He threw a dash of dark powder into the fire with a suddenness that caused Par and Coll to jerk back sharply. The fire flared as it had when the old man had first appeared, but this time the light was drawn out of the air and everything went dark.
Then an image formed in the blackness, growing in size until it seemed to be all around them. It was an image of the Four Lands, the countryside barren and empty, stripped of life and left ruined. Darkness and a haze of ash-filled smoke hung over everything. Rivers were filled with debris, the waters poisoned. Trees were bent and blasted, shorn of life. Nothing but scrub grew anywhere. Men crept about like animals, and animals fled at their coming. There were shadows with strange red eyes circling everywhere, dipping and playing within those humans who crept, twisting and turning them until they lost their shape and became unrecognizable.
It was a nightmare of such fury and terror that it seemed to Par and Coll Ohmsford as if it were happening to them, and that the screams emanating from the mouths of the tortured humans were their own.
Then the image was gone, and they were back again about the fire, the old man sitting there, watching them with hawk’s eyes.
“That was a part of my dream,” Par whispered.
“That was the future,” the old man said.
“Or a trick,” a shaken Coll muttered, stiffening against his own fear.
The old man glared “The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present. The future I have shown you tonight is not yet fixed. But it is more likely to become so with the passing of every day because nothing is being done to turn it aside. If you would change it, do as I have told you. Go to Allanon! Listen to what he will say!”
Coll said nothing, his dark eyes uneasy with doubt.
“Tell us who you are,” Par said softly.
The old man turned to him, studied him for a moment, then looked away from them both, staring out into the darkness as if there were worlds and lives hidden there that only he could see. Finally, he looked back again, nodding.
“Very well, though I can’t see what difference it makes. I have a name, a name you should both recognize quickly enough. My name is Cogline.”
For an instant, neither Par nor Coll said anything. Then both began speaking at once.
“Cogline, the same Cogline who lived in the Eastland with . . . ?”
“You mean the same man Kimber Boh . . .?”
He cut them short irritably. “Yes, yes! How many Coglines can there possibly be!” He frowned as he saw the looks on their faces. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Par took a deep breath. “Cogline was an old man in the time of Brin Ohmsford. That was three hundred years ago.”
Unexpectedly, the other laughed. “An old man! Ha! And what do you know of old men, Par Ohmsford? Fact is, you don’t know a whisker’s worth!” He laughed, then shook his head helplessly “Listen. Allanon was alive five hundred years before he died! You don’t question that, do you? I think not, since you tell the story so readily! Is it so astonishing then that I have been alive for a mere three hundred years?” He paused, and there was a surprisingly mischievous look in his eye. “Goodness, what would you have said if I had told you I had been alive longer even than that?”
Then he waved his hand dismissively. “No, no, don’t bother to answer. Answer me this instead. What do you know about me? About the Cogline of your stories? Tell me.”
Par shook his head, confused. “That he was a hermit, living off in the Wilderun with his granddaughter, Kimber Boh. That my ancestor, Brin Ohmsford, and her companion, Rone Leah, found him there when they . . .”
“Yes, yes, but what about the man? Think now of what you’ve seen of me!”
Par shrugged. “That he . . .” He stopped. “That he used powders that exploded. That he knew something of the old sciences, that he’d studied them somewhere.” He was remembering the specifics of the tales of Cogline now, and in remembering found himself thinking that maybe this old man’s claim wasn’t so farfetched. “He employed different forms of power, the sorts that the Druids had discarded in their rebuilding of the old world. Shades! If you are Cogline, you must still have such power. Do you? Is it magic like my own?”
Coll looked suddenly worried. “Par!”
“Like your own?” the old man asked quickly. “Magic like the wishsong? Hah! Never! Never so unpredictable as that! That was always the trouble with the Druids and their Elven magics—too unpredictable! The power I wield is grounded in sciences proven and tested through the years by reliable study! It doesn’t act of its own accord; it doesn’t evolve like something alive!” He stopped, a fierce smile creasing his aged face. “But then, too, Par Ohmsford, my power doesn’t sing either!”
The Scions of Shannara
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene