The Elf Queen of Shannara

“Inside, quickly!” the Owl shouted, hurrying ahead.

Hastening to follow after him, the others of the little company charged with the safe delivery of Arborlon and its Elves disappeared through the open door and down into the black.





XIV


In a world of light and shadows where truths were a shimmer of inconsistency, of life stolen out of substance and made over into transparency, of nonbeing and mist, Walker Boh was brought face to face with the impossible.

“I have been waiting a long time, Walker, hoping you would come,” the ghost before him whispered.

Cogline—he had been dead weeks now, killed by the Shadowen at Hearthstone, destroyed by Rimmer Dall—and Rumor with him. Walker had seen it happen, sick almost beyond recovery from the poison of the Asphinx, crouched helplessly in his bedroom as the old man and the moor cat fought their last battle. He had seen it all, the final rush of the monsters created of the dark magic, the fire of the old man’s magic as it flared in retaliation, and the explosion that had consumed everyone within reach. Cogline and Rumor had disappeared in the conflagration along with dozens of their attackers. None had survived save Rimmer Dall and a handful who had been thrown clear.

Yet here was Cogline and the cat, come somehow into Paranor, shades out of death.

Except that Walker Boh found them as real as he was, a reflection of himself in this twilight world into which the Black Elfstone had dispatched him, ghostlike and yet alive when they should not have been. Unless he was dead as well and a reflection of them instead. The contradictions overwhelmed him. His breath caught sharply in his throat and he could not speak. Who was alive and who was not?

“Walker.” The old man spoke his name, and the sound of it drew him back from the precipice on which he was poised.

Cogline approached, slowly, carefully, seeming to realize the fear and confusion that his presence had generated in his pupil. He spoke softly to Rumor, and the moor cat sat back on his haunches obediently, his luminous eyes bright and interested as they fixed on Walker. Cogline’s body was as fragile and sticklike as ever beneath the gathering of worn robes, and the gray, hazy light passed through him in narrow streamers. Walker flinched as the old man reached out to touch him on the shoulder, the skeletal fingers trailing down to grip his arm.

The grip was warm and firm.

“I am alive, Walker. And Rumor, too. We are both alive,” he whispered. “The magic saved us.”

Walker Boh was silent a moment, staring without comprehension into the other’s eyes, searching for something that would give meaning to the other’s words. Alive? How could it be? He nodded finally, needing to respond in some fashion, to get past the fear and confusion, and asked hesitantly, “How did you get here?”

“Come sit with me,” the other replied.

He led Walker to a stone bench that rested against a wall, both an odd glimmer of hazy relief against the shadows, wrapped in mist and gloom. Sound was muffled within the Keep, as if an unwelcome guest forced to tread lightly in order not to draw attention. Walker glanced about, disbelieving still, searching the maze of walkways that disappeared ahead and behind, catching glimpses of stone walls and parapets and towers rising up about him, as empty of life as tombs set within the earth. He sat beside the old man, feeling Rumor rub up against him as he did.

“What has happened to us?” he asked, a measure of steadiness returning, his determination to discover the truth pushing back the uncertainty. “Look at us. We are like wraiths.”

“We are in a world of half-being, Walker,” Cogline replied softly. “We are somewhere between the world of mortal men and the world of the dead. Paranor rests there now, brought back out of nonbeing by the magic of the Black Elfstone. You found it, didn’t you? You recovered it from wherever it was hidden and carried it here. You used it, as you knew you must, and brought us back.