Or suppressed, he chided harshly.

Or suppressed, he chided harshly. Certainly he had worked hard at denying it even existed. Mist curled through the rocks, tendrils of white that formed strange shapes and patterns against the gray of the land. Par distant, beyond and below the peaks and the valley they cradled, Walker could hear the crash of the ocean waters against the shoreline, a dull booming that resonated through the silence. He slowed, conscious now that the Koden was just ahead, un- able to dispel entirely his apprehension that he was being lured to his doom, that the magic would not protect him, and he would be killed. Would it matter if he was? he wondered suddenly. He brushed the thought away. Within, he could feel the magic bum- ing like a fire stoked to life. He came down from between two boulders into a depression, and the Koden rose up before him, cat-quick. It seemed to ma- terialize out of the earth, as if the dust that lay upon the rock " had suddenly come together to give it form. It was huge and old and grizzled, three times his own size, with great shaggy limbs and ragged yellow claws that curied down to grip the rock. It lifted onto its hind legs to show itself to him, and its twisted snout huffed and opened to reveal a glistening row of teeth. Sightless white eyes peered down at him. Walker stood his ground, his life a slender thread that a single swipe of one huge paw could sever. He saw that the Koden's head and body had been distorted by some dark magic to make the creature appear more grotesque and that the symmetry of shape that had once given grace to its power had been stripped away.