First King of Shannara (27 page)

“Bremen,” he said softly.

From behind him, he heard a strange chittering sound, and the moor cat cocked its massive head in response. The sound came again, and now Kinson realized that its source was Bremen. The moor cat licked its muzzle, made a similar noise in response, turned, and walked away.

Bremen came up beside the stunned Borderman and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “That's Cogline's cat. I'd say we're close to our man, wouldn't you?”

They walked out of the stand of fir, crossed a glade bisected by a meandering stream, and angled past a massive old white oak. All the while the moor cat padded on ahead, neither hurrying nor lagging, seemingly disinterested, but at the same time letting them keep it in sight. Kinson looked questioningly at Mareth, but she shook her head. Apparently, she didn't know any more about this than he did.

Finally they reached a broad clearing in which a small cabin had been built. The cabin was rustic and weathered, badly in need of repairs, pieces of clapboard siding come loose, shutters off their hinges, planks on the narrow porch splintered and cracked. The roof looked solid enough and the chimney was sound, but a vegetable garden planted just south was in disarray and weeds nuzzled the cabin foundation expectantly. A man stood in front of the cabin waiting for them, and Kinson knew at once from Mareth's description of him that this was Cogline. He was tall and stooped, a bony, ragged figure, rather disheveled and unkempt, in clothes that looked to be in about the same shape as the cabin. His hair was dark, but shot through with gray, and it stuck out from his angular head like a hedgehog's spines. A narrow, pointed beard jutted from his chin, and a mustache drooped off his upper lip. Lines creased his weathered face, furrows that marked more than the passing of his years. He put his hands on his hips and let them come to him, a broad smile twisting his face.

“Well, well, well!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “The girl from Storlock comes calling. Wouldn't have thought to see you again. You've got more spunk than I'd given you credit for. Found the true master of the lore, too, have you? Well met, Bremen of Paranor!”

“Well met, Cogline,” Bremen replied, extending his hand, letting the other clasp it momentarily in his own. “Sent your cat to greet us, I see. What's his name? Shifter? Startled my friend so badly he may have lost five years off his life.”

“Hah, we have the remedy for that, and if that's Kinson Ravenlock who's with you, he probably knows it already!” Cogline gave the Borderman a wave. “Druid Sleep will give you back those years in a blink!” He cocked his angular face. “You know what the cat's for, my friend?” Kinson shook his head. “He screens out unwelcome guests, which includes just about everyone. The only ones who get this far are the ones who know how to talk to him. Bremen knows how, don't you, old man?”

Bremen laughed. “Old man? Pot and the kettle there, wouldn't you say?”

“I wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't say no. So the girl found you, did she? Took her long enough. Mareth, isn't it?” Cogline bowed slightly. “Lovely name for a lovely girl. Hope you drove all those Druids to distraction and a bad end.”

Bremen came forward a step. The smile disappeared from his face. “The Druids found a bad end all on their own, I'm afraid. Not two weeks past, Cogline. They're all dead at Paranor save myself and two more. Hadn't you heard?”

The other man stared at him as if he were mad, then shook his head. “Not a word. But I haven't been out of the valley for a while either. All dead? You're certain of that, are you?”

Bremen reached into his robes and brought forth the Eilt Druin. He held it up for the other to see, letting it dangle in the light.

Cogline screwed up his mouth. “Sure enough. You wouldn't have possession of that if Athabasca lived. All dead, you say? Shades! What did them in? Him, was it?”

Bremen nodded. There was no need to speak the name. Cogline shook his head again, folded his arms across his chest, and hugged himself. “I didn't wish that for them. I never wished that. But they were fools, Bremen, and you know it. They built up their walls and closed up their gates and forgot their purpose. They drove us out, the only two who had an ounce of sense, the only two who understood what mattered. Galaphile would have been ashamed of them. But all dead? Shades!”

“We've come to talk about it,” Bremen said quietly.

The other's sharp eyes snapped up to meet those of the old man. “Of course you did. You came all this way to give me the news and talk about it. Kind of you. Well, we know each other, don't we? One old, the other older. One a renegade, the other a castoff. Neither one the least bit devious. Hah!”

Cogline's chuckle was dry and mirthless. He looked at the ground a moment, then his gaze swept up to Kinson. “Say, Tracker—you see the other one on your way in, sharp-eyed as you are?”

Kinson hesitated. “Other what?”

“Hah! Thought so! Other cat, that's what! Didn't see it?” Cogline snorted. “Well, all I can say is, it's a good thing Bremen likes you or you'd probably be someone's meal by now!” He chuckled, then lost interest and threw up his hands. “Well, come on, come on! No point standing around out here. There's food waiting on the fire. I suppose you'll want a bath, too. More work for me, not that it matters to you. But I'm a good host, aren't I? Come on!”

Mumbling and grousing, he turned and loped up the steps and into the cabin, his visitors trailing obediently behind.

 

They washed themselves and their clothes, dried as best they could, dressed anew, and were sitting down to dinner by the time the sun set. The sky turned orange and gold, then crimson, and finally an indigo-amethyst that left even Kinson staring out through the screen of the trees in amazement. The meal Cogline served them was better than the Borderman would have expected, a stew of meat and vegetables, with bread, cheese, and cold ale. They ate at a table set out in back of the cabin with the night sky visible above, its collection of stars laid out in kaleidoscopic order. Candles lit the table, giving off some sort of incense that Cogline claimed kept the insects away. Maybe his claim was well founded, Kinson conceded, because there didn't seem to be anything flying about while they ate.

The moor cats joined them, wandering in with the darkness to curl up close to the table. As Cogline had advised, there were two—a brother and a sister. Shifter, the male, whom they had encountered on their way in, was the larger of the pair, while the female, Smoke, was smaller and leaner. Cogline said he had found them as kittens, abandoned in the swamp regions of Olden Moor and prey at that age to the Werebeasts. They were hungry and frightened and clearly in need, so he took them home. He laughed at the memory. Little bits of fur then, but they grew up quick enough. He hadn't done anything to make them stay; they chose to do that on their own. Probably liked his companionship, he opined.

Twilight came and went, and night deepened into warm breezes and soft silence. The meal concluded, and as they sat back to sip ale from fired clay mugs, Bremen told Cogline what had befallen the Druids at Paranor. When he was finished, the once-Druid sat back with ale glass in hand and shook his head in disgust.

“Fools all, down to the last man,” he said. “I'm sorry for them, sorry they came to such an end, but mad, too, because they wasted the opportunities Galaphile and the others gave them in forming the First Council. They lost sight of their purpose, of the reason for their being. I can't forgive them that.”

He spit into the darkness. Smoke looked up at him and blinked, startled. Shifter never moved. Kinson looked from one to the other, wild-haired recluse and his pet moor cats, and wondered what living out here for any length of time did to your mind.

“When I left the Druids, I went to the Hadeshorn and spoke with the spirits of the dead,” Bremen went on. He sipped at his ale, the creases of his weathered face deepening with the memory. “Galaphile himself came to me. I asked him what I might do to destroy Brona. In response, he showed to me four visions.” He described them one by one. “It is the vision of the man with the sword that brings me to you.”

Cogline's angular face squinched down on itself like a fist. “Am I supposed to help you find this man? Am I supposed to know him?”

Bremen shook his head. His gray hair looked as fine as silk in the candlelight. “It is not the man, but the sword that requires your attention. This is a talisman that I must forge. The vision reveals that the Eilt Druin will be transformed by the forging and made part of the weapon. The weapon will be anathema to Brona. I don't pretend to understand the particulars as yet. I only know the nature of the weapon that is needed. And I know that special care must be taken in its forging if it is to be strong enough to overcome Brona's magic.”

“So you've come all the way here to ask me about it, have you?” said the other, as if the curtain had just been raised and the truth revealed.

“No one knows more about the science of metallurgy than you. The forging process must be a fusion of science and magic if it is to be successful. I have the magic—my own and that of the Eilt Druin—to incorporate into the process. But I need your knowledge of science. I need what science alone can provide—the proper mix of metals, the correct temperatures of the furnace at each melding, and the exact times of curing. What form of tempering must be used if the metal is to be strong enough to withstand whatever force is directed against it?”

Cogline dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand. “You can just stop right there. You've already missed the point. Magic and science do not mix. We both know that. So if you want a weapon forged of magic, then use magic. You don't need anything from me.”

Bremen shook his head. “We have to bend the rules a bit, I'm afraid. Magic is not enough to accomplish the task. Science is needed as well. Science brought out of the old world. Brona is a creature of magic, and magic is what he has armored himself against. He does not know science, does not care about it, has no regard for it. For him, as for so many, science is dead and gone, a part of the old world. But we know differently, don't we? Science lies dormant as magic once did. Magic is favored now, but that does not mean that science has no place. It may be necessary in the forging of this sword. If I can implement the best techniques of old world science, I have one more strength on which to rely. I need that strength. I am alone with Kinson and Mareth. Besides us, there are only two more who are allied with us, one gone east, the other west. We are all. Our magic is but a fraction of that of our enemy. How shall we prevail against the Warlock Lord and his minions without a weapon against which they cannot defend?”

Cogline sniffed. “There is no such weapon. Besides, there is nothing to say that a weapon forged of science—in whole or in part—would stand any better chance than one forged of magic. It might just as easily be true that magic is all that can prevail against magic, and that any form of science is useless.”

“I do not believe that.”

“Believe what you choose.” Cogline rubbed irritably at his hair. A scowl twisted his thin mouth. “I left the world and its more conventional beliefs behind me a long time ago. I haven't missed them.”

“But both will catch up with you sooner or later, just as they catch up with us all. They won't go away or cease to be simply because you reject them.” Bremen's eyes fixed on the other. “Brona will come here one day, after he has finished with those of us who have not hidden away. You must know that.”

Cogline's face hardened. “He will rue that day, I promise you!” Bremen waited, saying nothing, not choosing to challenge the statement. Kinson glanced at Mareth. She met his gaze and held it. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was—that Cogline's posturing was vain and foolish, that his thinking was patently ridiculous. Yet Bremen did not choose to challenge him.

Cogline shifted uneasily on the bench. “Why do you press me so, Bremen! What is it that you expect of me? I want no part of the Druids!”

Bremen nodded, his face calm, his gaze steady. “Nor they of you. The Druids are gone. There is no part of them left to be had. There are only the two of us, Cogline, old men who have stayed alive longer than they should, conjurers of the Druid Sleep. I grow weary, but I shall not rest until I have done what I can for those who have not lived so long—the men, women, and children of the Races. These are the ones who need our help. Tell me. Should we have no part of them either?”

Cogline started to answer and stopped. Everyone sitting at the table knew what he was tempted to say and how foolish the words would sound. His jaw muscles tightened in frustration. There was indecision in his sharp eyes.

“What cost to you if you choose to help us?” Bremen pressed quietly. “If you would truly have no part of the Druids, then consider this. The Druids would not have helped in this—indeed, chose not to help when they had the chance. They were the ones who determined that their order should stay separate and apart from the politics of the Races. That choice destroyed them. Now the same choice is given to you. The same choice, Cogline—make no mistake. Isolation or involvement. Which is it to be?”

They sat silent about the table, the Druid, the once-Druid, the Tracker, and the girl, the night enfolding deep and calm about them. The big cats lay sleeping, the sound of their breathing a soft, regular whistle of air through damp nostrils. The air smelled of burning wood, food, and the forest. There was comfort and peace all about. The four were cocooned away in the heart of Darklin Reach, and if you tried hard enough, Kinson Ravenlock thought, you might imagine that nothing of the outside world could ever reach you here.

Bremen leaned forward slightly, but the distance between himself and Cogline seemed to close dramatically. “What is there to think about, my friend? You and I, we have known what the right answer is all of our lives, haven't we?”