He mumbled something further to himself that neither of them
could hear as he disappeared slowly into the darkness.
Then he was gone.
v
Par and Coil Ohmsford did not get much sleep that night.
They stayed awake long after the old man was gone,
talking and sometimes arguing, worrying without al-
ways saying as much, eyes constantly scanning the darkness
against the promise that things, Shadowen or otherwise, were
likely to be hunting them. Even after that, when there was noth-
ing left to say, when they had rolled themselves wearily into
their blankets and closed their eyes against their fears, they did
not sleep well. They rolled and tossed in their slumber, waking
themselves and each other with distressing regularity until dawn.
They rose then, dragged themselves from the warmth of their
coverings, washed in the chilling waters of the lake, and
promptly began talking and arguing all over again. They contin-
ued through breakfast, which was just as well because once
again there wasn’t much to eat and it took their minds off their
stomachs. The talk, and more often now the arguments, cen-
tered around the old man who claimed to be Cogline and the
dreams mat might or might not have been sent and if sent might
or might not have been sent by Allanon, but included such pe-
ripheral topics as Shadowen, Federation Seekers, the stranger
who had rescued them in Varfleet, and whether there was sense
to the world anymore or not. They had established their posi-
tions on these subjects fefiriy well by this time, positions that,
for the most part, weren’t within a week’s walk of each other.
That being the case, they were reduced to communicating with
each other across vast stretches of intractability.
Before their day was even an hour old, they were already
thoroughly fed up with each other.
“You cannot deny that the possibility exists that the old man
really is Cogtine!” Par insisted for what must have been the
hundredth time as they carried the canvas tarp down to the skiff
for stowing.
Coil managed a quick shrug. “I’m not denying it.”
‘ ‘And if he really is Cogline, then you cannot deny the pos-
sibility that everything he told us is the truth!”
“I’m not denying that either.”
“What about the woodswoman? What was she if not a Shad-
owen, a night thing with magic stronger than our own?”
“Your own.”
Par fumed. “Sorry. My own. The point is, she was a Shad-
owen! She had to be! That makes at least part of what the old
man told us the truth, no matter how you view it!”
‘ ‘Wait a minute.” Coil dropped his end of the tarp and stood
there with his hands on his hips, regarding his brother with
studied dismay. “You do this all the time when we argue. You
make these ridiculous leaps in logic and act as if they make
perfect sense. How does it follow that, if that woman was a
Shadowen, the old man was telling the truth?”
‘ ‘Well, because, if. . .”
“I won’t even question your assumption that she was a Shad-
owen,” Coil interrupted pointedly. “Even though we haven’t
the faintest idea what a Shadowen is. Even though she might
just as easily have been something else altogether.”
“Something else? What sort of, . . ?”
‘ ‘Like a companion to the old man, for instance. Like a decoy
to give his tale validity.”
Par was incensed. “That’s ridiculous! What would be the
purpose of that?”
Coil pursed his lips thoughtfully.’ ‘To persuade you to go with
him to the Hadeshom, naturally. To bring you back into Calla-
hom. Think about it. Maybe the old man is interested in the
magic, too-just like the Federation.”
Par shook his head vehemently. “I don’t believe it.”
“That’s because you never like to believe anything that you
haven’t thought of first,” Coil declared pointedly, picking up
his end of the tarp again. “You decide something and that’s the
end of it. Well, this time you had better not make your decision
too quickly. There are other possibilities to consider, and I’ve
just given you one of them.”