The Elf Queen of Shannara (34 page)

“Look away from me for a moment,” he ordered.

Coll turned his head, waiting.

“Coll,” a voice came.

He turned back. There was his father, Jaralan, tall and stooped, thick shouldered, wearing his favorite leather apron, the one he used for his woodworking. Coll blinked in disbelief, telling himself that it wasn't his father, that it was Rimmer Dall, and still it was his father he saw.

Then his father reached up to remove the apron, which instantly became the Mirrorshroud, and Rimmer Dall stood before him once more.

“Who did you see?” the First Seeker asked softly.

Coll could not bring himself to answer. He shook his head. “I still think Par will recognize you.”

Rimmer Dall studied him a moment, the big, rawboned face flat and empty, the strange eyes as hard as stone. “I want you to think about something,” he said finally. “Do you remember those pitiful creatures in the Pit at Tyrsis the ones driven mad by Federation imprisonment, their magic consuming them? That is what will happen to your brother. It may not happen today or tomorrow or next week or even next month, but it will happen eventually. Once it does, there will be no help for him.”

Coll fought to keep the fear from his eyes.

“I want you to think about this as well. All Shadowen have the power to invade and consume. They can inhabit the bodies of other creatures and become them for as long as it is needed.” He paused. “I could become you, Coll Ohmsford. I could slip beneath your skin as easily as a knife blade and make you my own.” The harsh whisper was a hiss against the silence. “But I don't choose to do that because I don't want to hurt you. I spoke the truth when I told you I wanted to help your brother. You will have to decide for yourself whether or not to believe me, but think about what I have just told you as you do.”

He turned, shoved the Mirrorshroud back into its locker, and closed the door. Whether he was angry or frustrated or something else was difficult to tell, but his walk was purposeful as he led Coll from the room and pulled the door closed behind them. Coll listened automatically for the click of the lock and did not hear it. Rimmer Dall was already moving away, so Coll went after him without slowing. The First Seeker took him to a stairway and pointed up.

“Your quarters lie that way. Think carefully, Valeman,” he warned. “You play with two lives while you delay.”

Coll turned wordlessly and started up the stairs. When he glanced back over his shoulder a dozen steps later, Rimmer Dall was gone.

 

It was still light, if barely, when he went out once again, passing along the hallway to the stairs, then winding his way downward through the shadows toward the exercise yard. He had left his tunic there; he had forgotten it earlier. He didn't require it, of course, but it provided the excuse he needed to discover whether the door to the room that held the Mirrorshroud had been left unlocked.

His breathing was rapid and harsh-sounding in the silence of his descent. It was a reckless thing he was attempting to do, but his desperation was growing. if he did not get free soon, something bad was going to happen to Par. His conviction of this was based mostly on supposition and fear, but it was no less real for being so. He knew he wasn't thinking as clearly as he should; if he had been, he would never have even considered taking this risk. But if the lock had not released back into place, if the room was still open and the Mirrorshroud still in its locker, waiting . . .

Footsteps sounded from somewhere below, and he froze against the stair wall. The steps grew momentarily louder and then disappeared. Coll wiped his hands on his pants and tried to think. Which floor was it? Four, he had counted, hadn't he? He worked his way ahead again, then stepped onto the fourth landing down and with his body pressed against the stone, peered around the corner.

The hallway before him stood empty.

He took a deep breath to steady himself and stepped from hiding. Down the hall he crept, swift and silent, casting anxious glances ahead and behind as he went. The Shadowen were always watching him. Always. But there were none now, it seemed, none that he could see. He kept going. He checked each door as he passed it. A wolf's head with red lettering below—where was it?

If he was caught . . .

Then the door he was searching for was before him, the wolf's eyes glaring into his own. He stepped up to it quickly, put his ear close and listened. Silence. Carefully he reached out and turned the handle.

It gave easily. The door opened before him and he was through.

The room was empty save for the wooden cabinet, a tall, shrouded coffin propped against the far wall. He could hardly believe his good fortune. Swiftly he went to the cabinet, opened it, and reached inside. His hands closed about the Mirrorshroud. Cautiously he took it out, lifting it toward the graying light. The fabric was soft and thick, the cloak as light as dust. Its blackness was disconcerting, an inkiness that looked as if it could swallow you whole. He held the cloak before him momentarily, studying it, weighing a final time the advisability of what he was about to do.

Then quickly he swung it over his shoulders and let it settle into place. He could barely feel it, a presence no greater than the shadow he cast in the failing daylight. He tied its cords about his neck and lifted the hood into place. He waited expectantly. Nothing seemed different. Everything was the same. He wished suddenly for a mirror in which to study himself, but there was none.

After closing the locker behind him, he crossed the room and stepped out into the hallway.

He hadn't taken a dozen steps when a Shadowen appeared from out of the stairwell.

Coll felt his heart sink. He had no weapons, no means of protection, and no time or place in which to hide. He kept walking toward his discoverer, unable to think what else to do.

The Shadowen went by him without slowing. A brief nod, a barely perceptible lifting of the dark face, and the other was past, moving away as if nothing had happened.

Coll felt a rush of elation coupled with relief. The Shadowen hadn't recognized him! He could scarcely believe it. But there was no time to revel in his good fortune. If he was ever to escape Southwatch and Rimmer Dall, it must be now.

Down he went through the corridors and stairwells of the monolith, skirting well-lit places in favor of darker ones, knowing only one way to go but determined to be noticed as little as possible, cloak or no cloak. His hands clutched the dark folds protectively, and his eyes searched the shadows as the daylight faded to dusk. He reached the exercise yard unchallenged. Weapons and armor stood stacked in racks and hung on pegs, metal edges and fastenings glinting dully. Ulfkingroh was nowhere to be seen. Coll helped himself to a brace of long knives, which he stuffed beneath his cloak. He circled the open area for the doors that led to the outer courts. A pair of Shadowen appeared and went past in the manner of the one before, oblivious. Coll felt his muscles tighten with tension, but his confidence in the Mirrorshroud was growing.

Momentarily he considered going down into the bowels of Southwatch to discover what the Shadowen were hiding there. But the risk was too great, he decided. Better to get clear as quickly as possible. Whatever else, he must be free.

He hastened along the corridors that led to the outer courts, another of twilight's shadows. He reached the courts without challenge, passed through, and almost before he realized it stood before an outer door. He glanced around hurriedly. No one was in sight.

He released the lock, pushed the door open, and stepped out. He stood within an alcove that sheltered him from the coming night. Beyond, the Rainbow Lake spread away in a glimmer of silver, the surrounding forests a dark, irregular mass that buzzed and hummed with life, the smell of leaves, earth, and grasses waiting sweetly on the summer air.

Coll Ohmsford took a deep breath and smiled. He was free.

He would have preferred to wait until it was completely dark, but he couldn't chance the delay. It wouldn't be long before he was missed. Crouching low against the sawgrass, he sprinted from the shadows of the wall into the trees.

From the window of a darkened room thirty feet up, Rimmer Dall watched him go.

 

There was never any question in Coll Ohmsford's mind as to where he would go. He worked his way through the trees that separated Southwatch from the Mermidon, chose a quiet narrows a mile or so upstream, swam the river, and began his trek toward Tyrsis and his brother. He did not know how he would find Par once he reached the city; he would worry about that later. His most immediate concern was that the Shadowen were already searching for him. They seemed to materialize within moments of his escape, black shadows that slipped through the night like wraiths at haunt, silent and spectral. But if they saw him, and he was certain they must have, the Mirrorshroud disguised him from them. They passed without slowing, without interest, disappearing as anonymously as they had come.

But so many of them!

Oddly enough, the cloak seemed to give him a heightened sense of who and where they were. He could feel their presence before he saw them, know from which direction they approached, and discern in advance how many there were. He did not try to hide from them; after all, if the cloak's magic failed, they would search him out in any case. Instead, he tried to appear as an ordinary traveler, keeping to the open grasslands, to the roads when he found them, walking easily, casually, trying not to look furtive.

Somehow it all worked. Though the Shadowen were all about, obviously hunting him, they could not seem to tell who he was.

He slept for a few hours before dawn and resumed his journey at daybreak. He thought on more than one occasion to remove the cloak, but the presence of so many of the black things kept him from doing so. Better to be safe, he told himself. After all, as long as he wore the cloak, he would not be found out.

He passed other travelers on the road as he went. None seemed interested in what they saw of him. A few offered greetings.

Most simply passed him by.

He wondered how he appeared to them. He must not have seemed someone they recognized or they would have said something. He must have seemed an ordinary traveler. It made him wonder why Rimmer Dall had looked like his father in the cloak. It made him wonder why the magic acted differently toward him.

The first day passed swiftly, and he camped in a small copse of ash still within view of the Runne. The sun collapsed behind the Westland forests in a splash of red-gold, and the warm night air was scented by grassland wildflowers. He built a fire and ate wild fruit and vegetables. He had a craving for meat, but no real way to catch any. The stars came out, and the night sounds died.

Again the Shadowen appeared, hunting him. Sometimes they came close—and again he was reluctant to remove the cloak. He did so long enough to wash, careful to keep concealed within the trees, and then quickly put it back on again. He was finding it more comfortable to wear now, less constricting and less unfamiliar. He was actually growing to like the sense of invisibility it gave him.

He went on again at first light, striding out across the grasslands, fixing on the dark edges of the Dragon's Teeth where they broke the blue skyline north. Just this side of those mountains lay Tyrsis and Par. The heat of this new day seemed more intense, and he found the light uncomfortable. Perhaps he would begin traveling at night, he decided. The darkness seemed somehow less threatening. He took shelter at midday in a cluster of rocks, crouching back within their shadows, hidden. His mind wandered, scattering to things that were forgotten almost as soon as they were remembered. He hunched down, his cowled head lowered between his knees, and he slept.

Nightfall took him from his shelter. He hunted down a rabbit, spying it out in the dark and chasing it to its den as if he were a cat. He dug down to it with his hands, wrung its neck, carried it back to his rock-walled shelter, and ate it before it was finished cooking over the little fire. He sat staring at the bones afterward, wondering what creature it had been.

Stars and moon brightened in the darkening sky. Somewhere distant, an owl hooted. Coll Ohmsford no longer searched for the Shadowen that hunted him. Somehow, they no longer mattered.

When the night had settled comfortably in about him, he rose, kicked out the fire, and crept from his place of concealment like an animal. Far distant still, but growing closer, was the city. He could smell it in the wind.

There was a rage inside him that he could not explain. There was a hunger. Somehow, though he could not yet determine how, it was tied to Par.

Swiftly he passed north toward the mountains. In the moonlight his eyes glinted blood-red.

 

 

 

XXII

 

N
ightfall

Wren Ohmsford walked back across the Harrow through the deepening gloom, empty of feeling. Shadows layered the lava rock, cast by the bones of the ravaged trees and the shifting mists. Daylight had faded to a tinge of brightness west, a candle's slender glow against the dark. The Harrow stretched silent and lifeless all about, a mirror of herself. The magic of the Elfstones had scoured her clean. The death of Eowen had hardened her to iron.

Who am I?
she asked herself.

She chose her path without really thinking about it, moving in the direction from which she had come because that was the only way she knew to go. She stared straight ahead without seeing; she listened without hearing.

Who am I?

All of her life she had known the answer to that question. The fact of it had been her one certainty. She was a Rover girl, free of the constraints of personal history, of the ties and obligations of family, and of the need to live up to anyone's expectations but her own. She had Garth to teach her what she needed to know and she could do with herself as she pleased. The future stretched away intriguingly, a blank slate on which her life could be written with any words she chose.

Now that certainty was gone, disappeared as surely as her youthful misconceptions of who and what she would be. She would never be as she had been or had thought she would be. Never. She had lost it all. And what had she gained? She almost laughed. She had become a chameleon. Just look at her; she could be anyone. She couldn't even be sure of her name. She was an Ohmsford and an Elessedil both. Choose either—it would fit. She was an Elf and a human. She was the child of several families, one who birthed her, two more who raised her.

Who am I?

She was a creature of the magic, heir to the Elfstones, keeper of the Ruhk Staff and the Loden. She bore them all, trusts she had been given to hold, responsibilities she had been empowered to manage. The magic was hers, and she hated the very thought of it. She had never asked for it, certainly never wanted it, and now could not seem to get rid of it. The magic was a shadow within, a dark reflection of herself that rose on command to do her bidding, a trickster that made her feel as nothing else could and at the same time stole away her reason and sanity and threatened to take her over completely. The magic even killed for her—enemies to be sure, but friends as well.
Eowen. Hadn't the magic killed Eowen?
She bit down against her despair. It destroyed—which was all right because that was what she expected it to do, but at the same time was all wrong because it was indiscriminate and even when it chose properly it emptied her a little further of things like compassion, tenderness, remorse, and love, the soft that balanced the hard. It burned away the complexity of her vision and left her stripped of choices.

As she was now, she realized.

A wind had come up, slow and erratic at first, now quick and rough as it gusted across the flats, causing the spines of the trees to shiver and the ravines to hum and moan. It blew across her shoulders, pushing her sideways in the- manner of a thoughtless stranger in a crowd. She lowered her head against it, another distraction to be suffered, another obstacle to be overcome. The light west had disappeared, and she was cloaked in darkness. It wasn't so far to go, she told herself wearily. The others were just ahead at the Harrow's edge, waiting.

Just ahead.

She laughed. What did it ‘matter whether they were there or not? What did any of it matter? Her life would do with her as it chose, just as it had been doing ever since she had come in search of herself. No, she corrected, longer ago than that. Forever, perhaps. She laughed again. Come in search of herself, her family, the Elves, the truth—such foolishness! She could hear the mocking sounds of her own voice as the thoughts chased after one another.

A voice that echoed in the wind.

What matter?
it whispered.

What difference?

Her thoughts returned unbidden to Eowen, kind and gentle, doomed in spite of her seer's gifts, fated to be swallowed up by them. What good had it done Eowen to know her future? What good would it do any of them? What good, in fact, even to try to determine it? Useless, she raged, because in the end it would do with you what it chose in any case. It would make you what it wished, take you where it willed, and leave you in its own good time.

All about her, the wind voice howled.
Let go!

She heard it, nodded in recognition, and began to cry. The words caressed her like a mother's hands, and she welcomed their touch. Everything seemed to be fading away. She was walking—where? She didn't stop, didn't pause to wonder, but simply kept moving because movement helped, taking her away from the hurt, the anguish. She had something to do—what? She shook her head, unable to determine, and brushed at her tears with the back of her hand.

The hand that held the Elfstones.

She looked down at it wonderingly, surprised to discover the Stones were still there. The magic pulsed within her fist, within the fingers tightly wrapped about, its blue glow seeping through the cracks, spilling out into the dark. Why was it doing that? She stared blankly, vaguely aware that something was wrong. Why did it burn so?

Let go,
the wind voice whispered.

I want to!
she howled in the silence of her mind.

She slowed, looking up from the pathway her feet had been following, from the emptiness of the ground. The Harrow had taken on a different cast, one of brightness and warmth. There were faces all about, strangely alive against the haze, filled with understanding of her need. The faces were familiar, of friends and family, of all those who had loved and supported her, living and dead, come out of her imagination into life. She was surprised when they appeared, but pleased as well. She spoke to them, a word or two, tentative, curious. They glanced her way and whispered in reply.

Let go.

Let go.

The words repeated insistently in her mind, a glimmer of hope. She slowed and finally stopped, no longer knowing where she was and no longer caring. She was so tired. Her life was a shambles. She could not even pretend that she had any control over it. It rode her as a rider would a horse, but without pause or rest, without destination, endlessly into night.

Let go.

She blinked, then smiled. Understanding flooded through her. Of course. So simple, really. Let go of the magic. Let go, and the weariness and confusion and sense of loss would pass. Let go, and she would have a chance to start over again, to regain possession of her life, to return to who and what she had been. Why hadn't she seen it before?

Something tugged at her in warning, some part of her deep within that had become buried in the sound of the wind's voice. Curious, she tried to uncover it, but feathery touches on her skin distracted her. There was a burning against the skin of her palm from the Elfstones, but she ignored it. The touches were more intriguing, more inviting. She lifted her face to find their source. The faces were all about her now, milling at the edge of the darkness and the mist, taking on form. She knew them, didn't she? Why couldn't she remember?

Let go.

She cocked the hand that grasped the Elfstones in response, barely conscious of the act, and a sliver of blue light escaped the cracks of her fingers, lancing into the dark. Instantly the faces were gone. She blinked in confusion. What was she doing? Why had she stopped walking? She glanced about in alarm, seeing the darkness and the mist of the Harrow, realizing she was lost somewhere within, that she had strayed. The Drakuls were there, watching. She could feel their presence. She swallowed against her fear. What had she been thinking?

She started moving again, trying to sort out what had happened. She was dimly aware that for a time she had lost track of everything, that she must have wandered aimlessly. She remembered bits and pieces of her thoughts, like the fragments of dreams on waking. She had been about to do something, she thought worriedly. But what?

The minutes passed. Far ahead, lost in the howl of the wind, she heard the call of her name. It was there, hanging momentarily in a lull, then gone. She moved toward it, wondering if she was still going in the right direction, if she was unable to determine so soon, she would have to use the Elfstones. The thought was anathema. She never wanted to use them again. All she could see in her mind's eye was their fire exploding into the monster that had once been Eowen and turning her to ash.

Again she began to cry and again quickly stopped herself. There was no use in it, no point. Leafless trees and fire-washed lava rock spread away from her, an endless, changeless expanse. The Harrow seemed to go on forever. She was lost, she decided, become turned about somehow. She stopped and glanced around wearily. Exhaustion flooded through her, and in anguish and despair she closed her eyes.

The wind whispered.
Let go.

Yes,
she replied silently,
I want to.

The spell of the words folded about her like a warm cloak, wrapped her and held her close. She resisted but a moment, then gave herself over to it. When she opened her eyes, the faces were back again, surrounding her in a circle of faint light and feathery touches. She saw that she was at the edge of a ravine—a familiar place, it seemed. Once again, everything began to fade. She forgot that she was trying to escape the Harrow, that the faces about her were something other than what they appeared to be. The haze of the mist crept into her mind and settled there, thick and murky. Her ice-bound thoughts melted and ran like liquid through her body; she could feel their cold. She was so tired, so weary of everything.

Let go.

The hand that clutched the Elfstones lowered, and the faces clustered about her began to take on shape and size. Lips brushed her throat.

Let go.

She let her eyes close again. Her fingers loosened. It would all be so easy. Let the Elfstones fall, and she would escape the magic's chain forever.

“Lady Wren!”

The shout was an anguished howl, and for a moment's time it didn't register. Then her eyes snapped open, and her body tensed. The strange sleep that had almost claimed her hovered close, a whisper of insistent need. Through its fog, beyond its pall, she saw two figures crouched at the edge of the light. They held swords in their hands, the metal glinting faintly.

“Phfftt! Don't move, Wren of the Elves!” she heard another cry out in warning. Stresa.

“Stay where you are, Lady Wren,” the first cautioned frantically. Triss.

The Captain of the Home Guard inched forward, his weapon held before him. She saw his face now, lean and hard, filled with determination. Behind him was Garth, a larger form, darker, inscrutable. Leading them both, spines bristling, was the Splinterscat.

A cold place opened in the pit of her stomach. What were they doing here? What had happened to bring them? She felt a surge of fear strike her, a sense that something was about to happen and she had not even been aware of it.

She forced back the lassitude, the calm, and the whisper of the wind and made herself see again. The cold turned to ice. The light surrounding her emanated from the things that clustered close. Drakuls, all about. They were so close she could feel their breath—or seem to. She could see their dead eyes, their gaunt, nearly featureless faces, and their ivory fangs. There were dozens of them, pressed about her, parted only at the point where Triss and Garth and Stresa sought to approach, a window into the dark of the Harrow. Their hands and fingers clutched her, held her fast, bound her in ropes of hunger. They had lured her to them, lulled her almost to slumber as they must have done Eowen. Turned from phantoms to things of substance, they were about to feed.

For an instant Wren hung suspended between being and nonbeing, between life and death. She could feel the draw of two choices, very different, each compelling. One would have her break free of the soothing, deadly bonds that held her, would have her rise up in revulsion and fury and fight for her life because that was what her instincts told her she must do. The other would have her do as the wind voice had whispered and simply let go because that was the only way she would ever be free of the magic. Time froze. She weighed the possibilities as if detached from them, a judging that seemed to bring into focus the whole of her existence, past, present, and future. She could see her rescuers creep nearer, their gestures unmistakable. She could feel the Drakuls draw a fraction of an inch closer. Neither seemed to matter. Each was a distant, slow-moving reality that could change in the blink of an eye.

Then fangs brushed her throat—a whisper of hunger and need.

Drakuls.

Shadowen.

Elves.

An evolution of horror—and only she knew.

If I do not escape Morrowindl and return to the Four Lands, who else will ever know?

“Lady Wren!” Triss called softly to her, his voice pleading, desperate, angry and lost.

She stepped back from the precipice and took a long, deep breath. She could feel the strength of her body return, a rising up out of lethargy. But she would still be too slow. She flexed gently, almost imperceptibly, seeking to discover if she could move, testing the limits of her freedom. There were none; the hands that secured her held her so fast that she might as soon have been chained to the earth.

One chance, then. One hope. Her mind focused, hard and insistent, reaching deep within. Her fingers slipped open.

Now.

Blue fire exploded into the night, racing up her body to sheathe her in flames. The fangs jerked back, the hands fell away, the Drakuls shrieked in fury, and she was free. She stood within a cylinder of fire, the magic's heat racing over her, wrapping her about as she waited for the pain to begin, anticipated what it would feel like to be burned to ash.
Better that than to become one of them,
the thought flashed through her mind, the corner of her life's need turned and become a certainty she would not question again.
Just let it be quick!