The Elf Queen of Shannara (14 page)

The Splinterscat didn't bother to reply.

 

 

IX

 

 

W
ren 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.