“Then give me a reason to think that what I do is right!”
Walker heard the desperation in his voice and was displeased with it. The shade seemed equally so. The waters over which it hovered spat and hissed in sudden fury, boiling up like a hot kettle heated by fresh fuel. Walker felt the familiar uncertainty, the unease of speaking with the dead, of confronting one who even in life had been so much more capable than he, of one who had known no equal and experienced no defeat.
—Take the map and follow it. Follow it as you would a thread unraveled from a cloak of darkness. Wind it about your finger and when you reach its end, weave it back together once more. You will know what to do—
It was an unsatisfying response that told Walker nothing, and in a mixture of disappointment and frustration, he came to his feet.
“What am I to do with the magic I seek, once it is found?” The Hadeshorn hissed anew, but Walker ignored it. His voice tightened. “Yours is the collective knowledge of all the Druids. You must know of the magic’s potential, of its power. It can destroy everything regained if it is not used well.”
—Everything—
“Then tell me how to prevent that from happening! Am I to take everything I find—all of it? What part am I to give to the races? What should be held back and what put to use? I can’t see far enough into the future to comprehend the answers!”
A booming cough shook the ground beneath his feet, and a growl rose from within the earth.
—A shade has no right to tell the living what they need. Only the living can make that decision. You must make it for all, because that is what you are given to do. On your shoulders hangs the mantle of responsibility for those with lesser insight, courage, and vision. Druids are charged with no less, Walker. Be what you have been given to be—
Walker shook his head in dismay. “I am not what you say—not smarter or braver or more insightful. I have never been that. I am simply the bearer of a blood trust bestowed on Brin Ohmsford long before I was born, a trust I carry not because I want to, but because I must and because by doing so I might one day see a time when there is no further need for Druids!”
He leaned toward the dark shape, his voice building. “I am no better than those I seek to help. I am a poor answer to their difficult questions. What are you, then? Where is the vaunted Druid power that should give me the insights and understandings I lack? Where is that power, but buried in the pit from which you rise to taunt me! If I am to be the way, then show me something of the path!”
Lightning crackled before him, streaking down into the Hadeshorn from the heavens. It was followed by a thunderclap of such fury that he could feel it reverberating in the air about him. He stepped back from the brilliance and the sound, shielding his face. In the aftermath, everything went completely black, and he was suddenly alone, stranded in an inky void.
He could feel the shade of Allanon draw close to him then. He could hear the hiss of his anger.
—You travel to secure a treasure, Dark Uncle. You journey to fulfill a dream. What you accomplish will cost you and those with you. For some, it will cost everything. Lives will be lost and dreams shattered. None of those who return will be the same again. Ever—
A slow hissing began to build from somewhere within the invisible black that shrouded them. It came from everywhere at once, slow and steady and terrifying.
—Of the things you seek, you shall find them all. Of what you would know, only some will be revealed. Of what you retrieve, nothing will you take away. The future is fluid and ever changing, and so it will be here. Give yourself over to it. If you would accomplish what you most desire, let go of what most weighs you down. Recognize when you have exceeded your reach. Give heed to what is meant to be and do not question or regret or try to subvert it—
From a collage of images that formed in his mind, Walker caught a glimpse of what he was being told, yet the particulars remained just out of reach. He shook his head in confusion.
—One dream, Walker, of those you embrace is all you are allowed. The rest, you must release—
Allanon’s voice was a dark, sad hiss of warning. Walker caught the inflection and the tone.
“Which dream?” he whispered. “Which one?”
But when the suffocating void fell away and the night sky reappeared overhead, the Hadeshorn lay before him as still and empty as dark glass clouded by smoke, and Walker was alone.
I knew I had more stories to tell before I finished writing The Dark Thorn.