Paladins of Shannara: Allanon’s Quest

by Terry Brooks

Published in 2012

In this first short story set during the timeframe of the era of the original Sword of Shannara trilogy, we get our first introduction to the adult Druid, Allanon. It has been five hundred years since the events of The First King of Shannara when we first met Allanon. Using the Druid sleep like his master, Bremen, before him Allanon has been able to greatly extend his life span to be able to prepare better. He has been busy preparing for the return of the Warlock Lord, Brona, but he still feels like he needs more time.

In his quest to find a living heir of Shannara, Allanon has found his way to an Elven town, Archer Trace, located in the northern part of the Westlands. He is looking for a man who used to be a member of the Elven Royal Court. Eldra Derrivanian used to be the royal record keeper for the previous King Elessidil before resigning and going into retirement. He was also responsible for keeping the genealogical records of the royal families. After going into retirement Eldra hasn’t been seen for some time but Allanon and the Elven King were able to uncover a lead.

As it turns out, the Warlock Lord has been slowly making a comeback after the events of The First King of Shannara when he was defeated by Jerle Shannara and the Sword of Shannara. Brona and his Skull Bearers have launched a covert attack on the heirs of Jerle Shannara, as they are the only ones that can wield the Sword of Shannara now that Jerle is dead. Allanon has been working with the current King of the Elves, Eventine Elessidil, to locate a living heir. However, each time they locate an heir they are too late and the heir has been killed. They are down to their last lead, which is the retired Eldra Derrivanian. He used to work with the Elessidil’s and had committed many of the records to memory due to his attention to detail. Eldra may remember a Shannara heir that the King and Allanon weren’t aware of.

Allanon is able to track down where Eldra was living, as one of the Elven Trackers had caught a glimpse of Eldra while passing through Archer Trace a couple of weeks earlier. Eldra hadn’t been seen for a number of years prior to this, so it was fortuitous that he was seen. Allanon goes to Eldra’s home and talks with him about the need to find a living heir of Shannara and how the Warlock Lord has returned. Eldra is surly and not pleasant to talk to and begrudgingly gives Allanon a name to follow up on - Weir.

Weir lives just outside of a village not too far away and Allanon heads over there to find him and talk with him. Allanon arrives at his homestead and finds it deserted which he finds strange as there are signs of someone living there. He takes a look around and after a search of the property finds Weir standing on his porch, a place Allanon had previously searched. As Allanon approaches Weir to talk with him, a group of men comes out from behind the home and attacks Allanon, as does Weir. In the attack, Allanon is wounded and along with some of the other men, Weir is killed by Allanon. Allanon runs off to escape and sees a Skull Bearer who was watching the whole thing. The Skull Bearer approaches Allanon and Allanon realizes that this whole thing was a trap. The Skull Bearer not only confirms this but tells Allanon that he also wanted Allanon to kill Weir so that Allanon would know that he was directly responsible for ending the Shannara line as well as all hope for victory against the Warlock Lord. The Skull Bearer leaves Allanon alive and goes to report to the Warlock Lord of the death of the last heir of Shannara.

Allanon is able to get to an Elven Healer and also uses his Druid healing to recover from his wounds. After Allanon is healed and has his strength back, he heads back to Archer Trace to confront Eldra and ask him why he betrayed him and the Elves. Allanon goes back to Eldra’s home and Eldra greets him with relief in his voice. Allanon asks Eldra why did he betray him? Eldra confesses that the Skull Bearer found him before anyone else and threatened to kill his wife and him if he didn’t help set the trap. Eldra allowed himself to be seen by the Elven Tracker and was anticipating Allanon would come and talk with him. When Allanon came to his home the first time, a Skull Bearer was in the home in the back room with his wife threatening her with death if Eldra didn’t play along. Weir was already one who was unworthy to wield the Sword of Shannara, as he had aligned himself with the Warlock Lord so Eldra hoped that Allanon would find Weir and escape the trap.

Eldra knew that if Allanon survived he would come back to find him. Eldra reveals that he tricked the Skull Bearer and held back a piece of information. There is another Shannara heir that no one knows about. Eldra tells Allanon of a boy, Aren Shea, who was orphaned as a child and that he is half-elf and half human. His father was an Elf from the Westlands and his mother from the Borderlands. His parents knew that he would be hunted due to his Shannara lineage and gave him to Eldra and his wife, Collice, to care for. The parents instructed them that if the parents were to die, then they should fake the boy’s death and take him to live with the mother’s brother in the Borderlands. So when the parents were killed, Eldra and Collice faked Aren Shea’s death and took him to the mother’s brother’s home to hide him. Eldra reports that no one else knows this information and that it was kept secret as a last resort. Eldra tells Allanon that they boy now goes by the name of Shea Ohmsford and resides in the village of Shady Vale in the Borderlands.

Eldra reports that he has sent Collice away to stay with friends and live out the rest of her life in safety. He rebuffs suggestions by Allanon to seek out the protection of the King to live out the remainder of their days. Eldra then tells Allanon that he has taken poison in the drink he is currently drinking and that the secrets will die with him. After Eldra dies, Allanon lays his body to rest and immediately heads to the Borderlands and Shady Vale.

While I’m not complaining about more Shannara stories, I do find this a curious choice of storytelling. The story doesn’t really add much to the overall timeline of events. There may be some fleshing out of backstory, but it doesn’t add much else as we already knew the general idea from other books.

But I guess if you’re reading the series chronologically like I am this time around, then this is your first introduction to these ideas and to this part of the story. I guess I will find out as I continue my re-read with the Sword of Shannara trilogy to see if this short story was a necessary telling of how Allanon came to find out where Shea Ohmsford was living or not. I’m glad this was just a short story and that it was only a 20 minute or so read. Terry Brooks’ writing seems different in this short story and isn’t as strong as in the previous Shannara novels. Overall I give this short story a B-/C+.

*EDIT: I’m writing this after reading the Sword of Shannara - and I found that this story does have a place in the overall Sword of Shannara Era and is a fitting prequel to Sword of Shannara. Carry on…

Next up is the one that started it all - The Sword of Shannara!