The Druid of Shannara

Walker shook his head. “I find myself wishing we had not agreed to this. Carisman is almost a child himself. I cannot help thinking he would have been better off not coming with us at all.”


“He chose to come,” Quickening reminded him. Her face tilted into the light, out of a striping of shadows. “He wanted to be free, Walker Boh. Coming with us, even here, was better than staying behind.”

Walker glanced through the windows a final time. The stone of the isthmus flats and the streets below glistened with the damp, empty and still. He could hear the distant thunder of the ocean, the cries of the seabirds, and the rushing of the wind down the cliffs. He felt alone.

“I wonder sometimes how many like Carisman there are,” he said finally. “Orphans, as he called himself. How many left to roam the land, made outcasts by Federation rule, their magic not the gift it was intended to be, but a curse they must disguise if they would keep their lives.”

Quickening seated herself against the wall and studied him. “A great many, Walker Boh. Like Carisman. Like yourself.”

He eased down beside her, folding his cloak about him, lifting his pale face toward the light. “I was not thinking of myself.”

“Then you must do so,” she said simply. “You must become aware.”

He stared at her. “Aware of what?”

“Of the possibilities of your life. Of the reasons for being who you are. If you were an elemental, you would understand. I was given life for a specific purpose. It would be terrifying to exist without that purpose. Is it not so for you?”

Walker felt his face tighten. “I have purpose in my life.”

Her smile was unexpected and dazzling. “No, Walker Boh, you do not. You have thrust from you any sense of purpose and made yourself an outcast twice over—first, for having been born with the legacy of Brin Ohmsford’s magic, and second, for having fallen heir to her trust. You deny who and what you are. When I healed your arm, I read your life. Tell me this is not so.”

He took a deep breath. “Why is it that I feel we are so much alike, Quickening? It is neither love nor friendship. It is something in between. Am I joined to you somehow?”

“It is our magic, Walker Boh.”

“No,” he said quickly. “It is something more.”

Her beautiful face masked all traces of the emotion that flickered in her eyes. “It is what we have come here to do.”

“To find the Stone King and take back from him the stolen Black Elfstone. Somehow.” Walker nodded solemnly. “And for me, to regain the use of my arm. And for Morgan Leah, to regain the magic of the Sword of Leah. All somehow. I have listened to your explanations. Is it true that you have not been told how any of this is to be accomplished? Or are there secrets that you hide from us as Pe Ell charges?”

“Walker Boh,” she said softly. “You turn my questions into your own and ask of me what I would ask of you. We both keep something of the truth at bay. It cannot be so for much longer. I will make a bargain with you. When you are ready to confront your truth, I shall confront mine.”

Walker struggled to understand. “I no longer fear the magic I was born with,” he said, studying the lines of her face, tracing its curves and angles as if she were in danger of disappearing before he could secure a memory of her. “I listened once to my nephew Par Ohmsford admonish me that the magic was a gift and not a curse. I scorned him. I was frightened of the implications of having the magic. I feared …”

He caught himself, an iron grip that tightened on his voice and thoughts instantly. A shadow of something terrifying had shown itself to him, a shadow that had grown familiar to him over the years. It had no face, but it spoke with the voices of Allanon and Cogline and his father and even himself. It whispered of history and need and the laws of Mankind. He thrust it away violently.

Quickening leaned forward and with gentle fingers touched his face. “I fear only that you will continue to deny yourself,” she whispered. “Until it is too late.”

“Quickening …”

Her fingers moved across his mouth, silencing him. “There is a scheme to life, to all of its various happenings and events, to everything we do within the time allotted to us. We can understand that scheme if we let ourselves, if we do not become frightened of knowing. Knowledge is not enough if there is not also acceptance of that knowledge. Anyone can give you knowledge, Walker Boh, but only you can learn how to accept it. That must come from within. So it is that my father has sent me to summon you and Pe Ell and Morgan Leah to Eldwist; so it is that the combination of your magics shall free the Black Elfstone and begin the healing process of the Lands. I know that this is to be. In time, I shall know how. But I must be ready to accept its truths when that happens. It is so as well for you.”

“I will …”