Rimmer Dall shifted slightly in the chair, a ripple of black. “So you have said each time we have talked. But you seem to lack any concrete reason for your stance. When have I done anything to threaten you? When have I done anything but be forthright? I told you the history of the Shadowen. I told you that the magic is our birthright, a gift that can help, that can save. I told you that the Federation is the enemy, that it has hunted us and destroyed us at every turn because it fears and hates what it cannot or will not understand. Enemies, Par? Not you and I. We are kindred. We are the same.”
Par saw the dream suddenly, and its memory sparked something dark and inexorable inside. Running from himself, from the magic, from his birthright, from his destiny—it was possible, wasn’t it?
“If we are kindred, if you are not the enemy, then you will let me go,” he insisted.
“Oh, no, not this time.” The big man shook his head and his smile was a twitch at the corners of his mouth. “I did so before, and you almost destroyed yourself. I won’t be so foolish again. This time we will try my way. We will talk, visit, explore, discover, and hopefully learn. After that, you can go.”
Par shook his head angrily. “I don’t want to talk or visit or any of the rest. There’s nothing to talk about.” He glared. “If you try to hold me, I will use the wishsong.”
Rimmer Dall nodded. “Go ahead, use it.” He paused. “But remember what the magic is doing to you.”
Changing me, Par thought in recognition of the warning’s import. Each time I use it, it changes me further. Each time, I lose a little more control. I try not to let that happen, but I can’t seem to prevent it. And I don’t know what the consequences will be, but they do not feel as if they will be pleasant.
“I am not a Shadowen,” he said dully.
Rimmer Dall’s gaze was flat and steady. “It is only a word.”
“I don’t care. I am not.”
The First Seeker rose and walked over to the window. He stared out at the night, distracted and distant. “I used to be bothered by who I was and what I was called,” he said. “I considered myself a freak, a dangerous aberration. But I learned that was wrong. It was not what other people thought of me that mattered; it was what I thought of myself. If I allowed myself to be shaped by other people’s opinions, I would become what they wished me to become.”
He turned back to Par. “The Shadowen are being destroyed without reason. We are being blamed without cause. We have magic that can help in many ways, and we are not being allowed to use it. Ask yourself, Par—how is it any different for you?”
Par was suddenly exhausted, weighed down by the impact of what had happened to him and his confusion over what it might mean. Rimmer Dall was calm and smooth and unshakable. His arguments were persuasive. Par could not think how the First Seeker had lied. He could not focus on when he had tried to cause harm. It had always seemed that he was the enemy—and Allanon and Cogline had said so—but where was the proof of it? Where, for that matter, were the Druid and the old man? Where was anyone who could help him?
His memory of the dream haunted him. How much truth had the dream told?
He turned back to the bed from which he had risen and sat down again. It seemed as if nothing had gone right for him from the moment he had accepted Allanon’s charge to recover the Sword of Shannara. Not even the Sword itself had proved to be of any use. He was alone and abandoned and helpless. He did not know what to do.
“Why not sleep a bit more,” Rimmer Dall suggested quietly.
He was already moving for the door. “I’ll have food and drink sent up to you in a little while, and we can talk again later.”
He was through the door and gone almost before Par thought to look up. The Valeman rose quickly to stop him, then sat down again. The spinning sensation had returned. His body felt weak and leaden. Perhaps he should sleep again. Perhaps he would be able to reason things through better if he did.
Shadowen. Shadowen.
Was it possible that he was?
He curled up on the pallet and drifted away.
He dreamed again, and this second dream was a variation of the first, dark and terrifying. He woke in a sweat, shaking and raw-nerved, and saw daylight brightening the skies through his windows. Food and drink were brought by a black-robed, silent Shadowen, and he thought for a moment to smash the creature with his magic and flee. But he hesitated, uncertain of the wisdom of this course of action, the moment passed, and the door closed on him once more.
He ate and drank and did not feel better. He sat in the gloom of his prison and listened to the silence. Now and again he could hear the cries of herons and cranes from somewhere without, and there was a low whistling of wind against the castle stone. He walked to the windows and peered out. He was facing east into the sun. Below, the Mermidon wound its way down out of the Runne to the Rainbow Lake, its waters swollen from the storm and clogged with debris. The windows were deep-set and did not allow for more than a glimpse of the land about, but he could smell the trees and the grasses and he could hear the river’s flow.
He sat on his bed again afterward, trying to think what to do. As he did so, he became aware of a thrumming sound from deep within the castle, an odd vibration that ran through the stone and the iron like thunder in a storm, low and insistent. It seemed that it ran in a steady, unbroken wave, but once in a while he thought he could feel it break and hear something different in its whine. He listened to it carefully, feeling its movement in his body, and he wondered what it was.
The day eased toward noon, and Rimmer Dall returned. So black that he seemed to absorb the light around him, he slipped through the door like a shadow and materialized in the chair once more. He asked Par how he was feeling, how he had slept, whether the food and drink had been sufficient. He was pleasant and calm and anxious to converse, yet distant, too, as if fearing that any attempt to get close would exacerbate wounds already opened. He talked again of the Shadowen and the Federation, of the mistake that Par was making in confusing the two, of the danger in believing that both were enemies. He spoke again of his mistrust of the Druids, of the ways they manipulated and deceived, of their obsession with power and its uses. He reminded Par of the history of his family—how the Druids had used the Ohmsfords to achieve ends they believed necessary and in the process changed forever the lives of those so employed.
“You would not be suffering the vicissitudes of the wishsong’s magic if not for what was done to Wil Ohmsford years ago,” he declared, his voice, as always, low and compelling. “You can reason it through as well as I, Par. All that you have endured these past few weeks was brought about by the Druids and their magic. Where does the blame for that lie?”
He talked then of the sickening of the Four Lands and the steps that needed to be taken to hasten a recovery. It was not the Shadowen who caused the sickness. It was the neglect of the Races, of those who had once been so careful to protect and preserve. Where were the Elves when they were needed? Gone, because the Federation had driven them away, frightened of their heritage of magic. Where were the Dwarves, always the best of tenders? In slavery, subdued by the Federation so that they could pose no threat to the Southland government.
He spoke for some time, and then suddenly he was gone again, faded back into the stone and silence of the castle. Par sat where he had been left and did not move, hearing the First Seeker’s whisper in his mind—the cadence of his voice, the sound of his words, and the litany of his arguments as they began and ended and began again. The afternoon passed away, and the sun faded west. Twilight fell, and dinner arrived. He accepted what he was offered by the silent bearer and this time did not think of trying to escape. He ate and drank without paying attention, staring at the walls of his room, thinking.