First King of Shannara

Chapter Eight

After leaving Bremen, Tay Trefenwyd proceeded west along the Mermidon through the mountains that formed the southern arm of the Dragon’s Teeth. Sunset arrived, and he camped for the night still within their shelter, then set out again at daybreak. The new day was clear and mild, last night’s winds having swept the land clean, the sun dazzling. The Elf worked his way down out of the foothills to the grasslands below the Streleheim and prepared to cross. Ahead, he could see the forests of the Westland, and beyond, their tips coated in white, the peaks of the Rock Spur. Arborlon was another day’s walk, so he traveled at a leisurely pace, his thoughts occupied by all that had happened since Bremen’s arrival at Paranor.

Tay Trefenwyd had known Bremen for almost fifteen years, longer even than Risca. He had met him at Paranor, before his banishment, Tay newly arrived from Arborlon, a Druid in training. Bremen had been old even then, but with a harder edge to his personality and a sharper tongue as well. Bremen in those days had been a firebrand burning with truths self-evident to him but incomprehensible to everyone else. The Druids at Paranor had dismissed him as being just this side of mad. Kahle Rese and one or two others valued his friendship and listened patiently to what he had to say, but the rest mostly looked for ways to avoid him.

Not Tay. From the first moment they met, Tay had been mesmerized. Here was someone who believed it was important—even necessary—to do more than talk about the problems of the Four Lands. It wasn’t sufficient simply to study and converse on issues; it was necessary to act on them as well. Bremen believed that the old ways were better, that the Druids of the First Council had been right in involving themselves in the progress of the Races. Noninvolvement was a mistake that would end up costing everyone dearly. Tay understood and believed. Like Bremen, he studied the old lore, the ways of the faerie creatures, and the uses of magic in the world before the Great Wars. Like Bremen, he accepted that power once subverted was twice as deadly, and that the rebel Druid Brona lived on in another form and would return again to subvert the Four Lands. It was an unpopular and dangerous view, and in the end it cost Bremen his place among the Druids.

But before that happened, he made an ally of Tay. The two formed an immediate bond, and the older man took the younger for his pupil, a teacher with a store of knowledge so vast that it defied cataloging. Tay did the tasks and completed the studies that were assigned him by the Council and his elders, but his spare time and enthusiasm were reserved almost exclusively for Bremen. Though exposed from an early age to the peculiar history and lore of their race, few of the Elves at Paranor who had taken up the Druid pledge were as open as Tay to the possibilities that Bremen suggested. But then, few were as talented. Tay had begun to master his magic skills even before he arrived at Paranor, but under Bremen’s tutelage he progressed so rapidly that soon no one, save his mentor, was his equal. Even Risca, after his arrival, never reached the level that Tay attained, too wedded, perhaps, to his martial skills to embrace fully the concept that magic was an even more potent weapon.

Those first five years were exciting ones for the young Elf, and his thinking was shaped irrevocably by what he learned. Most of the skills he mastered and the knowledge he gained he kept secret, forced to do so by the Druid ban against personal involvement in the use of magic except as an abstract study. Bremen thought the ban foolish and misguided, but he was in the minority always, and at Paranor the Council’s decisions governed all. So Tay studied privately the lore that Bremen was willing to share, keeping it close to his heart and concealed from other eyes. When Bremen was exiled and chose to travel west to the Elves to pursue his studies there, Tay asked to go, too. But Bremen said no, not forbidding, but requesting that he reconsider. Risca was of a like mind, but for both there were more important tasks, the old man argued. Stay at Paranor and be my eyes and ears. Work to master your skills and to persuade others that the danger of which I have warned is real. When it is time for you to leave, I will come back for you.

So he had, five days earlier—and Tay and Risca and the young Healer Mareth had escaped in time. But the others, all those he had tried to convince, all those who had doubted and scorned, probably had not. Tay did not know for certain, of course, but he felt in his heart that the vision Bremen had revealed to them had already come to pass. It would be days before the Elves could verify the truth, but Tay believed that the Druids were gone.

Either way, his leaving with Bremen marked the end of his time at Paranor. Whether the Druids were dead or alive, he would not return now. His place was out in the world, doing the things that Bremen had argued they must do if the Races were to survive. The Warlock Lord had come out of hiding, revealed to those who had eyes to see and instincts to heed, and he was coming south. The Northland and the Trolls were his already, and now he would attempt to subjugate the other Races. So each of them— Bremen, Risca, Mareth, Kinson Ravenlock, and himself—must be held accountable. Each must stand and fight on what ground was given.

His was the Westland, his home. He was returning for the first time in almost five years. His parents had grown old. His younger brother had married and moved into the Sarandanon. His sister’s second child had been born. Lives had changed while he was away, and he would be coming back into a world different from the one he had left. More to the point, he would be bringing change to it that dwarfed anything that had occurred in his absence. It was the beginning of change for all the lands, and there were many who would not welcome it. He would not be well received when it was known why he had come. He would have to approach things cautiously. He would have to choose his friends and his ground well.

But Tay Trefenwyd was good at that. He was an affable, easygoing man who cared about the problems of others and had always done his best to give what help he could. He was not confrontational like Risca or stubborn like Bremen. While at Paranor, he had been genuinely well liked, even given his association with the other two. Tay was governed by strong beliefs and an unmatched work ethic, but he did not hold himself up to others as an example of how to be. Tay accepted people as they were, isolating what was good and finding ways to make use of it. Even Athabasca had not quarreled with him, seeing in Tay what he hoped was hidden even in the most troublesome of his friends. Tay’s big hands were as strong as iron, but his heart was gentle. No one ever mistook his kindness for weakness, and Tay never let the first suggest the second. Tay knew when to stand his ground and when to yield.

He was a conciliator and a compromiser of the first order, and he would need those skills in the days ahead.

He ran over the list of what he must accomplish, laying out each item, one by one.

• He must persuade his king, Courtann Ballindarroch, to mount a search for the Black Elfstone.

• He must persuade his king to send his armies in support of the Dwarves.

• He must convince him that the Four Lands were about to be altered by circumstance and events in a way that would change them all irrevocably and forever.

He strode across the open grasslands thinking of what this meant, heading north and west toward the forestlands that marked the eastern boundary of his country, smiling easily, whistling a tune. He did not yet know how he was going to accomplish any of this, but that didn’t matter. He would find a way. Bremen was counting on him. Tay did not intend to let him down.

The daylight hours slipped away, and the sun passed west into the distant mountains and disappeared. Tay left the Mermidon at the edge of the Westland forests below the Pykon and turned north. Because it was night and he could no longer see well on the flats, he stayed within the concealment of the trees as he continued on. His skills as a Druid aided him. Tay was an elementalist, a student of the ways in which magic and science interacted to balance the principal components of his world—earth, air, fire, and water.

He had developed an understanding of their symbiosis, the ways in which they related to each other, the ways they worked together to maintain and further life, and the ways they protected each other when disturbed. Tay had mastered the rules for changing one to the other, for using one to destroy the other, for using any to give life to another. His talents had grown quite specialized. He could read movement and detect presence from the elements. He could sense thoughts. On a broad basis, he could reconfigure history and predict the future. It wasn’t the same as having a vision.

It wasn’t linked to the dead or to the spiritual. It was tied instead to earth laws, to the power lines that encircled the world and tied all things together with linkage of acts and counteracts, of cause and effect, of choice and consequence. A stone thrown into a still pond produced ripples. So, too, everything that happened to shift the world’s balance, no matter how small, resulted in change. Tay had learned to read those changes and to intuit what they meant.

So now, as he walked in the shadow of the forest night, he read in the movement of the wind and the smells still clinging to the trees and the vibrations borne on the surface of the earth that a large party of Gnomes had passed this way earlier and now waited somewhere ahead. He tasted their presence more strongly the farther along he went. He eased deeper into the trees, listening for them, reaching down periodically to touch the earth in search of their lingering body heat, the magic that served him rising within his chest in small, feathery trailers that flowed outward to his fingertips.

Then he slowed and went still, sensing something new. He held himself perfectly still, waiting. A chill settled deep inside, an unmistakable warning of what it was that he had sensed, of what it was that approached. A moment later it appeared in the sky overhead, just visible through breaks in the trees, one of the winged hunters, the Skull Bearers that served the Warlock Lord. It soared slowly, heavily across the velvet back, hunting, but not for anything in particular. Tay held himself in place, resisting the natural impulse to bolt, calming himself so that the other could not detect him. The Skull Bearer circled and came back, winged form hanging against the stars. Tay slowed his breathing, his heartbeat, his pulse. He disappeared into the still darkness of the forest.

Finally the creature moved on, flying north. To join those it commanded, Tay reasoned. It was not a good sign that the Warlock Lord’s minions were this far south, daring to nudge up against the kingdom of the Elves. It strengthened the likelihood that the Druids were no longer perceived as a threat. It suggested that the long anticipated invasion of the Warlock Lord was at hand.

He took a deep breath and held it. What if Bremen had been wrong, and the invasion was to be directed not at the Dwarves, but at the Elves?

He mulled over the possibility as he proceeded on, still searching for the Gnomes. He found them twenty minutes later, camped within the fringe of Drey Wood. There were no fires in the camp and sentries at every turn. The Skull Bearer circled overhead. A raiding party of some sort, but Tay could not imagine what they were after. There was not much to raid this close to the grasslands save a few isolated homesteads, and the intruders would hardly be interested in those. Still, it was not comforting to find Eastland Gnomes, let alone a Skull Bearer, this far west and so close to Arborlon. He eased ahead until he could see them clearly, watched them for a time to see if he could detect anything, failed in his attempt, took a careful head count, and eased away again. He retraced his steps a safe distance, found a secluded stand of fir, crawled beneath the sheltering boughs, and fell asleep.

It was morning when he woke, and the Gnomes were gone. He checked carefully for them from within his shelter, then emerged and walked to their camp. Their footprints led west into Drey Wood. The Skull Bearer had gone with them.

He debated going after them, then decided against it. He had enough to deal with at this point without taking on anything else.

Besides, where there was one raiding party there were likely others, and it was important to alert the Elves to their presence as quickly as possible.

So Tay continued north, staying back within the trees, his long strides eating up the distance. It was not yet noon when he reached the Valley of Rhenn and turned west down its long, broad corridor. The Rhenn was the doorway to Arborlon and the west, and the Elves would be at watch at its far end. The eastern exposure was inviting, a gentle stretch of grasslands spread between two clusters of low foothills. But the valley quickly narrowed, the floor sloped upward, and the hills rose to become steep bluffs. By the time you reached the other end, you were looking into the jaws of a vise. The Rhenn provided the Elves with a natural defensive position against an army approaching from anywhere east. Because the forests were thick and the terrain mountainous coming down from the north or up from the south, the Rhenn was the only way into or out of the Westland for any sizable force.

It was always guarded, of course, and Tay knew that he would be met. He didn’t have long to wait. He was barely halfway down the valley’s green corridor when Elven horsemen thundered out of the pass ahead to challenge him, reining in with shouts of recognition as they neared. The riders knew him, and he was greeted warmly. He was given a horse and taken up through the pass to the Elven camp, where the watch commander sent word of his coming to Arborlon. He told the commander about the raiding party, mentioning the Gnomes but not the Skull Bearer, preferring to save that information for Ballindarroch. The commander had received no report of Gnomes and immediately dispatched riders south to make a search. The commander then ordered food and drink for Tay and sat with him while he ate, answering his questions about Arborlon and bringing him up to date on events about which he asked.

The talk was casual and passed quickly. There were rumors of Troll movements on the Streleheim, but nothing definite. No sightings had been reported this far south. Tay avoided mention of anything concerning the Warlock Lord or Paranor. When he was done with his meal, he asked to go on. The commander provided him with a horse and a two-man escort. He accepted the former, declined the latter, and was on his way once more.

He rode from the valley toward Arborlon, lost in thought.

Rumors, no sightings. Ghosts and shadows. The Warlock Lord was as elusive as smoke. But Tay had seen the Skull Bearer and the Gnomes, and Bremen had seen the Warlock Lord at his safehold in the Northland, and they were real enough. Bremen seemed certain of what was about to happen, so now it was up to Tay to find a way to persuade the Elves that it was so.

The road he followed wound through the Westland forests with serpentine precision, avoiding the thick stands of old growth, sidling past small lakes and along winding streams, rising and falling with the lay of the land. Sunlight dappled the woods, streaking the tall trunks and stands of tiny wildflowers, long fingers of light amid the shadows. Like banners and pennants, they welcomed Tay Trefenwyd home again. The Elf shrugged off his cloak in response, feeling the sun fall like a warm mantle across his broad shoulders.

He encountered other travelers on the roadway, men and women journeying between villages and homes, traders and craftsmen bound for jobs in other places. Some nodded or waved in greeting; some simply passed him by. But all were Elves, and he had not been in a place where the people were his own for a long time. It seemed strange to him now—so many like himself and no others.

He was nearing Arborlon in the languid, slow hours of midafternoon, the heat of the late spring day heavy and insistent even within the cool forest, when a horseman appeared ahead of him. The newcomer rode out of a shimmer of light at the crest of a rise and bore down on him at a gallop, his cloak whipping and his hair blowing. One hand waved vigorously and a riotous cry of greeting broke the silence. Tay knew him at once. A huge smile widened on his face, and he waved back eagerly, spurring his own mount ahead. The two met in a swirling cloud of dust, reining in their horses and jumping down, racing to embrace each other.

“Tay Trefenwyd, as I live and breathe!”

The newcomer wrapped his arms around the tall, lanky Tay and lifted him like a child, swinging him once about and then setting him down again with a grunt.

“Shades!” he roared. “You must do nothing but eat while you’re away! You’re as heavy as any horse!”

Tay clasped his best friend’s hand. “It isn’t me who’s grown heavy! It’s you who’s grown weak! Layabout!”

The other’s hand tightened in response. “Welcome home, anyway. I have missed you!”

Tay stepped back for a good, long look. Like all those he had left behind in Arborlon, it had been five years since he had seen Jerle Shannara. He had missed Jerle the most, he supposed, even more so than the members of his family. For this was his oldest friend, his constant companion while they were boys growing up together in the Westland, the one person to whom he could tell anything, the one to whom he would entrust his life. The bonds had been formed early and had survived even the years the two had spent apart while Tay was at Paranor and Jerle had remained behind, Courtann Ballindarroch’s first cousin, his service to the throne predetermined from his birth.

Jerle Shannara was born a warrior. He was physically imposing for an Elf, big and strong-limbed, with cat-quick reflexes that belied his size, and a fighter’s instincts. He was training with weapons almost from the time he could walk, in love with combat, enthralled by the excitement and challenge of battle. But there was a great deal more to him than strength and size. He was quick. He was cunning. He was a relentless adversary. His work ethic was prodigious. He never expected less from himself than the best he had to offer, no matter the importance of the task, no matter if anyone was there to see. But most important of all, Jerle Shannara was fearless. It was in his blood or in the way he grew or perhaps in both, but Tay had never known his friend to back down from anything.

They made an odd pair, he reflected. Of similar size and look, both larger than average, blond and long-limbed, and reared with high expectations from their families, they were nevertheless entirely different. Tay was easy going and always the compromiser in difficult situations; Jerle was quick-tempered and confrontational and maddeningly unwilling to back down in any dispute. Tay was cerebral, intrigued by difficult questions and complicated puzzles that challenged and confused; Jerle was physical, preferring the challenge of sports and combat, relying on quick answers and intuition. Tay always knew he wanted to travel and study with the Druids at Paranor; Jerle always knew he wanted to become Captain of the Home Guard, the elite unit of Elven Hunters that protected the king and his family. They were different personalities with different intents and goals, yet something of who and what they were bound them together as surely as ties of blood or the dictates of fate.

“So you’re back,” Jerle announced, releasing Tay and stepping clear. He brushed at his curly blond hair with one massive hand and gave his friend a rakish smile. “Have you come to your senses at last? How long will you stay?”

“I don’t know. But I won’t be going back to Paranor. Things have changed.”

The other’s smile dimmed. “Is that so? Tell me about it.”

“All in good time. But let me do it in my own way. I am here for a specific purpose. Bremen sent me.”

“Then it must be serious, indeed.” Jerle knew the Druid from his time in Arborlon. He paused. “Does it involve this creature they call the Warlock Lord?”

“You were always quick. Yes, it does. He marches south with his armies to attack the Dwarves. Did you know?”

“There are rumors of Troll movement on the Streleheim. We thought they might march west against us.”

“The Dwarves first, you later. I am sent to persuade Courtann Ballindarroch to send the Elves to lend their support. I will need help in this, I expect.”

Jerle Shannara reached for his horse’s reins. “Let’s move off the roadway and sit in the shade while we talk. Do you mind if we don’t continue on to the city just yet?”

“I would rather speak to you alone, first.”

“Good. You look more like your sister every time I see you.”

They walked their mounts into the trees and tied them to a slender ash. “That’s a compliment, you know.”

“I do.” Tay smiled. “How is she?”

“Happy, settled, content with her family.” Jerle gave him a wistful look. “She did well enough without me, after all.”

“Kira was never for you. You know that as well as I. Look at how you live. What would you do in her life? What would she do in yours? You have nothing in common but your childhood.”

Jerle snorted. “That’s true of us as well, yet we remain close.”

“Close is not married. And it’s different with us.”

Tay settled himself on the grass, long legs folded before him.

Jerle hunkered down on a stump worn smooth by time and weather and looked at his boots as if he had never seen them before. His sun-browned hands were crisscrossed with white scars and small red nicks and scratches. Tay could not remember a time when they hadn’t looked like that.

“Are you still Captain of the Home Guard?” he asked his friend.

Jerle shook his head. “I’m considered too important for that these days. I am Courtann’s chief advisor in military matters. His de facto general, second-guessing all the real generals. Not that it matters much just now, since we’re not at war with anyone. But I suppose all that could change, couldn’t it?”

“Bremen believes that the Warlock Lord will attempt to subjugate the other Races, beginning with the Dwarves and then moving on. The Troll army is powerful. If the Races do not join together to stand against it, they will be overwhelmed, one by one.”

“But the Druids won’t let that happen. Moribund as they are these days—no offense, Tay—they wouldn’t stand still for that.”

“Bremen thinks that Paranor has fallen and the Druids have been destroyed.”

Jerle Shannara straightened slightly, his mouth tightening in response to the news. “When did this happen? We’ve heard nothing.”

“A day or two ago at most. Bremen went back to Paranor to make certain, but sent me to Arborlon, so I can’t be sure. It would help if you would send someone to see if it’s true before I speak with the king. Someone dependable.”

“I will do that.” The other shook his head slowly. “All the Druids are gone? All of them?”

“All but Bremen, myself, a Dwarf named Risca, and a young woman from Storlock who is still in training. We left Paranor together before the attack. Maybe someone else escaped later.”

Jerle gave him a sharp look. “So you’ve come back to warn us, to tell us of Paranor’s fall and to ask for help against the Warlock Lord and his Troll armies?”

“And one thing more. One very important thing. This is where I need your help the most, Jerle. There is a Black Elfstone, a magic of great power. This Elfstone is more dangerous than all the others, and it has been hidden since the time of faerie in the Breakline. Bremen has uncovered clues as to where it might be found, but the Warlock Lord and his creatures search for it as well. We must find it first. I intend to ask the king to mount an expedition. But he might be more disposed to grant the request if it came from you.”

Jerle laughed, a big, booming howl. “Is that what you think? That I can help? I wouldn’t stand too close to me if I were you! I’ve stepped on Courtann’s toes a time or two of late, and I don’t think he holds me in very high regard at the moment! Oh, he likes my advice on troop movement and defensive strategy well enough, but that is about as far as it goes!“ His laugh died away, and he wiped at his eyes. ”Ah, well, I’ll do what I can.“ He chuckled. ”You make life interesting, Tay. You always did.”

Tay smiled. “Life makes itself interesting. Like you, I’m just along for the ride.”

Jerle Shannara reached across, and they clasped hands once more, holding the grip firm for a long moment. Tay could feel the other’s great strength, and it seemed as if he could draw from it something of his own.

Still maintaining the grip, he rose to his feet and pulled his friend up with him. “We had better get started,” he advised.

The other nodded, and the smile he offered was bold and confident and filled with mischief. “You and me, Tay,” he said. “The two of us, just like it used to be. This is going to be fun.”

He meant something else entirely, of course, but Tay Trefenwyd supposed he understood.

Chapter Nine

Once arrived in Arborlon, Tay spent his time visiting with family and friends while he waited impatiently for confirmation from Jerle Shannara that Paranor and the Druids had fallen. His friend reassured him on parting that someone would be sent at once to discover if Bremen’s suspicions were correct. When that was done, a meeting with the Elf King, Courtann Ballindarroch, and the Elven High Council would be arranged. Tay would be given a chance to make his plea for help for the Dwarves and for a search for the Black Elfstone. Jerle promised to stand with him. For now, neither would say or do anything further about the matter.

This was difficult for Tay, who recalled vividly the urgency in Bremen’s admonition to seek Ballindarroch’s help. The old man’s voice whispered to him in the scrape of shoes on loose stone, in the voices of strangers he could not see, and even in his dreams.

But Bremen did not himself appear or send news of any son, and Tay knew that there was nothing to be gained by speaking out until word of Paranor’s condition had been received. Formal announcement of Ballindarroch’s pleasure at hearing of his return arrived almost at once, but no summons to appear before the king or High Council accompanied it. By all but Jerle Shannara, Tay’s return to Arborlon was thought to be solely a visit to family and friends.

Tay stayed in the home of his parents, both grown old now, concerned mostly with the passing of the days and the welfare of their children. His parents asked him of his life at Paranor, but tired easily and did not press him for details when he gave his answers. Of the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers, they knew nothing. Of the Troll army, they had heard only rumors. They lived in a small cottage at the edge of the Gardens of Life along the Carolan, and their days were spent working in their tiny garden and at their individual crafts, his father’s screen painting and his mother’s weaving. They spoke to him while they worked, taking turns at asking questions, absorbed in their efforts, listening with half an ear. Small, brittle, fading away before his eyes, they reminded him of the frailty of his own life, the one he had assumed until so recently to be secure.

Tay’s brother and family lived in the Sarandanon, miles to the west and south, and so Tay learned what he could of them from his parents. He had never been close to his brother and had not seen him in more than eight years, but he listened dutifully and was pleased to hear that he was doing well with his farming.

His sister Kira was another matter. She lived in Arborlon, and he went to see her on his first day home, finding her wrestling clothes onto her smallest child, her face still young and fresh, her energy still boundless, her smile as warm and heartbreaking as birdsong. She came to him with a welcoming laugh, flinging herself into his arms and hugging him until he thought he might explode. She took him into the kitchen and gave him cold ale, sitting him down at the old trestle bench, asking him of his life and telling him of hers, all at once. They shared concerns about their parents, and swapped stories of their childhood, and it was dark before they knew it. They met again the following day, and with Kira’s husband and the children went into the woods along the Rill Song for a picnic. Kira asked if he had seen Jerle Shannara yet, and then did not mention him again. The hours slipped away, and Tay was almost able to forget he had come home for any other reason. The children played games with him, tired eventually, and sat on the riverbank kicking their feet in the cold water while he talked with their parents of the ways in which the world was changing. His brother-in-law was a maker of leather goods and traded regularly with the other Races. He no longer sent his traders into the Northland, now that the nations had been subjugated and made one. There were rumors, he said, of evil creatures, of winged monsters and dark shades, of beasts that would savage humans and Elves alike. Tay listened and nodded and affirmed that he had heard the rumors, too. He tried not to look at Kira too closely when he spoke. He tried not to let her see what was in his eyes.

He saw old friends as well, some of whom had been barely grown when he had seen them last. Some had been close once. But they had traveled down different roads, and all had gone too far to turn back. Or perhaps it was he who had gone too far. They were strangers now, not in appearance or voice, for those were still familiar, but in choices made that long since had shaped their lives. He shared nothing with them but memories of what had once been. It was sad, but not surprising. Time stole away commitments and loosened ties. Friendships were reduced to tales of the past and vague promises for the future, neither strong enough to recover what was lost. But that was what life did—it took you down separate roads until one day you found yourself alone.

Arborlon seemed strange as well, though not in a way he would have expected. Physically, it was the same, a village grown into a city, full of excitement and expectation, become the crossroads of the Westland. Twenty years of steady growth had made it the largest and most important city in the northern half of the known world. The conclusion of the First War of the Races had altered irrevocably the role of the Elven people in the future of the Four Lands, and with the decline of the Southland as a major influence, Arborlon and the Elves had become increasingly important. But while the city and its surroundings were familiar to Tay, even with his long absence and infrequent visits, he could not escape the feeling that he no longer belonged. This was not his home now; it hadn’t been for the better part of fifteen years, and it was too late to change that. Even if Paranor was destroyed and the Druids gone, he was not sure he could ever come back. Arborlon was a part of his past, and somehow he had grown beyond it. He was a stranger here, as much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, and it made him feel awkward when he tried to fit in again.

How quickly everything slipped away when you weren’t paying attention, he thought more than once in his first few days back. How swiftly your life changed.

On the fourth day of his return, Jerle Shannara came to him in the late-afternoon hours accompanied by Preia Starle. Tay hadn’t seen Preia yet, although he had wondered about her more than once. She was easily the most astonishing woman he had ever known, and if she hadn’t been in love with Jerle for as far back as anyone could remember but had been in love with Tay instead, he might have changed his life for her. She was beautiful, with small, perfect features, cinnamon hair and eyes to match, a dusky tone to her skin that glowed like the surface of water caught in a sunrise, and a body that curved and flowed with the grace and supple ease of a cat’s. That was Preia at first glance, but it didn’t begin to tell you about her. Preia was as much a warrior as Jerle, trained as a Tracker, skilled at her chosen craft beyond anyone Tay had ever known, tough and steady and as certain as sunrise. She could track a ferret in a swamp. She could tell you the size and number and sex of a herd of goats crossing rocks. She could live out in the wilderness for weeks on literally nothing but what she scavenged.

She disdained to follow the life most Elven women chose, forsaking the comforts of a home and the companionship of a husband and children. Preia was distanced from all that. She was happy enough with the life she was leading, she had told Tay once.

Those other things would come to her when Jerle was ready for them. Until then, she would wait.

Jerle, for his part, was content to let her. He was ambivalent, Tay thought, about what he felt for her. He loved her in his way, but it was Kira that he had loved first and best and was unable to forget, even after all these years. Preia must have known that—she was too smart to miss it—but she never said anything. Tay had expected their relationship to have changed since his last visit, but it did not appear that it had. There had been no mention of Preia in his conversations with Jerle. Preia was still standing outside the gates of the fortress of self-sufficiency and independence that Jerle Shannara had erected around himself, waiting to be let in.

She came to Tay with a smile as he looked up from the Westland maps he was studying at a small table in his parents’ garden.

He rose to meet her, his throat tightening at the sight of her, and he bent to receive her welcoming embrace and kiss.

“You look well, Tay,” she greeted, stepping back to view him more closely, hands resting lightly on his arms.

“Better, now that I’m seeing you,” he replied, surprising himself with the boldness of his response.

Preia and Jerle took him from the house to the Carolan, where they could talk privately. They sat at the edge of the Gardens of Life, looking out across the bluff to the tips of the tall trees beyond the Rill Song. Jerle had chosen a circular bench that allowed them to face each other and close out the distractions of passersby. He had said almost nothing since he had come for Tay, his look distant and preoccupied, and he faced Tay squarely now for the first time.

“Bremen was right,” he said. “Paranor has fallen. All the Druids within are dead. If any escaped besides those who went with you, they are in hiding.”

Tay stared at him, letting the weight of the announcement settle in, then glanced at Preia. There was no surprise in her face. She already knew.

“You sent Preia to Paranor?” he asked quickly, suddenly realizing why she was there.

“Who better?” Jerle asked matter-of-factly. And he was right.

Tay had asked him to send someone dependable, and there was no one more dependable than Preia. But it was a dangerous task, filled with personal risk, and Tay would have chosen someone else. It pointed up the difference in their feelings for Preia, he realized. But it did not make his the more noble.

“Tell him what you saw,“ Jerle urged her quietly.

She faced Tay, her coppery eyes soft and reassuring. “I crossed the Streleheim without incident. There were Trolls, but no sign of the Gnomes and Skull Bearer you saw. I entered the Dragon’s Teeth at dawn on the second day and went directly to the Keep. The gates were open and there was no life within. I entered without challenge. All the guards lay slaughtered, some by weapons, some by claws and teeth, as if animals had gotten them. The Druids lay within, all of them dead. Some had been killed in battle. Some had been dragged from the Assembly and taken to the cellars and walled away. I was able to read their passage and find their tombs.”

She paused, seeing the look of horror and sadness that crept into his eyes as he remembered those he had left behind. One slender hand closed on his own. “There were signs of a second battle as well, one fought on the stairs leading up from the main entry. This one happened more recently, several days after the other. Several creatures were destroyed, things I could not identify. Magic was used. The entire stairwell was seared black by it, as if a fire had burned it clean, leaving only the ashes of the dead.”

“Bremen?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps.” Her hand tightened over his. “Tay, I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “Even knowing it these few days past, even preparing myself to accept it, it is still difficult hearing you speak the words. All dead. All those I worked and lived with for so many years. Maybe even Bremen. It makes me feel hollow inside.”

“Well, it’s over and done, and there’s no help for it.” Jerle was ready to move on. He rose. “We must speak with the Council now. I will go to Ballindarroch and set a meeting. He may fuss a bit, but I will find a way to make him listen. Meanwhile, Preia can tell you anything else you need to know. Be strong, Tay. We will have our own back from them in the end.”

He strode off without looking back, finding purpose in action as always. Tay watched him go, then looked at Preia. “How have you been?”

“Good.” She regarded him quizzically. “You were surprised I went to Paranor, weren’t you?”

“Yes. It was a selfish reaction.”

“But a nice one.” She smiled. “I like having you home, Tay. I missed being with you. You were always interesting to talk to.”

He stretched his long legs and looked out across the Carolan to where a unit of Black Watch were moving toward the Gardens.

“Less so now, I’m afraid. I don’t know what to say anymore. I am back four days and already thinking of leaving. I feel rootless.”

“Well, you’ve been away a long time. It must seem strange.”

“I don’t think I belong here anymore, Preia. Maybe I don’t belong anywhere, now that Paranor is gone.”

She laughed softly. “I know that feeling. Only Jerle never has those doubts because he won’t let himself. He belongs where he wants to belong; he makes himself fit in. I can’t do that.”

They were silent a moment. Tay tried not to look at her.

“You will be going west in a few days when the king gives you leave to search for the Stone,” she said finally. “Maybe you will feel better when you do that.”

He smiled. “Jerle told you.”

“Jerle tells me everything. I am his life companion, even if he doesn’t acknowledge it.”

“He is a fool not to.”

She nodded absently. “I will be coming with you when you go.”

Now he looked directly at her. “No.”

She smiled, enjoying his discomfort. “You can’t tell me that, Tay. No one can. I don’t allow it.”

“Preia...”

“It is too dangerous, it is too hard a journey, it is too something or other.” She sighed, but the sound did not chide. “I have heard it all before, Tay—although not from anyone who cares about me like you do.” She met his gaze. “But I will be going with you.”

He shook his head in admiration and smiled in spite of himself.

“Of course. And Jerle won’t object, will he?”

Her smile was dazzling, her face bright with undisguised pleasure. “No. He doesn’t know yet, you understand, but when he does he will shrug like he always does and tell me I am welcome.” She paused. “He accepts me for who I am better than you do. He treats me as an equal. Do you understand?”

Tay shifted on the bench, wondering if he did. “I think he is very lucky to have you,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Tell me a little more about what you found at Paranor, anything you think might be of interest, anything you think I might want to know.”

She tucked her legs beneath her on the bench, as if to ward off the unpleasantness of the words she must speak, and did so.

When Preia left him, he remained sitting for a time trying to picture the faces of the Druids he would never see again. Strangely enough, his memory of some was already beginning to fade. It worked like that, he supposed, even with those that mattered most.

It was approaching evening, and he rose and walked along the edge of the Carolan and watched the sunset, the sky coloring gold and silver as the light faded toward darkness. He waited until torches began to brighten the city behind him, then turned and walked back toward his parents’ home. He felt alienated, disconnected. Paranor’s destruction and the death of the Druids had cut him loose from his moorings, leaving him adrift. All that remained for him was to fulfill Bremen’s admonition to seek out the Black Elfstone, and he was determined to do that. Then he would start his life over again. He wondered if he could do that. He wondered where he would begin.

He was approaching his destination when a king’s messenger stepped out of the shadows and advised him that he was to come at once. The urgency of the summons was apparent, so Tay did not argue. He turned from the pathway and followed the messenger back toward the Carolan and the palace that housed the king and his considerable family. Courtann Ballindarroch was the fifth of his line, and the size of the royal family had grown larger with each new coronation. Now the palace housed not only the king and queen, but five children and their spouses, more than a dozen grandchildren, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. Among them was Jerle Shannara, although he spent most of his time at the Home Guard quarters, where he felt decidedly more comfortable.

The palace came in sight, a blaze of light against the darker backdrop of the Gardens of Life. But as they neared the front entry, the messenger took him left down a pathway that led to the summerhouse at one end of the compound. Tay glanced across the broad, dark sweep of the grounds, searching for the Home Guard that kept watch. He could sense them, could count their numbers if he chose by using his magic, but could see nothing. Inside the palace, framed against the lighted windows, shadows came and went like faceless wraiths. The messenger showed no interest, directing him past the main house to where Ballindarroch had chosen to receive him. Tay wondered at the abruptness of the summons. Had something new occurred? Had there been another tragedy? He forced himself not to speculate, but to wait for his answer.

The messenger took him directly to the front door of the summerhouse and told him to go inside. He entered alone, passed through the foyer to the living area beyond, and found Jerle Shannara waiting.

His friend shrugged and held up his hands helplessly. “I have no more idea than you. I was summoned, and here I am.”

“You told the king what we know?”

“I told him you needed an immediate audience with the High Council, that you had urgent news. Nothing more.”

They stared at each other, speculating on the matter. Then the front door opened, and Courtann Ballindarroch appeared. Tay wondered where he had come from—if he had walked down from the main house or had been listening outside the window in the gardens. Courtann was unpredictable. Physically, he was a man of average height and build, comfortably middle-aged, slightly stooped, graying a bit at the temples and along the edges of his beard, a series of deep creases beginning to show in his face and neck. There was nothing distinctive about Courtann; he looked very ordinary. He did not have an orator’s voice or a leader’s charm, and he was quick to admit confusion when beset by it. He had become king in the usual fashion, the eldest child of the previous king, and he neither sought power nor shied away from it.

What he brought with him to his rule as leader of the Elves was a reputation of not being given to unexpected or outrageous behavior, of not being inclined to dramatic or precipitous change, so that he was accepted by his people in the manner of a favorite uncle.

“Welcome home, Tay,” he greeted. He was smiling and relaxed and did not seem at all distressed as he came up to the younger man and clasped his hand. “I thought we might discuss your news in private before you present it to the High Council.” He ran his hand through his thick shock of hair. “I prefer to keep surprises at a minimum in my life. And, should you need an ally, perhaps I might serve. No, don’t look to your confidant—he hasn’t said a word. Even if he had, I wouldn’t listen to him. Too unreliable. Jerle is here only because I have never known either of you to keep secrets from the other, so there probably isn’t much point in trying to start now.”

He beckoned. “Let’s sit over here, in these padded chairs. My back has been bothering me. Grandchildren will do that to you. And let’s not be formal. First names will do. We’ve all known each other too long for anything else.”

It was true, Tay thought, seating himself across from the king and next to Jerle. Courtann Ballindarroch was older by a good twenty years, but they had been friends for their entire lives. Jerle had always lived at court, and Tay had spent much of his time there and so had seen much of Courtann. When they were boys, Courtann had taken them fishing and hunting. Special events and feasts had often brought them together. Tay had been present when Courtann had been crowned some thirty years ago. Each of them knew what to expect from the other.

“I am afraid I was skeptical from the first that you had returned for no better reason than to visit us,” the king advised with a sigh.

“You have always been much too directed to squander a visit home on social pleasures. I hope you don’t take offense.” He rocked back. “So what news do you have for us? Come now, let’s have it all.”

“There is a great deal to tell,” Tay replied, leaning forward to better hold the other’s gaze. “Bremen sent me. He came to Paranor almost two weeks ago and tried to warn the Druid Council that they were in danger. He had gone into the Northland and confirmed the existence of the Warlock Lord. He had determined that it was the rebel Druid Brona, still alive after several hundred years, kept so by the magic that had subverted him. It was Brona who found a way to unite the Trolls and subjugate them so that they would serve as his army. Before traveling to Paranor, Bremen tracked that army south toward the Eastland.”

He paused to choose his words carefully. “The Druid Council would not listen. Athabasca sent Bremen away, and a handful of us went with him. Caerid Lock was asked to come as well, but declined. He stayed behind to protect Athabasca and the others against themselves.”

“A good man,” the king advised. “Very able.”

“With Bremen leading us, we went to the Valley of Shale. There, at the Hadeshorn, Bremen spoke with the spirits of the dead. I watched him do so. They told him several things. One was that Paranor and the Druids would be lost. Another was that the Warlock Lord would invade the Four Lands, and that a talisman must be constructed to destroy him. A third concerned the location of a Black Elfstone, a magic the Warlock Lord searches for, but that we must find first. When the spirits of the dead departed, Bremen sent the Druid Risca to warn the Dwarves of their danger. He sent me to warn you. I was instructed to persuade you to bring your army east across the Borderlands to join forces with the Dwarves. Only by combining our strength can we defeat the Warlock Lord’s army. I was also instructed to request help in undertaking a search for the Black Elfstone.”

Ballindarroch was no longer smiling. “You are being very candid in relating all this,” the king advised, not bothering to hide his surprise. “I would have expected you to take a more subtle approach in seeking my help.”

Tay nodded. “That was my intention. And I would have done so if I were speaking to you before the High Council. But I am not. I am speaking to you alone. There are only the three of us present, and as you have pointed out we know each other well enough not to pretend at things.”

“There is a better reason than that,” Jerle interjected quickly.

“Tell him, Tay.”

Tay folded his hands before him, but did not drop his gaze. “I have waited until now to speak to you because I wanted to confirm Bremen’s suspicions about Paranor and the Druids. I asked Jerle to send someone back to see what had happened, to make sure. He did so. He sent Preia Starle. She returned this afternoon and spoke to me. Paranor has indeed fallen. All the Druids and those who guarded them are dead. Caerid Lock is gone. Athabasca is gone. There is no one left—no one, Courtann, who possesses the power necessary to stand against Brona.”

Courtann Ballindarroch stared at him wordlessly, then rose, walked to the window, looked out into the night, walked back, and seated himself once more. “This is troubling news,” he said quietly. “When you told me of Bremen’s vision, I thought it would turn out to be a trick, a subterfuge, something other than the truth. Anything. All the Druids dead, you say? So many of them our own people? But they have always been there, for as long as history records. And now they are gone? All of them? I can hardly believe it.”

“But they are gone,” Jerle declared, not willing to let the king dither over the matter. “Now we need to act quickly to prevent the same thing from happening to us.”

The Elf King rubbed his beard. “But not too quickly, Jerle. Let us think this through a moment. If I do as Bremen has asked and march the Elven army east, I leave Arborlon and the Westland undefended. That is a dangerous course of action. I know the history of the First War of the Races well enough to avoid its mistakes. Caution is necessary.”

“Caution suggests delay, and we don’t have time for that!” Jerle snapped.

The king fixed him with an icy glare. “Do not press me, Cousin.”

Tay could not risk an argument between them at this point.

“What do you suggest, Courtann,” he interjected quickly.

The king looked at him. He rose and walked to the window once more and stood with his back to them. Jerle glanced at Tay, but Tay did not acknowledge him. The matter was now between himself and the king. He waited for Courtann to turn back again, to cross the room and seat himself once more.

“I am convinced by everything you have told me, Tay, so do not look upon my response as a contradiction. I have great faith in Bremen’s word. If he says that the Warlock Lord lives and is the rebel Druid Brona, then it must be so. If he says that the land’s magic is being pressed into evil’s service, then it must be true. But I am a student of history, and I know that Brona was never a fool, and we must not assume that he will do what we expect. He surely knows that Bremen, if still alive, must try to stop him. He has eyes and ears everywhere. He may know what we intend, even before we intend it. We must make sure of what is needed before we act.”

There was a moment’s silence as his listeners absorbed his words. “What will you do then?” Tay asked finally.

Courtann smiled his fatherly smile. “Go with you before the High Council and give you my support, of course. The Council must be made to see the necessity of acting on your news. It should not be hard. The loss of Paranor and the Druids will be enough to persuade them, I think. Your request to go in search of the Black Elfstone will be approved at once, I expect. There is no reason to delay action on that. Of course your shadow, my cousin, will insist on going with you, and as you might suspect, I would prefer that he did.”

He rose, and they stood up with him. “As for your second request, that our army march to the aid of the Dwarves, I must consider that a while longer. I will dispatch scouts to see what we can determine of the Warlock Lord’s presence in the Four Lands. When they report back, and after I have thought this matter through and the High Council has had time to debate it, a decision will be made.”

He paused, waiting for Tay’s response. “I am grateful, my lord,” Tay acknowledged quickly. In truth, it was more than he had expected.

“Then show it by making a strong argument to the Council.”

The king put his hand on Tay’s shoulder. “They wait for us now in the Assembly. They will want to know that the time they gave up with their families this evening was in a good cause.” He glanced at Jerle. “Cousin, you may come with us if you think you can manage to hold your tongue. Your voice is well respected in these matters, and we may require your insight. Agreed?”

Jerle nodded that it was. They went out of the summerhouse into the night and walked down to the Assembly. Members of the Home Guard materialized out of nowhere, front and back, dark shadows against the distant torchlight of the palace. The king didn’t seem to notice them, humming softly as he walked, glancing at the stars with mild fascination. Tay was surprised, but pleased that the king had acted as quickly as he had. He breathed the night air, taking in the fragrance of jasmine and lilac, and gathered his thoughts for what lay ahead. He was already planning the trip west, thinking through what they would need, which routes they would choose, how they would proceed. How many should they be? A dozen should be sufficient. Enough to stay safe, but not so many as to draw attention. He was conscious of Jerle at his elbow, a large, impassive presence, lost in his own thoughts. It felt good to have him there, steady and reliable. It brought back memories of what had once been, when they were boys. There was always an adventure waiting to be undertaken then, a new cause to consider, a different challenge to be met. He had missed that, he guessed. It felt good having it back again. For the first time since his return, he thought he might be home.

He spoke that night before the High Council with a conviction and persuasiveness that surpassed anything of which he believed himself capable. All that Bremen had asked of him he accomplished. But it was Bremen himself, even absent, who made the difference. The old man was liked and respected in Arborlon, and during his time there he had won many friends with his work on the recovery of Elven history and magic. If he sought the help of the Elves, especially given the destruction of Paranor and the Druids, the Council would see that he got it. Permission was granted to mount a search for the Black Elfstone. A company would be formed under the joint leadership of Tay Trefenwyd and Jerle Shannara. Swift consideration was promised on the request for aid to the Dwarves. Support was strong and enthusiastic—more so than Courtann Ballindarroch had anticipated. The king, seeing the effect that Tay’s words were having on the members of the Council, added his support as well, careful to stress that there were still questions to be resolved before aid could be sent to the Dwarves.

It was midnight when the High Council adjourned. Tay stood outside the Assembly and clasped hands with Jerle Shannara in silent congratulation. The king brushed past them with a smile and was gone. Overhead, the sky was pinpricked with stars, and the air about them was sweet and warm. Success was a heady intoxicant.

Things had gone the way Tay had hoped, and he wished impulsively that he could get word of it to Bremen. Jerle was talking nonstop, flushed with excitement, anticipating the journey west, a new adventure to be undertaken, an escape from the boring routine of his court life in Arborlon.

In that moment of high jubilation, it felt to them both as if all things were possible and nothing could go wrong.

Chapter Ten

When the others had gone and they were all that were left, Tay and Jerle walked up together from the Assembly to the palace. They took their time, still caught up in the euphoria of their success before the High Council, neither of them ready for sleep. The night was still, the city about them at peace, the world a place of dreams and rest. Torches flickered in doorways and at the intersections of roads, beacons against the onslaught of shadows made deeper by the fading of the moon south below the horizon. Buildings loomed out of the darkness like great beasts curled up in sleep. The trees of the forest lined the walkways and surrounded the Elven homes, sentinels standing shoulder to shoulder, motionless in the dark. It gave Tay, as his gaze wandered idly across the open spaces and through the shadows, an odd sense of comfort, as if he were being watched over and protected. Jerle talked on, working his way from subject to subject in eager consideration of the events that lay ahead, arms gesturing, laugh booming out. Tay let him go, swept along in his wake, detached enough that he could listen and still let his thoughts wander, thinking of how his past had come around to his present, of how perhaps what had been left behind could be reclaimed again.

“We will need horses to cross the Sarandanon,” Jerle was musing. “But we can travel faster through the forest leading up to the valley, and then again once we are into the Breakline, if we are afoot. We’ll have to pack differently for each portion of the journey, carry different provisions.”

Tay nodded without answering. No answer was required.

“A dozen of us at the minimum, but perhaps two would be better. If we’re forced to stand and fight, we can’t be caught shorthanded.” His friend laughed. “I don’t know what I’m worried about. What would dare come against the two of us!”

Tay shrugged, looking down the walk to where the lights of the palace had come into view through the trees. “I am hopeful that we won’t have to find out.”

“Well, we’ll be cautious, you can be sure. Leave quietly, stick to the cover of the trees,—stay away from dangerous places. But...“ He stopped and brought Tay about to face him. ”Make no mistake—the Warlock Lord and his creatures will be hunting us. They know that even if Bremen did not escape the Druid’s Keep, a handful of his followers did. Quite possibly they suspect he penetrated their Northland safehold. They know we will be looking for the Black Elfstone.”

Tay thought it over. “Expect the worst. That way we won’t be surprised. Is that it?”

Jerle Shannara nodded, suddenly solemn. “That’s it.”

They started back up the path. “I’m not sleepy,” the big man complained. He stopped again. “Where can we go for a glass of ale? One, to celebrate.”

Tay shrugged. “The palace?”

“Not the palace! I hate the palace! All those parents and children rummaging about, family everywhere. No, not there. Your house?”

“My parents are asleep. Besides, I feel as much a stranger there as you do at the palace. How about the Home Guard barracks?”

Jerle beamed. “Done! A glass or two, then bed. We have much to talk about, Tay.”

They walked on, glancing together at the palace as they passed.

The downstairs was dark and the grounds quiet. There was no sign of movement anywhere. From an upstairs room, a single light burned behind a curtained window, a candle lit in a child’s room to give promise of another morning.

From somewhere distant, a night bird cried out in a series of shrill calls that echoed forlornly before dying back into the silence.

Jerle slowed and stopped, bringing Tay up short with him. He stared at the palace.

“What is it?” Tay asked after a moment.

“I don’t see any guards.”

Tay looked. “Any guards where? I thought you weren’t supposed to see them.”

Jerle shook his head. “You aren’t. But I am.”

Tay stared with him, seeing nothing against the black of the buildings or across the tree-canopied sweep of the grounds. No shapes even vaguely human. He searched for movement and did not find any. Elven Hunters were trained to fade away. Home Guard were better still. But he should still be able to find them as easily as Jerle.

He used his magic then, a small sending that raked the whole of the palace enclosure from end to end, fingers of disclosure that picked at everything. There was movement now, discovered in his search, swift and furtive and alien.

“Something is wrong,” he said at once.

Jerle Shannara started forward wordlessly, heading for the palace entry, picking up speed as he went. Tay went with him, a strange sense of dread welling up inside. He tried to give it definition, to place its source, but it slipped away from him, elusive and defiant. Tay searched the shadows to either side, finding everything suddenly black and secretive. His hands tested the air, the Ups of his fingers releasing his Druid magic in a widening net. He felt the net close on something that twisted and squirmed and then darted away.

“Gnomes!” he exclaimed.

Jerle broke into a run, reaching down to his belt and yanking out his short sword, the blade gleaming faintly against the dark as it slipped free. Jerle Shannara never went anywhere without his weapons. Tay hurried to keep up. Neither of them spoke, falling in beside each other as they neared the front doors, glancing left and right warily, ready for anything.

The doors stood open. No light shone from within. From the walkway, it had been impossible to tell this. Jerle did not slow.

He went through the doors in a crouch, sword held ready. Tay followed.

The hall stretched away before them like a cavernous tunnel.

There were bodies everywhere, strewn about like sacks of old clothing, bloodied and still. Elven Hunters, slain to a man, but a scattering of Gnome Hunters as well. The floor was slick with their blood. Jerle motioned Tay to one side while he went to the other, and together they worked their way down the hall to the main rooms. The rooms were quiet and empty of life. The companions backtracked, moving swiftly toward the stairs leading up. Jerle did not speak, even now. He did not ask Tay if he wanted a weapon. He did not try to tell him what to do. He did not need to.

Tay was a Druid and knew.

They went up the stairs like ghosts, listening to the silence, waiting for a betraying sound. There was none. They reached the upstairs landing and looked down the darkened corridors beyond.

More guards lay dead. Tay was astonished. There had been no outcry of any kind! How could these men, these trained Elven Hunters, have died without sounding an alarm?

The hall branched both ways, burrowing into the darkness and angling off into the wings of the palace where the royal family slept within their bedrooms. Jerle glanced at Tay, eyes bright and hard, motioned him right, and went left himself. Tay glanced after his friend, crouched against the gloom like a moor cat, then turned swiftly away.

He moved ahead, hands clenched into fists, the magic called up and gathered within his palms like a hard pulse, waiting to be released. Fear mingled with horror. There were sounds now, small voices, sobs and little cries that went still almost as quickly as they came, and he raced toward them, heedless. Shadows moved in the hallway before him as he turned the comer to the back wing.

Blades glinted wickedly, and gnarled forms came at him.

Gnomes. He stopped thinking and simply reacted. His right hand lifted and opened, and the magic exploded into his attackers, picking them up and throwing them against the walls so hard that he could hear their bones snap. He went through them as if they were not there, past open doorways where the occupants lay sprawled in death—mothers, fathers, and children alike—to where the doors still stood closed and there might yet be hope.

A new clutch of attackers burst from hiding as he rushed past, flinging themselves onto him and bearing him to the floor.

Weapons rose and fell with desperate purpose, edges sharp and deadly. But he was a Druid, and his defenses were already in place. The blades slid off him as if come up against armor, and his hands fastened on the wiry bodies and threw them away. He was strong, even without his magic, and with his magic to aid him the Gnomes were no match. He was back on his feet almost immediately, his fire sweeping about him in a deadly arc, cutting apart those few still standing. New cries rose, and he went on, horror-stricken at what he knew was happening. An attack, a deadly strike against the whole of the Elven royal family. He knew immediately that it was the same band of Gnome Hunters he had encountered and bypassed on the plains below the Streleheim, that they were neither scouts nor foragers but assassins, and that somewhere close by was the Skull Bearer who led them.

He passed door after door of slain Ballindarrochs, large and small alike, killed in their sleep or immediately on waking. Once past the Home Guard, there was nothing to stop the Gnomes from completing their deadly mission. Tay hissed in frustration. Magic had been used in this. Nothing less would have gained the assassins entry without warning being given. Rage boiled through him.

He reached another door and found the Gnomes within killing a man and woman they had backed against their bedroom wall. Tay threw his magic into the attackers and burned them alive. Cries rose up now as if in response, the warning he had wished for finally given, coming not from his wing, but from the other, where Jerle Shannara would be fighting as well.

He left the man and woman slumped against the wall and went on, unable to help them. There were only a few doors left. One, he realized suddenly, despairingly, was where Courtann Ballindarroch slept.

He went to that one first, desperate now, losing hope that he would be in time for anyone. He went past a closed door on his left and an open one on his right. Through the open door, a pair of Gnomes appeared, bloodied weapons raised, yellow eyes glinting, surprise revealed on their cunning faces. He gestured at them and they vanished in an explosion of fire, dead before they knew what was happening. Tay could feel his strength diminished by the expenditure of power. He had not been tested like this before, and he must be cautious. Bremen had warned him more than once that use of the magic was finite. He must hoard what remained for when it was truly needed.

He saw now that the door to the king’s bedroom was open as well, cracked slightly from where it had been forced.

Tay did not hesitate. He rushed to the door and flung it open with a crash, leaping inside. There were no lights in the room, but broad windows set along the far wall let in a dull glimmer from the street lamps below. Shadows rose up against the hangings and drapes, distorted and grotesque. Courtann Ballindarroch had been flung against a wall to one side. He lay revealed in the half-light, his face and chest bloodied, one arm bent horribly awry, his eyes open and blinking rapidly. The Skull Bearer stood a dozen steps away, bent within the fold of its leathery wings, hooded and caped. It had taken hold of the queen, lifting her away from the tattered covers of the bed. Her body was broken and lifeless, her eyes staring. The creature flung her away as Tay appeared, a careless gesture, and wheeled to face the Druid, hissing in challenge Gnomes attacked as well, coming out of the shadows, but Tay swatted them aside like gnats and turned the full force of his power on their leader. The Skull Bearer was caught unprepared, expecting perhaps another guard, another helpless victim. Tay’s magic exploded into the monster in a burst of fire that burned half its face away. The Skull Bearer shrieked in rage and pain, clawing futilely at its skin, then threw itself at Tay. Its speed was astonishing, and now it was Tay who was surprised. The Skull Bearer slammed into him before he could brace himself, thrust him aside, and was out the door and gone.

Tay struggled to his feet, hesitated only a moment as he glanced at Courtann Ballindarroch, then gave chase.

He went back down the darkened hallway, avoiding the bodies of the dead and the slick of their blood, senses straining to pick up the presence of other attackers. Ahead, the Skull Bearer was a vague shadow lumbering through the gloom. Shouts had risen from outside, and there was a thudding of boots and a clash of weapons as Home Guard flooded the grounds, arrived from their barracks in response to the alarm. Tay’s pulse pounded in his ears as he ran. He threw off his cloak so that he could move more easily. At the bend in the hall, the Skull Bearer turned instinctively toward the opposite wing, avoiding the knot of Elven Hunters who rushed up the stairway. Tay called down to his countrymen as he raced past, summoning their help.

He called as well for Jerle Shannara.

The Skull Bearer glanced back, disfigured features a sodden, red mess in a sudden glimmer of torchlight. Tay called out to it in challenge, taunting it, rage and spite giving an edge to his voice.

But the winged hunter did not slow, turning now onto a narrow set of stairs that led to a roof walk. The monster was faster than Tay and pulling steadily away from him. Tay swore in fury.

Then abruptly a solitary figure materialized at the far end of the hall, come from the gloom beyond, a lithe, tigerish form that dodged with ease through the bodies of the dead and turned up the stairs in pursuit of the Skull Bearer.

It was Jerle.

Tay charged ahead, forcing himself to run faster, his breath a ragged, harsh sound in his ears. He reached the stairs moments behind his friend and followed him up. He stumbled and fell in the pitch black of the stairwell, scrambled up determinedly, and went on.

On the parapets of the walk, he found Jerle locked in battle with the Skull Bearer. It should have been a mismatch, the winged hunter far more powerful than the Elf, but Jerle Shannara seemed possessed. He was fighting as if it made no difference to nun whether he lived or died so long as his adversary did not escape.

They surged back and forth across the walk, up against the balustrades, twisting and turning from darkness into light. Jerle had his arms locked about the monster’s wings so that it could not fly. The Skull Bearer tore at the Elf with its claws, but Jerle was behind it, and it could not reach him.

Tay cried out to his friend and raced to help. He brought the magic to his fingertips, calling it up as Bremen had taught him, bringing the strength of his body into joinder with the elements of the world that had birthed him, a quickening of life’s fire. The Skull Bearer saw him approaching, and wheeled away, placing Jerle between them so that the Druid could not use his magic.

Below, on the palace grounds, Elven Hunters looked up, seeing the combatants for the first time, recognizing Jerle. Arrows were notched in longbows, and strings were drawn back and made ready.

Then the monster broke Jerle’s grip, leaped onto the balustrade, and took wing. It hung momentarily against the light, huge and dark and nightmarish, a harried beast in search of any haven. Tay struck at it with everything he had, sending the Druid fire burning into its hated form. Below, bowstrings released, and dozens of arrows buried themselves in the creature’s body. The Skull Bearer shuddered, faltered, and struggled on, streaming fire and smoke like kite tails, bristling with arrows. A second barrage of missiles from the bowmen flew into it. Now one wing collapsed, and in a final desperate effort it threw itself toward the tops of a stand of trees. But its strength was gone, and its body would no longer respond. Down it went, thrashing as it struck the ground and swordsmen swarmed over it.

Even then, it took a long time to die.

A search of the grounds, the city, and the forests beyond did not turn up any further trace of the attackers. All had been killed, it seemed. Perhaps they had expected to die. Perhaps they had come to Arborlon knowing they would. It didn’t matter now. What mattered was that they had succeeded in what they had come to do.

They had destroyed the Ballindarroch family. Men, women, and children, the Ballindarrochs had died in their sleep, some never waking, some waking just long enough to realize what was happening before their lives were taken from them. The scope of the disaster was stunning. Courtann Ballindarroch still lived, but only barely. The Healers worked on him all night, but even after they had done everything they could to save him there was little hope.

One son still lived, the next to youngest, Alyten, who had been hunting west with friends and by chance alone had avoided the fate of the others in his family. Two small grandchildren had survived as well, sleeping in the bedroom that Tay had passed on his way to the king’s, saved because the Gnome assassins had not yet gotten to them. Even during the attack, they did not wake. The older was barely four, the younger not yet two.

Within hours, the city was transformed into an armed camp. Elven Hunters were dispatched to all quarters to set up watch. Patrols were sent down every trail and roadway and on to the Valley of Rhenn to give warning. The people of the city were roused and told to make ready for a full-scale assault. No one was certain what might happen next, appalled and terrified by the assassination of the royal family in their own beds. Anything seemed possible, and everyone was determined that whatever catastrophe might occur next, they would be ready for it.

By dawn the weather had changed, the temperature dropping, the skies clouding over, the air turning heavy and still. Soon a long, slow drizzle filled the air with mist and gloom.

Tay sat with Jerle Shannara on a window seat in a small alcove off the entry to the palace and watched the rain fall. The bodies of the dead had been removed. All the rooms had been searched twice over for assassins trying to hide. The blood and gore of the attack had been washed away, and the bedrooms where the carnage had occurred had been stripped and cleaned. All of it had been done in darkness, before dawn’s light, as if to hide the travesty, as if to conceal the horror. Now the palace stood empty. Even Courtann Ballindarroch’s two small grandchildren had been taken to other homes until it could be decided what to do with them.

“You know why this was done, don’t you?” Jerle asked Tay suddenly, breaking a silence that had gone on for some time.

Tay looked at him. “The killings?”

Jerle nodded. “To disrupt things. To throw us off balance. To stop us from mobilizing the army.“ He sounded tired. ”In short, to prevent us from sending help to the Dwarves. With Courtann dead, the Elves will not do anything until a new king is chosen. The Warlock Lord knows this. That’s why he sent his assassins to Arborlon with orders to kill everyone. By the time we are regrouped sufficiently even to make a decision about ourselves, it will be too late for the Dwarves. The Eastland will have fallen.”

Tay took a deep breath. “We can’t let that happen.”

Jerle snorted derisively. “We can’t stop it! It’s done!” He gestured dismissively. “Courtann Ballindarroch will be lucky to live out another day. You saw what was done to him. He’s not a strong man, Tay. I don’t know why he’s still alive.”

Jerle pushed himself back against the wall, feet drawing up on the seat before him, looking a little like a small boy being kept indoors against his will. His clothes were in tatters; he hadn’t changed them since the fight. A wicked slash ran down the left side of his jaw. He had washed it and forgotten it. He looked a wreck.

Tay glanced down at himself. He didn’t look any better. They were both in need of a bath and sleep.

“What else will he do to stop us, do you think?” Jerle asked softly.

Tay shook his head. “Nothing here. What else is there to do? But he will go after Risca and Bremen, I expect. Maybe he already has.“ He looked out into the rain, listening to its patter on the glass.

“I wish I could warn them. I wish I knew where Bremen was.”

He thought of what had been done this night to the Elves—their royal family decimated, their sense of security shattered, their peace of mind lost. Much had been taken from them, and he was not at all certain that any of it could be regained. Jerle was right. Until the king recovered or died and was replaced, the High Council would do nothing to help the Dwarves. No one would take responsibility for such a decision. It wasn’t clear if anyone could. Alyten might attempt to act in his father’s place, but it was unlikely. Not strong like his father, he was a reckless, impulsive youth who had not been given a lot of responsibility in his life. Mostly, he had served as his father’s aide and done what he was told. He had no experience at leading. He would be king if Courtann died, but the High Council would not be quick to support his decisions. Nor would Alyten be quick to make them. He would be cautious and indecisive, anxious not to err. It was the wrong time for him to be king. The Warlock Lord would be quick to take advantage.

The size and complexity of the dilemma was depressing. The Elves knew who was responsible for the attack. The Skull Bearer had been clearly seen before its destruction, and the Gnome Hunters had been identified. Beth served the Warlock Lord. But Brona was faceless and omnipresent in the Pour Lands, a force that lacked a center, a legend bordering on myth, and no one knew how to reveal him. He was there, and yet he wasn’t. He existed, but to what extent? How were they to proceed against him? With the Druids destroyed at Paranor, there was no one to tell them what to do, no one to advise them, no one they respected enough to heed. In two swift strikes, the Warlock Lord had destroyed the balance of power in the Four Lands and rendered the strongest of the Races immobile.

“We can’t just sit here,” Jerle observed pointedly, as if reading Tay’s thoughts.

Tay nodded. He was thinking that time was slipping away, that he was suddenly in danger of failing to accomplish what Bremen had required of him. He stared out into the rain, a gray haze that rendered the world beyond his window seat muddy and indistinct.

Where once so much had seemed certain, now nothing was assured.

“If we can do nothing for the Dwarves, we must at least do something for ourselves,” he said quietly. His eyes fixed on Jerle’s. “We must go in search of the Black Elfstone.”

His friend studied him a moment, then nodded slowly. “We could, couldn’t we? Courtann has already given his approval.” A hint of excitement nickered in the hard blue eyes. “It will give us something to do while we wait out events here. And if we find the Stone, it will give us a weapon to use against the Warlock Lord.”

“Or at least deprive him of one he might use against us.” Tay was mindful of Bremen’s warning about the power of the Black Elfstone. He straightened on the window seat, shrugging off his depression, his sense of purpose returning.

“Well, well, look at you, my friend,” Jerle observed archly. “I like you better this way.”

Tay stood up, anxious. “How soon can we leave?”

A smile played at the comer of Jerle Shannara’s lips. “How soon can you be ready?”

Chapter Eleven

They set out at dawn of the following day, Tay and Jerle and the few they had chosen to go with them, leaving the city quietly, while its citizens were still waking and their departure would go unnoticed. They were only fifteen in number, so it was not difficult to slip away without being seen.

Tay and Jerle had advised the others of the little company only the night before. They were not being underhanded in their stealth; they were simply being cautious. The fewer who knew of their departure or who saw them leave, the fewer who could talk about it. Even idle conversation had a way of reaching me wrong ears.

The High Council knew of their plans. Alyten, still not returned from his hunting trip, would be told later. That was enough. Even their immediate families did not know where they were going or what they were about. After what had happened to the Ballindarrochs, no one was taking any unnecessary chances.

It was a worrisome situation they were leaving behind. Ballindarroch hovered near death, and it was not clear yet whether he would recover. The High Council would manage the affairs of state in his absence, as Elven law required, but as a practical matter would do little until the king’s fate was determined. Alyten, as the only surviving son, would rule in his father’s place, but only nominally until a formal coronation became necessary. Life would go on, but the business of governing would slow to a near halt. The army would stay on alert, its commanders doing what was necessary to protect the city and its people and to a lesser extent the Elves living in the countryside beyond. But the army’s actions would be strictly defensive in nature, and no one would advocate forays beyond the Westland borders until Ballindarroch recovered or his son took his place. That meant no aid would be sent to the Dwarves. So hidebound was the High Council on this matter that it refused even to commit to sending word to the Dwarves about what had befallen. Both Tay and Jerle separately begged the Council to do so, but they were told only that their request would be considered. Suddenly, secrecy became the order of the day. Since there was nothing more they could do about the matter, Tay and Jerle chose not to delay their departure. The king would live or he would die, Alyten would become king or he wouldn’t, and the High Council would send word to the Dwarves or stay silent—all of it would work out one way or the other, and their presence in Arborlon would change nothing. It was better to get on with their search for the Black Elfstone and make a difference where they could.

There were other reasons for leaving as well. Two unexpected issues had surfaced as a result of the assassinations, one affecting Tay, the other Jerle. Both lent urgency to their plans to depart the city.

As to the first, there were some who had begun wondering aloud why the attack on the Elven royal family coincided so closely with Tay’s return from Paranor. The Druids were respected, but they were also mistrusted. The ones who mistrusted them were few, but in the wake of such a frightening and unexpected disaster, their voices were commanding more attention.

The Druids wielded power and their ways were mysterious, a combination that was inherently disturbing, especially with their decision to isolate themselves from the general populace following the First War of the Races. Wasn’t it possible, the voices whispered, that the Druids were somehow involved in what had happened to the Ballindarrochs? Tay had gone to see the king and to speak before the High Council the very night of the killings.

Had there been an argument that angered Tay—that thereby angered all the Druids? Hadn’t he been the first to enter the king’s chamber while the killings were taking place? Was this simply a coincidence? Did anyone see what happened? Did anyone see what he did? It didn’t matter that the questions had already been addressed in one forum or another, by one official or another, and that no one in the High Council or army seemed the least concerned about Tay’s conduct. What mattered was that there were no definitive answers being offered and no indisputable facts being supplied, and in their absence wild theories were bound to flourish.

The second issue was even more troubling. Because almost the entire Ballindarroch family had been wiped out, there were some who were saying that if Courtann Ballindarroch died, too, Jerle Shannara should be king. It was all well and good to adhere to the rules of ascendancy, but Alyten was weak and indecisive and not well liked by the people he would govern. And if he should falter, the next in line to rule would be a child of four. That meant years of regency rule, and no one wanted that. Besides, these were dangerous, demanding times, and they required a strong ruler. This attack on the royal family signaled the start of something bad. Everyone recognized that much. The Northland was already conquered by the Warlock Lord and his winged hunters and demon followers. What if he turned on the Elves next? There were rumors that his armies were on the move already, traveling south. Jerle Shannara was the king’s first cousin and next in tine to rule if the Ballindarrochs were wiped out. Perhaps it would be best if he ruled now, regardless of who was left after Courtann. A former Captain of the Home Guard, a strategist to the army’s high command, an advisor to the High Council and the king, he was well suited. Perhaps the choice should be made regardless of precedent and protocol. Perhaps it should be made quickly.

Tay and Jerle heard of these rumors soon enough, saw where they might lead, and realized that the best way to deal with them was to remove themselves from the scene until things settled down. This loose talk provided additional impetus beyond the urgency of their quest for them to hasten their departure, and they were quick to do so. In twenty-four hours, they put together their company, their supplies, their transportation, and their travel plans, and set out.

It was raining when they departed, a cool, misty drizzle that had begun falling several hours earlier and was showing no signs of abating. The roads and trails were already sodden, and the limbs and trunks of the trees were stained black. Mist crept out of the forest, risen from the still warm earth, filling the gaps and crevices with strange movement. Gloom and damp shrouded everything, and the company moved through the early dawn like wraiths chasing after night. They traveled afoot, carrying only their weapons and the food and clothing they would require for twenty-four hours. After that, they would wash what they wore and hunt for their meals until they reached the Sarandanon, a hike of approximately three days. There they would be provided with horses, fresh clothing, and supplies for the remainder of the journey west to the Breakline.

They were a diverse group. Jerle Shannara had selected all but one. He had done so with Tay’s approval, because Tay had been gone too long from Arborlon and the Elves to know who was best suited to help them in their quest. Elven Hunters were needed, fighters of the first rank, and Jerle selected ten, which brought their number to twelve. Preia Starle had already announced that she was going, as certain of herself as ever, and neither Tay nor Jerle cared to challenge her. Jerle chose another Tracker as well, a weathered veteran named Retten Kipp, who had served with the Home Guard for better than thirty years. More than one Tracker would be necessary if they were to keep close watch of their rear as well as their front. Besides, if anything happened to Preia, they would need a replacement. Tay did not like hearing the words, but he could not find fault with them.

That brought their number to fourteen. Tay asked for one more.

The man he wanted was Vree Erreden. It was an odd choice at first glance, and Jerle was quick to say so. Vree Erreden was not well regarded among the Elves, a reclusive, distracted, shy man with little concern for anything besides his work. What he did was a source of ongoing controversy. He was a locat, a mystic who specialized in finding people who were missing and objects that were lost. How successful he was at what he did was the subject of much debate. Those who believed in him possessed an unshakable faith. Those who didn’t found him foolish and misguided. He was tolerated because he enjoyed occasional, verifiable success, and because the Elven people were understanding of differences in general, having themselves been the subject of much suspicion over the years in the eyes of the other Races. Vree Erreden did not himself make any claims about his accomplishments; the claims were provided by others. But the origin of the claims did nothing to improve the image of the man in the eyes of his detractors.

Tay was not among them. Tay identified closely with Vree Erreden, though he had never said so to anyone. They were kindred spirits, he believed. Had Vree chosen to do so, he might have become a Druid. His skills would have allowed for the possibility, and Tay would have recommended him. Both were possessors of talents developed through years of practice, Tay the elementalist, Vree the locat. Tay’s was the more visibly demonstrable talent, however, utilizing magic and science culled from the earth’s resources, a harnessing of power that gave clear evidence of what it was he could do. Vree Erreden’s talent, on the other hand, resided almost entirely within, was passive in nature, and was difficult to verify. Mystics operated on prescience, intuition, even hunches, all of them stronger than the instincts normal men and women might experience, all of them impossible to see. Locals were once heavily in evidence, in a time when Elves and other faerie creatures exercised such power routinely. Now only a handful remained, the others lost with the passing of the old world and the irrevocable change in the nature of magic. But Tay was a student of the old ways and understood the origins of Vree Erreden’s power, and it was as real to him as his own.

He went to see the locat late on the afternoon of the day before the scheduled departure and found him in his yard, bent over a tattered collection of maps and writings, his small, slender form hunched protectively, his hands tracing lines and words across the paper. He looked up as Tay came through the gate of the small, unremarkable cottage, peering myopically at him as he approached. The locat squinted against the sunlight and his own failing sight. Each year, it was rumored, his eyes failed a little more—but as his eyes failed, his intuition sharpened.

“It is Tay Trefenwyd,” Tay announced helpfully, coming over so that the light fell on his face.

Vree Erreden peered up at him without recognition. Tay had been gone for five years, so it was possible the man no longer remembered him. Nor was Tay wearing the robes of his order, having reverted to the loose-fitting Elven garb preferred by the Westland people, so it was possible the locat was unable to identify him as a Druid either.

“I need your help in finding something,” Tay continued, undaunted. The other’s thin face cocked slightly in response. “If you agree to help me, you will have the opportunity of saving lives, many of them Elven. It will be the most important finding you will ever undertake. If you succeed, no one will ever doubt you again.”

Vree Erreden looked suddenly amused. “That is a bold claim, Tay.”

Tay smiled. “I am in a position where I must make bold claims. I leave tomorrow for the Sarandanon and beyond. I must convince you to go with me when I do. Time doesn’t allow for a more subtle persuasion.”

“What is it you are looking for?”

“A Black Elfstone, lost since the end of the world of faerie, thousands of years ago.”

The small man looked at him. He did not ask Tay why he had come to him or question the strength of his belief. He accepted that Tay had faith in his power, perhaps because of who he was, perhaps because of what he did. Or perhaps because it didn’t matter. But there was curiosity in his eyes— and a hint of doubt.

“Give me your hands,” he said.

Tay stretched out his hands, and Vree Erreden clasped them tightly in his own. His grip was surprisingly strong. His eyes met Tay’s, held them for a moment, then looked through them and beyond, losing focus. He stayed like that for a long time, as still as stone, seeing something hidden from Tay. Then he blinked, released his grip, and sat back. A small smile played across his thin lips.

“I will come with you,” he said, just like that.

He asked where they were to meet and what he was required to bring, then turned back to his maps and writings without another word, the matter forgotten. Tay lingered just long enough to make certain there was no further reason to stay, and then left.

So they numbered fifteen in the end as they departed Arborlon in the slow rain of early dawn, cloaked and hooded and faceless in the gloom, and they had come for reasons best known to themselves. No one would speak hereafter of these reasons. No one would believe it made a difference. A decision made was a decision accepted. Armored in that conviction, they wound down out of the Carolan to where the Rill Song churned within its banks, crossed on a ferry raft kept in service for the city, and struck out west through the shadowed corridors of the ancient woods.

They marched all day through the rain, which did not cease, though after a time it lessened. They stopped once for lunch and twice at springs to refill their water skins, but they did not rest otherwise. No one tired, not even Vree Erreden. They were Elves and used to walking long distances, and all of them were fit enough to keep up with Jerle Shannara’s moderate pace. The way was muddied and the footing uncertain, and on more than one occasion they were forced to find a way across a ravine which had flooded because of the rains. No one complained. No one said much of anything. Even when they stopped to eat, they sat apart from each other, withdrawn into their cloaks from the weather, thinking their separate thoughts. Once Tay stopped Vree Erreden to tell him how much he appreciated his decision to come with them, and the locat looked at him as if he had lost his mind, as if he had just made the most ridiculous statement in the history of mankind. Tay smiled and backed off and did not try to approach the other man again.

They moved steadily farther away from the mountains that warded Arborlon and closer to the Sarandanon. Night came, and they made camp. No fire was built, and the evening meal was eaten cold. It was dark and still within the trees, and there was no movement save for the steady falling of the rain. Another day or so would pass before they were free of the woods and onto the open grasslands of the valley. The country would change dramatically then as they traveled through the farmlands that produced the crops and livestock that fed the Elven nation. Beyond, the better part of a week’s ride farther, waited the Breakline and their destination.

Damp, chilled, and lost in thought, Tay sat by himself when the meal was finished and stared out into the gloom. Hoping to find something he had missed, he replayed in his mind the vision of the Black Elfstone that Bremen had been shown at the Hadeshorn.

The details of the vision were familiar by now, smoothed out like wrinkled paper so that they might be reexamined and considered at leisure. Bremen had given him the description of the talisman’s hiding place just as it had been revealed by the shade of Galaphile, so that all that remained was to find it again in real life. There were several ways that might happen. The Trackers Preia Starle and Retten Kipp might discover the Black Elfstone through an accumulation of physical evidence in the course of their scouting. Tay might discover it as an elementalist, finding the breaks in the lines of power caused by the talisman’s magic. And Vree Erreden might discover it by employing his special skill as a locat, tracing the Elfstone as he would any other lost object, through prescient thought and intuition.

Tay looked over at the locat, who was already asleep. Most of the others were sleeping as well by now, or in the process of drifting off. Even Jerle Shannara was stretched out, rolled into his blanket. A single Elven Hunter kept watch at one end of the camp, walking the perimeter, drifting through the gloom, just another of night’s shadows. Tay watched him for a moment, thinking of other things, then looked again at Vree Erreden. The locat had spied out Bremen’s vision when he had taken hold of his hands on that first visit. He was certain of it now, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. It was what had decided the locat on coming, that momentary glimpse of a place lost in time, of a magic that had survived a world now gone, of what once was known and might now be revealed again. The theft was a clever piece of work, and Tay admired the other man’s audacity in committing it. It was not everyone who would dare to pick the lock on a Druid’s mind.

He rose after a while, still not sleepy, and walked out to stand where the guard patrolled. The Elven Hunter noted him, but made no move to approach, continuing his rounds as before. Tay looked out into the sodden trees, his eyes adjusting to the light, seeing strange shapes and forms in the rain, even in the absence of moon and stars. He watched a deer pass, small and delicate in the concealment of the gloom, eyes watchful, ears pricked. He saw night birds speed swiftly from branch to branch, hunters in search of food, finding it now and again, diving with shocking quickness to the forest floor and then lifting away, small creatures clutched tightly by claws and beaks. He saw in these victims an image of the Elven people if the Warlock Lord prevailed. He imagined how helpless they would be when Brona began his hunt. Already there was a sense of being sought out, of being considered prey. While he did not like to contemplate it, he did not think the feeling would diminish any time soon.

He was still considering what this meant when Preia Starle appeared out of nowhere at his elbow. He gasped in spite of himself, then forced himself to recover as he saw the smile twitch at the comers of her mouth. She had been gone all day, leaving early with Retten Kipp to scout the land ahead. No one had known when either of them would be back. Trackers having the freedom to do whatever they felt they must and to keep to their own schedule. She winked as she saw the shock leave his face, replaced by chagrin. Saying nothing, she took his arm and led him back off the perimeter and into the camp. She was wearing loosefitting forest clothing, with gloves and soft boots, and all of it was soaked through. Rain plastered her curly, short-cropped, cinnamon hair to her head and ran down her face. She didn’t seem to notice.

She sat him down some yards away from where the other members of the company were sleeping, choosing a dry spot beneath an oak where the thickness of the grass offered some comfort. She removed the brace of long knives, the short sword, and the ash bow she carried, looking altogether too fragile and young to be bearing such weapons, and sat next to him.

“Can’t sleep, Tay?” she asked quietly, squeezing his arm.

He folded his long legs before him and shook his head. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there.” She brushed the rain from her face and smiled. “You didn’t see me, did you?”

He gave her a rueful look. “What do you think? Do you enjoy shortening people’s lives by scaring them so? If I wasn’t able to sleep before, how will I ever be able to sleep now?”

She suppressed a laugh. “I expect you will manage. You are a Druid after all, and Druids can manage anything. Take heart from Jerle. He sleeps like a baby all the time. He refuses to stay awake, even when I would have it otherwise.”

She blinked, realizing what she had implied, and looked quickly away. After a moment, she said, “Kipp has gone on ahead to the Sarandanon to make certain that the horses and supplies are ready. I came back to tell you about the Gnome Hunters.”

He looked sharply at her, waiting. “Two large parties,” she continued, “both north of us. There might be more. There are a lot of tracks. I don’t think they know about us. Yet. But we need to be careful.”

“Can you tell what they are doing here?”

She shook her head. “Hunting, I would guess. The pattern of their tracks suggests as much. They are keeping close to the Kensrowe, north of the grasslands. But they may not stay there, especially if they learn about us.”

He was silent for a moment, thinking it through. He could feel her waiting him out, studying his face in the gloom. Amid the sleepers, a snore turned into a cough, and a bundled form shifted.

Rain fell in a slow patter, a soft backdrop against the black.

“Did you see any of the Skull Bearers?” he asked finally.

She shook her head once more. “No.”

“Strange tracks of any kind?”

“No.”

He nodded, hoping that was indicative of something. Perhaps the Warlock Lord had left his monsters at home. Perhaps Gnome Hunters were all they faced.

She shifted beside him, rising to her knees. “Give Jerle my report, Tay. I have to go back out.”

“Now?”

“Now is better than later if you want to keep the wolf from the door.” She grinned. “Do you remember that saying? You used it all the time when you were talking about going to Paranor and becoming a Druid. It was your way of saying you would protect us, the poor, homebound friends you were leaving behind.”

“I remember.” He took her arm. “Are you hungry?”

“I’ve eaten already.”

“Why not stay until dawn?”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to give your report to Jerle yourself?”

She studied him a moment, reflecting on something. “What I want is for you to give it for me. Will you do that?”

The tone of her voice had changed. She was not open to a discussion on this. He nodded wordlessly and took his hand away.

She rose, strapped the knives and sword back in place, took up the bow, and gave him a quick smile. “You think about what you just asked of me, Tay,” she said.

She slipped back into the gloom, and a moment later she was gone. Tay sat where he was for a time, considering what she had said, then climbed to his feet to wake Jerle.

Rain fell all the following day, a steady downpour. The company continued on through the forest, keeping watch for Gnomes, staying alert to everything. The hours passed slowly, sunrise easing toward sunset, the whole of the day marked by graying half-light filtered through banks of clouds and water-laden boughs. Travel was slow and monotonous. They came upon no one in the woods. In the sodden gloom, nothing moved.

Night came and went, and neither Preia Starle nor Retten Kipp returned. By dawn of the third day, the company was nearing the Sarandanon. The rain had stopped and the skies had begun to clear. Sunlight peeked through gaps in the departing clouds, narrow shafts of light come out of the bright blue. The air wanned, and the earth began to steam and bake.

In a clearing bright with sunlight on spring wildflowers, they came upon Preia Starle’s ash bow, broken and muddied. There was no other sign of the Elf girl.

But the boot prints of Gnome Hunters were everywhere.

Chapter Twelve

The daylight was fading and darkness edging out of the Anar as the last of the Warlock Lord’s vast army spilled from the Jannisson Pass onto the grasslands of the northern Rabb. It had taken all day for the army to come down out of the Streleheim, for the Jannisson was narrow and winding and the army encumbered by a train of pack animals, baggage, and wagons that stretched for nearly two miles when set end to end.

The fighting men moved at varying rates, the cavalry swift and eager astride their horses, the light infantry, bowmen, and slingers slower, and the heavily armored foot soldiers slower still. But none of the army’s various components was as plodding or trouble-plagued as the pack train, which lumbered through the pass with an agonizing lack of progress, stopped every few minutes by broken wheels and axles, by the constant need for an untangling of traces and the watering of animals, and by collisions, mix-ups, and traffic jams of all sorts.

It gave Risca, watching from the concealment of the Dragon’s Teeth half a mile to the south, a grim sense of satisfaction. Anything to slow the dark ones, he kept thinking. Anything to delay their hateful progress south toward his homeland.

Trolls made up the greater part of the army, stolid, thickskinned, and virtually featureless, looking more like beasts than like men. The largest and most fierce were the Rock Trolls, averaging well over six feet in height and weighing several hundred pounds. They formed the core of the army, and their disciplined, precision-executed march testified to their efficiency in battle.

Other Trolls were there mostly to fill the gaps. Gnomes dominated the cavalry and light infantry, the small, wiry fighters a tribal race like the Trolls though less skilled and more poorly trained. They served in the army of the Warlock Lord for two reasons. First and foremost, they were terrified of magic, and the Warlock Lord’s magic exceeded anything they had believed possible. Second and only slightly less compelling, they knew what had happened when the larger, fiercer, and better armed Trolls had tried to resist, and they had quickly decided to jump to the winning side before the decision was made for them.

Then there were the creatures that had no name, beings brought over from the netherworld, things come out of the black pits to which they had been consigned in centuries past, freed now through the Warlock Lord’s magic. In daylight, they stayed cloaked and hooded, indistinct shapes in the shifting, swirling dust of the march, outcasts by breeding and common consent. But as the twilight descended and the shadows lengthened, they began to shed their concealments and reveal themselves— terrible, misshapen monsters that all avoided. Among them were the Skull Bearers, the winged hunters that served as Brona’s right arm. Men themselves once, the Skull Bearers were Druids who had tested the magic too frequently and deeply and been subverted. These last took flight now, lifting off into the dying light to begin casting about for prey to feed their hunger.

And in the center of all, set squarely amid the hordes that swept it inexorably onward like a raft on storm-tossed waters, was the huge, black, silk-covered litter that bore the Warlock Lord himself. Thirty Trolls carried it forward through the army’s ranks, its coverings impenetrable in the brightest light, its iron stays studded with barbs and razors, its pennants emblazoned with white skulls.

Risca watched the creatures about it bow and scrape, conscious that while they could not see him, their Lord and Master could easily see them.

Now, with night descending and the entire army down out of the Northland and poised to march south to invade the Anar and conquer the Dwarves, Risca sat back wearily within his rocky crevice and let the shadows envelop him. Bremen had been right, of course—right about everything. Brona had survived the First War of the Races and stayed hidden all these years merely to gain strength so that he might strike once again. Now he was returned, this time as the Warlock Lord, and the Trolls and Gnomes belonged to him, subjugated and made servants in his cause. If the Druids were destroyed as Bremen had foreseen they would be—and Risca now believed it so—there was no one left to intervene on behalf of the free Races, no one left to wield the magic. One by one, they would fall—Dwarves, Elves, and Men. One by one, the Four Lands would be subjugated. It would happen quickly. No one yet believed it was possible, and by the time anyone did, it would be too late. Risca had seen now for himself the size of the Warlock Lord’s army. A juggernaut, unstoppable, monstrous.

Only by uniting could the free Races hope to prevail. But it would take time for them to decide to do this if left to their own devices. Politics would slow any decision making. Self-interest would generate an ill-advised caution. The free Races would debate and consider and be made slaves before they realized what had happened to them.

Bremen had foreseen it all, and now it was left to the handful who had believed him to find a way to prevent the inevitable from happening.

Risca reached into his pack, pulled out a piece of day-old bread he had bought at the edge of the border settlements, and began to chew absently on it. He had left Bremen and the others of the little company three days earlier at the mouth of the Hadeshorn. He had come east out of Callahorn to carry word to the Dwarves of the Warlock Lord’s approach, to warn them of the danger, and to persuade them that they must make a stand against the Northland army. But by the time he had reached the western edge of the Rabb, he had decided that his task would be made considerably easier if he could report that he had seen the approaching army with his own eyes. Then he could offer an estimate of its size and strength and thereby be more persuasive in his appeal. So he had turned north and used a second day to reach the Jannisson. There, on this third day, he had crouched in hiding in the foothills of the Dragon’s Teeth, and watched the army of the Warlock Lord come down out of the Streleheim; it had grown larger and larger until it seemed there would be no end to it. He had counted units and commands, animals and wagons, tribal pennants and standards of battle until he had its measure. It might as well have been the whole Troll nation come to call. It was the largest army he had ever seen. The Dwarves could never stand alone against it. They could slow it, delay it perhaps, but they could not stop it. Even if fee Elves came to stand with them, they would still be badly outnumbered. And they had no magic of the son wielded by Brona and the Skull Bearers and the netherworld creatures. They had no talismans. They had only Bremen, Tay Trefenwyd, and himself, the last of the Druids.

Risca shook his head, chewing and swallowing. The odds were too great. He needed to find a way to even them up.

He finished his bread and drank deeply from the aleskin he carried strapped across his shoulder. Then he rose and moved back to the precipice, where he could look down on the encamped army.

Fires had been lit by now, the descent of night’s darkness nearly complete, and the plains were bright with clusters of flame and the air thick with smoke. The army sprawled for almost a mile, bustling with activity, alive with sound and movement. Food was being prepared and bedding unrolled. Repairs were being undertaken and plans laid. Risca stared down from his perch, disheartened and angry. If strength of will and rage alone could have stopped this madness, his would have been sufficient. He caught a glimpse of a pair of Skull Bearers as they circled the inky skies beyond the aura of the firelight, searching for spies, and he hunched down into the concealing rocks, becoming one with the mountains, another colorless piece of the rough terrain. His eyes wandered the length and breadth of the campsite, but kept returning to the black silken litter in which the Warlock Lord reposed. It had been lowered to the ground now, set deep within the army’s midst, surrounded by Trolls and other creatures less human, a small island of silence within the teeming mass of activity. No fires were lit close to it. No creatures approached from the light. Blackness pooled about it like a lake, leaving it solitary and marked as inviolate.

Risca’s face hardened. The trouble begins and ends with the monster who occupies that tent, he was thinking. The Warlock Lord is the head of the beast that threatens us all. Cut off the head, and the beast dies.

Kill the Warlock Lord, and the danger ends.

Kill the Warlock Lord...

It was a wild, reckless, impulsive thought, and he did not allow himself to pursue it. He shoved it aside and forced himself to consider his responsibilities. Bremen was depending on him. He must bring word of this army to the Dwarves so that they could prepare for the invasion of their homeland. He must persuade the Dwarves to engage an army many times its size in a battle they could not hope to win. He must convince Raybur and the Elders of the Dwarf Council that a means would be found to destroy the Warlock Lord and that the Dwarves must buy with their lives the time that was needed to accomplish this. It was a tall order and would require a great sacrifice. It would be up to him to lead them, the warrior Druid who could stand against any creature the Warlock Lord might employ.

For Risca had been born to battle. It was all he knew. He grew to manhood in the Ravenshorn, the son of parents who had lived their entire lives in the Eastland wilderness. His father was a scout and his mother a trapper. There had been eight brothers and sisters on his father’s side and seven on his mother’s. Most of them lived within a few miles of one another still, and Risca had been raised by all at one time or another. Over the years of his boyhood, he saw as much of his aunts and uncles and cousins as he did his parents. There was a sharing of responsibility for raising the young in his family. The Dwarves of this part of the world were constantly at war with the Gnome tribes, and everyone was always at risk.

But Risca was equal to the challenge. He was taught to fight and hunt at an early age, and he discovered that he was good at it—better than good, in fact. He could sense things the others could not. He could spy out what was hidden from them. He was quick and agile and strong beyond his years. He understood the art of survival. He stayed alive when others did not.

At twelve, he was attacked by a Koden and killed the beast. He was thirteen when one of a company of twenty that was ambushed by Gnomes. He alone escaped. When his mother was killed setting lines, he was only fifteen, but he tracked down those responsible and dispatched them single-handedly. When his father died in a hunting accident, he carried his body deep into the heart of Gnome country and buried it there so that his spirit could continue the fight against their enemies. Half of his brothers and sisters were dead by then, lost to battle or sickness. He lived in a violent, unforgiving world, and his life was hard and uncertain. But Risca survived, and it was whispered when they thought he could not hear, for he was superstitious where fate was concerned, that the blade had not been forged that could kill him.

When he was twenty he came down out of the Ravenshorn to Culhaven and entered into the service of Raybur, newly crowned King of the Dwarves and a much admired warrior himself. But Raybur kept him in Culhaven only a short time before sending him to Paranor and the Druids. Raybur recognized Risca’s special talents and believed the Dwarf people would be best served if the young man with the warrior’s heart and the hunter’s skills was trained by the Druids. He, too, like Courtann Ballindarroch of the Elves, knew of Bremen and admired him. So a note was addressed to the old man, asking that he consider giving young Risca special consideration as a student. Thus bearing the note, Risca traveled to Paranor and the Druid’s Keep and stayed, becoming a staunch follower of Bremen and a believer in the ways of the magic.

His eyes stayed fixed on the black silken tent in the enemy camp below as he thought of the ways in which the magic now served him. His was the strongest after Bremen’s— stronger these days perhaps, given his youth and stamina and the other’s age. That was what he firmly believed, though he knew Tay Trefenwyd would certainly argue the matter. Like Tay, Risca had studied assiduously the lessons taught by Bremen, working at them even after the old man was banished, testing himself over and over again. He studied and trained virtually alone, for no others among the Druids, even Tay Trefenwyd, considered themselves warriors or sought to master the battle arts as he did. For Risca, the magic had but a single useful purpose—to protect himself and his friends and to destroy his enemies. The other uses of magic were of no interest to him—healing, divining, prescience, empathies, mastery of the sciences, elementalism, history, and conjuring. He was a fighter, and strength of arms was his passion.

The memories came and faded, and his thoughts returned to the matter at hand. What should he do? He could not abandon his responsibilities, but he could not ignore who he was either. Below, the silken folds of the tent seemed to ripple in the faint dance of the firelight. One blow was all it would take. How easily their problems would be solved if he could deliver it!

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was not afraid of Brona. He was aware of how dangerous the other was, how powerful, but he was not afraid. He possessed considerable magic himself, and if he employed it in a direct strike, he did not think that anyone or anything could withstand it.

He closed his eyes. Why was he even considering this? If he failed, there would be no one to give warning to the Dwarves! He would have given his life for nothing!

But if he were to succeed ...

He eased back into the rocks, slipped off his travel cloak, and began to strip away his weapons. He supposed his mind had been made up from the moment the idea had entered his head. Kill the Warlock Lord and put an end to this madness. He was the best suited of any of them to make the attempt. This was the ideal time, when the Northland army was still close to home and Brona believed himself safe from attack. Even if he died, too, it would be worth it. Risca was willing to make that sacrifice. A warrior was always prepared to make that sacrifice.

When he was down to his boots, pants, and tunic, he shoved a dagger in his belt, picked up his battle-axe, and started down through the rocks. It was nearing midnight by the time he reached the foot of the mountains and started across the plains. Overhead, the Skull Bearers still circled, but he was behind them by now and cloaked in magic that concealed him from their spying eyes. They were looking outward for enemies and would not see him. He walked easily, loosely, his approach silent in the black, the light of the campfires masking him from those who might notice his approach. Their sentry system was woefully inadequate. A perimeter of guards, a mix of Gnomes and Trolls, had placed themselves too far apart and too close to the light to be able to see anything coming in out of the dark. The skies were clouded and the night air was hazy with smoke, and it would take sharp eyes under the best of circumstances to catch sight of any movement on the plains.

Still, Risca took no chances. He came in at a crouch when the cover of grasses and scrub thinned, picking his place of approach carefully, choosing one of the Gnome sentries as a target. Leaving the battle-axe in the long grass, he went in with only the dagger.

The Gnome sentry never saw him. He dragged the body back out into the grasses, concealed it, wrapped himself in the fellow’s cloak, pulled up the hood to hide his face, picked up the axe again, and started in.

Another man would have thought twice about just walking right up to an enemy camp. Risca gave it barely any thought at all.

He knew that a direct approach was always best when you were trying to catch someone off guard, and that you tended to notice less of what was right before your eyes than of what lurked at the fringes of your vision. The tendency was to discount what didn’t make sense, and a lone enemy strolling right past you into the center of your own heavily armed camp made no sense at all.

Nevertheless, Risca stayed at the edges of the firelight as he entered, and he kept the cloak in place. He did not skulk or lower his head, for that would signal that something was wrong. He moved as if he belonged and did not alter his approach. He passed the outer perimeter of guards and fires and moved into the center of the camp. Smoke wafted past him, and he used it like a screen.

Shouts and laughter rose all about, men eating and drinking, telling tales and swapping lies. Armor and weapons clinked, and the pack animals stamped and snorted in the hazy dark. Risca moved through them all without slowing, never losing sight of his destination, now a ragged jut of poles and dark pennants lifting above the swarm of the army. He carried the battle-axe low against his side, and he projected himself through his magic as a soldier of no consequence, as just another Gnome Hunter on his way to somewhere unimportant.

He passed deep into the maze of fires and men, skirting wagons and stacks of supplies, tethered lines of pack animals and menders engaged in repair of traces and equipment, and vast racks of pikes and spears, their shafts and armored tips angling skyward. He kept to the portions of the camp that were occupied by Gnomes when he could, but now and again was forced to pass through clusters of Trolls. He shied from them as a Gnome might, deferential, wary, not showing fear, but not challenging either, turning away from them as he approached, not quite meeting the craggy, impersonal faces, the battle-hardened stares. He could feel their eyes settle on him and then move away. But no one stopped him or called him back. No one found him out.

Sweat ran down his back and under his arms, and it was not from the heat of the night. Now men were beginning to sleep, to roll themselves into their cloaks next to the fires and go quiet.

Risca went more swiftly. He needed the noise and the bustle to mask his movements. If everyone slept, he would seem out of place still moving about. He was closing on the Warlock Lord’s haven now—he could see its canopy lifting against the darkness ahead. The number of fires was thinning out as he approached, and the number of soldiers about them was dwindling. No one was allowed to come too close to the quarters of the Warlock Lord, and none wished to. Risca stopped at the edge of a fire where a dozen men lay sleeping. Trolls, huge, hard-featured fighters, their weapons lying next to them. He ignored them, studying the open ground ahead. A hundred feet separated the black tent on all sides from the sleeping army. There were no sentries to be seen. Risca hesitated. Why were there no guards? He glanced about carefully, searching for them. There were none to be found.

At that moment, he almost turned back. There was something wrong with this, he sensed. There should be guards. Did they wait within the tent? Were they somewhere he could not see? To find out, he would have to cross the open ground between the closest of the watch fires and the tent. There was enough light to reveal his coming, so he would have to use magic to cloak his approach. He would be all alone out there, and there would be nowhere to hide.

His mind raced. Would there be Skull Bearers? Were they all out hunting or did some remain behind to protect the Master? Did other creatures stand guard?

The questions burned through him, unanswerable.

He hesitated a moment longer, glancing about, listening, testing the air. Then he tightened his grip on the battle-axe and started forward. He brought the magic up to shield him, to help him blend into the night, to make him one with the darkness. Just a shading, so that even someone familiar with the magic would not be warned. Determination swept through him. He could do this. He must. He crossed the open ground, as silent as a cloud scudding across a windswept sky. No sounds reached out to him. No movement caught his eye. Even now, he could find no one protecting the tent.

Then he was beside it, the air about him gone deathly still, the sounds and smells and movements of the army faded away. He stood close to the black silk and waited for his instincts to warn him of a trap. When they did not, he brought the edge of the battleaxe, sharp as a razor, down the fabric’s dark skin and slit it open.

He heard something then—a sigh, perhaps, or a low moan. He stepped quickly through the opening.

Despite the blackness of the enclosure, his eyes were able to adjust immediately. There was nothing there—no people, no furniture, no weapons, no bedding, no sign of life. The tent was empty.

Risca stared in disbelief.

Then a hiss rose out of the silence, low and pervasive, and the air began to move in front of his face. The blackness coalesced, coming together to form a thing of substance where a moment earlier there had been nothing. A black-cloaked figure began to take shape. Risca realized what was happening and a terrible chill swept through him. The Warlock Lord had been there all along, there in the darkness, invisible, watching and waiting. Perhaps he had even known of Risca’s coming. He was not, as the Dwarf had believed, a creature of flesh and blood that could be killed with ordinary weapons. He had transcended his mortal shell through his magic and could now assume any form—or no form at all. No wonder there were no guards. None were needed.

The Warlock Lord reached out far him. For a second Risca found that he could not move and believed he would die without being able to lift a finger to save himself. Then the fire of his determination broke through his fear and galvanized him. He roared in defiance at the terrible black shape, at the skeletal hand that reached for him, at the eyes as red as blood, at his terror, at fate’s betrayal. His battle-axe came up in a huge sweep, the fire of his own magic sweeping its length. The Warlock Lord gestured, and Risca felt as if iron bands had fastened themselves about his body.

With a tremendous effort, he snapped them asunder and flung the battle-axe. The weapon smashed into the cloaked form and exploded in flames.

Risca did not wait to see the result of his strike. He knew instinctively that this was a battle he could not win. Strength of arms and fighting skills alone were not enough to defeat this enemy. The moment he released the axe, he dove back through the opening in the tent, scrambled to his feet, and broke for freedom.

Already shouts were rising out of the firelight, and men were waking from their sleep. Risca did not look behind him, but he could feel Brona’s presence like a black cloud, reaching out for him, trying to drag him back. He raced across the open ground and leaped through the nearest fire, kicking at the dying flames, scattering sparks and brands in every direction. He snatched up a sword from a sleeping man and dodged left into the haze of smoke from the scattered fire.

Alarms rose from every quarter. The hand of the Warlock Lord still reached for him, tightening about his chest, but it grew weaker as he widened the distance between them. His wits had scattered, and he tried to regain them. A Troll appeared before him, challenging his passage, and he left the dagger buried in the other’s throat. He reacted instinctively, unable to think clearly yet. Men were swirling all about him, running in every direction, searching for the cause of the uproar, still unaware that it was him. He forced himself to slow, to ignore the frantic beat of his pulse and the tightness about his chest. Shades! He had come so close! He moved swiftly now, but he no longer ran. By running, he drew attention to himself. He summoned his magic, abandoned at the moment of his flight, realizing for the first time that he had almost lost control of it completely, that he had almost given way to his fear. He cloaked himself swiftly, then angled left toward the open plains, a different direction than he had come, a direction in which they would not think to look. If he was discovered and had to fight his way clear, he would be killed. There were too many for him. Too many for any man, Druid or no.

Down through the camp he hastened, the heat of his encounter with the Warlock Lord threatening to suffocate him. He forced himself to breathe evenly, to ignore the turmoil of the waking camp, the shouts and cries, and the thudding of booted feet as squads of armed soldiers were dispatched in every direction.

Ahead, he could see the blackness of the plains appear, the sweep of emptiness that lay beyond the ring of campfires. Guards were standing all about the perimeter, but they were looking out into the darkness in expectation of an attack from that direction. He had an almost irresistible urge to look back over his shoulder, to see what might be following, but something warned him that if he did so he would reveal himself. Perhaps the Warlock Lord would see his eyes and know who he was, even from within his concealment.

Perhaps he would recognize his face. Maybe that would be enough to undo him. Risca did not turn. He continued ahead, slowing to choose the point of his escape as he neared the perimeter of the camp.

“You and you,” he said to a pair of Gnomes as he passed between them, not bothering to slow so that they could see his face, using their own language to address them, a language he had spoken fluently since he was ten. He beckoned. “Come with me.”

They did not question. Soldiers seldom did. He had the appearance and look of an officer, and so they went without argument.

He strode out into the darkness as if he knew what he was about, as if he had a mission to perform. He took them far into the night, then dispatched them in opposite directions and simply walked away. He did not try to go back for his weapons and cloak, knowing it was too dangerous. He was fortunate to be alive, and it would not do to tempt fate further. He breathed the night air deeply, slowing his pulse. Did Bremen know the nature of their enemy? he wondered. Did the old man realize the power that the Warlock Lord possessed? He must, for he had gone into the monster’s lair and spied on him. Risca wished he had asked a few more questions of the old man when he had the chance. Had he done so, he would never have considered attempting to destroy Brona on his own. He would have realized that he lacked the weapons. No wonder Bremen sought a talisman. No wonder he relied on the visions of the dead to advise him.

He searched the skies for the Skull Bearers, but he did not see them. Nevertheless, he kept his magic in place so that he remained concealed. He walked out into the Rabb and turned southeast for the Anar. Before morning’s light could reveal him, he would be safely within the concealment of the trees. He had escaped to fight another day and could count himself lucky to be able to say so.

But what sort of fight could he manage against an enemy like the Warlock Lord? What could he tell the Dwarves to give them hope?

The answers eluded him. He walked on into the night, searching for them.

Chapter Thirteen

Two days later the Northland army was encamped within twenty miles of Storlock. The army had crossed the plains unhindered, angling east toward the Anar, staying clear of the entangling forests, a huge, sluggish worm inching its way steadily closer to the haven of the Dwarves. Watch fires burned in the distance against a twilight sky, a bright yellow haze that stretched for miles across the flats. Kinson Ravenlock could see the glow from as far away as the edge of the Dragon’s Teeth below the mouth of the Valley of Shale. The army would have spent the afternoon crossing the Rabb River before settling in. At sunrise it would resume its march south, which meant that by sunset tomorrow it would reach a point directly opposite the village of the Stors.

Which meant in turn, the Borderman realized, that he and Mareth must cross the Rabb tonight, ahead of the army’s advance, if they wished to avoid being trapped on the wrong side of the plains.

He stood motionless in the shadow of a cleft in the rocks some fifty feet above the plains and found himself wishing they had been able to get this far a day earlier so that a night crossing would not have been necessary. He knew that with the coming of darkness Brona’s winged hunters would be abroad, prowling the open spaces that lay between them and safety. It was not an appealing thought. He glanced back to where Mareth sat rubbing her feet in an effort to alleviate the ache of the day’s forced march, her boots dumped unceremoniously on the ground along with her cloak and their few provisions. They could not have come faster than they had, he knew. He had pushed her hard just to get this far. She was still weak from her experience in the Druid’s Keep; her stamina drained quickly and she required frequent rests. But she had not complained once, not even when he had insisted they must forgo sleep until they reached Storlock. She had great determination, he acknowledged grudgingly. He just wished he understood her a little better.

He looked back out at the plains, at the watch fires, at the darkness as it rolled out of the east and descended in gathering layers across the landscape. Tonight it was, then. He wished he had magic to hide them on their passage, but he might as well wish he could fly. He could not ask her to use hers, of course. Bremen had forbidden it. And Bremen himself was absent still, so there was no help to be found there.

“Come eat something,” Mareth called to him.

He turned and walked down out of the rocks. She had set out plates with bread, cheese, and fruit, and poured ale into metal cups. They had bartered for their provisions with a farmer above Varfleet yesterday evening, and this was the last of what they had acquired. He sat down across from her and began to eat. He did not look at her. They were two days gone from fallen Paranor, having come down out of the Kennon once more and turned east along the Mermidon, following it below the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth to here. Bremen had sent them ahead, had given them strict orders to go on without him, to follow the Mermidon to the Rabb and then cross to Storlock. There they were to inquire after a man the Druid believed was living somewhere within the Eastland wilderness of the Upper Anar, a man of whom Kinson had never heard. They were to determine where he might be found, and then they were to wait until Bremen could rejoin them. The Druid did not explain what it was that he would be doing in the meantime.

He did not explain why they were looking for this unknown man, He simply told them what to do—told Kinson what to do, more to the point, since Mareth was still sleeping at that juncture—and then disappeared into the trees.

Kinson believed that he had gone back into the Druid’s Keep, and the Borderman once more wondered why. They had fled Paranor in a maelstrom of sound and fury, of magic unleashed and gone wild, some of it Mareth’s and some the Keep’s itself. It was as if a beast had risen to devour them, and it had seemed to Kinson that he could feel its breath on his neck and hear the scrape of its claws as it pursued them. But they had escaped to the forests without and hidden there in night’s fading dark while the rage of the beast vented itself and died away. They had remained in the shelter of the trees all the next day and let Mareth sleep. Bremen had tended her, obviously concerned at first, but when she had come awake long enough to drink a cup of water before sleeping again, he had ceased to worry.

“Her magic is too powerful for her” was how he had explained it to Kinson. They were keeping watch over her in the latemorning hours after she had awakened and gone back to sleep again. The sun was high overhead, and the dark memory of the night before was beginning to fade. Paranor was a silent presence beyond the screen of the trees, gone as still as death, emptied of life. “It seems obvious that she came to the Druids in an effort to find a way to better understand it. I suppose she was not with them long enough to do so. Perhaps she asked to come with us believing we might help her.”

He shook his gray head. “But did you see? She summoned her magic to protect me from the creatures Brona had left to ward against my return, and instantly she lost all control! She seems unable to judge the measure of what is needed. Or perhaps judgment is not an issue at all, and what happens is that on being summoned, her magic assumes whatever form it chooses. Whatever the case, it rolls out of her like a flood! In the Druid’s Keep, it swallowed those creatures as if they were gnats. It was so powerful that it alerted the magic the Keep maintains for its own protection, the earth magic set in place by the first Druids. This was magic I tested on my return to make certain it could still guard against an attempt to destroy the Keep. I could not protect the Druids from the Warlock Lord, but I could ward Paranor. Mareth’s magic was so pervasive in its destruction of Brona’s creatures that it suggested that the Keep itself was in danger and thereby conjured forth the earth magic as well.”

“Hers is innate magic, you once said,” Kinson mused. “Where would it have come from to be so strong?”

The old man pursed his lips. “Another Druid, perhaps. An Elf who carries the old magic in his blood. A faerie creature, survived from the old world. It could be any of those.” He arched one eyebrow quizzically. “I wonder if even she knows the answer.”

“I wonder if she would tell us if she did” was Kinson’s reply.

Thus far, she had barely spoken of it. By the time she came awake, Bremen had gone. It was left to Kinson to advise her that she was not to use her magic again until Bremen had returned and counseled her. She accepted the edict with little more than a nod.

She said nothing of what had happened in the Keep. She seemed to have forgotten the matter entirely.

He finished his meal and looked up again. She was watching him.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I was wondering about the man we are sent to find. I was wondering why Bremen considers him so important.”

She nodded slowly. “Cogline.”

“Do you know the name?”

She did not respond. She seemed not to have heard.

“Perhaps one of your friends at Storlock will be able to help us.”

Her eyes went flat. “I have no friends at Storlock.”

For a moment he simply stared at her, uncomprehending. “But I thought you told Bremen ...”

“I lied.” She took a breath and her gaze fell away from his. “I lied to him, and I lied to everyone at Paranor before him. It was the only way I could gain acceptance. I was desperate to study with the Druids, and I knew they would not let me if I did not give them a reason. So I told them I had studied with the Stors. I gave them written documents to support the claim, all false. I deliberately misled them.” Her gaze lifted. “But I would like to stop lying now and tell the truth.”

The darkness was complete about them, the last of the daylight faded, and they sat cloaked within it, barely able to make each other out. Because they would cross the Rabb that night, Kinson had not bothered with a fire. Now he wished he had so that he could better see her face.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that this might be a good time for the truth. But how am I to know if what you tell me is the truth or simply another lie?”

She smiled faintly, sadly. “You will know.”

He held her gaze. “The lies were because of your magic, weren’t they?” he guessed.

“You are perceptive, Kinson Ravenlock,” she told him. “I like you for that. Yes, the lies were made necessary because of my magic. I am desperate to find a way to...” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “To live with myself. I have struggled with my power for too long, and I am growing weary and despairing. I have thought at times that I would end my life because of what it has done to me.”

She paused, looking off into the dark. “I have had the magic since birth. Innate magic, as I told Bremen. That much was the truth. I never knew my father. My mother died giving birth to me. I was raised by people I did not know. If I had relatives, they never revealed themselves. The people who raised me did so for reasons that I have never understood. They were hard, taciturn people, and they told me little. I think there was a sense of obligation, but they never explained it’s source. I was gone from them by the time I was twelve, apprenticed to a potter, sent to his shop to fetch and haul materials, to clean up, to observe if I wished, but mostly to do what I was told. I had the magic, of course, but like myself it had not yet matured and was still just a vague presence that manifested itself only in small ways.

“As I grew to womanhood, the magic blossomed within me. One day the potter tried to beat me, and I defended myself out of instinct, calling on the magic for protection. I nearly killed him. I left then, and went out into the border country to find a new place to live. For a time, I lived in Varfleet.“ Her smile returned. ”Perhaps we even crossed paths once upon a time. Or were you already gone? Gone, I suppose.“ She shrugged. ”I was attacked again a year later. There were several men this time, and they had more in mind than a beating. I called up the magic again. I could not control it. I killed two of them. I left Varfleet and went east.”

Her smile turned mocking and bitter. “You see a pattern to all this, I imagine. I began to believe I could live with no one because I could not trust myself. I drifted from community to community, from farm to farm, earning my way however I could. It was a useful time. I discovered new things about my magic. It was not merely destructive; it was also restorative. I was empathic, I found. I could apply the magic and bring healing to those who were injured. I discovered this by accident when a man I knew and liked was injured and in danger of dying from a fall. It was a revelation that gave me hope. The magic used in this way was controllable. I could not understand why, but it seemed governable when called upon to heal and not to destroy. Perhaps anger is inherently less manageable than sympathy. I don’t know.

“In any case, I went to live with the Stors, to ask to be allowed to study with them, to learn to use my skills. But they did not know me and would not accept me into their order. They are Gnomes, and no member of another race has ever been allowed to study with them. They refused to make an exception for me. I tried for months to persuade them otherwise, staying in their village, watching them at their work, taking meals with them when they would let me, asking for a chance and nothing more.

“Then one day a man came down out of the wilderness to visit with the Stors. He wanted something from them, something of their lore, and they did not seem concerned in the least about giving it to him. I marveled. After months of begging for scraps, I had been given nothing. Now this man appears out of nowhere, a Southlander, not a Gnome, and the Stors can’t wait to help him. I decided to ask him why.”

She scuffed her boot against the earth as if digging at the past.

“He was strange-looking, tall and thin, all angles and bones, pinch-faced and wild-haired. He seemed constantly distracted by his thoughts, as if it were the most difficult thing in the world to hold a simple conversation. But I made him speak with me. I made him listen to my story. It became clear as I went along that he understood a great deal about magic. So I told him everything. I confided in him. I don’t know why to this day, but I did. He told me the Stors would not have me, that there was no point in remaining in the village. Go to Paranor and the Druids, he suggested. I laughed. They would not have me either, I pointed out. But he said they would. He told me what to tell them. He helped me make up a story and he wrote the papers that would gain me acceptance. He said he knew something of the Druids, that he had been a Druid once, long ago. I was not to mention his name, though. He was not held in favor, he said.

“I asked his name then, and he told it to me. Cogline. He told me that the Druids were no longer what they once were. He told me that with the exception of Bremen they did not go out into the Four Lands as they once had. They would accept the story he had provided for me if I could demonstrate my healing talents. They would not bother to check further on me because they were trusting to a fault. He was right. I did as he told me, and the Druids took me in.”

She sighed. “But you see why I asked Bremen to take me with him, don’t you? The study of magic is not encouraged at Paranor, not in any meaningful way. Only a few, like Risca and Tay, have any real understanding of it. I was given no chance to discover how to control my own. If I had revealed its presence, I would have been sent away at once. The Druids are afraid of the magic. Were afraid rather, for now they are all gone.”

“Has your magic grown more powerful?” he asked as she paused. “Has it become more uncontrollable? Was it so when you called it up within the Keep?”

“Yes.” Her mouth tightened in a hard line, and there were sudden tears in her eyes. “You saw. It overwhelmed me completely. It was like a flood threatening to drown me. I could not breathe!”

“And so you look to Bremen to help you find a way to master it, the one Druid who might have an understanding of its power.”

She looked directly at him. “I do not apologize for what I have done.”

He gave her a long look. “I never thought for a minute that you would. Nor do I propose to judge you for your choice. I have not lived your life. But I think the lies should end here. I think you should tell to Bremen when we see him next what you have told to me. If you expect his help, you should at least be honest with him.”

She nodded, wiping irritably at her eyes. “I intend that,” she said. She looked small and vulnerable, but her voice was hard. She would give up nothing further of herself, he realized. She must have agonized over telling him as much as she had.

“I can be trusted,” she said suddenly, as if reading his mind.

“With everything but your magic,” he amended.

“No. Even with that. I can be trusted not to use it until Bremen tells me to.”

He studied her wordlessly for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.” He was thinking suddenly, unexpectedly, that they were much alike. Both had traveled far to leave the past behind, and for neither was the journey finished. Both had bound themselves to Bremen, their lives inextricably intertwined with his, and neither could envision now that there had ever been any other choice.

He glanced at the sky and climbed to his feet. “Time for us to be on our way.”

They blackened their faces and hands, tied down their metal implements and weapons so they would not clink, went down from their hiding place in the rocks, and set out across the Rabb.

The night air was cool and soft, a small breeze blowing out of the foothills and carrying with it the scents of sage and cedar. Clouds drifted overhead, screening away the half-moon and stars so that their light was diffused and they appeared only in brief glimpses.

Sound traveled far on such a night, so Kinson and Mareth walked softly, carefully in the tall grasses, avoiding the loose rock that might betray their presence. North, the light of the encamped army was a blaze of smoky saffron against the dark, stretched between the Dragon’s Teeth west and the Anar east. Every so often Kinson would stop and listen, picking out the sounds that belonged, wary of those that didn’t. Mareth followed a step behind and did not speak. Kinson could feel her there without having to look, a shadow at his back.

The hours passed, and the plains stretched away about them, lengthening as they crossed so that for a time it appeared they were making no headway. Kinson kept watch over the clouded skies, wary of the winged hunters that would be prowling the night. He kept watch out of habit and not because he expected to see the dark ones. He had learned from experience that he would feel them first, and when he did he must hide at once, for if he waited until he saw them it would be too late. But the unpleasant tingling, the rush of chilling trepidation, the warning of something untoward did not come, and with Mareth following dutifully, he pressed on.

They stopped once to drink from their aleskins, crouching down in a twisting gully choked with brush, sitting close together in the dark. Kinson found himself wondering what it must have been like for her, bereft of family and friends, made outcast by her magic, left homeless by circumstance and choice alike. She showed courage, he thought, in persevering, in not giving up when it would have been easy for her to do so. Nor had she compromised herself or others in choosing her path. He wondered how much of this Bremen had deduced in making his decision to allow her to accompany them. He wondered how well Mareth had succeeded in deceiving the old man. Not so well as she thought, he suspected. He knew from experience that Bremen could look inside you as if you were made of glass and see all the working parts. That was one reason he had managed to stay alive all these years.

Sometime after midnight one of the Skull Bearers crossed their path. He came out of the east, from the direction in which they were proceeding, surprising Kinson, who was thinking any danger would come from the north. He sensed the creature and went down on his face in a patch of brush immediately, dragging Mareth after him. He could tell from the look on her face that she knew what was happening. He pulled her close against him, deep within the concealment.

“Do not look up,” he whispered. “Do not even think of what flies above us. It will sense us if you do.”

They lay against the earth as the creature flew closer and the fear within them grew until it rushed through them like the sun’s heat at midday. Kinson forced himself to breathe normally and to think of days gone when he was a boy hunting with his brothers.

He held himself quiet, his body still, his muscles relaxed, his eyes closed. Pressed against him, Mareth matched his breathing and his poise. The Skull Bearer passed overhead, circling. Kinson could feel it, knowing how close it was from experience, from his days spent scouting in the Northland, when the winged hunters had scoured the land in which he traveled every night. Bremen had taught him how to avoid them, how to survive. The feelings the monsters generated could not be avoided, but they could be endured. The feelings alone, after all, could not cause harm.

Mareth understood. She did not shift or tremble within the crook of his arm. She did not attempt to rise or bolt from their hiding place. She lay as he did, patient and determined.

At last the Skull Bearer flew on, moving to another part of the plains, leaving them shaken, but relieved. It was always like this, Kinson thought, climbing to his feet. He hated the feeling, hated the shame it generated within him to have to cower so, to have to hide. But he would have hated dying more.

He gave Mareth a reassuring smile, and they walked on into the night.

They reached Storlock just before dawn, wet and bedraggled from a sudden shower that had caught them only a mile or so from the village. Sad-faced and deferential, the white-robed Stors came out to meet them and take them inside. Hardly a word was spoken; words did not seem necessary. The Stors appeared to recognize them both and asked no questions. It was possible they were remembered from before, Kinson thought as he was led in out of the weather. Mareth had lived among the Stors, and he had visited them on several occasions with Bremen. In any case, it made things simpler. Though typically aloof and preoccupied, the Stors were generous with both food and shelter. As if they had been expecting their guests all along, the Stors provided hot soup, dry clothes, and beds in guest rooms in the main building. Within an hour of their arrival, Kinson and Mareth were asleep.

When they woke, it was late afternoon. The rain had stopped, so they stepped outside to look around. The village was quiet, and the surrounding forest felt empty of life. As they walked the roadways from one end to the other, Stors passed wraithlike and silent in pursuit of their tasks, barely looking up at the strangers. No one approached them. No one spoke. They visited several of the hospitals where the Healers were at work on the people who had come to them from various parts of the Four Lands. No one seemed concerned that they were there. No one asked them to leave. While Mareth stopped to play with a pair of small Gnome children who had been burned in a cooking accident, Kinson walked outside and stood looking off into the darkening trees, thinking of the dangers posed by the approach of the Northland army.

At dinner, he told Mareth of his concern. The army would have reached a point on the Rabb close to where the village lay. If there was a need for food or supplies, as there almost always was, scouts would be sent to forage and Storlock would be in real danger.

Most knew of the Stors and the work they did, and they respected their privacy. But Brona’s army would be held to a different code of conduct, a different set of rules, and the protections normally afforded the village would likely be absent. What would become of the Stors if one of the Skull Bearers came prowling? The Healers had no means of protecting themselves; they knew nothing of fighting. They relied solely on their neutrality and disinterest in politics to keep them safe. But where the winged hunters were concerned, was that enough?

While mulling this dilemma over, they asked after Cogline and discovered almost immediately where he could be found. It seemed not to be any great secret. Cogline kept in regular contact with the Stors, preferring to deal with them to obtain what he needed as opposed to the trading posts that dotted the fringes of the wilderness into which he had retreated. The once-Druid had made his home deep within the Anar, in the seldom traversed tangle of Darklin Reach at a place called Hearthstone. Even Kinson had never heard of Hearthstone, though he knew of Darklin Reach and regarded it as a place to be avoided. Spider Gnomes lived there, wiry, barely human creatures so wild and primitive they communed with spirits and sacrificed to old gods.

Darklin Reach was a world frozen in time, unchanged since the advent of the Great Wars, and Kinson was not pleased to learn that they would probably have to travel there.

After dinner was completed and the Stors had drifted back to whatever work commanded their attention, the Borderman sat with the girl on a hard-backed bench on the dining-hall porch and looked out at the gathering gloom. His thoughts were distracting to him. Bremen had not appeared. Perhaps he was still at Paranor.

Perhaps he was trapped on the other side of the Rabb, with the Northland army settled between them. Kinson did not like the uncertainty of it. He did not like being forced to await the Druid’s arrival, kept idle when he would rather be active. He could wait when it was necessary, but he questioned the reason for waiting now. It seemed to him that Bremen should have sent him on ahead to look for Cogline, even if it meant going into Darklin Reach. It felt to him as if time was slipping away from them all.

A line of Stors appeared from the hall, cloaked and hooded, withdrawn and secretive. They went down the porch steps and across the roadway to another building, their white forms slowly fading into the gray haze of twilight, ghosts in the night. Kinson wondered at their single-mindedness, at the peculiar mix of dedication to work and obliviousness to the world beyond their tiny village. He glanced at Mareth, trying to picture her as one of them, wondering if she still wished she had been accepted into their order. Would the isolation better agree with her, beset by the dictates of her magic’s use, by the threat of its escape? Would she feel less constrained here than at Paranor? The puzzle of her life intrigued him, and he found himself thinking of her in ways he had never thought of anyone else.

He slept poorly that night, plagued by dreams rife with faceless, threatening creatures. When he came awake shortly before dawn, he was on his feet and had his sword in hand almost before he realized what he was doing. There were voices without, harsh and guttural, and he could hear the ring and scrape of armor. He knew at once what had happened. Leaving his boots behind, taking only his sword, he eased from his bedroom and slipped down the hallway to the front entry where a bank of windows opened onto the main street. Keeping to the shadows, he peered out.

A large Troll raiding party had appeared in the roadway and was facing a small cluster of Stors who stood on the steps of the main healing center across the way. The Trolls were armed and threatening; their gestures made it clear that they intended to go inside. The Stors were not opposing them in an overt manner, but neither were they giving way. The angry voices belonged to the Trolls; the Stors were silent and stoic in the face of the intruders’ threats. Kinson could not tell what the Trolls wanted—whether it was food and supplies or something more. But he could tell that the Trolls were not going to give up on their demands. They understood as clearly as he did that there was no one in the village to oppose them.

Kinson stared from darkened building to shadowed walkway, from heavy forest to open road, and considered his options. He could stay where he was and hope that nothing happened. If he did that, he was condemning the Stors to whatever fate the Trolls decided upon. He could attack the Trolls from the rear and probably kill as many as four or five before the rest overpowered him. Not much would be accomplished with that. Once he was killed, as he surely would be, the Trolls would be free to do as they chose with the Stors anyway. He could try a diversion. But there was nothing to guarantee that he would draw all of the Trolls away from the village or that they would not return later.

He thought suddenly of Mareth. She had the power to save these people. Her magic was powerful enough to incinerate the entire Troll raiding party before even one could blink. But Mareth was forbidden to use her magic, and without her magic she was as vulnerable as the Stors.

Across the way, one of the Trolls had begun to climb the steps onto the porch, his huge pike lowered menacingly. The Stors waited for him, white-robed sheep in the path of a wolf. Kinson gripped his sword tighter and moved to the front door, easing it carefully open. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it quickly.

He was ready to step out from the shadows of the doorway when a shriek arose from the midst of the beleaguered Stors.

Someone pushed through them from out of the building they warded, a shambling, half-clothed figure that tottered and nailed as if beset by a form of madness. Rags trailed from the figure, the bindings for wounds that now lay open and weeping. The creature’s face was ravaged by sores and lesions, the body made frail by a wasting disease that had left the bones taut against the mottled and withered skin.

The figure stumbled from the midst of the Stors to the edge of the porch, wailing in despair. The Trolls brought up their weapons guardedly, the foremost falling back a step in shock.

“Plague!” the ravaged creature howled, the word rising up in the silence, harsh and terrible. A swarm of insects rose off the creature’s back, buzzing madly. “Plague, plague everywhere! Flee! Flee!”

The creature swayed and dropped to its knees. Bits of flesh fell from it, and blood dripped from its open wounds onto me wooden steps, steaming in the cool night air. Kinson winced in horror. The disease was causing it quite literally to fall apart!

It was all too much for the Trolls. Soldiers to the core, they were brave in the face of enemies they could see, but as terrified of the invisible as the meekest shopkeeper. They fell back in disarray, trying not to show fear, but determined not to stay another moment in close proximity to the disaster that had collapsed on the steps before them. Their leader waved off the Stors and their village in a gesture of anxious defiance, and the entire patrol hurried back down the roadway in the direction of the Rabb and disappeared into the trees.

When they were gone, Kinson stepped into the light, sword lowering as the pulse of his body slowed and the heat of his blood cooled. He looked back at the Stors across the way, finding them clustered about the strange apparition, heedless of the disease that ravaged it. Forcing himself to ignore his own fear, he crossed to see if he could be of help.

On reaching them, he found Mareth standing in their midst.

“I broke my promise,” she said, her large dark eyes anxious, her smooth face troubled. “I’m sorry, but I could not stand by and see them harmed.”

“You used your magic,” he guessed, amazed.

“Just a little. Just that part that goes into the healing, the part I use as an empath. I can reverse it to make what is well appear sick.”

“Appear?”

“Well, mostly.” She hesitated. He could see the weariness now, the dark circles about her eyes, the lines of fading pain etched at the comers of her mouth. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her fingers were crooked and rigid. “You understand, Kinson. It was necessary.”

“And dangerous,” he added.

Her eyelids fluttered. She was on the verge of a real collapse. “I am all right now. I just need to sleep. Can you help me walk?”

He shook his head in dismay, picked her up without a word, and carried her back to her room.

The following day, the Northland army decamped and moved south. One day later, Bremen appeared. Mareth had recovered from the effects of her magic and looked strong and well again, but Bremen appeared to have taken her place. He was haggard and worn, dust-covered and spattered with mud, and clearly angered.

He ate, bathed, dressed in fresh clothing, and then told them what had kept him. After making certain that the magic that warded the Druid’s Keep was returned to its safehold and that the Keep was intact, he had gone once more to the Hadeshorn to speak with the spirits of the dead. He was hoping that he might learn more of the visions he had been shown on his last visit, that something further might be revealed to him. But the spirits would not speak, would not even appear, and the waters of the lake rose up in such fury at his summons that they threatened to inundate him, to drag him down into their depths for the audacity of his intrusion. His voice took on an edge as he described his treatment. He had been given all the help he was going to get, it appeared. Their fate, from here forward, was largely in their own hands.

On being asked of Cogline, he demurred. Time enough for that later. For now, they would have to be patient and let an old man catch up on his sleep.

Kinson and Mareth knew better than to argue. A few days of rest were clearly necessary to restore the old man’s strength.

But before the sun had risen the following day, the Druid collected them from their beds and in the deep, predawn silence took them out of the still sleeping village of the Stors toward Darklin Reach.

Chapter Fourteen

With Preia Starle and Retten Kipp still absent and the Sarandanon drawing near, Tay Trefenwyd now assumed the point position for the little company from Arborlon. Jerle Shannara objected, but not strongly, conceding Tay’s argument that with his Druid skills he was best suited to keep watch against whatever threatened. Tay spun out a faint webbing of magic, strands that extended like nerve endings to warn him of what waited ahead. Using his Druid training, he drew upon his command of the elements to test for the presence of intruders.

Nothing revealed itself.

Behind him, the others fanned out, keeping watch left and right.

The morning warmed, the dampness of the past two days dried, and the trees ahead thinned so that the valley of the Sarandanon grew visible, its broad sweep spreading away into the haze of the mountains farther west.

Tay’s mind wandered. For the first time since his return from Paranor, he allowed himself to consider what losing Preia Starle might mean. It was an odd exercise, since she had never really been his to lose in the first place. To the extent that she belonged to anyone, she belonged to Jerle. She had always belonged to him, and Tay had known it. But he realized that he had thought of her as his anyway, that he had loved her steadfastly and without bitterness toward Jerle, accepting as settled her relationship with his best friend, content to keep her as he might a memory that he could call up and admire but never really possess. He was a Druid, and Druids did not take mates, their lives given over to the pursuit of knowledge and the dissemination of learning. They lived apart and they died alone. But their feelings were the same as those of other men and women, and Tay understood that somehow he had always been sustained by his feelings for Preia.

What would it mean for him if she was gone?

The question burned through him like fire, heating his blood, searing his skin, threatening to immolate him. He could barely get through the question, let alone address the answer. What if she was dead? He had always been prepared to lose her in other ways.

He knew that she would marry Jerle one day. He knew that they would have children and a life apart from him. He had separated himself from any other possibility long ago. He had left all that behind when he had gone to live among the Druids, to be a member of their order. He recognized that what he felt for her could find no expression in real life, but must remain a fantasy locked within his imagination—that she was never to be more to him than a close friend.

But thinking of her dead, of her life ended, forced him to concede what before he could never admit—that he had always harbored the hope, however faint, that somehow the impossible might happen and she would forsake Jerle to become his.

The realization was so strong that for a moment he lost track of where he was, let loose the strands of his seeking magic, gave up the sweep of the dark places that waited ahead, and was made blind to everything but this single truth. Preia his—he had kept the dream alive and carefully protected in the secretmost corner of his mind. Preia his, because he could not stop himself from wanting her.

Oh, Shades!

He recovered himself in the next instant, gathered up the lines of his magic, and pushed on. He could not afford such thoughts.

He did not dare to think further of Preia Starle. The admonishments of Bremen came rushing back, words spoken with the. iron weight of armor being fastened to his body. Persuade the Elves to come to the aid of the Dwarves. Find the Black Elfstone. Those two charges ruled his life. Nothing else mattered. There were lives beyond his own and those of the people he loved that depended on his perseverance, on his diligence, on his resolve. He looked off into the haze of the valley ahead and carried himself out from the present and into the future by strength of will alone.

By midday, they had crossed into the Sarandanon. Twice more, they encountered the tracks of Gnome Hunters in large numbers without seeing the Gnomes themselves. The Elves were edgy now, anxious to gain the mounts they had been promised and to be gone from this region. If they were caught out in the open by a superior force with no way to flee, they would be in serious trouble. Tay searched the earth and air for Gnomes and found signs of their passing all about, but still no actual presence. The Gnomes, he decided, were crisscrossing the valley’s east end in search of them. If they had found Preia, they would know she was not alone. A Tracker would be with a larger party, scouting ahead for them. Had they found Preia then? Was he conceding as much?

It seemed an unavoidable conclusion, given the discovery of her broken bow amid the cluster of enemy footprints. All of which led once more to the inevitable second question he was so desperately trying to avoid.

Jerle knew all of the valley outposts where horses were kept quartered for Elven Hunter use, and he made for the closest. The land was rolling and thick with tall grasses where the crop fields did not extend. They kept to these, staying down off the hills.

When they were less than a mile from their destination, Tay gained a strong sense of Gnome Hunters and brought the party to a stop. Somewhere close ahead, a trap had been set. The Gnomes were expecting them. Leaving the others to await their return, Tay and Jerle went on alone, working their way south and then north again to come in from a different direction than the one from which they were expected. Tay’s magic sheltered them from discovery and gave them eyes with which to see. By the time they neared the small cluster of buildings that formed the outpost, Tay had determined that it was here the trap had been laid. The wind, no more than a soft breeze, blew into their faces, and both could smell the enemy clearly, a rough mix of body oil and earth, heavy and pungent. No effort was being made to disguise it. Tay was instantly alarmed. Gnome Hunters would normally be more cautious than this. They crawled to where they could see one side of the barn and the whole of the paddock in which the horses were kept. There was nothing there. The paddock was empty. No one moved in the yard. No sounds came from the house.

Yet something was hidden there. Tay was certain of it.

Unwilling to leave without determining what had happened, both of them thinking separately and without saying so that Preia Starle might be involved, they eased their way along a drainage ditch behind a pasture of new wheat, so that they could see the front of the house and barn. Tay could now sense movement in both buildings, restless and furtive. Gnome Hunters, waiting. He tried to sense the presence of anything else, of anything more dangerous. Nothing. Tay breathed slowly, easily, following Jerle’s lead as his friend slipped silently ahead. He was conscious of the wheat stalks singing faintly with their movement in the wind and of the deep, vast silence of the land beyond. He was reminded of what it had felt like when they had slipped into the house of the Ballindarrochs on the night of the slaughter—of the sense of foreboding, of the whisper of doom.

Then they were where Jerle wanted them, still concealed within the wheat, but close enough to see the front of the outpost. Jerle lifted his head slightly and then dropped quickly down again, his face ashen. Tay stared at him a moment, searching his eyes, then rose cautiously to look for himself.

Retten Kipp hung spread-eagled from the barn door, where nails had been driven through his hands and feet to hold him in place. Blood dripped from his wounds and stained the splintered wood. Hair and clothes drooped limply, as if from the stick frame of a scarecrow. But then Kipp’s head lifted slightly. The old Tracker, though dying, was still alive.

Tay sank down, eyes closing momentarily. Rage and fear coursed through him, struggling for control of his reason. No wonder the Gnomes had not worked harder at hiding their presence. With Retten Kipp to bait their trap, they knew the Elves must show themselves. He fought to bring his feelings under control, staring grim-faced at Jerle Shannara.

His friend’s blue eyes were cold and steady as he bent close.

“Do they have Preia as well?” he whispered.

Tay did not reply. He did not trust himself. Instead, he closed his eyes a second time and sent his threads of magic into the house and barn, searching for the Elf girl. There was risk in this, but he saw no other way. He took his time, going deep inside each building to make certain.

Then he let his eyes open again. “No,” he breathed.

Jerle nodded, letting nothing show in his face of what that meant to him. His mouth twisted. His words were barely audible.

“We cannot save Retten Kipp—but we cannot leave him either.”

He stared at Tay, waiting. Tay nodded. He knew what Jerle was asking. “I understand,” he breathed softly.

This would be dangerous, he knew. The Gnome Hunters might not sense his use of the magic, but a Skull Bearer most certainly would. He had not discovered any of the winged hunters in his search for Preia, but they might be deliberately concealing themselves. This trap might have been designed specifically for him, one of the Druids they hunted, to bring him to them and then to draw him out. If a Skull Bearer was present and he did what Jerle wanted, they were lost. Still, there was little choice. Jerle was right. They could not leave Kipp to die this way.

He summoned his magic and wrapped himself in its dark cloak, stirring the air about him with its power, feeling the heat of its passion rise within his chest. He kept his eyes open, for this time his use of the magic would require sight and direction. His face altered and assumed the character of a death mask. He watched Jerle shrink from him, dismayed. He understood the look.

Then he lifted his head just high enough so that he could see Retten Kipp’s ragged, tortured form and spun the magic toward him along the slender thread of his lifeline. He proceeded cautiously, testing the ether he penetrated, wary of what he might find waiting. But nothing revealed itself, and so he continued on.

When he reached Retten Kipp’s heart, when he could feel his pain and suffering, when he could hear the sound of his ragged breathing as if it were his own, he drew away the air that fed the old man’s failing lungs and then waited patiently until his breathing stopped.

When it was finished, he slid down next to Jerle, his face shiny with sweat. There were tears in his eyes. “Done,” he whispered.

Jerle Shannara put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently to comfort him. “It was necessary, Tay. He was in pain. We could not simply leave him.”

Tay nodded wordlessly, knowing Jerle was right, but knowing as well that his friend would not have to live with the memory of Retten Kipp’s life thread pulsing gently between his fingers and then going still. He felt cold and empty. He felt ravaged and abandoned.

Jerle beckoned to him, and together they made their way back along the ditch and through the fields, leaving the outpost and its inhabitants, living and dead, behind.

It took them the better part of an hour to reach their comrades.

By now it was nearing midafternoon, and the sun was lowering toward the jagged tips of the Breakline. They walked into its burning glare, half-blind when they were forced to move out of the shadow of the fields and hills and along the flats. Tay continued to lead, his magic spread out before them in a wide net, searching. He had checked for pursuit after their return from the farmhouse, but found none. Ahead, however, there were hints of Gnome Hunters at almost every turn. He could not tell how strong the parties were, but there were several. They had discussed waiting until dark before proceeding, but had decided it was more dangerous to remain in one place than to go on. Jerle stayed close, guiding him toward the secondary outpost that lay a few miles farther on, hopeful that this one might not have been discovered. Neither spoke. All about them, the others of the company scanned the countryside for enemies.

Then suddenly Vree Erreden was at Tay’s elbow, his small, slight form pressing close, his pinched face eager. “There!” He pointed sharply left. “Horses, a dozen or more, hidden in that draw!”

Tay and Jerle stopped and stared, seeing nothing beyond a line of fields planted thick with early corn.

The locat’s eyes darted from one face to the other, his impatience obvious. “Don’t waste your time looking! You can’t see them from here!”

“Then how do you know?” Jerle asked quickly.

“Intuition!” the other snapped. “How else?”

The big man glanced over doubtfully. “The outpost we seek lies just ahead. Are there horses there as well?”

Vree Erreden’s voice was sharp with urgency. “I only know what my intuition tells me! There are horses left, in a draw beyond those hills!” He pointed again for emphasis.

Jerle Shannara frowned, irritated by the other’s insistence.

“What if you are wrong, locat? How far is it to this draw that none of us can see?”

Tay held up his hand quickly to forestall Vree Erreden’s angry reply. He stood silent a moment, weighing the choice, then gazed out across the fields one final time. “Are you sure about the horses?” he asked the small man quietly.

The look the other gave him was withering. Tay’s smile cocked slightly, and he nodded. “I think we should see what lies left.”

Despite Jerle’s continued misgivings, they changed course, making their way across the flats. The central bowl of the Sarandanon spread away before them, the planting fields a sprawling patchwork quilt of raw earth and new crops. They were out in the open now and clearly visible to whoever might be looking for them. There was no help for it. Whichever way they traveled they were exposed, and Tay took what comfort he could from that, because they were moving away from the outpost and if Vree Erreden was mistaken or had somehow been misled, their chances of escape were diminished considerably. Tay tried not to worry. It was for this that he had brought the locat—his ability to sense what even Druid magic could not. The little man would not have said anything if his instincts were not strong. He knew the risks of their situation as well as Tay.

Tay’s net of magic spread wider in search of enemies, and now he found them. They came swiftly from the north, a Gnome patrol on horseback, still some distance away, but racing across the flats.

He could not see them yet, but there was no mistaking their intent.

He shouted a quick warning to Jerle, and the members of the little company began to run. Ahead, the fields abutted a line of low hills. The draw must lie beyond, Tay thought. And the horses as well, he prayed, for they were too far now from the outpost to escape any other way.

Then more Gnomes appeared, a new band, this one spilling out of its hiding place within the outpost, which was now barely visible through the stalks of corn. These Gnomes were afoot, but began a determined charge forward to intercept the Elves, obviously intent on slowing them until the arrival of their mounted brethren. Tay gritted his teeth as he ran. There was no help to be had from the outpost. Now there was only Vree Erreden’s intuition and the draw.

Jerle Shannara sprinted past him effortlessly, feet flying across the plowed earth as he tore through the corn rows for the hills.

Others surged ahead as well, swifter afoot than Tay. Laboring heavily, his breath a sharp pain in his chest, the Druid suddenly panicked. What if the horses that Vree Erreden had sensed were part of another trap? What if there were Gnomes sitting astride them, waiting? Frantically, he tried to cast his net of magic beyond the hills to discover if there was cause for his fear, but his strength was failing and he could not manage the reach.

Shouts, raucous and jarring, rose from the pursuing Gnomes.

Tay ignored them. Vree Erreden appeared beside him again, running close, in better shape than Tay would have imagined. Tay yelled at him in warning, but he did not seem to hear. He passed Tay by and went on. Tay now trailed everyone. It was the price you paid for living a sedentary life, he thought ironically.

Then Jerle Shannara broke from the cornfield and began to race up the line of hills. As he did so, a shrill whinny and a pounding of hooves rose from behind the crest. Dust lifted in a cloud in the clear afternoon air. Jerle slowed, unsure of what he faced, reached quickly for his sword, and drew it free. His Elven Hunters raced to protect him. Metal blades glittered in the sun, the light dancing from their polished surfaces in sudden explosions of brightness.

In the next instant a line of horses surged into view, charging out of the sun’s glare in a burst of sound and color. There were a dozen, maybe more, all roped together, galloping out of the late-afternoon swelter to take shape like a mirage brought to life.

A single rider led them, bent low over the lead mount.

Tay Trefenwyd slowed to a ragged halt at the edge of the cornfield, his heart beating wildly, his pulse pounding in his head.

The rider was Preia Starle.

She swept by Jerle Shannara without slowing, releasing several of the mounts as she did, the ropes tossed to his waiting hands. She rode on, dropping off the horses one by one to the Elven Hunters she passed. Straight for Tay she came and reined to a wild halt before him.

“Climb on, Tay Trefenwyd, and we’ll ride for our lives! The Gnomes are all about!” Blood flecked her face and tunic. He could see cuts and bruises on her face. She wheeled her mount into him so hard she nearly knocked him down. “Get on!” she screamed.

There was no time to think about it. The others of the little company were already mounted and racing away. Tay stepped into the stirrup she had kicked free and swung up behind her. “Hold tight to me!” she cried.

In a whirlwind of dust and grit and a pounding of hooves, they charged after the others.

It was a terrifying flight. The Gnomes afoot had spread out across the fields before them in an effort to block their escape, some with slings, some with bows. North, visible now for the first time, the Gnomes on horseback appeared. Together, they outnumbered the Elves nearly four to one. They were clearly too many to defeat in a pitched battle.

Jerle Shannara took the lead and rode straight at the Gnomes afoot. The reason for his decision was obvious. The only hope for the Elves was to outdistance the Gnomes on horseback, and the only way to do that was to get ahead of them and stay there. If they swung left, which was what the Gnomes on foot were trying to make them do, they would be forced back up into the low hills and slowed, allowing the Gnomes on horseback to cut them off. If they swung right, they would be heading directly at their mounted pursuers. There was, of course, no point in turning back. What was left, then, was to go forward, to break past the Gnomes afoot and ride west, because everyone knew. Elves and Gnomes alike, that the Gnome didn’t live who could outride an Elf.

Down through the corn rows raced the Elven Hunters, some in one field, some in another, spread out as far as they could manage so as to thin the ranks of the enemy archers and slingers, to confuse and divide, to break free of the trap. The Gnomes darted here and there, calling out wildly, trying to track their prey. The Elves stayed low astride their mounts, presenting the smallest targets possible. Only Jerle defied the odds, rising in his stirrups, howling like a madman at the Gnomes before him, his sword swinging above his head like a deadly scythe. From his position far to the left, Tay could just make him out, charging into the teeth of the Gnome line, the big bay he rode leaping recklessly through the furrowed rows. Tay knew what his friend was doing. He was trying to draw as many of the Gnomes as possible to him to give his companions a better chance.

Then Preia hissed at him to stay down, and the burly sorrel she rode swerved sharply along a shallow draw, breaking out of the field close against the line of hills. Tay thought he heard something whip past his head. He lowered himself over Preia’s slender back, a protective cloak, hanging tightly to her waist. He could feel her body move in front of him, leaning this way and that, her horse responding each time. He had a glimpse of someone running toward them, a blur of arms and legs amid the cornstalks. Some thing small and hard slammed into his shoulder, and he felt his arm go numb. His grip on Preia loosened, and he thought he might fall, but she reached back for him with one arm, helping him keep his seat. They reached the west end of the field, vaulted a drainage ditch to a wide swath of grassland, and galloped into the open. Tay risked a glance over his shoulder. Gnomes knelt at the edge of the corn and slung their stones and fired their arrows in obvious rage.

But already the missiles were falling short of their mark.

Tay looked ahead again. Elven riders streamed out abreast of them in a ragged line, racing toward the sunset, past the abandoned outpost buildings and into the grasslands beyond. Tay tried to count their numbers, tried to determine if Jerle in particular was all right, but the landscape was clouded by dust and cloaked in a damp shimmer of late-afternoon heat, and he quickly gave up and concentrated all of his efforts on not falling off the horse.

The Elves joined up again not far beyond the outpost and began to pace their horses against the demands of their flight. Miraculously, all had escaped, most uninjured. Jerle Shannara was barely scratched. Tay discovered that he had been struck on the shoulder by a slinger’s stone and sustained a deep bruise. The numbness was already fading, replaced by a dull pain. Nothing broken, he decided, and pushed the matter aside. The Gnomes on horseback chased after them, swinging west across the grasslands when they realized that their quarry had broken through the trap in the cornfields. But they had already ridden their horses a long way to get this far, and they did not know the country as the Elves did. Taking the lead once more, Jerle Shannara chose the path most advantageous to his company. This was his homeland, and he knew it well. Where the land dipped suddenly, he could find the high passage. Where sinkholes or bogs threatened, he was forewarned to swing wide. Where rivers flowed swift and broad, he could point to the shallows. The chase wore on, but the Gnomes fell steadily farther behind, and by nightfall they were no longer visible against the darkening horizon.

Even so, and after they had slowed their horses to a walk to guard against injury in the dimness of the clouded night sky, they went on for a time, unwilling to risk a chance discovery. Jerle took them north along a creek bed, hiding their passing while changing their direction. The darkness cloaked them, a welcome friend. The heat of the day seeped away and the air cooled. A thin rain fell for a time, then passed on. They rode in silence, save for the splashing of the horses in the shallow water and, when they left the stream, the muffled thud of their hooves in the soft earth.

When he could do so safely, Tay bent close to Preia’s ear and whispered, “What happened to you?”

She glanced back at him, her eyes startlingly bright amid the crosshatched damage to her face. “A trap.” Her voice was a low, angry hiss. “Kipp had gone on ahead to secure the horses at the first outpost. I was scouting against discovery by the Gnome Hunters we had determined were in the area. But they were waiting for us. I was lucky. Kipp wasn’t.”

“We found Kipp, Jerle and I,” he said softly.

She nodded, no response. He wanted to tell her what he had done and why, but he could not bring himself to speak the words.

“How did they know?” he pressed.

He could feel her shrug. “They didn’t. They guessed. The outposts are no secret. The Gnomes knew we would come searching for the Black Elfstone. They simply waited for us. They are waiting at all of the outposts, I imagine.” She paused. “If they had known our plans exactly, if they had known how to find us, they would have gotten me as well as Kipp. But I found them just before they found me.”

“You had to fight to get away, though. We found your bow.”

She shook her head. “I was afraid you would. It could not be helped.”

“We thought...”

“I dropped it fleeing them,” she cut him off before he could say what they had thought. “Then I went after Kipp. That was where the fighting took place. At the outpost, just after they seized him. But there were too many for me. I had to leave him.”

The words were edged with bitterness. It had cost her to tell him this. “We had to leave him as well,” he admitted.

She did not turn. “Alive?”

He shook his head slowly.

He felt her sigh. “I could not get back to warn you. There were too many Gnomes between us. I had to go on ahead to try to secure the horses. I knew that without horses, we were finished. I thought, too, that I could draw some of them off.” Her laugh was small and hollow. “Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. Anyway, I was able to steal a horse from under their noses last night while they slept, ride it south to an outpost beyond the valley that I knew they would not have discovered, secure these horses we ride now, herd them back again, and hide until you appeared.”

Tay stared at her, astonished. “How in the world did you manage an that in one day?”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard.” There was a long pause, with only the soft thud of the horses’ hooves. “Not as hard as what you had to do.” She looked back at him once more, her smile sad and uncertain. “You did well, Tay.”

He forced himself to smile back. “You did better.”

“I wouldn’t want to lose you,” she said suddenly, and turned away.

He sat silent behind her, unable to offer a reply.

They rode on through the night and made camp just before dawn in a shallow ravine grown thick with slender-boughed ash and white birch. They slept only a few hours, rose, ate, and went on. The rain had returned, a steady drizzle, and with it a mist that clouded the whole of the land in roiling gray. The mist and the rain hid them, and so they pressed on through that day and the next and deep into the second day’s night, hidden from those who searched for them. Tay rode point with Preia Starle, using his magic to scan the heavy gloom, worried not so much that they might be discovered by Gnome Hunters as that they might accidentally stumble across them. They walked their horses most of the time, anxious to save their strength for when it would be needed and to guard against missteps in the rain-soaked earth.

Tay and Preia did not talk, concentrating on keeping watch, he with his magic, she with her eyes. But they pressed close against each other in the rain, and for Tay, that was enough. He allowed himself to imagine they meant more to each other than they did. It was a pointless exercise, but it made him feel for a short time as if he had found a place for himself in the world beyond Paranor. He thought that if he tried hard enough, perhaps he could find a way to belong again, even without Preia. He knew that she could not accompany him, but perhaps she could help him find a path. He held her loosely about the waist, shielding her from the weather with his taller frame, feeling the heat of her body seep into his. He wondered at how he had gotten to where he was in life. He wondered at the choices he had made and whether, if made over again, they might be different.

They slept near dawn of the third day, finding shelter this time in a grove of towering hardwoods set back within a blind draw at the edge of the Kensrowe. They had traveled far north of where they had come into the valley, and were now close to its west end.

Ahead lay the dark stretch of the Innisbore and the pass through Baen Draw that would take them to the Breakline. Tay had found no trace of Gnomes that day. He was beginning to believe they had outdistanced their pursuers and would lose them for good in the tangle of the mountains ahead:

Tay rose early and found Jerle Shannara already awake, standing at the edge of the camp looking out into the new day. It was gloomy and dark once more, the weather unchanged.

The big man turned at his approach. “Tay. Too short a night, wasn’t it?”

Tay shrugged. “I slept well enough.”

“Not like you’re used to sleeping, though. Not like you did at Paranor with the Druids, in a bed, in a dry room, with hot food waiting when you rose.”

Tay moved up beside him, avoiding his gaze. “It doesn’t matter. The Druids are all dead. Paranor is gone. That part of my life is over.”

His friend’s blue eyes studied him shrewdly. “Something bothers you. I know you too well to miss it. You’ve been distracted these past few days. Is it Retten Kipp? Is it what you had to do to release him from his pain?”

“No,” Tay answered truthfully. “It is more complicated than that.”

Jerle waited a moment. “Am I to guess or would you rather I simply left the matter alone?”

Tay hesitated, not certain he wanted to give any answer at all.

“It has to do with coming back to something after being away for too long,” he replied finally, choosing his words with care. “I was gone from the Westland for fifteen years. Now I am back, but I don’t seem to belong anymore. I don’t know where I should be or how I should act or what I should do. If it were not for this search, I would be completely lost.”

“Maybe the search is enough for now,” his friend suggested gently. “Maybe the rest will come with time.”

Tay shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think I am changed and cannot change back again. Those years at Paranor shaped me in ways I did not begin to understand until now. I feel caught between who I was and who I am. I don’t feel like I am either one or the other.”

“But you have just come home, Tay. You cannot expect everything to feel the same at first. Of course it feels strange.”

Tay looked at his friend. “I think maybe I shall have to go away again, Jerle, when this is over.”

Jerle Shannara pushed back his blond hair from his eyes, the mist’s dampness glistening on his face. “I would be very sorry to see that happen.” He paused. “But I would understand, Tay. And we will still be friends forever.”

He put his hand on Tay’s shoulder and kept it there. Tay smiled in response. “We will always be friends,” he agreed.

They rode west once more into the damp haze. The rain quickened and turned heavier as the day wore on. They made their way across the last quarter of the Sarandanon, riders cloaked in the gloom, all but invisible even to each other. It was as if the world from which they had come and into which they were going had melted away. It was as if nothing remained but the small bit of earth across which they rode, materializing ahead, disappearing behind, never there for longer than the few moments it took to pass by.

They came to Baen Draw, the entrance through the Kensrowe to the Breakline, at dusk, came upon it as the light was failing completely. There they found the Gnome Hunters once more, and again the Gnomes were ahead of them. A large contingent had settled into the draw, blocking it against all passage. It was a different group from those who had attacked them in the east valley; these Hunters had been settled here for a long time. Preia Starle scouted ahead and found their camp. The camp, she reported, was old and established. The sentry lines stretched across the mouth of the draw, and there was no way to get past unseen. Avoiding the draw would do the job, but would add three days to the journey, and the Elves could not afford the delay. They would have to find a way to go through here.

After some consideration, they settled on a plan that relied mostly on surprise. They waited until midnight, then mounted up and rode directly for the pass. Hooded and cloaked, shrouded by night and the weather, they were barely visible to each other, let alone to the Gnome sentries watching for them. They rode without hurry, seemingly at ease, giving the impression that they belonged where they were. When they were near enough to the mouth of the pass to be challenged, Tay, who spoke any number of languages learned from his time at Paranor, called out to the Gnomes in their own tongue, behaving as if they were expected. Reinforcements, he advised casually, and the Elves rode closer.

By the time the Gnomes thought to act on their uncertainty, the Elves were on top of them, putting heels to their horses, and surging ahead into the draw. They rode directly through the camp, scattering fires and Gnomes in all directions, howling as if they were a hundred instead of a handful. The surprise was complete.

The Gnomes rolled out of their bedding and gave chase, but by then the Elves were safely away.

But then their luck ran out. As a precaution against just such a breakdown, the Gnomes had established a second line at the far end of the draw, and these Hunters heard the warning cries of their comrades and were waiting as the Elves rode into them. Spears, arrows, and stingers’ stones flew at the Elves as they raced toward the end of the pass. There was no time to slow, to rethink their strategy, to do anything but bend low and hope they would break free. Jerle Shannara charged right into the thickest knot of attackers, fearless and unyielding. Weapons swung toward him and a hail of missiles sought to bring him down. But he was charmed, as always, and somehow he kept astride his horse and his horse stayed upright. Together they careered into the Gnomes, and Tay Trefenwyd watched bodies spin away like pieces of deadwood. Then Jerle Shannara was clear.

Tay and Preia escaped as well, the Tracker girl’s sturdy pony barreling past the crush of attackers along the left bank of the draw, then leaping a trip line that was meant to bring it down.

Shouts of hunters and hunted alike mingled with the screams of horses. Riders shot past, disembodied shapes charging back and forth in the gloom. In desperation Tay used his magic to throw a screen around the remaining Elves in an effort to hide them from the Gnomes.

But when they reassembled several miles beyond the draw, six among them were missing. Now their number was reduced to eight, and the hundreds of Gnome Hunters that were scattered throughout the Sarandanon would converge on the pass and track them into the Breakline.

They would track them until they were found.

Chapter Fifteen

By nightfall of the following day, the Elves were deep within the mountains. They had ridden on through the previous night after escaping the Gnome Hunters at Baen Draw, working their way up into the rugged foothills that fronted the Breakline, pressing on until the dawn light began to creep out of the east and spill down into the bowl of the Sarandanon. They had rested then for a few hours, risen, eaten, and gone on. The rains had ceased, but the skies remained clouded and gray, and mist hung across the hills in a thick blanket. There was a dampness in the air that carried the smell of earth and rotting wood. As they climbed higher, the hills turned barren and rocky, and the smell dissipated. Now the air was cool and sharp and clear, and the mist began to break apart.

Noon came, and they left the hills behind and wound their way up into the mountains. Jerle Shannara had already told the company that they would ride until dark, anxious to put distance between themselves and their pursuers, determined that before they stopped they would be on terrain that would not leave a trail that could be easily followed. No one argued the point. They rode obediently through the gloom and silence, watching as the mist cleared and the mountains rose before them. The Breakline was a wall of jagged rock, of peaks that soared skyward until they disappeared into the clouds, of cliffs that fell away in sheer drops of thousands of feet, of massive outcroppings and ragged splits formed by pressure in the earth from a time when the world was still forming. The mountains lifted to the heavens as if trying to climb free of the world, an outstretching of the arms of giants frozen by time. As far north and south as the Elves could see, the Breakline was visible against the sky, a barrier forbidding passage, a fortress against encroachment.

The Elves stared at the mountains in silence, and in the face of such permanence felt an unmistakable sense of their own mortality.

By nightfall, they had passed beyond the lower peaks and could no longer look back on either the foothills that had brought them up or the more distant valley of the Sarandanon. They camped in a grove of spruce cradled in a narrow valley tucked between barren peaks on which snow glistened in a thin, white mantle.

There was fresh water and grass for the horses, and wood for a fire.

As soon as they were settled and had eaten, Preia Starle departed to backtrack their trail to determine if a pursuit had been mounted. While they waited for her return, Tay conferred with Jerle and Vree Erreden about the vision that had revealed the location of the Black Elfstone. Once more, he recounted its specifics, taking care to describe everything related to him by Bremen. Jerle Shannara listened carefully, his strong face intense, his gaze fixed and unwavering. Vree Erreden, on the other hand, seemed almost disinterested, his eyes straying frequently, looking off into the night in search of something beyond what Tay’s words could offer.

“I have never been to this part of the Westland,” he remarked when Tay had finished. “I know nothing of its geography. If I am to divine the hiding place we seek, I must first get closer to it.”

“How helpful,” Jerle ventured irritably. He had been watching the local’s eyes stray as well and was clearly displeased with his attitude. “Is that the best you can do?”

Vree Erreden shrugged.

Jerle was incensed. “Perhaps you could do better if you had paid closer attention to what Tay was saying!”

The locat looked at him, squinting myopically. A slow fire kindled in his eyes. “Let me tell you something. When Tay Trefenwyd came to me to ask my help, I read his mind. I can do that sometimes. I saw Bremen’s vision, the one Tay just described, and my memory of it is quite clear. That vision is real, my friend. If it were not, I would not be here. It is real, and the place it shows is real, and of that much I am certain. Even so, I cannot find it without more than what I know right now!”

“Jerle, you have traveled this country often,” Tay broke in quickly, anxious to avoid a confrontation. “Is there nothing of what I have described that is at all familiar?”

His friend shook his head, a disgruntled look settling over his broad features. “Most of my travel has been confined to the passes—to Halys Cut and Worl Run, and what lies beyond. This particular formation of mountains—the twin peaks split like two fingers, in particular—sounds like it could be any of a dozen pairs I have seen.”

“But you’re not sure which?”

“What does it sound like to you?” his friend snapped.

“Which way do you think we should go, then?” Tay pressed.

He could not understand the other’s uncharacteristic display of temper.

Jerle climbed to his feet. “How would I know? Ask ‘my friend’ the locat here to give you his best guess!”

“One minute,” Vree Erreden said quickly, and rose as well. He stood facing Jerle, small and slight in the other man’s shadow, but unintimidated. “Would you be willing to try something? I might be able to help you remember if you’ve seen this particular formation.”

Tay jumped up as well, realizing at once what the locat intended. “Can you do for Jerle what you did for me?” he asked quickly. “Can you recover his memory like you did Bremen’s vision?”

“What are you talking about?” Jerle snapped, looking from one to the other.

“Perhaps,” Vree Erreden answered Tay, then looked at Jerle Shannara. “I told you before. Sometimes I can read minds. I did so earlier with Tay to get a look at Bremen’s vision. I can try it with you to see if your subconscious retains some memory of this formation we seek.”

Jerle flushed. “Try your magic out on someone else!”

He wheeled away, but Tay grabbed his arm and brought him about. “But we don’t have anyone else, do we, Jerle? We only have you. Are you afraid?”

The big man stared at him with something very close to rage.

Tay held his ground, mostly because he didn’t have any choice.

The night sky had cleared, and its broad expanse was filled with stars. Their brightness was almost blinding. Standing beneath their light in the shadow of the mountains, locked in this unexpected confrontation with his best friend, Tay felt oddly exposed.

Jerle carefully freed his arm from Tay’s grip. “I’m not afraid of anything, and you know it,” he said softly.

Tay nodded. “I do know it. Now please let Vree try.”

They sat down again, grouped close together in the silence.

Vree Erreden took Jerle Shannara’s hands in his own, holding them loosely, looking boldly into the other’s eyes. Then he closed his own. Tay watched the pair uneasily. Jerle was as tense as a cat prepared to spring, ready to bolt at the first indication that he was in any kind of danger. The locat was by contrast calm and detached, especially now, gone somewhere deep inside himself to find what he was looking for. They remained like that for a few moments, locked together, an odd alliance, neither revealing anything of what was happening.

Then Vree Erreden released Jerle Shannara’s hands and gave a short nod. “I have it. A place to start, anyway. Your memory is very good. The twin peaks in the form of a V are called the Pinchers—at least by you.”

“I remember now,” the big man said softly. “Five or six years ago, when I was scouting for a third passage onto Hoare Flats. Back in the mountains north of Worl Run, deep in the thickest mass. There was no chance that a pass would go through there, so we gave it up. But I remember the formation. Yes, I do remember!”

Then his enthusiasm seemed to diminish, and the hard edge of his irritation returned. “Enough of this.” He nodded curtly, more to himself than to them, and rose. “We have our starting point. I hope everyone is happy. Now perhaps I can get some sleep.”

He turned and stalked away. Tay and Vree Erreden watched him go, neither of them speaking. “He’s not usually like this,” Tay said finally.

The locat rose. “He just lost six men who trusted him to an attack he feels he should have better anticipated.” Tay stared at him, and he shrugged. “It’s what he’s thinking about right now. He couldn’t hide it from me, even though he clearly wanted to.”

“But those men dying, that wasn’t his fault,” Tay declared. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

The locat squinted down at him. “Jerle Shannara doesn’t look at it like that. If you were in his shoes, would you?”

Then he turned and walked off, leaving Tay to ponder the matter alone.

The company set off again at daybreak, working its way north through the mountains toward Worl Run. Preia Starle had returned during the night to report that there was no sign of a close pursuit.

None of them believed for a moment that this meant they were safe. It only meant that they had gained a little extra breathing room. The Gnomes were still out there searching for them, but the Elves would be hard to find in these mountains, where tracks had a tendency to disappear amid the jumbled boulders and twisting passes. If they were lucky, they might avoid discovery just long enough to find what they were looking for.

It was wishful thinking, Tay supposed, but it was the best they could hope for. They rode north for the remainder of the day without seeing anything of their pursuers, following a line of deep valleys that cut through the eastern edge of the mountains snakelike to the entrance to Worl Run. They camped that night on a flat overlooking the pass and the valleys leading in from the Sarandanon, close now to where Jerle remembered seeing the V formation he called the Pinchers. He was in a somewhat better mood this day, still withdrawn and taciturn, but no longer curt, helped perhaps by the fact that they now had a better idea of where they were going. He actually apologized to Tay in a rather offhanded way, commenting lightly at one point on the unfortunate shortness of his temper. He said nothing to Vree Erreden, but Tay let the matter lie.

Preia Starle seemed unfazed by Jerle’s shift in attitude and spent her time talking to him as if everything were fine. Tay thought she must know his friend’s moods well enough by now to have developed an appropriate way of responding to each. He felt a pang of jealousy, for there was no such closeness between them.

Again he was reminded that he was the outsider, come back into his old life from another, still trying to make himself fit in. He did not know why this bothered him so except that his life at Paranor was completely gone and his life here seemed to revolve around the duplicity of his relationship with Preia and Jerle. He couldn’t claim it was an honest one, because he hid so much of what he felt for Preia from both of them. Or thought he did. Perhaps they knew far more than they were letting on, and he was playing a game of secrets where the secrets were all known.

They rode out again at sunrise and reached the Pinchers by midday. Tay recognized the peaks immediately, a clear match for the rendering provided by Bremen’s vision. The peaks rose in a sharp V against the horizon, breaking apart in a deep split fronted by a tangle of small mountains worn by age and the elements and left bare save for sparse stands of fir and alder and struggling patches of grasses and wildflowers. Beyond, through the gap in the V, rose a wall of mountains so misty that their features were unrecognizable.

Jerle brought the company to a halt at the low end of a pass leading up into the peaks and dismounted. Overhead, hunting birds soared against the blue, wings spread as they circled in long, graceful sweeps. The day was clear and bright; the rain clouds had moved east into the Sarandanon. Tay felt the sun on his face, warm and reassuring as he stared upward into the vast expanse of cliffs and defiles and wondered at their secrets.

“We’ll leave the horses here and walk in,” Jerle announced. He smirked, seeing the look on Tay’s face. “We could only ride them a short distance farther in any event, Tay. Then they would be left exposed to any who follow us. If we leave them now, we can hide them in the forest. We may have to make a run for it before we’re finished.”

Preia added her support, and Tay knew they were right, although it made him feel uncomfortable to give up the animals that had carried them past so many close calls. It had been hard enough to gain possession of them in the first place. But those who pursued them would have to proceed afoot as well if they reached this point, so he supposed that was as much as could be hoped for.

Jerle chose one of the Elven Hunters to remain behind with the horses, a grizzled veteran named Obann, instructing him to take the animals and hide them where they would not be found, then to keep watch for the company’s return. Obann wanted to rejoin them after concealing the horses, but Jerle pointed out that it might prove necessary to change the hiding place if a Gnome search party drew too close and that it might further be necessary for Obann to bring the horses to his comrades if they were attacked coming down out of the peaks. Obann reluctantly agreed, took the horses in hand, and departed.

Then Jerle led those who remained, their number now reduced to seven—himself, Tay, Preia, Vree Erreden, and the last three Elven Hunters—up through the tangle of rock and trees toward the dark cleft of the Pinchers.

They climbed for the remainder of the day. As they proceeded, Tay found himself pondering anew the task that lay ahead. He might argue that the others of the company shared his responsibility for recovering the Black Elfstone, but the fact remained that Bremen’s charge had been given expressly to him, not to them.

Moreover, he was a Druid, the only one among them, the only one who commanded use of magic—of the sort, at least, that could offer them any real protection—and the one best equipped to find and secure the Elfstone. He had not forgotten the part of Bremen’s vision that hinted at the danger that surrounded the Elfstone’s hiding place, the suggestion of dark coils that warded it from those who would steal it away, the unmistakable sense of evil. He was aware that finding the Black Elfstone was only the first step.

Securing it was the second, and it would not be done easily or without risk. If the Elfstone remained undisturbed after all these centuries, it must be strongly protected. Vree Erreden and Preia Starle might assist in finding it. Jerle Shannara and his Elven Hunters might aid in retrieving it. But ultimately the burden fell to him.

Which was as it should be, he supposed on reflection. He had trained for this for the better part of fifteen years, for what constituted almost the whole of his adult life. His time at Paranor had been for this, if it had been for anything. Nothing else he had accomplished was in any way comparable to what was required of him now. Like other Druids, he had spent his time at Paranor immersed in his studies, in the pursuit of knowledge, and the fact that he had continued to develop his skills with magic did not alter me fact of his mostly sedentary existence. For fifteen years he had lived in an isolated, cloistered fortress, neither involved with nor engaged by the world without. Now, with his tenure at Paranor ended, his life was to be forever changed, and it began here, in these mountains, amid the ruins of another age, with a talisman unseen by anyone since the coming of Mankind.

So he must not fail, of course—that was of paramount importance. Failure meant an end to any hope of defeating the Warlock Lord, to any chance of creating a weapon that would destroy him, and, most likely, to Tay Trefenwyd’s life. There would be no second chance in a matter like this, no opportunity to go back and try again. This effort would mark the culmination of years of believing in and practicing the Druid magic. It would vindicate both what the magic had been created to accomplish and the purpose of his life as a Druid. It was, he imagined, the defining point of everything.

His concerns bridged outward from there. The company was weary from being chased, from running and hiding, from escaping traps, from lack of sleep and long hours of travel. They had not eaten well in over a week, bereft of the supplies they had hoped to obtain, living off what they hunted and scavenged during their flight. They were disheartened by the loss of their comrades and by the fear, steadily eroding the hard surface of their determination, that their quest would not succeed. No one spoke of these things, but they were there, in their faces, in their eyes, in the way they moved, apparent to anyone who bothered to look for them.

Time was slipping from them, Tay Trefenwyd thought. Like water through cupped hands, it was draining away, and if they were not careful they would find it suddenly gone.

By nightfall, they were at the mouth of the pass, and they camped within a thin copse of alder in the lee of the mountains. It was cool here, farther up on the slopes, but not so cool as to be chill. The rock walls seemed to collect and hold the day’s heat within the pass, perhaps because it dipped sharply into a low valley that spanned the east and west reaches. Eating sparingly, their water supply still good, they rolled into their blankets and slept undisturbed.

At daybreak, they went on. The sunrise poured down into the valley and lit their path with hazy streamers that flashed over the eastern horizon like beacons. Preia Starle led them, scouting several hundred yards forward of the main group, coming back now and again to report, warning of obstacles, advising of smoother paths, keeping them all safe. Tay walked with Jerle, but neither of them said much. They climbed out of the valley through its west end, leaving the shadow of the twin peaks, and promptly found their forward passage blocked by a massive berm that looked to have been formed of vast plates of earth cracked and gathered by a giant’s hands. Ahead, the wall of the Breakline rose skyward, its broken peaks gathered together by those same giant’s hands into bundles, all stacked together in haphazard and incomprehensible fashion, all waiting for someone to sort them out and put them back together again.

Preia returned to take them left along the berm for almost a mile to a trail that wound upward into the jagged rocks. By now, Jerle had exhausted what little there was of his recovered memory, and there was nothing for any of them to do but to press on until something in Bremen’s vision recalled itself. They scrambled onto the berm, avoiding fissures that dropped straight down into blackness, staying back from the thin edges of drops and off the steep crests of slopes where, if you lost your footing, you could slide away forever. Jerle had been right, Tay realized, in leaving the horses behind. They would have been useless here.

At the crest of the berm, they encountered a slender, twisting trail, barely discernible from the land about it, that led through a narrow defile into the larger rocks ahead. They followed it cautiously, Preia going on ahead, the Elf girl stepping lightly through the mix of light and shadows, there one moment and gone completely the next.

When they came upon her again, she stood at the defile’s end, looking out at the mountains beyond. She turned on their approach, and her excitement was palpable. She pointed, and Tay saw at once the cluster of mountains directly left of where they stood, spires jutting skyward at awkward angles, encircled at their base by a broad, high span of collapsed rock.

Like fingers jammed together, crushed into a single mass.

Tay smiled wearily. It was the landmark they were looking for, the ragged gathering of peaks that hid somewhere within their crumpled depths a fortress lost since the time of faerie— a fortress, Bremen’s vision had promised, that concealed the Black Elfstone.

It had been easier than Tay Trefenwyd had expected, finding first the twin peaks in the shape of a V and then the clustered mountains that resembled crushed fingers. Vree Erreden’s recovery of a forgotten memory and Preia Starle’s tracking had brought them to their destination with a speed and efficiency that defied logic. Had it not been for the intrusion of the Gnome Hunters at various points along the way, they would have arrived almost without effort.

But now, just as quickly, things grew difficult. They searched all that day and the next for the entrance to the fortress hidden within the peaks and found nothing. The massed rock, boulders and plates alike, stacked all about the jammed peaks, offered dozens of openings that led nowhere. Slowly, painstakingly, the members of the little company explored each pathway, following it into shadow and cool darkness, tracing it to a slide or cliff face or drop that ended all further approach. The search wore on, extending into the third day, and then the fourth, and still the Elves found nothing.

Tempers grew short. They had come a long way and at great cost, and to now find themselves completely stymied was almost more than they could stand. There was a nagging feeling of time running out, of danger approaching from the east as the Gnomes continued their inevitable search, of expectations losing momentum and disappointment settling in.

Jerle Shannara kept them going. He did not turn dark and moody as Tay expected or revert to the temper he had displayed toward Vree Erreden after the loss of the Elven Hunters at Baen Draw, but stayed steady and determined and calm. He drove them relentlessly, of course—even Tay. He insisted they press on with their search. He made them retrace their steps. He forced them to look into each opening in the rocks again and again. He refused by strength of will alone to let them lose hope. He was, Tay thought on reflection, quite remarkable in his leadership.

Vree Erreden did not provide the help that Tay had hoped for.

There were no visions, no hunches, no displays of instinct, nothing that would give insight into where the fortress or its entrance might lie. The locat did not seem unsettled by this; indeed, he seemed quite sanguine. But Tay supposed that he was used to failure, that he had accepted the fact that his talent did not come on command, but mostly at times and places of its own choosing. At least he did not sit back and wait on its arrival. Like everyone else in the company, he went out searching, probing the recesses of the collapsed rock, poking into this nook and cranny, into that crevice and defile. He did not comment on the failure of his talent to aid them, and Jerle Shannara, to his credit, did not comment on it either.

In the end, it was Preia Starle who made the discovery.

Although the area they searched was sprawling and mazelike, after four days they had covered the better part of it. It became clear to everyone by then that if the vision had not misled them, then the fortress was concealed in a way they had not considered.

Preia rose before dawn on the fifth morning of their search and went down to stare at the jagged crush of monoliths. She did it out of frustration and a need to study the landscape anew. She sat back within the shadows of a cliff face east, watching the light ease out of the peaks behind her, lifting to chase the darkness, to change the gray of fading night to the silver and gold beginnings of the new day. She watched the sun’s bright rays fall across the towering span of the mountains, seeping down the faces of the cliffs like a paint stain down wooden walls, the color dipping into each dark crevice, etching out the shape and form of each rock wall.

And then she saw the birds. They were large, angular, white fishers, seabirds miles from any visible water, rising out of a cleft in the rock face of a peak centered within the cluster, several hundred feet above where she sat. The birds appeared in a rush, more than a dozen of them, lifting away with the coming of the light as if by unspoken command, soaring skyward and disappearing into the new day east.

What, Preia Starle wondered instantly, were seabirds doing in those barren peaks?

She went to the others at once with her report. She described what she had seen, convinced it was worth investigating, and immediately Vree Erreden cried, as if shown a revelation. Yes, yes, this was what they were looking for! The company was galvanized into action, and though stiff and sore from the efforts of their search and from sleeping on the stone of the mountains for five nights straight, and though hungry for food they did not possess and weary of eating the food they did, they went out of their camp and up the mountainside with a determination that was heartening.

It took them until midmorning to reach the cleft from which the white birds had flown. There was no direct route up, and the path they were forced to follow twisted laboriously back and forth across the cliff face, its navigation requiring deliberation and care with every step. Preia, leading the way as always, got there first and disappeared into the opening. By the time the others had arrived to stand upon a narrow shelf fronting the cleft, she was back with news of a pass that cut through the rock.

They went forward in single file. The walls of the cleft narrowed where the searchers walked, hemming them in. The warmth of the sun turned to dank, cool shadow, and the light faded. Soon overhangs and projections formed a ceiling that shut them away entirely. That there was any light at all was due solely to the fact that the defile was so rife with fissures that small amounts of illumination penetrated at virtually every turn. Their eyes adjusted to the gloom, and they were able to continue. The birds, they realized, were able to maneuver easily at the higher elevations, where the walls broadened. They found white feathers and bits of old grass and twigs that might have been carried in for nests. The nests, of course, would be farther on, where there was better light and air. The company pressed ahead.

After a time, the overhangs dropped so low that they were forced to proceed at a crouch. Then the defile branched left and right. Preia told them to wait and went right. She returned after a very long time and took them left. After a short distance the defile widened again, and they were able to stand once more. Ahead, the light grew brighter. They were nearing the passageway’s end.

Fifty yards farther on, the cleft opened out onto the edge of a vast lake. The lake was so unexpected that everyone stopped where they were and stood staring at it. It rested within a vast crater, its waters broad and still, undisturbed by even the faintest ripple. Overhead, the sky was visible, a cloudless blue dome that channeled light and warmth to the crater. Sunlight reflected off the lake, and the lake mirrored the rock walls surrounding it in perfect detail. Tay scanned the cliffs and found the nests of the seabirds, set high in the rocks. No birds were visible. Within the shelter of the mountain walls and across the flat expanse of the lake, nothing moved, the silence vast and complete and as fragile as glass.

After a short, hushed conference with Jerle, Preia Starle took them left along the edge of the lakeshore. The shoreline was a mix of crushed rock and flat shelves, and the scrape of their boots as they proceeded echoed eerily in the crater’s cavernous depths. Tay cast his magic forward of where they walked, hunting for pitfalls, exploring for hidden dangers. What he found were lines of earth power so massive and so old that they tore apart his fragile net and forced him to rebuild it. He drew Jerle close to him and gave warning. There was tremendous magic at work here, magic as old as time and as settled. It warded the crater and everything that lay within. He could find no specific danger from it, but could not trace its source or discover its use. He did not think them threatened by it, but they would be smart to proceed with caution.

They went on until they were nearly halfway around the lake.

Still there was no sign of life, no indication of anything beyond what they could see before them. Neither Tay with his Druid magic nor Vree Erreden with his locat talent could discover what they searched for. The sun had moved out of the shadow of the cliff rim so that it blazed directly down on them, a burning orb against the blue. They could not look up at it without being blinded, and so kept their gaze lowered as they walked.

It was then, with the advent of high noon, that Tay Trefenwyd saw the shadow.

He had moved off the waterline momentarily to higher ground, trying to see the far shore through the dazzling reflection of the sun on the lake’s still surface. As he searched for a position that would lessen the brightness, he saw how the sun had thrown the shadow of a rock projection far overhead across the length of the lake onto the cliff face several hundred yards ahead. The point of the shadow climbed the rock wall to a narrow fissure and stopped.

Something about the fissure caught his eye. He sent his magic to probe the opening.

What he found, carved into the rock above, was writing.

He went forward quickly to catch Preia, and together they turned the company inland. Moments later they stood before the fissure, staring upward in silent contemplation of the writing. It was ancient and indecipherable. It was Elven, but the dialect was unfamiliar. The carving itself was so weathered it was almost worn away.

Then an inspired Vree Erreden stepped forward, had Tay and Jerle boost him, and reached up to run his fingers over the writing.

He remained suspended for a moment, eyes closed, hands moving, stopping, moving on. Then he slid down again. As if in a trance, he bent to the rock on which they stood, and without seeming to look at what he was doing, his eyes focused somewhere beyond what they could see, he scratched words onto a smooth surface with a piece of jagged rock.

Tay bent close to read.

“What does it mean?” Jerle whispered.

Tay shook his head. “That magic wards what lies beyond this opening. That any disturbance will bring unpleasant consequences.”

“It says they are still alive,” Vree Erreden observed, his voice a hiss of disbelief. “That can’t be! Look at the carving! The writing is out of the time of faerie!”

They stood staring at the writing, the fissure, and each other.

Behind them, the Elven Hunters and Preia Starle waited. No one spoke. There was a sense of time dropping away, of past and present joining and transcending the passing of lives and history, There was a sense of standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing that one false step would send you hurtling to your death. Tay’s awareness of the magic’s presence was so strong that it seemed he could feel its touch against his skin. Old, powerful, iron-willed, and conjured out of purpose and need, it filled up his senses and threatened to overwhelm him.

“We did not come this far to turn back,” Jerle Shannara observed quietly, looking over at him. “Not for any reason.”

Tay nodded. He was determined as well. He glanced at Vree Erreden, at Preia Starle, at the Elven Hunters who stood behind her, and finally once again at Jerle. He gave his friend a crooked smile.

Then he took a deep breath and stepped forward into the dark mouth of the fissure.

Chapter Sixteen

The fissure widened immediately into a corridor broad enough for the Elves to stand two abreast. Steps wound downward into darkness so complete that not even Tay Trefenwyd’s keen vision could penetrate to what lay beyond. He moved forward several yards, feeling his way along the wall, and encountered a metal plate. When he touched it, light appeared across its flat surface, pale yellow and cool. He stared at the plate in surprise; here was a magic he had never encountered. The light revealed another plate, just at the edge of the darkness farther on.

He walked over to it, placed his hand on it, and it, too, brightened.

Amazing, he thought. He could hear the footsteps of the others coming up behind him. He wondered what they must be thinking.

But no one spoke, and he did not look back at them. Instead, he continued on, touching the metal plates, lighting their way through the darkened corridor.

Their descent took a long time. Tay could not measure it, the whole of his concentration given over to the casting of his Druid magic before him to ferret out hidden traps. The metal plates that gave off light revealed a sophistication he had not expected. Faerie magic was not well known, for most of the lore had been lost with time’s passage, but Tay had always assumed that magic to be grounded more in nature and less in technology. Yet the plates suggested he was mistaken, and that made him uneasy. Take nothing for granted here, he warned himself. Riding the air currents, skimming through the seams in the rock, bouncing across the dust motes that were stirred with their passing, his Druid magic hunted. With swift precision, he sorted and defined the secrets of the world through which they passed. He found no trace of human life, though the warning above the door had suggested it should be otherwise. He found no trace of another’s passing, not in years, perhaps centuries. But, in spite of this, he experienced a sharp feeling of being watched, of his measure being taken, of something waiting farther on, patient and inexorable in its purpose.

The stairway ended at a massive iron door. No locks bound it.

No magic warded it. Above its rusted, pitted frame, the words CHEW MAGNA were carved in stone—but those words only and nothing else of what had been written on the wall above the fissure into which they had entered. The others of the little company crowded close. On hands and knees, Preia Starle examined the ground before the doors, then rose and shook her head. No one had passed this way in a very long time.

Tay probed the doors and the spaces between. Nothing revealed itself. He stepped forward then, seized the great iron handles, and pulled down.

The handles gave easily, the latches released, and the doors swung inward as if perfectly balanced. Misty light poured through the opening, streaming down in a surreal shimmer, as if filtered through a pane of rain-streaked glass.

A massive fortress stood before them, its stone blocks so ancient the edges were worn smooth and its surface so cracked it seemed as if spiderwebs had covered it over. It was a wondrous construction, a balancing of towers atop battlements, an interlinking of parapets that cantilevered forward and back at every turn, and a spiraling of catwalks that suggested the intricacy of tapestry threads woven on a loom. The castle rose high and then higher, until its farthest reaches were barely discernible. Mountains ringed the castle, opening to the sky through a ceiling of clouds and mist. Trees and scrub grew thick along the rock wall at the higher elevations, branches and vines drooping inward toward the castle spires, letting daylight slip through in a ragged seam. It was from here that the light took its odd cast, spilling down through the filter of the leafy canopy and swirling haze to coat the fortress stone in its watery illumination.

Tay moved through the doors and into a vast courtyard that spread to either side and toward the central structure of the keep.

He discovered now that he had passed through the castle’s outer walls, which abutted the peaks themselves. He stared back at the walls in astonishment, realizing that with the passing of time, the mountains had shifted, closing and tightening about the ancient fortress until its walls had begun to crack and crumble. Inch by inch, the mountains were reclaiming the ground on which the fortress had been built. One day they would close about it for good.

The company advanced farther into the courtyard, glancing about guardedly. The air was damp and fetid, smelling of swamp and decay, strange for where they were, so deep in the mountains.

But they had descended a long way since coming through the fissure in the crater wall, and Tay felt they might again be nearing sea level, far enough down to encounter marshy conditions. He glanced up again at the trees and scrub and vines growing high above them on the cliffs, and realized that the mist was almost a rain. He could feel the damp on his face. He looked at the fortress doors and windows, black holes in the gray haze. Iron hinges and locks hung empty and useless; the wood had rotted away at every turn. Moisture worked at the stone and mortar as well, wearing it down, eroding it. Tay walked to the wall of the nearest tower and rubbed his hand across the stone. The surface crumbled like sand under his fingers. This ancient keep, this Chew Magna, had the unpleasant feel of a place that would collapse under a strong wind.

Then Tay saw Vree Erreden. The locat was on his knees at the center of the court, head lowered between his shoulders, arms braced to keep himself from collapsing completely, his breath a harsh gasp in the near silence. Tay hurried over and knelt beside him. Preia appeared as well, then Jerle, their faces anxious and intent.

“What is it?” Tay asked the stricken man. “Are you sick?”

The locat nodded quickly, pulling his arms into his body, sagging against Tay for support, shivering as if struck with a terrible chill.

“This place!” he hissed. “Shades, can you feel it?”

Tay held him close. “No. Nothing. What do you feel?”

“Such power! Evil, harsh as grit against my skin! I felt nothing and then, suddenly, it was everywhere! It overwhelmed me! For a moment, I could not breathe!”

“What is its source?” Jerle asked quickly, edging close.

The locat shook his head. “I cannot tell! This is nothing I am familiar with, nothing I have experienced before! It wasn’t a vision, or a hunch, or ... anything. It was blackness, a wave of blackness, then a feeling of...”

He took a deep, steadying breath, closed his eyes, and went still.

Tay glanced down hurriedly, thinking he had lost consciousness.

But Preia touched him and shook her head; Vree Erreden was only resting. Tay let him be. He remained kneeling, holding the locat in his arms, and the entire company waited with him.

Finally the stricken man opened his eyes once more, exhaled a long, deep breath, eased away from Tay, and climbed to his feet.

He was steady as he faced them, but his hands still shook. “The Black Elfstone,” he whispered, “is here. That was what I sensed, the source of the evil.” He blinked, then looked sharply at Tay. “Its power is immense!”

“Can you tell where it is?” Tay asked, trying to stay calm.

The locat shook his head, arms folding against his chest defensively. “Ahead, somewhere. In the keep.”

So they went on, moving cautiously into the fortress proper.

Tay led once more, his magic sent before him in a sweeping net to guard against all dangers. They went through a doorway at the center of the keep and began to wind their way along the corridors beyond. Tay felt Jerle brush against his elbow, then Preia, a step behind. They were protecting him, he realized. He shook his head.

He was disturbed by his lack of awareness of the Black Elfstone’s proximity when it had been so clear to Vree Erreden. His Druid magic had failed him. Why was that? Was his magic rendered useless in this keep? No, he answered himself, because he had sensed a presence earlier on entering, eyes keeping watch. Whose, then?

The Elfstone could not possess intelligence, but there was clearly something that lived here. What could it be?

They pressed on through the fortress, working their way deeper into its catacombs. Shadows lay over everything in dark layers of musty velvet. Dust rose from beneath their feet to cloud the air.

The furnishings that had once graced this castle had crumbled.

Nothing remained but scraps of metal and shreds of cloth. Nails poked from the walls, where once tapestries and paintings had hung. There had been artistry and craftsmanship at work in another time, but nothing they had produced remained. Rooms opened off hallways and passages, some vast and regal, some small and intimate, all empty of life. Benches lined a corridor they traversed, but when Tay put his hand on one it crumbled into dust.

Glass lay shattered in niches. Weapons lay broken and rendered useless, stacks of rotted wood and rusted metal. Ceilings lifted into clouds of gloom, and windows gaped like the ruined sockets of blinded eyes. Everything was still, the silence of a crypt.

At a juncture of several broad corridors, Vree Erreden brought them to a sudden stop. He was holding his head with one hand, pain etched on his thin features, his slender body taut.

“Go left!” he gasped, pointing raggedly.

They turned as he directed. Preia Starle dropped back to take his arm, lending her support. He was breathing rapidly again, his eyes blinking as if to rid themselves of an irritation. Tay glanced back at him, then ahead once more. He still sensed nothing. He felt oddly defenseless, as if his magic had abandoned him and he could no longer rely on it. He gritted his teeth against his perceived inadequacy and forced himself to go on. His magic would never desert him, he admonished himself. Never.

They passed down a broad stairway that wound about the outer wall of a vast rotunda. Their footsteps echoed faintly in the muffling silence, and now Tay sensed the eyes again, more strongly this time, more evident. What lived within this keep was close.

They reached the bottom of the stairway and stopped. A courtyard opened before them, broad and bright with misty sunlight.

Shadows fell away, tattered and frayed. The musty staleness of the dark corridors faded. The dust and grit that hung upon the captured air disappeared.

At the center of the courtyard was a garden.

The garden was rectangular in shape, encircled by a broad walkway constructed of painted tiles and stone, the colors still resonant. Flowers grew along the outer border, a variety Tay could not identify, multicolored, profuse. The central portion of the garden was given over to a grove of slender trees and vines so closely intertwined as to be virtually inseparable, their leaves bright green and shiny, their limbs and trunks a curious mottled pattern.

A garden! Tay Trefenwyd marveled. Excitement washed through him. A garden, deep within the bowels of this ancient fortress, where nothing should grow, where no sunlight should reach! He could hardly believe it!

Almost without thinking, he came down off the stairs and hurried toward the garden’s edge. He was within several yards when Jerle Shannara caught hold of his arm and yanked him firmly back.

“Not so quick, Tay,” his friend warned.

Startled, Tay looked at the other, then saw Vree Erreden down on one knee again, shaking his head slowly from side to side as Preia held him. He realized suddenly how strong the impulse had been to go forward, how anxious he had been to explore. He realized as well that he had abandoned his defenses entirely. So eager had he been that he had released the protective shield of his Druid magic without a thought.

Saying nothing, he walked quickly to where Vree Erreden knelt. The locat grasped him immediately, sensing rather than seeing him, drawing him close. “The Black Elfstone,” he hissed through teeth clenched against some inner pain, “lies there!”

His hand, shaking, pointed at the garden.

Preia touched Tay’s arm gently so that he would look at her.

Her ginger eyes were wary, guarded. “He went down the moment you left the stairs. Something attacked him. What’s happening?”

Tay shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

He reached for Vree Erreden’s hands and took them in his own.

The locat flinched, then went still again. Tay summoned his magic, called up a healing balm, and sent it flowing into the other’s slender arms and body. Vree Erreden sighed and went still, his head drooping.

Preia looked at Tay, one eyebrow cocked. “Just hold him for a moment,” he said to her.

Then he rose again to stand with Jerle. “What do you suppose this garden is doing here?” he asked softly.

His friend shook his head. “Nothing good, if that’s where the Black Elfstone lies. I wouldn’t walk in there if I were you.”

Tay nodded. “But I cannot reach the Elfstone if I don’t.”

“I wonder if you can reach it even if you do. You said yourself that the vision warned that something wards the Stone. Perhaps it is this garden. Or something that lives within it.”

They stood close, staring into the tangle of vines and limbs, trying to detect something of the danger they sensed waiting. A soft wind seemed to ruffle the shiny leaves momentarily, but nothing else moved. Tay stretched out his arm and sent a feeler of Druid magic to probe the garden’s interior. The feeler snaked its way inward, searching carefully. But there was only more of what he could already see—the slender trees and vines with their shiny leaves and the earth from which they grew.

Yet he could feel life there, life beyond what the plants suggested, a presence strong and ancient and deadly.

“Walk with me,” he said to Jerle finally.

They left the company and began a slow, cautious exploration of the garden’s perimeter. The walkway was broad and unobstructed, so they were able to keep a wary eye in all directions as they proceeded. The garden ran for several hundred feet down one side, another hundred across, then several hundred back again. On each side, it looked the same—flowers along its border, trees and vines within. There were no paths. There were no indications of other life. There was no sign of the Black Elfstone.

When they were back where they started, Tay walked over to Vree Erreden once more. The locat was conscious again and crouched next to Preia. His eyes were open, and he was staring fixedly at the garden, although it seemed to Tay that he was looking at something else entirely.

Tay knelt beside him. “Are you certain the Black Elfstone is here?” he asked quietly.

The locat nodded. “Somewhere in that maze,” he whispered, his voice rough and thick with fear. His eyes shifted suddenly to Tay. “But you must not go in there! You will not come out again, Tay Trefenwyd! What wards the Elfstone, what lives in this place, waits for you!”

One hand came up to knot before his pain-etched face. “Listen to me! You cannot stand against it!”

Tay rose and walked over to Jerle Shannara. “I want you to do something,” he said. He was careful to make certain Vree Erreden could not hear. “Call the other Hunters over. Leave Preia with the locat.”

Jerle studied him a moment, then beckoned the remaining Elven Hunters to his side. When they were gathered about, he looked questioningly at Tay.

“I want you to take hold of my arms,” he told them. “Two on each side. Take hold, and no matter what I say or do, you are to keep hold. Do not release me. Do not react to anything I say. Do not even look at me if you can help it. Can you do that?”

The Elven Hunters looked at one another and nodded. “What are you going to do?” Jerle demanded.

“Use Druid magic to find what lies within the garden,” Tay answered. “I will be all right if you remember to do as I said.”

“I’ll remember,” his friend answered. “We all will. But I don’t like this much.”

Tay smiled, his heart pounding. “I don’t like it much either.”

He closed his eyes then and washed the others of the company from his consciousness. Gathering his magic to him, he went down inside himself. There, deep within the core of his being, he formed of the magic an image of himself, a thing of spirit and not substance, and dispatched it forth in a long, slow exhale of his breath.

He emerged from his corporeal body an invisible wraith, a bit of ether against the pale gray light of the ancient fortress. He slipped past Jerle Shannara and the Elven Hunters, past Preia Starle and Vree Erreden, toward the thick, green tangle of the silent garden. As he went, he came to sense more clearly the magic buried there. Old, wily, and established, it rooted deeper than the trees and vines that concealed it. It was the entity to which the lines of power that warded this fortress were attached. They grew from it as gossamer threads, entwining stone and iron, reaching from outer walls to tallest spires, from deepest cellars to highest battlements. They stretched across the chasm of the mountains where they breached against the sky, a vast concentration of thought and feeling and strength. He came up against their webbing and eased his way carefully past, sliding by without touching to continue on.

Then he was within the garden, wending his way through its maze, into the lush mustiness of earth and the sweet tang of leaves and vines. Everywhere, the garden was the same, deep and secret and enveloping. He sailed weightless and substanceless on a current of air, avoiding the lines of power that stretched everywhere, doing nothing to trigger a disturbance that might alert whatever watched to his presence.

He had penetrated so far into the garden that he thought he must be close to passing all the way through when he encountered an unexpected tightening of the lines of power at a place where the light seemed to diminish and the shadows to encroach once more.

Here, the slender trees and vines disappeared. Here, darkness held sway. Bare earth lay revealed in a space where nothing grew and the diffuse light was absorbed as if water soaked into a sponge.

Something unseen throbbed with the vibrancy and consistency of a beating heart, layered in protective magic, wrapped in blanketing power.

Tay Trefenwyd eased close, peering into the suffocating shadows, stealing past the warding lines. Within his guise, he stilled himself, and even the beating of his pulse, the whisper of his breath, and the shudder of his heart slowed to silence. He withdrew all but the smallest part of himself and became one with the darkness.

Then he saw it. Resting on an ancient metal frame into which runes had been scrolled and strange creatures wrought was a gem as black as ink, so impenetrable that no light reflected from its smooth surface. Opaque, depthless, radiating power that was beyond anything Tay Trefenwyd had imagined possible, the Black Elfstone waited.

For him.

Oh, Shades! For him!

A moth drawn to a flame, he reached for it—impulsive, unthinking, unable to resist. He reached for it with the desperation and need of a drowning man, and this time Jerle Shannara was not there to stop him. An image only, a wraith without substance, he gave no thought to what he did. In that moment, reason was lost to him and his need was all that mattered.

That he was a ghost and nothing more was what saved him. The moment his hand closed about the Elfstone, he was known. He could feel the lines of power shimmer in response to his presence, feel them vibrate and whine in warning. He tried to draw back, to flee what was coming, but there was no escape. The watcher he had not been able to identify, the thing that lived within the ruins of the Chew Magna, took sudden, hideous shape. The earth trembled in response to its waking, and the vines that grew throughout the garden, limp and flaccid a moment earlier, thrust upward— become the coils of death of which Galaphile’s shade had warned. They whipped through the spaces between the slender trees like snakes, searching. Magic drove them, fed them, gave life to them, and Tay Trefenwyd, even in his spirit form, knew them for what they were instantly. They fastened on his arms and legs, about his body and head, dozens strong, come from everywhere. They fastened, and then they began to squeeze. Tay could feel the pressure. He should not have been able to do so—he had made himself a spirit. But the garden’s magic had the power to ferret him out even in this elusive form. Magic to hold magic—magic to destroy even a Druid. Tay felt himself being ripped apart. He heard himself scream in response—the pain a reality within his psyche. Gathering himself within the core of his shattered form, bringing the small part that mattered into a particle no larger than a dust mote, he hurtled out through a gap in the writhing mass of vines and into the light.

Then abruptly he was back inside his body, twisting and screaming, arching as if electrified, struggling so hard to break free that it was all Jerle Shannara and the Elven Hunters could do to hold him. He gasped, shuddered, and collapsed finally into their arms, spent. He was drenched in sweat, and his clothes were ripped from his efforts to rid himself of their hands. Before him, the garden undulated with life, an ocean of deadly intent, a quagmire that nothing caught within could hope to escape.

Yet he had done so.

His eyes closed and tightened into slits. “Shades!” he whispered, fighting down his memory of the tenacious vines as they crawled over him, tightening.

“Tay!” Jerle’s voice was harsh, desperate. The big man held him, arms wrapped about his body. He trembled violently. “Tay, do you hear me?”

Tay Trefenwyd gripped his friend in response and his eyes snapped open. He was all right now, he told himself. He was safe, unharmed. He took a long, slow, steadying breath. He was returned to the living, and of the horror of the Black Elfstone’s dark magic he had discovered all that he needed to know.

He told the others of the company what he had learned. He gathered them close, all of them, for there was no reason they should not all know, and told them what had occurred. He did not lie, but he kept from them the darkest of the truths he had uncovered. He tried not to show how frightened he was, though his fear worked through him anew as he recounted the experience, a river vast and wide and deep. He kept his voice calm and steady and his story brief. When he was finished, he told them he needed to think awhile about what they should do next.

They left him alone save for Vree Erreden. The locat came away with him unbidden, and as soon as they were out of hearing of the others, he took Tay’s arm.

“You said nothing of the watcher. You did not name it, yet you must know its identity.” The thin, strong fingers tightened. “I sensed it waiting for you—you, in particular, as if you were special to it. Tell me what it is, Tay Trefenwyd.”

They moved onto the spiral staircase and sat together in the echoing silence of the fortress depths. Before them, the garden had gone still again, a garden once more, and nothing else. It was as if nothing had happened.

Tay glanced at the locat and then looked away. “If I tell you, it must remain between us. No one else is to know.”

Vree Erreden nodded. “Is it the Warlock Lord?” he whispered.

Tay shook his head. “What rules here is older than that. What lives in the garden is what once lived in this castle. It is a compendium of lives, a joining of faerie creatures. Elves mostly, that centuries ago were just as you and I. But they coveted the power of the Black Elfstone. They coveted it, and their need was so desperate that they could not resist. They used the Stone, all of them, together perhaps, or separately, and they were destroyed. I can’t tell how, but their story was made known to me. I could feel their horror and their madness. They are transformed, become the substance of this garden, a collective conscience, a collaborative power, their magic sustaining what remains of the fortress, gathered here, where all that is left of them has taken root in the form of these trees and vines.”

“They were human?” the locat asked in horror.

“Once. No more. They lost what was human when they summoned the power of the Elfstone.” Tay fixed him with a haunted gaze. “Bremen warned me of the danger. He told me that whatever happened, whatever the cause, I must not use the Black Elfstone. He must know what it would cost me if I did.”

Vree Erreden’s thin face lowered into shadow. His eyes blinked rapidly. “I could feel what lives here waiting for you—I told you that. But why does it wait? Does it seek its own kind, creatures of power, beings who have use of the magic in some form? Or does it ward against them? What drives it? It passed me by, I think, because my magic lacks definition and strength. My magic is instinct and vision, and it has no use for that. But, Shades, I could feel the darkness of it!”

He turned back to Tay. “You have a Druid’s power, and such power is infinitely more compelling. There can be no question that it either fears or covets your magic.”

Tay’s mind raced. “It protects the Black Elfstone because the Elfstone is the source of its power. And of its life. I threatened it by coming into the garden and disturbing the lines of power it has established. Does it know me as a Druid, though? I wonder.”

“It knows you as an enemy, certainly. It must, since it tried to destroy you. It knows you are not subverted.” The locat exhaled, a long, ragged breath. “It will be waiting for you to try again, Tay. If you go back into that garden, you will be devoured.”

They stared at each other wordlessly. It knows you as an enemy, Tay thought, repeating Vree Erreden’s words. It knows you are not subverted. He was reminded of something suddenly, but he could not think what. He wrestled with it for a moment before remembering. It was Bremen, changing his appearance, his form, his very thinking, so that he could penetrate the stronghold of the Warlock Lord. It was Bremen, altering himself so that he became one with the monsters that dwelled within.

Could he do that here?

His breath caught in his throat, and he turned away, unwilling to let Vree Erreden see what was in his eyes. He could not believe what he was thinking. He could not imagine he was giving the idea even the smallest consideration. It was insane!

But what other choice was left to him? There was no other way—he knew that already. He looked at the others sitting grouped at the edge of the deadly garden. They had come a long way to find the Black Elfstone, and none of them would turn back now. It was pointless to think otherwise. The stakes were too great, the price too high, for them to fail. They would die first.

Oh, but there must be another way! His mind tightened with the pressure of iron bands drawn taut. How could he make himself do it? What chance did he have? This time, should he fail, there would be no escape. He would be consumed...

Devoured.

He rose, needing to stand if he was to face this decision, needing to move away from his fear. He stepped down from the stairway, leaving the perplexed locat staring after him. He walked away from the others as well—from Jerle and Preia and the Hunters—to collect himself and take measure of his strength. A tall, gangly figure, he felt as worn and bent as the stone about him, and no less vulnerable to time. He knew himself for what he was—a Druid first, last, and always, but one of only a handful, one of an order that was in all probability moving toward extinction.

The world was changing, and some things must pass. It might be so with them, with Bremen, Risca, and himself.

But they should not pass in quiet complacency, he thought angrily. They should not pass as ghosts, fading into mist with the coming of the new day, inconsequential things and only half-believed.

We should not be less than what we are.

Empowered by his words and armored in the strength of his convictions, he summoned up the last of his courage and called to Jerle Shannara.

Chapter Seventeen

“There is a way to reach the Black Elfstone,” Tay said quietly to Jerle Shannara. “But only I can do it, and I have to do it alone.”

They stood apart from the others, Tay’s crooked smile belying the knot that tightened his throat. The day was beginning to fade toward nightfall, the sun already gone west beyond the rim of the mountains surrounding them. He did not want to be caught down here in the dark.

Jerle studied him wordlessly for a moment. “You require some use of the Druid magic, I gather?”

“I do.”

The shrewd eyes fixed him. “A disguise?”

“Yes. Of a sort.” Tay paused. “I would rather not explain the specifics. I would rather you simply trusted me. I need to be left alone, no matter what happens. No one must come near me until I say it is permitted. This will be hard, because you will want to do otherwise.”

“This will be dangerous.” Jerle made it a statement of fact.

Tay nodded. “I must go into the garden. If I do not come out, you are to take the company and return to Arborlon. Wait, hear me out,” he said, cutting short the other’s protest. “If I am killed, there is no one else who stands a chance. You have a brave heart, Jerle, but no magic, and you cannot overcome what lives in the garden without magic. You must go back to Arborlon and wait for Bremen. He will be able to help. We have found the Black Elfstone, so it only remains to discover a way to retrieve it. If I cannot, he must.”

Jerle Shannara put his hands on his hips and looked away in disgust. “I am not much good at standing around while someone else risks his life—especially when it is you.”

Tay folded his arms across his chest and looked down at his feet. “I understand. I would feel the same way if our positions were reversed. Waiting is hard. But I have to ask it of you. I will need your strength later, when mine is gone. One thing more. When I come out again, when you see me, even if you are not sure it is me, speak my name.”

“Tay Trefenwyd,” the other repeated dutifully.

They stared at each other, thinking back on the years they had been friends, measuring what was being asked against their private expectations of themselves.

“All right,” Jerle said finally. “Go. Do what you must.”

At Tay’s request, he took the other members of the company to stand with him at the bottom of the spiral staircase, well back from the edge of the garden. Tay glanced at them only once, locking eyes momentarily with Preia Starle before turning away. He had distanced himself from his feelings for her since coming into the Chew Magna, knowing he could not afford the distraction. He did so anew now, focusing on his life as a Druid, on the years given over to the study of his special talents, on the disciplines and skills he had mastered. He pictured Bremen: the lean, creased face; the strange, commanding eyes; the sense of purpose stamped everywhere. He repeated the charge the old man had given him, the charge he had accepted in coming here.

He faced the garden then, the deadly tangle of vines, the shadowed recesses, the invisible life force that waited somewhere deep within. He stilled himself, slowed his heartbeat and his pulse, quieted his thoughts, and enveloped himself in a blanket of calm. He reached out for the elements that fueled his magic—for air, water, fire, and earth, for the tools of his trade. He summoned what he could find of them, searched them out and retrieved them, and surrounded himself in their heady mix. He breathed them in, infused himself with their feel, and slowly began to change.

He worked carefully to achieve the result he desired, taking small steps as he invoked his Druid magic, altering himself without haste. He stripped away his own identity layer by layer, removing his features, changing his look. He scrubbed himself clean so that nothing of his physical identity remained. Then he went down inside his body to change what was there as well. He locked away feelings and beliefs, emotions and thoughts, codes of conduct and values of life—everything that marked him for who and what he was. He gathered them up and hid them where they could not be found, where nothing would release them save Jerle Shannara speaking his name.

Then he began to rebuild himself. He drew from the life of the garden to accomplish this. He drew from the creatures that had once been human but were no longer so. He found the essence of what they were, the core of what the Black Elfstone’s magic had made of them, and he let it blossom within himself. He became as they were, as dark and lost, as ravaged and barren, a replica of their madness and their evil. He became like them, save for the fact that he retained the basic substance of his form so that he might walk among them. He was one step removed from their fate, so close there was no difference beyond the taking of that step.

The Elves watching could see him change. They could see his tall, slightly stooped form shrink and curl. They could see his gangly arms and legs turn gnarled and bent. They could feel the foulness creep over him and into him until there was nothing else. They could smell the decay. They could taste the ruin. He was anathema to anything good, to anything human, and even Jerle Shannara, steeled as he was to face what his friend was about to do, shrank from him.

Madness buzzed within Tay Trefenwyd’s head, full-blown and obsessive. He reeked of the crippling effects of the garden’s dark magic, of the ruin brought to those who infused it with their lives, who had made it their home. For an instant Tay thought he understood the magic, how it had derived from misguided use of the Black Elfstone, but the proximity of his understanding threatened the last vestige of his sanity, the small kernel of what held him to his purpose, and he was forced to back away.

He went into the garden now, a fellow to the creatures it had absorbed. He went boldly, for no other approach made sense. He went as one of them, still tending to the duties they had abandoned on changing form, still inhabiting the world they had left behind.

He slid between the slender trees and brushed up against the flaccid vines, a serpent come to a serpent’s refuge. He was as poisonous as they, and nothing of what they had become was any worse than what reflected in him. He slipped into the shadowed depths, seeking their comfort, easing sinuously into their embrace, soulless.

The garden and the creatures that fed it reacted as he had hoped.

They welcomed him. They embraced him as one of their own, recognizable and familiar. He immersed himself in their foulness, in their decay, letting the tendrils of their collective thought worm into his mind so that they might see his intent. He was their keeper, they saw. He was a tender of the garden. He was come to bring them something, a change that would inspire new growth, that would satisfy some unspoken need. He was come to give them release.

He went deep into the garden, so deep that he lost himself completely in what he had become. All else faded and would not be remembered if he did not come out. He twisted down into a knot that squeezed away his life in small, scarlet drops. He was all madness and itch, a ravaged specter without a trace of his former identity. He was lost to everything he had been.

But he was driven, too, by the unalterable and compelling sense of purpose to which he had given himself over. He had come for the Black Elfstone, and he was determined, even in his madness, that he would have it. With single-mindedness and inexorable need, he approached it. The lines of power brushed against him and slid away. The vines shuddered, but with appreciation rather than rage. The life of the garden let him bend to the Elfstone, let him take it in his hands, let him lift it to his breast. He had come to care for the Stone, they saw. He had come to draw new magic from it, magic they would share, that would feed and satisfy anew their hunger.

For this was the guise that Tay Trefenwyd had assumed. The creatures that composed the garden could no longer invoke the power that had subverted them, could no longer feed upon it, but were locked in what it had made of them, trapped within the vines and trees and flowers of this rectangular patch of earth, deep within the fortress that had once been their home, rooted in place forever. They guarded the stone as they would a lock to their shackles, waiting for the time when a key would be brought to release them. Tay was the bearer of that key. Tay was the chance and the hope and the promise their madness allowed.

So he went, step by step, back through the garden, bearing in his hands—or what passed for hands—the Black Elfstone. Lines of power trailed after him, the webbing of the garden’s power, played out to give him room, its tendrils releasing so that he might proceed. They snapped softly with his passing, and he could feel the garden shudder with the pain. But the pain fed back into him, the feeling delicious. Pain gave promise of agony, agony of transformation. Dark intent rode his footsteps, riddled his heart, and spurred him on through the shadows. A new power worked on his ravaged form, a tentative probe, like the touching of silken fingers against skin. It was the dormant magic of the Black Elfstone stirring to life, anxious for a new release, waking to give promise of what might be. It caressed Tay Trefenwyd as a lover. It stroked his ruined form and filled him with joy. He could have its power for his own, it whispered. He could command it as he wished, and it would give him anything.

He broke from the shadows of the garden into the light, free of the vines, of the voices, of the touch of those that dwelled there.

He was a terrible, wasted thing, not in any way human, but something so dark and vile as to be unrecognizable. He slouched and oozed his way onto the stone of the walkway, the Black Elfstone clutched to him, the lines of power trailing invisibly behind, strings that only he could see, threads that could pull him back in an instant’s time. Ahead, the Elves who had come with him into the Chew Magna watched in horror. On seeing him emerge, they drew their weapons with a cry and braced themselves to meet his attack. He looked at them and did not know who they were. He looked at them and did not care.

Then Jerle Shannara held up his hand to stay the weapons of his companions. He came forward alone, unaided, staring fixedly at the apparition before him. When he was within only a few yards, he stopped and whispered in the stillness, his voice ragged and harsh and filled with despair. “Tay Trefenwyd?”

The sound of his name being spoken by Jerle Shannara gave Tay back his life. The Druid magic, held in check within the deepest, most impenetrable core of his being, surged through him, exploded out of him. It freed him from the trappings of the guise he had assumed, brought him out from the darkness that had enveloped him, from the quagmire into which he had sunk. It burned away the shell of the creature he had made himself.

It burned away the madness that had consumed him. It rebuilt him in an instant’s time, his features and identity restored, his reason and beliefs given back.

Then it severed the lines of power that trailed after him, giving him sole possession of the Black Elfstone.

The garden went berserk. Vines and trees surged out of the earth with such force that they threatened to tear loose from their roots. They lunged for the Black Elfstone and Tay Trefenwyd, first to recover, then to destroy. But Tay was shielded by his Druid fire, the magic set in place at the moment of his release, preordered to protect him from the garden’s rage. Vines hammered down at him, wound about him, and tried to drag him back into the shadowy depths. But the fire held them at bay, burned them to ash, and kept the Druid safe.

Jerle Shannara and the rest of the company rushed forward, swords and knives slicing at the waving mass of vines. No! thought Tay as he struggled to slow them. No, stay clear! He had told them not to come near him, had warned Jerle expressly that they must not! But the Elves were unable to help themselves, seeing him returned and bearing the prized Elfstone, believing he was in need. So they charged bravely, recklessly ahead, weapons drawn, heedless of the magnitude of the danger they faced.

Too late they realized their mistake. The garden turned on them as swiftly as thought. It caught the closest Elven Hunter before he could leap clear, bore him away from his fellows, and ripped him to shreds. Frantically Tay extended the protection of the Druid fire to his beleaguered friends, allowing his own shield to weaken.

Then he broke for the safety of the stairs, yelling at the others to follow after him. They did so, all but one— another of the Hunters, too slow to react, caught from behind as he turned and dragged to his doom.

Tay reached the stairs and bolted up their broad sweep. He could feel the collapse of the lines of power all about him.

He could feel the ebbing of the garden’s magic. Stealing the Black Elfstone had caused irretrievable damage deep within the life force of the Chew Magna, and the fabric of its skin was rent beyond repair. Beneath his feet, he could feel the earth begin to shudder.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Jerle cried out, coming abreast of him.

“The fortress is collapsing!” Tay shouted. “We must get out!”

They sprinted into the corridors of the keep, through the tangle of halls, down the shadowed, empty passageways, and back toward the fissure that had admitted them. A strange and unsettling mix of elation and discomfort roiled through Tay’s breast. He was free, his gambit a success, and his blood raced with the thought. But the measure of its cost had not yet been taken. He did not feel right; something had been done to him in the garden, something he could not yet identify. He looked down at himself, as if thinking to find some piece missing. But he was whole, he saw, unharmed. The damage was inside.

Cracks appeared along the ancient walls of the fortress, splitting and widening before them. Stone blocks shook violently and crumbled. Tay had destroyed the power of the Chew Magna, the carefully constructed magic that sustained the garden and the keep more fragile than he had realized. The Chew Magna was coining down. Its time in the world, extended for so long, was at an end.

Preia Starle bolted past him and sprinted ahead, shouting back over her shoulder. She was resuming her place as scout for the company once more. She flew across the shuddering stone, slender limbs and cinnamon hair flying. Tay peered after her, unable to see her as clearly as he should. His vision was blurred, and he was having trouble breathing. He gulped mouthfuls of air, and still it was not enough.

He was stumbling when Jerle Shannara caught up with him, slowed, wrapped one powerful arm about his sagging body, and pulled him on. Behind them charged Vree Erreden and the last of the Elven Hunters.

Walls and ceilings were collapsing as they broke from the keep and raced across the courtyard to the outer wall and the gates that had brought them in. Tay felt a fire burning in his chest. Some part of the garden’s foul magic, he realized, was still inside him. He tried to seal it off, to close it away from the rest of his body, using his own magic to suffocate it. He glanced down at himself, trying to draw reassurance from what he saw.

To his horror, the Black Elfstone was pulsing softly against his chest. He wrenched his glance away, covering the dark gem hurriedly so that the others would not see.

The five dashed through the fortress gates and up the stairs that led back to the fissure’s entry. The rumbling behind them had grown louder, infused with the sound of stone cracking and sliding away. Dust clogged the passageway, and they could scarcely breathe. Vree Erreden was beginning to lag as well, and the Elven Hunter who ran beside him slowed to help. Like old men, the four stumbled ahead, coughing and choking, trying to keep up with Preia Starle.

There was an explosion deep within the mountain, and a vast cloud of debris hammered into them from behind, knocking them from their feet to sprawl on the stairs. Shaken and dazed, they scrambled up determinedly and went on.

Tay’s strength was failing badly. The pain inside him was spreading. He could feel the pulse of the Black Elfstone grow stronger as it throbbed against his chest. That part of the garden’s magic still locked within him was feeding into the magic of the Elfstone. He had disguised himself too well. He had altered himself too thoroughly. He had thought he would be able to recover from what he had done, but the sickness with which he had infested himself would not be so easily dispelled. He gritted his teeth and pressed on. It was a risk he had accepted. There was nothing to be done about it now.

Then they were clear of the fissure and back out onto the slide leading down to the lake within the mountain crater. Preia Starle stood frozen directly before them, only yards away.

“Shades!” hissed Jerle Shannara.

Before them, arrayed in a broad semi-circle that cut off any possibility of escape, were dozens of Gnome Hunters. At their center, black-cloaked and hunched down like wraiths awaiting night, were a pair of the dreaded Skull Bearers.

Their pursuers had caught up with them at last.

The Elves stumbled to a ragged halt behind Preia. Tay counted quickly. They were five matched against almost a hundred. They stood no chance. Preia backed carefully to Jerle’s side. She had not drawn a weapon.

“They were waiting when I came out,” she said quietly. There was no fear in her voice. She glanced at Tay, and her face was oddly calm. “They are too many for us.” Jerle nodded. He glanced at Tay, grim-faced. Behind them, the fissure belched grit and dust as a new explosion tore through the mountain. The earth shuddered beneath them, still reacting to the fall of the Chew Magna and the giving up of its magic.

“We’ll have to go back,” Jerle whispered. “Maybe we can find another way out.”

But there was no other way, Tay knew. There was only this way, through the Skull Bearers and the Gnome Hunters. Going back into the fissure was suicide. The entire mountain was collapsing, and anything caught within its tunnels would be crushed.

Behind and to his left, the remaining Elven Hunter released his grip on Vree Erreden and let the other man slide to the rock floor.

The locat was just barely conscious. There was blood on his head and face. When had that happened? Tay wondered. How had he missed it?

The Elven Hunter came forward to stand beside him.

Hopeless, Tay thought.

He eased himself away from Jerle then, testing his strength to stand on his own. He found he could do so. He straightened, then looked directly at his friend. Jerle stared back at him suspiciously, and Tay smiled at the other in spite of himself. Preia Starle watched him curiously. Her eyes were bright and challenging, and he thought that maybe she saw what Jerle did not.

“Wait here for me,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” Jerle demanded at once, stepping forward to take hold of his arm, to restrain him.

Carefully, Tay freed himself. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “Just wait here.”

He went down the slope, picking his way carefully on the smooth, loose rock, feeling long tremors rumble through the mountain as the destruction of the Chew Magna continued.

He glanced upward along the cliff face to the sky, taking in the expanse of the crater’s walls and its still, captured lake, the mountain peaks, and the fading sun. He allowed his thoughts to drift. He thought of Bremen and Risca, far away now in some other part of the Four Lands, waging their own fight. He imaged how it must be for them. He thought about his family and his home in Arborlon, his parents and Kira, his brother and wife and children, his friends of old, the places he had lived. He thought of doomed Paranor and the Druids. He took the measure of things past and present in a few brief moments, scattered his musings out before him, swept them up again, and put them away for good.

He stopped when he was only a dozen yards from the Skull Bearers. They had risen from their crouch and were watching him with baleful red eyes, their faces hidden within the darkness of their hooded cloaks. He lacked the magic necessary to stand against them, he knew. He had used himself up in the Chew Magna, and he was sick and worn. He accepted this calmly. The quest for the Black Elfstone was finished. All that remained was to see the Stone safely returned to Arborlon. Those with him must be given the chance to complete their journey home. He must see to it. Where once he would have been enough to protect them all, now he was barely able to protect himself. Yet he would have to do. He was all they had.

He looked down at his tightly clutched hand. The power of the Black Elfstone lay within. Bremen had warned him not to invoke it, and he had given his word to the old man that he would not. But things did not always work out the way you wanted.

He brought up his fist in a sudden sweep, feeling the dark pulse of the Elfstone against his palm. Summoning every last ounce of strength and determination that remained to him, he reached down into the heart of the dark magic and called forth its power. Already the Skull Bearers were reacting. Realizing the danger, they summoned their own deadly fire, a wicked green brilliance they launched at him with deadly efficiency. But they were not quick enough. The Black Elfstone had been awaiting Tay’s summons, anticipating it, linked to him from the moment of its taking, master to slave with the roles not yet determined. Pulsing with expectation, its magic surged from between his fingers in a swath of nonlight, a black void that swallowed up everything in its path. It smashed the fire of the Skull Bearers. It smashed the Skull Bearers themselves. It smashed the Gnome Hunters, all of them, even those who tried to flee, down to the last terrified man. It devoured everything. It burned men and monsters to ash, then stole away their lives and fed them back into the holder of the Stone.

Tay shuddered and cried out as the Elfstone’s magic returned to him, imbued with the lives of its victims. Deep into his body went the evil of the Skull Bearers and the killing force of their fire. All of their dark intent and wicked need surged through him, filling him, ravaging him. He recognized in that instant the secret of the Black Elfstone’s power—to negate the power of other magics, to steal them away, to make them its own. But the price was hideous, for the power stolen became the power of the Elfstone’s holder and changed the holder forever.

It was over in seconds. The whole of the enemy force that had confronted them was destroyed. On the sweep of the crater slope there were only bits of clothing and weapons and small piles of ash. In the air, there was the smell of burning flesh. Across the surface of the still crater waters, there were ripples from the passing of the Black Elfstone’s heat.

Tay dropped to his knees, the expended magic roiling through him. He could feel it eating away at his body and spirit, reducing them to dust. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He was being destroyed and made over. The Black Elfstone tumbled from his nerveless fingers onto the rocks and lay still. Its non-light had gone out. Its pulsing had ceased. Tay stared fixedly at it, trying to find a way to concentrate his magic in an effort to stop what was happening to him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

Nothing could have prepared him for this—nothing. He had disobeyed Bremen, and this was the price.

Then Jerle Shannara was holding him, bending close and saying something. Preia was there, too. He could hear their voices, but he could not understand the words. He kept his eyes closed, fighting off the Black Elfstone’s magic. He had gone back into the garden one time too many. The magic had seeded in him, taken root, and waited for him to succumb to its lure. It was a trap he had not foreseen. There had been too many other considerations, too many distractions.

Tay!“ he heard Preia cry.

Something dark was growing inside him now, something vast and unimaginably evil. He was being cast anew in the wake of the infusion of magic that had brought with it the foul essence of the Skull Bearers. He was being subverted. He could not fight it off. He was too badly damaged to do so.

“Preia!” he whispered. “Tell Bremen...”

Then he was drifting, lost in another time and place. It was summer in Arborlon, and he was a child again. He was at play with Jerle and had fallen while trying to scale a wall. He had struck his head hard and was lying in the grass. Jerle was beside him, saying. Oh, don’t be such a baby! That fall was nothing! You aren’t hurt! And he was struggling to rise, partially stunned, scraped about the elbows and face, when Preia, who was playing with them, took him in her arms and held him, saying. Stay quiet, Tay. Wait a moment until the dizziness passes. There’s no hurry.

He opened his eyes. Jerle Shannara was cradling him in his arms, his strong face stricken. Preia knelt close, her eyes filled with tears, her face streaked with them.

His hand found hers and held it.

Then, as he had done with Retten Kipp, he used his magic to draw the air from his lungs. Slowly he felt his heart and his pulse slow. He felt the destruction of his body slow as well, thwarted.

He grew sleepy. It was all that was left him. Sleep.

Darkness filmed his eyes and stole away his sight. He sighed once. Death came swiftly, gently, and bore him away.