He shook his head, fighting through the maze of memories.
He had fled from Par confused and maddened, torn between
who he had been and what he had become. He had drawn Par
after, barely aware of what he was doing, fleeing by day, seek-
ing by night, hunting always, lost somewhere deep within him-
self. Hatred and fear drove him, but their source was never
clear. He could feel the Mirrorshroud’s hold on him beginning
to loosen, yet was undecided whether or not that was good. He
was changing back again, but could not come the whole dis-
tance, still bound by the Shadowen magic, still held within its
thrall. In darkness he would return to find his brother, thinking
to kill him, thinking at the same time to find salvation, the
thoughts twisting about each other like snakes. Follow me! he
282 The Talismans of Shannon’1
had prayed to Par—then sought to run so fast and so far that
his brother couldn’t.
He hugged himself against the chills that swept through
him, looking out across the hazy expanse of the lake, remem-
bering. How many days had he run? How much time had been
lost?
Follow me!
He had stolen the metal disk then, the one that Par wore
hung about his neck—had stolen it without knowing why, but
only from seeing him hold and caress it in the twilight shad-
ows and sensing its importance, thinking to hurt Par by taking
it, but thinking, too, that stealing the disk would make his
brother follow after him.
As it had.
To the ruined land below Southwatch.
Why had he run there? The reason eluded him, an evasive
whisper in his subconscious. His brow furrowed deeply as he
struggled to understand. He had been driven by the
Mirrorshroud’s magic, compelled to return …
His eyes widened. To bring Par, because …
And Par had caught up with him there beneath that ancient,
blasted oak, found him exhausted and beaten and ruined. They
had fought one final time, grappling for the Sword of
Shannara, trying to break through the barriers that separated
them, each in his own way—Par struggling to summon the
Sword’s magic so that Coil could be free. Coil battling in turn
to … to …
What?
To tell Par. To tell him.
“Par,” he whispered in horror, and his memory of what the
Sword’s truth had revealed to him burned through him like
white fire. He looked down at the mud-streaked blade; at the
carving beneath his fingers—the hand that held aloft a burning
torch. He stared at it in recognition and wonder, and his fingers
moved along the emblem as if finding secrets still.
All those months spent searching for the Sword of Shannara.
he thought, and they had never realized. So much effort ex-
pended to recover it, a struggle marked by desperate battles
and lost lives, and they had never once suspected. Allanon’s
charge had swept them on, heedless. It had driven Par, and
The Talismans of Shannara 283
Coil had been swift to follow. Find the Sword of Shannara, the
Druid shade had instructed. Only then can the Four Lands be
made whole. Find the Sword, he had whispered in the whirl-
wind of cries that echoed from the Hadeshom.
And Par Ohmsford had done so—without once suspecting
that it was never to be his to use.
Coil Ohmsford’s heart was racing, and he took slow, deep
breaths to steady himself against the pounding of his blood. He
experienced an almost overpowering urge to despair because of
what the deception might have cost them, but he would not let
himself be drawn to that precipice. With both hands wrapped
about the talisman, he moved back from the Rainbow Lake to
where a stand of maple trees spread dappled shadows across a
grassy knoll. Dazed and weakened, he sat where the sun’s light
could find him through the branches and tried to sort through
the images he had unlocked from his memory.
Par had tracked him to that plain west of Southwatch and
they had done battle a final time, brother against brother. Par
had come for him because the Mirrorshroud was a Shadowen
magic from which Coil could not free himself. Par had sought