and spitting blood-once in the middle of a ferocious storm they
had encountered in the Pass of Jade-but Walker had been there
to soothe him, to touch him, to say something that let him sleep
once more.
“Even so, we’ve been in Storlock for almost three days and
this is the first time you’ve been awake,” Coil finished. He
paused, eyes lowering. “It was very close. Par.”
Par nodded, saying nothing. Even without being able to re-
member anything clearly, he had a definite sense of just how
close it had been. “Where is Walker?” he asked finally.
“We don’t know,” Morgan answered with a shrug. “We
haven’t seen him since we arrived. He just disappeared.”
“Gone back to the Wilderun, I suppose,” Coil added, a touch
of bitterness in his voice.
“Now, Coil,” Morgan soothed.
Coil held up his hands. “I know, Morgan-I shouldn’t judge.
He was there to help when we needed him. He saved Par’s
life. I’m grateful for that.”
“Besides, I think he’s still around,” Morgan said quietly.
When the other two looked inquiringly at him, he simply
shrugged.
Par told them what had befallen him after his capture by the
Spider Gnomes. He was still reasoning out a good part of it, so
he hesitated from time to time in his telling. He was convinced
that the Spider Gnomes had been sent specifically to find him,
otherwise they would have taken Coil as well. The Shadowen
had sent them, that girl-child. Yet how had it known who he was
or where he could be found?
The little room was silent as they thought. “The magic,”
Morgan suggested finally. “They all seem interested in the
magic. This one must have sensed it as well.”
“All the way from Toffer Ridge?” Par shook his head doubt-
fully.
“And why not go after Morgan as well?” Coil asked sud-
denly. “After all, he commands the magic of the Sword of
Leah.”
“No, no, that’s not the sort of magic they care about,” Mor-
gan replied quickly. ‘ ‘It’s Par’s sort of magic that interests them,
draws them-magic that’s part of the body or spirit.”
“Or maybe it’s simply Par,” Coil finished darkly.
They let the thought hang a moment in the silence. “The
Shadowen tried to come into me,” Par said finally, then ex-
plained it to them in more detail. “It wanted to merge with me,
to be a part of me. It kept saying, ‘hug me, hug me’-as if it
were a lost child or something.”
“Hardly that,” Coil disputed quickly.
“More leech than lost child,” Morgan agreed.
“But what are they?” Par pressed, bits and pieces of his
dreams coming back to him, flashes of insight that lacked mean-
ing. “Where is it that they come from and what is it that they
want?”
“Us,” Morgan said quietly.
“You, “Coil said.
They talked a bit longer, mulling over what little they knew
of Shadowen and their interest in magic, then Coil and Morgan
rose. Time for Par to rest again, they insisted. He was still sick,
still weak, and he needed to get his strength back.
The Hadeshom, Par remembered suddenly! How much time
did they have before the new moon?
Coil sighed. “Four days-if you still insist on going.”
Morgan grinned from behind him. “We’ll be close by if you
need us. Good to see you well again, Par.”
He slipped out the door. “It is good,” Coil agreed and
gripped his brother’s hand tightly.
When they were gone, Par lay with his eyes open for a time,
letting his thoughts nudge and push one another. Questions
whispered at him, asking for answers he didn’t have. He had
been chased and harried from Varfleet to the Rainbow Lake,
from Culhaven to Hearthstone, by the Federation and the
Shadowen, by things that he had only heard about and some he
hadn’t even known existed. He was tired and confused; he had
almost lost his life. Everything centered on his magic, and yet
his magic had been virtually useless to him. He was constantly
running from one thing and toward another without really un-
derstanding much of either. He felt helpless.
And despite the presence of his brother and his friends, he