The Elf Queen of Shannara (29 page)

Wren stared. “Stresa?” she whispered in disbelief. She scrambled up hurriedly, throwing her blanket aside, her voice shaking. “Stresa, is that really you?”

“Come back from the dead, rwwlll Wren of the Elves,” the other growled softly.

Wren would have thrown her arms about the Splinterscat if she could have managed to find a way, but settled instead for a quick gasp of relief and laughter. “You're alive! I can't believe it!” She clapped her hands and hugged herself. “Oh, I am so glad to see you! I was certain you were gone! What happened to you? How did you escape?”

The Splinterscat moved forward several paces and seated himself, ignoring Faun, who continued to dart about excitedly. “The—ssppht—serpent barely missed me when it destroyed the raft. I was dragged beneath the surface and towed by the current all the way back—hsstttt—across the Rowen. Phhhffft. It took me several hours to find another crossing. By then, you had gone into Eden's Murk.”

Faun skittered too close, and the spines rose threateningly. “Foolish Squeak. Hsssttt!”

“How did you find us?” Wren pressed. Garth was seated next to her now, and she signed her words as she spoke.

“Ha! Ssspptt! Not easily, I can tell you. I tracked you, of course—hsssstt—but you have wandered in every direction since you entered. Lost your way, I gather. I wonder that you managed to find the cliffs at all.”

She took a deep breath. “I used the magic.”

The Splinterscat hissed softly.

“I had to. The queen is very sick.”

“Sssttt. And so the Ruhk Staff is yours now?”

She shook her head hurriedly. “Just until Ellenroh is better. Just until then.”

Stress said nothing, yellow eyes agleam.

“I'm glad that you're back,” she repeated.

He yawned disinterestedly. “Phhfft. Enough talk for tonight. Time to get some rrwwoll rest.”

He made a leisurely turn and ambled off to find a place to sleep, looking for all the world as if nothing unusual had happened, as if tonight were just like any other night. Wren stared after him for a moment, then exchanged a long look with Garth. The big Rover shook his head and moved away.

Wren pulled the blanket back around her shoulders and cradled Faun in her arms. After a moment, she realized that she was smiling.

 

 

 

XVIII

 

E
llenroh 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?”

Stress 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 mused 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.”