All that Brin lacked was her mother's fire. Twenty years ago, Eretria had looked exactly as her daughter looked now, from dusky skin and black eyes to soft, delicate features. Long, black hair fell away from her face and there was no mistaking whose child she was. Her fingers touched the roughened trunk of the maple softly, caressing, and she stared upward into the tangle of limbs overhead. Jair would argue the point of course, but that was only because Jair found it hard enough as it was to accept his role as the youngest.

She was a tall girl-taller than her parents or her brother Jair, nearly as tall as Rone Leah-and although there was a delicate look to her slim body, she was as fit as any of them. Impulsively, she stepped off the walkway and moved over to the aged tree. That old tree was the source of many childhood memories for her. It was a massive thing, its trunk broad and gnarled. Brin Ohmsford paused by the flowerbeds that bordered the front walkway of her home, losing herself momentarily in the crimson foliage of the old maple that shaded the yard beyond. In the forests of Shady Vale, the leaves had already begun to turn. Though summer's warmth lingered, the days had begun to shorten, the humid air to dry, and the memory of life's immediacy to reawaken. Gone were the long, still days of midyear where sweltering heat slowed the pace of life and there was a sense of having time enough for anything. The Wishsong of Shannara by Terry Brooks Copyright 1985 1 A change of seasons was upon the Four Lands as late summer faded slowly into autumn.

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