down the corridor he faced at the head of the stairwell, a gos-
samer thread. He went toward it, cautious because there was a
The Talismans of Shannara 381
second presence as well, and this one familiar, too. He smelled
Rimmer Dall as he would a swamp, vast and depthless. The
leader of the Shadowen filled the air with his dark magic, the
scent of it a toxic perfume. Just beneath its veil and barely rec-
ognizable, Par’s own magic crouched, suppressed and raging.
Walker coasted to the door behind which they faced each
other, paused without where he would not be sensed, and bent
to listen.
“It would help,” Rimmer Dall said softly, “if you were not
so frightened of the word.”
Shadowen.
“What you are will not be changed by what you are called.
Or even by what you call yourself. It is your fear of accepting
the truth about yourself that threatens you.”
Shadowen.
Par Ohmsford heard the whisper in his mind, a repetition
that would not cease, that haunted him now both on waking
and in sleep. And Rimmer Dall was right—he could not escape
his fear of it, his growing certainty that he was the very thing
he had been fighting against from the beginning, the enemy
that the shade of Allanon had sent the children of Shannara to
destroy.
He rose from the edge of his bed and walked to the window
to stare out into the night The sky was clouded and the land
was misted and still, a ragged shadowed playground for the
phantoms of his mind. He was coming apart, he knew. He
could feel it happening. His thoughts were scattered and inco-
herent, his reasoning cluttered with roadblocks, and his con-
centration fragmented to the point of uselessness. Each day it
grew worse, the darkness that surrounded him filling him up
like a bowl that now threatened to overflow. He could not
seem to escape it. His nights were haunted by dreams of con-
frontations with himself as a Shadowen, and his days were
ragged and weary and empty of hope. He was wracked with
despair. He was slipping steadily into madness.
All the while Rimmer Dall continued to come to him, to
speak with him, to offer his help. He knew how bad it was, he
assured the Valeman. He understood the demands of the magic.
Time and again he had warned Par that he must confront
382
The Talismans of Shannara
who and what he was and take the steps necessary to pro-
tect himself. If he failed to do so—and failed now to do so
immediately—he would be lost.
The dark-cloaked figure moved to stand beside him, and for
an instant Par wanted to seek comfort within the other’s shad-
owy strength. The urge was so strong that he had to bite his lip
to keep himself from doing so.
“Listen to me. Par,” the whispery voice urged, low and per-
suasive. ‘Those creatures within the Pit in Tyrsis were like you
once. They had use of the magic—not as you do, for their
magic was of a lesser sort, but like you in that it was real.
They denied who and what they were. We tried to reach
them—or as many of them as we could find. We urged them
to accept that they were Shadowen and to embrace the help
that we could offer. They refused.”
A hand settled lightly on Par’s shoulder, and he flinched
from it. The hand did not move. ‘The Federation found them
all, one by one, and took them to Tyrsis and put them into the
Pit, caging them like animals. It destroyed them. Trapped in
the darkness, deprived of hope and reason, they became vic-
tims quickly. The magic consumed them and made them the
monsters you found. Now they live a terrible existence. We
who are Shadowen can walk among them, for we can under-
stand them. But they can never be free again, and the Federa-
tion will leave them there until they die.”
No, Par thought. No, I do not believe you. I do not.
But he wasn’t sure, just as he wasn’t sure about much of