he held her hands, Morgan was reminded of Quickening, of the
way she had felt, of the feelings she had invoked in him. He
found that he missed her desperately and would have given
anything to have her back again.
“Enough testing,” Damson whispered. “Let’s talk instead.
I’ll tell you everything that’s happened to me. You do the same
about yourself. Par and Padishar need us. Maybe together we
can come up with a way to help.”
She squeezed his hands as if there were no pain in her own
and gave him an encouraging smile. He bent to retrieve the
Sword of Leah, then started back with her through the trees to-
ward the glow of the cooking fires. His mind was spinning,
working through what she had told him, sorting out impres-
sions from facts, trying to glean something useful. Damson
was right. The Valeman and the leader of the free-born needed
them. Morgan was determined not to let either down.
But what could he do?
The smell of food from the cooking fire reached out to him
enticingly. For the first time since he had arrived, he was hun-
gry-
Par and Padishar.
Padishar first, he thought.
Chandos had said five days.
If the Seekers didn’t reach him first …
It came to him in a rush, the picture so clear in his mind he
almost cried out. He reached over impulsively and put his arm
around Damson’s shoulders.
“I think I know how to free Padishar,” he said.
x
Five days the Four Horsemen circled the walls of Paranor,
and five days Walker Boh stood on the castle battlements
and watched. Each dawn they assembled at the west
gates, shadows come from the gloom of fading night. One
would approach, a different one each time, and strike the gates
once in challenge. When Walker failed to appear they would
resume their grim vigil, spreading out so that there was one at
each compass point, one at each of the main walls, riding in
slow, ceaseless cadence, circling like birds of prey. Day and
night they rode, specters of gray mist and dark imaginings, si-
lent as thought and certain as time.
“Incarnations of man’s greatest enemies,” Cogline mused
when he saw them for the first time. “Manifestations of our
worst fears, the slayers of so many, given shape and form and
sent to destroy us.” He shook his head. “Can it be that Rimmer
Dall has a sense of humor? ”
Walker didn’t think so. He found nothing amusing about any
of it. The Shadowen appeared to possess boundless raw power,
the kind of power that would let them become anything. It was
neither subtle nor intricate; it was as straightforward and re-
lentless as a flood. It seemed able to build on itself and to
sweep aside anything that it found in its path. Walker did not
know how powerful the Horsemen were, but he was willing to
bet that they were more than a match for him. Rimmer Dall
would have sent nothing less to deal with a Druid—even one
newly come to the position, uncertain of his own strength, of
the extent of his magic, and of the ways it might be made to
serve him. At least one of AUanon’s charges to the Ohmsfords
104
The Talismans of Shannara 105
had been carried out, and it posed a threat that the Shadowen
could not afford to ignore.
Yet the purpose of the charges remained a mystery that
Walker could not solve. Standing atop Paranor’s walls, watch-
ing the Four Horsemen circle below, he pondered endlessly
why the charges had been given. What was it that the Sword
of Shannara was supposed to accomplish? What purpose
would it serve to have the Elves brought back into the world
of men? What was the reason for returning Paranor and the
Druids? Or one Druid at least, he mused darkly. One Druid,
made over out of bits and pieces of others. He was an amal-
gam of those who had come and gone, of their memories, of
their strengths and weaknesses, of their lore and history, of
their magic’s secrets. He was an infant in his life as a Druid,