A Knight of the Word

by Terry Brooks Narrated by Mark Deakins

Overview

A no-holds-barred battle between Good and Evil . . .

Eight centuries ago the first Knight of the Word was commissioned to combat the demonic evil of the Void. Now that daunting legacy has passed to John Ross--along with powerful magic and the knowledge that his actions are all that stand between a living hell and humanity's future.

Then, after decades of service to the Word, an unspeakable act of violence shatters John Ross's weary faith. Haunted by guilt, he turns his back on his dread gift, settling down to build a normal life, untroubled by demons and nightmares.

But a fallen Knight makes a tempting prize for the Void, which could bend the Knight's magic to its own evil ends. And once the demons on Ross's trail track him to Seattle, neither he nor anyone close to him will be safe. His only hope is Nest Freemark, a college student who wields an extraordinary magic all her own. Five years earlier, Ross had aided Nest when the future of humanity rested upon her choice between Word and Void. Now Nest must return the favor. She must restore Ross's faith, or his life--and hers--will be forfeit . . .

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
August 1998

With Running with the Demon, bestselling author Terry Brooks turned his remarkable skills toward a much more horrific kind of writing than he'd ever attempted. He succeeded with one of the most critically acclaimed and impressive novels in his long and enduring career. In the sequel, A Knight of the Word, Brooks proves that he's as comfortable working in a modern fantasy world with darker underpinnings as he is in the light magical high-fantasy field where he's already so well known. For anyone uncertain if he or she will like the new tack Brooks is taking, rest assured, the author continues to enthrall and fascinate.

Five years after the close of the first book, we find that John Ross is not merely a reluctant hero but has actually given up on being a knight of the word, a position of great magical power entrusted to him by the Lady. He has nightmares of a future world created by the Void, an earth full of demons and un-men that can only be avoided if John prevents certain events from occurring. On one of his missions, John failed to see a demon's influence behind a hostage crisis at a grade school, and several children were killed in the ensuing shoot-out. Racked with guilt, John now works at a homeless shelter in Seattle, and though he still carries his black runestaff, he refuses to use magic in any form, not even to check for demons in his presence. Though he still dreams of one particular event that is to take place on Halloween night, he feels that by renouncing his position he can no longer be held responsible for whatever happens,andbelieves that the Lady will simply replace him with another knight.

Nineteen-year-old Nest Freemark, another enforcer of the word, has gone on to become one of the best long-distance runners in the nation's history, and she's bound to win a gold medal in the Olympics. More important, however, she is John Ross's last hope to again take up the mantle of his knighthood. If he continues to turn his back on his power, he will be subverted by the forces of the Void, and if she cannot persuade him to accept his fate, then the Lady will have no choice but to send another agent and have him killed. And time is running out: According to John's dreams, on Halloween night — in two days — something evil will happen to Simon Lawrence, the man in charge of the shelter, and Nest knows that a demon is loose among the homeless.

The author has simplified his follow-up story, paring it down substantially from the lengthy and intricate Running with the Demon. Brooks has focused all his high-powered attention on a limited cast: John, Nest, Simon Lawrence, and O'olish Amaneh, the Sinnissippi Indian agent of the Word who may or may not be dogging John in order to assassinate him. The plot builds slowly with a greater richness of passion and fear, showing the characters' struggles over whether to save those they love or be true to a hopefully greater and more worthwhile cause. A Knight of the Word is a meditation on responsibility and consequence as well as a dark fantasy page-turner. The novel effectively captures the difficulties and frustration one must deal with when warring with evil from the Void, or from within one's own heart.

—Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli is the author of the critically acclaimed supernatural novel Pentacle, as well as the dark suspense mysteries Shards and The Dead Past. His short fiction has appeared in many anthologies, including The Conspiracy Files and Hot Blood:Fear the Fever.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Brooks continues his vacation from his trademark Tolkienesque adventures (the Shannara and Magic Kingdom novels) with this urban dark fantasy, a sharp and satisfying follow-up to last year's Running with the Demon. It has been five years since mortal John Ross was anointed a Knight of the Word, and in that time he has suffered a serious crisis of faith. Unable to prevent the death of innocents in senseless acts of violence engineered by demons of the Void, he has fallen from his calling and drifted to Seattle to work with saintly Simon Lawrence and the Fresh Start program for homeless women and children. Nagged by recurring nightmares of a possible future in which he murders his mentor and dismantles the program, John is guilt-ridden, uncertain and vulnerable to a shape-shifting demon who has infiltrated his circle of associates. His only hope is Nest Freemark, the teenage heroine of his previous adventure, who applies her own grasp of the Word to smoke out the demon before John's dreams--which include her death--can come true. The identity of John's demonic manipulator and the meaning of his dreams are carefully crafted mysteries that build to a climax filled with surprising twists and turns. Brooks's real achievement, however, is his orchestration of the tale's social issues and personal dramas into a scenario with the resonance of myth. Both a sprightly entertainment and a thoughtful allegory of the forces of Good and Evil at large in the modern world, this novel is sure to increase its author's already vast readership.

Library Journal

Haunted by his failure to prevent the death of innocent children, John Ross abandons his calling as a Knight of the Word and opens himself to corruption by the forces of the Void. His only hope for rescue lies with Nest Freemark, a young woman whose demon-blood once brought her to the edge of the Void but who now seeks to repay her debt to the Lady of the Word. The sequel to Running with the Demon (LJ 9/15/97) features a pair of engaging heroes and a fast-paced, though predictable, plot. Best-selling author Brooks continues to maintain his reputation as a polished raconteur. Most libraries should add this to their fantasy collection.

Kirkus Reviews

Relatively uncompelling sequel to Running with the Demon (1997), Brooks's good (the Word) vs. evil (the Void) clash set in contemporary America. John Ross, Knight of the Word, whose mission and magic powers derive from the Lady, failed while residing in a small California town to prevent a massacre of schoolchildren by demons, and thus quit his mission—or so he thinks: actually, he can't give up the magic. Here, he stands in terrible danger of being subverted by the Void. The Lady's messenger, Ariel, visits Nest Freemark, by now 19 and a world-class athlete. Nest agrees to visit Ross in Seattle, where he works in a shelter for the homeless, the brainchild of businessman/industrialist Simon Lawrence, and has fallen in love with a colleague, Stefanie Winslow. Nest warns Ross that he's in danger and that there's a demon active nearby; and while Ross agonizes over his situation, Nest nearly succumbs to the demon's attack. That same night the shelter burns down, killing the night manager who was standing in for Ross. Meanwhile, reporter Andrew Wren is handed documents seeming to prove that both Lawrence and Ross were embezzling. So who is the demon? Nest figures it out and rushes off to warn Ross, but he's also added things upþand got the wrong answer. The showdown will come on Halloween at the Seattle Art Museum. Unevocative, humdrum, and devoid of narrative tension; still, fans of the previous book will probably want to investigate.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169411973
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Series:	Word and the Void Series , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

It was dawn when she woke, the sky just beginning to brighten in the east,
night's shadows still draping the trunks and limbs of the big shade trees
in inky layers. She lay quietly for a time, looking through her curtained
window as the day advanced, aware of a gradual change in the light that
warmed the cool darkness of her bedroom. From beneath the covers she
listened to the sounds of the morning. She could hear birdsong in
counterpoint to the fading hum of tires as a car sped down Woodlawn's
blacktop toward the highway. She could hear small creaks and mutterings
from the old house, some of them so familiar that she remembered them from
her childhood. She could hear the sound of voices, of Gran and Old Bob,
whispering to each other in the kitchen as they drank their morning coffee
and waited for her to come out for breakfast.



But the voices were only in her mind, of course. Old Bob and Gran were
gone.



Nest Freemark rose to a sitting position, drew up her long legs to her
chest, rested her forehead against her knees, and closed her eyes. Gone.
Both of them. Gran for five years and Old Bob since May. It was hard to
believe, even now. She wished every day that she could have them back
again. Even for five minutes. Even for five seconds.



The sounds of the house wrapped her, small and comforting, all part of her
nineteen years of life. She had always lived in this house, right up to
the day she had left for college in September of last year, a freshman on
a full ride at one of the most prestigious schools in the country.
Northwestern University. Her grandfatherhad been so proud, telling her
she should remember she had earned the right to attend this school, but
the school, in turn, had merited her interest, so both of them should get
something out of the bargain. He had laughed, his voice low and deep, his
strong hands coming about her shoulders to hold her, and she had known
instinctively that he was holding her for Gran, as well.



Now he was gone, dead of a heart attack three days before the end of her
first year, gone in a moment, the doctor said afterward—no pain, no
suffering, the way it should be. She had come to accept the doctor's
reassurance, but it didn't make her miss her grandfather any the less.
With both Gran and Old Bob gone, and her parents gone longer still, she
had only herself to rely upon.



But, then, she supposed in a way that had always been so.



She lifted her head and smiled. It was how she had grown up, wasn't it?
Learning to be alone, to be independent, to accept that she would never be
like any other child?



She ticked off the ways in which she was different, running through them
in a familiar litany that helped define and settle the borders of her life.



She could do magic—had been able to do magic for a long time. It had
frightened her at first, confused and troubled her, but she had learned to
adapt to the magic's demands, taught first by Gran, who had once had use
of the magic herself, and later by Pick. She had learned to control and
nurture it, to find a place for it in her life without letting it consume
her. She had discovered how to maintain the balance within herself in the
same way that Pick was always working to maintain the balance in the park.



Pick, her best friend, was a six-inch-high sylvan, a forest creature who
looked for the most part like something a child had made of the discards
of a bird's nest, with body and limbs of twigs and hair and beard of moss.
Pick was the guardian of Sinnissippi Park, sent to keep in balance the
magic that permeated all things and to hold in check the feeders that
worked to upset that balance. It was a big job for a lone sylvan, as he
was fond of saying, and over the years various generations of the Freemark
women had helped him. Nest was the latest. Perhaps she would be the last.



There was her family, of course. Gran had possessed the magic, as had
others of the Freemark women before her. Not Old Bob, who had struggled
all his life to accept that the magic even existed. Maybe not her mother,
who had died three months after Nest was born and whose life remained an
enigma. But her father ... She shook her head at the walls. Her father.
She didn't like to think of him, but he was a fact of her life, and there
was enough time and distance between them now that she could accept what
he had been. A demon. A monster. A seducer. The killer of both her mother
and her grandmother. Dead now, destroyed by his own ambition and hate, by
Gran's magic and his own, by Nest's determination, and by Wraith.



Wraith. She looked out the window in the diminishing shadows and shivered.
The ways in which she had been different from other children began and
ended with Wraith.



She sighed and shook her head mockingly. Enough of that sort of rumination.



She rose and walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, let it run
hot, and stepped in. She stood with her eyes closed and the water
streaming over her, lost in the heat and the damp. She was nineteen and
stood just under five feet ten inches. Her honey-colored hair was still
short and curly, but most of her freckles were gone. Her green eyes
dominated her smooth, round face. Her body was lean and fit. She was the
best middle-distance runner ever to come out of the state of Illinois and
one of the best in history. She didn't think about her talent much, but it
was always there, in much the same way as her magic. She wondered often if
her running ability was tied in some way to her use of the magic. There
was no obvious connection and even Pick tended to brush the suggestion
aside, but she wondered anyway. She had been admitted to Northwestern on a
full track-and-field scholarship. Her grades were good, but it was her
athletic skills that got her in. She had won several middle-distance
events at last spring's NCAA track-and-field championships. She had
already broken several college records and one world. In two years the
summer Olympics would be held in Melbourne, Australia. Nest Freemark was
expected to contend for a medal in multiple running events. She was
expected to win at least one gold.



She turned off the shower, stepped out onto the mat, grabbed a towel, and
dried herself off. She tried not to think about the Olympics too often. It
was too distant in time and too mind-boggling to consider. She had learned
a hard lesson when she was fourteen and her father had revealed himself
for what he was. Never take anything in your life for granted; always be
prepared for radical change.



Besides, there were more pressing problems just now. There was school; she
had to earn grades high enough to allow her to continue to train and to
compete. There was Pick, who was persistent and unending in his demand
that she give more of her time and effort to helping him with the
park—which seemed silly until she listened to his reasoning.



And, right at the moment, there was the matter of the house.



She dressed slowly, thinking of the house, which was the reason she was
home this weekend when her time would have been better spent at school,
studying. With her grandfather's death, the house and all of its
possessions had passed to her. She had spent the summer going through it,
room by room, closet by closet, cataloguing, boxing, packing, and sorting
what would stay and go. It was her home, but she was barely there enough
to look after it properly and, Pick's entreaties notwithstanding, she had
no real expectation of coming back after graduation to live. The realtors,
sensing this, had already begun to descend. The house and lot were in a
prime location. She could get a good price if she was to sell. The money
could be put to good use helping defray her training and competition
expenses. The real estate market was strong just now, a seller's market.
Wasn't this the right time to act?



She had received several offers over the summer, and this past week Allen
Kruppert had called from ERA Realty to tender one so ridiculously high
that she had agreed to consider it. She had come after classes on Friday,
skipping track-and-field practice, so that she could meet with Allen on
Saturday morning and look over the papers. Allen was a rotund, jovial
young man, whom she had met on several occasions at church picnics, and he
impressed her because he never tried to pressure her into anything where
the house was concerned but seemed content just to present his offers and
step back. The house was not listed, but if she was to make the decision
to sell, she knew, she would almost certainly list it with him. The papers
he had provided on this latest offer sat on the kitchen table where she
had left them last night. The prospective buyer had already signed. The
financing was in place. All that was needed was her signature and the deal
was done.



She put the papers aside and sat down to eat a bowl of cereal with her
orange juice and coffee, her curly hair still damp against her face as
golden light spread through the curtained windows and the sun rose over
the trees.



If she signed, her financial concerns for the immediate future would be
over.



Pick, of course, would have a heart attack. Which was not a good thing if
you were already a hundred and fifty years old.



She was just finishing the cereal when she heard a knock at the back door.
She frowned; it was only eight o'clock in the morning, not the time people
usually came calling. Besides, no one ever used the back door, except ...



She walked from the kitchen down the hall to the porch. A shadowy figure
stood leaning into the screen, trying to peer inside. Couldn't be, could
it? But, as she stepped down to unlatch the screen door, she could already
see it was.



"Hey, Nest," Robert Heppler said.



He stood with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans and one
tennis shoe bumping nervously against the worn threshold. "You going to
invite me in or what?" He gave her one of his patented cocky grins and
tossed back the shoulder-length blond hair from his angular face.



She shook her head. "I don't know. What are you doing here, anyway?"



"You mean like, 'here at eight o'clock in the morning,' or like, 'here in
Hopewell as opposed to Palo Alto'? You're wondering if I was tossed out of
school, right?"



"Were you?"



"Naw. Stanford needs me to keep its grade point average high enough to
attract similarly brilliant students. I was just in the neighborhood and
decided to stop by, share a few laughs, maybe see if you're in the market
for a boyfriend." He was talking fast and loose to keep up his confidence.
He glanced past her toward the kitchen. "Do I smell coffee? You're alone,
aren't you? I mean, I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"



"Jeez, Robert, you are such a load." She sighed and stepped back. "Come on
in."



She beckoned him to follow and led him down the hall. The screen door
banged shut behind them and she winced, remembering how Gran had hated it
when she did that.



"So what are you really doing here?" she pressed him, gesturing vaguely in
the direction of the kitchen table as she reached for the coffeepot and a
cup. The coffee steamed in the morning air as she poured it.



He shrugged, giving her a furtive look. "I saw your car, knew you were
home, thought I should say hello. I know it's early, but I was afraid I
might miss you."



She handed him the coffee and motioned for him to sit down, but he
remained standing. "I've been waiting to hear from you," she said
pointedly.



"You know me, I don't like to rush things." He looked away quickly, unable
to meet her steady gaze. He sipped gingerly from his cup, then made a
face. "What is this stuff?"



Nest lost her patience. "Look, did you come here to insult me, or do you
need something, or are you just lonely again?"



He gave her his hurt puppy look. "None of the above." He glanced down at
the real estate papers, which were sitting on the counter next to him,
then looked up at her again. "I just wanted to see you. I didn't see you
all summer, what with you off running over hill and dale and cinder track."



"Robert, don't start ..."



"Okay, I know, I know. But it's true. I haven't seen you since your
grandfather's funeral."



"And whose fault is that, do you think?"



He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and screwed up his mouth.
"Okay, all right. It's my fault. I haven't seen you because I knew how
badly I messed up."



"You were a jerk, Robert."



He flinched as if struck. "I didn't mean anything."



"You didn't?" A slow flush worked its way up her neck and into her cheeks.
"My grandfather's funeral service was barely finished and there you were,
making a serious effort to grope me. I don't know what that was all about,
but I didn't appreciate it one bit."



He shook his head rapidly. "I wasn't trying to grope you exactly."



"Yes, you were. Exactly. You might have done yourself some good, you know,
if you'd stuck around to apologize afterward instead of running off."



His laugh was forced. "I was running for my life. You just about took my
head off."



She stared at him, waiting. She knew how he felt about her, how he had
always felt about her. She knew this was difficult for him and she wasn't
making it any easier. But his misguided attempt at an intimate
relationship was strictly one-sided and she had to put a stop to it now or
whatever was left of their friendship would go right out the window.



He took a deep breath. "I made a big mistake, and I'm sorry. I guess I
just thought you needed ... that you wanted someone to ... Well, I just
wasn't thinking, that's all." He pushed back his long hair nervously. "I'm
not so good at stuff like that, and you, well, you know how I feel ..." He
stopped and looked down at his feet. "It was stupid. I'm really sorry."



She didn't say anything, letting him dangle in the wind a little longer,
letting him wonder. He looked up at her after a minute, meeting her gaze
squarely for the first time. "I don't know what else to say, Nest. I'm
sorry. Are we still friends?"



Even though he had grown taller and gotten broader through the shoulders,
she still saw him as being fourteen. There was a little-boy look and sound
to him that she thought he might never entirely escape.



"Are we?" he pressed.



She gave him a considering look. "Yes, Robert, we are. We always will be,
I hope. But we're just friends, okay? Don't try to make it into anything
else. If you do, you're just going to make me mad all over again."





He looked doubtful, but nodded anyway. "Okay." He glanced down again at
the real estate papers. "Are you going to sell the house?"



"Robert!"



"Well, that's what it looks like."



"I don't care what it looks like, it's none of your business!" Irritated
at herself for being so abrupt, she added, "Look, I haven't decided
anything yet."



He put his coffee cup in the exact center of the papers, making a ring. "I
don't think you should sell."



She snatched the cup away. "Robert ..."



"Well, I don't. I think you should let some time pass before you do
anything." He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Wait, let me
finish. My dad says you should never make any big changes right after
someone you love dies. You should wait at least a year. You should give
yourself time to grieve, to let everything settle so you know what you
really want. I don't think he's right about much, but I think he might be
right about this."



She pictured Robert's father in her mind, a spectacled, gentle man who was
employed as a chemical engineer but spent all his free time engaged in
gardening and lawn care. Robert used to call him Mr. Green Jeans and swore
that his father would have been happier if his son had been born a plant.



"Robert," she said gently, "that's very good advice."



He stared at her in surprise.



"I mean it. I'll give it some thought."



She put the coffee cups aside. Robert was annoying, but she liked him
anyway. He was funny and smart and fearless. Maybe more to the point, she
could depend on him. He had stood up for her five years earlier when her
father had come back into her life. If not for Robert, her grandfather
would never have found her trussed up in the caves below the Sinnissippi
Park cliffs. It was Robert who had come after her on the night she had
confronted her father, when it seemed she was all alone. She had knocked
the pins out from under him for his trouble, leaving him senseless on the
ground while she went on alone. But he had cared enough to follow.



She felt a momentary pang at the memory. Robert was the only real friend
she had left from those days.



"I have to go back to school tonight," she said. "How long do you have?"



He shrugged. "Day after tomorrow."



"You came all the way home from California for the weekend?"



He looked uncomfortable. "Well ..."



"To visit your parents?"



"Nest ..."



"You can't say it, can you?"



He shook his head and blushed. "No."



She nodded. "Just so you don't think I can't see through you like glass.
You just watch yourself, buster."



He looked down at his feet, embarrassed. She liked him like this—sweet
and vulnerable. "You want to walk over to Gran and Grandpa's graves with
me, put some flowers in their urns?"



He brightened at once. "Sure."



She was already heading for the hall closet. "Let me get my coat, Mr.
Smooth."



"Jeez," he said.

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