against the side of the tub as if to share its warmth. While
Walker dried himself and dressed again, he pondered the enor-
mous calm of the moor cat, the facade that all cats assumed as
they regarded the world about them, considering it in their own
impenetrable way. A little of that calm would be useful, he
thought.
Then his thoughts shifted abruptly.
What was wrong with Cogline?
He left his own troubles behind with the bathwater and went
out to find the old man. He came on him in the library, reading
once more the Druid Histories. Cogline looked up as he en-
150 The Talismans of Shannara
tered, startled by his appearance or by something it sug-
gested—Walker could not tell which.
Walker sat beside him on a carved, cushioned bench. “Old
man, what is it that bothers you? ” he asked quietly. He
reached out to place a reassuring hand on the other’s thin
shoulder. “I see the worry in your eyes. Tell me.”
Cogline shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “I worry for
you. Walker. I know how strange everything seems to you
since … well, since all this began. It cannot be easy. I keep
thinking there must be something I can do to help.”
Walker looked away. Since the Black Elfstone, he thought.
Since Allanon made himself a part of me, come in through the
magic left to keep Paranor safe until the Druids’ return.
Strange is hardly the word/or it.
“You need not worry for me,” he replied, his smile ironic.
At least not about that. The warring within of the past and the
present had faded as the two assimilated, and the lives and
knowledge of the Druids had become his own. He thought of
the way the magic had churned through him, burning away de-
fenses until there had been nothing left for him to do but to ac-
cept it as his own.
“Walker.” Cogline was staring at him, focused now. “I do
not think Allanon would have put you through this if he did
not believe that it would leave you with sufficient power to
stand against the Shadowen.”
“You have more faith than I.”
Cogline nodded solemnly. “I always have. Walker. Didn’t
you know that? But my faith will be yours as well one day. It
simply takes time. I have been given that time and used it to
learn. I have been alive a long time now. Walker. A long time.
Faith is a part of what gives me the strength to go on.”
Walker took his hand away. “I had faith in myself. I had it
when I knew who and what I was. But that has changed, old
man. I am someone and something else entirely, and I am be-
ing asked to place my faith in a stranger. It is hard for me to
do that.”
“Yes,” Cogline agreed. “But it will happen—if you give it
time.”
“If I have the time to give,” Walker Boh finished.
He went out again. Rumor trailed, a black shadow slipping
The Talismans of Shannara 151
from lamplight to lamplight in the gloom, head swaying rhyth-
mically, tail switching. Walker was aware of him without
thinking of him, his thoughts turned again to the Shadowen
without.
There must be a way …
Strength alone was not enough. The power of the Druid
magic was impressive, but it had never been enough by itself
even for those Druids come and gone. Knowledge was neces-
sary as well. Cleverness. Resolve. Unpredictability. This last
most of all, perhaps—an intangible that was the special prov-
ince of survivors. Did he have it? he wondered suddenly. What
did he have besides what the Druid magic had given him that
he could call upon? He had made much out of the fact that
nothing done to him by the Druids would change who he was.
But was that so? If so, then what part of himself could he call
upon now to enable him to believe in himself once again?
And wasn’t that the key to everything? That he believe in
himself enough that he should not despair?
He went back up to the battlements. Rumor trailing. The