you and to you alone-
“But you ask impossible things of us!” Wren snapped des-
perately.
“Worse! You ask things that should never be!” Walker raged.
“Druids come again? Paranor restored?”
The shade’s reply came softly.
-I ask for what must be. You have the skills, the heart, the
right, and the need to do what I have asked. Believe what I have
told you. Do as I have said. Then will the Shadowen be de-
stroyed-
Par felt his throat tighten in desperation. Allanon was begin-
ning to fade.
“Where shall we look?” he cried out frantically. “Where do
we begin our search? Allanon, you have to tell us!”
There was no answer. The shade withdrew further.
‘ ‘No! You cannot go!” Walker Boh howled suddenly.
The shade began to sink into the waters of the Hadeshom.
“Druid, I forbid it!” Walker screamed in fury, throwing off
sparks of his own magic as he flung his arms out as if to hold
the other back.
The whole of the valley seemed to explode in response, the
earth shaking until rocks bounced and raided ferociously, the
air filling with a wind that whipped down out of the mountains
as if summoned, the Hadeshom churning in a maelstrom of
rage, the dead crying out-and the shade of Allanon bursting
into flame. The members of the little company were thrown flat
as the forces about them collided, and everything was caught up
in a whirlwind of light and sound.
At last it was still and dark again. They lifted their heads
cautiously and looked about. The valley was empty of shades
and spirits and all that accompanied them. The earth was at rest
once more and the Hadeshom a silent, placid stretch of lumi-
nescence that reflected the sun’s brilliant image from where it
lifted out of the darkness in me east.
Par Ohmsford climbed slowly to his feet. He felt that he might
have awakened from a dream.
XVI
When they recovered their composure, the members
of the little company discovered that Cogline was
missing. At first they thought such a thing impos-
sible, certain that they must be mistaken, and they cast about
for him expectantly, searching the lingering nighttime shadows.
But me valley offered few places to hide, and the old man was
nowhere to be found.
“Perhaps Allanon’s shade whisked him away,” Morgan sug-
gested in an attempt to make a joke of it.
Nobody laughed. Nobody even smiled. They were already
sufficiently distressed by everything else that had happened mat
night, and me strange disappearance of the old man only served
to unsettle them further. It was one thing for the shades of Dru-
ids dead and gone to appear and vanish without warning; it was
something else again when it was a flesh-and-blood person. Be-
sides, Cogline had been their last link to the meaning behind
the dreams and the reason for their journey here. With the ap-
parent severing of mat link, they were all too painfully aware
that they were now on their own.
They stood around uncertainly a moment or two longer. Then
Walker muttered something about wasting his time. He started
back the way he had come, the others of the little company
trailing after nun. The sun was above the horizon now, golden
in a sky that was cloudless and blue, and the warmth of the day
was already settling over the barren peaks of me Dragon’s Teeth.
Par glanced over his shoulder as they reached the valley rim.
The Hadeshom stared back at him, sullen and unresponsive.
The walk back was a silent one. They were all thinking about
what the Druid had said, sifting and measuring the revelations
and charges, and none of them were ready yet to talk. Certainly
Par wasn’t. He was so confounded by what he had been told that
he was having trouble accepting that he had actually heard it.
He trailed the others with Coil, watching their backs as they
wound single file through the breaks in the rocks, following the
pathway that led down through the cliff pocket to the foothills
and their campsite, thinking mostly that Walker had been right
after all, that whatever he might have imagined this meeting with