The Heritage of Shannara (98 page)

He moved directly through the jumble of boulders and petrified wood to where the Koden waited. It had not moved, not even an inch, since the
company had arrived. But Walker knew where it lay concealed nevertheless, for its presence had brought the magic awake again. It was an unexpected, exhilarating, and strangely comforting experience to have the power within him stir to life, to discover that it was not lost as he had believed, but merely misplaced.

Or suppressed, he chided harshly. Certainly he had worked hard at denying it even existed.

Mist curled through the rocks, tendrils of white that formed strange shapes and patterns against the gray of the land. Far distant, beyond and below the peaks and the valley they cradled, Walker could hear the crash of the ocean waters against the shoreline, a dull booming that resonated through the silence. He slowed, conscious now that the Koden was just ahead, unable to dispel entirely his apprehension that he was being lured to his doom, that the magic would not protect him, and he would be killed. Would it matter if he was? he wondered suddenly. He brushed the thought away. Within, he could feel the magic burning like a fire stoked to life.

He came down from between two boulders into a depression, and the Koden rose up before him, cat-quick. It seemed to materialize out of the earth, as if the dust that lay upon the rock had suddenly come together to give it form. It was huge and old and grizzled, three times his own size, with great shaggy limbs and ragged yellow claws that curled down to grip the rock. It lifted onto its hind legs to show itself to him, and its twisted snout huffed and opened to reveal a glistening row of teeth. Sightless white eyes peered down at him. Walker stood his ground, his life a slender thread that a single swipe of one huge paw could sever. He saw that the Koden's head and body had been distorted by some dark magic to make the creature appear more grotesque and that the symmetry of shape that had once given grace to its power had been stripped away.

Speak to me,
thought Walker Boh.

The Koden blinked its eyes and dropped down so close that the huge muzzle was no more than inches from the Dark Uncle's face. Walker forced himself to meet the creature's empty gaze. He could feel the hot, fetid breath.

Tell me,
he thought.

There was an instant's time when he was certain that he was going to die, that the magic had failed him entirely, that the Koden would reach out and strike him down. He waited for the claws to rend him, for the end to come. Then he heard the creature answer him, the guttural sounds of its own language captured and transformed by the magic.

Help me,
the Koden said.

A flush of warmth filled Walker. Life returned to him in a way he found difficult to describe, as if he had been reborn and could believe in himself again. A flicker of a smile crossed his face. The magic was still his.

He reached out slowly with his good arm and touched the Koden on its muzzle, feeling beneath his fingertips more than the roughness of its
hide and fur, finding as well the spirit of the creature that was trapped beneath. The Dark Uncle read its history in that touch and felt its pain. He stepped close to study its massive, scarred body, no longer frightened by its size or its ugliness or its ability to destroy. It was a prisoner, he saw— frightened, angered, bewildered, and despairing in the manner of all prisoners, wanting only to be free.

“I will make you so,” Walker Boh whispered.

He looked to discover how the Koden was bound and found nothing. Where were the chains that shackled it? He circled the beast, testing the weight and texture of the air and earth. The great head swung about, seeking to follow him, the eyes fixed and staring. Walker completed his circuit and stopped, frowning. He had found the invisible lines of magic that the Stone King had fashioned and he knew what it would take to set the creature free. The Koden was a prisoner of its mutation. It would have to be changed back into a bear again, into the creature it had been, and the stigma of Uhl Belk's touch cleansed. But Walker hadn't the magic for that. Only Quickening possessed such power, magic strong enough to bring back the Meade Gardens out of the ashes of the past, to restore what once was, and she had already said she could not use her magic again until the Black Elf-stone was recovered. Walker stood looking at the Koden helplessly, trying to decide if there were anything he could do. The beast shifted to face him, its great, ragged bulk a shimmer of rock dust against the landscape.

Walker reached out once more, and his fingers rested on the Koden's muzzle. His thoughts became words.
Let us pass, and we will find a way to set you free.

The Koden stared out at him from the prison of its ruined body, sightless eyes hard and empty.
Go,
it said.

Walker lifted his hand away long enough to beckon his companions forward, then placed it back again. The others of the company came hesitantly, Quickening in the lead, then Morgan Leah, Horner Dees, Carisman, and Pe Ell. He watched them pass without comment, his arm outstretched, his hand steady. He caught a glimpse of what was in their eyes, a strange mix of emotions, understanding in Quickening's alone, fear and awe and disbelief in the rest. Then they were past. They walked from the rubble of Bone Hollow to the break in the cliffs beyond which they turned to wait for him.

Walker took his hand away and saw the Koden tremble. Its mouth gaped wide, and it appeared to cry out soundlessly. Then it wheeled away from him and lumbered down into the rocks.

“I won't forget,” the Dark Uncle called after it.

The emptiness he felt made him shiver. Pulling his cloak close, he walked from the Hollow.

Morgan and the others, all but Quickening, asked Walker Boh when he reached them what had happened. How had he managed to charm the
Koden so that they could pass? But the Dark Uncle refused to answer their questions. He would say only that the creature was a prisoner of the Stone King's magic and must be freed, that he had given his promise.

“Since you made the promise, you can worry about keeping it,” Pe Ell declared irritably, anxious to dismiss the matter of the Koden now that the danger was behind them.

“We'll have trouble enough keeping ourselves free of the Stone King's magic,” Horner Dees agreed.

Carisman was already skipping ahead, and Morgan suddenly found himself facing Walker Boh with no reply to give. It was Quickening who spoke instead, saying, “If you gave your promise, Walker Boh, then it must be kept.” She did not, however, say how.

They turned away from Bone Hollow and passed into the break that opened out through the peaks to the Tiderace. The passage was shadowed and dark in the fading afternoon light, and a chill, rough-edged wind blew down off the slopes of the cliffs above, thrusting into them like a giant hand, shoving them relentlessly ahead. The sun had dropped into the horizon west, caught in a web of clouds that turned its light scarlet and gold. The smell of salt water, fish, and kelp filled the air, sharp and pungent.

Morgan glanced back once or twice at Walker Boh, still amazed at how he had been able to keep the Koden from attacking them, to walk right up to it as he had and touch it without coming to harm. He recalled the stories of the Dark Uncle, of the man before he had suffered the bite of the Asphinx and the loss of Cogline and Rumor, the man who had taught Par Ohmsford not to be frightened of the power of the Elven magic. Until now, he had thought Walker Boh crippled by the Shadowen attack on Hearthstone. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. Perhaps he had been wrong. And if wrong about Walker, why not wrong about himself as well? Perhaps the Sword of Leah could be made whole again and his own magic restored. Perhaps there was a chance for all of them, just as Quickening had suggested.

The defile opened suddenly before them, the shadows which had caged them brightened into gray, misty light, and they peeked through a narrow window in the cliffs. The Tiderace spread away below in an endless expanse, its waters roiling and white-capped as they churned toward the shoreline. The company moved ahead, back into the shadows. The trail they followed began to descend, to twist and turn through the rocks, damp and treacherous from the mist and the ocean spray. The walls split apart once more, this time forming ragged columns of stone that permitted brief glimpses of sky and sea. Underfoot, the rock was loose, and it felt as if everything was on the verge of breaking up.

Then they turned onto a slide so steep that they were forced to descend sitting and found themselves in a narrow passageway that curled ahead into a tunnel. They stooped to pass through, for the tunnel was filled with jagged rock edges. At its far end, the walls fell away, and the tunnel opened
onto a shelf that lifted toward the sky. The company moved onto the shelf, discovered a pathway, and climbed to where it ended at a rampart formed of stone blocks.

They stood at the edge of the rampart and looked down. Morgan felt his stomach lurch. From where they stood, the land dropped away to a narrow isthmus that jutted into the sea. Connected to the isthmus was a peninsula, broad and ragged about the edges, formed all of cliffs against which the waters of the Tiderace pounded relentlessly. Atop the cliffs sat a city of towering stone buildings. The buildings were not of this time, but of the old world, of the age before the Great Wars destroyed the order of things and the new Races were born. They rose hundreds of feet into the air, smooth and symmetrical and lined with banks of windows that yawned blackly against the gray light. Everything was set close together, so that the city had the look of a gathering of monstrous stone obelisks grown out of the rock. Seabirds wheeled and circled about the buildings, crying out mournfully in the failing light.

“Eldwist,” Horner Dees announced.

Far west, the sun was sinking into the waters of the sea, losing its brightness and its color with the coming of night, the scarlet and gold fading to silver. The wind howled down off the cliffs behind them in a steady crescendo, and it felt as if even the pinnacle of rock on which they stood was being shaken. They huddled together against its thrust and the fall of night and watched raptly as Eldwist turned black with shadow. The wind howled through the city as well, down the canyons of its streets, across the drops of its cliffs. Morgan was chilled by the sound of it. Eldwist was empty and dead. There was only its stone, hard and unyielding, unchanging and fixed.

Horner Dees called out to them over the sound of the wind as he turned away. He led them back to where a set of steps had been carved into the cliff face to lead downward to the city. The steps ran back against the wall, angling through the crevices and nooks, twisting once more into shadow. Night closed about as they descended, the sun disappearing, the stars winking into view in a sky that was clear and bright. Moonlight reflected off the Tiderace, and Morgan could see the stark, jutting peaks of the city lifting off the rocks. Mist rose in gauzy trailers, and Eldwist took on a surrealistic look—as if come out of time and legend. The seabirds flew away, the sound of their cries fading into silence. Soon there was only the roll of the waves as they slapped against the rocky shores.

At the base of the stairs they found an alcove sheltered by the rocks. Horner Dees brought them to a halt. “No sense in trying to go farther,” he advised, sounding weary. The wind did not reach them here, and he talked in a normal tone of voice. “Too dangerous to try to go in at night. There's a Creeper down there …”

“A Creeper?” Morgan, who had been examining bits of grass and shrub that were perfectly preserved in stone, looked up sharply.

“Yes, Highlander,” the other continued. “A thing that sweeps the streets of the city after dark, gathering up any stray bits and pieces of living refuse …”

A rumbling within the earth cut short the rest of what he was about to say. The source of the rumbling was Eldwist, and the members of the company turned quickly to look. The city stood framed against the night sky, all black save for where the light reflected off the stone. It was larger and more forbidding when viewed from below, Morgan thought as he peered into its shadows. More impenetrable …

Something huge surged out of the dark recesses he searched, a thing of such monstrous size as to give the momentary illusion that it dwarfed even the buildings. It rose from between the monoliths as if kindred, all bulk and weight, but long and sinewy like a snake as well, stone blocks turned momentarily liquid to reshape and re-form. Then jaws gaped wide—Morgan could see the jagged edge of the teeth clearly against the backdrop of the moon—and they heard a horrifying cry, like a strangled cough. The earth reverberated with that cry, and the members of the company from Rampling Steep dropped into a protective crouch—all but Quickening, who remained erect, as if she alone were strong enough to withstand this nightmare.

A second later it was gone, dropping away as quickly and smoothly as it had come, the rumble of its passing hanging faintly in the air.

“That was no Creeper,” Morgan whispered.

“And it wasn't here ten years ago either,” a white-faced Horner Dees whispered back. “I'd bet on it.”

“No,” Quickening said softly, turning to face them now. Her companions came slowly to their feet. “It is newly born,” she said, “barely five years old. It is still a baby.”

“A baby!” Morgan exclaimed incredulously.

Quickening nodded. “Yes, Morgan Leah. It is called the Maw Grint.” She smiled sadly. “It is Uhl Belk's child.”