and he did not yet know how he was supposed to act. Each
day he opened new doors on what others before him had
known and passed on, knowledge that revealed itself in unex-
pected glimpses, light coming from the darkened comers of his
mind as if let in through shuttered windows thrown wide. He
did not understand it all, sometimes doubted it, often ques-
tioned its worth. But the flow was relentless, and he was
forced to measure and weigh each new revelation, knowing it
must have had worth once, accepting that it might again.
But what role was he supposed to play in the struggle to put
an end to the Shadowen? He had become the Druid that
Allanon had sought, and he had made himself master of
Paranor. Yet what was he supposed to do with this? Surely he
had magic now that might be used against the Shadowen—just
as the Druids had used magic before to give aid to the Races.
He possessed knowledge as well, perhaps more knowledge
than any man alive, and the Druids had used this as a weapon,
too. But it seemed ,to Walker that his newfound power lacked
any discernible focus, that he needed first to understand the na-
ture of his enemy before he could settle on a way to defeat it.
Meanwhile, here he was, trapped within his tower fortress
where he could not help anyone.
“They do not try to enter,” Cogline observed at one point af-
ter three days of vigilance atop the castle walls. “Why do you
think mat is? ”
106 The Talismans of Shannam
Walker shook his head. “Perhaps they do not need to. As
long as we remain locked within, their purpose is served.”
The old man rubbed his whiskered chin. He had grown
older since his release from the half life to which the magic of
the Druid Histories had consigned him. He was lined and wrin-
kled anew, more stooped than before, slower in his walk and
speech, frail beyond what his years allowed. Walker did not
like what he saw, but said nothing. The old man had given
much for him, and what he had given had clearly taken its toll.
But he did not complain or choose to talk of it, so there was
no reason for Walker to do so either.
“It may be that they are afraid of the Druid magic,” Walker
continued after a moment, his good hand lifting to rest on the
battlement stone. “Paranor has always been protected from
those that would enter uninvited. The Shadowen may know of
this and choose to stay without because of it.”
“Or perhaps they wait until they have tested the nature and
extent of that magic,” Cogline said softly. “They wait to dis-
cover how dangerous you are.” He looked at Walker without
seeing him, eyes focused somewhere beyond. “Or until they
simply grow tired of waiting,” he whispered.
Walker considered ways in which he might defeat these
Shadowen, turning those ways over and over in his mind like
artifacts hiding clues to the past. The Black Elfstone was an
obvious choice, secreted now in a vault deep within the cata-
combs of the Keep. But the Elfstone would exact its own price
if called upon, and it was not a price that Walker was willing
to pay. There was no reason to think that the Elfstone would
not work against the Four Horsemen, draining their magic
away until nothing remained but ashes. But the nature of the
Elfstone required that the stolen magic be transferred into the
holder, and Walker had no wish to have the Shadowen magic
made part of him.
There was also the Stiehl, the strange killing blade taken
from the assassin Pe Ell at Eldwist, the weapon that could kill
anything. But Walker did not relish the prospect of using an
assassin’s weapon, especially one with the history of the Stiehl,
and thought that if weapons were required, there were plenty
at hand that could be used against the Shadowen.
What he needed most, he knew, was a plan. He had three
The Talismans of Shannam 107
choices. He could remain safely within Paranor’s walls, hoping