The Elf Queen of Shannara (44 page)
Read The Elf Queen of Shannara Online
Authors: Terry Brooks
Cogline waited, braced against the heavy reading table, eyes closed, head bowed, making sure his strength had returned. He stood once more within the vault that sealed away the Druid Histories, come back to himself after his search to find Walker Boh, after leaving his body in the old Druid way. He had found Walker and warned him but been unable to remainâtoo weak now, too old, a jumble of bones filled with stiffness and pain. It had taken all of his strength just to do as much as he had.
He waited, and the tremors did not return.
Finally he pushed himself upright, released his grip on the table, let his eyes open, and looked carefully around. The first thing he saw was himselfâhis hands and arms, then his body, all of himâmade whole again. He caught his breath, rubbed his hands together experimentally, and touched himself to be certain that what he was seeing was real. The transparency was gone; he was flesh and blood once more. Rumor crowded up against him, big head shoving into his scarecrow body so hard it threatened to knock the old man down. The moor cat was himself again as well, no longer faint lines and shadows, no longer wraithlike.
And the roomâits stone walls were hard and clear, its colors sharply detailed, and its lines and surfaces defined by substance and light.
Cogline took a long, slow breath. Walker had done it. He had brought Paranor back into the world of Men.
He went out from the little room through the study beyond to the halls of the Keep. Rumor padded after. Sunlight filled the corridors, streaming through the high windows, motes of dust dancing in the glow. The old man caught a glimpse of white clouds against a blue sky. The smell of trees and grasses wafted on the summer air.
Back.
Alive.
He began to search for Walker, moving through the corridors of the Keep, his footsteps scraping softly on the stone. Ahead, he could hear the faint rush of something rising from within the castle's bowels, a low rumbling sound, a huffing like . . . And then he knew. It was the fire that fed the Keep from the earth's core, fire that had been cold and dead all this time, now alive again with Paranor's return.
He turned into the hall that ran to the well beneath the Keep.
In the shadows ahead, something moved.
Cogline slowed and stopped. Rumor dropped to a crouch and growled. A figure materialized out of the gloom, come from a place where the sunlight could not reach, all black and featureless. The figure approached, the light beginning to define it, a man hooded and cowled, tall and thin against the gloom, moving slowly but purposefully.
“Walker?” Cogline asked.
The other did not reply. When he was less than a dozen feet away, he stopped. Rumor's growl had died to heavy breathing. The man's arm reached up and drew back the hood.
“Tell me what you see,” Walker Boh said.
Cogline stared. It was Walker, and yet it was not. His features were the same, but he was bigger somehow, and even with his white skin he seemed as black as wet ashes, the cast of him so dark it seemed any light that approached was being absorbed. His body, even beneath the robes, gave the impression of being armored. His right arm was still missing. His left hand held the Black Elfstone.
“Tell me,” Walker asked him again.
Cogline stared into his eyes. They were flat and hard and depthless, and he felt as if they were looking right through him.
“I see Allanon,” the old man answered softly.
A shudder passed through Walker Boh and was gone. “He is part of me now, Cogline. That was what he left to guard the Keep when he sent it from the Four Lands; that was what was waiting for me in the mist. They were all there, all of the DruidsâGalaphile, Bremen, Allanon, all of them. That was how they passed on their knowledge, one to the nextâa kind of joining of spirit with flesh. Bremen carried it all when he became the last of the Druids. He passed it on to Allanon, who passed in turn to me.”
His eyes were bright; there were fires there that Cogline could not define. “To me!” Walker Boh cried out suddenly. “Their teachings, their lore, their history, their madnessâall that I have mistrusted and avoided for so long! He gave it all to me!”
He was trembling, and Cogline was suddenly afraid. This man he had known so well, his student, at times his friend, was someone else now, a man made over as surely as day changed to night.
Walker's hand tightened about the Black Elfstone as he lifted it before him. “It is done, old man, and it can't be undone. Allanon has his Druid and his Keep back in the world of Men. He has his charge to me fulfilled. And he has placed his soul within me!” The hand lowered like a weight pressing down against the earth. “He thinks to make the Druids over through me. Brin Ohmsford's legacy. He gives me his power, his lore, his understanding, his history. He even gives me his face. You look at me, and you see him.”
A distant look came into the dark eyes. “But I have my own strength, a strength I gained by surviving the rite of passage he set for me, the horror of seeing what becoming a Druid means. I have not been made over completely, even in this.”
He stared hard at Cogline, then stepped forward and placed his arm about the thin shoulders. “You and I, Cogline,” he whispered. “The past and the future, we are all that remain of the Druids. It will be interesting to see if we can make a difference.”
He turned the old man slowly about, and together they began to walk back along the corridor. Rumor stared after them momentarily, sniffed at the floor where Walker Boh's feet had trod as if trying it identify his scent, then padded watchfully after.
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Here ends Book Three of The
Heritage of Shannara.
Book Four, The Talismans
of Shannara,
will conclude the series as Walker, Wren, Par, Coll, and their friends engage in a final struggle against Rimmer Dall and the Shadowen.
Read on for an excerpt from
The Measure of the Magic
by Terry Brooks
Published by Del Rey Books
ONE
H
UMMING TUNELESSLY, THE RAGPICKER WALKED
the barren, empty wasteland in the aftermath of a rainstorm. The skies were still dark with clouds and the earth was sodden and slick with surface water, but none of that mattered to him. Others might prefer the sun and blue skies and the feel of hard, dry earth beneath their feet, might revel in the brightness and the warmth. But life was created in the darkness and damp of the womb, and the ragpicker took considerable comfort in knowing that procreation was instinctual and needed nothing of the face of nature's disposition that he liked the least.
He was an odd-looking fellow, an unprepossessing, almost comical figure. He was tall and whipcord-thin, and he walked like a long-legged waterbird. Dressed in dark clothes that had seen much better days, he tended to blend in nicely with the mostly colorless landscape he traveled. He carried his rags and scraps of cloth in a frayed patchwork bag slung over one shoulder, the bag looking very much as if it would rip apart completely with each fresh step its bearer took. A pair of scuffed leather boots completed the ensemble, scavenged from a dead man some years back, but still holding up quite nicely.
Everything about the ragpicker suggested that he was harmless. Everything marked him as easy prey in a world where predators dominated the remnants of a decimated population. He knew how he looked to the things that were always hunting, what they thought when they saw him coming. But that was all right. He had stayed alive this long by keeping his head down and staying out of harm's way. People like him, they didn't get noticed. The trick was in not doing anything to call attention to yourself.
So he tried hard to give the impression that he was nothing but a poor wanderer who wanted to be left alone, but you didn't always get what you wanted in this world. Even now, other eyes were sizing him up. He could feel them doing so, several pairs in several different places. Those that belonged to the animalsâthe things that the poisons and chemicals had turned into mutantsâwere already turning away. Their instincts were sharper, more finely tuned, and they could sense when something wasn't right. Given the choice, they would almost always back away.
It was the eyes of the human predators that stayed fixed on him, eyes that lacked the awareness necessary to judge him properly. Two men were studying him now, deciding whether or not to confront him. He would try to avoid them, of course. He would try to make himself seem not worth the trouble. But, again, you didn't always get what you wanted.
He breathed in the cool, damp air, absorbing the taste of the rain's aftermath on his tongue, of the stirring of stagnation and sickness generated by the pounding of the sudden storm, of the smells of raw earth and decay, the whole of it marvelously welcome. Sometimes, when he was alone, he could pretend he was the only one left in the world. He could think of it all as his private preserve, his special place, and imagine everything belonged to him.
He could pretend that nothing would ever bother him again.
His humming dropped away, changing to a little song:
Ragpicker, ragpicker, what you gonna do
When the hunters are hunting and they're hunting for you.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, just stay low.
If you don't draw attention they might let you go.
He hummed a few more bars, wondering if he had gotten past the predators. He was thinking it was almost time to stop and have something to drink and eat. But that would have to wait. He sighed, his lean, sharp-featured face wreathed in a tight smile that caused the muscles of his jaw to stand out like cords.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, you're all alone.
The hunters that are hunting want to pick your bones.
Ragpicker, ragpicker, just walk on.
If you wait them out they will soon be gone.
He crossed a meadow, a small stream filled with muddy water, a rocky flat in which tiny purple flowers were blooming, and a withered woods in which a handful of poplars grew sparse and separate as if strangers to one another. Ahead, there was movement in a rugged mass of boulders that formed the threshold to foothills leading up to the next chain of mountains, a high and wild and dominant presence. He registered the movement, ignored it. Those who had been watching him were still there and growing restless; he must skirt their hiding place and hope they were distracted by other possibilities. But there didn't appear to be anyone else out here other than himself, and he was afraid that they would come after him just because they were bored.
He continued on furtively, still humming softly.
Daylight leached away as the clouds began to thicken anew. It might actually rain some more, he decided. He glanced at the skies in all four directions, noting the movement of the clouds and the shifting of their shadows against the earth. Yes, more rain coming. Better find shelter soon.
He stalked up the slope into the rocks, his long, thin legs stretching out, meandering here and there as if searching for the best way through. He headed away from the watchers, pretending he was heedless of them, that he knew nothing of them and they, in turn, should not want to bother with him.
But suddenly his worst fears were realized and just like that they were upon him.
They emerged from the rocks, two shaggy-haired, ragged men, carrying blades and clubs. One was blind in one eye, and the other limped badly. They had seen hard times, the ragpicker thought, and they would not be likely to have seen much charity and therefore not much inclined to dispense any. He stood where he was and waited on them patiently, knowing that flight was useless.
“You,” One-eye said, pointing a knife at him. “What you got in that bag of yours?”
The ragpicker shrugged. “Rags. I collect them and barter for food and drink. It's what I do.”
“You got something more than that, I'd guess,” said the second man, the larger of the two. “Better show us what it is.”
The ragpicker hesitated, and then dumped everything on the ground, his entire collection of brightly colored scarves and bits of cloth, a few whole pieces of shirts and coats, a hat or two, some boots. Everything he had managed to find in his travels of late that he hadn't bargained away with the Trolls or such.
“That's crap!” snarled One-eye, thrusting his knife at the ragpicker. “You got to do better than that! You got to give us something of worth!”
“You got coin?” demanded the other.
Hopeless, the ragpicker thought. No one had coin anymore and even if they did it was valueless. Gold or silver, maybe. A good weapon, especially one of the old automatics from the days of the Great Wars, would have meant something, would have been barter material. But no one had coins.
“Don't have any,” he said, backing away a step. “Can I pick up my rags?”
One-eye stepped forward and ground the colored cloth into the dirt with the heel of his boot. “That's what I think of your rags. Now watch and see what I'm gonna do to you!”
The ragpicker backed away another step. “Please, I don't have anything to give you. I just want you to let me pass. I'm not worth your trouble. Really.”
“You ain't worth much, that's for sure,” said the one who limped. “But that don't mean you get to go through here free. This is our territory and no one passes without they make some payment to us!”
The two men came forward again, a step at a time, spreading out just a little to hem the ragpicker in, to keep him from making an attempt to get around them. As if such a thing were possible, the ragpicker thought, given his age and condition and clear lack of athletic ability. Did he look like he could get past them if he tried? Did he look like he could do anything?
“I don't think this is a good idea,” he said suddenly, stopping short in his retreat. “You might not fully understand what you're doing.”
The predators stopped and stared at him. “You don't think it's a good idea?” said the one who limped. “Is that what you said, you skinny old rat?”
