of an heir saw you.”
    Derrivanian shook his head. “I was hidden here for three years. No one knew. I found some small measure of peace. And now this.” He sighed. “I don’t have any love for the Elessedils. I don’t even have much love for the Elves, no matter if they’re my own people. None of them did anything for me when I needed their help. They let my son’s death go unpunished. They let his murderer go free. They tossed it all aside like it didn’t much matter.”
    Allanon held his gaze. “This involves more than just Arborlon and the Elessedils. The survival of an entire world is at stake. I need you to put your anger aside.”
    “Do you? Too bad. Why should I bother? Why should I care about the world or anything else?”
    “Because you don’t want it on your conscience if everything goes wrong, and you could have done something to prevent it. Come, Derrivanian. You’re been a good and faithful steward for too many years to throw it all aside when it could mean so much to so many if you could help. Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.”
    The old man rose and walked away, stopping to look out a window—perhaps contemplating what he saw, perhaps only gathering his thoughts. He was silent for a long time. Allanon let him be. Too many words of persuasion would have the wrong impact on this man. It would be better to let him come to the right decision on his own.
    “You seem a strong man, Allanon,” he said finally. “Is that so? Are you as strong as they say?”
    Allanon kept quiet, waiting.
    “Because I’m not a strong man. I am a weakling and a coward. I’ve lost a son, and I don’t—” He stopped suddenly, shaking his head. “You don’t know what you will do until you are faced with a situation that tests you. You think you know, but you don’t.”
    Still, the Druid waited. But he couldn’t help wondering as he did so what it was the man was trying to say.
    Eldra Derrivanian turned back to him. “There is one last possibility, one last man who may have been overlooked by the Dark Lord. He is a distant relative, born to the son of a son of a cousin once removed from the direct line. His bloodline is true, though. He would have enough of the Shannara in him to serve your purpose. His name is Weir. Shall I tell you where he can be found?”
    Allanon nodded slowly. “Tell me everything.”

    Allanon departed the cottage shortly afterward, pulling his hood over his head and his cloak tightly about his shoulders, hunching down against the onslaught of rain. He had what he needed to find the man Derrivanian had named, including the location of the place where he could be found. Weir lived on a farm well outside any town or village, north of Emberen, close to the southwestern edge of the Kierlak Desert in country that was just barely Elven and in no way friendly. It was a day’s journey in good weather and more in bad. It was better traveled by horse than afoot, and so the Druid went back into Emberen to find a room in which to spend the night before seeking a mount for the morrow’s journey.
    He was still troubled by his visit to Eldra Derrivanian. Something about it didn’t feel right. The man himself, the words he spoke, his actions—none of it. He realized suddenly that there had been a mattress in one corner of the front room, shoved off in a corner. Why was Derrivanian sleeping there when his wife slept in the back room? Or was the bedding for someone else? His wife’s sickness could account for the state of the cottage, but there was a furtiveness to him that was troubling.
    On the other hand, this was a man whose life had been a shambles for many years, a man who had exiled himself from his people and his previous life and gone into the outback of Elven civilization. He