“It manifests itself in you, Walker,” he said. “You in turn will pass it on to your children, and they to theirs, until one day there is need for it. That is the legacy you have inherited.”
“But what good is a legacy that serves no purpose?” Walker had demanded.
And Kenner had repeated, “There is always purpose in magic—even when we don't understand what it is.”
Barely a year later, as Walker was entering his youth and leaving his childhood behind, the magic revealed that it possessed another, darker side. Walker found out that it could be destructive. Sometimes, most often when he was angry, his emotions transformed themselves into energy. When that happened, he could move things away and break them apart without touching them. Sometimes he could summon a form of fire. It wasn't ordinary fire; it didn't burn like ordinary fire and it was different in color, a sort of cobalt. It wouldn't do much of what he tried to make it do; it did pretty much what it wished. It took him weeks to learn to control it. He tried to keep his discovery a secret from his father, but his father learned of it anyway, just as he eventually learned of everything about his son. Though he said little, Walker felt the distance between them widen.
Walker was nearing manhood when his father made the decision to take him out of Hearthstone. Kenner Ohmsford's health had been failing steadily for several years, his once strong body afflicted by a wasting sickness. Closing down the cottage that had been Walker's home since birth, he took the boy to Shady Vale to live with another family of Ohmsfords, Jar-alan and Mirianna and their sons Par and Coll.
The move became for Walker Boh the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Shady Vale, though little more than a hamlet community, nevertheless seemed constricting after Hearthstone. Freedom there had been boundless; here, there were boundaries that he could not escape. Walker was not used to being around so many people and he could not seem to make himself fit in. He was required to attend school, but there was nothing for him to learn. His master and the other children disliked and mistrusted him; he was an outsider, he behaved differently than they, he knew entirely too much, and they quickly decided that they wanted nothing to do with him. His magic became a snare he could not escape. It manifested itself in everything he did, and by the time he realized he should have hidden it away it was too late to do so. He was beaten a number of times because he wouldn't defend himself. He was terrified of what would happen if he let the fire escape.
He was in the village less than a year when his father died. Walker had wished that he could die, too.
He continued to live with Jaralan and Mirianna Ohmsford, who were good to him and who sympathized with the difficulties he was encountering because their own son Par was just beginning to exhibit signs of having magic of his own. Par was a descendent of Jair Ohmsford, Brin's brother. Both sides of the family had passed the magic of their ancestors down through the bloodline in the years since Allanon's death, so the appearance of Par's magic was not entirely unexpected. Par's was a less unpredictable and complicated form of magic, manifesting itself principally in the boy's ability to create lifelike images with his voice. Par was still little then, just five or six, and he barely understood what was happening to him. Coll was not yet strong enough to protect his brother, so Walker ended up taking the boy under his wing. It seemed natural enough to do so. After all, only Walker understood what Par was experiencing.
His relationship with Par changed everything. It gave him something to focus on, a purpose beyond worrying about his own survival. He spent time with Par helping him adjust to the presence of the magic in his body. He counseled him in its use, advised him in the cautions that were necessary, the protective devices he must learn to employ. He tried to teach him how to deal with the fear and dislike of people who would choose not to understand. He became Par's mentor.
The people of Shady Vale began calling him “Dark Uncle.” It began with the children. He wasn't Par's uncle, of course; he wasn't anybody's uncle. But he hadn't a firm blood tie in the eyes of the villagers; no one really understood the relationship he bore to Jaralan and Mirianna, so there were no constrictions on how they might refer to him. “Dark Uncle” became the appellation that stuck. Walker was tall by then, pale skinned and black haired like his mother, apparently immune to the browning effect of the sun. He looked ghostly. It seemed to the Vale children as if he were a night thing that never saw the light of day, and his relationship toward the boy Par appeared mysterious to them. Thus he became “Dark Uncle,” the counselor of magic, the strange, awkward, withdrawn young man whose insights and comprehensions set him apart from everyone.
Nevertheless, the name “Dark Uncle” notwithstanding, Walker's attitude improved. He began to learn how to deal with the suspicion and mistrust. He was no longer attacked. He found that he could turn aside these assaults with not much more than a glance or even the set of his body. He could use the magic to shield himself. He found he could project wariness and caution into others and prevent them from following through on their violent intentions. He even became rather good at stopping fights among others. Unfortunately, all this did was distance him further. The adults and older youths left him alone altogether; only the younger children turned cautiously friendly.
Walker was never happy in Shady Vale. The mistrust and the fear remained, concealed just beneath the forced smiles, the perfunctory nods, and the civilities of the villagers that allowed him to exist among them but never gain acceptance. Walker knew that the magic was the cause of his problem. His mother and father might have thought of it as a gift, but he didn't. And he never would again. It was a curse that he felt certain would haunt him to the grave.
By the time he reached manhood, Walker had resolved to return to Hearthstone, to the home he remembered so fondly, away from the people of the Vale, from their mistrust and suspicion, from the strangeness they caused him to feel. The boy Par had adjusted well enough that Walker no longer felt concerned about him. To begin with, Par was a native of the Vale and accepted in a way that Walker never could be. Moreover, his attitude toward using magic was far different than Walker's. Par was never hesitant; he wanted to know everything the magic could do. What others thought did not concern him. He could get away with that; Walker never could. The two had begun to grow apart as they grew older. Walker knew it was inevitable. It was time for him to go. Jaralan and Mirianna urged him to stay, but understood at the same time that he could not.
Seven years after his arrival, Walker Boh departed Shady Vale. He had taken his mother's name by then, disdaining further use of Ohmsford because it linked him so closely with the legacy of magic he now despised. He went back into Darklin Reach, back to Hearthstone, feeling as if he were a caged wild animal that had been set free. He severed his ties with the life he had left behind him. He resolved that he would never again use the magic. He promised himself that he would keep apart from the world of men for the rest of his life.
For almost a year he did exactly as he said he would do. And then Cog-line appeared and everything changed …
Half-sleep turned abruptly to waking, and Walker's memories faded away. He stirred in the warmth of his bed, and his eyes blinked open. For a moment he could not decide where he was. The room in which he lay was bright with daylight despite the brooding presence of a cluster of forest trees directly outside his curtained window. The room was small, clean, almost bare of furniture. There were a sitting chair and a small table next to his bed, the bed, and nothing else. A vase of flowers, a basin of water, and some cloths sat on the table. The single door leading into the room stood closed.
Storlock. That was where he was, where Cogline had brought him.
He remembered then what had happened to bring him here.
Cautiously, he brought his ruined arm out from beneath the bedding. There was little pain now, but the heaviness of the stone persisted and there was no feeling. He bit his lip in anger and frustration as his arm worked free. Nothing had changed beyond the lessening of the pain. The stone ti
p where the lower arm had shattered was still there. The streaks of gray where the poison worked its way upward toward his shoulder were there as well.
He slipped his arm from view again. The Stors had been unable to cure him. Whatever the nature of the poison that the Asphinx had injected into him, the Stors could not treat it. And if the Stors could not treat it—the Stors, who were the best of the Four Lands' Healers …
He could not finish the thought. He shoved it away, closed his eyes, tried to go back to sleep, and failed. All he could see was his arm shattering under the impact of the stone wedge.
Despair washed over him and he wept.
An hour had passed when the door opened and Cogline entered the room, an intrusive presence that made the silence seem even more uncomfortable.
“Walker,” he greeted quietly.
“They cannot save me, can they?” Walker asked bluntly, the despair pushing everything else aside.
The old man became a statue at his bedside. “You're alive, aren't you?” he replied.
“Don't play word games with me. Whatever's been done, it hasn't driven out the poison. I can feel it. I may be alive, but only for the moment. Tell me if I'm wrong.”
Cogline paused. “You're not wrong. The poison is still in you. Even the Stors haven't the means to remove it or to stop its spread. But they have slowed the process, lessened the pain, and given you time. That is more than I would have expected given the nature and extent of the injury. How do you feel?”
Walker's smile was slow and bitter. “Like I am dying, naturally. But in a comfortable fashion.”
They regarded each other without speaking for a moment. Then Cog-line moved over to the sitting chair and eased himself into it, a bundle of old bones and aching joints, of wrinkled brown skin. “Tell me what happened to you, Walker,” he said.
Walker did. He told of reading the ancient, leatherbound Druid History that Cogline had brought to him and learning of the Black Elfstone, of deciding to seek the counsel of the Grimpond, of hearing its riddles and witnessing its visions, of determining that he must go to the Hall of Kings, of finding the secret compartment marked with runes in the floor of the Tomb, and finally of being bitten and poisoned by the Asphinx left there to snare him.
“To snare someone at least, perhaps anyone,” Cogline observed.
Walker looked at him sharply, anger and mistrust flaring in his dark eyes. “What do you know of this, Cogline? Do you play the same games as the Druids now? And what of Allanon? Did Allanon know …”
“Allanon knew nothing,” Cogline interrupted, brushing aside the accusation before it could be completed. The old eyes glittered beneath narrowed brows. “You undertook to solve the Grimpond's riddles on your own—a foolish decision on your part. I warned you repeatedly that the wraith would find a way to undo you. How could Allanon know of your predicament? You attribute far too much to a man three hundred years dead. Even if he were still alive, his magic could never penetrate that which shrouds the Hall of Kings. Once you were within, you were lost to him. And to me. It wasn't until you emerged again and collapsed at the Hade-shorn that he was able to discover what happened and summon me to help you. I came as quickly as I could and even so it took me three days.”
One hand lifted, a sticklike finger jabbing. “Have you bothered to question why it is that you aren't dead? It is because Allanon found a way to keep you alive, first until I arrived and second until the Stors could treat you! Think on that a bit before you start casting blame about so freely!”
He glared, and Walker glared back at him. It was Walker who looked away first, too sick at heart to continue the confrontation. “I have trouble believing anyone just at the moment,” he offered lamely.
“You have trouble believing anyone at any time,” Cogline snapped, unappeased. “You cast your heart in iron long ago, Walker. You stopped believing in anything. I remember when that wasn't so.”
He trailed off, and the room went silent. Walker found himself thinking momentarily of the time the old man referred to, the time when he had first come to Walker and offered to show him the ways in which the magic could be used. Cogline was right. He hadn't been so bitter then; he'd been full of hope.
He almost laughed. That was such a long time ago.
“Perhaps I can use my own magic to dispel the poison from my body,” he ventured quietly. “Once I return to Hearthstone, once I'm fully rested. Brin Ohmsford had such power once.”
Cogline dropped his eyes and looked thoughtful. His gnarled hands clasped loosely in the folds of his robe. It appeared as if he were trying to decide something.
Walker waited a moment, then asked, “What has become of the others— of Par and Coll and Wren?”
Cogline kept his gaze lowered. “Par has gone in search of the Sword, young Coll with him. The Rover girl seeks the Elves. They've accepted the charges Allanon gave to them.” He looked up again. “Have you, Walker?”
Walker stared at him, finding the question both absurd and troubling, torn between conflicting feelings of disbelief and uncertainty. Once he would not have hesitated to give his answer. He thought again of what Allanon had asked him to do: Bring back disappeared Paranor and restore the Druids. A ridiculous, impossible undertaking, he had thought at the time. Game playing, he had decried. He would not be a part of such foolishness, he had announced to Par, Coll, Wren, and the others of the little company that had come with him to the Valley of Shale. He despised the Druids for their manipulation of the Ohmsfords. He would not be made their puppet. So bold he had been, so certain. He would sooner cut off his hand than see the Druids come again, he had declared.
And the loss of his hand was the price that had been exacted, it seemed.
Yet had that loss truly put an end to any possibility of the return of Paranor and the Druids? More to the point, was that what he now intended?
He was conscious of Cogline watching him, impatient as he waited for Walker Boh's answer to his question. Walker kept his eyes fixed on the old man without seeing him. He was thinking suddenly of the Druid History and its tale of the Black Elfstone. If he had not gone in search of the Elf-stone, he would not have lost his arm. Why had he gone? Curiosity, he had thought. But that was a simplistic answer and he knew it was given too easily. In any case, didn't the very fact of his going indicate that despite any protestations to the contrary he indeed had accepted Allanon's charge?
If not, what was it that he was doing?
He focused again on the old man. “Tell me something, Cogline. Where did you get that book of the Druid Histories? How did you find it? You said when you brought it to me that you got it out of Paranor. Surely not.”
Cogline's smile was faint and ironic. “Why ‘surely not, ’ Walker?”
“Because Paranor was sent out of the world of men by Allanon three hundred years ago. It doesn't exist anymore.”
Cogline's face crinkled like crushed parchment. “Doesn't exist? Oh, but it does, Walker. And you're wrong. Anyone can reach it if they have the right magic to help them. Even you.”
Walker hesitated, suddenly uncertain.
“Allanon sent Paranor out of the world of the men, but it still exists,” Cogline said softly. “It needs only the magic of the Black Elfstone to summon it back again. Until then, it remains lost to the Four Lands. But it can still be entered by those who have the means to do so and the courage to try. It does require courage, Walker. Shall I tell you why? Would you like to hear the story behind my journey into Paranor?”
Walker hesitated again, wondering if he wanted to hear anything ever again about the Druids and their magic. Then he nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“But you are prepared to disbelieve what I am going to tell you, aren't you?”
“Yes.”
The old man leaned forward. “Tell you what. I'll let you judge for yourself.”
He paused, gathering his thoughts. Daylight framed him in brightness, exposing the flaws of old age that etched his thin frame in lines and hollows, that lef
t his hair and beard wispy and thin, and that gave his hands a tremulous appearance as he clasped them tightly before him.
“It was after your meeting with Allanon. He sensed, and I as well, that you would not accept the charge you had been given, that you would resist any sort of involvement without further evidence of the possibility that you might succeed. And that there was reason to want to. You differ in your attitude from the others—you doubt everything that you are told. You came to Allanon already planning to reject what you would hear.”
Walker started to protest, but Cogline held up his hands quickly and shook his head. “No, Walker. Don't argue. I know you better than you know yourself. Just listen to me for now. I went north on Allanon's summons, seeming to disappear, leaving you to debate among yourselves what course of action you would follow. Your decision in the matter was a foregone conclusion. You would not do as you had been asked. Since that was so, I resolved to try to change your mind. You see, Walker, I believe in the dreams; I see the truth in them that you as yet do not. I would not be a messenger for Allanon if there were any way to avoid it. My time as a Druid passed away long ago, and I do not seek to return to what was. But I am all there is and since that is so I will do what I think necessary. Dissuading you from refusing to involve yourself in the matter at hand is something I deem vital.”
He was shaking with the conviction of his words and the look he extended Walker was one that sought to convey truths that the old man could not speak.
“I went north, Walker, as I said. I traveled out of the Valley of Shale and across the Dragon's Teeth to the valley of the Druid's Keep. Nothing remains of Paranor but a few crumbling outbuildings on a barren height. The forests still surround the spot on which it once stood, but nothing will grow upon the earth, not even the smallest blade of grass. The wall of thorns that once protected the Keep is gone. Everything has disappeared— as if some giant reached down and snatched it all away.