magic nor Elves are appreciated or understood. I grew tired of
finding it so, of being set apart, of being constantly looked at
with suspicion and mistrust. I grew tired of being thought dif-
ferent. It will happen to you as well, if it hasn’t done so already.
It is the nature of things.”
“I don’t let it bother me,” Par said defensively. “The magic
is a gift.”
“Oh? Is it now? How so? A gift is not something you hide
as you would a loathsome disease. It is not something of which
you are ashamed or cautious or even frightened. It is not some-
thing that might kill you.”
The words were spoken with such bitterness that Par felt
chilled. Then his uncle’s mood seemed to change instantly; he
grew calm again, quiet. He shook his head in self-reproach. “I
forget myself sometimes when speaking of the past. I apologize.
I brought you here to talk with you of other things. But only
with you. Par. I leave the cottage for your companions to use
during their stay. But I will not come there to be with them. I
am only interested in you.”
“But what about Coil?” Par asked, confused. “Why speak
with me and not with him?”
His uncle’s smile was ironic. “Think, Par. I was never close
with him the way I was with you.”
Par stared at him silently. That was true, he supposed. It was
the magic that had draws Walker to him, and Coil had never
been able to share in that. The time he had spent with his uncle,
the time that had made him feel close to the man, had always
been time away from Coll.
“Besides,” the other continued softly,’ ‘what we need to talk
about concerns only us.”
Par understood then. “The dreams.” His uncle nodded.
“Then you have experienced them as well-the figure in black,
the one who appears to be Allanon, standing before the Hades-
hom, warning us, telling us to come?” Par was breathless.
‘ ‘What about the old man? Has he come to you also?” Again,
his uncle nodded. “Then you do know him, don’t you? Is it
true. Walker? Is he really Cogline?”
Walker Boh’s face emptied of expression. “Yes, Par, he is.”
Par flushed with excitement, and rubbed his hands together
briskly. “I cannot believe it! How old is he? Hundreds of years,
I suppose-just as he claimed. And once a Druid. I knew I was
right! Does he live here still. Walker-with you?”
“He visits, sometimes. And sometimes stays a bit. The cat
was his before he gave it to me. You remember that there was
always a moor cat. The one before was called Whisper. That
was in the time of Brin Ohmsford. This one is called Rumor.
The old man named it. He said it was a good name for a cat-
especially one who would belong to me.”
He stopped, and something Par couldn’t read crossed his face
briefly and was gone. The Valeman glanced over to where the
cat had been resting, but it had disappeared.
“Rumor comes and goes in the manner of all moor cats,”
Walker Boh said as if reading his thoughts.
Par nodded absently, then looked back at him. “What are
you going to do. Walker?”
“About the dreams?” The strange eyes went flat. “Noth-
ing.”
Par hesitated. “But the old man must have …”
“Listen to me,” the other said, cutting him short. “I am
decided on this. I know what the dreams have asked of me; I
know who sent them. The old man has come to me, and we
have talked. He left not a week past. None of that matters. I am
no longer an Ohmsford; I am a Boh. If I could strip away my
past, with all its legacy of magic and all its glorious Elven his-
tory, I would do so in an instant. I want none of it. I came into
the Eastland to find this valley, to live as my ancestors once
lived, to be just once where everything is fresh and clean and
untroubled by the presence of others. I have learned to keep my