The Talismans of Shannara

  But there was no time to follow up the attack. The remaining Horsemen had recovered themselves. Death pivoted toward him, gray-cloaked and hooded, gleaming scythe lowered. Pestilence followed, hissing like a sackful of snakes, its body taking shape as it came. Walker cut Death’s serpent’s legs from beneath it and sent both tumbling in a heap. By then Pestilence was almost on top of him. He jumped aside, cat quick. But the Horseman’s outstretched fingers grazed him as it passed.

  Instantly a wave of nausea swept through Walker. He dropped to his knees, weakened and dazed. Just a touch had been all! He swung about to track Pestilence and sent a new lance of fire into the Shadowen’s dark back. Pestilence broke apart in a swarm of black flies.

  Everything seemed to slow down for Walker Boh. He watched Famine approach in a heavy, sluggish, lurching rush. He tried to respond, but his strength seemed to have deserted him. He was aware of the day beginning, of new light brightening the eastern horizon, diffusing in thick, syrupy streamers across the trailing robes of departing night. He could feel the air, could taste and smell it, the scents of fresh leaves and grasses mingling with dust and heat. Paranor was a monstrous stone shadow at his elbow, close enough to touch and yet impossibly far.

  He should not have dropped his cloak of invisibility. He had lost any advantage he had possessed.

  He sent fire lancing into Famine and turned its attack aside, the Horseman’s skeletal body hunching and breaking apart from the blow.

  Dead, but not really, Walker thought, feeling himself turning feverish and hot.

  The horsemen swarmed back from all directions, serpents rising up and converging on him. Why wouldn’t they die? How could they keep coming? The questions rolled thickly off his tongue, and he was aware suddenly that he was speaking them aloud, that a sort of delirium was settling in. He was impossibly weak as he stumbled back toward the wall, mustering his strength to face the renewed rush. His plan was falling apart. He had misjudged something. What was it?

  He lifted his arm and sent the fire sweeping in all directions, scattering it into his attackers in a desperate effort to keep them at bay. But his strength was depleted now, expended in his initial attack, siphoned away by Pestilence. The magic barely slowed the Shadowen, who broke through its screen and came on. War threw a jagged-edged mace at him, and he watched it hurtle toward him, unable to act. At the last moment he summoned magic enough to deflect it, but still the iron struck him a glancing blow, spinning him backward into Paranor’s stone with such force that the breath was knocked from him.

  The blow saved his life.

  As he clawed at the stone of Paranor’s wall to keep himself from falling, he found the seam of the hidden door. For an instant his head cleared, and he remembered that he had left himself a way to escape if things went wrong. He had forgotten it in the rage of battle, in the grip of the fever and delirium. He still had a chance. The Four Horsemen were bearing down on him, closing impossibly fast. The fingers of his hand raced along the hidden door’s seam, numb and bloodied. If only he had two hands, two arms! If only he was whole! The thought was there and gone in an instant, the despair that summoned it banished by his fury.

  There was a shriek of metal and claws.

  His fingers closed on the release.

  The door swung inward, carrying him with it, a shapeless bundle of robes. As it did, he threw back into the space it left shards of fire as sharp as razors. He heard them tear into his pursuers, thought that perhaps he heard the Shadowen scream somewhere inside his mind.

  Then he was in musty, cool darkness, the sound and fury shut away with the closing of the door, the battle over.

  Cogline found him in the passageway beneath the castle’s ramparts, curled in a ball, so exhausted he could not bring himself to move. With considerable effort, the old man brought Walker to his bed and laid him in it. He undressed him, sponged him with cool, clean water, gave him medicines, and wrapped him in blankets to sleep. He spoke words to Walker, but Walker could not seem to decipher them. Walker replied, but what he said was unclear. He knew that he was alive, that he had survived to fight another day, and that was all that mattered.

  Shivering, aching, bone-weary from his struggle, he let himself be settled in and left in darkness to rest. He was conscious of Rumor curling up beside him, keeping watch against whatever might threaten, ready to summon Cogline if need required it. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat, thinking that the sickness would pass, that he would be well again when he woke. Determined that he would be.

  His eyes closed, but as they did so his mind locked tightly on a final, healing thought.

  The battle had been lost this day. The Four Horsemen had broken him again. But he had learned something from his defeat—something that ultimately would prove their undoing.

  He took a long slow breath and let it out again. Sleep swept through his body in warm, relaxing waves.

  The next time he faced the Shadowen, he promised himself before drifting off, sheathing his oath in layers of iron resolve, he would put an end to them.

  XIV

  While Walker Boh was fighting to break free of the Four Horsemen at Paranor, Wren Elessedil was convincing the Elven High Council to engage the Federation army marching north to destroy them, and Morgan Leah was leading Damson and a small company of free-born to rescue Padishar Creel at Tyrsis, Par Ohmsford was tracking his brother, Coll.

  It was an arduous, painstaking effort. When Damson and he had separated, he had begun his search immediately, aware that Coll was only minutes ahead of him, thinking that if he was quick enough, he would surely catch up to him. Sunrise had broken, the darkness that might have hampered his efforts fading to scattered shadows and patches of mist that lingered in the trees. Coll was fleeing in mindless disregard of everything but the vision shown him by the Sword of Shannara. He was confused and terrified; his pain had been palpable. In such a state, how much effort would he make to conceal his flight? How far could he run before exhaustion overtook him?

  The answer was not the one Par had anticipated. Although he was able to follow his brother’s tracks easily enough, the trail clear amid a wreckage of brush and grasses, he found himself unable to gain ground. Despite everything—or perhaps because of it—Coll seemed to have discovered within himself unexpected strength. He was running from Par, not just hastening away, and he was not pausing to rest. Nor was he running in a straight line. He was charging all over the place, starting out in one direction and then within moments reversing himself, not for any discernible reason, but seemingly out of whim. It was as if he had gone mad, as if demons pursued him, shut inside his head so that he could not determine from where they came.

  And, indeed, Par thought as he followed after, it must seem so to Coll.

  By nightfall, he was exhausted. His face and arms were streaked with dust and sweat, his hair was matted in clumps, and his clothes were filthy. Having discarded everything else to lighten his load and give him more speed, he was carrying only the Sword of Shannara, a blanket, and a water skin. Nevertheless, he could still barely walk. He wondered how Coll had managed to stay ahead of him. His fear should have exhausted him hours ago. The Mirrorshroud and its Shadowen magic must be driving his brother like a whip would an animal. The thought made Par despair. If Coll did not slow, if he did not regain even some small measure of his judgment, the exertion would kill him. Or if the exertion didn’t, then some mistake brought on by careless disregard for personal safety would. There were dangers in this country that could kill a man even when he was employing a healthy measure of caution and common sense. At the moment, it seemed, Coll Ohmsford was possessed of neither.

  When he stopped finally, Par found himself just west of where the Mermidon divided, one tributary running east toward the Rabb, the other turning south toward Varfleet and the Runne. Follow the second branch far enough arid you would reach the Rainbow Lake. You would also reach Southwatch. That was the direction that Coll had been traveling when it had grown too dark to follow
his trail farther. The more Par considered the matter, the more it seemed that his brother had been following that path all along—albeit in a meandering way. Back to Southwatch and the Shadowen. It made sense, if the magic of the cloak was subverting Coll.

  Par wrapped up in his blanket and propped himself against the rough surface of an old shagbark hickory to think things through. The Sword of Shannara lay on the ground next to him, and his fingers traced the outline of the carved hilt with its raised hand and burning torch. If the Shadowen magic was controlling his brother, Coll might not have any idea at all what he was doing. He might have come looking for Par without knowing why; he might be fleeing now in the same condition. Except that the Sword had shown Coll the same vision it had shown Par, so that meant Coll had seen the truth about himself. Par had felt a bonding in those moments; Coll had been joined to him long enough for both to see. Had that changed things in any way? Having seen the truth about himself, was he trying to shake free of the Shadowen magic?

  Par closed his eyes tightly against the strain of his weariness. He needed to sleep but was unwilling to do so until he had figured out what was happening. Damson had warned him that the pursuit was probably some sort of trap. Coll did not just happen on them. He had been sent by the Shadowen. Why? To hurt him or to kill him? Par wasn’t sure. How had Coll managed to find him? How long had he been searching? The questions buzzed through his mind like angry hornets, intrusive and demanding, stingers poised. Think! Perhaps the magic of the cloak had let Coll find him—had driven Coll to find him. The magic had infected his brother, had turned him into the Shadowen thing, all the while Coll believing it was helping him escape his captors, fooled into donning it so that it could begin its work, tricked …

  Par took a deep breath. He could barely breathe at all, picturing Coll as one of them, one of the things in the Pit, the things that were living even when they were already dead.

  He drank some water because water was all he had. How long had it been since he had eaten? he wondered. Tomorrow he would have to forage or hunt. He needed to regain his strength. No food and little rest would eventually catch up to him. He could not afford to be foolish if he was to be of any use to his brother.

  He forced his thoughts back to Coll, wrapping the blanket closer in the gathering night. It was cool in the trees by the river, the summer heat banished to other realms. If Coll had not come to kill him, why had he come? Not for any good reason surely. Coll was not Coll now.

  Par blinked. To steal the Sword of Shannara perhaps?

  The idea was intriguing, but it made no sense. Why would Rimmer Dall hand the Sword over to Par only to dispatch Coll later to steal it back? Unless Coll was someone else’s tool. But that made even less sense. There was only one enemy here, despite all of the First Seeker’s protestations. Rimmer Dall had gone to a great deal of trouble to make Par think he had killed his brother. The Shadowen had sent Coll for a reason, but it was not to steal back the Sword of Shannara.

  Par let himself consider for a moment how odd it was that the Sword had finally revealed itself to him. He had tried everything to trigger the magic, and until then nothing had worked. He had always believed that it really was the talisman, that it was not a fake, even though Rimmer Dall had given it to him willingly. He had sensed its power, even when it did not respond to him. But the doubts had persisted, and more than once he had despaired. Now suddenly, unexpectedly, the magic had been brought to life, all because of his struggle with Coll.

  And Par didn’t have a clue as to why.

  He slid down the tree trunk until he was resting on his back, staring up through the leafy boughs of the hickory at the clear, starlit sky. He just needed to get comfortable, he told himself. Just needed to ease a little of the aching of his body. He could think better if he did that. He knew he could.

  He fell asleep telling himself so.

  When he woke it was dawn, and Coll was staring down at him. His brother was crouched atop a mound of rocks not twenty feet off, twisted and hunched like a scavenger. He was wrapped in the Mirrorshroud, the folds glimmering wickedly in the faint silver light as if dew were woven through the fabric. Coll’s face was haggard and drawn, and his eyes, always so calm and steady, were darting about with fear and loathing.

  Par was so startled that he couldn’t bring himself to move. It had never occurred to him that his brother might circle back—would even have the presence of mind to do so. Why had he come? To attack him anew, to try to kill him perhaps? He stared at Coll, into his stricken face and sunken eyes. No, Coll was there for something else. He looked as if he wished to approach, as if he wanted to speak, as if he was seeking something from Par. And maybe he is, Par thought suddenly. The Sword of Shannara had given Coll his first glimpse of truth since he had donned the Mirrorshroud. Perhaps he wanted more.

  He lifted slowly and started to hold out his hand.

  Instantly Coll was gone, leaping from the rock into the shadows beyond and bounding away into the trees.

  “Coll!” Par screamed after him. The echo faded and died. The sound of Coll’s running disappeared into silence, lost as the distance between them widened anew.

  Par foraged for berries and roots, convinced as he ate a meager breakfast that if he didn’t find real food by nightfall he would be in serious trouble. He ate quickly, thinking of Coll all the while. There had been such terror in his brother’s eyes—and such fury. At Par, at himself, at the truth? There was no way to know. But Coll was aware of him still, was actively seeking him out, and there was still a chance to catch up with him.

  What would he do, though, when he did? Par hadn’t thought that far ahead. Use the Sword of Shannara again, he answered himself, almost without thinking. The Sword was Coll’s best hope for getting free of the Mirrorshroud. If Coll could be made to see the nature of the magic that possessed him, perhaps a way could be found to throw the cloak and its magic off. Perhaps Par could manage to tear it off him if nothing else. But the Sword was the key. Coll hadn’t recognized anything until the Sword’s magic engaged him, but the truth had shown in his eyes then. Par would use the talisman again, he told himself. And this time he wouldn’t stop until Coll was free.

  He picked up his blanket and set out again. The day was sultry and still, the heat growing quickly to a sticky swelter that left Par’s clothing damp with sweat. He picked up Coll’s trail and followed it to the Mermidon and across, heading north, then back again south. This time his brother continued in a direct line for several hours, traveling the east bank into the Runne Mountains. He passed Varfleet across the river, seeing trawlers and ferries maneuvering sluggishly on the broad expanse, thinking that it would be good to have a boat, thinking a second later that a boat was useless while he was tracking prints on dry land. He remembered when Coll and he had fled Varfleet weeks earlier and come south down the Mermidon, the beginning of everything. He remembered how close they had been then, despite their arguments over the direction of their lives and the purpose of Par’s magic. It all seemed to have happened a very long time ago.

  Toward midafternoon he came upon a small landing with a fishing dock and trading post several miles downriver of Varfleet. The post was ramshackle and cluttered, its tenants a taciturn, recalcitrant bunch with scarred, callused working hands and sun-browned faces. He was able to trade his ring for fishing line and hooks, flint, bread, cheese, and smoked fish. He carried everything just beyond sight of the landing, plopped down, and ate half of the foodstuffs without stopping for breath. When he was finished, he resumed his trek south, feeling decidely better about himself. The line and hooks would allow him to fish, and the flint would give him a fire. He was beginning to realize that catching up to Coll would take a lot longer than he had expected.

  He found himself thinking again about why Coll had come in search of him—or more accurately, why he had been sent. If it wasn’t to kill him or to steal the Sword, that didn’t leave much. Perhaps Coll’s coming was intended to provoke some sort of response from him. Damson?
??s warning whispered once again—the chase was probably a Shadowen trap. But how could the Shadowen know their meeting would trigger the magic of the Sword of Shannara and reveal the truth about who Coll was, that Par would be able to see him as anything but a Shadowen? Coll might have been sent as a lure to draw Par after—that certainly seemed like Rimmer Dall—but again, how could the Shadowen know that Par would discover his brother’s identity?

  Unless he wasn’t supposed to find out …

  Par stopped abruptly. He was passing beneath a huge old oak. It was shady there and cool. He could feel a breeze waft in off the Mermidon. He could hear the sound of the river’s sluggish flow. He could smell the water and the woods.

  … until it was too late.

  He felt his throat tighten. What if he had this whole business backward? What if Coll wasn’t supposed to kill him? What if he was supposed to kill Coll?

  Why?

  Because …

  He struggled with the answer. It was almost there, just on the edge of his reasoning. A whisper of words, straining to be recognized, to be understood.

  He could not quite reach them.

  He started off again, frustrated. He was on the right track, even if he didn’t have all the particulars straight yet. It was Coll out there, leading him on, fleeing without knowing why, coming back at night to make certain Par was following. It was the Sword of Shannara Par carried, and its magic that had told him the truth. It was the Shadowen who had orchestrated this whole business, who were playing with them as if they were children set at a game, made to perform for the enjoyment of others.

  It has to do with the magic of the wishsong, Par thought suddenly. It has to do with that.

  It would come to him, he knew. He just needed to keep thinking about it. He just needed to keep reasoning it through.