The Elf Queen of Shannara

Chapter Nine

Wren Ohmsford could not remember a time when she had been afraid of much of anything. It simply wasn’t her nature. Even when she was small and the world was still new and strange and virtually everyone and everything in it was either bigger and stronger or quicker and meaner, she was never frightened. No matter the danger, whatever the uncertainty, she remained confident that somehow she would find a way to protect herself. This confidence was innate, a mix of iron-willed determination and self-assurance that had given her a special kind of inner strength all her life. As she grew, particularly after she went to live with the Rovers and began her training with Garth, she acquired the skill and experience needed to make certain that her confidence was never misplaced, that it never exceeded her ability.

All that had changed when she had come in search of the Elves. Twice since she had begun that search she had found herself unexpectedly terrified. The first time had been when the Shadowen that had tracked them all through the Westland had finally shown itself on the first night of the signal fire, and she had discovered to her horror that she was powerless against it. All of her training and all of her skill availed her nothing. She should have known it would be like that; certainly Par had warned her when he had related the details of his own encounter with the dark creatures. But for some reason she had thought it would be different with her—or perhaps she simply hadn’t considered what it would be like at all. In any case, there she had been, bereft of Garth—Garth, whom she had believed stronger and quicker than anything!—face to face with something against which no amount of confidence and ability could prevail.

She would have died that night if she had not been able to call upon the magic of the Elfstones. The magic alone had been able to save them both.

Now, as she made her way forward with the others of her little company through the darkness and vog of Morrowindl, as they crept slowly ahead into a nightmare world of shadows and monsters, she found herself terrified anew. She tried to rationalize it away,—she tried to argue against it. Nothing helped. She knew the truth of things, and the truth was the same as it had been that night at the ruins of the Wing Hove when she had confronted the Shadowen. Confidence, skill, experience, and Garth’s protective presence, however formidable in most instances, were of little reassurance here. Morrowindl was a cauldron of unpredictable magic and unreasoning evil, and the only weapon she possessed that was likely to prove effective against it was the Elfstones. Magic alone kept the Elves alive inside the walls of Arborlon. Magic, however misguided, had apparently summoned the evil that besieged them. Magic had changed forever the island and the things that lived upon it. There was no reason for Wren to think that she could survive on Morrowindl for very long without using magic of her own.

Yet use of the Elfstones was as frightening to her as the monsters the magic was intended to protect against. Look at her; as a Rover girl, she had spent her entire life learning to depend upon her own skills and training and to believe that there was nothing they could not overcome. That was how Garth had schooled her and what life with the Rovers had taught her, but more important it was what she had always believed. The world and the things in it were governed by a set of behavioral laws; learn those laws and you could withstand anything. Reading trail signs, understanding habits, knowing another’s weaknesses and strengths, using your senses to discover what was there—those were the things that kept you alive. But magic? What was magic? It was invisible, a force beyond nature’s laws, an unknown that defied understanding. It was power without discernible limits. How could you trust something like that? The history of her family, of Ohmsfords ten generations gone, suggested you could not. Look what the magic had done to Wil and Brin and Jair. What certainty was there if she was forced to rely on something so unpredictable? What would using the magic do to her? True, it had been summoned easily enough in her confrontation with the Shadowen. It had flowed ever so smoothly from the Stones, come almost effortlessly, striking at the mere direction of her thoughts. There had been no sense of wrongness in its use—indeed, it was as if the power had been waiting to be summoned, as if it belonged to her.

She shivered at the recognition of what that meant. She had been given the Elfstones, she knew, in the belief that one day she would need them. Their power was intended to be hers.

She tightened her resolve against such an idea. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want the magic. She wanted her life to stay as it was, not to be irrevocably changed—for it would be so—by power that exceeded her understanding and, she believed, her need.

Except, of course, now—here on Killeshan’s slopes, surrounded by demons, by things formed of magic and dark intention, set upon a landscape of fire and mist, where in a second’s time she could be lost, unless...

She cut the thought short, refusing to complete it, focusing instead on Stresa’s quilled bulk as the Splinterscat tunneled his way through the gloom. Shadows wafted all about as the vog shifted and reformed, cloaking and lifting clear from islands of jungle scrub and bare lava rock, as if the substance of a kaleidoscopic world that could not decide what it wanted to be. Growls sounded, disembodied and directionless, low and threatening as they rose and fell away again. She crouched down in the haze, a frantic inner voice shrieking at her to disappear, to burrow into the rock, to become invisible, to do anything to escape. She ignored the voice, looking back for Garth instead, finding him reassuringly close, then thinking in the next instance that it made no difference, that he was not enough, that nothing was.

Stresa froze. Something skittered away through the shadows ahead, claws clicking on stone. They waited. Faun hung expectantly upon her shoulder, head stretched forward, ears cocked, listening. The soft brown eyes glanced at her momentarily, then shifted away.

What phase of the moon was it? she wondered suddenly. How long had it been since Tiger Ty had left them here? She realized that she didn’t know.

Stresa started forward again. They topped a rise stripped of everything but stunted, leafless brush and angled downward into a ravine. Mist pooled on the rocky floor, and they groped their way ahead uncertainly. Stresa’s quills shimmered damply, and the air turned chill. There was light, but it was difficult to tell where it was coming from. Wren heard a cracking sound, as if something had split apart, then a hiss of trapped steam and gases being released. A shriek rose and disappeared. The growls quieted, then started again. Wren forced her breathing to slow. So much happening and she could see none of it. Sounds came from everywhere, but lacked identity. There were no signs to read, no trails to follow, only an endless landscape of rock and fire and vog.

Faun chittered softly, urgently.

At the same moment, Stresa came to a sudden halt. The Splinterscat’s quills fanned out, and the bulky form hunched down. Wren dropped into a crouch and reached for her short sword, starting as Garth brushed up against her. There was something dark in the haze ahead. Stresa backed away, half turned, and looked for another way to go. But the ravine was narrow here, and there was no room to maneuver. He wheeled back, bristling.

The dark image coalesced and began to take on form. Something on two legs walked toward them. Garth fanned out to one side, as silent as the shadows. Wren eased her sword clear of its sheath and quit breathing.

The figure emerged from the haze and slowed. It was a man, clad all in close-fitting, earth-colored clothes. The clothes were wrinkled and worn, streaked with ash and grime, and free of any metal clasps or buckles. Soft leather boots that ended just above the ankle were scuffed and had the tops folded down one turn. The man himself was a reflection of his clothes, of medium height but appearing taller than otherwise because he was so angular. His face was narrow with a hawk nose and a seamed, beardless face, and his dark hair was mostly captured in an odd, stockinglike cap. Overall, he had the appearance of something that was hopelessly creased and faded from having been folded up and put away for so long.

He didn’t seem surprised to see them. Nor did he seem afraid. Saying nothing, he put a finger to his lips, glanced over his shoulder momentarily, and then pointed back the way they had come.

For a minute, no one moved, still not certain what to do. Then Wren saw what she had missed before. Beneath the cap and the tousled hair were pointed ears and slanted brows.

The man was an Elf.

After all this time, she thought. After so much effort. Relief flooded through her and at the same time a strangeness that she could not identify. It seemed odd somehow to finally come face to face with what she had worked so hard to find. She stood there, staring, caught up in her emotions.

He gestured again, a bit more insistent than before. He was older than he had first appeared, but so weathered that it was impossible for Wren to tell how much of his aging was natural and how much the result of hard living.

Coming back to herself at last, she caught Garth’s attention and signed for him to do as the Elf had asked. She rose and started back the way she had come, the others following. The Elf passed them a dozen steps along the way, a seemingly effortless task, and beckoned for them to follow. He took them back down the ravine and out again, drawing them across a bare stretch of lava rock and finally into a stand of stunted trees. There he crouched down with them in a circle.

He bent close, his sharp gray eyes fixing on Wren. “Who are you?” he whispered.

“Wren Ohmsford,” she whispered back. “These are my friends—Garth, Stresa, and Faun.” She indicated each in turn.

The Elf seemed to find this humorous. “Such odd company. How did you get here, Wren?”

He had a gentle voice, as seamed and worn as the rest of him, as comfortable as old shoes.

“A Wing Rider named Tiger Ty brought Garth and me here from the mainland. We’ve come to find the Elves.” She paused. “And you look to me to be one of them.”

The lines on the other’s face deepened with a smile. “There are no Elves. Everyone knows that.” The joke amused him. “But if pressed, I suppose that I would admit to being one of them. I am Aurin Striate. Everyone calls me the Owl. Maybe you can guess why?”

“You hunt at night?”

“I can see in the dark. That is why I am out here, where no one else cares to go, beyond the walls of the city. I am the queen’s eyes.”

Wren blinked. “The queen?”

The Owl dismissed the question with a shake of his head. “You have come all this way to find the Elves, Wren Ohmsford? Whatever for? Why should you care what has become of us?” The eyes crinkled above his smile. “You are very lucky I found you. You are lucky for that matter that you are even still alive. Or perhaps not. You are Elven yourself, I see.” The smile faded. “Is it possible...?”

He trailed off doubtfully. There was something in his eyes that Wren could not make out. Disbelief, hope, what? She started to say something, but he gestured for her to be silent. “Wren, I will take you inside the city, but your friends will have to wait here. Or more accurately, back by the river where it is at least marginally safe.”

“No,” Wren said at once. “My friends come with me.”

“They cannot,” the Owl explained, his voice staying patient and kind. “I am forbidden to bring any but the Elven into the city. I would do otherwise if I could, but the law cannot be broken.”

“Phfft. I can wait at the—hrwwll—river,” Stresa growled. “I’ve done what I promised in any case.”

Wren ignored him. She kept her gaze fixed on the Owl. “It is not safe out here,” she insisted.

“It is not safe anywhere,” the other replied sadly. “Stresa and Faun are used to looking after themselves. And your friend Garth seems fit enough. A day or two, Wren—that would be all. By then, perhaps you can persuade the Council to let them come inside. Or you can leave and rejoin them.”

Wren didn’t know what sort of Council he was talking about, but irrespective of what was decided about Stresa and Faun she was not going to leave Garth. The Splinterscat and the Tree Squeak might be able to survive on their own, but this island was as foreign and treacherous for Garth as it was for her and she was not about to abandon him.

“There has to be another...” she started to say.

And suddenly there was a shriek and a wave of multilimbed things came swarming out of the mist. Wren barely had time to look up before they were upon her. She caught a glimpse of Faun streaking into the night, of Stresa’s quilled body flexing, and of Garth as he rose to defend her, and then she was knocked flying. She got her sword up in time to cut at the closest attacker. Blood flew and the creature tumbled away. There were bodies everywhere, crooked and black, bounding about as they ripped and tore at the members of the little company. Stresa’s quills flew into one and sent it shrieking away. Garth threw back another and battled to her side. She stood back to back with him and fought as the things came at them. She couldn’t see them clearly, only glimpses of their misshapen bodies and the gleaming eyes. She looked for the Owl, but he was nowhere to be found.

Then abruptly she caught sight of him, a shadow rising from the earth as he cut two of the attackers down before they knew what was happening. In the next instant he was gone again, then back at another place, a pair of long knives in his hands, though Wren couldn’t remember having seen any weapons on him before. The Elf was like smoke as he slipped among the attackers, there and gone again before you could get a fix on him.

Garth pressed forward, his massive arms flinging the attackers aside. The demons held their ground momentarily, then fell back, bounding away to regroup. Howls rose out of the darkness all about.

Aurin Striate materialized at Wren’s side. His words were harsh, urgent. “Quick. This way, all of you. We’ll worry about the Council later.”

He took them across the stretch of lava rock and back into the ravine. Sounds of pursuit came from everywhere. They ran in a low crouch along the rocky basin, angling through boulders and cuts, the Owl leading, a phantom that threatened at every turn to disappear into the night.

They had gone only a short distance when something small and furry flung itself onto Wren’s shoulder. She gasped, reeled away protectively, then straightened as she realized it was Faun, returned from wherever she had run off to. The Tree Squeak burrowed into her shoulder, chittering softly.

Seconds later the demons caught up with them, swarming out of the haze once more. They swept past Stresa, who curled into a ball instantly, quills pointing every which way, and flung themselves on the humans. Garth took the brunt of the attack, a wall that refused to buckle as he flung the creatures back one after another. Wren fought next to him, quick and agile, the blade of the short sword flicking left and right.

Against her chest, nestled in their leather bag, the Elfstones began to burn.

Again the attackers drew back, but not so far this time and not so readily. The night and the fog turned them to shadows, but their howls were close and anxious as they waited for others to join them. The Elf and his charges gathered in a knot, fighting for breath, their weapons glistening damply.

“We have to keep running,” the Owl insisted. “It is not far now.”

A dozen feet away, Stresa uncurled, hissing. “Ssssttppht! Run if you must, but this is enough for me! Phhfft!” He swung his cat head toward Wren. “I’ll be waiting—rwwwll—Wren when you return. At the river I’ll be. Don’t forget your promise!”

Then abruptly he was gone, slipping away into the dark, having become one of the shadows about him.

The Owl beckoned, and Wren and Garth began to run once again, still following the curve of the ravine. There was movement all about them in the mist, swift and furtive. Jets of steam gushed from the earth through cracks in the lava, and the stench of sulfur filled the air. A slide of rocks blocked their way, and they scrambled past it hurriedly. Ahead, Arborlon glowed behind its protective wall, a shimmer of buildings and towers amid forest trees. In the mixed light of the city’s magic and the volcano’s fire, Killeshan’s barren, ravaged slope was dotted with islands of scrub and trees that had somehow escaped the initial devastation and were now reduced to a slow suffocation from the heat. Vog hung across the landscape in a ragged curtain, and the monsters that hid within it passed through its ashen haze like bore worms through earth.

A depression lay ahead, a continuation of the ravine they had been following. The Owl had them hurrying toward it when the demons attacked again. They flew at them from both sides this time, materializing out of the gloom as if risen from the earth. The Owl was knocked sprawling, and Wren went down in a flurry of claws and teeth. Only Garth remained standing, and there were demons all over him, clinging, tearing, trying to bring him down. Wren kicked out violently and freed herself. Faun had already disappeared, quick as a thought, back into the night. Wren’s sword stashed blindly, cut into something, held momentarily, then jerked free. She scrambled up and was borne back again, hammered against the rock. She could feel gashes open on the back of her head and neck. Pain brought tears to her eyes. She rolled clear and came to her feet, demons circling all about. Night and mist had swallowed up the Owl. Garth was down, the demons atop him a writhing mass of black limbs. She screamed and struggled to reach him, but crooked hands clutched roughly at her and held her back.

The Elfstones seared her chest like fire.

Burdened by the weight of her attackers, she began to fall. She knew instinctively that this time she would not be able to get back up, that this was the end for all of them.

She could hear herself scream soundlessly somewhere deep inside.

Reason fled before her need, and fear gave way to rage. There were bodies all about her, claws and teeth ripping, and fetid breath against her skin. Her fingers plunged into her tunic and yanked the Stones free.

They flared to life instantly, an eruption of light and fire. The leather bag disintegrated. The magic exploded through cracks in the Rover girl’s fingers, too impatient and too willful to wait for her hand to open. It swept the air like a scattering of knives, cutting apart the black things, turning them to dust almost before their screams died away. Wren was suddenly free again. She stumbled to her feet, with the Elfstones stretched forth now, the fire and the light racing from within her, joining with the magic until there was no distinction. She threw back her head as the power ripped through her—harsh, defiant, and exhilarating. She was transformed, and her fears of what would become of her in the wake of the magic’s use dissipated and were lost. It made no difference who or what she had been or how she had lived her life. The magic was everything. The magic was all that mattered.

She turned its power on the mass of bodies atop Garth and it hammered into them. In seconds, they disintegrated. Some withstood the fury of the attack a few moments longer than the others—those that were larger and more hardened—but in the end they all died. Garth rose, bloodied, his clothes in tatters, and his dark, bearded face ashen. What was he staring at? she wondered vaguely. She marveled at the look on his face as she used the power of the Stones to sweep the landscape clean. The Owl reappeared out of the haze, and there was awe etched on his leathery face as well. And fear. They were both so afraid...

Suddenly she understood. She closed her fingers in shock, and the magic was gone. The exhilaration and the fire left her, draining away in an instant, and it was as if she had been stripped naked and set out for everyone to see. Weariness flooded through her. She felt ashamed. The magic had snared her, taken her for its own, destroyed her resolution to withstand its lure, and buried all her promises that she would not give way to it, that she would not become another of the Ohmsfords it had claimed.

Ah, but she had needed its power, hadn’t she? Hadn’t it kept her alive—kept them all alive? Hadn’t she wanted it, even gloried in it? What else could she have done?

Garth was next to her, holding her by the shoulders, keeping her upright, his dark eyes intense as he looked into her own. She nodded vaguely that she was aware of him, that she was all right. But she wasn’t, of course. The Owl was there as well, saying “Wren, you are the one that she has waited for, the one who was promised. You are welcome indeed. Come quickly now, before the dark things regroup and attack again. Hurry!”

She followed obediently, wordlessly, her body a foreign thing that swept her along as she watched from somewhere just without. Heat and exhaustion worked through her, but she felt detached from them. She saw the landscape revert to a sea of vog through which a strange array of shadows floated. Trees lifted skyward in clusters, leafless and bare, brittle stalks waiting to crumble away. Ahead, glistening like something trapped behind a rain-streaked window, was the city of the Elves, a jeweled treasure that shimmered with promise and hope.

A lie,the thought struck her suddenly, incongruously, and she was surprised with the intensity of it. It is all a lie.

Then the Owl led them through a tangle of brush and down a narrow defile where the shadows were so thick it was all but impossible to see. He crouched down, worked at a gathering of rocks, and a trapdoor lifted. Swiftly they scrambled inside, the air hot and stifling. The Elf reached up and pulled the trapdoor back into place and secured it. The darkness lasted only a moment, and then there was a hint of the city’s strange light through the tunnel that lay ahead. The Owl took them down its length, saying nothing, lean and shadowy against the faint wash of brightness. Wren felt the sense of detachment fading now; she was back inside herself, returned to who and what she was. She knew what had happened, what she had done, but she would not let herself dwell on it. There was nothing to do but to go forward and to complete the journey she had set herself. The city lay ahead—Arborlon. And the Elves, whom she had come to find. That was what she must concentrate on.

She realized suddenly that Faun had not come back to her. The Tree Squeak was still outside, fled into that fiery netherworld... She shut her eyes momentarily. The Stresa was there as well, gone of his own choice. She feared for them both. But there was nothing she could do.

They worked their way down the tunnel for what seemed an endless amount of time, crouched low in the narrow passageway, wordless as they went. The light brightened the farther they went until it was as clear as daylight within the rock. The world without faded entirely—the vog, the heat, the ash, and the stench—all gone. Suddenly the rock disappeared as well, turning abruptly to earth, black and rich, a reminder for Wren of the forests of the Westland, of her home. She breathed the smell in deeply, wondering that it could be. The magic, she thought, had preserved it.

The tunnel ended at a set of stone stairs that led upward to a heavy, iron-bound door set in a wall of rock. As they reached the door, the Owl turned suddenly to face them.

“Wren,” he said softly, “listen to me.” The gray eyes were intense. “I know I am a stranger to you, and you have no particular reason to trust anything I say. But you must rely on me at least this once. Until you speak with the queen, and only when you are alone with her, should you reveal that you have possession of the Elfstones. Tell no one else before. Do you understand?”

Wren nodded slowly. “Why do you ask this of me, Aurin Striate?”

The Owl smiled sadly, the creases in his worn face deepening. “Because, Wren, though I would wish it otherwise, not everyone will welcome your coming.”

Then, turning, he tapped sharply on the door, waited, and tapped again—three and then two, three and then two. Wren listened. There was movement on the other side. Heavy locks released, sliding free.

Slowly the door swung open, and they stepped through.