definition that floated rather than walked and that came and went
with the blink of an eye.
It was a night for imagining things that weren’t there.
Par did his best to avoid that, but he was only partially suc-
cessful. He harbored within him ghosts of his own making, and
they seemed to find their identity in the shadows that played in
the mist. There, left of the pinprick of light that was a street-
lamp, rose the promise Par had made to keep Coil and Damson
safe this night when they went down into the Pit-a small, fright-
ened wisp of nothing. There, just behind it, was his belief that
he possessed in the magic of the wishsong sufficient power to
keep that promise, that he could somehow use the wishsong as
the Elfstones had once been used-not as a maker of images
and deceptions, but as a weapon of strength and power. His
belief chased after his promise, smaller and frailer yet. Across
the way, crawling along the barely visible wall of a shop front,
hunching itself across the stone blocks as if mired in quicksand,
was the guilt he felt at heeding no one but himself as he sought
to vindicate both promise and belief-a guilt that threatened to
rise up and choke him.
And hanging over all of them like a giant bird of prey-over
promise, belief, and guilt, at home within the faceless night,
blind and reckless and cast in stone-was his determination to
heed the charge of the shade of Allanon and retrieve from the
Pit and its Shadowen the missing Sword of Shannara.
It was down there in its vault, he reassured himself in the
privacy of his thoughts. The Sword of Shannara. It was waiting
for him.
But the ghosts would not be banished, and the whisper of
their doubts swarmed about his paper-thin self-assurances like
scavengers, insistent in their purpose, taunting him for his pride
and his foolish certainty, teasing him with vivid images of the
fate that awaited them all if he was wrong. He walled himself
away from the ghosts, just as he had walled himself away all
along. But he could not ignore their presence. He could not
pretend they weren’t there. He fled down inside himself as the
three companions worked their way slowly, blindly through the
empty city streets, the fog, and the damp and found refuge in
the hard core of his resolve. He was risking everything on being
right. But what if he wasn’t? Who, besides Coil and Damson,
would suffer for his mistake?
He thought for a time about those from whom he had become
separated on his odyssey-those who had faded away into the
events that had brought him to this night. His parents were Fed-
eration prisoners, under house arrest at their home in the village
of Shady Vale-kind, gentle folk who had never hurt anyone and
knew nothing of what this business was about. What, he won-
dered, would happen to them if he failed? What of Morgan
Leah, the sturdy Dwarf Steff, and the enigmatic Teel? He sup-
posed that even now they were hatching plans against the Fed-
eration, hidden away at the Jut,-deep within the protective
confines of the Parma Key. Would his failure exact a price from
them as well? And what of the others who had come to the
Hadeshom? Walker Boh had returned to Hearthstone. Wren had
gone back into the Wesdand. Cogline had disappeared.
And Allanon. What of the Druid shade? What of Allanon,
who might never even have existed?
But this wasn’t a mistake and he wasn’t wrong. He knew it.
He was certain of it.
Damson slowed. They had reached the narrow stone steps
that wound downward to the sewers. She glanced back at Par
and Coil momentarily, her green eyes hard. Then, beckoning
them after, she began her descent. The Valemen followed. Par’s
ghosts went with him, closing tightly about, their breath as real
as his own as it brushed against his face. Damson led the way;
Coil brought up the rear. No one spoke. Par was not certain he
could speak if he tried. His mouth and throat felt as if they were