The First King of Shannara

When the girl had finished, Bremen smiled encouragingly.

“Well, you are a bold young lady. And I appreciate your confidence in both Kinson and myself. Certainly, we will try to help you. As for Cogline, this business of sending you off to Paranor to learn about your magic, giving you false references, encouraging you to dissemble — that sounds exactly like him. Cogline has no love for the Druids. He would tweak their collective noses at the slightest provocation. But he also knew, I think, that if you were determined enough to discover the truth about your magic, if you were the genuine article, so to speak, you would eventually find your way to me.”

“Do you know Cogline well?” Mareth asked.

“As well as anyone knows him. He was a Druid before me. He was a Druid in the time of the First War of the Races. He knew Brona. In some ways, he sympathized with him. He thought that all avenues of learning should be encouraged and no form of study forbidden. He was something of a rebel himself in that respect. But Cogline was also a good and careful man. He would never have risked himself as Brona did.

“He left the Druid order before Brona. He left because he grew disenchanted with the structure under which he was required to study. His interest lay in the lost sciences, in sciences that had served the old world before its destruction. But the High Druid and the Druid Council were not supportive of his work. In those days, they favored magic — a power that Cogline distrusted. For them, the old sciences were better left in peace. They might have served the old world, but they had also destroyed it. Uncovering their secrets should be done slowly and cautiously and for limited use only. Cogline thought this nonsense. Science would not be contained, he would argue. It would not be revealed according to Man’s agenda, but according to its own.”

Bremen rocked back slightly, arms clasped about knees drawn up, all bones and angles, his smile one of reminiscence. “So Cogline left, infuriated at what had been done to him — and at what he had done to himself, I imagine. He went off into Darklin Reach and resumed his studies on his own. I would see him now and then, cross paths with him. We would talk.We would exchange information and ideas. We were both outcasts of a sort. Except that Cogline refused to consider himself a Druid any longer, while I refused to consider myself anything less.”

“He’s been alive longer than you have,” Kinson observed casually, poking at the coals of the fire with a stick, refusing to meet Bremen’s gaze.

“He has use of the Druid Sleep, if that’s what you are getting at,” Bremen replied quietly. “It is the one indulgence of magic’s use that he permits himself. He is mistrustful of the rest. All of it.”

He glanced at Mareth. “He thinks the magic dangerous and uncontrollable. He would have taken some delight, I expect, in learning that you found it that way as well. In sending you to Paranor, he was hoping to make a point. The trouble is, you hid your secret too well, and the Druids never discovered what you were capable of doing.”

Mareth nodded, but said nothing. Her dark eyes looked off into space thoughtfully.

Kinson stretched. He felt impatient and irritated with both of them. People complicated their own lives unnecessarily. This was just another example.

He caught Bremen’s eye. “Now that we have all our secrets and past history on the table, tell me this. Why are we going to Hearthstone? What is it that we want with Cogline?”

Bremen studied him a moment before replying. “As I said, Cogline has continued his study of the old sciences. He knows secrets lost to everyone else. One of those secrets might be of use to us.”

He stopped, smiled. He had said all he was going to say, Kinson could tell. There was probably a reason for this beyond irritating the living daylights out of the Borderman, but Kinson did not care either to speculate or to ask what it was. He nodded as if satisfied and rose.

“I will take the first watch,” he announced, and stalked off into the dark.

He sat brooding over the matter until after midnight when Bremen came to relieve him. The old man materialized out of nowhere — Kinson never heard him coming — and sat down next to the Borderman. They kept each other company for a long time without speaking, looking out into the night. They were seated on a low bluff that overlooked the Rabb as it snaked its way through the trees, its surface flat and silver with moonlight. The woods were quiet and sleepy, and the air smelled of juniper and spruce.