The Elf Queen of Shannara (32 page)

“If I don't get us lost, we'll be atop the rrwwllll ridge by nightfall,” the Splinterscat had promised.

Wren had wanted to ask him where he had learned about the tubes, but then decided the Splinterscat's knowledge had probably come from the Elves and it would only make him angry to talk about it. In any event, he seemed to know where he was going, nose thrust forward, pushing out at the edge of the torchlight as if seeking to drag them along in his wake, never hesitating once, even when he reached divergent passageways and was forced to choose. They twisted and wound ahead through the cool rock, climbing steadily, hauling themselves and their packs through the gloom, and brushing at the drops of water that fell on their faces and hands with cold, stinging splats. Their booted feet echoed hollowly in the deep stillness, and their breathing was an uneven hiss. They listened carefully for the sounds of pursuit, but heard nothing.

At one point they were forced to descend a particularly steep drop to a cross vent where the lava had cut through to a hollow core within the mountain and left a yawning hole that fell away into blackness. Farther on, there was a cavern where the lava had gathered and pooled for a time, forming a series of passageways that crisscrossed like snakes. In each instance, Stresa knew what to do, which tunnel to follow, and where the passage lay that would take them to safety.

The hours slipped away, and the trek wore on. Wren let Faun ride on her shoulder. The Tree Squeak's bright eyes darted left and right, and its voice was a low murmur in her ear. She quit thinking for a time and concentrated instead on putting one foot in front of the other, on studying the hypnotically swaying shadows they cast in the torchlight, on these and a dozen other mundane, purposeless musings that served to give her weary mind and emotions a much needed rest.

It was nightfall when they finally emerged from the tunnels, exiting the smokey blackness to stand amid a copse of thin-limbed ash and scrub backed up against the cliff face. Before them, a ledge spread away into the mist; behind, the mountain sloped upward to a broken, empty ridgeline. Overhead, the sky was murky and clouded, and a light rain was falling.

They moved away from the tunnels into a stretch of acacia near the rim of Blackledge, and there settled in for the night. They spread their gear and ate a hurried meal, then wrapped themselves in their cloaks and blankets and prepared for sleep. It was cold atop the mountain, and the wind blew at them in sharp gusts. Far distant, Wren could hear Killeshan's rumble and see the red glow of its fire shimmering through the haze. The earth had begun to tremble again, a slow, ominous vibration that loosened rock and earth and sent them tumbling, that caused the trees to sway and leaves to whisper like startled children.

Wren sat back against a half-fallen acacia whose exposed roots maintained a tenuous grip on the mountain rock. The Ruhk Staff rested on her lap, momentarily forgotten. Faun burrowed into her shoulder for a time as the tremors continued, then disappeared down inside her blanket to hide. She watched the small, solid figure of Dal slip past to take the first watch. Her eyes were heavy as she stared out at the dark, but she found she was not yet ready to sleep. She needed to think awhile first.

She had been sitting there for only a few moments when Gavilan appeared. He came out of the darkness rather suddenly, and she started in spite of herself.

“Sorry,” he apologized hurriedly. “Can I sit with you awhile?”

She nodded wordlessly, and he settled himself next to her, his own blanket wrapped loosely about his shoulders, his hair tangled and damp. His handsome face was etched with fatigue, but a hint of the familiar smile appeared.

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm all right,” she answered.

“You look very tired.”

She smiled.

“Would that we had known,” he murmured.

She glanced over. “Known what?”

“Everything. Anything! Something that would have prepared us better for what we're going through.” His voice sounded odd to her, almost frenetic. “It is almost like being cast adrift in an ocean without a map and being told to navigate to safety and at the same time to refrain from using the little bit of drinking water we are fortunate enough to carry with us.”

“What do you mean?”

He turned. “Think about it, Wren. We have in our possession both the Loden and the Elfstones—magic enough to accomplish almost anything. Yet we seem afraid to invoke that magic, almost as if we were restrained from doing so. But we aren't, are we? I mean, what is to prevent it? Look at how much better things became when you used the Elfstones to find a way out of Eden's Murk. We should be using that magic every step of the way! If we did, we might be to the beach by now.”

“It doesn't work that way, Gavilan. It doesn't do just anything . . .”

But he wasn't listening. “Even worse is the way we ignore the magic contained in the Loden. Yes, it is needed to preserve the Elves and Arborlon for the journey back. But all of it? I don't believe it for a moment!” He let his hand come to rest momentarily on the Ruhk Staff. His words were suddenly fervent. “Why not use the magic against these things that hunt us? Why not just burn a path right through them? Or better still, why not make something that will go out there and destroy them!”

Wren stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Gavilan,” she said quietly. “I know about the demons. Eowen told me.”

He shrugged. “It was time, I suppose. Ellenroh was the only reason no one told you sooner.”

“However that may be,” she continued, her voice lowering, taking on a firmness, “how can you possibly suggest using the magic to make anything else?”

His face hardened. “Why? Because something went wrong when it was used before? Because those who used it hadn't the ability or strength or sense of what was needed to use it properly?”

She shook her head, voiceless.

“Wren! The magic has to be used! It has to be! That is why it is there in the first place! If we don't make use of it, someone else will, and then what? This isn't a game we play. You know as much. There are things out there so dangerous that . . .”

“Things the Elves made!” she said angrily.

“Yes! A mistake, I agree! But others would have made them if we had not!”

“You can't know that!”

“It doesn't matter. The fact remains we made them for a good cause! We have learned a lot! The making is in the soul of the wielder of the power! It simply requires strength of purpose and channeling of need! This time we can do it right!”

He broke off, waiting for her response. They faced each other in silence. Then Wren took a deep breath and reached down to remove his hand from the Staff. “I don't think you had better say anything more.”

His smile was bitter, ironic. “Once you were angry because I hadn't said enough.”

“Gavilan,” she whispered.

“Do you think this will all go away if we don't talk about it, that everything will somehow just work out?”

She shook her head slowly, sadly.

He bent to her, his hands closing firmly on her own. She didn't try to pull away, both fascinated and repelled by what she saw in his eyes. She felt something like grief well up inside. “Listen to me, Wren,” he said, shaking his head at something she couldn't see. “There is a special bond between us. I felt it the moment I first saw you, the night you came to Arborlon, still wondering what it was that you had been sent to do. I knew. I knew it even then, but it was too early to speak of it. You are Alleyne's daughter and you have the Elessedil blood. You have courage and strength. You have done more already than anyone had a right to expect from you.

“But, Wren, none of this is your problem. The Elves are not your people or Arborlon your city. I know that. I know how foreign it must all feel. And Ellenroh never understood that you couldn't ask people to accept responsibility for things when the responsibility was never theirs to begin with. She never understood that once she sent you away, she could never have you back the same. That was how she lost Alleyne! Now, look. She has given you the Ruhk Staff and the Loden, the Elves and Arborlon, the whole of the future of a nation, and told you to be queen. But you don't really want any part of it, do you?”

“I didn't,” she admitted. “Once.”

He missed her hesitation. “Then give it up! Be finished with it! Let me take the Staff and the Stone and use them as they should be used—to fight against the monsters that track us, to destroy the ones that have turned Morrowindl into this nightmare!”

“Which set of monsters?” she asked softly.

“What?”

“Which set? The demons or the Elves? Which do you mean?”

He stared at her, uncomprehending, and she felt her heart break apart inside. His eyes were clear and angry, his face intense. He seemed so convinced. “The Elves,” she whispered, “are the ones who destroyed Morrowindl.”

“No,” he answered instantly, without hesitation.

“They made the demons, Gavilan.”

He shook his head vehemently. “Old men made them in another time. A mistake like that wouldn't happen again. I wouldn't let it. The magic can be better used, Wren. You know that to be true. Haven't the Ohmsfords always found a way? Haven't the Druids? Let me try! I can stand against these things; I can do what is needed! You don't want the Staff; you said so yourself! Give it to me!”

She shook her head. “I can't.”

Gavilan stiffened, and his hands drew away. “Why not, Wren? Tell me why not.”

She couldn't tell him, of course. She couldn't find the words, and even if she had been able to find the words, she wouldn't have been able to speak them.

“I have given my promise,” she said instead, wishing he would let the matter die, that he would give up his demand, that he would see how wrong it was for him to ask.

“Your promise?” he snapped. “To whom?”

“To the queen,” she insisted stubbornly.

“To the queen? Shades, Wren, what's the worth of that? The queen is dead!”

She hit him then, struck him hard across the face, a blow that rocked his head back. He remained turned away for a moment and then straightened. “You can hit me again if it will make you feel any better.”

“It makes me feel terrible,” she whispered, curling up inside, turning to ice. “But that was a wrong thing to say, Gavilan.”

He regarded her bitterly for a moment, and she found herself wishing that she could have him back as he was when they were still in Arborlon, when he was charming and kind, the friend she needed, when he had kissed her outside the High Council, when he had cared for her.

The handsome face tightened with determination. “You have to let me use the Loden's magic, Wren.”

She shook her head firmly. “No.”

He thrust forward aggressively, almost as if to attack her. “If you don't, we won't survive. We can't. You haven't the—”

“Don't, Gavilan!” she interjected, her hand flying to cover his mouth. “Don't say it! Don't say anything more!”

The sudden gesture froze them both momentarily, and the wind that blew past them in a sudden gust caused Wren to shiver. Slowly she took her hand away. “Go to sleep,” she urged, fighting to keep her voice from breaking. “You're tired.”

He rocked back slightly, a small motion only, one that moved him just inches away from her—yet she could feel the severing of ties between them as surely as if they were ropes cut with a knife.

“I'll go,” he said quietly, the anger in his voice undiminished. He rose and looked down at her. “I was your friend. I would be still if you would let me.”

“I know,” she said.

He stayed where he was momentarily, as if undecided about what to do next, whether to stay or go, whether to speak or keep silent. He looked back through the darkness into the haze. “I won't die here,” he whispered.

Then he wheeled and stalked away. Wren sat where she was, looking after him until he could no longer be seen. Tears came to her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away. Gavilan had hurt her, and she hated it. He made her question everything she had decided, made her wonder if she had any idea at all what she was doing. He made her feel stupid and selfish and naive. She wished that she had never gone to speak with the shade of Allanon, never come to Morrowindl, never discovered the Elves and their city and the horror of their existence—that none of it had ever happened.

She wished she had never met her grandmother.

No!
she admonished herself sharply.
Don't ever wish that!

But deep down inside, she did.

 

 

 

XX

 

D
aybreak arrived, a stealthy apparition cloaked iron-gray against the shadow of departing night as it crept uncertainly out of yesterday in search of tomorrow. The company rose to greet it, weary-eyed and disheartened, the weight of time's passage and shortening odds a mantel of chains that threatened to drag them down. Pulling cloaks and packs and weapons across their shoulders, they set out once more, wrapped in the silence of their separate thoughts, grim-faced against a rising wall of fear and doubt.

If I could sleep but one night,
Wren was thinking as she tried to blink away her exhaustion.
Just one.

There had been little rest for her last night, restless again as she lay awake in the stillness, beset by demons of all shapes and kinds, demons that bore the faces of those who had been or were closest, friends and family, the tricksters of her life. They whispered words to her, they teased and taunted, they warned of secrets she could not know, they gave her trails to follow and burdens to carry, and then they faded from her side like the morning mist.

Her hands clasped the Ruhk Staff and she leaned upon it for support as she climbed.
Trust no one,
the Addershag hissed again from out of memory.

The climb was short, for they had emerged from the lava tubes close to the summit at the end of yesterday's trek, with the ridgeline already in view. They reached it quickly this day, scrambling up the final stretch of broken trail to stand atop the wall, pausing to look back into the mists that cloaked the country they had passed through—almost as if they expected to find something waiting there. But there was nothing to see, the whole of it shrouded in clouds and fog, a world and a life vanished into the past. They could see it still in their minds, picture it as if it were drawn on the air before them. They could remember what it had cost them to come through it, what it had taken from them, and how little it had given back. They stared a moment longer, then quickly turned away.

They walked then through narrow stretches of rocks separated by trees that stretched from the edge of Blackledge like fingers until everything abruptly ended at a ragged tangle of ravines and ridges that split and folded back on themselves, huge wrinkles in the land's skin. A lava flow had passed this way some years back, come down out of Killeshan's maw to sweep the crest of Blackledge clean. Everything had been burned away save a scattering of silvered tree trunks standing bare and skeletal, some fallen away at strange angles, some propped against one another in hapless despair. Scrub grew out of the lava in gnarled clumps, and patches of moss darkened the shady side of roughened splits.

Stresa brought them to the edge of this forbidding world, lumbering to a halt atop a small rise, spines lifting guardedly. The company stared out bleakly at what lay ahead, listening for and hearing nothing, looking at and seeing nothing, feeling death's presence at every turn. The devastation spread away before them, a vast and empty landscape wrapped in gray silence.

On Wren's shoulder, Faun sat up stiffly and leaned forward, ears pricked. She could feel the Tree Squeak shiver.

“What is this place?” Gavilan asked.

A heavy rumble distracted them momentarily, causing them to glance north to where Killeshan's bulk loomed darkly, seemingly as close to them now as it had been on their leaving Arbolon. The rumble receded and died.

Stresa swung slowly about. “This is the Harrow,” he said. “Hssttt! This is where the Drakuls live.”

A form of demon—or Shadowen—Wren recalled. Stresa had mentioned them before. Dangerous, he had intimated.

“Drakuls,” Gavilan repeated, weary recognition in his voice.

Killeshan rumbled again, more insistent than before, an unnecessary reminder of its presence, of the anger it bore them for having stolen the magic away, for having disrupted the balance of things. Morrowindl shuddered in response.

“Tell me about the Drakuls,” Wren instructed the Splinterscat quietly.

Stresa's dark eyes fixed on her. “Demons, like the others. Phhfftt! They sleep in daylight, come out at night to feed. They drain the life out of the living things they catch—the blood, the fluids of the body. They make—hssstt—some into creatures like themselves.” The blunt nose twitched. “They hunt as wraiths, but take form to feed. As wraiths, they cannot be harmed.” He spit distastefully.

“We will go around,” Triss announced at once.

Stresa spit again, as if the taste wouldn't go away. “Around! Phaaww! There is no ‘around'! North, the Harrow runs back toward Killeshan, miles and miles—back toward the valley and the demons that hunt us. Rwwlll. South, the Harrow stretches to the cliffs. The Drakuls hunt its edges, too. In any case, we would never—hrraaggh—get around it before nightfall and we must if we are to live. Crossing in daylight is our only chance.”

“While the Drakuls sleep?” Wren prompted.

“Yes, Wren of the Elves,” the Splinterscat growled softly. “While they sleep. And even so—hsssttt—it will not be entirely safe. The Drakuls are present even then—as voices out of air, as faces on the mist, as feelings and hunches and fears and doubts. Phhffttt. They will try to distract and lure, try to keep us within the Harrow until nightfall.”

Wren stared off into the blasted countryside, into the haze that hung from the skies to the earth.
Trapped again,
she thought.
The whole island is a snare.

“There is no other passage open to us?”

Stresa did not answer—did not need to.

“And on the other side of the Harrow?”

“The In Ju. And the beaches beyond.”

Triss had moved up beside her. His lean face was intense. “Aurin Striate used to speak of the Drakuls,” he advised softly. His gaze fixed on her. “He said there was no defense against them.”

“But they sleep now,” she replied, just as softly.

The gray eyes shifted away. “Do they?”

A new rumble shook the island, deep and forbidding, rising like a giant coming awake angry, thunderous as the tremors built upon themselves. Cracks appeared in the ground about them and rock and silt fell away into the void. Steam and ash belched out of the Killeshan, showering skyward in towering geysers, arcing away into the gloom. Fire trailed ominously from the volcano's lip, a trickle only, just visible in the haze.

Garth caught Wren's attention, a simple shifting of his shoulders. His fingers moved.
Be quick, Wren. The island begins to shake itself apart.

She glanced at them in turn—Garth, as enigmatic and impassive as ever, steady Triss, her protector now, given over to his new charge; Dal, restless as he stared out into the haze—she had never even heard him speak; Eowen, a white shadow against the gray, looking as if she might disappear into it; and Gavilan, uneasy, unpredictable, haunted lost to her.

“How long will it take us to cross?” she asked Stresa. Faun scrambled down off her shoulder and moved away, picking at the earth.

“Half a day, a little more,” the Splinterscat advised.

“A lifetime if you are wrong, Scat,” Gavilan intoned darkly.

“Then we will have to hurry,” Wren declared, and called Faun back to her shoulder. She brought the Ruhk Staff before her, a reminder. “We have no choice. Let's be off. Stay close to each other. Keep watch.”

They struck out across the flats, winding down into the maze of depressions, through the tangle of tree husks, cautious eyes scanning the blasted land about them. Stresa took them along as quickly as he could, but travel was slow, the terrain broken and uneven, filled with twists and turns that prevented either rapid or straight passage. The Harrow swallowed them after only moments, gathering about them almost magically until there was nothing else to be seen in any direction. Mist swirled and spun in the wind currents, steam rose out of cracks in the earth that burrowed all the way to Killeshan's core, and vog drifted down from where it spewed out of the volcano. Nothing moved in the land; it was still and empty all about. Shadows played, black lines cast earthward by the skeletal trees, iron bars against the light. All the while the earth beneath rumbled ominously, and there was a Sense of something dangerous awakening.

The voices began in the first hour. They lifted out of nothingness, whispers on the air that might have come from anywhere. They called compellingly, and for each of the company the words were different. Each would look at the others, thinking that all must have heard, that the voices were unmistakable. They asked, anxious, intense:
Did you hear that? Did you hear?
But none had, of course—only the speaker, called specifically, purposefully, drawn on by some mirror of self, by a reflection of sense and feeling.

The images came next, faces out of the air, figures that quickly formed and just as quickly faded in the shifting haze, visions of things peculiar to whomever they addressed—personifications of longings, needs, and hopes. For Wren, they took the form of her parents. For Triss and Eowen, it was the queen. For the others, something else. The images worked the fringes of their consciousness, struggling to break through the barriers they had erected to keep them at bay, working to turn them from their chosen path and lead them away.

It went on relentlessly. The voices were never loud, the images never clear, and the whole of the experience not unpleasant, not threatening, not even real—a false memory of what had never been. Stresa, familiar with the danger, started them talking to each other to ward off the attack—for there was no mistaking what it was. The Drakuls stalked them even in sleep, some part of what they were rising up to follow after, seeking to delay or detain, to turn aside or lead astray, to keep them within the Harrow until nightfall.

Time slowed, as cautious and measured as the haze through which they walked, as bleak as the landscape that stretched ahead. The depressions deepened, and in places the lifeless trees formed a barrier that could not be crossed, but had to be got around. Wren called to the others as they trudged ahead, pushing past the voices, casting through the faces, working to keep them all together, to keep them moving. Noon approached, and the day darkened. Clouds massed overhead, heavy with rain. It began to drizzle, then to pour. The wind quickened, and the rain blew into them in sheets. It would sweep across in a curtain, fade away to scattered drops, and start the cycle over again. It lasted for a time and was gone. The earth's heat returned, and the mist began to thicken. It closed about them, and soon nothing was visible beyond a dozen feet. They stayed close then, so close they were tripping over each other, bumping together as if made sightless, feeling their way through the gloom.

“Stresa! How much farther?” Wren shouted through the cacophony of voices that whirled about her ears.

“Spptptt! Close, now,” the reply came. “Just ahead.”

They passed down into a particularly deep ravine, a jagged knife cut across the surface of the lava rock, all shadows and shifting haze. Wren knew it was dangerous, almost called them back, but saw, too, that it, sliced directly across their pathway out, that it was the only way they could go. She descended into the gloom, the Ruhk Staff gripped before her like a shield. Faun chittered wildly on her shoulder, another sound to blend with the others, the unseen voices that buzzed and raged and filled her subconscious with a growing need to scream. She saw Triss a step ahead, with Stresa a faint dark spot beyond; She heard footsteps behind, someone following, the others...

And then the hands had her, abrupt, startling, as hard as iron. They reached up from nowhere, materializing from out of the mist, closed about her legs and ankles, and yanked her from the pathway. She yelled in fury and struck downward with the butt of the Ruhk Staff. White fire burst from the earth, flaring out in all directions, the magic of the talisman responding. It shocked her, stunned her that the magic should come so easily. There were shouts from the others, cries of warning. Wren wheeled about wildly, and the hands that had fastened on her fell away. Something moved in the mist—things, dozens of them, faceless, formless, yet there. The Drakuls, she realized, awake somehow when they should not have been. Perhaps it was dark enough here in this cut, black enough to pass for night. She cried out to the others, summoned them to her, and led them toward the ravine's far slope. The figures swirled all about, grasping, touching, nonsubstantive, yet somehow real. She saw faces drained of life, pale images of her own, eyes empty and unseeing, teeth that looked like the fangs of animals, sunken cheeks and temples, and bodies wasted away to nothing. She fought through them, for they seemed centered on her, drawn to her as if she were the one who mattered most to them. It was the magic, she realized. Like all the Shadowen, it was the magic that drew them first.

Drakul wraiths materialized in front of her and Garth bounded past, short sword hacking. The images dissipated and reformed, unharmed. Wren wheeled about as she reached the floor of the ravine.
One, two . . .
She counted frantically. All six were there. Stress was already scrambling ahead, and she turned to follow him. They went up the slope in a tangle, clawing their way over the rain-slick lava rock, past the scrub and fallen trees. The images followed, the voices, the phantoms come from sleep, undead monsters trailing after. Wren fought them off with anger and repulsion, with the fury of her movement, conscious of Faun clinging to her neck as if become a part of her, of the heat of the Ruhk Staff in her hands as its magic sought to break free again. Magic that could do anything, she lamented, that could create anything—even monsters like these. She recoiled inwardly at the prospect, at the horror of a truth she wished had never been, a truth she feared would rise up to haunt her if she were to keep the promise she had made to her grandmother to save the Elves.

Over the top of the ravine the members of the little company stumbled and began to run. The gloom was thick and shifted like layers of gauze before them, but they did not slow, racing ahead heedlessly, calling words of encouragement to each other, fighting back against their pursuers. The Drakuls hissed and spit like cats, the venom of their thoughts a fire that burned inside. Yet it was only voices and images now and no longer real, for the Drakuls could not leave the darkness of their shelter to venture into the Harrow while it was yet daylight. Slowly their presence faded, drawing away like the receding waters of some vast ocean, gone back with the tide. The company began to slow, their breathing heavy in the sudden stillness, their boots scraping as they came to a ragged halt.