thing in between. Its breath clouded the air before it, a vile
green mist.
The second lacked any semblance of identity. It was human-
shaped, but had no skin or bones. It was instead a raging cloud
of darkness, buzzing and shrieking within its form. The cloud
had the look of flies or mosquitoes trapped behind glass, gath-
ered so thick that they shut out the light. The wicked sounds
that issued from this rider seemed to warn that it hid within its
spectral form an evil too dreadful to imagine.
The Talismans of Shannara 37
The third was more immediately recognizable. Armored
head to foot, it bristled with spikes and cutting edges and
weapons. It wore maces and knives, swords and battle-axes,
and carried a huge pike strung with skulls and finger bones
laced together in a chain. A helmet hid its face, but the eyes
that peered out through the visor slit were as red as fire.
The last rider was cloaked and hooded and as invisible as
the night. No face could be seen within the concealing cowl.
No hands showed to grip the reins of its sinewy mount. It rode
hunched forward like a very old man, all bent and gnarled, a
creature crippled by age and time. But there was no sense of
weakness about it, nothing to suggest that it was anything of
what it appeared. This rider rode steady and sure, and what
crippled it was neither time nor age but the weight of the bur-
den it bore for the lives it had taken.
Slung across its back was a scythe.
Walker Boh went cold with recognition. Far back in the
Druid Histories, recorded from the old world of Men, there
was mention of these four. He knew who they were, whom
they had been created to be. Now Shadowen had taken on their
guises, assumed the identities of the dark things of old.
His chest tightened. Four riders. The Pour Horsemen of the
legends, the slayers of mortal men come out of a time so dis-
tant it had been all but forgotten. But he had read the tales, he
repeated to himself, and he knew what they were.
Famine. Pestilence. War. Death.
Walker’s hand lifted away from Rumor, and the cat began to
growl deep in his chest. Shadowea. Walker thought in a mix of
awe and fear, created to be something that never was, that was
only a manifestation of abstracts, of killing ways, come now to
destroy me.
He wondered anew at who and what the Shadowen were, at
the source of power, that would let them be anything they
chose. His transformation had given him no insight into this.
He was as ignorant of their origins now as he had been at the
start of things. Yes, they were as dark as the shade of Allanon
had forewarned. Yes, they were an evil that used magic as a
weapon to destroy. But who were they? Where had they come
from? How could they be destroyed?
Where could he find the answers to his questions?
38 The Talismans of Shannara
He watched the Four Horsemen advance, settled atop their
lurching, writhing mounts, things that vaguely resembled
horses but were intended to be much more. Breath steamed on
the morning air like poisonous vapor. Claws scraped and
crunched on the rock. Heads lifted and muzzles drew back to
show hooked, yellowed teeth. Steadily, the Horsemen came on.
When they reached the gates, they stopped. They made no
move to pass through. They showed no interest in advancing.
In a line they faced the gate and waited. Walker waited with
them. The minutes passed and the light brightened slowly, the
gloom taking on a whiteness as the dawn neared.
Then at last the sun crested the mountains east, a faint glim-
mer above the dark peaks, and at the gates below, the rider
Famine suddenly advanced. When it was next to the barrier, it
lifted its skeletal hand and knocked. The sound was a dimly
heard, echoing, hollow thud—the shudder that life makes as it
departs the body for the final time. Walker cringed in spite of
himself, revolted by how it made him feel.