The Elf Queen of Shannara

“No,” Walker repeated. He looked up, shaking his head slowly. “Not that I wouldn’t like you to. But this isn’t something you can help me with, either of you. It isn’t something anyone can help me with.”


He could feel an ache where his missing arm should be, as if it were somehow there and he simply couldn’t see it. He shifted uneasily, trying to relieve muscles that had tightened and cramped while he had stayed seated with the old man, arguing. The movement gave him impetus, and he forced himself to rise. Cogline stood with him. They faced each other in the half-light, in the fading transparency of the Keep.

“Walker.” The old man spoke his name quietly. “The Druids have made us both their creatures. We have been twisted and turned in every direction, made to do things we did not wish to do and become involved in matters we would rather have left alone. I would not presume to argue with you now the merits of their manipulation. We are both beyond the point where it matters.”

He leaned forward. “But I would tell you, would ask you to remember, that they choose their paladins wisely.” His smile was worn and sad. “Luck to you.”

Walker came around the table, wrapped his good arm about the old man, and hugged him tight. He held him momentarily, then released him and stepped away.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

There was nothing more to be said. He took a deep breath, walked over to scratch Rumor between his cocked ears, gazed into the luminous eyes, then turned and disappeared out the door.



With slow, cautious steps, moving through the vast, empty hallways as if the walls might hear him coming, as if his intentions could be divined, he proceeded toward the center of the Keep. Shadows hung about him in colorless folds, a sleep-shroud that cloaked his thoughts. He buried himself in the sanctuary of his mind, drawing his determination and strength of will about him in protective layers, summoning from deep within the resolve that would give him a chance at life.

For the truth of things was that he had no real idea what would happen when he confronted the Druid watchdog and called upon the Black Elfstone’s magic to subdue it. Cogline was right; there would be pain and the process would be more complex and difficult than he wanted to admit. There would be a struggle, and he might not emerge the victor. He wished he had some better idea of what it was he faced. But there was no point in wishing for what could never be, for what had never been. The Druid ways had been secretive forever.

He turned down the main hallway, heading now to the doors that opened into the Keep—and to the well in which the watchdog slumbered. Or perhaps simply laired, for it seemed to the Dark Uncle that the magic was awake and watching, following him with its eyes as he moved through the castle, trailing along in a ripple of changing light, an invisible presence. Allanon’s shade was there as well, a tightening at his back, a cramping of the muscles in his shoulders where the great hands gripped. He was held fast already, he thought to himself. He was propelled to this confrontation as much as if he were deadwood carried on the crest of a river in flood, and he could not turn aside from it.

Speak to me, Allanon, he pleaded silently. Tell me what to do.

But no answer came.

The doors of empty rooms and the dark tunnels of other halls and corridors came and went. He felt again the ache of his missing arm and wished that he were whole again, if only for the moment of this confrontation. He gripped the Black Elfstone tightly in his good hand, feeling its smooth facets and sharp edges press reassuringly against his flesh. He could summon the power within, but he could not predict what it would do. Destroy you, the thought came unbidden. He breathed slowly, deeply, to calm himself. He tried to remember the passage on the Stone’s usage from the Druid History, but his memory suddenly failed him. He tried to remember what he had read in all the pages of all those books and could not. Everything was melting away within, lost in the rush of fear and doubt that surged through him, anxious and threatening. Don’t give way to it, he admonished himself. Remember who you are, what has been promised you, what you have told yourself will happen.

The words were dead leaves caught in a strong wind.

Ahead, a broad alcove opened into the stone of the walls, arched and shadowed so deeply that it was as black as night. There, a set of tall iron doors stood closed.

The entry to the well of the Druid’s Keep.