The Elf Queen of Shannara

Chapter Twenty-Two

Nightfall.

Wren Ohmsford walked back across the Harrow through the deepening gloom, empty of feeling. Shadows layered the lava rock, cast by the bones of the ravaged trees and the shirting mists. Daylight had faded to a tinge of brightness west, a candle’s slender glow against the dark. The Harrow stretched silent and lifeless all about, a mirror of herself. The magic of the Elfstones had scoured her clean. The death of Eowen had hardened her to iron.

Who am I? she asked herself.

She chose her path without really thinking about it, moving in the direction from which she had come because that was the only way she knew to go. She stared straight ahead without seeing; she listened without hearing.

Who am I?

All of her life she had known the answer to that question. The fact of it had been her one certainty. She was a Rover girl, free of the constraints of personal history, of the ties and obligations of family, and of the need to live up to anyone’s expectations but her own. She had Garth to teach her what she needed to know and she could do with herself as she pleased. The future stretched away intriguingly, a blank slate on which her life could be written with any words she chose.

Now that certainty was gone, disappeared as surely as her youthful misconceptions of who and what she would be. She would never be as she had been or had thought she would be.

Never. She had lost it all. And what had she gained? She almost laughed. She had become a chameleon. Just look at her; she could be anyone. She couldn’t even be sure of her name. She was an Ohmsford and an Elessedil both. Choose either—it would fit. She was an Elf and a human. She was the child of several families, one who birthed her, two more who raised her.

Who am I?

She was a creature of the magic, heir to the Elfstones, keeper of the Ruhk Staff and the Loden. She bore them all, trusts she had been given to hold, responsibilities she had been empowered to manage. The magic was hers, and she hated the very thought of it. She had never asked for it, certainly never wanted it, and now could not seem to get rid of it. The magic was a shadow within, a dark reflection of herself that rose on command to do her bidding, a trickster that made her feel as nothing else could and at the same time stole away her reason and sanity and threatened to take her over completely. The magic even killed for her—enemies to be sure, but friends as well. Eowen Hadn’t the magic killed Eowen? She bit down against her despair. It destroyed—which was all right because that was what she expected it to do, but at the same time was all wrong because it was indiscriminate and even when it chose properly it emptied her a little further of things like compassion, tenderness, remorse, and love, the soft that balanced the hard. It burned away the complexity of her vision and left her stripped of choices.

As she was now, she realized.

A wind had come up, slow and erratic at first, now quick and rough as it gusted across the flats, causing the spines of the trees to shiver and the ravines to hum and moan. It blew across her shoulders, pushing her sideways in the manner of a thoughtless stranger in a crowd. She lowered her head against it, another distraction to be suffered, another obstacle to be overcome. The light west had disappeared, and she was cloaked in darkness. It wasn’t so far to go, she told herself wearily. The others were just ahead at the Harrow’s edge, waiting.

Just ahead.

She laughed. What did it matter whether they were there or not? What did any of it matter? Her life would do with her as it chose, just as it had been doing ever since she had come in search of herself. No, she corrected, longer ago than that. Forever, perhaps. She laughed again. Come in search of herself, her family, the Elves, the truth—such foolishness! She could hear the mocking sounds of her own voice as the thoughts chased after one another.

A voice that echoed in the wind.

What matter? it whispered.

What difference?

Her thoughts returned unbidden to Eowen, kind and gentle, doomed in spite of her seer’s gifts, fated to be swallowed up by them. What good had it done Eowen to know her future? What good would it do any of them? What good, in fact, even to try to determine it? Useless, she raged, because in the end it would do with you what it chose in any case. It would make you what it wished, take you where it willed, and leave you in its own good time.

All about her, the wind voice howled. Let go!

She heard it, nodded in recognition, and began to cry. The words caressed her like a mother’s hands, and she welcomed their touch. Everything seemed to be fading away. She was walking—where? She didn’t stop, didn’t pause to wonder, but simply kept moving because movement helped, taking her away from the hurt, the anguish. She had something to do—what? She shook her head, unable to determine, and brushed at her tears with the back of her hand.

The hand that held the Elfstones.

She looked down at it wonderingly, surprised to discover the Stones were still there. The magic pulsed within her fist, within the fingers tightly wrapped about, its blue glow seeping through the cracks, spilling out into the dark. Why was it doing that? She stared blankly, vaguely aware that something was wrong. Why did it burn so?

Let go, the wind voice whispered.

I want to! she howled in the silence of her mind.

She slowed, looking up from the pathway her feet had been following, from the emptiness of the ground. The Harrow had taken on a different cast, one of brightness and warmth. There were faces all about, strangely alive against the haze, filled with understanding of her need. The faces were familiar, of friends and family, of all those who had loved and supported her, living and dead, come out of her imagination into life. She was surprised when they appeared, but pleased as well. She spoke to them, a word or two, tentative, curious. They glanced her way and whispered in reply.

Let go.

Let go.

The words repeated insistently in her mind, a glimmer of hope. She slowed and finally stopped, no longer knowing where she was and no longer caring. She was so tired. Her life was a shambles. She could not even pretend that she had any control over it. It rode her as a rider would a horse, but without pause or rest, without destination, endlessly into night.

Let go.

She blinked, then smiled. Understanding flooded through her. Of course. So simple, really. Let go of the magic. Let go, and the weariness and confusion and sense of loss would pass. Let go, and she would have a chance to start over again, to regain possession of her life, to return to who and what she had been. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

Something tugged at her in warning, some part of her deep within that had become buried in the sound of the wind’s voice. Curious, she tried to uncover it, but feathery touches on her skin distracted her. There was a burning against the skin of her palm from the Elfstones, but she ignored it. The touches were more intriguing, more inviting. She lifted her face to find their source. The faces were all about her now, milling at the edge of the darkness and the mist, taking on form. She knew them, didn’t she? Why couldn’t she remember?

Let go.

She cocked the hand that grasped the Elfstones in response, barely conscious of the act, and a sliver of blue light escaped the cracks of her fingers, lancing into the dark. Instantly the faces were gone. She blinked in confusion. What was she doing? Why had she stopped walking? She glanced about in alarm, seeing the darkness and the mist of the Harrow, realizing she was lost somewhere within, that she had strayed. The Drakuls were there, watching. She could feel their presence. She swallowed against her fear. What had she been thinking?

She started moving again, trying to sort out what had happened. She was dimly aware that for a time she had lost track of everything, that she must have wandered aimlessly. She remembered bits and pieces of her thoughts, like the fragments of dreams on waking. She had been about to do something, she thought worriedly. But what?

The minutes passed. Far ahead, lost in the howl of the wind, she heard the call of her name. It was there, hanging momentarily in a lull, then gone. She moved toward it, wondering if she was still going in the right direction. If she was unable to determine so soon, she would have to use the Elfstones. The thought was anathema. She never wanted to use them again. All she could see in her mind’s eye was their fire exploding into the monster that had once been Eowen and turning her to ash.

Again she began to cry and again quickly stopped herself. There was no use in it, no point. Leafless trees and fire-washed lava rock spread away from her, an endless, changeless expanse. The Harrow seemed to go on forever. She was lost, she decided, become turned about somehow. She stopped and glanced around wearily. Exhaustion flooded through her, and in anguish and despair she closed her eyes.

The wind whispered. Let go.

Yes, she replied silently, I want to.

The spell of the words folded about her like a warm cloak, wrapped her and held her close. She resisted but a moment, then gave herself over to it. When she opened her eyes, the faces were back again, surrounding her in a circle of faint light and feathery touches. She saw that she was at the edge of a ravine—a familiar place, it seemed. Once again, everything began to fade. She forgot that she was trying to escape the Harrow, that the faces about her were something other than what they appeared to be. The haze of the mist crept into her mind and settled there, thick and murky. Her ice-bound thoughts melted and ran like liquid through her body; she could feel their cold. She was so tired, so weary of everything.

Let go.

The hand that clutched the Elfstones lowered, and the faces clustered about her began to take on shape and size. Lips brushed her throat.

Let go.

She let her eyes close again. Her fingers loosened. It would all be so easy. Let the Elfstones fall, and she would escape the magic’s chain forever.

“Lady Wren!”

The shout was an anguished howl, and for a moment’s time it didn’t register. Then her eyes snapped open, and her body tensed. The strange sleep that had almost claimed her hovered close, a whisper of insistent need. Through its fog, beyond its pall, she saw two figures crouched at the edge of the light. They held swords in their hands, the metal glinting faintly.

“Phfftt! Don’t move, Wren of the Elves!” she heard another cry out in warning. Stresa.

“Stay where you are, Lady Wren,” the first cautioned frantically. Triss.

The Captain of the Home Guard inched forward, his weapon held before him. She saw his face now, lean and hard, filled with determination. Behind him was Garth, a larger form, darker, inscrutable. Leading them both, spines bristling, was the Splinterscat.

A cold place opened in the pit of her stomach. What were they doing here? What had happened to bring them? She felt a surge of fear strike her, a sense that something was about to happen and she had not even been aware of it.

She forced back the lassitude, the calm, and the whisper of the wind and made herself see again. The cold turned to ice. The light surrounding her emanated from the things that clustered close. Drakuls, all about. They were so close she could feel their breath—or seem to. She could see their dead eyes, their gaunt, nearly featureless faces, and their ivory fangs. There were dozens of them, pressed about her, parted only at the point where Triss and Garth and Stresa sought to approach, a window into the dark of the Harrow. Their hands and fingers clutched her, held her fast, bound her in ropes of hunger. They had lured her to them, lulled her almost to slumber as they must have done Eowen. Turned from phantoms to things of substance, they were about to feed.

For an instant Wren hung suspended between being and nonbeing, between life and death. She could feel the draw of two choices, very different, each compelling. One would have her break free of the soothing, deadly bonds that held her, would have her rise up in revulsion and fury and fight for her life because that was what her instincts told her she must do. The other would have her do as the wind voice had whispered and simply let go because that was the only way she would ever be free of the magic. Time froze. She weighed the possibilities as if detached from them, a judging that seemed to bring into focus the whole of her existence, past, present, and future. She could see her rescuers creep nearer, their gestures unmistakable. She could feel the Drakuls draw a fraction of an inch closer. Neither seemed to matter. Each was a distant, slow-moving reality that could change in the blink of an eye.

Then fangs brushed her throat—a whisper of hunger and need.

Drakuls.

Shadowen.

Elves.

An evolution of horror—and only she knew.

If I do not escape Morrowindl and return to the Four Lands, who else will ever know?

“Lady Wren!” Triss called softly to her, his voice pleading, desperate, angry and lost.

She stepped back from the precipice and took a long, deep breath. She could feel the strength of her body return, a rising up out of lethargy. But she would still be too slow. She flexed gently, almost imperceptibly, seeking to discover if she could move, testing the limits of her freedom. There were none; the hands that secured her held her so fast that she might as soon have been chained to the earth.

One chance, then. One hope. Her mind focused, hard and insistent, reaching deep within. Her fingers slipped open.

Now.

Blue fire exploded into the night, racing up her body to sheathe her in flames. The fangs jerked back, the hands fell away, the Drakuls shrieked in fury, and she was free. She stood within a cylinder of fire, the magic’s heat racing over her, wrapping her about as she waited for the pain to begin, anticipated what it would feel like to be burned to ash. Better that than to become one of them, the thought flashed through her mind, the corner of her life’s need turned and become a certainty she would not question again. Just let it be quick*

The fire pillared over her, rising up against the black, searing the curtain of the vog. The Drakuls flung themselves into the flames, desperately trying to reach her, moths bereft of reason. They died in sudden bursts of light, incinerated as quick as thought. Wren watched them come at her, reach for her, become entangled in the fire and disappear. Her eyes snapped open seeking the Elfstones. She found them in the cup of her open hand, white with magic, as brilliant as small suns.

Yet she did not burn. The fire raged about her, swallowed her attackers, and left her untouched.

Oh, yes!

Now the exhilaration began, the sense of power that the magic always gave her. She felt invincible, indestructible. The fire could not hurt her, would not—and she must have known as much. She flung her hands out, carrying the fire away from her in a sweep, into the maelstrom of Drakuls that circled about her. They were engulfed and consumed, shrieking in despair. For you, Eowen! She watched them perish and felt nothing beyond the joy that use of the magic gave her, the Drakuls reduced to things of no consequence, as insignificant to her as dust. She embraced the magic’s power and let it carry her beyond reason, beyond thought.

Use it, she told herself. Nothing else matters.

For an instant, she was lost completely. Forgotten were Triss and Garth, the need to escape Morrowindl and return to the Four Lands, the truths she had learned and planned to tell, the history of who and what she was, and the lives that had been given into her trust, everything. Forgotten was any purpose beyond the wielding of the Elfstones.

Then some small, ragged corner of her conscience reclaimed her once again, a whisper of sanity that reached past the mix of fear and exhaustion and despair that threatened to turn determination to madness. She saw Triss and Garth and Stresa as they fought the Drakuls turning now on them, back to back as the circle closed. She heard their cries to her and heard the voice within herself that echoed in reply. She sensed the island of self on which she had retreated beginning to sink into the fire.

Down came the hand with the Elfstones, the pillar of flames dying to a flare of light that curled about her hand, brought under control once more. She saw the darkness and the mist again, the ragged slopes of the ravine, the lava rock, jagged and black. She smelled the night, the ash and fire and heat. She wheeled toward the Drakuls and hissed at them as a snake might. They backed away in fear. She moved toward her friends, and the attackers that ringed them fell away. She carried death in her hand, certain annihilation for things who understood all too well what annihilation meant. They shimmered about her, losing substance. She stalked into their midst, unafraid, swinging the light of her magic this way and that, threatening, menacing, alive with deadly promise. The Drakuls did not challenge; in an instant they faded and were gone.

She came then to where Garth and Triss stood crouched, weapons in hand, uncertainty in their eyes. She stopped before Stresa, who stared up at her as if she were a thing beyond comprehension. She closed her fingers tight about the Elfstones, and the fire winked out.

“Help me walk from the ravine,” she whispered, so weary she was in danger of collapse, knowing she could not, realizing that the Drakuls still watched.

Triss had his arm about her instantly. “Lady, we thought you lost,” he said as he turned her gently about.

“I was,” she answered, her smile tight.

Slowly, a step at a time, eyes sweeping the island night, they began to climb.

It took them until midnight to get clear of the Harrow. The Drakuls had drawn Wren deep into their lair, far from the pathway she had thought to follow, turning her about so completely after discovering Eowen that she had ended up wandering across the flats in the wrong direction. Stresa had managed to track her, but it hadn’t been easy. They had come in search of her at nightfall, despite her command that they were not to do so, worried by then because she had been gone so long, determined to make certain that she was safe, even at the risk of their own lives. They knew they had no effective protection against the Drakuls, but that no longer mattered. Both Garth and Triss were decided. Dal was left to keep watch over Gavilan and the Ruhk Staff. Stresa had come because no one else could find Wren’s trail in the dark. They might not have found her even then if the Drakuls hadn’t been so preoccupied with their quarry. Even a handful of the wraiths would have been enough to disrupt the rescue effort. But Wren, bearer of the Elfstone magic, was a lure for the Drakuls, and all had joined in the hunt, anxious to share in the feeding, Shadowen to the end. Stresa had been able to track her unhindered. They had found her, it seemed, just in time.

Wren told them in turn of Eowen’s fate, of how the Drakuls had subverted her, of, how she had been made one of them. She described the seer’s death, unwilling to gloss past it, needing to hear the words, to give voice to her grief. It felt as if she were speaking from some hollow place within, wrapped in a haze of emptiness and exhaustion. She was so tired. Yet she would not slow,—she would not rest. She disdained all help once clear of the ravine. She walked because she would not let herself be carried, because that would be another demonstration of weakness and she had shown weakness enough for one night. She was dismayed by what had happened to her, appalled at how easily she had been misled by the wind voice, how close she had come to dying, and how willing she had been to allow it to happen—Wren Elessedil, called Queen of the Elves, bearer of the trust of a people, heir of so much magic. She could still remember how inviting the wind voice had made it seem for her to give up her life. She had been so ready, welcoming the peace she had supposed she would find. All of her life she had been strong in the face of death, never giving way to the possibility of it finding her, always certain that she would fight for her last breath. What had happened in the Harrow had shaken her confidence more than she cared to admit. She had failed to resist as she had always told herself she would. She had let exhaustion and despair work through her so thoroughly that she was as hollowed out as wormwood and as quick to crumble. She saw the way the magic pulled her, first one way, then the other, the Drakul’s, her own. Just as Eowen had been a prisoner of her visions, so Wren was now becoming a prisoner of the Elven magic. She hated herself for it. She despised what she had become.

I am nothing of what I believed, she thought in despair. I am a lie. She talked to keep from thinking of it, speaking of what she had seen as she wandered the Harrow, of how the wind voice of the Drakuls had lulled her, of how Eowen—so vulnerable to visions and images—must have become ensnared. She rambled at times, the sound of her voice helping to distract her from dark thoughts, keeping her awake, keeping her moving. She thought of the dead on this nightmare journey, of Ellenroh and Eowen in particular. She was consumed by their loss, ravaged by feelings of helplessness at having been unable to save them and by guilt at being inadequate for the task they had left her. She clutched the Elfstones tightly in her hand, unable to persuade herself to put them away, frightened that the Drakuls would come again. They did not. Not even the wind voice whispered in the darkness now, gone back into the earth, leaving her alone. She gazed out into the black and felt it a mirror of the void within. She was heartsick for what she had become and what she feared she yet might be. The world was a place she no longer understood. She could not even decide which was the greater evil—the monsters or the monster makers. Shadowen or Elves—which should bear the blame? Where was the balance to life that should come from lessons learned and experience gained? Where was the sense that the madness would pass, that a purpose would be revealed for everything that was happening? She had no answers. The magic had caught them all up in a whirlwind, and it would drop them where it chose.

This night, it picked a darker hole than she would have imagined could exist. They came off the Harrow bone weary and numb, relieved to be clear, anxious to be gone. They would rest until dawn, then continue on. The greater part of Blackledge was behind them now, left in the shadow of Killeshan’s vog. Ahead, between themselves and the beaches, there was only the In Ju. They would pass through the jungle quickly, two days if they hurried, and reach the shores of the Blue Divide in two more. Quick, now, they urged themselves silently. Quick, and get free.

They reached the spot where their companions had been left, a clearing within a cluster of lava rocks in the shadow of a fringe of barren vines and famished scrub. Faun raced through the darkness, come out of hiding from some distance off, chittering wildly, springing to Wren’s shoulder and hunkering there as if no other haven existed. Wren’s hands came up reassuringly. The Tree Squeak was shivering with fear.

They found Dal then, sprawled at the clearing’s far edge, a lifeless tangle of arms and legs, his skull split wide. Triss bent close and turned the Elven Hunter over.

He looked up, stunned. Dai’s weapons were still sheathed.

Wren glanced away in despair, a dark certainty already taking hold. She didn’t have to look further to know that Gavilan Elessedil and the Ruhk Staff were gone.