The Talismans of Shannara

Chapter Twenty

Walker Boh buried Cogline in the woods below Paranor, laying him to rest in a glade cooled by a stream that meandered through a series of shallow rapids, a glade sheltered by oaks and hickories whose leafy branches dappled a carpet of wildflowers and green grasses with shadowy patterns that would shift and change each day with the sun’s passage west. It was a setting that reminded Walker of the hidden glens at Hearthstone where they had both loved to walk. He chose a place near the center of the glade where the spires of Paranor could be clearly seen. Cogline, who to the end had thought of himself as a Druid gone astray, had come home for good.

When he was finished with the old man, Walker stayed in the clearing. He was battered and worn, but the wounds that were deepest were those he couldn’t see, and it gave him a measure of comfort to stand amid the ancient trees and breathe the forest air. Birds sang, a wind rustled the leaves and grasses, the stream rippled, and the sounds were soothing and peaceful. He didn’t want to go back into Paranor just yet. He didn’t want to go up past the blackened, charred remains of the Four Horsemen and their serpent mounts. What he wanted was to wipe away everything that had happened in his life like chalk from a board and start over. There was a bitterness within him that he could not resolve, which gnawed and scratched at him with the persistence of a hungry animal and refused to be chased. The bitterness had many sources—he did not care to list them.

Mostly, of course, he was bitter with himself. He was always bitter with himself these days, it seemed, a stranger come out of nowhere, a man whose identity he barely recognized, an all-too-willing pawn for the wants and needs of old men a thousand years gone.

He sat in the glade by the stream, staring back across the clearing and the patch of fresh-turned earth where Cogline lay, and forced himself to remember the old man. His bitterness needed a balm; perhaps memories of the old man would provide it. He took a moment to splash handfuls of the stream’s cold water on his face, cleansing it of the dirt and ash and blood, then positioned himself in a patch of sun and let his thoughts drift.

Walker remembered Cogline as a teacher mostly, as the man who had come to him when his life had been jumbled and confused, when he had abandoned the Races to live in isolation at Hearthstone where he would not be stared at and whispered about, where he would not be known as the Dark Uncle. The magic had been a mystery to Walker then, the legacy of the wishsong come down through the years from Brin Ohmsford in a tangle of threads he could not unravel. Cogline had shown him ways in which he could control the magic so that he no longer would feel helpless before it. Cogline had taught him how to focus his life so that he was master of the white heat that roiled within. He removed the fear and the confusion, and he gave back to Walker a sense of purpose and self-respect.

The old man had been his friend. He had cared about him, had looked after him in ways that on reflection Walker knew were the ways that a father looked after a son. He had instructed and guided and been present when he was needed. Even when Walker was grown, and there was that distance between them that comes when fathers and sons must regard themselves as equals without ever quite believing it, Cogline stayed close in whatever ways Walker would allow. They had fought and argued, mistrusted and accused, and challenged each other to do what was right and not what was easy. But they had never given up on or forsaken each other; they had never despaired of their friendship. It helped Walker now to know that was so.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that the old man had lived other lives before this one, some of which Walker still barely knew about. Cogline had been young once. What had that been like? The old man had never said. He had studied with the Druids—with Allanon, with Bremen, with those who had gone before, perhaps, though he had never really said. How old was Cogline? How long had he been alive? Walker realized suddenly that he didn’t know. Cogline had been an old man when Kimber Boh was a child and Brin Ohmsford came into Darklin Reach in search of the Ildatch. That was three hundred years ago. Walker knew about Cogline then; the old man had talked about that period of time, about the child he had raised, about the madness he had feigned and then embraced, about how he had led Brin and her companions to the Maelmord to put an end to the Mord Wraiths. Walker had heard those stories; yet it was such a small piece of the old man’s life to know—one day of a year’s time. What of all the rest? What parts of his life had Cogline failed to reveal—what parts that were now lost forever?

Walker shook his head and stared out across the trees at Paranor. Parts that the old man had not minded losing, he decided. Walker could not begrudge that Cogline had chosen to keep them secret. It was that way with everyone’s life. All people kept parts of who and what they were and how they had lived to themselves, things that belonged only to them, things that no one else was meant to share. At death, those things were dark holes in the memories of those who lived on, but that was the way it must be.

He pictured the old man’s whiskered face. He listened for the sound of his voice in the silence. Cogline had lived a long time. He had lived any number of lives. He had lived longer than he should have, spared at Hearthstone to come into Paranor and see it brought back again, and he had died in the way he chose, giving up his own life so that Walker could keep his. It would be wrong for Walker to regret that gift, because in regretting it he was necessarily diminishing its worth. Cogline had lived to see him transformed into the Druid the old man had never become. He had lived to see him through growing up to the dreams of Allanon and the fulfillment of Brin Ohmsford’s trust. Whether it was for good or bad, Walker had gotten safely through because of Cogline.

He felt some of the bitterness beginning to fade. The bitterness was wrong. Regrets were wrong. They were chains that bound you tight and dragged you down. Nothing good could come of them. What was needed was balance and perspective if the future was to have meaning. Walker could remember—and should. But memories were for shaping what would come, for taking the possibilities that lay ahead and turning them to the uses for which they were intended. He thought again of the Druids and their machinations, of the ways they had shaped the history of the Races. He had despised their efforts. Now he was one of them. Cogline had lived and died so that he could be so. The chance was his to do better what he had been so quick to criticize in those who had gone before. He must make the most of that chance. Cogline would expect him to do so.

The sun was slipping beneath the canopy of the forest west when he rose and stood a final time before the ground in which the old man lay. He was better reconciled to what had happened than before, more at peace with the hard fact of it. Cogline was gone. Walker remained. He would take strength and courage and resolve from the old man’s example. He would carry his memory in his heart.

With the light turning crimson and gold and purple in the haze of summer heat, he made his way back through the darkening forests to Paranor.

That night he dreamed of Allanon.

It was the first time he had done so since Hearthstone. His sleep was deep and sound, and the dream did not wake him though he thought afterward it might have come close once or twice. He was exhausted from his struggle, and he had eaten little. He had bathed, changed, then drank a cup of ale as he sat within the study that Cogline had favored. Rumor lay curled up at his feet, the luminous eyes glancing toward him now and then as if to ask what had become of the old man. When he had grown so tired he could barely hold himself upright, he had gone to his sleeping chamber, crawled beneath the blankets, and let himself drift away.

The dream seemed to come instantly. It was night, and he walked alone upon the shiny black rock that littered the floor of the Valley of Shale. The sky was clear and filled with stars. A full moon shone white as fresh linen against the jagged ridge of the Dragon’s Teeth. The air smelled clean and new as it had of old, and a wind brushed his face with a cooling touch. Walker was dressed in black, robe and cowl, belt and boots, a Druid passing in the wake of Druids gone before. He did not question who he was, come out of the darkness of the Black Elfstone, come through the fire of the transformation in the well of the Keep, come back into the world of men. He was master of Paranor and servant to the Races. It was a strange, exhilarating feeling. The feeling seemed to belong.

Languid moments slipped past in the dream and then he neared the Hadeshorn, its waters black and still in the night. Like glass the lake shone in the moonlight, smooth and polished, reflecting the sky and the stars. The stone crunched beneath his feet as he walked, but beyond that single sound there was only silence. It was as if he were alone in the world, the last man to walk it, keeper of a solitary vigil over the emptiness that remained.

He reached the Hadeshorn and stopped, standing perfectly still at its edge. The wind died as he did so, and the silence pressed in about him. He reached up and pulled back the hood of his cloak; he did not know why. Head bared, he waited.

The wait lasted only a moment. Almost instantly the Hadeshorn began to churn, its waters boiling as if heated in a kettle. Then they began to swirl, a slow and steady clockwise sweep that extended from shoreline to shoreline. Walker recognized what was happening. He had seen it happen before. The Hadeshorn hissed, and spray lifted in geysers that towered above the surface and fell away in a tumble of diamonds. Wailing began, the sound of voices trapped in a faraway place, begging for release. The valley shuddered as if recognizing the cries, as if cringing away from them. Walker Boh held his ground.

Then Allanon appeared, rising out of the black waters to a chorus of cries, a cloaked and hooded gray ghost come out of the netherworld to speak with the man who had been chosen as his successor. He shimmered as he rose, translucent in the moonlight, the flesh and bone of his mortal body faded into dust long ago, a pale image of who he had been. He ascended from the depths until he stood upon the surface of the waters, there to settle into stillness facing out at Walker Boh.

“Allanon,” the Dark Uncle greeted in a voice he did not recognize as his own.

—You have done well, Walker Boh—

The voice was deep and sonorous, welling up from far inside some cavernous space within the shade.

Walker Boh shook his head. “Not so well. Only adequately. I have done what I must. I have given up who I was for who you would have me be. I was angry at first that it should be so, but I have put that anger behind me.”

The waters of the Hadeshorn roiled and hissed anew as the shade came forward, gliding on the surface without seeming to move. It stopped when it was within ten feet of Walker.

—Life is a time for making choices, Walker Boh. Death is a time for remembering how we chose. Sometimes the memories are not always pleasant—

Walker nodded. “I know that it must be so.”

—Are you sad for Cogline—

Walker nodded again. “But that, too, is behind me. The choices he made were good ones. Even this last.”

The shade’s arm lifted, trailing a glitter of spray that fell away like silver dust.

—I could not save him. Even Druids do not have the power to stay death. I was told by Bremen when my time was near. Cogline was told by me. I gave him what help I could—a chance to come back into the Four Lands with Paranor restored—a chance to help you one last time in your battle with the Shadowen. It was all I could do—

Walker did not speak, staring at the apparition, staring right through him, looking far away at events come and gone, at Cogline’s final stand. Death had claimed the old man, but it had claimed him on his terms.

—If I could, I would give you back all those you have lost, Walker Boh. But I cannot. I can give you nothing of what is gone and nothing of what will yet be lost. A Druid’s life sees many passings—

In his dream the valley was darkened by a wash of mistiness that swept like rain through a forest or clouds across the sun. It was a slow, soft passage, and it carried with it a sense that lives had come into being and run their course, all in a matter of seconds. There were faces, all unknown; there were voices that called out in laughter and pain. Time stretched away, hours to days, days to years, and Walker was there, unchanged, through it all, constantly left behind, eternally alone.

—It will be like that for you. Remember—

But Walker did not need to remember. He had Allanon’s memories for that. The transformation had given them to him. He had the memories of all the Druids who had gone before. He knew what his life would be like. He understood what he was facing.

—Remember—

The shade’s whisper brought time to a halt again, the Valley of Shale back into focus, and the flow of Walker’s thoughts to bear on the dream’s intent once more.

“Why am I here, Allanon?” he asked.

—You are complete now, Walker Boh. You have become what you were intended to be, and there is nothing more that remains to be done. You bear the Druid mantle; you will wear it in my stead. Carry it now from Paranor into the Four Lands. You are needed there—

“I know.”

Spray hissed and sang. Allanon’s hooded face lowered.

—You do not know. You are transformed, Walker Boh, but that is only the beginning. You have become a Druid, yes—but becoming is not being. Yours is the responsibility of the Races, of their well-being, Dark Uncle. Those from whom you once sought to isolate yourself must now be your charge. They wait—

“To be free of the Shadowen.”

—For you to show them how to be free. For you to set them on the path. For you to guide them from the darkness—

Walker Boh shook his head, confused. “But I don’t know the way any better than they do.”

The surface of the Hadeshorn steamed, and the air was filled with mist. The dampness settled on Walker’s face like the chill of an early winter’s morning. It was death to touch the waters of the Hadeshorn, but not for him. For the Druids had discovered secrets long ago that enabled them to transcend death.

Allanon’s voice was dark and certain.

—You will find the way. You have the strength and the wisdom of all those who have gone before. You have the magic of the ages. Take yourself out from Paranor and find the other children of Shannara. Each of you was sent to fulfill a charge. Each of you has done so. You are bearers of talismans, Walker Boh. Those talismans shall sustain you—

Walker shook his head in confusion. “What talisman do I bear?”

The shade of Allanon shimmered momentarily in a wailing of cries that rose out of the lake, threatening to disappear.

—The most powerful talisman of all: the Druid mantle which you have assumed. It can never be seen, but it is always there and it is yours alone. Its power increases as you wield it; it strengthens with each use. Think, Walker Boh. Before you fought and destroyed the Horsemen, you were less than what you are now. So shall it be with each challenge you face and overcome. You are in your infancy, and you are just beginning to discover what it is to be a Druid. With time, you will grow—

“But for now...?”

—The charges are enough. The charges yield talismans, and the talismans yield magic. Magic combined with knowledge shall see the end of the Shadowen. It was thus when I first spoke to you. It is thus now. If I could, I would give you more, Walker Boh. But I have given you all I can, all that I know. Remember, Dark Uncle. I am gone from your world and placed within another. I am without substance. I am now of other things. I see imperfectly from where I stand. I see only shadows of what would be and must rely on those. Yours is the vision that can be relied upon. Go, Walker. Find the scions of Shannara and discover what they have done. In their stories and in your own you will find what you need. You must believe—

Walker said nothing then, thinking for a moment that he was being asked once again to proceed on faith alone. But, of course, that was what he had been doing ever since the dreams had first appeared to him and he had been persuaded to travel to the Hadeshorn and Allanon. Was it really so difficult to accept that faith must guide him anew?

He looked at the pale figure before him, all lines about transparency, all memories of life gone before. “I believe,” he said to Allanon’s shade, and meant it.

—Walker Boh—

The shade’s voice was soft and filled.with regrets that words could not speak.

—find the children of Shannara. You have the Druid sight. You have the wisdom they need. Do not fail them—

“No,” Walker said hoarsely. “I will not.”

—Put an end to the Shadowen before they destroy the Four Lands completely. I feel their sickness spreading even here. They steal the earth’s life. Stop them, Walker Boh—

“Yes, Allanon, I will.”

—Bend to me then, Dark Uncle. Bend to me one final time before you go. Sleep carries us towards daybreak, and we must travel different paths. Hear the last of what I would tell you, and let your wisdom and your reason divine what remains concealed from us both. Bend to me, Walker Boh, and listen—

The shade approached, steam upon the waters of the Hadeshorn in human shape, a cloaking of mist and gray light, a wraith formed of sounds come out of terrifying darkness.

Tense and uncertain, Walker Boh waited, eyes lowered to the boiling waters, to the reflection of stars and sky, until both disappeared in the blackness of shadow.

Then he felt the other’s touch against his skin, and he shuddered uncontrollably.

He came awake at sunrise, the light a faint creeping from the hallway beyond his darkened room. He lay without moving for a time, thinking of the dream and what it had shown him. Allanon had sent the dream so that he would have a place to begin his new life. The dream had reinforced his intention to seek out Par and Wren, but it had also given him reason to believe in himself. He could accept who and what he had become if there was at least a chance that he could bring the ravaged lands and their people safely out of the Shadowen thrall.

Find the children of Shannara. Do not fail them.

He rose then from his bed, washed, dressed, and ate breakfast on the castle battlements looking out over the land in the light of the new day. He thought again of Cogline, of all that the old man had taught him. He recited to himself the litany of rules and understandings that his transformation from mortal man to Druid had given him, the whole of the history of the Druids come and gone. He worked his way carefully through the teachings of his magic’s use—some already put to the test, some that remained untried.

Last of all, he recounted the events of the dream and the secrets it had shown him. And there had been secrets—a few, important ones, there at the last, when Allanon had touched him. What he had learned was already beginning to suggest answers to his heretofore-unanswered questions. The whole of the history of the Four Lands since the time of the First Council at Paranor formed a pattern for what was happening now. The events of weeks past gave color and shape to that pattern. But it was the dream and the insights with which it provided him that thrust that pattern into the light where it could be clearly seen.

What was missing still was the reason that Wren had been charged with bringing back the Elves.

What was missing was the reason Par had been sent to find the Sword of Shannara.

Most of all what was missing was the truth behind the secret of the Shadowen power.

He rose finally and went down into the depths of the castle, Rumor trailing silently, a shadow at his back. He would take the moor cat with him, he decided. Cogline had given him the cat, after all; it was his responsibility to see that it was looked after. It could not be left locked up within the Keep, and the closeness they shared might prove useful. He smiled as he examined his thinking. The truth was that Rumor would provide a little of the companionship he would miss without Cogline.

Down into the well of the Keep he descended, there to place his hands on the walls of stone, reaching inward to the life that rested there. The magic came to him, obedient to his summons, and he set in place a bar to any but himself so that none could enter until he returned.

Then he closed Paranor’s gates and went out into the world again. He went down from the bluff and into the forests where the heat was screened away and it was shady and cool. Rumor went with him, grateful to be free again of the confining walls, slipping into the shadows to forage and track, returning now and again to Walker’s side to be certain he was still there. They traveled north of the place where Cogline lay, and Walker did not turn aside. He had said goodbye already to the old man; it was best to leave it at that.

The day eased away toward nightfall, the sun’s fiery glare slipping west toward the Dragon’s Teeth, the heat dissipating slowly into the cool of the evening shadows. Walker and the moor cat traveled steadily on. Ahead, the watch fires of the Federation soldiers camped within the Kennon Pass were lit, meals were consumed, and guards sent to their posts.

By midnight Walker and the cat had slipped by them unseen and were on their way south.