Grimpond-so insidious, so devious-had almost undone him.
Never again. Never .
Then everything began to happen at once.
Non light and mist meshed and joined. Back through the tun-
nel of the magic’s dark flooded the mist, a greenish, pulsing fury.
Walker had only an instant to catch his breath, to question what
had gone wrong, and to wonder if perhaps he had failed to
outsmart the Grimpond after all-and then the Druid magic was
on him, It exploded within, and he screamed in helpless dismay.
The pain was indescribable, a fiery incandescence. It felt as if
another being had entered him, carried within by the magic,
drawn out of. the concealment of the mist. A physical presence,
it burrowed into bone and muscle and flesh and blood until it
was all that Walker could bear. It expanded and raged until he
thought he would be torn apart. Then the sense of it changed,
igniting a different kind of pain. Memories flooded through him,
vast and seemingly endless. With the memories came the feel-
ings that accompanied them, emotions charged with horror and
fear and doubt and regret and a dozen other sensations that
rolled through Walker Boh in an unstoppable torrent. He stag-
gered back, trying to resist, to fling them away. His hand fought
to close over the Black Elfstone in an effort to shut this attack
off, but his body would no longer obey him. He was gripped
by the magics-those of both Elfstone and mist-and they held
him fast.
Like Allanon and the specter of death in the third version!
Shades! Had the Grim pond been right after all?
He was seeing other places and times, viewing the faces of
men and women and children he did not know, witnessing events
transpire and fade, and above all feeling a wrenching series of
emotions emanate from the being inside. Walker’s sense of where
he was disappeared. He was transported into the mind of his
invader. A man? Yes, a man, he realized, a man who had lived
countless lifetimes, centuries, far longer than any normal human,
someone so different .
The images abruptly changed. He saw a gathering of black
robes, dark figures concealed behind castle walls, closeted in
chambers where the light barely reached, hunched over ancient
books of learning, writing, reading, studying, discussing .
Druids!
And then he realized the truth-a jarring, shocking recog-
nition that cut through the madness with a razor’s edge.
The being that the mist had carried within him was Al-
lanon-his memories, his experiences, his feelings, and his
thoughts, everything but the flesh and blood he had lost in
death.
How had Allanon managed this? Walker asked himself in
disbelief, fighting to breathe against the rush of memories, against
the suffocating blanket of the other’s thoughts. But he already
knew the answer to that. A Druid’s magic allowed almost any-
thing. The seeds had been planted three hundred years ago.
Why, then? And that answer, too, came swiftly, a red flare of
certainty. This was how the Druid lore was to be passed on to
him. All that Allanon had known and felt was stored within the
mist, his knowledge kept safe for three hundred years, waiting
for his successor.
But there was more, Walker sensed. This was how he was
to be tested as well. This was how it was to be determined if he
should become a Druid.
His speculation ended as the images continued to rush
through him, recognizable now for what they were, the whole
of the Druid experience, all that Allanon had gleaned from
his predecessors, from his studies, from the living of his own
life. Like footprints in soft earth, they embedded in Walker’s
mind, their touch fiery and harsh, each a coal laid against his
skin. The words and impressions and feelings descended in an
avalanche. It was too much, too fast. I don’t want this! he screamed
in terror, but still the feeding continued, relentless, purposeful-
Allanon’s self transferring into Walker. He fought back against
it, groping through the maze of images for something solid. But
the black light of the Elfstone was a funnel that refused to be
stoppered, drawing in the greenish mist, absorbing it, and chan-