One of them motioned for Coil to join them. Coil hesitated.
The others waved him over, telling him to come on in, to have
something to eat and drink, and what in the name of every-
thing sane had happened to him?
Coil went, aware of how strange he must look, but desperate
for food. He was seated among them, given a plate and bowl
and a cup of the ale. He had barely taken his first bite when
the first blow struck him behind the ear and they were all over
him. He fought to rise, to free himself and flee, but there were
too many hands holding him back. He was pummeled and
kicked nearly unconscious. The Sword of Shannara was
stripped from him. Chains were locked about his wrists and
ankles, and he was thrown into the back of the wagon. He
pleaded with them not to do this. He begged them to set him
free, telling them that he was searching for his brother, that he
had to find him, that they had to let him go. They laughed at
him, scorned him, and told him to keep quiet or he would be
gagged. He was propped upright and given a cup of broth and
a blanket.
His weapon, he was told, would fetch a good price. But he
would fetch an even better one when they sold him to the Fed-
eration to work in the slave mines at Dechtera.
XXV
Par Ohmsford dreamed.
He ran through a forest black with shadows and
empty of life. It was night, the sky through the leafy
canopy of boughs a deep blue bereft of stars and moon. Par
could see clearly as he ran, but he could not determine the
source of his vision’s light. The trunks of the trees shifted be-
fore him, waving like stalks of grass in a wind, forcing him to
dodge and weave to avoid them. Branches reached down and
brushed against his face and arms, trying to hold him back.
Voices whispered, calling out to him over and over again.
Shadowen. Shadowen.
He was terrified.
The clothes he wore were damp with his sweat, and he
could feel the chafing of his boots against his ankles. Now and
again there would be streams and ponds, and he was forced to
leap them or turn aside because he knew instinctively that they
were quagmires that if stepped in would pull him down. He
listened as he ran for the sounds of other living things. He kept
thinking that he could not be this alone, that a forest must have
other creatures living within it. He kept thinking, too, that the
forest must eventually end, that it could not go on indefinitely.
But the farther he ran, the deeper grew the silence and the
darker the trees. No sound broke the stillness. No light pene-
trated the woods.
After a time he became aware of something following him,
a nameless black thing that ran as swiftly as he, following as
surely as his shadow. He sought to outdistance it by running
faster and could not. He sought to lose it by turning aside, first
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292 The Talismans of Shannara
this way and then that, and the thing turned with him. He
sought to flatten himself against a monstrous old trunk of in-
distinguishable origin, and the thing stopped with him and
waited.
It was the thing that whispered to him.
Shadowen. Shadowen.
He ran on, not knowing what to do, panic rushing through
him, despair washing away hope. He was trapped by the trees
and the darkness and could not escape, and he knew that
sooner or later the thing would have him. He could feel the
blood pounding in his ears and hear the ragged tremor of his
breathing. His chest heaved and his legs ached, and he did not
think he could go on but knew he could not stop. He reached
down for his weapons and found he carried none. He tried to
bring someone to help him by sheer force of will, but the
names and faces of those he would call upon would not come.
Then he was at the bank of a river, black and swift in the