but his eyes filled with pride and determination. He walked to
where he could be seen, standing close to the Commander of
the Elven armies and the First Minister, and called out. “Home
Guard!”
They appeared instantly dozens of them, gathering before
their captain in row after row. There was a murmuring in the
crowd, an anticipation.
Then Triss turned back to face Wren, dropped slowly to
one knee, and placed his right hand over his heart in salute.
Behind him, the lamps of the city flickered like fireflies in the
dark. “Wren Elessedil, Queen of the Elves!” he announced. “The
Home Guard stand ready to serve!”
His Elven Hunters followed his lead to a man, kneeling and
repeating the words in a jumbled rush. Some among the crowd
did the same, then more. Eton Shart went down, then after a
moment’s hesitation Barsimmon Oridio as well. Whether they
did it out of recognition of the truth or simply in response to
Triss, Wren never knew. She stood motionless as they knelt
before her, the whole of the Elven nation, her charge from
Ellenroh, her people found.
There were tears in her eyes as she stepped forward to greet
them.
THE DRUID’S KEEP SHUDDERED one final time, a massive stone
giant stirring in sleep, and went still.
Cogline waited, braced against the heavy reading table, eyes
closed, head bowed, making sure his strength had returned. He
stood once more within the vault that sealed away the Druid
Histories, come back to himself after his search to find Walk-
er Boh, after leaving his body in the old Druid way. He had
found Walker and warned him but been unable to remain-
too weak now, too old, a jumble of bones filled with stiffness
and pain. It had taken all of his strength just to do as much as
he had.
He waited, and the tremors did not return.
Finally he pushed himself upright, released his grip on the
table, let his eyes open, and looked carefully around. The first
thing he saw was himself-his hands and arms, then his body,
all of him-made whole again. He caught his breath, rubbed his
hands together experimentally, and touched himself to be cer-
tain that what he was seeing was real. The transparency was
gone; he was flesh and blood once more. Rumor crowded up
against him, big head shoving into his scarecrow body so hard
it threatened to knock the old man down. The moor cat was
himself again as well, no longer faint lines and shadows, no long-
er wraithlike.
And the room-it stone walls were hard and clear, its colors
sharply detailed, and its lines and surfaces defined by substance
and light.
Cogline took a long, slow breath. Walker had done it. He
had brought Paranor back into the world of men.
He went out from the little room through the study beyond
to the halls of the Keep. Rumor padded after. Sunlight filled the
corridors, streaming through the high windows, motes of dust
dancing in the glow. The old man caught a glimpse of white
clouds against a blue sky. The smell of trees and grasses wafted
on the summer air.
Back.
Alive.
He began to search for Walker, moving through the corri-
dors of the Keep, his footsteps scraping softly on the stone.
Ahead, he could hear the faint rush of something rising from
within the castle’s bowels, a low rumbling sound, a huffing
like . . . And then he knew. It was the fire that fed the Keep
from the earth’s core, fire that had been cold and dead all this
time, now alive again with Paranor’s return.
He turned into the hall that ran to the well beneath the
Keep.
In the shadows ahead, something moved.
Cogline slowed and stopped. Rumor dropped to a crouch
and growled. A figure materialized out of the gloom, come from
a place where the sunlight could not reach, all black and fea-
tureless. The figure approached, the light beginning to define it,
a man hooded and cowled, tall and thin against the gloom, mov-
ing slowly but purposefully.
“Walker?” Cogline asked.
The other did not reply. When he was less than a dozen