The Elf Queen of Shannara (33 page)

Wren looked back into the haze. There was nothing there but the mist and the faint shadow of the scrub land and tree bones beyond, empty and stark. Faun poked her head up tentatively. Stresa lumbered over to join them, panting, tongue licking out. The Splinterscat spit. “Hsssttt! Stupid wraiths!”

Wren nodded. In her hands, the heat of the Ruhk Staff dissipated and was gone. She felt her own body cool in response. A small measure of relief welled up within.

Then abruptly Garth crowded forward, startled by something she had missed, intense and anxious as he searched the mist. Wren followed his gaze, frightened without yet knowing why. She saw the others glance at one another uneasily.

Her heart jumped.
What was wrong?

She saw it then. There were only five of them. Eowen was missing.

At first she thought such a thing impossible, that she must be mistaken. She had counted all six when they had climbed from the ravine. Eowen had been among them; she had recognized her face...

She stopped herself. Eowen. She saw the red-haired seer in her mind, trailing after—too pale, too ephemeral. Almost as if she wasn't really there—which, of course, she hadn't been. Wren experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, an aching that threatened to break free and consume her. What she had seen had been another image, one more clever and calculated than the others, an image designed to make them all believe they were together when in fact they were not.

The Drakuls had Eowen.

Garth signed hurriedly.
I was watching out for her as I promised I would. She was right behind us when we climbed from the ravine. How could I lose her?

“You didn't,” Wren replied instantly. She felt an odd calm settle over her, a resignation of sorts, an acceptance of the inevitability of chance and fate. “It's all right, Garth,” she whispered.

She felt the ground open beneath her, a hole into which she must surely fall. She waited for the feeling to pass, for stability to take hold. She knew what she had to do. Whatever else happened, she could not abandon Eowen. To save her, she would have to go back into the Harrow, back among the Dralculs. She could send the others, of course; they would go if she asked. But she would never do that—would never even consider it. Tracker skills, Rover experience, Elven Hunter training—all would be useless against the Drakuls. Only one thing would make any difference.

She took a few uncertain steps and stopped. Reason screamed at her to reconsider. She was aware of the others coming forward one by one to stand with her, their eyes following her own as she peered out into the Harrow's gloom.

“No!” Stresa warned. “Phffft! It's already growing dark!”

She ignored him, turning instead to Gavilan. Wordlessly she took his measure, then held forth the Ruhk Staff. “It is time for you to be a friend to me again, Gavilan,” she told him quietly. “Take the Staff. Hold it for me until my return. Keep it safe.”

Gavilan stared at her in disbelief, then cautiously reached for the talisman. His hands closed over it, tightened about it, and drew it away. She did not allow her eyes to linger on his, frightened of what she would find there. He was all that remained of her family; she had to trust him.

Triss and Dal had dropped their packs and were cinching their weapons belts. Garth already had his short sword out.

“No,” she told them. “I am going back alone.”

They started to protest, the words quick and urgent, but she cut them off instantly. “No!” she repeated. She faced them. “I am the only one who stands a chance of finding Eowen and bringing her out again. Me.” She reached within her tunic and pulled forth the pouch with the Elfstones. “Magic to find her and to protect me—nothing less will do. If you come with me, I shall have to worry about protecting you as well. These things can't be hurt by your weapons, and this one time at least you cannot help me.”

She put a hand on ‘Triss's arm, gentle but firm. “You are pledged to watch over me, I know. But I am ordering you to watch over the Loden instead—to stay with Gavilan, you and Dal, to see to it that whatever else happens, the Elves are kept safe.”

The hard, gray eyes narrowed. “I beg you not to do this, Lady. The Home Guard serve the queen first.”

“And the queen, if that is what in truth I am, believes you will serve best by staying here. I order it, Triss.”

Garth was signing angrily.
Do what you wish with them. But I have no purpose in remaining. I come with you.

She shook her head, and her fingers moved as she spoke. “No, Garth. If I am lost, they will need you to see them safely to the beaches and to Tiger Ty. They will need your experience. I love you, Garth, but you can do nothing to help me here. You must stay.”

The big man looked at her as if she had struck him.

“This is the time we always knew would come,” she told him, quiet and insistent, “the time for which you have worked so hard to train me. It is too late now for any further lessons. I have to rely on what I know.”

She took Faun from her shoulder and placed her on the ground beside Stresa. “Stay, little one,” she commanded, and stepped away.

“Rrrwwlll! Wren, of the Elves, take me!” Stresa snapped, spines bristling. “I can track for you—better than any of these others!”

She shook her head once more. “The Elfstones can track better still. Garth will see you safely to the Westland, Stresa, if I should fail to return. He knows of my promise to you.”

She removed her pack, dropped her weapons—all but the long knife at her waist. The four men, the Splinterscat, and the Tree Squeak watched in silence. Carefully she shook the Elfstones from their pouch, dropping them into her open hand. Her fingers closed.

Then, before she could think better of it, she turned and stalked into the mist.

 

She walked straight ahead for a time, simply concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, distance between herself and those who would keep her safe. She crossed the bare lava rock, a solitary hunter, feeling herself turn cold within, numb from the intensity of her determination. Eowen spoke to her out of memory, telling her of the vision she had seen so long ago, the vision of her own death.
No,
Wren swore silently.
Not now, not while I still breathe.

The Drakuls began to whisper to her, urging her on, calling her to them. Within, fury battled back against fear.
I will come to you, all right—but not as you would have me!

She passed through a line of silvered trunks, wood stakes barren and stark, a gate into the netherworld of the dead. She saw faces appear, gaunt and empty, skulls within the mist. She brought up the Elfstones, held them forth, and summoned their power. It came at once, obedient to her will, blazing to life with blue fire and streaking out into the haze. It took her left along a flat where nothing grew, where no trace of what had been survived. Ahead, far in the distance, she could see a gathering of white forms, bodies shifting, turning as if to greet her. Voices reached out, cries and whispers, a summons to death.

The blue fire faded, and she walked blindly on.

Wren,
she heard Eowen call.

She shut her sense of urgency away, forcing herself to move cautiously, watching everything around her, the movement of shadows and mist, the hint of life coming awake. Stresa had been right. It was growing dark now, the afternoon lengthening toward evening, the light beginning to fail. She knew she would not reach Eowen before nightfall. It was what the Drakuls intended; it was what they had planned all along. Eowen's magic drew them like her own—but it was hers that they wanted, that was most powerful, that would feed them best. Eowen was bait for the trap that was meant to snare her.

She shut her eyes momentarily against the inevitability of it. She should have known all along.

The voices grew louder, more insistent, and she saw figures begin to take form at the edges of her vision, faint and ethereal in the mist. A ravine opened before her—the one in which she had lost Eowen? she wondered. She didn't know and didn't care. She went down into it without slowing, following the magic's lead, feeling the iron of it fill her now with its heat, fired in the forge of her soul. She didn't know how much time had passed—an hour, more? She had lost all track of time, all sense of everything but what she had come to do. Queen of the Elves, keeper of the Ruhk Staff and Loden, bearer of Druid magic, and heir to the blood of Elessedils and Ohmsfords alike—she was all these and she was none, made instead of something more, something undefinable.

Nothing, she told herself, could stand against her.

The darkness closed about as she reached the bottom of the ravine, the faint light above lost in mist and shadows. The Drakuls appeared boldly now, skeletal forms come slowly into view, gaunt and stripped of all life but that which their Shadowen existence gave them. They were hesitant still, afraid of the magic and at the same time eager for it. They looked upon her with hungry eyes, anxious to taste her, to make her their own. She felt the Elfstones burn against her palm in warning, but still she did not summon their magic. She walked ahead boldly, the living among the dead.

Wren,
she heard Eowen call again.

A wall of pale bodies blocked her way. They were human of a sort, shaped as such, but twisted, pale imitations of what they had been in life. They turned to meet her, no longer apparitions that shimmered and threatened to dissolve at a breath of wind, but things taking on the substance of life.

“Eowen!” she cried out.

One by one the Drakuls stood away, and there was Eowen. She lay cradled in their arms, as white-skinned as they save for her fire-red hair and emerald eyes. The eyes glittered as they sought Wren's own, alive with horror. Eowen's mouth was open as if she were trying to breathe—or scream.

The mouths of the Drakuls were fastened to her body, feeding.

For an instant Wren could not move, stricken by the sight, trapped in a web of indecision.

Then Eowen's head jerked up, and her lips parted in a snarl to reveal gleaming fangs.

Wren howled in dismay, and the Drakuls came for her. She brought the Elfstones up with the quickness of thought, called forth their power in rage and terror, and turned the fire of the magic on everything in sight. It swept through her attackers like a scythe, incinerating them. Those who had taken solid form, those feeding and Eowen with them, were obliterated. The others, wraiths still, vanished. Flames engulfed everything. Wren scattered fire in every direction, feeling the magic course through her, hot and raw. She howled, exultant as the fire burned the ravine from end to end. She gave herself over to its heat— anything to block away the image of Eowen. She embraced it as she would a lover. Time and place disappeared in the rush of sensations.

She began to lose control.

Then, a bare instant before she would have disappeared into the power completely, she realized what was happening, remembered who she was, and made a last, desperate attempt to recover herself. Frantically she clamped her fingers about the Stones. The fire continued to leak through. Her hand tightened, and her body convulsed. She doubled over with the effort, falling to her knees. Finally, the magic swept back within her, raked her one final time with the promise of its invincibility, and was gone.

She crouched in the mist, fighting to regain mastery of herself, seeing once more with her mind's eye a picture of the Drakuls and Eowen as they disappeared into flames, consumed by the Elfstone magic.

Power! Such power! How she longed to have it back!

Shame swept through her, followed by despair.

She lifted her eyes wearily, already knowing what she would find, fully cognizant now of what she had done. Before her, the ravine stretched away, empty. Smoke and ash hung on the air. Her throat tightened as she tried to breathe. She had not had a choice, she knew—but the knowledge didn't help. Eowen had been one of them, brought to her death as Wren watched, her own prophecy fulfilled. Though Wren had tried, she could not change the outcome of the seer's vision. Eowen had told her once that her life had been built around her visions and she had come to accept them—even the one that foretold her death.

Wren felt tears fill her eyes and run down her cheeks.

Oh, Eowen!

 

 

 

XXI

 

A
t Southwatch time drifted away like a cloud across the summer blue, and Coll Ohmsford could only watch helplessly as it passed him by. His imprisonment continued unchanged, his life an uneasy compendium of boredom and tension. His thoughts were unfettered, but led him nowhere. He dreamed of the past, of the life he had enjoyed in the Vale, and of the world that lay without the black walls of his confinement, but his dreams had turned tattered and faded. No one came for him. He began to accept that no one would.

He spent his days in the exercise yard, sparring with Ulfkingroh, the gnarled, scarred, taciturn fellow into whose care Rimmer Dall had given him. Ulfkingroh was as tough as nails and he worked Coll until the Valeman thought he would drop. With padded cudgels, heavy staffs, blunted swords, and bare hands, they exercised and trained as if fighters preparing for battle, sometimes all day, frequently until they were sweating so hard that the dust they raised in the yard ran from their bodies in black stripes. Ulfkingroh was a Shadowen, of course—but he didn't seem like one. He seemed like any normal man, albeit harder and more sullen. At times, Coll almost liked him. He spoke little, content to let his expertise with weapons do his talking for him. He was a skilled and experienced fighter, and it became a point of pride with him that he pass what he knew on to the Valeman. Coll, for his part, made the best of his situation, taking advantage of the one diversion he was allowed, learning what he could of what the other was willing to teach, playing at battle as if it meant something, and keeping fit for the time when it really would.

Because sooner or later, he promised himself over and over again, he would have his chance to escape.

He thought of it constantly. He thought of little else. If no one knew he was there, if no one would come to save him, then clearly it was up to him to save himself. Coll was resourceful in the manner of all Valemen; he was confident he would find a way. He was patient as well, and his patience was perhaps the more important attribute. He was watched whenever he was out of his cell, whenever he went down the dark halls of the monolith to the exercise yard and whenever he went back up again. He was allowed to spend as much time sparring with Ulfkingroh as he wished and allowed as well to visit with the rugged fellow to the extent that he was able to engage the other in conversation, but always he was watched. He could not afford to make a mistake.

Still, he never doubted that he would find a way.

He saw Rimmer Dall only twice after the First Seeker visited him in his cell. Each time it was from a distance, an unexpected glimpse that lasted only a moment before the other was gone. Each time the cold eyes were all he could remember afterward. Coll looked for him everywhere at first until he realized it was becoming something of an obsession and that he had to stop it. But he never stopped thinking of what the big man had told him, of how Par was a Shadowen, too, of how the magic would consume him if he did not accept the truth of his identity, and of how in his madness he was a danger to his brother. Coll did not believe what Rimmer Dall had told him—yet he could not bring himself to disbelieve either. The truth, he decided, lay somewhere in between, in that gray area amid the speculations and lies. But the truth was hard to decipher, and he would never learn it there. Rimmer Dall had his own reasons for what he was doing and he was not about to reveal them to Coll. Whatever they were, whatever the reality of the Shadowen and their magic, Coll was convinced that he had to reach his brother.

So he trained in the exercise yard by day, lay awake sorting out chances and possibilities by night, and all the while fought back against the insidious possibility that nothing would come of any of it.

Then one day, several weeks after he had been released from his cell, while sparring once again with Ulfkingroh in the exercise yard, he caught sight of Rimmer Dall passing down a walkway between two alcoves. At first it looked as if part of him had been cut away. Then he realized that the First Seeker was carrying something draped over one arm—something that at first seemed like nothing because it was so black it had the appearance of a piece of a new moon's night. Coll stopped in his tracks, then backed away, staring. Ulfkingroh glared in irritation, then glanced back over his shoulder to see what had caught the Valeman's eye.

“Huh!” he grunted when he saw what Coll was looking at. “There's nothing there that concerns you. Put up your hands.”

“What is it he carries?” Coll pressed.

Ulfkingroh braced his staff against the ground and leaned on it with exaggerated patience. “A cloak, Valeman. It's called a Mirrorshroud. See how black it is? See how it steals away the light, just like a spill of black ink? Shadowen magic, little fellow.” The rough face tightened about a half smile. “Know what it does?” Coll shook his head. “You don't? Good! Because you're not supposed to! Now put up your hands!”

They went back to sparring, and Coll, who was no little fellow and every bit as big and strong as Ulfkingroh, gained a measure of revenge by striking the other so hard he was knocked from his feet and left stunned for several minutes after.

That night Coll lay awake thinking about the Mirrorshroud and wondering what it was for. It was the first tangible piece of Shadowen magic he had ever seen. There were other magics, of course, but they were hidden from him. The biggest and most important was something kept deep in the bowels of the tower that hummed and throbbed and sometimes almost sounded as if it were screaming, something huge and very frightening. He envisioned it as a dragon that the Shadowen had managed to chain, but he knew he was being too simplistic. Whatever it was, it was far more impressive and terrible than that. There were other things as well, concealed behind the doors through which he was never allowed, secreted in the catacombs into which he could never pass. He could sense their presence, the brush of it against his skin, the whisper of it in his mind. Magic, all of it, Shadowen conjurings and talismans, things dark and evil.

Or not, if you believed Rimmer Dall. But he did not believe the First Seeker, of course. He never had believed him.

Still, he could not help wondering.

Two days later, while he was taking a break in the yard, the sweat still glistening on his body like oil, the First Seeker appeared out of the shadows of a door and came right up to him. Over one arm he carried the Mirrorshroud like a fold of stolen night. Ulfkingroh started to his feet, but Rimmer Dall dismissed him with a wave of his gloved hand and beckoned Coll to follow. They walked from the light back into the cooler shadows, out of the midday sun, away from its glare. Coll squinted and blinked as his eyes adjusted. The other man's face was all angles and planes in the faint gray light, the skin dead and cold, but the sharp eyes certain.

“You train hard, Coll Ohmsford,” he said in that familiar whispery voice. “Ulfkingroh loses ground on you every day.”

Coll nodded without speaking, waiting to hear what the other had really come to tell him.

“This cloak,” Rimmer Dall said, as if in answer. “It is time that you understood what it is for.”

Coll could not hide his surprise. “Why?”

The other glanced away as if thinking through his answer. The gloved hand lifted and fell again, a black scythe. “I told you that your brother was in danger, that you in turn were in danger, all because of the magic and what it might do. I had thought to use you to bring your brother to me. I let it be known you were here. But your brother remains in Tyrsis, unwilling to come for you.”

He paused, looking for Coll's response. Coll kept his face an expressionless mask.

“The magic he hides within himself,” the First Seeker whispered, “the magic that lies beneath the wishsong, begins to consume him. He may not even realize it yet. He may not understand. You've sensed that magic in him, haven't you? You know it is there?”

He shrugged. “I had thought to reason with him when I found him. I think now that he may refuse to listen to me. I had hoped that having you at Southwatch would make a difference. It apparently has not.”

Coll took a deep breath. “You are a fool if you think Par will come here. A bigger fool if you think you can use me to trap him.”

Rimmer Dall shook his head. “You still don't believe me, do you? I want to protect you, not use you. I want to save your brother while there is still time to do so. He is a Shadowen, Coll. He is like me, and his magic is a gift that can either save or destroy him.”

A gift. Par had used that word so often, Coll thought bleakly. “Let me go to him then. Release me.”

The big man smiled, a twisting at the corners of his mouth. “I intend to. But not until I have confronted your brother one more time. I think the Mirrorshroud will let me do so. This is a Shadowen magic, Valeman—a very powerful one. It took me a long time to weave it. Whoever wears the cloak appears to those he encounters as someone they know and trust. It masks the truth of who they are. It hides their identity. I will wear it when I go in search of your brother.” He paused. “You could help me in this. You could tell me where I might find him, where you think he might be. I know he is in Tyrsis. I don't know where. Will you help me?”

Coll was incredulous. How could Rimmer Dall even think of asking such a thing? But the big man seemed so sure of himself, as if he were right after all, as if he knew the truth far better than Coll.

Coll shook his head. “I don't know where to find Par. He could be anywhere.”

For a long moment Rimmer Dall did not respond, but simply stood looking at the Valeman, measuring him carefully, the hard eyes fixed on him as if the lie could be read on his face.

“I will ask again another time,” he said finally. The heavy boots scraped on the stone of the walkway. “Return to your sparring. I will find him on my own, one way or the other. When I do, I will release you.”

He turned and walked away. Coll stared after him, looking not at the man now but at the cloak he carried, thinking,
If I could just get my hands on that cloak for five seconds . . .

 

He was still thinking about it when he woke the next day. A cloak that when worn could hide the identity of the wearer from those he encountered, making him appear to be someone they trusted—here at last was a way out of Southwatch. Rimmer Dall might envision the Mirrorshroud as a subterfuge that would allow him to trap Par, but Coll had a far better use for the magic. If he could find a way to get possession of the cloak long enough to put it on . . . His excitement at the prospect would not allow him to finish the thought. How could he manage it? he wondered, his mind racing as he dressed and paced the length of his cell, waiting for his breakfast.

It occurred to him then, for just a moment, that it was extraordinarily careless of Rimmer Dall to show him such a magic when the Shadowen had been so careful to keep all their other magics hidden. But then the First Seeker had been anxious for his help in locating Par, hadn't he, and the cloak was useless unless they found Par, wasn't it? Probably Dall had hoped to persuade Coll simply by letting him know he possessed such magic.

Then the first suspicion was abruptly crowded aside by a second. What if the cloak was a trick? How did he know that the Mirrorshroud could do what was claimed? What proof did he have? He started sharply as the metal food tray slid through the slot at the bottom of his door. He stared at it helplessly a moment, wondering. But why would the First Seeker lie? What did he stand to gain?

The questions besieged and finally overwhelmed him, and he brushed them aside long enough to eat his breakfast. When he was finished, he went down to the exercise yard to train with Ulfkingroh. He needed to talk with Rimmer Dall again, to find out more about the cloak and to discover the truth of its magic. But he could not afford to seem too interested; he could not let the First Seeker surmise his true motive. That meant he had to wait for Rimmer Dall to come to him.

But the First Seeker did not appear that day or the next, and it was not until three days later as sunset approached that he materialized from the shadows as Coll was trudging wearily back to his cell and fell in beside him.

“Have you given further thought to helping me find your brother'?” he asked perfunctorily, his face lowered within the cowl of his black cloak.

“Some,” Coll allowed.

“Time passes swiftly, Valeman.”

Coll shrugged casually. “I have trouble believing anything you tell me. A prisoner is not often persuaded to confide in his jailor.”

“No?” Coll could almost feel the other's dark smile. “I would have thought it was just the opposite.”

They walked in silence for a few paces, Coll's face burning with anger. He wanted to strike out at the other, having him this close, alone in these dark halls, just the two of them. He fought down the temptation, knowing how foolish it would be to give in to it.

“I think Par would see through the magic of the Mirrorshroud,” he said finally.

Dall glanced over. “How?”

Coll took a deep breath. “His own magic would warn him.”

“So you think I would fail to get close enough even to speak with him?” The whispery voice was hoarse and low.

“I wonder,” Coll replied.

Dall stopped and turned to face him. “How would it be if I tested the magic on you? Then you could make your own judgment.”

Coll frowned, hiding the elation that surged abruptly within. “I don't know. It might not make any difference whether it works with me.”

The gloved hand lifted, a lean blackness stealing the light from the air. “Why not let me try? What harm can it do?”

They went down the hallway and up a dozen flights of stairs until they were only several floors below the cell where Coll was kept imprisoned. At a door marked with a wolf's head and red lettering that Coll could not decipher, Rimmer Dall produced a key, inserted it in a heavy lock, and pushed the door back. Inside was a single window through which a narrow band of sunlight shone on a tall wooden cabinet. Rimmer Dall walked to the cabinet, opened its double doors, and took out the Mirrorshroud.