Except that Walker Bob found them as real as he was, a
reflection of himself in this twilight world into which the Black
Eifstone had dispatched him, ghostlike and yet alive when they
should not have been. Unless he was dead as well and a reflec-
tion of them instead. The contradictions overwhelmed him. His
breath caught sharply in his throat and he could not speak. Who
was alive and who was not?
“Walker.” The old man spoke his name, and the sound of it
drew him back from the precipice on which he was poised.
Cogline approached, slowly, carefully, seeming to realize the
fear and confusion that his presence had generated in his pupil.
He spoke softly to Rumor, and the moor cat sat back on his
haunches obediently, his luminous eyes bright and interested as
they fixed on Walker. Cogline’s body was as fragile and sticklike
as ever beneath the gathering of worn robes, and the gray, hazy
light passed through him in narrow streamers. Walker flinched
as the old man reached out to touch him on the shoulder, the
skeletal fingers trailing down to grip his arm.
The grip was warm and firm.
“I am alive, Walker. And Rumor, too. We are both alive,”
he whispered. “The magic saved us.”
Walker Boh was silent a moment, staring without compre-
hension into the other’s eyes, searching for something that would
give meaning to the other’s words. Alive? How could it be? He
nodded finally, needing to respond in some fashion, to get past
the fear and confusion, and asked hesitantly, “How did you get
here?”
“Come sit with me,” the other replied.
He led Walker to a stone bench that rested against a wall,
both an odd glimmer of hazy relief against the shadows, wrapped
in mist and gloom. Sound was muffled within the Keep, as if an
unwelcome guest forced to tread lightly in order not to draw
attention. Walker glanced about, disbelieving still, searching the
maze of walkways that disappeared ahead and behind, catching
glimpses of stone walls and parapets and towers rising up about
him, as empty of life as tombs set within the earth. He sat beside
the old man, feeling Rumor rub up against him as he did.
“What has happened to us?” he asked, a measure of steadi-
ness returning, his determination to discover the truth pushing
back the uncertainty. “Look at us. We are like wraiths.”
“We are in a world of half-being, Walker,” Cogline replied
softly. “We are somewhere between the world of mortal men
and the world of the dead. Paranor rests there now, brought
back out of nonbeing by the magic of the Black Elfstone. You
found it, didn’t you? You recovered it from wherever it was
hidden and carried it here. You used it, as you knew you must,
and brought us back.
“Wait, don’t answer yet.” He cut short Walker’s attempt to
speak. “I get ahead of myself. You must know first what hap-
pened to me. Then we will speak of you. Rumor and I have had
an adventure of our own, and it has brought us to this. Here is
what happened, Walker. Some weeks earlier when I spoke with
the shade of Alianon, I was warned that my time within the
world of mortal men was almost gone, that death would come
for me when next I saw the face of Rimmer Dali. When that
happened, I was to hold the Druid History to me and not to
give it up. I was told nothing more. When the First Seeker and
his Shadowen appeared at Hearthstone, I remembered Allanon’s
words. I managed to slow them long enough to retrieve the book
from its hiding place. I stood with it clasped to my breast on
the porch of the cottage, Rumor pressed back up against me, as
the Shadowen reached to tear me apart.
“You thought it was my magic that enveloped me. It was
not. When the Shadowen closed about me, a magic contained
within the Druid History came to my defense. It released white
fire, consuming everything about it, destroying everything that
was not a part of me, except for Rumor, who sought to protect