The Scions of Shannara (20 page)

“Or maybe it's simply Par,” Coll finished darkly.

They let the thought hang a moment in the silence. “The Shadowen tried to come into me,” Par said finally, then explained it to them in more detail. “It wanted to merge with me, to be a part of me. It kept saying, ‘hug me, hug me'—as if it were a lost child or something.”

“Hardly that,” Coll disputed quickly.

“More leech than lost child,” Morgan agreed.

“But what are they?” Par pressed, bits and pieces of his dreams coming back to him, flashes of insight that lacked meaning. “Where is it that they come from and what is it that they want?”

“Us,” Morgan said quietly.

“You,” Coll said.

They talked a bit longer, mulling over what little they knew of Shadowen and their interest in magic, then Coll and Morgan rose. Time for Par to rest again, they insisted. He was still sick, still weak, and he needed to get his strength back.

The Hadeshorn, Par remembered suddenly! How much time did they have before the new moon?

Coll sighed. “Four days—if you still insist on going.”

Morgan grinned from behind him. “We'll be close by if you need us. Good to see you well again, Par.”

He slipped out the door. “It is good,” Coll agreed and gripped his brother's hand tightly.

When they were gone, Par lay with his eyes open for a time, letting his thoughts nudge and push one another. Questions whispered at him, asking for answers he didn't have. He had been chased and harried from Varfleet to the Rainbow Lake, from Culhaven to Hearthstone, by the Federation and the Shadowen, by things that he had only heard about and some he hadn't even known existed. He was tired and confused; he had almost lost his life. Everything centered on his magic, and yet his magic had been virtually useless to him. He was constantly running from one thing and toward another without really understanding much of either. He felt helpless.

And despite the presence of his brother and his friends, he felt oddly alone.

His last thought before he fell asleep was that, in a way he didn't yet comprehend, he was.

 

He slept fitfully, but without dreaming, waking often amid stirrings of dissatisfaction and wariness that darted through the corridors of his mind like harried rats. Each time he came awake it was still night, until the last time when it was almost dawn, the sky beyond the curtained window brightening faintly, the room in which he lay still and gauzy. A white-robed Stor passed briefly through the room, appearing from out of the shadows like a ghost to pause at his bedside and touch his wrist and forehead with hands that were surprisingly warm before turning and disappearing back the way he had come. Par slept soundly after that, drifting far down within himself and floating undisturbed in a sea of black warmth.

When he woke again, it was raining. His eyes blinked open and he stared fixedly into the grayness of his room. He could hear the sound of the raindrops beating on the windows and roof, a steady drip and splash in the stillness. There was daylight yet; he could see it through the part in the curtains. Thunder rolled in the distance, echoing in long, uneven peals.

Gingerly, he hoisted himself up on one elbow. He saw a fire burning in a small stove that he hadn't even noticed the previous night, tucked back in the shadows. It gave a solid warmth to the room that wrapped and cradled him and made him feel secure. There was tea by his bedside and tiny cakes. He pushed himself up the rest of the way, propping himself against the headboard of his bed with his pillows and pulling the cakes and tea to him. He was famished, and he devoured the cakes in seconds. Then he drank a small portion of the tea, which had gone cold in the sitting, but was wonderful in any case.

He was midway through his third cup when the door opened soundlessly and Walker Boh appeared. His uncle paused momentarily on seeing him awake, then closed the door softly and came over to stand at his bedside. He was dressed in forest green—tunic and pants belted tight, soft leather boots unlaced and muddied, long travel cloak spotted with rain. There was rain on his bearded face as well, and his dark hair was damp against his skin.

He pushed the travel cloak back across his shoulders. “Feeling better?” he asked quietly.

Par nodded. “Much.” He set his cup aside. “I understand I have you to thank for that. You saved me from the Werebeasts. You brought me back to Hearthstone. It was your idea to bring me to Storlock. Coll and Morgan tell me that you even used magic to see to it that I stayed alive long enough to complete the journey.”

“Magic.” Walker repeated the word softly, his voice distracted. “Words and touching in combination, a sort of variation on the workings of the wishsong. My legacy from Brin Ohmsford. I haven't the curse of the fullness of her powers—only the annoyance of its shadings. Still, now and again, it does become the gift you insist it must be. I can interact with another living thing, feel its life force, sometimes find a way to strengthen it.” He paused. “I don't know if I would call it magic, though.”

“And what you did to the Werebeasts in Olden Moor when you stood up for me—was that not magic?”

His uncle's eyes shifted away from him. “I was taught that,” he said finally.

Par waited a moment, but when nothing more was forthcoming he said, “I'm grateful for all of it in any case. Thank you.”

The other man shook his head slowly. “I don't deserve your thanks. It was my fault that it happened in the first place.”

Par readjusted himself carefully against his pillows. “I seem to remember you saying that before.”

Walker moved to the far end of the bed and sat down on its edge. “If I had watched over you the way I should have, the Spider Gnomes would never have even gotten into the valley. Because I chose to distance myself from you, they did. You risked a fair amount in coming to find me in the first place; the least I could have done was to make certain that once you reached me, you would be safe. I failed to do that.”

“I don't blame you for what happened,” Par said quickly.

“But I do.” Walker rose, as restless as a cat, stalking to the windows and peering out into the rain. “I live apart because I choose to. Other men in other times made me decide that it was best. But I forget sometimes that there is a difference between disassociating and hiding. There are limits to the distances we can place between ourselves and others—because the dictates of our world don't allow for absolutes.” He looked back, his skin pale against the grayness of the day. “I was hiding myself when you came to find me. That was why you went unprotected.”

Par did not fully understand what Walker was trying to say, but he chose not to interrupt, anxious to hear more. Walker turned from the window after a moment and came back. “I haven't been to see you since you were brought here,” he said, coming to a stop at Par's bedside. “Did you know that?”

Par nodded, again keeping silent. “It wasn't that I was ignoring you. But I knew you were safe, that you would be well, and I wanted time to think. I went out into the woodlands by myself. I returned for the first time this morning. The Stors told me that you were awake, that the poison was dispelled, and I decided to come to see you.”

He broke off, his gaze shifting. When he spoke again, he chose his words carefully. “I have been thinking about the dreams.”

There was another brief silence. Par shifted uncomfortably in the bed, already beginning to feel tired. His strength would be awhile returning. Walker seemed to recognize the problem and said, “I won't be staying much longer.”

He sat down again slowly. “I anticipated that you might come to me after the dreams began. You were always impulsive. I thought about the possibility, about what I would say to you.” He paused. “We are close in ways you do not entirely understand, Par. We share the legacy of the magic; but more than that, we share a preordained future that may preclude our right to any meaningful form of self-determination.” He paused again, smiling faintly. “What I mean, Par, is that we are the children of Brin and Jair Ohmsford, heirs to the magic of the Elven house of Shannara, keepers of a trust. Remember now? It was Allanon who gave us that trust, who said to Brin when he lay dying that the Ohmsfords would safeguard the magic for generations to come until it was again needed.”

Par nodded slowly, beginning to understand now. “You believe we might be the ones for whom the trust was intended.”

“I believe it—and I am frightened by the possibility as I have never been frightened of anything in my life!” Walker's voice was a low hiss. “I am terrified of it! I want no part of the Druids and their mysteries! I want nothing to do with the Elven magic, with its demands and its treacheries! I wish only to be left alone, to live out my life in a way I believe useful and fulfilling—and that is all I wish!”

Par let his eyes drop protectively against the fury of the other man's words. Then he smiled sadly. “Sometimes the choice isn't ours, Walker.”

Walker Boh's reply was unexpected. “That was what I decided.” His lean face was hard as Par looked up again. “While I waited for you to wake, while I kept myself apart from the others, out there in the forests beyond Storlock, that was what I decided.” He shook his head. “Events and circumstances sometimes conspire against us; if we insist on inflexibility for the purpose of maintaining our beliefs, we end up compromising ourselves nevertheless. We salvage one set of principles only to forsake another. My staying hidden within the Wilderun almost cost you your life once. It could do so again. And what would that, in turn, cost me?”

Par shook his head. “You cannot hold yourself responsible for the risks I choose to take, Walker. No man can hold himself up to that standard of responsibility.”

“Oh, but he can, Par. And he must when he has the means to do so. Don't you see? If I have the means, I have the responsibility to employ them.” He shook his head sadly. “I might wish it otherwise, but it doesn't change the fact of its being.”

He straightened. “Well, I came to tell you something, and I still haven't done so. Best that I get it over with so you can rest.” He rose, pulling the damp forest cloak about him as if to ward off a chill. “I am going with you,” he said simply.

Par stiffened in surprise. “To the Hadeshorn?”

Walker Boh nodded. “To meet with Allanon's shade—if indeed it is Allanon's shade who summons us—and to hear what it will say. I make no promises beyond that, Par. Nor do I make any further concessions to your view of matters—other than to say that I think you were right in one respect. We cannot pretend that the world begins and ends at the boundaries we might make for it. Sometimes, we must acknowledge that it extends itself into our lives in ways we might prefer it wouldn't, and we must face up to the challenges it offers.”

His face was lined with emotions Par could only begin to imagine. “I, too, would like to know something of what is intended for me,” he whispered.

He reached down, his pale, lean hand fastening briefly on one of Par's. “Rest now. We have another journey ahead and only a day or two to prepare for it. Let that preparation be my responsibility. I will tell the others and come for you all when it is time to depart.”

He started away, then hesitated and smiled. “Try to think better of me after this.”

Then he was out the door and gone, and the smile belonged now to Par.

 

Walker Boh proved as good as his word. Two days later he was back, appearing shortly after sunrise with horses and provisions. Par had been out of bed and walking about for the past day and a half now, and he was much recovered from his experience in Olden Moor. He was dressed and waiting on the porch of his compound with Steff and Teel when his uncle walked out of the forest shadows with his pack train in tow into a morning clouded by fog and half-light.

“There's a strange one,” Steff murmured. “Haven't seen him for more than five minutes for the entire time we've been here. Now, back he comes, just like that. More ghost than man.” His smile was rueful and his eyes sharp.

“Walker Boh is real enough,” Par replied without looking at the Dwarf.. “And haunted by ghosts of his own.”

“Brave ghosts, I am inclined to think.”

Par glanced over now. “He still frightens you, doesn't he?”

“Frightens me?” Steff's voice was gruff as he laughed. “Hear him, Teel? He probes my armor for chinks!” He turned his scarred face briefly. “No, Valeman, he doesn't frighten me anymore. He only makes me wonder.”

Coll and Morgan appeared, and the little company prepared to depart. Stors came out to see them off, ghosts of another sort; dressed in white robes and cloaked in self-imposed silence, a perpetually anxious look on their pale faces. They gathered in groups, watchful, curious, a few coming forward to help as the members of the company mounted. Walker spoke with one or two of them, his words so quiet they could be heard by no one else. Then he was aboard with the others and facing briefly back to them.

“Good fortune to us, my friends,” he said and turned his horse west toward the plains.

Good fortune, indeed, Par Ohmsford prayed silently.

 

XIII

 

S
unlight sprayed the still surface of the Myrian Lake through breaks in the distant trees, coloring the water a brilliant red-gold and causing Wren Ohmsford to squint against its glare. Farther west, the Irrybis Mountains were a jagged black tear across the horizon that separated earth and sky and cast the first of night's shadows across the vast sprawl of the Tirfing.

Another hour, maybe a bit more, and it would be dark, she thought.

She paused at the edge of the lake and, for just a moment, let the solitude of the approaching dusk settle through her. All about, the Westland stretched away into the shimmering heat of the dying summer's day with the lazy complacency of a sleeping cat, endlessly patient as it waited for the coming of night and the cool it would bring.

She was running out of time.

She cast about momentarily for the signs she had lost some hundred yards back and found nothing. He might as well have vanished into thin air. He was working hard at this cat-and-mouse game, she decided. Perhaps she was the cause.

The thought buoyed her as she pressed ahead, slipping silently through the trees along the lake front, scanning the foliage and the earth with renewed determination. She was small and slight of build, but wiry and strong. Her skin was nut-brown from weather and sun, and her ash-blond hair was almost boyish, cut short and tightly curled against her head. Her features were Elven, sharply so, the eyebrows full and deeply slanted, the ears small and pointed, the bones of her face lending it a narrow and high-cheeked look. She had hazel eyes, and they shifted restlessly as she moved, hunting.

She found his first mistake a hundred feet or so farther on, a tiny bit of broken scrub, and his second, a boot indentation against a gathering of stones, just after. She smiled in spite of herself, her confidence growing, and she hefted the smooth quarterstaff she carried in anticipation. She would have him yet, she promised.

The lake cut into the trees ahead forming a deep cove, and she was forced to swing back to her left through a thick stand of pine. She slowed, moving more cautiously. Her eyes darted. The pines gave way to a mass of thick brush that grew close against a grove of cedar. She skirted the brush, catching sight of a fresh scrape against a tree root. He's getting careless, she thought—or wants me to think so.

She found the snare at the last moment, just as she was about to put her foot into it. Its lines ran from a carefully concealed noose back into a mass of brush and from there to a stout sapling, bent and tied. Had she not seen it, she would have been yanked from her feet and left dangling.

She found the second snare immediately after, better concealed and designed to catch her avoiding the first. She avoided that one, too, and now became even more cautious.

Even so, she almost missed seeing him in time when he swung down out of the maple not more than fifty yards farther on. Tired of trying to lose her in the woods, he had decided to finish matters in a quicker manner. He dropped silently as she slipped beneath the old shade tree, and it was only her instincts that saved her. She sprang aside as he landed, bringing the quarterstaff about and catching him alongside his great shoulders with an audible thwack. Her attacker shrugged off the blow, coming to his feet with a grunt. He was huge, a man of formidable size who appeared massive in the confines of the tiny forest clearing. He leaped at Wren, and she used the quarterstaff to vault quickly away from him. She slipped on landing, and he was on top of her with a swiftness that was astonishing. She rolled, using the staff to block him, came up underneath with the makeshift dagger and jammed the flat of its blade against his belly.

The sun-browned, bearded face shifted to find her own, and the deepset eyes glanced downward. “You're dead, Garth,” she told him, smiling. Then her fingers came up to make the signs.

The giant Rover collapsed in mock submission before rolling over and climbing to his feet. Then he smiled, too. They brushed themselves off and stood grinning at each other in the fading light. “I'm getting better, aren't I?” Wren asked, signing with her hands as she spoke the words.

Garth replied soundlessly, his fingers moving rapidly in the language he had taught her. “Better, but not yet good enough,” she translated. Her smile broadened as she reached out to clasp his arm. “Never good enough for you, I suspect. Otherwise, you would be out of a job!”

She picked up the quarterstaff and made a mock feint that caused the other to jump back in alarm. They fenced for a moment, then broke it off and started back toward the lakeshore. There was a small clearing just beyond the cove, not more than half an hour away, that offered an ideal campsite for the night. Wren had noticed it during the hunt and made for it now.

“I'm tired and I ache and I have never felt better,” the girl said cheerfully as they walked, enjoying the last of the day's sunlight on her back, breathing in the smells of the forest, feeling alive and at peace. She sang a bit, humming some songs of the Rovers and the free life, of the ways that were and the ways that would be. Garth trailed along, a silent shadow at her back.

They found the campsite, built a fire, prepared and ate their dinner, and began trading drinks from a large leather aleskin. The night was warm and comforting, and Wren Ohmsford's thoughts wandered contentedly. They had another five days allotted to them before they were expected back. She enjoyed her outings with Garth; they were exciting and challenging. The big Rover was the best of teachers—one who let his students learn from experience. No one knew more than he did about tracking, concealment, snares, traps, and tricks of all sorts in the fine art of staying alive. He had been her mentor from the first. She had never questioned why he chose her; she had simply felt grateful that he had.

She listened momentarily to the sounds of the forest, trying to visualize out of habit what she heard moving in the dark. It was a strenuous, demanding life she led, but she could no longer imagine leading any other. She had been born a Rover girl and lived with them for all but the very early years of her youth when she had resided in the Southland hamlet of Shady Vale with her cousins, the Ohmsfords. She had been back in the Westland for years now, traveling with Garth and the others, the ones who had claimed her after her parents died, taught her their ways, and showed her their life. All of the Westland belonged to the Rovers, from the Kershalt to the Irrybis, from the Valley of Rhenn to the Blue Divide. Once, it had belonged to the Elves as well. But the Elves were all gone now, disappeared. They had passed back into legend, the Rovers said. They bad lost interest in the world of mortal beings and gone back into faerie.

Some disputed it. Some said that the Elves were still there, hidden. She didn't know about the truth of that. She only knew that what they had abandoned was a wilderness paradise.

Garth passed her the aleskin and she drank deeply, then handed it back again. She was growing sleepy. Normally, she drank little. But she was feeling especially proud of herself tonight. It wasn't often that she got the best of Garth.

She studied him momentarily, thinking of how much he had come to mean to her. Her time in Shady Vale seemed long ago and far away, although she remembered it well enough. And the Ohmsfords, especially Par and Coll—she still thought about them. They had been her only family once. But it felt as if all that might have happened in another life. Garth was her family now, her father, mother, and brother all rolled into one, the only real family she knew anymore. She was tied to him in ways she had never been tied to anyone else. She loved him fiercely.

Nevertheless, she admitted, she sometimes felt detached from everyone, even him—orphaned and homeless, a stray shunted from one family to the next without belonging to anyone, having no idea at all who she really was. It bothered her that she didn't know more about herself and that no one else seemed to know either. She had asked often enough, but the explanations were always vague. Her father had been an Ohmsford. Her mother had been a Rover. It was unclear how they had died. It was uncertain what had become of any other members of her immediate family. It was unknown who her ancestors bad been.

She possessed, in fact, but one item that offered any clue at all as to who she was. It was a small leather bag she wore tied about her neck that contained three perfectly formed stones. Elfstones, one might have thought—until one looked more closely and saw that they were just common rocks painted blue. But they had been found on her as a baby and they were all she had to suggest the heritage that might be hers.

Garth knew something about the matter, she suspected. He had told her that he didn't when she had asked once, but there was something in the way he had made his disavowal that convinced her he was hedging. Garth kept secrets better than most, but she knew him too well to be fooled completely. Sometimes, when she thought about it, she wanted to shake an answer out of him, angry and frustrated at his refusal to be as open with her in this as he was in everything else. But she kept her anger and her frustration to herself. You didn't push Garth. When he was ready to tell her, he would.

She shrugged as she always ended up doing whenever she considered the matter of her family history. What difference did it make? She was who she was, whatever her lineage. She was a Rover girl with a life that most would envy, if they bothered to be honest about it. The whole world belonged to her, because she was tied to no part of it. She could go where she wanted and do what she pleased, and that was more than most could say. Besides, many of her fellow Rovers were of dubious parentage, and you never heard them complain. They reveled in their freedom, in their ability to lay claim to anything and anyone that caught their fancy. Wasn't that good enough for her as well?

She stirred the dirt in front of her with her boot. Of course, none of them were Elven, were they? None of them had the Ohmsford-Shannara blood, with its history of Elven magic. None of them were plagued by the dreams . . .

Her hazel eyes shifted abruptly as she became aware of Garth looking at her. She signed some innocuous response, thinking as she did so that none of the other Rovers had been as thoroughly trained to survive as she had and wondering why.

They drank a little more of the ale, built the fire up again, and rolled into their blankets. Wren lay awake longer than she wished to, caught up in the unanswered questions and unresolved puzzles that marked her life. When she did sleep, she tossed restlessly beneath her blankets, teased by fragments of dreams that slipped from her like raindrops through her fingers in a summer storm and were forgotten as quickly.

It was dawn when she came awake, and the old man was sitting across from her, poking idly at the ashes of the fire with a long stick. “It's about time,” he snorted.

She blinked in disbelief, then started sharply out of her blankets. Garth was still sleeping, but awoke with the suddenness of her movement. She reached for the quarterstaff at her side, her thoughts scattering into questions. Where had this old man come from? How had he managed to get so close without waking them?

The old man lifted one sticklike arm reassuringly, saying, “Don't be getting yourself all upset. Just be grateful I let you sleep.”

Garth was on his feet as well now, crouched, but to Wren's astonishment the old man began speaking to the Rover in his own language, signing, telling him what he had already told Wren, and adding that he meant no harm. Garth hesitated, obviously surprised, then sat back watchfully.

“How did you know to do that?” Wren demanded. She had never seen anyone outside the Rover camp master Garth's language.

“Oh, I know a thing or two about communication,” the old man replied gruffly, a self-satisfied smile appearing. His skin was weather-browned and seamed, his white hair and beard wispy, his lank frame scarecrow-thin. A gathering of dusty gray robes hung loosely about him. “For instance,” he said, “I know that messages may be sent by writing on paper, by word of mouth, by use of hands . . .” He paused. “Even by dreams.”

Wren caught her breath sharply. “Who are you?”

“Well, now,” the old man said, “that seems to be everyone's favorite question. My name doesn't matter. What matters is that I have been sent to tell you that you can no longer afford to ignore your dreams. Those dreams, Rover girl, come from Allanon.”

As he spoke he signed to Garth, repeating his words with the language of his fingers, as dexterous at the skill as if he had known it all his life. Wren was aware of the big Rover looking at her, but she couldn't take her eyes off the old man. “How do you know of the dreams?” she asked him softly.

He told her who he was then, that he was Cogline, a former Druid pressed back into service because the real Druids were gone from the Four Lands and there was no other who could go to the members of the Ohmsford family and warn them that the dreams were real. He told her that Allanon's ghost had sent him to convince her of the purpose of the dreams, to persuade her that they spoke the truth, that the Four Lands were in gravest danger, that the magic was almost lost, that only the Ohmsfords could restore it, and that they must come to him on the first night of the new moon to discover what must be done. He finished by saying that he had gone first to Par Ohmsford, then to Walker Boh—recipients of the dreams as well—and now finally he had come to her.

When he was done, she sat thinking for a moment before speaking. “The dreams have troubled me for some time now,” she confessed. “I thought them dreams like any other and nothing more. The Ohmsford magic has never been a part of my life . . .”

“And you question whether or not you are an Ohmsford at all,” the old man interrupted. “You are not certain, are you? If you are not an Ohmsford, then the magic has no part in your life—which might be just as well as far as you're concerned, mightn't it?”