It occurred to him then that he said nothing to Padishar about the magic that still lingered in the broken Sword of Leah, the magic that had saved both their lives. He had never told the other how he had defeated Teel, how it was that he had managed to overcome the Shadowen. There had been no time to talk of it. He supposed that there had been no real reason. It was something he didn’t yet fully understand. Why there was still magic in the blade, he didn’t know. Why he had been able to summon it, he wasn’t certain. He had thought it all used up before. Was it all used up now? Or was there enough left to save him one more time if the need should arise?
He found himself wondering how long it would be before he had to find out.
Moving cautiously down the mountainside, he faded away into the rain.
Par Ohmsford drifted.
He did not sleep, for in sleeping he would dream and his dreams haunted him. Nor did he wake, for in waking he would find the reality that he was so desperate to escape.
He simply drifted, half in and half out of any recognizable existence, tucked somewhere back in the gray in-between of what is and what isn’t, where his mind could not focus and his memories remained scattered, where he was warm and secure from the past and future both, curled up deep inside. There was a madness upon him, he knew. But the madness was welcome, and he let it claim him without a struggle. It made him disoriented and distorted his perceptions and his thoughts. It gave him shelter. It cloaked him in a shroud of nonbeing that kept everything walled away—and that was what he needed.
Yet even walls have chinks and cracks that let through the light, and so it was with his madness. He sensed things—whispers of life from the world he was trying so hard to hide from. He felt the blankets that wrapped him and the bed on which he lay. He saw candles burning softly through a liquid haze, pinpricks of yellow brightness like islands on a dark sea. Strange beasts looked down at him from cabinets, shelves, boxes, and dressers, and their faces were formed of cloth and fur with button eyes and sewn noses, with ears that drooped and tipped, and with studied, watchful poses that never changed. He listened as words were spoken, floating through the air as motes of dust on streamers from the sun.
“He’s very sick, lovely Damson,” he heard one voice say.
And the other replied, “He’s protecting himself, Mole.”
Damson and Mole. He knew who they were, although he couldn’t quite place them. He knew as well that they were talking about him. He didn’t mind. What they were saying didn’t make any difference.
Sometimes he saw their faces through the chinks and cracks.
The Mole was a creature with round, furry features and large, questioning eyes who stood above him, looking thoughtful. Sometimes he brought the strange beasts to sit close by. He looked very much the same as the beasts, Par thought. He called them by name. He spoke with them. But the beasts never answered back.
The girl fed him sometimes. Damson. She spooned soup into his mouth and made him drink, and he did so without argument. There was something perplexing about her, something that fascinated him, and he tried talking to her once or twice before giving up. Whatever it was he wished to say refused to show itself. The words ran away and hid. His thoughts faded. He watched her face fade with them.
She kept coming back, though. She sat beside him and held his hand. He could feel it from where he hid inside himself. She spoke softly, touched his face with her fingers, let him feel her presence even when she was doing nothing. It was her presence more than anything that kept him from drifting away altogether. He would have liked it better if she had let him go. He thought that it would happen that way eventually, that he would drift far enough that everything would disappear. But she prevented that, and, while it frustrated and even angered him at times, it also interested him. Why was she doing this? Was she anxious to keep him with her, or did she simply want to be taken along?
He began to listen more intently when she spoke. Her words seemed to grow clearer.
“It wasn’t your fault,” was what she told him most often. She told him that over and over, and for the longest time he didn’t know why.
“That creature was no longer Coll.” She told him that, too. “You had to destroy it.”
She said these things, and once in a while he thought he almost understood. But fierce, dark shadows cloaked his understanding, and he was quick to hide from them.
But one day she spoke the words and he understood immediately. The drifting stopped, the walls broke apart, and everything rushed in with the cold fury of a winter ice storm. He began screaming, and he could not seem to stop. The memories returned, sweeping aside everything he had so carefully constructed to keep them out, and his rage and anguish were boundless. He screamed, and the Mole shrank from him, the strange beasts tumbled from his bedside, he could see the candles flickering through the tears he cried, and the shadows danced with glee.
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