or the tall tales that men would have them be, but creatures as
real as you and I. They are bom of a circumstance that Allanon
in all his wisdom and planning did not foresee. When he passed
from the world of mortal men, Allanon believed the age of magic
at an end and a new age begun. The Warlock Lord was no more.
The Demons of the old worid of faerie were again imprisoned
within the Forbidding. The Ddatch was destroyed. Paranor was
gone into history and the last of the Druids were about to go
with it. It seemed the need for magic was past.”
“The need is never past,” Walker said quietly.
Again, the old man ignored him. “The Shadowen are an
aberration. They are a magic that grew out of the use of other
magics, a residue of what has gone before. They began as a
seeding that lay dormant within the Four Lands, undetected
during the time of Allanon, a seeding that came to life only after
the Druids and their protective powers were gone. No one could
have known they were there, not even Allanon. They were the
leavings of magic come and gone, and they were as invisible as
dust on a pathway.”
“Wait a minute!” Par interjected. “What are you saying,
Cogline? That the Shadowen are just bits and pieces of some
stray magic?”
Cogline took a deep breath, his hands locking before him.
“Valeman, I told you once before that for all the use you have
of magic, you still know little about it. Magic is as much a force
of nature as the fire at the earth’s core, the tidal waves that sweep
out of the ocean, the winds that flatten forests or the famine that
starves nations. It does not happen and then disappear without
effect! Think! What of Wil Ohmsford and his use of the Elf-
stones when his Elven blood no longer permitted such use? It
left as its residue the wishsong that found life in your ancestors!
Was that an inconsequential magic? All uses of the magic have
effects beyond the immediate. And all are significant.”
“Which magic was it that created the Shadowen?” asked
Coil, his blocky face impassive.
The old man shook his wispy head. “Allanon does not know.
There is no way of being certain. It could have happened at any
time during the lives of Shea Ohmsford and his descendents.
There was always magic in use in those times, much of it evil.
The Shadowen could have been bom of any part of it.”
He paused. “The Shadowen were nothing at first. They were
the debris of magic spent. Somehow they survived, their pres-
ence unknown. It was not until Allanon and Paranor were gone
that they emerged into the Four Lands and began to gain strength.
There was a vacuum in the order of things by then. A void must
be filled in all events, and the Shadowen were quick to fill this
one.”
“I don’t understand,” Par said quickly. “What sort of vac-
uum do you mean?”
“And why didn’t Allanon foresee it happening?” added
Wren.
The old man held up his fingers and began crooking them
downward one by one as he spoke. “Life has always been cy-
clical. Power comes and goes; it takes different forms. Once, it
was science that gave mankind power. Of late, it has been magic.
Allanon foresaw the return of science as a means to progress-
especially with the passing of the Druids and Paranor. That was
the age that would be. But the development of science failed to
materialize quickly enough to fill the vacuum. Partly this was
because of the Federation. The Federation kept the old ways
intact; it proscribed the use of any form of power but its own-
and its own was primitive and military. It expanded its influence
throughout the Four Lands until all were subject to its dictates.
The Elves had an effect on matters as well; for reasons we still
don’t know they disappeared. They were a balancing force, the
last people of the faerie world of old. Their presence was nec-
essary, if the transition from magic to science was to be made