directly responsible, why, then another of that one’s bloodline
would do nicely.
Cogline advised him to stay clear. The Grimpond would see
him destroyed if it was given the opportunity. His parents had
been given the same advice and had heeded it. But Walker Boh
had reached a point in his life when he was through making
excuses for who and what he was. He had come to the Wilderun
to escape his legacy; he did not intend to spend the rest of his
life wondering if there was something out there that could undo
him. Best to deal with the shade at once. He went looking for
the Grimpond. Because the shade never appeared to more than
one person at a time, Cogline was forced to remain behind.
When the confrontation came, it was memorable. It lasted for
almost six hours. During that time, the Grimpond assailed
Walker Boh with every imaginable trick and ploy at its disposal.
divulging real and imagined secrets of his present and his future
showering him with rhetoric designed to drive him into mad
ness, revealing to him visions of himself and those he loved that
were venomous and destructive. Walker Boh withstood it all
When the shade exhausted itself, it cursed Walker and disap-
peared back into the mist.
Walker returned to Hearthstone, feeling that the matter of time-
past was settled. He let the Grimpond alone and the Grimpond-
though it could be argued that he had no choice since he-
was bound to the waters of the lake-did the same to him.
Until today, Walker Boh had not been back.
He sighed. It would be more difficult this time, since this
time he wanted something from the shade. He could pretend
otherwise. He could keep to himself the truth of why he had
come-to learn from the Grimpond the whereabouts of the mys-
terious Black Elfstone. He could talk about this and that, or
assume some role that would confuse the creature, since it loved
games and the playing of them. But it was unlikely to make any
difference. Somehow the Grimpond always divined the reason
you were there.
Walker Boh felt the mist brush against him with the softness
of tiny fingers, clinging insistently. This was not going to be
pleasant.
He continued ahead as daylight failed and darkness closed
about. Shadows, where they could find purchase in the graying
haze, lengthened in shimmering parody of their makers. Walker
wrapped his cloak closer to his body, thinking through the words
he would say to the Grimpond, the arguments he would put
forth, the games he would play if forced to do so. He recounted
in his mind the events of his life that the shade was likely to play
upon-most of them drawn from his youth when he was discom-
fited by his differences and beset by his insecurities.
“Dark Uncle” they had called him even then-the playmates
of Par and Coil, their parents, and even people of the village of
Shady Vale that didn’t know him. Dark for the color of his life
and being, this pale, withdrawn young man who could some-
times read minds, who could divine things that would happen
and even cause them to be so, who could understand so much
of what was hidden from others. Par and Coil’s strange uncle,
without parents of his own, without a family that was really his,
without a history that he cared to share. Even the Ohmsford
name didn’t seem to fit him. He was always the “Dark Uncle,”
somehow older than everyone else, not in years but in knowl-
edge. It wasn’t knowledge he had learned; it was knowledge he
had been bom with. His father had tried to explain. It was the
legacy of the wishsong’s magic that caused it. It manifested itself
this way. But it wouldn’t last; it never did. It was just a stage he
must pass through because of who he was. But Par and Coil did
not have to pass through it, Walker would argue in reply. No,
only you and I, only the children of Brin Ohmsford, because we
hold the trust, his father would whisper. We are the chosen of