the Wisteron came. Rwwlll. The beast carried him away.”
“Where, Stresa?”
The other pricked his ears. “Its lair, I expect. It has one deep
within a hollow at the In lu’s center.”
She felt a new weariness steal through her. Of course, a
lair-there would have to be. “Any sign of the Ruhk Staff?”
The Splinterscat shook his head. “Gone.”
So unless Gavilan had abandoned it-something he would
never do-it was still with him. She shuddered in spite of her
resolve. She was remembering her brief encounter with the Wis-
teron on her way in. She was remembering how just its passing
had made her feel.
Poor, foolish Gavilan. There was no hope for him now.
She looked at the others, one by one. “We have to get the
Ruhk Staff back. We can’t leave without it.”
“No, Lady Wren, we can’t,” Triss echoed, hard-eyed.
Garth stood, his great hands limp at his sides.
Stresa shook out his quills and his sharp-nosed face lifted
to her own. “Rrwwll Wren of the Elves, I expected nothing
less of you. Hssttt. But you will have to-sspppptt-use the Elf
Magic if we are to survive. You will have to, against the Wis-
teron.”
“I know,” she whispered, and felt the last vestige of her old
life drop away.
“Chhttt. Not that it will make any difference. Phhfftt. The
Wisteron is-”
“Stresa,” she interrupted gently. “You needn’t come.”
The silence of the moment hung against the screen of the
jungle. The Splinterscat sighed and nodded. “Phhfft. We have
come this far together, haven’t we? No more talk. I will take
you in.”
CHAPTER
25
IN THE LONG, deep silence of Paranor’s endless night, in
the limbo of her gray, changeless twilight, Walker Boh
sat staring into space. His hand was closed into a fist
on the table before him, his fingers locked like iron
bands about the Black Elfstone. There was nothing more to do-
no other options to consider, no further choices to uncover. He
had thought everything through to the extent that it was possi-
ble to do so, and all that remained was to test the right and
wrong of it.
“Perhaps you should take a little more time,” Cogline sug-
gested gently.
The old man sat across from him, a frail, skeletal ghost nearly
transparent where caught against the light. Increasingly so,
Walker thought in despair. White, wispy hair scattered like dust
motes from the wrinkled face and head, robes hung like laundry
set to dry on a line, and eyes flickered in dull glimmerings from
out of dark sockets. Cogline was fading away, disappearing into
the past, returning with Paranor to the place from which it had
been summoned. For Paranor would not remain within the world
of men unless there was a Druid to tend it, and Walker Bob,
chosen by time and fate to fill those dark robes, had yet to don
them.
His eyes drifted over to Rumor. The moor cat slouched
against the far wall of the study room in which they were set-
tled, black body as faint and ethereal as the old man’s. He looked
down at himself, fading as well, though not as quickly. In any
event, he had a choice; he could leave if he chose, when he
chose. Not so Cogline or Rumor, who were bound to the Keep
for all eternity if Walker did not find a way to bring it back
into the world of Men.
Strangely enough, he thought he had found that way. But
his discovery terrified him so that he was not certain he could
act on it.
Cogline shifted, a rattle of dry bones. “Another reading of
the books couldn’t hurt,” he pressed.
Walker’s smile was ironic. “Another reading and there won’t
be anything left of you at all. Or Rumor or the Keep or possibly
even me. Paranor is disappearing, old man. We can’t pretend
otherwise. Besides, there is nothing left to read, nothing to dis-
cover that I don’t already know.”
“And you’re still certain that you’re right, Walker?”
Certain? Walker was certain of nothing beyond the fact that
he was most definitely not certain. The Black Elfstone was a
deadly puzzle. Guess wrong about its workings and you would