The Talismans of Shannara

Chapter Ten

Five days the Four Horsemen circled the walls of Paranor, and five days Walker Boh stood on the castle battlements and watched. Each dawn they assembled at the west gates, shadows come from the gloom of fading night. One would approach, a different one each time, and strike the gates once in challenge. When Walker failed to appear they would resume their grim vigil, spreading out so that there was one at each compass point, one at each of the main walls, riding in slow, ceaseless cadence, circling like birds of prey. Day and night they rode, specters of gray mist and dark imaginings, silent as thought and certain as time.

“Incarnations of man’s greatest enemies,” Cogline mused when he saw them for the first time. “Manifestations of our worst fears, the slayers of so many, given shape and form and sent to destroy us.” He shook his head. “Can it be that Rimmer Dall has a sense of humor?”

Walker didn’t think so. He found nothing amusing about any of it. The Shadowen appeared to possess boundless raw power, the kind of power that would let them become anything. It was neither subtle nor intricate; it was as straightforward and relentless as a flood. It seemed able to build on itself and to sweep aside anything that it found in its path. Walker did not know how powerful the Horsemen were, but he was willing to bet that they were more than a match for him. Rimmer Dall would have sent nothing less to deal with a Druid—even one newly come to the position, uncertain of his own strength, of the extent of his magic, and of the ways it might be made to serve him. At least one of Allanon’s charges to the Ohmsfords had been carried out, and it posed a threat that the Shadowen could not afford to ignore.

Yet the purpose of the charges remained a mystery that Walker could not solve. Standing atop Paranor’s walls, watching the Four Horsemen circle below, he pondered endlessly why the charges had been given. What was it that the Sword of Shannara was supposed to accomplish? What purpose would it serve to have the Elves brought back into the world of men? What was the reason for returning Paranor and the Druids? Or one Druid at least, he mused darkly. One Druid, made over out of bits and pieces of others. He was an amalgam of those who had come and gone, of their memories, of their strengths and weaknesses, of their lore and history, of their magic’s secrets. He was an infant in his life as a Druid, and he did not yet know how he was supposed to act. Each day he opened new doors on what others before him had known and passed on, knowledge that revealed itself in unexpected glimpses, light coming from the darkened corners of his mind as if let in through shuttered windows thrown wide. He did not understand it all, sometimes doubted it, often questioned its worth. But the flow was relentless, and he was forced to measure and weigh each new revelation, knowing it must have had worth once, accepting that it might again.

But what role was he supposed to play in the struggle to put an end to the Shadowen? He had become the Druid that Allanon had sought, and he had made himself master of Paranor. Yet what was he supposed to do with this? Surely he had magic now that might be used against the Shadowen—just as the Druids had used magic before to give aid to the Races. He possessed knowledge as well, perhaps more knowledge than any man alive, and the Druids had used this as a weapon, too. But it seemed to Walker that his newfound power lacked any discernible focus, that he needed first to understand the nature of his enemy before he could settle on a way to defeat it.

Meanwhile, here he was, trapped within his tower fortress where he could not help anyone.

“They do not try to enter,” Cogline observed at one point after three days of vigilance atop the castle walls. “Why do you think that is?”

Walker shook his head. “Perhaps they do not need to. As long as we remain locked within, their purpose is served.”

The old man rubbed his whiskered chin. He had grown older since his release from the half life to which the magic of the Druid Histories had consigned him. He was lined and wrinkled anew, more stooped than before, slower in his walk and speech, frail beyond what his years allowed. Walker did not like what he saw, but said nothing. The old man had given much for him, and what he had given had clearly taken its toll. But he did not complain or choose to talk of it, so there was no reason for Walker to do so either.

“It may be that they are afraid of the Druid magic,” Walker continued after a moment, his good hand lifting to rest on the battlement stone. “Paranor has always been protected from those that would enter uninvited. The Shadowen may know of this and choose to stay without because of it.”

“Or perhaps they wait until they have tested the nature and extent of that magic,” Cogline said softly. “They wait to discover how dangerous you are.” He looked at Walker without seeing him, eyes focused somewhere beyond. “Or until they simply grow tired of waiting,” he whispered.

Walker considered ways in which he might defeat these Shadowen, turning those ways over and over in his mind like artifacts hiding clues to the past. The Black Elfstone was an obvious choice, secreted now in a vault deep within the catacombs of the Keep. But the Elfstone would exact its own price if called upon, and it was not a price that Walker was willing to pay. There was no reason to think that the Elfstone would not work against the Four Horsemen, draining their magic away until nothing remained but ashes. But the nature of the Elfstone required that the stolen magic be transferred into the holder, and Walker had no wish to have the Shadowen magic made part of him.

There was also the Stiehl, the strange killing blade taken from the assassin Pe Ell at Eldwist, the weapon that could kill anything. But Walker did not relish the prospect of using an assassin’s weapon, especially one with the history of the Stiehl, and thought that if weapons were required, there were plenty at hand that could be used against the Shadowen.

What he needed most, he knew, was a plan. He had three choices. He could remain safely within Paranor’s walls, hoping to wait the Shadowen out; he could go out and face them; or he could try to slip past them without being seen. The first offered only the faintest possibility of success, and besides, time was not something of which he had an abundance in any case. The second seemed incontestably foolhardy.

That left the third.

Five days after the Four Horsemen laid siege to Paranor, Walker Boh decided to attempt an escape.

Underground.

He told Cogline of his plan at dinner that night—a dinner comprising some few small stores left over from three centuries gone and frozen in time with the castle, sorely depleted stores that reinforced the importance of breaking the siege. There were tunnels beneath the castle that opened into the forests beyond, concealments known only to Druids past and now to him. He would slip through such a tunnel that night and emerge behind where the Horsemen patrolled the walls. He would be clear of them and gone before they knew he had escaped.

Cogline frowned and looked doubtful. It seemed entirely too easy to him. Surely the Shadowen would have thought of such a possibility.

But Walker had made up his mind. Five days of standing about was long enough. Something had to be tried, and this was the best he could come up with. Cogline and Rumor would remain within the Keep. If the Horsemen attempted an assault before Walker returned, they should slip out the same way he had gone. Cogline reluctantly agreed, bothered by something he refused to discuss, so agitated that Walker came close to pressing for an explanation. But the old man’s enigmatic behavior was nothing new, so in the end Walker let the matter drop.

He waited for midnight, watching from the walls until late to make certain that the Shadowen kept to their rounds. They did, spectral shapes in the dark below, circling ceaselessly. The fog that had blanketed the valley for the better part of four days had lifted that dawn, and now with the coming of night Walker Boh saw something new in the valley. Far west, where the Dragon’s Teeth turned north into the Streleheim, there were watch fires at the mouth of the Kennon Pass. An army was camped there, blocking all passage. The Federation, Walker thought, staring out across the trees of the forest below, across the hills beyond, to the light. Perhaps their presence in the pass was unrelated to that of the Shadowen at Paranor, but Walker didn’t think so. Knowingly or not, the Federation served the Shadowen cause—a tool for Rimmer Dall and others in the Coalition Council hierarchy—and it was safe to assume that the soldiers in the Kennon had something to do with the Four Horsemen.

Not that it mattered. Walker Boh wasn’t worried for a moment that Federation soldiers would prove any hindrance to him.

When midnight came, he left the castle walls and went down through the Keep. He wore clothes as black as night, loose-fitting and serviceable, and carried no weapons. He left Cogline and Rumor peering after him as he entered the fire pit. His memories were Allanon’s and those of Druids gone before, and he found he knew his way as well as if the Keep had always been his home. Doors hidden within the castle stone opened at his touch, and passageways were as familiar as the haunts of Hearthstone in the days before the dreams of Allanon. He found the tunnels that ran beneath the rock on which Paranor rested and worked his way down into the earth. All about him he could hear the steady thrum of the fires contained in the furnaces beneath the Keep, throbbing steadily within their core of rock deep below the castle walls, the only sound within the darkness and silence.

It took him over an hour to make his way through. There were numerous passageways beneath the castle, all intertwined and leading from a single door that only he could open. He chose the one that led west, seeking to exit within the sheltering trees of the forests that lay between the Horsemen and the Kennon Pass, certain that once free of the Shadowen he could slip past the Federation soldiers easily. When he reached the concealed opening, he paused to listen. There was no sound above him. There was no movement. Still, he felt uneasy, as if sensing that despite appearances all was not well.

He went out from the tunnel into the black of the forest, rising from the earth like a shadow within a covering of brush and rocks. Through gaps in the canopy of limbs overhead he could see the stars and a hint of the waning moon. It was silent within the trees, as if nothing lived there. He searched for a hint of the presence of the gray wolves and did not find it. He listened for the small sounds of insects and birds, and they were missing. He sniffed the air and smelled an odd mustiness.

He breathed deeply and stepped out into the open.

He heard, rather than saw, the sweep of the scythe arcing toward him, and flung himself aside just before it struck. Death grunted with the effort of the swing, a cloaked black shape to one side. Walker rolled to his feet, seeing another shape materialize to his right. War, all in armor, blade edges and spikes glinting wickedly, hurled a mace that thudded into the tree next to him and caused the trunk to split apart. Walker whirled away, careening wildly past the skeletal arms of Famine, white bones reaching, clutching. They were all there, all of them, he realized in despair. Somehow they had found him out.

He darted away, hearing the buzz and hiss of Pestilence, feeling dry heat and smelling sickness close beside. He leaped a small ravine, his fear giving him unexpected strength, a fiery determination building within him. The Horsemen came after, dismounted now in their effort to trap him, bits of night broken free like the edges of a shattered blade. He heard their movement as he might the rustle of leaves in a slight wind, small whispers. There was nothing else—no footsteps, no breathing, no scrape of weapons or bone.

Walker raced through the trees, no longer sure in which direction he was running, seeking only to elude his pursuers. He was suddenly lost in the darkness of the forest corridors, fleeing to no purpose but to escape, any advantage of surprise lost. The Shadowen came on, a swift and certain pursuit. He was aware of their movements out of the corner of his eye. They had him flushed now, and they were hunting him as dogs would a fox.

No!

He whirled then and brought his magic to bear, throwing up a wall of fire between himself and his pursuers, sending the flames back into their faces like white-hot spikes. War and Pestilence shrank away, slowed, but Famine and Death came on, unaffected. Of course, Walker thought as he ran anew. Famine and Death. Fire would not harm them.

He crossed a stream and swerved right toward the rise of Paranor, towers and walls sharp-edged against the night. He had been running that way without knowing it, and now saw it as his only chance of escape. If he could gain the castle before they caught him...

Cogline! Was the old man watching?

Something rose out of the night before him, serpentine and slick with moisture. Claws reached for him and teeth gleamed. It was one of the Shadowen mounts, set there to cut him off. He slipped beneath its grasp, a bit of night that could not be held, the magic making him as swift and ephemeral as the wind. The serpent thing hissed and slashed wildly, sending gouts of earth flying. Walker Boh was behind it by then, racing away with the quickness of thought. Ahead the castle of the Druids loomed—his sanctuary, his haven from these things—

A black motion to his left sent him skidding away as Famine lashed out with a sword carved of bone, a dull white gleaming that tore at the edges of his clothing. Walker lost his footing and went down, tumbling along a slope, rolling wildly through brush and long grass and into a slick of standing water. Something rushed past, just missing him with a click of jaws. Another of the serpents. Walker came to his feet, flinging fire and sound in all directions in a desperate effort to shield himself. He had the satisfaction of hearing something shriek in pain, of hearing something else grunt as if clubbed, and then he was moving again. Trees rose off to one side, and he disappeared into them, searching out the concealment of the deep shadows. His breathing was ragged and uneven, and his body ached. To his dismay, he found himself moving away from the castle again, turned aside from the safety he had hoped to gain.

A shadow flitted off to his left, swift and silent, a black cloak and a glint of an iron blade. Death. Walker was tiring, worn from his flight, from being forced to change direction so often. The Shadowen had hemmed him in and were closing. He did not think he could reach the castle before they caught up to him. He sought to change directions back again, but saw movement between himself and the Keep and heard a hiss of anticipation and the sudden rustle of scales through the grasses and brush. Walker could barely keep his panic in check, feeling it as a growing tightness in his throat. He had been too quick to assume, too sure of himself. He should have known it would not be this easy. He should have anticipated better.

Branches slapped at his face and arms as he forced his way into a stretch of deep woods. Behind, the serpent closed. It seemed as if he could feel its breath on his neck, the touch of claws and teeth on his body. He increased his pace, broke free of the underbrush into a clearing, and found Death waiting, cloaked and hooded, scythe lifted. The Shadowen struck at him, missed as he veered sideways, swung a second time, and Walker caught hold of the scythe to deflect it. Instantly a cold numbed his hand and arm, hollow and bone-chilling, and he jerked away in pain, thrusting the scythe and its wielder aside as he did so. Something else moved in from the right, but he was running again, throwing himself back into the forest, slipping past rows of dark trunks as if turned substanceless, all the while feeling the numbness settle deeper.

So cold!

His strength was failing now, and he was no closer to safety than before. Think, he admonished himself furiously. Think! Shadows moved all about, the skeletal shape of Famine, the hideous buzz of Pestilence, the rumble of War in his unbreachable armor, the silent rush of Death, and with them the serpents they commanded.

Then suddenly a memory triggered, and Walker Boh grasped for the thread of hope it offered. There was a trapdoor hidden in the earth just ahead and beneath it a tunnel leading back into Paranor. The trapdoor was Allanon’s memory, come alive in the terror and anguish of the moment, recalled just in time. There, left! Walker swerved, lurching ahead, hand and arm feeling as dead as the one he had lost. Don’t think about it! He threw himself into a covering of brush, whipping past leafy barriers, down a ravine, and across a narrows.

There!

His hand dropped to the earth, clawing for the hidden door with nerveless fingers. It was here, he thought, here in this patch of ground. Sounds approached from behind, closing. He found an iron ring, grasped it, and heaved upward. The door came away with a thud, falling back. Walker tumbled through the opening and down the stairs beyond, then scrambled back to his feet. There were shadows at the entry, coming through. He raised his damaged hand and arm, fighting through the numbness and chill, and called for the magic. Fire exploded up the stairs and filled the opening. The shadows disappeared in a ball of light. There was a rending of earth and stone, and the entire entrance collapsed.

Walker lurched away into the tunnel, choking and coughing from the dust and smoke. Twice he glanced back to make certain that nothing followed.

But he was alone.

He was besieged by doubts and fears as he made his way back to the Keep through the tunnels, assailed by demons that bore the faces of his enemies. It seemed as if he could hear his Shadowen pursuers even here, come down into the earth to finish what they had started. Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine—what was rock and earth to them? Could they not penetrate anywhere? What was to keep them out?

But they did not come, for, notwithstanding the forms and identities they had assumed, they were not invincible and not truly the incarnations they pretended to be. He had heard them cry out in pain; he had felt their substance. The numbness in his hand and arm was beginning to recede, and he welcomed the tingling gratefully, feeling anew the pain of loss of his other limb, wishing he could live that part of his life over again.

He wondered how much more of himself he would be forced to cede before this struggle was over. Wasn’t he lucky just to be alive? How narrow his escape from the Shadowen had been this time!

And then suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps he hadn’t really escaped anything. Perhaps he had been allowed to escape. Perhaps the Horsemen had only been toying with him. Hadn’t they had enough chances to kill him if they wanted to? It seemed on reflection that they might have been trying to scare him rather than kill him, to instill enough fear in him that he would be unable to function at all once he was back within the Druid’s Keep.

But he discarded the idea almost immediately. It was ridiculous to think that they wouldn’t have killed him if they could. They had simply tried and failed. He had possessed enough skill and magic to save himself even in the confusion of an ambush, and he would take what comfort he could from that.

Aching and worn, he reentered Paranor’s walls and made his way back into the Keep. Cogline would be waiting. He would have to confess his failure to the old man. The thought troubled him, and he was aware that it was his preconception of the invincibility of the Druids that stood in the way of acceptance. But he could not afford pride. He was a novice still. He was just beginning to learn.

Slowly the fears and doubts dropped away, and the demons disappeared. There would be another day, he promised—another time and place in which to deal with the Horsemen.

When it came, he would be ready.