boundaries like the wraith he had been and the outcast he felt.
Paranor, the castle of the Druids, was returned, come back into
the world of men, brought alive by Walker and the magic of
the Black Elfstone. Paranor stood as it had three hundred years
before, lifting out of the dark forest where wolves prowled and
moms the size of lance-points bristled protectively. It rose out
of the earth, set upon a bluff where it could be seen across
the whole of the valley it dominated, from the Kennon to the
Jannisson, from one ridgeline of the Dragon’s Teeth to the
other, spires and walls and gates. As solid as the stone from
which it had been built more than a thousand years earlier, it
was the Keep of legends and folk tales made whole once more.
But shades. Walker Boh thought in his despair, what it had
cost! ‘
“It was waiting for me down in the tower well, the essence
of the Druid magic he had set at watch,” Walker explained to
Cogline that first night, the night he had emerged from the
Keep with Allanon’s presence at haunt within. “All those years
it had been waiting, his spirit or some part of that spirit, con-
cealed in the serpentine mist that had destroyed the Mord
Wraiths and their allies and sent Paranor out of the land of
men to wait for the time it would be summoned back again.
Allanon’s shade had been waiting as well, it seems, there
within the waters of the Hadeshom, knowing that the need for
the Keep and its Druids would one day prove inexorable, that
28
The Talismans of Shannara 29
the magic and the lore they wielded must be kept at hand
against the possibility that history’s evolution would take a dif-
ferent path than the one he had prophesied.”
Cogline listened and did not speak. He was still in awe of
what had happened, of whom Walker Boh had become. He
was afraid. For Walker was Walker still, but something more
as well. Allanon was there, become a part of him in the
transformation from man to Druid, in the rite of passage that
had taken place in the Keep’s dark hold. Cogline had ventured,
in his spirit form, just long enough to pull Walker back from
the madness that threatened to engulf him before he could
come to grips with the change that was taking place. In those
few seconds Cogline had felt the beginnings of Walker’s
change—and he had fled in horror.
“The Black Elfstone drew the mist into itself and thereby
into me,” Walker whispered, the words a familiar repetition by
now, as if saying them would make them better understood.
His stark visage lowered into the cowl of his robe, a mask still
changing. “It brought Allanon within. It brought all of the Dru-
ids within—their history and lore and magic, their knowledge,
their secrets, all that they were. It spun them through me like
threads on a loom that weaves a new cloth, and I could feel
myself invaded and helpless to prevent it.”
The face within the cowl swung slightly toward the old man.
“I have all of them inside me, Cogline. They have made a
home within me, determined that I should have their knowl-
edge and their power and that I should use it as they did. It
was Allanon’s plan from the beginning—a descendant of Brin
to carry forth the Druid lineage, one that would be chosen
when the need arose, one who would serve and obey.”
Iron fingers fastened suddenly on Cogline’s shoulder and
made him wince. “Obey, old man! That is what they intend of
me, but not what they.shall have!” Walker Boh’s words were
edged with bitterness. “I can feel them working about inside,
living things! I can sense their presence as they whisper then-
words and try to make me heed. But I am stronger than they
are, made so by the very process that they used to change me.
I survived the trial they set for me, and I will be what I
choose, be they living within my body and mind, be they
shades or memories of the past, be they what they will! If I