The Scions of Shannara

Chapter Fourteen

Five days later, with the sun exploding streamers of violet and red fire all across the western horizon in the kind of day’s end fireworks display that only summer provides, Wren, Garth, and the old man who said he was Cogline reached the base of the Dragon’s Teeth and the beginning of the winding, narrow rock trail that led into the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn.

Par Ohmsford was the first to see them. He had gone up the trail a few hundred yards to a rock shelf where he could sit and look out over the sweep of Callahorn south and be by himself. He had arrived with Coll, Morgan, Walker, Steff, and Teel one day earlier, and his patience at waiting for the arrival of the first night of the new moon had begun to wear a little thin. He was immersed mostly in his admiration for the majesty of the sunset when he caught sight of the odd trio as they rode their horses out of the westward glare from a screen of poplar trees and started toward him. He came to his feet slowly, refusing to trust his eyes at first. Then, having determined that he was not mistaken, he leaped from his perch and charged back down the trail to alert the others of his little company who were camped immediately below.

Wren got there almost before he did. Her sharp Elven eyes caught sight of him at about the same time he saw her. Acting on impulse and leaving her companions to follow as best they could, she spurred her horse ahead recklessly, came charging into camp, vaulted from the saddle before her mount was fully checked, rushed up to Par with a wild yell, and hugged him with such enthusiasm that he was almost knocked from his feet. When she was done with him, she gave the same reception to an astonished but delighted Coll. Walker got a more reserved kiss on the cheek and Morgan, whom she barely remembered from her childhood, a handshake and a nod.

While the three Ohmsford siblings—for they seemed such, despite the fact that Wren wasn’t a true sister—traded hugs and words of greeting, those with them stood around uncomfortably and sized up one another with wary glances. Most of the sizing up was reserved for Garth, who was twice as big as any of the rest of them. He was dressed in the brightly colored clothing common to the Rovers, and the garishness of his garb made him seem larger still. He met the stares of the others without discomfort, his gaze steady and implacable. Wren remembered him after a moment and began the required series of introductions. Par followed with Steff and Teel. Cogline hung back from the others; since everyone seemed to know who he was, in any case, no formal introduction was attempted. There were nods and handshakes all around, courtesies observed as expected, but the wariness in the faces of most did not subside. When they all moved over to the fire that formed the center of the little campsite to partake of the dinner that the Dwarves had been in the process of preparing when Wren and her companions had appeared, the newly formed company of nine quickly fragmented into groups. Steff and Teel turned their attention to the completion of the meal, mute as they hovered over the pots and cooking fire, Walker withdrew to a patch of shade under a scrawny pine, and Cogline disappeared into the rocks without a word to anyone. He was so quiet about it that he was gone almost before they realized it. But Cogline was not really considered a part of the company in any case, so no one much bothered about it. Par, Coll, Wren, and Morgan clustered together by the horses, unsaddling them and rubbing them down, and talked about old times, old friends, the places they had been, the things they had seen, and the vicissitudes of life.

“You are much grown, Wren,” Coll marveled. “Not at all the broomstick little girl I remember when you left us.”

“A rider of horses, wild as the wind! No boundaries for you!” Par laughed, throwing up his hands in a gesture meant to encompass the whole of the land.

Wren grinned back. “I live a better life than the lot of you, resting on your backsides singing old tales and rousting tired dogs. The Westland’s a good country for free-spirited things, you know.” Then her grin faded. “The old man, Cogline, told me of what’s happened in the Vale. Jaralan and Mirianna were my parents for a time, too, and I care for them still. Prisoners, he said. Have you heard anything of them?”

Par shook his head. “We have been running ever since Varfleet.”

“I am sorry, Par.” There was genuine discomfort in her eyes. “The Federation does its best to make all of our lives miserable. Even the Westland has its share of soldiers and administrative lackeys, though it’s country they mostly ignore. The Rovers know how to avoid them in any case. If need be, you would be welcome to join us.”

Par gave her another quick hug. “Best that we see how this business of the dreams turns out first,” he whispered.

They ate a dinner of fried meats, fresh-baked hard bread, stewed vegetables, cheese and nuts, and washed it all down with ale and water while they watched the sun disappear beneath the horizon. The food was good, and everyone said so, much to Steff’s pleasure, for he had prepared the better part of it. Cogline remained absent, but the others began talking a bit more freely among themselves, all but Teel, who never seemed to want to speak. As far as Par knew, he was the only one besides Steff to whom the Dwarf girl had ever said anything.

When the dinner was complete, Steff and Teel took charge of cleaning the dishes, and the others drifted away in ones and twos as the dusk settled slowly into night. While Coll and Morgan went down to a spring a quarter-mile off to draw fresh water, Par found himself ambling back up the trail that led into the mountains and the Valley of Shale in the company of Wren and the giant Garth.

“Have you been back there yet?” Wren asked as they walked, nodding in the direction of the Hadeshorn.

Par shook his head. “It’s several hours in and no one’s much wanted to hurry matters along. Even Walker has refused to go there before the scheduled time.” He glanced skyward where clusters of stars dotted the heavens in intricate patterns and a small, almost invisible crescent moon hung low against the horizon north. “Tomorrow night,” he said.

Wren didn’t reply. They walked on in silence until they reached the shelf of rock that Par had occupied earlier that day. There they stopped, looking back over the country south.

“You’ve had the dreams, too?” Wren asked him then and went on to describe her own. When he nodded, she said, “What do you think?”

Par eased himself down on the rock, the other two sitting with him. “I think that ten generations of Ohmsfords have lived their lives since the time of Brin and Jair, waiting for this to happen. I think that the magic of the Elven house of Shannara, Ohmsford magic now, is something more than we realize. I think Allanon—or his shade, at least—will tell us what that something is.” He paused. “I think it may turn out to be something wondrous—and something terrible.”

He was aware of her staring at him with those intense hazel eyes, and he shrugged apologetically, “I don’t mean to be overdramatic. That’s just the sense I have of things.”

She translated his comments automatically for Garth, who gave no indication of what he thought. “You and Walker have some use of the magic,” she said quietly. “I have none. What of that?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Morgan’s magic is stronger than mine these days and he wasn’t called.” He went on to tell her about their confrontation with the Shadowen and the Highlander’s discovery of the magic that had lain dormant in the Sword of Leah. “I find myself wondering why the dreams didn’t command him to appear instead of me, for all the use the wishsong has been.”

“But you don’t know for certain how strong your magic is, Par,” she said quietly. “You should remember from the stories that none of the Ohmsfords, from Shea on down, fully understood when they began their quests the uses of the Elven magic. Might it not be the same with you?”

It might, he realized with a shiver. He cocked his head. “Or you, Wren. What of you?”

“No, no, Par Ohmsford. I am a simple Rover girl with none of the blood that carries the magic from generation to generation in me.” She laughed. “I’m afraid I must make do with a bag filled with make-believe Elf stones!”

He laughed as well, remembering the little leather bag with the painted rocks that she had guarded so carefully as a child. They traded life stories for a time, telling each other what they had been doing, where they had been, and whom they had encountered on their journeys. They were relaxed, much as if their separation had been but a few weeks rather than years. Wren was responsible for that, Par decided. She had put him immediately at ease. He was struck by the inordinate amount of confidence that she exhibited in herself, such a wild, free girl, obviously content with her Rover life, seemingly unshackled by demands or constraints that might hold her back. She was strong both inwardly and outwardly, and he admired her greatly for it. He found himself wishing that he could display but a fraction of her pluck.

“How do you find Walker?” she asked him after a time.

“Distant,” he said at once. “Still haunted by demons that I cannot begin to understand. He talks about his mistrust of the Elven magic and the Druids, yet seems to have magic of his own that he uses freely enough. I don’t really understand him.”

Wren relayed his comments to Garth, and the giant Rover responded with a brief signing. Wren looked at him sharply, then said to Par, “Garth says that Walker is frightened.”

Par looked surprised. “How does he know that?”

“He just does. Because he is deaf, he works harder at using his other senses. He detects other people’s feelings more quickly than you or I would—even those that are kept hidden.”

Par nodded. “Well, he happens to be exactly right in this instance. Walker is frightened. He told me so himself. He says he’s frightened of what this business with Allanon might mean. Odd, isn’t it? I have trouble imagining anything frightening Walker Boh.”

Wren signed to Garth, but the giant merely shrugged. They sat back in silence for a time, thinking separate thoughts. Then Wren said, “Did you know that the old man, Cogline, was once Walker’s teacher?”

Par looked at her sharply. “Did he tell you that?”

“I tricked it from him, mostly.”

“Teacher of what, Wren? Of the magic?”

“Of something.” Her dark features turned introspective momentarily, her gaze distant. “There is much between those two that, like Walker’s fear, is kept hidden, I think.”

Par, though he didn’t say so, was inclined to agree.

The members of the little company slept undisturbed that night in the shadow of the Dragon’s Teeth, but by dawn they were awake again and restless. Tonight was the first night of the new moon, the night they were to meet with the shade of Allanon. Impatiently, they went about their business. They ate their meals without tasting them. They spoke little to one another, moving about uneasily, finding small tasks that would distract them from thinking further on what lay ahead. It was a clear, cloudless day filled with warm summer smells and lazy sunshine, the kind of day that, under other circumstances, might have been enjoyed, but which on this occasion simply seemed endless.

Cogline reappeared about midday, wandering down out of the mountains like some tattered prophet of doom. He looked dusty and unkempt as he came up to them, his hair wild, his eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. He told them that all was in readiness—whatever that meant—and that he would come for them after nightfall. Be ready, he advised. He refused to say anything more, though pressed by the Ohmsfords to do so, and disappeared back the way he had come.

“What do you suppose he is doing up there?” Coll muttered to the others as the ragged figure dwindled into a tiny black speck in the distance and then into nothing at all.

The sun worked its way westward as if dragging chains in its wake, and the members of the little company retreated further into themselves. The enormity of what was about to happen began to emerge in their unspoken thoughts, a specter of such size that it was frightening to contemplate. Even Walker Boh, who might have been assumed to be more at home with the prospect of encountering shades and spirits, withdrew into himself like a badger into its hole and became unapproachable.

Nevertheless, when it was nearing midafternoon, Par happened on his uncle while wandering the cooler stretches of the hills surrounding the springs. They slowed on coming together, then stopped and stood looking at each other awkwardly.

“Do you think he will really come?” Par asked finally.

Walker’s pale face was shadowed beneath the protective hood of his cloak, making his face difficult to read. “He will come,” his uncle said.

Par thought a moment, then said, “I don’t know what to expect.”

Walker shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Par. Whatever you choose to expect, it won’t be enough. This meeting won’t be like anything you might envision, I promise you. The Druids have always been very good at surprises.”

“You suspect the worst, don’t you?”

“I suspect...” He trailed off without finishing.

“Magic,” said Par.

The other frowned.

“Druid magic—that’s what you think we will see tonight, don’t you? I hope you are right. I hope that it sweeps and resounds and that it opens all the doors that have been closed to us and lets us see what magic can really do!”

Walker Boh’s smile, when it finally overcame his astonishment, was ironic. “Some doors are better left closed,” he said softly. “You would do well to remember that.”

He put his hand on his nephew’s arm for a moment, then continued silently on his way.

The afternoon crawled toward evening. When the sun at last completed its long journey west and began to slip beneath the horizon, the members of the little company filtered back to the campsite for the evening meal. Morgan was garrulous, an obvious sign of nerves with him, and talked incessantly of magic and swords and all sorts of wild happenings that Par hoped would never be. The others were mostly silent, eating without comment and casting watchful glances northward toward the mountains. Teel wouldn’t eat at all, sitting off by herself in a gathering of shadows, the mask that covered her face like a wall that separated her from everyone. Even Steff let her alone.

Darkness descended and the stars began to flicker into view, a scattering here and there at first, and then the sky was filled with them. No moon showed itself; it was the promised time when the sun’s pale sister wore black. Daylight’s sounds faded and night’s remained hushed. The cooking fire crackled and snapped in the silence as conversation lagged. One or two smoked, and the air was filled with the pungent smell. Morgan took out the bright length of the Sword of Leah and began to polish it absently. Wren and Garth fed and curried the horses. Walker moved up the trail a short distance and stood staring into the mountains. Others sat lost in thought. Everyone waited.

It was midnight when Cogline returned for them. The old man appeared out of the shadows like a ghost, materializing so suddenly that they all started. No one, not even Walker, had seen him coming.

“It is time,” he announced.

They came to their feet voicelessly and followed him. He took them up the trail from their campsite into the gradually thickening shadows of the Dragon’s Teeth. Although the stars shone brightly overhead when they started out, the mountains soon began to close about, leaving the little company shrouded in blackness. Cogline did not slow; he seemed to possess cat’s eyes. His charges struggled to keep pace. Par, Coll, and Morgan were closest to the old man, Wren and Garth came next, Steff and Teel behind them, and Walker Boh brought up the rear. The trail steepened quickly after they reached the beginning peaks, and they moved through a narrow defile that opened like a pocket into the mountains. It was silent here, so still that they could hear one another breathe as they labored upward.

The minutes slipped away. Boulders and cliff walls hindered their passage, and the trail wound about like a snake. Loose rock carpeted the whole of the mountains, and the climbers had to scramble over it. Still Cogline pressed on. Par stumbled and scraped his knees, finding the loose rock as sharp as glass. Much of it was a strange, mirrorlike black that reminded him of coal. He scooped up a small piece out of curiosity and stuck it in his pocket.

Then abruptly the mountains split apart before them, and they stepped out onto the rim of the Valley of Shale. It was little more than a broad, shallow depression strewn with crushed stone that glistened with the same mirrored blackness as the rock Par had pocketed. Nothing grew in the valley; it was stripped of life. There was a lake at its center, its greenish black waters moving in sluggish swirls in the windless expanse.

Cogline stopped momentarily and looked back at them. “The Hadeshorn,” he whispered. “Home for the spirits of the ages, for the Druids of the past.” His weathered old face had an almost reverent look to it. Then he turned away and started them down into the valley.

Except for the huff of their breathing and the rasp of their boots on the loose rock, the valley, too, was wrapped in silence. Echoes of their movements played in the stillness like children in the slow heat of a midsummer’s day. Eyes darted watchfully, seeking ghosts where there were none to find, imagining life in every shadow. It was strangely warm here, the heat of the day captured and held in the airless bowl through the cool of the night. Par felt a trickle of sweat begin to run down his back.

Then they were on the valley floor, closely bunched as they made their way toward the lake. They could see the movement of the waters more clearly now, the way the swirls worked against each other, haphazard, unbidden. They could hear the rippling of tiny waves as they lapped. There was the pungent scent of things ageing and decayed.

They were still several dozen yards from the water’s edge when Cogline brought them to a halt, both hands lifting in caution. “Stand fast, now. Come no closer. The waters of the Hadeshorn are death to mortals, poison to the touch!” He crouched down and put a finger to his lips as if hushing a child.

They did as they were bidden, children indeed before the power they sensed sleeping there. They could feel it, all of them, a palpable thing that hung in the air like wood smoke from a fire. They remained where they were, alert, anxious, filled with a mix of wonder and hesitancy. No one spoke. The star-filled sky stretched away endlessly overhead, canopied from horizon to horizon, and it seemed as if the whole of the heavens was focused on that valley, that lake, and the nine of them who kept watch.

At last Cogline lifted from his crouch and came back to them, beckoning with birdlike movements of his hands to draw them close about him. When they were gathered in a knot that locked them shoulder to shoulder, he spoke.

“Allanon will come just before dawn.” The sharp old eyes regarded them solemnly. “He wishes me to speak with you first. He is no longer what he was in life. He is just a shade now. His purchase in this world is but the blink of an eye. Each time he crosses over from the spirit world, it requires tremendous effort. He can stay only a little while. What time he is allotted he must use wisely. He will use that time to tell you of the need he has of you. He has left it to me to explain to you why that need exists. I am to tell you of the Shadowen.”

“You’ve spoken to him?” asked Walker Boh quickly.

Cogline said nothing.

“Why wait until now to tell us about the Shadowen?” Par was suddenly irritated. “Why now, Cogline, when you could have done so before?”

The old man shook his head, his face both reproving and sympathetic. “It was not permitted, youngster. Not until all of you had been brought together.”

“Games!” Walker muttered and shook his head in disgust.

The old man ignored him. “Think what you like, only listen. This is what Allanon would have me tell you of the Shadowen. They are an evil beyond all imagining. They are not the rumors or the tall tales that men would have them be, but creatures as real as you and I. They are born of a circumstance that Allanon in all his wisdom and planning did not foresee. When he passed from the world of mortal men, Allanon believed the age of magic at an end and a new age begun. The Warlock Lord was no more. The Demons of the old world of faerie were again imprisoned within the Forbidding. The Ildatch was destroyed. Paranor was gone into history and the last of the Druids was about to go with it. It seemed the need for magic was past.”

“The need is never past,” Walker said quietly.

Again, the old man ignored him. “The Shadowen are an aberration. They are a magic that grew out of the use of other magics, a residue of what has gone before. They began as a seeding that lay dormant within the Four Lands, undetected during the time of Allanon, a seeding that came to life only after the Druids and their protective powers were gone. No one could have known they were there, not even Allanon. They were the leavings of magics come and gone, and they were as invisible as dust on a pathway.”

“Wait a minute!” Par interjected. “What are you saying, Cogline? That the Shadowen are just bits and pieces of some stray magic?”

Cogline took a deep breath, his hands locking before him. “Valeman, I told you once before that for all the use you have of magic, you still know little about it. Magic is as much a force of nature as the fire at the earth’s core, the tidal waves that sweep out of the ocean, the winds that flatten forests or the famine that starves nations. It does not happen and then disappear without effect! Think! What of Wil Ohmsford and his use of the Elfstones when his Elven blood no longer permitted such use? It left as its residue the wishsong that found life in your ancestors! Was that an inconsequential magic? All uses of the magic have effects beyond the immediate. And all are significant.”

“Which magic was it that created the Shadowen?” asked Coll, his blocky face impassive.

The old man shook his wispy head. “Allanon does not know. There is no way of being certain. It could have happened at any time during the lives of Shea Ohmsford and his descendants. There was always magic in use in those times, much of it evil. The Shadowen could have been born of any part of it.”

He paused. The Shadowen were nothing at first. They were the debris of magic spent. Somehow they survived, their presence unknown. It was not until Allanon and Paranor were gone that they emerged into the Four Lands and began to gain strength. There was a vacuum in the order of things by then. A void must be filled in all events, and the Shadowen were quick to fill this one.“

“I don’t understand,” Par said quickly. “What sort of vacuum do you mean?”

“And why didn’t Allanon foresee it happening?” added Wren.

The old man held up his fingers and began crooking them downward one by one as he spoke. “Life has always been cyclical. Power comes and goes; it takes different forms. Once, it was science that gave mankind power. Of late, it has been magic. Allanon foresaw the return of science as a means to progress—especially with the passing of the Druids and Paranor. That was the age that would be. But the development of science failed to materialize quickly enough to fill the vacuum. Partly this was because of the Federation. The Federation kept the old ways intact; it decried the use of any form of power but its own—and its own was primitive and military. It expanded its influence throughout the Four Lands until all were subject to its dictates. The Elves had an effect on matters as well; for reasons we still don’t know they disappeared. They were a balancing force, the last people of the faerie world of old. Their presence was necessary, if the transition from magic to science was to be made faultlessly.”

He shook his head. “Yet even had the Elves remained in the world of men and the Federation been less a presence, the Shadowen might have come alive. The vacuum was there the moment the Druids passed away. There was no help for it.” He sighed. “Allanon did not foresee as he should have. He did not anticipate an aberration on the order of the Shadowen. He did what he could to keep the Four Lands safe while he was alive—and he kept himself alive for as long as was possible.”

“Too little of each, it seems,” Walker said pointedly.

Cogline looked at him, and the anger in his voice was palpable. “Well, Walker Boh. Perhaps one day you will have an opportunity to demonstrate that you can do it better.”

There was a strained moment of silence as the two faced each other in the blackness. Then Cogline looked away. “You need to understand what the Shadowen are. The Shadowen are parasites. They live off mortal creatures. They are a magic that feeds on living things. They enter them, absorb them, become them. But for some reason the results are not always the same. Young Par, think of the woodswoman that you and Coll encountered at the time of our first meeting. She was a Shadowen of the more obvious sort, a once-mortal creature infected, a ravaged thing that could no more help herself than an animal made mad. But the little girl on Toffer Ridge, do you remember her?”

His fingers brushed Par’s cheek lightly. Instantly, the Valeman was filled with the memory of that monster to whom the Spider Gnomes had given him. He could feel her stealing against him, begging him, “hug me, hug me,” desperate to make him embrace her. He flinched, shaken by the impact of the memory.

Cogline’s hand closed firmly about his arm. “That, too, was a Shadowen, but one that could not be so easily detected. They appear to varying extents as we do, hidden within human form. Some become grotesque in appearance and behavior; those you can readily identify. Others are more difficult to recognize.”

“But why are there some of one kind and some of the other?” Par asked uncertainly.

Cogline’s brow furrowed. “Once again, Allanon does not know. The Shadowen have kept their secret even from him.”

The old man looked away for a long moment, then back again. His face was a mask of despair. “This is like a plague. The sickness is spread until the number infected multiplies impossibly. Any of the Shadowen can spread the disease. Their magic gives them the means to overcome almost any defense. The more of them there are, the stronger they become. What would you do to stop a plague where the source was unknown, the symptoms undetectable until after they had taken root, and the cure a mystery?”

The members of the little company glanced at one another uneasily in the silence that followed.

Finally, Wren said, “Do they have a purpose in what they do, Cogline? A purpose beyond simply infecting living things? Do they think as you and I or are they... mindless?”

Par stared at the girl in undisguised admiration. It was the best question any of them had asked. He should have been the one to ask it.

Cogline was rubbing his hands together slowly. “They think as you and I, Rover girl, and they most certainly do have a purpose in what they do. But that purpose remains unclear.”

“They would subvert us,” Morgan offered sharply. “Surely that’s purpose enough.”

But Cogline shook his head. “They Would do more still, I think.”

And abruptly Par found himself recalling the dreams that Allanon had sent, the visions of a nightmarish world in which everything was blackened and withered and life was reduced to something barely recognizable. Reddened eyes blinked like bits of fire, and shadow forms flitted through a haze of ash and smoke.

This is what the Shadowen would do, he realized.

But how could they bring such a vision to pass?

He glanced without thinking at Wren and found his question mirrored in her eyes. He recognized what she was thinking instinctively. He saw it reflected in Walker Boh’s eyes as well. They had shared the dreams and those dreams bound them, so much so that for an instant their thinking was the same.

Cogline’s face lifted slightly, pulling free of the darkness that shaded it. “Something guides the Shadowen,” he whispered. “There is power here that transcends anything we have ever known...”

He let the sentence trail off, ragged and unfinished, as if unable to give voice to any ending. His listeners looked at one another.

“What are we to do?” Wren asked finally.

The old man rose wearily. “Why, what we came here to do, Rover girl—listen to what Allanon would tell us.” He moved stiffly away, and no one called after him.