Ilse Witch - Terry Brooks [17]
Walker sighed. Their demands were ridiculous and unacceptable. If the nations and the peoples were unwilling to let go of their delegates, to give up control over them so that they could dedicate themselves to the Druid life, the whole exercise was pointless. He had been unable to convince anyone that what he was doing would, given enough time, benefit them all. Druids, they believed, were not to be trusted. Druids, they believed, would visit problems on them they could do without. History demonstrated that Druids had been responsible for every war fought since the time of the First Council at Paranor. It was their own magic, the magic they had wielded in such secrecy, that had finally destroyed them. This was not an experience anyone wanted to repeat. The magic belonged to everyone now. It was a new age, with new rules. Control over the Druids, should they be permitted to re-form, was necessary. Nothing less would suffice.
In the end, the effort fell apart, and Walker was made outcast everywhere. Petty feuds, selfish interests, and short-sighted personalities stymied him completely. He was left enraged and stunned. He had counted heavily on the Elves to lead the way, and the Elves had spurned him as surely as the others. After the death of Queen Aine, Allardon Elessedil had been his best hope, but the Elf King had announced he would follow his mother’s wishes. No Elves would be sent to study at Paranor. No new Druid Council would be approved. Walker must make his way alone.
But now, Walker thought with something bordering on euphoria, he had found a way to change everything. The map gave him the kind of leverage that nothing else could. This time, when he asked for help, he would not be refused.
If, of course, he cautioned himself quickly, he could find and retrieve the magic that had eluded the Elven expedition under Kael Elessedil. If he could recover it from the safehold that hid and protected it. If he could survive the long, dangerous journey such an effort would require.
He would need help.
He replaced the Druid Histories on their shelves, made a quick circular motion with his hand, and closed the wall away. When the room was restored to blank walls and snuffed torches, he went back out into the library and pushed the shelving unit securely into place again. He looked around momentarily to be certain that all was as it had been. Then, with the map tucked into his robes, he went up onto the battlements to watch the sunrise.
As he stood looking out over the treetops to the first faint silvery lightening of the eastern sky, Rumor padded up to join him. The big cat sat beside him, as if seeking his companionship. Walker smiled. Each was all the other could turn to for comfort, he mused. Ever since the shade of Allanon had appeared. Ever since they had been locked in limbo in lost Paranor. Ever since he had brought the Druid’s Keep back into the world of men by becoming the newest member of the order. Ever since Cogline had died.
All the rest were gone, too, from that earlier time—the Ohmsfords, Morgan Leah, Wren Elessedil, Damson Rhee, all of them. Rumor and he alone survived. They were outcasts in more ways than one, solitary wanderers in a world that had changed considerably during the time of his sleep. But it wasn’t the changes in the Four Lands that worried him this morning. It was his sense that the events that would transpire because of his reading of the map and his search for the magic it detailed would require him to become what he had always worked