The Druid of Shannara

Walker Boh languished at Hearthstone in a prison far more forbidding than the one that had secured Morgan Leah. He had returned from Storlock filled with a fiery determination to cure the sickness that attacked him, to drive from his body the poison that the Asphinx had injected into it, and to heal himself as even the Stors could not. Within a week he had changed completely, grown dispirited and bitter, frightened that his hopes had been in vain, that he could not save himself after all. His days were long, heat-filled stretches of time in which he wandered the valley lost in thought, desperately trying to reason out what form of magic it would take to stem the poison’s flow. His nights were empty and brooding, the dark hours expended in a silent, futile effort to implement his ideas.

Nothing worked.

He tried a little of everything. He began with a series of mind sets, inward delvings of his own magic that were designed to dissolve, break apart, turn back, or at least slow the poison’s advance. None of these occurred. He used channeling of the magic in the form of an assault, the equivalent of an inner summoning of the fire that he sometimes used to protect and defend. The channeling could not seem to find a ready source; it scattered and lost its potency. He attempted spells and conjurings from the lore he had accumulated over the years, both that which was innate and that he had been taught. All failed. He resorted finally to the chemicals and powders that Cogline relied upon, the sciences of the old world brought into the new. He attacked the stone ruin of his arm and tried to burn it to the flesh so that cauterization might take place. He tried healing potions that were absorbed through the skin and permeated the stone. He used magnetic and electric fields. He used antitoxins. These, too, failed. The poison was too strong. It could not be overcome. It continued to work its way through his system, slowly killing him.

Rumor stayed at his side almost constantly, trailing silently after him on his long daytime walks, stretching out next to him in the darkness of his room as he struggled in vain to employ the magic in a way that would allow him to survive. The giant moor cat seemed to sense what was happening to Walker; it watched him as if fearful he might disappear at any moment, as if by watching closely it might somehow protect against this unseen thing that threatened. The luminous yellow eyes were always there, regarding him with intelligence and concern, and Walker found himself staring into them hopefully, searching for the answers he could find nowhere else.

Cogline, too, did what he could to help Walker in his struggle. Like the moor cat, he kept watch, albeit at a somewhat greater distance, afraid that Walker would not tolerate it if he came too close or stayed too long. There was still an antagonism between the two that would not be dispelled. It was difficult for them to remain in each other’s presence for more than a few minutes at a time. Cogline offered what advice he could, mixing powders and potions at Walker’s request, administering salves and healing medicines, suggesting forms of magic he thought might help. Mostly he provided what little reassurance he could that an antidote would be found.

Walker, though he would not admit it to the other, was grateful for that reassurance. For the first time in many years, he did not want to be alone. He had never given much thought to his own death, always convinced it was still far away and he would be prepared for it in any case when it arrived. He discovered now that he had been wrong on both counts. He was angry and frightened and confused; his emotions careened about inside him like stones tossed in a wagon bed, the debris of some emptied load. He fought to maintain his sense of balance, a belief in himself, some small measure of hope, but without the steadying presence of Cogline he would have been lost. The old man’s face and voice, his movements, his idiosyncrasies, all so familiar, were handholds on the cliff to which Walker Boh clung, and they kept him from dropping away completely. He had known Cogline a long time; in the absence of Par and Coll, and to a lesser extent Wren, Cogline was his only link with the past—a past that he had in turn scorned, reviled, and finally cast away entirely, a past he was now desperate to regain as it was his link to the use of the magic that could save him. Had he not been so quick to disparage it, so anxious to be rid of its influence, had he taken more time to understand it, to learn from it, to master it and make it serve his needs, he might not be struggling so hard now to stay alive.