The sharp, old eyes squinted up at the other. “It begins, Walker. It begins.”
Walker Boh shook his head. “The land and her people have always suffered failings, Cogline. You see the shade’s vision because you want to see it.”
“No, not I, Walker.” The old man shook his head firmly. “I want no part of Druid visions, neither in their being nor in their fulfillment. I am as much a pawn of what has happened as yourself. Believe what you will, I do not wish involvement. I have chosen my life in the same manner that you have chosen yours. You don’t accept that, do you?”
Walker smiled unkindly. “You took up the magic because you wished to. Once-Druid, you had a choice in your life. You dabbled in a mixture of old sciences and magics because they interested you. Not so myself. I was born with a legacy I would have been better born without. The magic was forced upon me without my consent. I use it because I have no choice. It is a millstone that would drag me down. But I do not deceive myself. It has made my life a ruin.” The dark eyes were bitter. “Do not attempt to compare us, Cogline.”
The other’s thin frame shifted. “Harsh words, Walker Boh. You were eager enough to accept my teaching in the use of that magic once upon a time. You felt comfortable enough with it then to learn its secrets.”
“A matter of survival and nothing more. I was a child trapped in a Druid’s monstrous casting. I used you to keep myself alive. You were all I had.” The white skin of his lean face was taut with bitterness. “Do not look to me for thanks, Cogline. I haven’t the grace for it.”
Cogline stood up suddenly, a whiplash movement that belied his fragile appearance. He towered above the dark-robed figure seated across from him, and there was a forbidding look to his weathered face. “Poor Walker,” he whispered. “You still deny who you are. You deny your very existence. How long can you keep up this pretense?”
There was a strained silence between them that seemed endless. Rumor, curled on a rug before the fire at the far end of the room, looked up expectantly. An ember from the hearth spat and snapped, filling the air with a shower of sparks.
“Why have you come, old man?” Walker Boh said finally, the words a barely contained thrust of rage. There was a coppery taste in his mouth that he knew came not from anger, but from fear.
“To try to help you,” Cogline said. There was no irony in his voice. “To give you direction in your brooding.”
“I am content without your interference.”
“Content?” The other shook his head. “No, Walker. You will never be content until you learn to quit fighting yourself. You work so hard at it. I thought that the lessons you received from me on the uses of the magic might have weaned you away from such childishness—but it appears I was wrong. You face hard lessons, Walker. Maybe you won’t survive them.”
He shoved the heavy parcel across the table at the other man. “Open it.”
Walker hesitated, his eyes locked on the offering. Then he reached out, snapped apart the binding with a flick of his fingers and pulled back the oilcloth.
He found himself looking at a massive, leatherbound book elaborately engraved in gold. He reached out and touched it experimentally, lifted the cover, peered momentarily inside, then flinched away from it as if his fingers had been burned.
“Yes, Walker. It is one of the missing Druid Histories, a single volume only.” The wrinkled old face was intense.
“Where did you get it?” Walker demanded harshly.
Cogline bent close. The air seemed filled with the sound of his breathing. “Out of lost Paranor.”
Walker Boh came slowly to his feet. “You lie.”
“Do I? Look into my eyes and tell me what you see.”
Walker flinched away. He was shaking. “I don’t care where you got it or what fantasies you have concocted to make me believe what I know in my heart cannot possibly be so! Take it back to where you got it or let it sink into the bogs! I’ll have no part of it!”
Cogline shook his wispy head. “No, Walker, I’ll not take it back I carried it out of a realm of yesterdays filled with gray haze and death to give it to you. I am not your tormentor—never that! I am the closest thing to a friend you will ever know, even if you cannot yet accept it!” The weathered face softened. “I said before that I came to help you It is so. Read the book, Walker. There are truths in there that need learning.”
“I will not!” the other cried furiously.
Cogline stared at the younger man for long minutes, then sighed. “As you will. But the book remains Read it or not, the choice is yours. Destroy it even, if you wish.” He drained off the remainder of his ale, set the glass carefully on the table, and looked down at his gnarled hands. “I am finished here.”
He came around the table and stood before the other. “Goodbye, Walker. I would stay if it would help. I would give you whatever it is within my power to give you if you would take it. But you are not yet ready. Another day, perhaps.”
He turned then and disappeared into the night. He did not look back as he went. He did not deviate from his course. Walker Boh watched him fade away, a shadow gone back into the darkness that had made him.
The cottage, as if by his going, turned empty and still.
“It will be dangerous, Par,” Damson Rhee whispered. “If there were a safer way, I should snatch it up in an instant.”
Par Ohmsford said nothing. They were deep within the People’s Park once more, crouched in the shadows of a grove of cedar just beyond the broad splash of light cast by the lamps of the Gatehouse. It was midway toward dawn, the deepest, fullest hours of sleep, when everything slowed to a crawl amid dreams and rememberings. The Gatehouse rose up against the moonlit darkness like a gathering of massive blocks stacked one upon the other by a careless child. Barred windows and bolted doors were shallow indentations in a skin made rough and coarse by weather and time. The walls warding the ravine ran off to either side and the crossing bridge stretched away behind, a spider web connecting to the tumbledown ruin of the old palace. A watch had been stationed before the main entry where a pair of matched iron portals stood closed behind a hinged grate of bars. The watch dozed on its feet, barely awake in the enveloping stillness. No sound or movement from the Gatehouse disturbed their rest.
“Can you remember enough of him to conjure up a likeness?” Damson asked, her words a brush of softness against his ear. Par nodded. It was not likely he would ever forget the face of Rimmer Dall.
She was quiet a moment. “If we are stopped, keep their attention focused on yourself. I will deal with any threats.”
He nodded once more. They waited, motionless within their concealment, listening to the stillness, thinking their separate thoughts. Par was frightened and filled with doubts, but he was mostly determined. Damson and he were the only real chance Coll and the others had. They would succeed in this risky business because they must.
The Gate watch came awake as those patrolling the west wall of the park appeared out of the night. The guards greeted each other casually, spoke for a time and then the watch from the east wall appeared as well. A flask was passed around, pipes were smoked, and then the guards dispersed. The patrols disappeared east and west The Gate watch resumed their station.
“Not yet,” Damson whispered as Par shifted expectantly.
The minutes dragged by. The solitude that had shrouded the Gatehouse earlier returned anew. The guards yawned and shifted. One leaned wearily on the haft of his poleaxe.
“Now,” Damson Rhee said. She caught the Valeman by the shoulder and leaned into him. Her lips brushed his cheek. “Luck to us, Par Ohmsford.”