to the Whistledown, not certain even now what it was, and was
The Talismans of Shannara 81
told by the shopkeeper that it was a tavern that could be found
at the center of the city on Wyvem Split.
Making his way through the crowds and the midday heat,
Morgan recalled anew the instructions that Padishar Creel had
given him weeks ago. He was to go to the Whistledown and
show the hawk ring to a woman named Matty Roh. She would
know how to find Padishar. Morgan fingered the hawk ring
where it was buried in his pocket, safely tucked away for the
time he would need it. He mused on how often he had doubted
that such a time would come. The rough outline of the hawk
emblem pressed against his skin as he twisted it about, bring-
ing back memories of the outlaw chief. He wondered if
Padishar Creel had been forced to come back from the dead as
often as he had these past few weeks. The possibility brought
a bitter smile to his lips.
He found Wyvem Split and turned down its length toward a
square ringed by taverns, inns, and pleasure houses. Not a very
attractive part of the city, but a busy one. He shifted the Sword
of Leah from where it was draped across his back, adjusting
the straps, feeling sad and weary and at the same time
buoyed—an odd mix, but somehow a proper one. Sickness and
loss had worn him down, but surviving both had strengthened
his resolve. There was not much out there, he believed, that he
could not get through. He needed that conviction. For weeks
he had watched his friends and companions slip away, some
lost to fortune, some to the machinations of others. He had
seen his own plans repeatedly altered, his course turned aside
time and again to serve a higher—or at least a different—
purpose. He had done what he had believed right in each case,
and he had no reason to second-guess himself. But he was
tired of having his life rearranged like furniture in a room
where each time he turned to look everything was in a differ-
ent place. He had honored Steff’s dying wish and gone back to
Culhaven to rescue Granny Elise and Auntie Jilt. He had given
himself then to Quickening and her journey to Eldwist. Now it
was time to do what he had been promising himself he would
do since escaping Tyrsis and the Pit. It was time to find Par
and Coil, to give them what protection he could, to see to it
that he stayed with them until …
82 The Talismans of Shannara
He gave a mental shrug. Well, until they no longer needed
him, he guessed—whenever that might be.
And where were they now? he wondered for what must
have been the hundredth dme. What had become of them since
their own escape?
Thinking of them made him uneasy. It always did. Too
much time had passed since he had left them. The danger of
the Shadowen was too great for the Valemen to have been left
out there alone. He hoped Padishar had found them by now.
He hoped that they’d had an easier time of things than he had.
But he wouldn’t have cared to place a bet on it.
He arrived at the square and saw the Whistledown off to the
left in the far comer. A weather-beaten wooden sign carved
with a flute and a foaming tankard over the name announced
its location. It was a slat-boarded building like all the others
clustered about it, sharing a common wall with the ones on ei-
ther side, looming three stories against the skyline, with cur-
tained windows on the second and third floors where there
were either living quarters for the owners and their families or
sleeping rooms for hire. The square was thronged with people
coming and going from this place to that, more than a few me-
andering from tavern to tavern, some so drunk they could
hardly stand. Morgan avoided them, moving aside to let those
he encountered pass, smelling the sweat and dirt of their
bodies and the stench of the streets. Wyvem Split, he thought,