First King of Shannara (22 page)

Tay hesitated, not certain he wanted to give any answer at all. “It has to do with coming back to something after being away for too long,” he replied finally, choosing his words with care. “I was gone from the Westland for fifteen years. Now I am back, but I don't seem to belong anymore. I don't know where I should be or how I should act or what I should do. If it were not for this search, I would be completely lost.”

“Maybe the search is enough for now,” his friend suggested gently. “Maybe the rest will come with time.”

Tay shook his head. “I don't think so. I think I am changed and cannot change back again. Those years at Paranor shaped me in ways I did not begin to understand until now. I feel caught between who I was and who I am. I don't feel like I am either one or the other.”

“But you have just come home, Tay. You cannot expect everything to feel the same at first. Of course it feels strange.”

Tay looked at his friend. “I think maybe I shall have to go away again, Jerle, when this is over.”

Jerle Shannara pushed back his blond hair from his eyes, the mist's dampness glistening on his face. “I would be very sorry to see that happen.” He paused. “But I would understand, Tay. And we will still be friends forever.”

He put his hand on Tay's shoulder and kept it there. Tay smiled in response. “We will always be friends,” he agreed.

 

They rode west once more into the damp haze. The rain quickened and turned heavier as the day wore on. They made their way across the last quarter of the Sarandanon, riders cloaked in the gloom, all but invisible even to each other. It was as if the world from which they had come and into which they were going had melted away. It was as if nothing remained but the small bit of earth across which they rode, materializing ahead, disappearing behind, never there for longer than the few moments it took to pass by.

They came to Baen Draw, the entrance through the Kensrowe to the Breakline, at dusk, came upon it as the light was failing completely. There they found the Gnome Hunters once more, and again the Gnomes were ahead of them. A large contingent had settled into the draw, blocking it against all passage. It was a different group from those who had attacked them in the east valley; these Hunters had been settled here for a long time. Preia Starle scouted ahead and found their camp. The camp, she reported, was old and established. The sentry lines stretched across the mouth of the draw, and there was no way to get past unseen. Avoiding the draw would do the job, but would add three days to the journey, and the Elves could not afford the delay. They would have to find a way to go through here.

After some consideration, they settled on a plan that relied mostly on surprise. They waited until midnight, then mounted up and rode directly for the pass. Hooded and cloaked, shrouded by night and the weather, they were barely visible to each other, let alone to the Gnome sentries watching for them. They rode without hurry, seemingly at ease, giving the impression that they belonged where they were. When they were near enough to the mouth of the pass to be challenged, Tay, who spoke any number of languages learned from his time at Paranor, called out to the Gnomes in their own tongue, behaving as if they were expected. Reinforcements, he advised casually, and the Elves rode closer.

By the time the Gnomes thought to act on their uncertainty, the Elves were on top of them, putting heels to their horses, and surging ahead into the draw. They rode directly through the camp, scattering fires and Gnomes in all directions, howling as if they were a hundred instead of a handful. The surprise was complete. The Gnomes rolled out of their bedding and gave chase, but by then the Elves were safely away.

But then their luck ran out. As a precaution against just such a breakdown, the Gnomes had established a second line at the far end of the draw, and these Hunters heard the warning cries of their comrades and were waiting as the Elves rode into them. Spears, arrows, and slingers' stones flew at the Elves as they raced toward the end of the pass. There was no time to slow, to rethink their strategy, to do anything but bend low and hope they would break free. Jerle Shannara charged right into the thickest knot of attackers, fearless and unyielding. Weapons swung toward him and a hail of missiles sought to bring him down. But he was charmed, as always, and somehow he kept astride his horse and his horse stayed upright. Together they careered into the Gnomes, and Tay Trefenwyd watched bodies spin away like pieces of deadwood. Then Jerle Shannara was clear.

Tay and Preia escaped as well, the Tracker girl's sturdy pony barreling past the crush of attackers along the left bank of the draw, then leaping a trip line that was meant to bring it down. Shouts of hunters and hunted alike mingled with the screams of horses. Riders shot past, disembodied shapes charging back and forth in the gloom. In desperation Tay used his magic to throw a screen around the remaining Elves in an effort to hide them from the Gnomes.

But when they reassembled several miles beyond the draw, six among them were missing. Now their number was reduced to eight, and the hundreds of Gnome Hunters that were scattered throughout the Sarandanon would converge on the pass and track them into the Breakline.

They would track them until they were found.

 

XV

 

B
y nightfall of the following day, the Elves were deep within the mountains. They had ridden on through the previous night after escaping the Gnome Hunters at Baen Draw, working their way up into the rugged foothills that fronted the Breakline, pressing on until the dawn light began to creep out of the east and spill down into the bowl of the Sarandanon. They had rested then for a few hours, risen, eaten, and gone on. The rains had ceased, but the skies remained clouded and gray, and mist hung across the hills in a thick blanket. There was a dampness in the air that carried the smell of earth and rotting wood. As they climbed higher, the hills turned barren and rocky, and the smell dissipated. Now the air was cool and sharp and clear, and the mist began to break apart.

Noon came, and they left the hills behind and wound their way up into the mountains. Jerle Shannara had already told the company that they would ride until dark, anxious to put distance between themselves and their pursuers, determined that before they stopped they would be on terrain that would not leave a trail that could be easily followed. No one argued the point. They rode obediently through the gloom and silence, watching as the mist cleared and the mountains rose before them. The Breakline was a wall of jagged rock, of peaks that soared skyward until they disappeared into the clouds, of cliffs that fell away in sheer drops of thousands of feet, of massive outcroppings and ragged splits formed by pressure in the earth from a time when the world was still forming. The mountains lifted to the heavens as if trying to climb free of the world, an outstretching of the arms of giants frozen by time. As far north and south as the Elves could see, the Breakline was visible against the sky, a barrier forbidding passage, a fortress against encroachment.

The Elves stared at the mountains in silence, and in the face of such permanence felt an unmistakable sense of their own mortality.

By nightfall, they had passed beyond the lower peaks and could no longer look back on either the foothills that had brought them up or the more distant valley of the Sarandanon. They camped in a grove of spruce cradled in a narrow valley tucked between barren peaks on which snow glistened in a thin, white mantle. There was fresh water and grass for the horses, and wood for a fire.

As soon as they were settled and had eaten, Preia Starle departed to backtrack their trail to determine if a pursuit had been mounted. While they waited for her return, Tay conferred with Jerle and Vree Erreden about the vision that had revealed the location of the Black Elfstone. Once more, he recounted its specifics, taking care to describe everything related to him by Bremen. Jerle Shannara listened carefully, his strong face intense, his gaze fixed and unwavering. Vree Erreden, on the other hand, seemed almost disinterested, his eyes straying frequently, looking off into the night in search of something beyond what Tay's words could offer.

“I have never been to this part of the Westland,” he remarked when Tay had finished. “I know nothing of its geography. If I am to divine the hiding place we seek, I must first get closer to it”

“How helpful,” Jerle ventured irritably. He had been watching the locat's eyes stray as well and was clearly displeased with his attitude. “Is that the best you can do?”

Vree Erreden shrugged.

Jerle was incensed. “Perhaps you could do better if you had paid closer attention to what Tay was saying!”

The locat looked at him, squinting myopically. A slow fire kindled in his eyes. “Let me tell you something. When Tay Trefenwyd came to me to ask my help, I read his mind. I can do that sometimes. I saw Bremen's vision, the one Tay just described, and my memory of it is quite clear. That vision is real, my friend, if it were not, I would not be here. It is real, and the place it shows is real, and of that much I am certain. Even so, I cannot find it without more than what I know right now!”

“Jerle, you have traveled this country often,” Tay broke in quickly, anxious to avoid a confrontation. “Is there nothing of what I have described that is at all familiar?”

His friend shook his head, a disgruntled look settling over his broad features. “Most of my travel has been confined to the passes—to Halys Cut and Worl Run, and what lies beyond. This particular formation of mountains—the twin peaks split like two fingers, in particular—sounds like it could be any of a dozen pairs I have seen.”

“But you're not sure which?”

“What does it sound like to you?” his friend snapped.

“Which way do you think we should go, then?” Tay pressed. He could not understand the other's uncharacteristic display of temper.

Jerle climbed to his feet. “How would I know? Ask ‘my friend' the locat here to give you his best guess!”

“One minute,” Vree Erreden said quickly, and rose as well. He stood facing Jerle, small and slight in the other man's shadow, but unintimidated. “Would you be willing to try something? I might be able to help you remember if you've seen this particular formation.”

Tay jumped up as well, realizing at once what the locat intended. “Can you do for Jerle what you did for me?” he asked quickly. “Can you recover his memory like you did Bremen's vision?”

“What are you talking about?” Jerle snapped, looking from one to the other.

“Perhaps,” Vree Erreden answered Tay, then looked at Jerle Shannara. “I told you before. Sometimes I can read minds. I did so earlier with Tay to get a look at Bremen's vision. I can try it with you to see if your subconscious retains some memory of this formation we seek.”

Jerle flushed. “Try your magic out on someone else!”

He wheeled away, but Tay grabbed his arm and brought him about. “But we don't have anyone else, do we, Jerle? We only have you. Are you afraid?”

The big man stared at him with something very close to rage. Tay held his ground, mostly because he didn't have any choice. The night sky had cleared, and its broad expanse was filled with stars. Their brightness was almost blinding. Standing beneath their light in the shadow of the mountains, locked in this unexpected confrontation with his best friend, Tay felt oddly exposed.

Jerle carefully freed his arm from Tay's grip. “I'm not afraid of anything, and you know it,” he said softly.

Tay nodded. “I do know it. Now please let Vree try.”

They sat down again, grouped close together in the silence. Vree Erreden took Jerle Shannara's hands in his own, holding them loosely, looking boldly into the other's eyes. Then he closed his own. Tay watched the pair uneasily. Jerle was as tense as a cat prepared to spring, ready to bolt at the first indication that he was in any kind of danger. The locat was by contrast calm and detached, especially now, gone somewhere deep inside himself to find what he was looking for. They remained like that for a few moments, locked together, an odd alliance, neither revealing anything of what was happening.

Then Vree Erreden released Jerle Shannara's hands and gave a short nod. “I have it. A place to start, anyway. Your memory is very good. The twin peaks in the form of a
V
are called the Pinchers—at least by you.”

“I remember now,” the big man said softly. “Five or six years ago, when I was scouting for a third passage onto Hoare Flats. Back in the mountains north of Worl Run, deep in the thickest mass. There was no chance that a pass would go through there, so we gave it up. But I remember the formation. Yes, I do remember!”

Then his enthusiasm seemed to diminish, and the hard edge of his irritation returned. “Enough of this.” He nodded curtly, more to himself than to them, and rose. “We have our starting point. I hope everyone is happy. Now perhaps I can get some sleep.”

He turned and stalked away. Tay and Vree Erreden watched him go, neither of them speaking. “He's not usually like this,” Tay said finally.

The locat rose. “He just lost six men who trusted him to an attack he feels he should have better anticipated.” Tay stared at him, and he shrugged. “It's what he's thinking about right now. He couldn't hide it from me, even though he clearly wanted to.”

“But those men dying, that wasn't his fault,” Tay declared. “It wasn't anyone's fault.”

The locat squinted down at him. “Jerle Shannara doesn't look at it like that. If you were in his shoes, would you?”

Then he turned and walked off, leaving Tay to ponder the matter alone.

 

The company set off again at daybreak, working its way north through the mountains toward Worl Run. Preia Starle had returned during the night to report that there was no sign of a close pursuit. None of them believed for a moment that this meant they were safe. It only meant that they had gained a little extra breathing room. The Gnomes were still out there searching for them, but the Elves would be hard to find in these mountains, where tracks had a tendency to disappear amid the jumbled boulders and twisting passes. If they were lucky, they might avoid discovery just long enough to find what they were looking for.

It was wishful thinking, Tay supposed, but it was the best they could hope for. They rode north for the remainder of the day without seeing anything of their pursuers, following a line of deep valleys that cut through the eastern edge of the mountains snake-like to the entrance to Worl Run. They camped that night on a flat overlooking the pass and the valleys leading in from the Sarandanon, close now to where Jerle remembered seeing the
V
formation he called the Pinchers. He was in a somewhat better mood this day, still withdrawn and taciturn, but no longer curt, helped perhaps by the fact that they now had a better idea of where they were going. He actually apologized to Tay in a rather offhanded way, commenting lightly at one point on the unfortunate shortness of his temper. He said nothing to Vree Erreden, but Tay let the matter lie.

Preia Starle seemed unfazed by Jerle's shift in attitude and spent her time talking to him as if everything were fine. Tay thought she must know his friend's moods well enough by now to have developed an appropriate way of responding to each. He felt a pang of jealousy, for there was no such closeness between them. Again he was reminded that he was the outsider, come back into his old life from another, still trying to make himself fit in. He did not know why this bothered him so except that his life at Paranor was completely gone and his life here seemed to revolve around the duplicity of his relationship with Preia and Jerle. He couldn't claim it was an honest one, because he hid so much of what he felt for Preia from both of them. Or thought he did. Perhaps they knew far more than they were letting on, and he was playing a game of secrets where the secrets were all known.

They rode out again at sunrise and reached the Pinchers by midday. Tay recognized the peaks immediately, a clear match for the rendering provided by Bremen's vision. The peaks rose in a sharp
V
against the horizon, breaking apart in a deep split fronted by a tangle of small mountains worn by age and the elements and left bare save for sparse stands of fir and alder and struggling patches of grasses and wildflowers. Beyond, through the gap in the
V
, rose a wall of mountains so misty that their features were unrecognizable.

Jerle brought the company to a halt at the low end of a pass leading up into the peaks and dismounted. Overhead, hunting birds soared against the blue, wings spread as they circled in long, graceful sweeps. The day was clear and bright; the rain clouds had moved east into the Sarandanon. Tay felt the sun on his face, warm and reassuring as he stared upward into the vast expanse of cliffs and defiles and wondered at their secrets.

“We'll leave the horses here and walk in,” Jerle announced. He smirked, seeing the look on Tay's face. “We could only ride them a short distance farther in any event, Tay. Then they would be left exposed to any who follow us. If we leave them now, we can hide them in the forest. We may have to make a run for it before we're finished.”

Preia added her support, and Tay knew they were right, although it made him feel uncomfortable to give up the animals that had carried them past so many close calls. It had been hard enough to gain possession of them in the first place. But those who pursued them would have to proceed afoot as well if they reached this point, so he supposed that was as much as could be hoped for.

Jerle chose one of the Elven Hunters to remain behind with the horses, a grizzled veteran named Obann, instructing him to take the animals and hide them where they would not be found, then to keep watch for the company's return. Obann wanted to rejoin them after concealing the horses, but Jerle pointed out that it might prove necessary to change the hiding place if a Gnome search party drew too close and that it might further be necessary for Obann to bring the horses to his comrades if they were attacked coming down out of the peaks. Obann reluctantly agreed, took the horses in hand, and departed.

Then Jerle led those who remained, their number now reduced to seven—himself, Tay, Preia, Vree Erreden, and the last three Elven Hunters—up through the tangle of rock and trees toward the dark cleft of the Pinchers.

They climbed for the remainder of the day. As they proceeded, Tay found himself pondering anew the task that lay ahead. He might argue that the others of the company shared his responsibility for recovering the Black Elfstone, but the fact remained that Bremen's charge had been given expressly to him, not to them. Moreover, he was a Druid, the only one among them, the only one who commanded use of magic—of the sort, at least, that could offer them any real protection—and the one best equipped to find and secure the Elfstone. He had not forgotten the part of Bremen's vision that hinted at the danger that surrounded the Elfstone's hiding place, the suggestion of dark coils that warded it from those who would steal it away, the unmistakable sense of evil. He was aware that finding the Black Elfstone was only the first step. Securing it was the second, and it would not be done easily or without risk. If the Elfstone remained undisturbed after all these centuries, it must be strongly protected. Vree Erreden and Preia Starle might assist in finding it. Jerle Shannara and his Elven Hunters might aid in retrieving it. But ultimately the burden fell to him.