The Elf Queen of Shannara

Chapter Five

Tiger Ty was anxious to be off, but he was forced to wait almost an hour while Wren and Garth went back down into the valley to gather up the gear and weapons they would carry with them on their journey and to provide for their horses. The horses were tethered, and Garth released them so that they could graze and drink as they needed. The valley provided grass and water enough on which to survive, and the horses were trained not to wander. Wren sorted through their provisions, choosing what they would need and be able to carry. Most of their supplies were too cumbersome, and she stashed them for when they returned. If they returned, she thought darkly.

What had she done? Her mind spun with the enormity of the commitment she was making, and she was forced to wonder, if only in the privacy of her own thoughts, whether she would have cause to regret her brashness.

When they regained the cliffs, Tiger Ty was waiting impatiently. Bidding Spirit to stand, he helped Wren and Garth climb atop the giant bird and fasten themselves in place with the straps of the harness. There were foot loops, knotted hand grips, and a waist restraint, all designed to keep them safely in place. The Wing Rider spent long moments telling them how the Roc would react once in flight and how flying would make them feel. He gave them each a bit of bitter-tasting root to chew on, advising that it would keep them from being sick.

“Not that a couple of seasoned veterans of the Rover life should be bothered by any of this,” he chided, managing a grin that was worse than his scowl.

He clambered aboard in front of them, settled himself comfortably, pulled on his heavy gloves, and without warning gave a shout and whacked Spirit on the neck. The giant bird shrieked in response, spread his wings, and lifted into the air. They cleared the edge of the cliffs, dipped sharply downward, caught a current of wind, and rose skyward. Wren felt her stomach lurch. She closed her eyes against what she was feeling, then opened them again, aware that Tiger Ty was looking over his shoulder at her, chuckling. She smiled back bravely. Spirit flattened out above the Blue Divide, wings barely moving, letting the wind do the work. The coastline behind them grew small, then lost definition. Soon it was nothing more than a thin dark line against the horizon.

Time slipped away. They saw nothing below them save for a scattering of rocky atolls and the occasional splash of a large fish. Seabirds wheeled and dived in small white flashes, and clouds lay along the western horizon like strips of gauze. The ocean stretched away, a vast, flat blue surface streaked with the foaming crests of waves that rolled endlessly toward distant shores. After a time Wren was able to dismiss her initial uneasiness and settle back. Garth was less successful in adjusting. He was seated immediately behind her, and whenever she glanced back at him she found his dark face rigid and his hands clutched about the restraining straps. Wren quit looking at him and concentrated on the sweep of the ocean ahead.

She soon began thinking about Morrowindl and the Elves. Tiger Ty did not seem the sort to exaggerate the danger she faced if she persisted in trying to penetrate the island. It was true enough that she was determined to discover what had become of the Elves,—it was also true that her discovery would serve little purpose if she didn’t survive to do something about it. And what exactly did she expect to do? Suppose the Elves were still there on Morrowindl? Suppose they were alive? If no one had gotten in or out in ten years, how was her appearance going to change anything? Why, whatever their present circumstances, would the Elves even consider what Allanon had sent her to propose—that they abandon life outside the Four Lands and return?

She had no answers to these questions, of course. It was pointless to try to find any. She had made her decisions up to now based strictly on instinct—to search for the Elves in the first place, to seek out the Addershag in Grimpen Ward and then to follow her directions, to persuade Tiger Ty to convey them to Morrowindl. She could not help but wonder if her instincts had misled her. Garth had stayed with her, virtually without argument, but Garth could be doing so out of loyalty or friendship. He might have resolved to see this matter through, but that didn’t mean he had any better sense of what they were about than she did. She scanned the empty expanse of the Blue Divide, feeling small and vulnerable. Morrowindl was an island in the middle of the ocean, a tiny speck of earth amid all that water. Once she and Garth were there, they would be isolated from everything familiar. There would be no way off again without the aid of a Roc or a boat, nor was it certain there would be anyone on the island who could help them. There might no longer be any Elves. There might be only the monsters...

Monsters. She considered for a moment the question of what sort of monsters were there. Tiger Ty had failed to say. Were they as dangerous as the Shadowen? If so, then that would explain why the Elves had disappeared. Enough of these monsters could have trapped them, she supposed, or even destroyed them. But how had the Elves let such a thing happen? And if the monsters hadn’t trapped them, then why did the Elves still remain on Morrowindl? Why hadn’t even one of them escaped to seek help?

There were so many questions once again. She closed her eyes and willed them away.

It was approaching noon when they passed over a cluster of small islands that looked like emeralds floating in the sea, brilliant green against the blue. Spirit circled for a moment under Tiger Ty’s direction, then descended toward the largest, choosing a narrow bluff thick with grasses to land upon. Once the great bird was settled, his riders released their safety straps and climbed down. Wren and Garth were stiff and sore already, and it took a few moments for them to get their limbs working again. Wren rubbed her aching joints and glanced around. The island appeared to be formed of a dark, porous rock on which vegetation grew as if on rich soil. The rock lay everywhere, crunching beneath their feet when they walked on it. Wren reached down and picked up a piece, finding it surprisingly light.

“Lava rock,” Tiger Ty said with a grunt, seeing the puzzled look on her face. “All these islands are part of a chain formed by volcanoes sometime in the past, hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago.” He paused, made a face, and then pointed. “The islands the Sky Elves live upon are just south. Course, we’re not going there, you understand. I don’t want anyone to discover I’m taking you to Morrowindl. I don’t want them finding out how stupid I am.”

He moved over to a grassy knoll and seated himself. After pulling off his gloves and boots, he began massaging his feet. “We’ll have something to eat and drink in a minute,” he muttered.

Wren said nothing. Garth had stretched out full length in the grass and his eyes were closed. He was happy, she thought, to be on the ground again. She put down the rock she had been examining and moved over to sit with Tiger Ty.

“You spoke of monsters on Morrowindl,” she said after a minute. A soft breeze ruffled her hair, blowing curls across her face. “Can you tell me anything about them?”

The sharp eyes fastened on her. “There’s all kinds, Miss Wren. Big and little, four-legged and two, flying, crawling, and stalking. There’s those with hair, those with scales, and those with skin. Some come out of your worst nightmares. Some, they say, aren’t living things. They hunt in packs, some of them. Some burrow in the earth and wait.” He shook his gray-peppered head. “I’ve only seen one or two myself. Most I’ve just heard described. But they’re there right enough.” He paused, considering. “Odd though, isn’t it, that there’s so many different kinds? Odd, too, that there weren’t any at first and then all of a sudden they just started to appear.”

“You think the Elves had something to do with it.” She made it a statement of fact.

Tiger Ty pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I have to think that. It has to have something to do with their recovery of the magic—their return to the old ways. They wouldn’t say so, wouldn’t admit to a thing, the few I talked to. Ten years ago, that was. More, I guess. They claimed it all had something to do with the volcano and the changes in the earth and climate. Imagine that.”

He smiled disarmingly. “That’s the way it is, you know. Nobody wants to tell you the truth. Everybody wants to keep secrets.” He paused to rub his chin. “Take yourself, for instance. I don’t suppose you want to tell me what happened back there at the Wing Hove, do you? While you were waiting for me to spy your fire?” He watched her face. “See, I’m pretty quick to pick up on things. I don’t miss much. Like your big friend over there, all bandaged up the way he is. Scratched and marked from a fight, a recent one, a bad one. You have a few marks yourself. And there was a dark scar on the rocks, the kind made from a very hot fire. Wasn’t where the signal fire usually burns and it was new. And the rock was scraped pretty bad a place or two. From iron dragging, I’d guess. Or claws.”

Wren had to smile in spite of herself. She regarded Tiger Ty with newfound admiration. “You’re right—you don’t miss much. There was a fight, Tiger Ty. Something tracked us for weeks, a thing we call a Shadowen.” She saw recognition in his eyes instantly. “It attacked us when we lit the signal fire. We destroyed it.”

“Did you now?” the little man sniffed. “Just the two of you. A Shadowen. I know a little of the Shadowen. Way I understand it, it would take something special to destroy one of them. Fire, maybe. The kind that comes from Elven magic. That would account for the burn on the rock, wouldn’t it?”

He waited. Wren nodded slowly. “It might.”

Tiger Ty leaned forward. “You’re like the rest of them somehow, aren’t you, Miss Wren. You’re an Ohmsford like the others. You have the magic, too.”

He said it softly, speculatively, and there was a curiosity mirrored in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He was right again, of course. She did have the magic, a discovery she had pointedly avoided thinking about since she had made it because to do otherwise would be to acknowledge that she had some responsibility for its possession and use. She continued to tell herself that the Elfstones did not really belong to her, that she was merely a caretaker and an unwilling one at that. Yes, they had saved Garth’s life. And her own. And yes, she was grateful. But their magic was dangerous. Everyone knew that. She had been taught all of her life to be self-sufficient, to rely upon her instincts and her training, and to remember that survival was dependent principally on your own abilities and thought. She did not want a reliance on the magic of the Elfstones to undermine that.

Tiger Ty was still looking at her, waiting to see if she was going to respond. Wren met his gaze boldly and did not.

“Well,” he said finally, and shrugged his disinterest. “Time to get a bite to eat.”

The island was thick with fruit trees, and they made a satisfactory meal from what they picked. Afterward, they drank from a freshwater stream they found inland. Flowers grew everywhere—bougainvillea, oleander, hibiscus, orchids, and many more—massive bushes filled with their blooms, the colors bright through the green, the scents wafting on the air at every turn. There were palms, acacia, banyan, and something called a ginkgo. Strange birds perched in the branches of armored, spiny recops, their plumage a rainbow’s blend. Tiger Ty described it all as they walked, pointing, identifying and explaining. Wren stared about in amazement, not permitting her gaze to linger anywhere for more than a few seconds, anxious that she not miss anything. She had never seen such beauty, a profusion of incredibly wonderful living things. It was almost overpowering.

“Was Morrowindl like this?” she asked Tiger Ty at one point.

He gave her a brief glance. “Once,” he replied, and did not elaborate.

They climbed back atop Spirit shortly afterward and resumed their flight. It was easier now, a bit more familiar, and even Garth seemed to have discovered a way to make the journey bearable. They flew west and north, angling away from the sun as it passed overhead. There were other islands, small and mostly rocky, though all sustained at least a sprinkling of growth. The air was warm and soothing against their skin, and the sun burned down out of a cloudless sky, brightening the Blue Divide until it glistened. They saw massive sea animals that Tiger Ty called whales and claimed were the largest creatures in the ocean. There were birds of all sizes and shapes. There were fish that swam in groups called schools and leapt from the water in formation, silver bodies arcing against the sun. The journey became an incredible learning experience for Wren, and she immersed herself in its lessons.

“I have never seen anything like this!” she shouted enthusiastically at Tiger Ty.

“Wait until we reach Morrowindl,” he grunted back.

They descended a second time for a brief rest at midafternoon, choosing a solitary island with wide, white-sand beaches and coves so shallow the water was a pale turquoise. Wren noticed that Spirit had not eaten all day and asked about it. Tiger Ty said the Roc consumed meat and hunted on its own. It required food only once every seven days.

“A very self-sustaining bird, the Roc,” the Wing Rider said with undisguised admiration. “Doesn’t ask much more than to be left alone. More than you can say about most people.”

They continued their journey in silence, both Wren and Garth beginning to tire now, stiff from sitting in the same position all day, worn from the constant rocking motion of the flight, and from gripping the knotted hand restraints until their fingers cramped. The waters of the Blue Divide passed steadily beneath, an endless progression of waves. They had been out of sight of the mainland for hours, and the ocean seemed to stretch away forever. Wren felt dwarfed by it, reduced by its size to something so insignificant she threatened to disappear. Her earlier sense of isolation had increased steadily with the passing of the hours, and she found herself wondering for the first time if she would ever see her home again.

It was nearing sunset when at last they came in sight of Morrowindl. The sun had drifted west to the edge of the horizon, its light growing soft, changing from white to pale orange. A streaking of purple and silver laced a long line of odd-shaped clouds that paraded across the sky like strange animals. Silhouetted against this panorama was the island, dark and misted and forbidding. It was much larger than any other landmass they had encountered, rising up like a wall as they approached. Killeshan lifted its jagged mouth skyward, steam seeping from its throat, slopes dropping away into a thick blanket of fog and ash, disappearing for hundreds of feet until they surfaced again at a shoreline formed of rocky projections and ragged cliffs. Waves crashed against the rocks, white foaming caldrons that threw their spray skyward.

Spirit flew closer, winging down toward the shroud of vog. A stench filled the air, the smell of sulfur escaped from beneath the earth where the volcano’s fire burned rock to ash. Through the clouds and mist they could see valleys and ridges, passes and defiles, all heavily forested, a thick, strangling jungle. Tiger Ty glanced back over his shoulder and gestured. They were going to circle the island. Spirit wheeled right at his command. The north end of the island was engulfed in driving rain, a monsoon that inundated everything, creating vast waterfalls that tumbled down cliffs thousands of feet high. West the island was as barren as a desert, all exposed lava rock except for a scattering of brightly flowering shrubs and stunted, gnarled, wind-blown trees. South and east the island was a mass of singular rock formations and black-sand beaches where the shoreline met the waters of the Blue Divide before rising to disappear into jungle and mist.

Wren stared down at Morrowindl apprehensively. It was a forbidding, inhospitable place, a sharp contrast to the other islands they had seen. Weather fronts collided and broke apart. Each side of the island offered a different set of conditions. The whole of it was shadowed and clouded, as if Killeshan were a demon that breathed fire and had wrapped itself in the cloak of its own choking breath.

Tiger Ty wheeled Spirit about one final time, then took him down. The Roc settled cautiously at the edge of a broad, black-sand beach, claws digging into the crushed lava rock, wings folding reluctantly back. The giant bird turned to face the jungle, and his piercing eyes fixed on the mist.

Tiger Ty ordered them to dismount. They released their harness straps and slid to the beach. Wren looked inland. The island rose before her, all rock and trees and mist. They could no longer see the sun. Shadows and half-light lay over everything.

The Wing Rider faced the girl. “I suppose you’re still set on this? Stubborn as ever?”

She nodded wordlessly, unwilling to trust herself to speak.

“You listen, then. And think about changing your mind while you do. I showed you all four sides of Morrowindl for a reason. North, it rains all the time, every day, every hour of the day. Sometimes it rains hard, sometimes drizzles. But the water is everywhere. Swamps and pools, falls and drops. If you can’t swim, you drown. And there’s nests of things waiting to pull you down in any case.”

He gestured with his hand. “West is all desert. You saw. Nothing but open country, hot and dry and barren. You could walk it all the way to the top of the mountain, you probably think. Trouble is, you wouldn’t get a mile before you ran crosswise of the things that live under the rock. You’d never see them; they’d have you before you could think There’s thousands of them, all sizes and shapes, most with poison that will kill you quick. Nothing gets through.”

His frown etched the lines of his seamed face even deeper. “That leaves south and east, which it happens are pretty much the same. Rock and jungle and vog and a lot of very unpleasant things that live within. Once off this beach, you won’t be safe again until you’re back. I told you once that it was a death trap in there. I’ll tell you again in case you didn’t hear me.

“Miss Wren,” he said softly. “Don’t do this. You don’t stand a chance.”

She reached out impulsively and took his gnarled hands in her own. “Garth and I will look out for each other,” she promised. “We’ve been doing so for a long time.”

He shook his head. “It won’t be enough.”

She tightened her grip. “How far must we travel to find the Elves? Can you give us some idea?”

He released himself and pointed inland “Their city, if it’s still there, sits halfway down the mountain in a niche that’s protected from the lava flows. Most of the flows run east and some of those tunnel under the rock to the sea. From here, it’s maybe thirty miles. I don’t know what the land’s like in there anymore. Ten years changes a lot of things.”

“We’ll find our way,” she said. She took a deep breath to steady herself, aware of how impossible this effort was likely to prove. She glanced at Garth, who stared back at her stone-faced. She looked again at Tiger Ty. “I need to ask one thing more of you. Will you come back for us? Will you give us sufficient time to make our search and then come back?”

Tiger Ty folded his arms across his chest, his leathery face managing to look both sad and stern. “I’ll come, Miss Wren. I’ll wait three weeks—time enough for you to make it in and get out again. Then I’ll look for you once a week four weeks running.” He shook his head. “But I have to tell you that I think it will be a waste of time. You won’t be back. I won’t ever see you again.”

She smiled bravely. “I’ll find a way, Tiger Ty.”

The Wing Rider’s eyes narrowed. “Only one way. You better be meaner and stronger than anything you run up against. And—“ He jabbed at her with a bony finger, “—you better be prepared to use your magic!”

He wheeled abruptly and stalked to where Spirit waited. Without pausing, he pulled himself up the harness loops and settled into place. When he had finished fastening the safety straps, he looked back at them.

“Don’t try going in at night,” he advised. “The first day, at least, travel when it’s light. Keep Killeshan’s mouth to your right as you climb.” He threw up his hands. “Demon’s blood, but this is a foolish thing you’re doing!”

“Don’t forget about us, Tiger Ty!” Wren called in reply.

The Wing Rider scowled at her for an instant, then kicked Spirit lightly. The Roc lifted into the air, wings spreading against the wind, rising slowly, wheeling south. In seconds, the giant bird had become nothing more than a speck in the fading light.

Wren and Garth stood silently on the empty beach and watched until the speck had disappeared.