"Brooks - Heritage 2 -The Druid of Shannara" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

end. There had been the summons from the shade of Allanon,
dead three hundred years, to the heirs of,the Shannara magic:

his nephew Par Ohmsford, his cousin Wren Ohmsford, and him-
self. They had received the summons and a visit from the once-

8 The Druid of Shannam

Druid Cogline urging them to heed it. They had done so, assem-
bling at the Hadeshom, ancient resting place of the Druids,
where Allanon had appeared to them and charged them with
separate undertakings that were meant to combat the dark work
of the Shadowen who were using magic of their own to steal
away the life of the Four Lands. Walker had been charged with
recovering Paranor, the disappeared home of the Druids, and
with bringing back the Druids themselves. He had resisted this
charge until Cogline had come to him again, this time bearing
a volume of the Druid Histories which told of a Black Elfstone
which had the power to retrieve Paranor. That in turn had led
him to the Grimpond, seer of the earth's and mortal men's se-
crets.

He searched the gloom of the cavern about him, the doors to

the tombs of the Kings of the Four Lands dead all these centu-
ries, the wealth piled before the crypts in which they lay, and
the stone sentinels that kept watch over their remains. Stone eyes
stared out of blank faces, unseeing, unheeding. He was alone

with their ghosts.
He was dying.
Tears filled his eyes, blinding him as he fought to hold them

back. He was such a fool!

Dark Uncle. The words echoed soundlessly, a memory that
taunted and teased. The voice was the Grimpond's, that
wretched, insidious spirit responsible for what had befallen him.
It was the Grimpond's riddles that had led him to the Hall of
Kings in search of the Black Elfstone. The Grimpond must have
known what awaited him, that there would be no Elfstone but
the Asphinx instead, a deadly trap that would destroy him.

And why had he thought it would be otherwise? Walker asked
himself bleakly. Didn't the Grimpond hate him above all others?
Hadn't it boasted to Walker that it was sending him to his doom
by giving him what he asked for? Walker had simply gone out
of his way to accommodate the spirit, anxiously rushing off to
greet the death that he had been promised, blithely believing
that he could protect himself against whatever evil he might