The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [121]
Meanwhile, they pressed on through the passes of the Wolfsktaag into Darklin Reach. Much of the time they followed the Rabb River, for it provided a recognizable reference point and a means for locating drinking water. The days were slow and sunny, and the nights were calm. The deep woods sheltered and soothed, and the journey proceeded without incident.
On their third night out, Mareth kept her promise and told Bremen she had lied to him about her time at Storlock. She had not been one of the Stors, had not been accepted into their order, and had not studied healing with them. What she knew of magic, whether healing or otherwise, she had taught herself. Her skills had been mastered through laborious and sometimes painful experience. It seemed to her that her magic worked best when it was employed for healing, that she did better in those instances at keeping it under control.
She revealed as well her relationship with Cogline. She admitted Cogline had urged her to go to the Druids at Paranor, had told her to seek help with her magic there, and had assisted her in forging the necessary documents to gain admission.
Somewhat to Kinson’s surprise, Bremen was not angry with her. He listened attentively as she spoke, nodded in response, and said nothing. They were seated around the cooking fire, dinner consumed, the flames burned almost to coals, and the night about them bright with moon and stars. He did not glance at Kinson. He seemed, in fact, to have forgotten the Borderman was even there.
When the girl had finished, Bremen smiled encouragingly.
“Well, you are a bold young lady. And I appreciate your confidence in both Kinson and myself. Certainly, we will try to help you. As for Cogline, this business of sending you off to Paranor to learn about your magic, giving you false references, encouraging you to dissemble — that sounds exactly like him. Cogline has no love for the Druids. He would tweak their collective noses at the slightest provocation. But he also knew, I think, that if you were determined enough to discover the truth about your magic, if you were the genuine article, so to speak, you would eventually find your way to me.”
“Do you know Cogline well?” Mareth asked.
“As well as anyone knows him. He was a Druid before me. He was a Druid in the time of the First War of the Races. He knew Brona. In some ways, he sympathized with him. He thought that all avenues of learning should be encouraged and no form of study forbidden. He was something of a rebel himself in that respect. But Cogline was also a good and careful man. He would never have risked himself as Brona did.
“He left the Druid order before Brona. He left because he grew disenchanted with the structure under which he was required to study. His interest lay in the lost sciences, in sciences that had served the old world before its destruction. But the High Druid and the Druid Council were not supportive of his work. In those days, they favored magic — a power that Cogline distrusted. For them, the old sciences were better left in peace. They might have served the old world, but they had also destroyed it. Uncovering their secrets should be done slowly and cautiously and for limited use only. Cogline thought this nonsense. Science would not be contained, he would argue. It would not be revealed according to Man’s agenda, but according to its own.”
Bremen rocked back slightly, arms clasped about knees drawn up, all bones and angles, his smile one of reminiscence. “So Cogline left, infuriated at what had been done to him — and at what he had done to himself, I imagine. He went off into Darklin Reach and resumed his studies on his own. I would see him now and then, cross paths with him. We would talk.We would exchange information and ideas. We were both outcasts of a sort. Except that Cogline refused to consider himself a Druid any longer, while I refused to consider myself anything less.”
“He’s been alive longer than you have,” Kinson observed casually, poking at the coals of the fire with a stick,