weight of Paranor’s stone settle down about him. “So I can gain
my own freedom, but not yours. I can leave, but you must stay.”
His own smile was hard and ironic. “I would never do that, of
course. Not after you gave up your own life so that I could keep
mine. You knew that, didn’t you? You knew it from the start.
And Allanon surely knew. I am trapped at every turn, aren’t I?
I posture about who I will be and what I will do, how I will
control my own destiny, and my words are meaningless.”
“Walker, you are not bound to us,” Cogline interjected
quickly. “Rumor and I fought to save you because we wished to.”
“You fought because it was necessary if I was to carry out
Allanon’s charge, Cogline. There is no escaping why I am alive.
And if I refuse to carry it out now, or if I fail, everything that
has gone before will have been pointless!” He fought to control
himself as his voice threatened to become a shout. “Look at what
is being done to me!”
Cogline waited a moment, then said quietly, “is it really so
bad, Walker? Have you been so misused?”
There was a pause as Walker glared at him. “Because I have
nothing to say about what is to become of me? Because I am
fated to be something I despise? Because I must act in ways I
would not otherwise act? Old man, you astonish me.”
“But not sufficiently to provoke you to answer?”
Walker shook his head in disgust. “Answers are pointless.
Any answer I might give would only come back to haunt
me later. I feel I am betrayed by my own thoughts in this busi-
ness. Better to deal with what is given than what might be, isn’t
it?” He sighed. The cold of the stone seeped into him, felt
now for the first time. “I am as trapped here as you are,” he
whispered.
Cogline leaned back against the castle wall, looking momen-
tarily as if he might disappear into it. “Then make your escape,
Walker,” he said quietly. “Not by running from your fate, but
by embracing it. You have insisted from the beginning that you
would not allow yourself to be manipulated by the Druids. Do
you suppose that I feel any different? We are both victims of
circumstances set in motion three hundred years ago, and we
would neither of us be so if we had the choice. But we don’t.
And it does no good to rail against what has been done to us.
So, Walker, do something to turn things to your advantage. Do
as you are fated, become what you must, and then act in what-
ever ways you perceive to be right.”
Walker’s smile was ironic. “So you would have me transform
myself. How do I do that, Cogline? You have yet to tell me.”
“Begin with the Druid Histories. All of the secrets of the
magic are said to be contained within.” The old man’s hand
gripped his arm impulsively. “Go up into the Keep and take the
Histories from their vault, one by one, and see for yourself what
they can teach. The answers you need must lie therein, It is a
place to start, at least.”
“Yes,” Walker agreed, inwardly mulling over the possibility
that Cogline was right, that he might gain what he sought not
by pushing his fate away but by turning it to his own use. “Yes,
it is a start.”
He rose then, and Cogline with him. Walker faced the old
man in silence for a moment, then reached out with his good
arm and gently embraced him. “I am sorry for what has been
done to you,” he whispered. “I meant what I said back at Hearth-
stone before Rimmer DalI came-that I was wrong to blame you
for any of what has happened, that I am grateful for all you have
done to help me. We shall find a way to get free, Cogline. I
promise.”
Then he stepped back, and Cogline’s answering smile was a
momentary ray of sunlight breaking through the gloom.
So WALKER BOH WENT up into the keep, following the lead of