stinctively. He saw it reflected in Walker Boh’s eyes as well.
They had shared the dreams and those dreams bound them, so
much so that for an instant then” thinking was the same.
Cogline’s face lifted slightly, pulling free of the darkness that
shaded it. “Something guides the Shadowen,” he whispered.
“There is power here that transcends anything we have ever
known . . .”
He let the sentence trail off, ragged and unfinished, as if
unable to give voice to any ending. His listeners looked at one
another.
“What are we to do?” Wren asked finally.
The old man rose wearily. “Why, what we came here to do,
Rover girl-listen to what Allanon would tell us.”
He moved stiffly away, and no one called after him.
XV
They moved apart from each other after that, drifting
away one by one, finding patches of solitude in which
to think their separate thoughts. Eyes wandered rest-
lessly across the valley’s glistening carpet of black rock, always
returning to the Hadeshom, carefully searching the sluggishly
churning waters for signs of some new movement.
There was none.
Perhaps nothing is going to happen. Par thought. Perhaps it
was all a lie after all.
He felt his chest constrict with mixed feelings of disappoint-
ment and relief and he forced his thoughts elsewhere. Coil was
less than a dozen paces away, but he refused to look at him. He
wanted to be alone. There were things that needed thinking
through, and Coil would only distract him.
Funny how much effort he had put into distancing himself
from his brother since this journey had begun, he thought sud-
denly. Perhaps it was because he was afraid for him . . .
Once again, this time angrily, he forced his thoughts else-
where. Cogline. Now there was an enigma of no small size.
Who was this old man who seemed to know so much about
everything? A failed Druid, he claimed. Allanon’s messenger,
he said. But those brief descriptions didn’t seem nearly complete
enough. Par was certain that there was more to him than what
he claimed. There was a history of events behind his relation-
ships with Allanon and Walker Boh that was hidden from the
rest of them. Allanon would not have gone to a failed Druid for
assistance, not even in the most desperate of circumstances.
There was a reason for Cogline’s involvement with this gather-
ing beyond what any of them knew.
He glanced warily at the old man who stood an uncomfortable
number of feet closer than the rest of them to the waters of the
Hadeshom. He knew all about the Shadowen, somehow. He had
spoken more than once with AUanon, somehow again. He was
the only living human being to have done so since the Druid’s
death three hundred years ago. Par thought a moment about the
stories of Cogline in the time of Brin Ohmsford-a half-crazed
old man then, wielding magic against the Mord Wraiths like
some sort of broom against dust-that’s the picture the tales
conjured up. Well, he wasn’t like that now. He was controlled.
Cranky and eccentric, yes-but mostly controlled. He knew what
he was about-enough so that he didn’t seem particularly pleased
with any of it. He hadn’t said that, of course. But Par wasn’t
blind.
There was a flash of light from somewhere far off in the night
skies, a momentary brightness that winked away instantly and
was gone. A life ended, a new life begun, his mother used to
say. He sighed. He hadn’t thought of his parents much since the
flight out of Varfleet. He felt a twinge of guilt. He wondered if
they were all right. He wondered if he would see them again.
His jaw tightened with determination. Of course he would
see them again! Things would work out. AUanon would have
answers to give him-about the uses of the magic of the wish-
song, the reasons for the dreams, what to do about the Shadowen
and the Federation . . . all of it.
Allanon would know.
Time slipped away, minutes into hours, the night steadily
working its way toward dawn. Par moved over to talk with Coil,
needing now to be close to his brother. The others shifted,