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Then they were before him, Galaphile first, and Bremen lowered his head into the crook of his arm
helplessly.
Hold forth the sword
He did so without question, thrusting it before him as he would a talisman. Galaphile s hand reached
out, and his fingers brushed the Eilt Drum. Instantly, the emblem flared with white light.
Galaphile turned away, and another Druid approached, touched the emblem, and departed. So it
went, as one by one the spirits paraded before the old man and touched the sword he held, their fingers
brushing the image of the Eilt Drain before they passed on.
Over and over again the emblem flared brightly in response. From within the shelter of his raised arm,
Bremen watched it happen. It might have been a blessing that they bestowed, an approval that they gave.
But the old man knew it was something more, something darker and harsher. There was a transference
being wrought upon the sword by the touch of the dead. He could feel it happening. He could sense it
taking hold.
It was what he had come for. It could not be mistaken for anything else. It was what he had been
seeking. Yet even now, at the moment of its happening, he could not decipher its meaning.
So he knelt there at the edge of the Hadeshorn in the gloom and the spray, dismayed and confused,
listening to the sounds of the dead, a witness to their passing, and wondered at what was taking place. At
last the Druids had all come before him, touched the Eilt Drum, and gone on. At last he was alone,
hunched down in the night. The sounds of the spirit voices faded, and in the ensuing silence he could hear
the rasp of his own labored breathing. Swear drenched his body and glistened on his face. His arm was
cramped from holding forth the sword, yet he could not make himself withdraw it. He waited, knowing
there was more, that it was not vet finished.
Bremen
His name, spoken by a voice he now knew. He lifted his head cautiously. The Druid shades were
gone. The column of water was gone. All that remained was the lake and the blackness of the night and,
directly before him, the shade of Galaphile. It waited on him patiently as he rose and drew the sword
against his body as if to find strength there. There were tears on his face, and he did not know how they
had gotten there. Were they his own? He tried to speak and could not.
The shade spoke instead.
Heed me. The sword has been given its power. Carry it now to the one who will wield it.
Find him west. You will know. it belongs now to him
Bremen s voice groped for words that would not come. The spirit s arm lifted to him.
Ask
The old man s mind cleared, and his words were harsh and filled with awe. What have you done?
Given what part of us we can. Our lives have passed away. Our teachings have been lost.
Our magic has dissipated in the wane of time. Only our truth remains, all that belonged to us in
our lives, in our teachings, in our magic, stark and hard-edged and killing strong
Truth? Bremen stared, uncomprehending. Where did the sword s power lie in this? What form of
magic came from truth?
All those Druids passing before him, touching the blade, making it flare so brightly for this?
The shade of Galaphile pointed once more, a gesture so compelling that Bremen s queries died in his
throat and his attention was immediately commanded. The dark figure before him swept away all but its
own presence as its arm lifted, and the silence surrounding it was complete.
Listen, Bremen, last of Paranor, and I will tell you what you would know. Listen
And Bremen, captured heart and soul by the power of the shade s words, did so.
When it was finished and the shade of Galaphile was gone, when the waters of the Hadeshorn had
become still and flat once more and the dawn was creeping silver and gold out of the east, the old man
walked to the rim of the Valley of Shale and slept for a time amid the littered black rock. The sun rose
and the day brightened, but the Druid did not wake. He slept a deep, dreamfilled sleep, and the voices of
the dead whispered to him in words he could not comprehend. He woke at sunset, haunted by the
dreams, by his inability to decipher their meaning and his fear that they hid from him secrets that he must
reveal if the Races were to survive. He sat amid the heat and shadows in the darkening twilight, pulled the
remainder of his bread from his pack, and ate half of it in silence, staring out at the mountains, at the high,
strange formations of the Dragon s Teeth where the clouds scraped against the jagged tips on their way
east to the plains. He drank from the aleskin, now almost empty, and thought on what he had learned.
Of the secret of the sword.
Of the nature of its magic.
Then he rose and went back down out of the foothills to where he had left his horse the night before.
He found the horse gone.
Someone had taken it, the thief s footprints plain in the dust, one set only, approaching, then departing,
the horse in tow. He gave the matter almost no thought, but instead began to walk west, unwilling to
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