Walk me to the rivers edge. That's what he's told her to do, as the two limp closer he stared into the running depths. So this was how it ends. Almost five hundred years had come to this, a death at the hands of the Jachyra a creature from the Forbidding.
Next to him the Valegirl was silent, tears streaming down her face, crying over his parting- but why? Like all, he had kept her on a need to know basis not telling her the truth behind her power. It had been the same with all the Ohmsfords before her. With Shea he'd kept the truth of the sword and how it would use him. With Will, the death of Amberle. Now Brin, that she was the weapon to destroy the Iidatch.
He thought back on all he'd done, years of fighting this evil. First with the Warlock Lord Brona, the Sword of Shannara. Thinking him dead, only to realize it was not so.
Allanon thought back to his childhood. His family and city slaughtered, him the only survivor. That was the first of many great loses he'd suffered. The next had been his father Bremen. He was the last Druid. It was his job, his duty to protect the world and to advise the kings throughout the ages. He'd locked himself away in Paranor, studying the ancient text left for him by the other druids.
Always he'd tried too hard to do what was good and just in the world, and it had eaten away at him. He was no longer who he'd been born, now just a dark twisted version of that child. Sometimes he wished he hadn't become the feared dark uncle that the four lands had come to see him as.
He'd ruined lives to safe thousands.
Was that really so bad?
It couldn't be.
Then why did people curse his name?
Wil had been cautioned by his uncle, even Brin had been cautious when joining him. They'd all heard the stories.
And now it was the end.
He had known since the Hadeshorn.
He was the last of the druids and the line ended with him. He'd lived for over 500 years. He'd done so much. There was still so much to be done, so much that he could do. And many things that must be done.
In his heart he felt his body dying. Only a few more feet to the riverbed, only a few more seconds of life.
Shea had been like a son to him and Wil a comrade-in-arms, this he knew. But Brin, what was she to him? He still didn't know, then again perhaps he did.
His breath caught in his throat, a sign that could be considered pain. He didn't want it to end, it was foretold, but things could always change- no they couldn't.
He raised a hand to the rushing river watching as it slowed and turned placid. He fell to his knees his body bent. His arm fell to his side and he was still. He felt his years.
He could see the shade of this father coming towards him, rising out of the depths.
He didn't want to go
But he must.
The world around them was warm, a light wind blowing his robes.
If this is the end, he thought to himself, then perhaps it isn't all that bad.
"Father" he cried as the shade grew close,
The gentle hands of his father's shade took him then, cradling him like a child. Away form the crying valegirl, away from the warmth, and away from the light.