The Elf Queen of Shannara

Chapter Eighteen

Ellenroh Elessedil died at dawn. Wren was with her when she woke for the last time. The darkness was just beginning to lighten, a pale violet tinge within the mist, and the queen’s eyes opened. She stared up at Wren, her gaze calm and steady, seeing something beyond her granddaughter’s anxious face. Wren took her hand at once, holding it with fierce determination, and for just an instant there appeared the faintest of smiles. Then she breathed once, closed her eyes, and was gone.

Wren found it odd when she could not cry. It seemed as if she had no tears left, as if they had been used up in being afraid that the impossible might happen, and now that it had she had nothing left to give. Drained of emotion, she was yet left feeling curiously unprotected in her sense of loss, and because she had no one she wanted to turn to and nowhere else to flee she took refuge within the armor of responsibility her grandmother had given her for the fate of the Elves.

It was well that she did. It appeared no one else knew what to do. Eowen was inconsolable, a crumpled, frail figure as she huddled next to the woman who had been her closest friend. Red hair fallen down about her face and shoulders, body shaking, she could not manage even to speak. Triss and Dal stood by helplessly, stunned. Even Gavilan could not seem to summon the strength to take charge as he might have before, his handsome face stricken as he stared down at the queen’s body. Too much had happened to destroy their confidence in themselves, to shatter any belief that they could carry out their charge to save the Elven people. Aurin Striate and the queen were both gone—the two they could least afford to lose. Trapped within the bottomland of Eden’s Murk on the wrong side of Blackledge, they were consumed with a growing premonition of disaster that was in danger of becoming self-fulfilling.

But Wren found within herself that morning a strength she had not believed she possessed. Something of who and what she had once been, of the Rover girl she had been raised, of the Elessedil and Shannara blood to which she had been born, caught fire within her and willed that she should not despair.

She rose from the queen and stood facing them, the Ruhk Staff gripped in both hands, placed in front of her like a standard, a reminder of what bound them.

“She’s gone,” Wren said quietly, drawing their eyes, meeting them with her own. “We must leave her now. We must go on because that is what we have sworn we would do and that is what she would want. We have been asked to do something that grows increasingly difficult, something we all wish we had not been asked to do, but there is no point in questioning our commitment now. We are pledged to it. I don’t presume to think I can be the woman my grandmother was, but I shall try my best. This Staff belongs in another world, and we are going to do everything we can to carry it there.”

She stepped away from the queen. “I only knew my grandmother a short time, but I loved her the way I would have loved my mother had I been given the chance to know her. She was all I had of family. She was the best she could be for all of us. She deserves to live on through us. I do not intend to fail her. Will you help me?”

“Lady, you need not ask that,” Triss answered at once. “She has given the Ruhk Staff to you, and while you live the Home Guard are sworn to protect and obey you.”

Wren nodded. “Thank you, Triss. And you, Gavilan?”

The blue eyes lowered. “You command, Wren.”

She glanced at Eowen, who simply nodded, still lost within her grief.

“Carry the queen back into the Eden’s Murk,” Wren directed Triss and Dal. “Find a sinkhole and give her back to the island so that she can rest.” The words fought their way clear, harsh and biting “Take her.”

They bore the Queen of the Elves into the swamp, found a stretch of mire a hundred feet in, and eased her down. She disappeared swiftly, gone forever.

In silence, they retraced their steps. Eowen was crying softly, leaning on Wren’s arm for support. The men were voiceless wraiths turned silver and gray by the shadows and mist.

When they reached the base of Blackledge, Wren faced them once again. “This is what I think. We have lost a third of our number and have barely gotten clear of Killeshan’s slopes. Time slips away. If we don’t move quickly, we won’t get off the island, any of us. Garth and I know something of wilderness survival, but we are almost as lost as the rest of you here on Morrowindl. There .is only one of us remaining who stands a chance of finding the way.”

She turned to look at Stresa. The Splinterscat blinked.

“You brought us safely in,” she said quietly. “Can you take us out again?”

Stresa stared at her for a long moment, his gaze curious. “Hrrwlll, Wren of the Elves, bearer of the Ruhk Staff, I will take a chance with you, though I have no particular reason to help the Elves. But you have promised me passage to the larger world, and I hold you to your promise. Yes, I will guide you.”

“Do you know the way, Scat,” Gavilan asked warily, “or do you simply toy with us?”

Wren gave him a sharp glance, but Stresa simply said, “Stttsst. Come along and find out, why don’t you?” Then he turned to Wren. “This is not country through which I have traveled often. Here the Blackledge is impassable. Hssstt. We will need to—rrwwlll—travel south for a distance to find a pass through which to climb. Come.”

They gathered what remained of their gear, shouldered it determinedly, and set out. They walked through the morning gloom, into the heat and the vog, following the line of the cliffs along the boundary of Eden’s Murk. At noon they stopped to rest and eat, a gathering of hard-faced, silent men and women, their furtive, uneasy eyes scanning the mire ceaselessly. The earth was silent today, the volcano momentarily at rest. But from within the swamp there was the sound of things at hunt, distant cries and howls, the splashing of water, the grunting of bodies locked in combat. The sounds followed after them as they trudged on, an ominous warning that a net was being gathered in about them.

By midafternoon, they had found the pass that Stresa favored, a steep, winding trail that disappeared into the rocks like a serpent’s tongue into its maw. They began their ascent quickly, anxious to put distance between themselves and the sounds trailing after, hopeful that the summit could be reached before nightfall.

It was not. Darkness caught them somewhere in midclimb, and Stresa settled them quickly on a narrow ledge partially in the shelter of an overhang, a perch that would have looked out over a broad expanse of Eden’s Murk had it not been for the vog, which covered everything in a seemingly endless shroud of dingy gray.

Dinner was consumed quickly and without interest, a watch was set, and the remainder of the company prepared to settle in for the night. The combination of darkness and mist was so complete that nothing was visible beyond a few feet, giving the unpleasant impression that the entire island had somehow fallen away beneath them, leaving them suspended in air. Sounds rose out of the haze, guttural and menacing, a cacophony that was both disembodied and directionless. They listened to it in silence, feeling it track them, feeling it tighten about.

Wren tried to think of other things, wrapping her blanket close, chilled in spite of the heat given off by the swamp. But her thoughts were disjointed, scattered by a growing sense of detachment from everything that was real. She had been stripped of the certainty of who and what she was and left with only a vague impression of what she might be—and that a thing beyond her understanding and control. Her life had been wrenched from its certain track and settled on an empty plain, there to be blown where it would like a leaf in the wind. She had been given trusts by the shade of Allanon and by her grandmother, and she knew not enough of either to understand how they were to be carried out. She recalled why it was that she had accepted Cogline’s challenge to go to the Hadeshorn in the first place, all those weeks ago. By going, she had believed, she might learn something of herself; she might discover the truth. How strange that belief seemed now. Who she was and what she was supposed to do seemed to change as rapidly as day into night. The truth was an elusive bit of cloth that would not be contained, that refused to be revealed. It fluttered away at each approach she made, ragged and worn, a shimmer of color and light. Still, she was determined that she would follow the threads left hanging in its wake, thin remnants of brightness that would one day lead to the tapestry from which they had come unraveled.

Find the Elves and bring them back into the world of Men.

She would try.

Save my people and give them a new chance at life.

Again, she would try.

And in trying, perhaps she would find a way to survive.

She dozed for a time, her back against the cliff wall, legs drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped guardedly about the polished length of the Ruhk Staff. Faun was asleep at her feet in the blanket’s folds. Stresa was a featureless ball curled up within the shadows of a rocky niche. She was aware of movement about her as the watch changed; she even considered asking to take a turn, but let the thought pass. She had slept little in two nights and needed to regain her strength. There was time enough to take the watch another night. She rested her cheek against her knees and lost herself in the darkness behind her eyes.

Later that night, she was never sure when, she was roused by the rough scrape of a boot on rock as someone approached. She lifted her head slightly, peering out from the shelter of the blanket. The night was black and thick with vog, the haze creeping down the mountainside and settling onto the ledge like a snake at hunt. A figure appeared out of the gloom, crouched low, movements quick and furtive.

Wren’s hand slowly reached for the handle of her knife.

“Wren,” the figure said quietly, calling her name.

It was Eowen. Wren lifted her head in recognition and watched the other creep forward and settle down before her. Eowen was wrapped in her hooded cloak, her red hair wild and tossed, her face flushed, and her eyes wide and staring as if she had just witnessed something terrifying. Her mouth tightened as she started to speak, and then she began to cry. Wren reached out to her and pulled her close, surprised at the other’s vulnerability, a softening of strength that until the queen’s death had never once been in evidence.

Eowen stiffened, brushed at her eyes, and breathed deeply of the night air in an effort to compose herself. “I cannot seem to stop,” she whispered. “Every time I think of her, every time I remember, I start to grieve anew.”

“She loved you very much,” Wren told her, trying to lend some comfort, remembering her own love as she did so.

The seer nodded, lowered her eyes momentarily, and then looked up again. “I have come to tell you the truth about the Elves, Wren.”

Wren stayed perfectly still, saying nothing, waiting. She felt a cold, fathomless pit open within.

Eowen glanced back at the misty night, at the nothingness that surrounded them, and sighed. “I had a vision once, long ago now, in which I saw myself with Ellenroh. She was alive and vibrant, all aglow against a pale background that looked like dusk in winter. I was her shadow, attached to her, bound to her. Whatever she did, I did as well—moved as she did, spoke when she spoke, felt her happiness and her pain. We were joined as one. But then she began to fade, to disappear, her color to wash, her lines to blur. She disappeared—yet I remained, a shadow still, alone now, in search of a body to which I might attach myself. Then you appeared—I didn’t know you then, but I knew who you were, Alleyne’s daughter, Ellenroh’s grandchild. You faced me, and I approached. As I did, the air about me went dark and forbidding. A mist fell across my eyes, and I could see only red, a brilliant scarlet haze. I was cold to the bone, and there was no life left within me.”

She shook her head slowly. “The vision ended then, but I took its meaning. The queen would die, and when she did I would die as well. You would be there to witness it—perhaps to partake in it.”

“Eowen.” Wren breathed the seer’s name softly, appalled.

The seer turned back quickly and the green eyes clouded. “I am not frightened, Wren. A seer’s visions are both gift and curse, but always the rule of her life. I have learned neither to fear nor deny what I am shown, only to accept. I accept now that my time in this world is almost gone, and I would not die without telling you the truth that you are so desperate to know.”

She hugged the cloak to her shoulders. “The queen could not do so, you know. She could not bring herself to speak. She wanted to. Perhaps in time she would have. But it was the horror of her life that the magic of the Elves had done so much harm and caused so much hurt. I was loyal to Ellenroh in life, but I am released now by her death—in this at least. You must know, Wren. You must know and judge as you will, for you are indeed your mother’s daughter and meant to be Queen of the Elves. The Elessedil blood marks you plainly, and while you question still that such a thing could be so, be certain that it is. I have seen it in my visions. You are the hope of all of the Elves, now and in the future. You have come to save them, if they are fated to be saved. Seeing that you accept the trust of the Ruhk Staff and the Loden, knowing that the Elfstones will protect you, I find that all that remains left undone is the telling of that which has been hidden from you—the secret of the rebirth of the Elven magic and of the poisoning of Morrowindl.”

Wren shook her head quickly. “Eowen, I have not yet decided about the trust...” she began.

“Decisions are made for us for the most part, Wren Elessedil.” Eowen cut her short. “I understand that better than you. I understood it better than the queen, I think. She was a good person, Wren. She did the best she could, and you must not blame her in any way for what I will tell you. You must reflect on what I say; if you do so, you will see that Ellenroh was trapped from the beginning and all of the decisions it might seem she made of her own will were in fact made for her. If she kept the truth secret from you, it was because she loved you too well. She could not bear to think of losing you. You were all she had left.”

The pale face reflected like a ghost’s in the haze, the voice gone back again to a whisper.

“Yes, Eowen,” Wren replied softly. “And she was all I had.”

The seer’s slender hands reached out to take her own, the skin as cold as ice. Wren shivered in spite of herself. “Then heed what I say, daughter of Alleyne, Elf-kind found. Heed carefully.”

Emerald eyes glittered like frosted leaves at sunrise. “When the Elves first came to Morrowindl, the island was innocent and unspoiled. It was a paradise beyond anything they could have imagined, all clean and new and safe. The Elves remembered what they had left behind—a world already beginning to spoil, sickening where the Shadowen had crawled to birth and feed, buckling under the weight of Federation oppression and the advance of armies that knew only to obey and never to question. It was an old story, Wren, and the Elves had endured it for countless generations. They wanted no more of it; they wanted it to be gone.

“So they began to scheme of how they might keep their newfound world and themselves protected. The Federation might one day choose to extend itself even beyond the boundaries of the Four Lands. The Shadowen surely would. Only magic could protect them, they felt, and the magic they relied upon now came not out of Druid lore or new world teachings but out of the rediscovered power of their beginnings. Such magic was vast and wild, still in its infancy for this generation, and they forgot the lessons of the Druids, of the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers, and of all those who had fallen victim before. They would not succumb, they must have told themselves. They would be smarter, more careful, and more deft in their use.”

She took another deep breath, and her hands released Wren’s to brush back the tangle of her hair. “Some among them had... experience in making things with the magic. Living creatures, Wren—new species that could serve their needs. They had found a way to extract the essence of nature’s creatures and with use of the magic could nurture it so that as it grew it became a variation of the thing on which it had been modeled. They could make dogs from dogs and cats from cats, only bigger, stronger, quicker, smarter. But that was only the beginning. They quickly progressed to combining life forms, creating animals that evidenced the most desirable traits of both. That was how the Splinterscats came to be—and dozens of other species. They were the first experiments of the magic’s new use, beasts that could think and speak as well as humans, beasts that could forage and hunt and stand guard against any enemy while the Elves remained safe.

“It was all right in the beginning, it seemed. The creatures flourished and served as they were intended to do, and all was well. But as time passed, some among the wielders began to advance new ideas for use of the magic. They had been successful once, the argument went. Why not again? If animals could be formed of the magic, why not something even more advanced? Why not duplicate themselves? Why not build an army of men that would fight in their place in the event of an attack while they remained safe behind the walls of Arborlon?”

Eowen shook her head slowly, delicate features twisting at some inner horror. “They made the demons then—or the things that would become the demons. They took parts of themselves, flesh and blood to begin with, but then memories and emotions and all the invisible pieces of their spirits, and they gave them life. These new Elves—for they were Elves, then—were made to be soldiers and hunters and guardians of the realm, and they knew nothing else and had no need or desire but to serve. They seemed ideal. Those who made them sent them forth to establish watch on the coasts of the island. They were self-sufficient; there was no need to feel concern for them.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “For a time, they were almost forgotten, I am told—as if they were of no further consequence.”

Again she reached for Wren’s hands, clasping them tight. ‘Then the changes began. Little by little, the new Elves started to alter, their appearance and personality to change. It happened away from the city and out of the sight and mind of the people, and so there was no one to stop it or to warn against it. Some of the first creatures created by the magic, like the Splinterscats, came to the Elves and told what was happening, but they were ignored. They were just animals after all, despite their abilities, and their cautions were dismissed.

“The new Elves, already changing to demons, began to stray from their posts, to disappear into the jungles, to hunt and kill everything they came across. The Splinterscats and the others were the first victims. The Elves of Arborlon were next. Efforts were made to put an end to these monsters, but the efforts were scattered and misdirected, and the Elves still did not accept that the trouble lay not with just a few but with all of their creations. By the time they realized how badly they had misjudged the magic’s effect, the situation was out of control.

“By then, Ellenroh was Queen. Her father had infused the Keel with the magic of the Loden to provide a shield behind which the Elves could hide, and in truth they seemed safe enough. But Ellenroh wasn’t so sure. Determined to put an end to the demons, she took her Elven Hunters into the jungles to search them out. But the magic had worked too well in its specific intent, and the demons were too strong. Time and again, they threw the Elves back. The war went on for years, a terrible, endless struggle for supremacy of the island that ravaged Morrowindl and made living on her soil a nightmare beyond reason.”

The hands tightened, hard and unyielding. “Finally, all other choices stripped from Ellenroh by the magic’s intractability and the demons’ savagery, she called the last of the Elves into the city. That was ten years ago. It marked the end of any contact with the outside world.”

“But why couldn’t the same magic that made these creatures be used to eliminate them?” Wren demanded.

“Oh, Wren, it was far too late for that.” Eowen rocked as if comforting a child. “The magic was gone!” Her eyes had a distant, ravaged look. “All magic has a source. It is no different with Elven magic. Most of it comes from the earth, a weaving together of the life that resides there. The island was the source of the magic used to create the demons and the others before them—its earth, air, and water, the elements of its life. But magic is precious and not without its limits. Time replenishes what is used, but slowly. What the Elves did not realize was that the demons, as they changed, began to have need of the magic themselves. Created from it, they now discovered they required it in order to survive. They began to systematically siphon it from the earth and the things that lived upon it, killing whatever they fed upon. They devoured it faster than it could regenerate. The island began to change, to wither, to sicken and die. It was as if it could no longer protect itself from the creatures that ravaged it, demon and Elf alike. By the time the Elves recognized the truth, not enough magic remained to make a difference. The demons had grown too numerous to be destroyed. Everything beyond the city was abandoned to them. Morrowindl survived, if barely, but it had been subverted, changed so that it was either wasteland or carnivorous jungle, so that almost everything that lived upon it killed as swiftly and surely as the demons. Nature was no longer in balance. Killeshan came awake and boiled within its cauldron. And finally the island’s magic began to dry up altogether, and that compelled the demons to lay siege to Arborlon. The scent of the Keel’s magic was irresistible. It drew them as a magnet would iron, and they became determined to feed on it.”

Wren paled. “And now they will come for us as well, won’t they? We have the Keel’s magic, all of the magic of Arborlon and the Elves, stored within the Loden, and they will seek it out.”

“Yes, Wren. They must.” Eowen’s voice was a hiss. “But that is not the worst of what I have to tell you. There is more. Listen to me. It is bad enough that the Elves made the monsters that would destroy them, that they subverted Morrowindl beyond any possible salvation, that perhaps they have destroyed themselves as a people. Ellenroh could scarcely bear to think of it, of the part she played in stealing away the island’s magic, or of her own failure to set things right again. But what devastated her was knowing why the Elves had come to Morrowindl in the first place. Yes, it was to escape the Federation and the Shadowen and all that they represented, to isolate themselves from the madness, to begin again in a new world. But, Wren, it was the Elves who ruined the old!”

Wren stared, disbelieving. “The Elves? How could that be? What are you saying, Eowen?”

The hands released her own and clasped together with white-knuckle determination, as if nothing less could persuade the red-haired seer to continue. “After the demons had claimed virtually all of Morrowindl, after it was clear that the island was lost and the Elven people had been made prisoners of their own folly, the queen had ferreted out and brought before her those who still sought to play with the power, foolish men and women who could not seem to learn from their mistakes, who persisted in thinking the magic could be mastered. Among them were those who had created the demons. She had them thrown from the walls of the city. She did so not because of what they had done but because of what they were attempting to do. They were attempting to use the magic in another way, a way that had been employed almost three hundred years earlier in the days following the death of Allanon and the disappearance of the Druids from the Four Lands.”

She took a deep breath. “Not all of those who sought to reclaim the old ways went with us to Morrowindl. Not all of those who were Elves came out of the Four Lands. A handful of the magic-wielders remained behind, disowned by their people, cast out by the Elessedil rulers.” Her voice lowered until it was almost inaudible. “That handful, Wren, created monsters of another sort.”

There was a long, terrible silence as the seer and the Rover girl faced each other in the gloom. The cold in Wren’s stomach began to snake into her limbs. “Shades!” she whispered in horror, realizing the truth now, a truth that had been hidden all this time from those summoned to the Hadeshorn by the shade of Allanon. “You’re saying that the Elves made the Shadowen!”

“No, Wren.” Eowen’s voice choked as she struggled to finish. “The Elves didn’t make the Shadowen. The Elves are the Shadowen.”

Wren’s breath caught in her throat, a knot that threatened to strangle her. She remembered the Shadowen at the Wing Hove, the one that had stalked her for so long, the one that in the end would have killed her if not for the Elfstones. She tried to picture it as an Elf and failed.

“Elves, Wren.” Eowen’s husky voice drew her attention back again. “My people. Ellenroh’s. Your own. Just a few, you understand, but Elves still. There are others now, I expect, but in the beginning it was only Elves. They sought to be something better, I think, something more. But it all went wrong, and they became... what they are. Even then, they refused to change, to seek help. Ellenroh knew. All of the Elves knew, once upon a time at least. It was why they left, why they abandoned their homeland and fled. They were terrified of what their brethren had done. They were appalled that the magic had been so misused. For it was an inaccurate and changeable magic at best, and what they created was not always what they desired.”

She smiled bitterly. “Do you see now why the queen could not reveal to you the truth of things? Do you understand the burden she carried? She was an Elessedil, and her forefathers had allowed this to happen! She had aided in the misuse of the magic herself, albeit because it was all she could do if she wished to save her people. She couldn’t tell you. I can barely stand doing it myself! I wonder even now if I have made a mistake...”

“Eowen!” Wren seized the other’s hands and would not let go. “You were right to tell me. Grandmother should have done so in the beginning. It is a terrible, awful thing, but...”

She trailed off helplessly, and her eyes locked on the seer’s. Trust no one, the Addershag had warned. Now she understood why. The secrets of three hundred years lay scattered at her feet, and only death’s presence had given them away.

Eowen started up, freeing her hands. “I have given you enough of truth this night,” she whispered. “I wish it could have been otherwise.”

“No, Eowen...”

“Be kind, Wren Elessedil. Forgive the queen. And me. And the Elves, if you can. Remember the importance of the trust you have been given. Carry the Loden back into the Four Lands. Let the Elves begin anew. Let them help set matters right again.”

She turned, ignoring Wren’s hushed plea to stay, and disappeared from view.

Wren sat awake after that until dawn, watching the mist swirl against the void, staring out into the impenetrable night. She listened to the movements of those on watch, to the breathing of those who slept, to the empty whisper of her thoughts as they wrestled with the truth that Eowen had left her.

The Shadowen are Elves.

The words repeated themselves, a whispered warning. She was the only one who knew, the only one who could warn the others. But she had to get off Morrowindl first. She had to survive.

The night seemed to close about her. She had wanted the truth. Now she had it. It was a bitter, wrenching triumph, and the cost of attaining it had yet to be fully measured.

Oh, Grandmother!

Her hands gripped the Ruhk Staff, and frustration, anger, and sadness rushed through her. She had found her birthright, discovered her identity, learned the history of her life, and now she wished that it would all disappear forever. It was vile and tainted and marked with betrayal and madness at every turn. She hated it.

And then, when the darkness of her mood had reached a point where it appeared complete, where it seemed that nothing worse could happen, a thought that was blacker still whispered to her.

The Shadowen are Elves—and you carry the entire Elven nation back into the Four Lands.

Why?

The question hung like an accusation in the silence of her mind.