The Druid of Shannara

When the shade spoke the words, they were not taunting and hateful as they had been when spoken by the Grimpond. They were simply a designation of who and what Walker was.

—Why will you not accept the charge I have given you—

Walker struggled angrily to reply but could not seem to find the words.

—The need for you is great, Walker. Not my need, but the need of the Lands and their people, the Races of the new world. If you do not accept my charge, there is no hope for them—

Walker’s rage was boundless. Bring back the Druids, who were no more, and disappeared Paranor? Surely, thought Walker in response. Surely, shade of Allanon. I shall take my ruined body in search of what you seek, my poisoned limb, though I be dying and cannot hope to help anyone, still I …

—Accept, Walker. You do not accept. Acknowledge the truth of yourself and your own destiny—

Walker didn’t understand.

—Kinship with those who have gone before you, those who understood the meaning of acceptance. That is what you lack—

Walker shuddered, disrupting the vision of his dream. His strength left him. He collapsed at the Hadeshorn’s edge, blanketed in confusion and fear, feeling so lost that it seemed to him impossible that he could ever again be found.

Help me, Allanon, he begged in despair.

The shade hung motionless in the air before him, ethereal against a backdrop of wintry skies and barren peaks, rising up like death’s specter come to retrieve a fresh victim. It seemed suddenly to Walker that dying was all that was left to him.

Do you wish me to die? he asked in disbelief. Is this what you demand of me?

The shade said nothing.

Did you know that this would happen to me? He held forth his arm, jagged stone stump, poison-streaked flesh.

The shade remained silent.

Why won’t you help me? Walker howled.

—Why won’t you help me—

The words echoed sharply in his mind, urgent and filled with a sense of dark purpose. But he did not speak them. Allanon did.

Then abruptly the shade shimmered in the air before him and faded away. The waters of the Hadeshorn steamed and hissed, roiled in fury, and went still once more. All about the air was misted and dark, filled with ghosts and wild imaginings, a place where life and death met at a crossroads of unanswered questions and unresolved puzzles.

Walker Boh saw them for only a moment, aware that he was seeing them not in sleep but in waking, realizing suddenly that his vision might not have been a dream at all.

Then everything was gone, and he fell away into blackness.

When he came awake again there was someone bending over him. Walker saw the other through a haze of fever and pain, a thin, sticklike figure in gray robes with a narrow face, a wispy beard and hair, and a hawk nose, crouched close like something that meant to suck away what life remained to him.

“Walker?” the figure whispered gently.

It was Cogline. Walker swallowed against the dryness in his throat and struggled to raise himself. The weight of his arm dragged against him, pulling him back, forcing him down. The old man’s hands groped beneath the concealing cloak and found the leaden stump. Walker heard the sharp intake of his breath.

“How did you … find me?” he managed.

“Allanon,” Cogline answered. His voice was rough and laced with anger.

Walker sighed. “How long have I …?”

“Three days. I don’t know why you’re still alive. You haven’t any right to be.”

“None,” Walker agreed and reached out impulsively to hug the other man close. The familiar feel and smell of the old man’s body brought tears to his eyes. “I don’t think … I’m meant to die … just yet.”

Cogline hugged Walker back. He said, “No, Walker. Not yet.”

Then the old man was lifting him to his feet, hauling him up with strength Walker hadn’t known he possessed, holding him upright as he pointed them both toward the south end of the valley. It was dawn again, the sunrise unclouded and brilliant gold against the eastern horizon, the air still and expectant with the promise of its coming.

“Hold on to me,” Cogline urged, walking him along the crushed black rock. “There are horses waiting and help to be had. Hold tight, Walker.”

Walker Boh held on for dear life.





III


Cogline took Walker Boh to Storlock. Even on horseback with Walker lashed in place, it took until nightfall to complete the journey. They came down out of the Dragon’s Teeth into a day filled with sunshine and warmth, turned east across the Rabb Plains, and made their way into the Eastland forests of the Central Anar to the legendary village of the Stors. Wracked with pain and consumed with thoughts of dying, Walker remained awake almost the entire time. Yet he was never certain where he was or what was happening about him, conscious only of the swaying of his horse and Cogline’s constant reassurance that all would be well.