6. John Ross

AKA: Knight of the Word

Featured In: The Word and Void Trilogy by Terry Brooks

Biography: Nothing is written of John Ross's childhood. His story begins in his days as a post graduate who is unsure of what to do with himself. During his travels through Great Britain he discovers a place in Betwys-y-Coed, Wales called the Fairy Glen. There he meets The Lady. The Lady is a representative of the Word (the collective forces of good) and she recruits John to fight to keep the balance between the Word and the Void (the collective forces of evil). She names him a Knight of the Word, one of the Word's most elite soldiers. After he returns home, he regrets agreeing to become a Knight and attempts to turn down the staff which represents his office when it is presented to him by a Sinnissippi indian called O'olish Amaneh. When John finally accepts, O'olish Amaneh cripples him so that he will always have to keep the staff near him. The staff is a magical weapon as well as a symbol, allowing John to fight the agents of the Void he encounters. However, its magic is not limitless and every time he uses it in the present there will be a point in the future that it will not work. Along with the staff John also receives prophetic dreams of a Void controlled future which provide him with clues to what mission the Word needs him to undertake and the consequences should he fail. During early July of 1997 John is drawn to Hopewell, Ilinois and a fourteen year old girl with magical powers named Nest Freemark. His dreams have shown him that her father is a demon and he is coming to claim her so that she will serve the Void. John must prevent him from doing so or kill Nest before she can become the powerful demon he sees in his dreams. During his time in Hopewell, John also attempts a relationship with a local woman named Josie. On July 4th, John and Nest confront the demon who releases an evil monster called a maentrog from an old tree. The battle saps John's strength and he cannot help Nest in her final battle with her father. Her spirit guardian, Wraith, kills the demon even though it was his creation. The change was due to the magical interference of her grandmother. John leaves on a bus the next day. Five years later, John botches a mission which results in the deaths of several children and attempts to forsake his service to the Word. He moves to Seattle, works for a man named Simon Lawrence (a local philanthropist), and begins dating a woman named Stephanie. His dreams are still present but now they are infrequent, including one in which a horrific part of the future occurs because he kills his boss. Around Halloween of 2002, the Word recruits Nest, now a nineteen-year-old college student and Olympic bound track runner, to convince him to return to his duties before he falls to the Void. If she can't, the Word has also sent O'olish Amaneh to kill him. John is framed for embezzlement and fired by "Simon" who then morphs into a demon and flees. John repents, takes back his office as Knight of the Word, and goes to kill him. Nest intercepts him with the information that the demon he saw is actually Stephanie. She used her shapeshifting abilities to forge the checks that were the evidence against John and to convince him that Simon was the demon. She hoped he would unwittingly kill Simon, an innocent, and complete his turn to the Void. Together, Nest (with the help of Wraith) and John destroy her. Ten years later, during the summer of 2012, John has a vision which instructs him to prepare for the coming of a Gypsy morph. The morph is a powerful construct formed from a rare magical conversion. John is instructed to capture it when it appears and help it to assume a final form before it dissipates in a month. The Lady tells him that if he succeeds, his service to the Word will be finished. In late November, the Morph matierializes and John captures it. After assuming many forms in quick succesion it stays in form of a young boy who speaks only the word, "Nest". Findo Gask, the powerful demon tracking John, hears this and realizes that they will be headed back to Hopewell. He beats them there and trys to warn Nest (now a twenty-nine-year-old, divorced woman and a retired Olympic gold medal winning track star) off, but she welcomes John and the strange little boy anyway. Gask does not realize at first that the child is the morph so he tries many tricks, including the forced suicide of Nest's childhood friend to discourage her and flush John and the morph out. He finally resorts to kidnapping both the morph and Harper, the child of Nest's friend. When John goes to rescue them he is poisoned by Gask and his accomplices. He manages to help Nest and Wraith defeat the Gask's henchmen as Gask himself realizes that he has had the morph all along. Ross distracts him long enough for Nest to figure out that the morph wants to take the form of an unborn child with her as his mother and complete the transformation. Gask assumes the morph dissipated and leaves. John dies of the poison while having a final vision of The Lady, who welcomes him home.

Why He is On the List: Most other fantasy heroes get showered in gold and glory. My attraction to John was that he didn't. He got a lifetime of hard work and there was a good chance that nothing he did would do any good in the long run. It was the first time I'd ever picked up a story with that kind of hero and it hooked me instantly. It hooked me so much that I kept reading when I found out that these books were prequels to the many Shannara series, which I dislike. It even got me to think about giving the Shannara books another chance. That's the mark of a truly great piece of work. I would tell any fantasy fan to read all three Word and Void books so they could fall just as in love with John Ross as I did.

Quotes: (The first and last quotes come from A Knight of the Word. The second is from Running With the Demon. The third and fourth are from Angel Fire East)

"Was he still, in the ways that mattered, a Knight of the Word? Did he possess courage and strength of will in sufficient measure that they would sustain him in the battle that lay ahead? He could not tell, could not know without putting it to the test. By placing himself in harm's way he would discover how much remained to him of the power that was once his. He did not think that it would be enough to save his life, but he hoped that it might be enough to destroy the enemy who had undone him."

"Who are you?" he asked impulsively
The man didn't move. "Owain. And you?"
"John Ross. I'm, uh, traveling about, seeing a little of the world. I was in graduate studies for a number of years, English and Ancient Civilizations, but I, uh,...I needed..."
"To come here," the man said quickly. "To come to the Fairy Glen. To see if the fairies were real. That is what you needed. Still need, for that matter. So, will you come, then? As I suggested? Come at night and see them for yourself?"
Ross stared at him, groping for an answer. "Yes," he said finally, the word spoken before he could think better of it.

"Fifeteen years later, and she still made him feel like this. A sweet ache filled him, then a small whisper of despair. No matter how she made him feel, it would still end in the same way."

"Bereft of family and friends, of loved ones, of relationships, of an existence of the sort other people enjoyed, he was one of the homeless he had worked with years before in Seattle. It was only natural, he supposed, the he should want those things that others had and he did not."

"I don't mean to argue with you on this, but you can't know what it's like if you're not me. You don't have to live with the dreams. You don't have to live with the responsibility for what happens if they come true." He shook his head. "It's a special kind of hell."

Fascinating Fact: Being a Knight of the Word runs in John's family. His ancestor, Owain Glyndwyr, was also chosen to become one.