The Elf Queen of Shannara (36 page)

Where was Damson?

Par Ohmsford had known the risks from the beginning, the dangers that Damson Rhee faced every time she left him and went out into the city. If the Mole was captured, they would make him talk. If the safe holes were compromised, she might be, too. If Padishar was taken, there were no secrets left. He knew the risks; he had told himself he had accepted them. But faced for the first time since escaping from the sewers that the worst had happened, he found he was not prepared after all. He found that he was terrified.

Damson. If anything had happened to her . . .

A scuffling sound caught his attention, and he left the thought unfinished. He started, then wheeled about, searching for the source of the noise. It was behind him, at the top of the stairs, at the door leading to the street.

Someone was playing with the lock.

At first he thought it must be Damson, forced for some reason to try to enter through the back. But Damson did not have a key. And the sound he was hearing was of a key scraping in the lock. The fumbling continued, ending in a sharp
snick
as the lock released.

Par reached down for the Sword of Shannara and strapped it quickly across his back. Whoever was up there, it was not Damson. He snatched up the backpack, thinking to hide any trace of his being there. But his bootprints were everywhere, the bed was mussed, and small crumbs of food littered the table. Besides, there was no time. The intruder had lifted the lock from its hasp and was opening the door.

Daylight flooded through the opening, an oblique shaft of wan gray. Par backed hastily from the room into the tunnels. He left the torch. He no longer needed it to find his way. The morning's explorations had left him with a clear vision of which way to go, even in the near dark. Boots thudded softly on the wooden steps, too heavy and rough to be Damson's.

He went down the tunnel in a noiseless crouch. Whoever had entered would know he had been there, but would not know how long ago. They would wait for him to return, thinking to catch him unprepared. Or Damson. But he could wait for Damson somewhere close to the entrance to the old mill and warn her before she entered. Damson would never come through the back entrance with the lock sprung. His thoughts raced through his mind in rapid succession, propelling him on through the darkness, silent and swift. All he had to do was escape detection, to get back through the cellar and out the door to the street.

He could no longer hear footsteps. Good. The intruder had stopped to view the room, was wondering who had been there, how many of them there had been, and why they had come. More time for Par to get away, a better chance for him to escape.

But when he reached the cellar, he moved too quickly toward the stairs leading up and stumbled into an empty wooden crate, tripped, and fell. The rotting wood cracked and splintered beneath him, the sound reverberating sharply through the silence.

As he pulled himself back to his feet, furious, breathless, he could hear the sound of footsteps coming toward him.

He broke for the stairs, no longer bothering to hide his flight. The footsteps gave chase. Not Shadowen, he thought—they would be silent in their coming. Federation, then. But only one. Why just one?

He gained the stairs and scrambled up. The trapdoor was a faint silhouette above. He wondered suddenly if others might be waiting above, if he was being driven into a trap. Should he stand his ground and face the one rather than allow himself to be herded toward the others? But it was all speculation, and besides there wasn't time left to decide. He was already at the trapdoor.

He shoved upward against it. The trapdoor did not move.

Shafts of fading daylight found their way through gaps in the heavy wooden boards and danced off his sweat-streaked face, momentarily blinding him. Lowering his head, he shoved upward a second time. The door was solidly in place. He squinted past the light, trying to see what had happened.

Something large and bulky was sitting atop the front edge of the trapdoor.

In desperation, he threw himself against the barrier, but it refused to budge. He backed down the steps, casting a quick glance over his shoulder. His heart was beating so loudly in his ears he could barely manage to hear the muffled voice that called his name.

“Par? Par Ohmsford?”

A man, someone he knew it seemed, but he wasn't sure. The voice was familiar and strange all at once. The speaker was still back in the tunnels, lost in the darkness. The gristmill cellar stretched low and tight to the dark opening, dust motes dancing on the air in the gloom, a haze that turned everything to shadow. Par looked at the trapdoor once more, then back again at the cellar.

He was trapped.

The line of his mouth tightened. Sweat was running down his body in the wake of his exertion and fear, and his skin was crawling.

Who was back there?

Who was it who would know his name?

He thought again of Damson, wondering where she was, what had become of her, whether she was safe. If she had been taken, then he was the only one left she could depend upon. He could not let himself be captured because then there would be no one to help her. Or him. Damson. He saw her flaming red hair, the quirk of her mouth as she smiled at him, and the brightness of her green eyes. He could hear her voice, her laughter. He could feel her touching him. He remembered how she had worked to save his life, to keep him from the madness that had claimed him when Coll had died.

The feelings he experienced in that instant were overwhelming, so intense he almost cried them out.

Anger and determination replaced his fear. He reached back and started to draw free the Sword of Shannara, then let it slip back into its sheath. The Sword was meant for other things. He would use his magic, use it even though it frightened him now, an old friend who had turned unexpectedly strange and unfamiliar. The magic was unreliable, quixotic, and dangerous.

And of questionable use, he realized suddenly, if what he faced was human.

His thoughts scattered, leaving him bereft of hope. He reached back a second time and pulled free the Sword. It was his only weapon after all.

A shadow appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, breath hissing softly in the sudden silence, a cloaked form, dark and featureless in the failing light. A man, it looked, taller than Par and broader as well.

The man stepped clear of the dark and straightened. He started forward and then abruptly stopped, seeing Par crouched on the cellar stairs, weapon in hand. The long knife in his own hand glinted dully. For an instant they faced each other without moving, each trying to identify the other.

Then the intruder's hands reached up slowly and slid back the hood of his dusty black cloak.

 

 

 

XXIV

 

T
riss straightened, his movements leaden and stiff. They stared wordlessly at one another, the Captain of the Home Guard, Wren, and Garth, faceless in Morrowindl's vog shrouded night. They stood like statues about the crumpled form of Dal, as if sentinels set at watch, frozen in time. They were all that remained of the company of nine who had set out from beneath Killeshan's shadow to bear Arborlon and the Elves from their volcanic grave to life anew within the forests of the Westland. Three, Wren emphasized through her anguish, for Gavilan was lost to them as surely as her own innocence.

How could she have been so stupid?

Triss shifted abruptly, breaking his bonds. He walked away, bent down to examine the earth, stood again, and shook his head. “What could have done this? There must be tracks . . .” He trailed off.

Wren and Garth exchanged glances. Triss still didn't understand. “It was Gavilan,” she said softly.

“Gavilan?” The Captain of the Home Guard turned. He stared at her blankly.

“Gavilan Elessedil,” she repeated, speaking his full name, hoping that the saying of it would make what had happened real for her. Against her shoulder, Faun still shivered. “He's killed Dal and taken the Ruhk Staff
.
”

Triss did not move. “No,” he said at once. “Lady Wren, that could not happen. You are wrong. Gavilan is an Elf, and no Elf would harm another. Besides, he is a prince of the Elessedil blood! He is sworn to serve his people!”

Wren shook her head in despair. She should have seen it coming. She should have read it in his eyes, his voice, his changing behavior. It was there, and she had simply refused to recognize it. “Stresa,” she called.

The Splinterscat lumbered up from out of the dark, spines prickling belligerently. “Hsssttt! I warned you about him!”

“Thank you for reminding me. Just tell me what the signs say. Your eyes are sharpest, your nose better able to measure. Read them for me, please.”

Her words were gentle and filled with pain. The Splinterscat saw and edged quietly away. They watched as he began to skirt the clearing, sniffing, scanning, pausing frequently, then continuing on.

“He could not have done this,” Triss murmured anew, the words hard-edged with disbelief. Wren did not reply. She looked away at nothing. The Harrow was a gray screen behind them, the In Ju a black hole ahead. Killeshan was a distant rumble. Morrowindl hunched over them like an animal with a bone.

Then Stresa was back. “Nothing—phhhfft—has passed through the place we stand in the last few hours except us. Sssttt. Our tracks come out from the Harrow, go in, then come out again—over there. Just us—no monsters, no intruders, nothing.” He paused. “There.” He swiveled in the opposite direction. “A newer set of tracks depart, west, toward the In Ju. His scent. I'm sorry, Wren Elessedil.”

She nodded, her own last vestige of hope shredded. She looked pointedly at Triss.

“Why?” he asked, a worn and defeated whisper.

Because he was terrified, she thought. Because he was a creature of order and comfort, of walls and safe havens, and this was all too much for him, too overwhelming. Because he thought them all dead and was afraid that he would die too if he didn't run. Or because he was greedy and desperate and wanted the power of the Ruhk Staff and its magic for himself.

“I don't know,” she said wearily.

“But Dal . . . ?”

“What difference does it make?” she interrupted, more angry than she should have been, regretting her harshness immediately. She took a deep breath. “What matters is that he has taken the Ruhk Staff and the Loden, and we have to get them back. We have to find him. Quickly.”

She turned. “Stresa?”

“No,” the Splinterscat said at once. “Hssstt. It is too dangerous to track at night. Stay here until daybreak.”

She shook her head deliberately. “We don't have that much time.”

“Rrrwwll Wren Elessedil. We had best find it then, if we want to stay alive!” Stresa's rough voice deepened to a growl. “Only a fool would venture down off the Blackledge and into the In Ju at night.”

Wren felt her anger building. She did not care to be challenged just now. She could not permit it. “I have the Elfstones, Stresa!” she snapped. “The Elven magic will protect us!”

“The Elven magic you—hssstt—are so anxious not to use?” Stresa's words were a taunt. “Phhffft. I know you cared for him, but . . .”

“Stresa!” she screamed.

“. . . the magic will not protect against what you cannot see,” the other finished, calm, unruffled. “Ssstttpp! We must wait until morning.”

The silence was immense. Inside, Wren could hear herself shriek. She looked up as Garth stepped in front of her.
Remember your training, Wren. Remember who you are.

What she could remember at the moment was the look she had seen in Gavilan Elessedil's eyes when she had given him the Ruhk Staff. She met Garth's gaze squarely. What she saw in his eyes stayed her anger. Reluctantly she nodded. “We'll wait until morning.”

She kept watch then while the others slept, her own exhaustion forgotten, buried in her anger and despair over Gavilan. She could not sleep while feeling so unsettled, her mind racing and her emotions in disarray. She sat alone with her back against a stand of rocks while the men curled up in sleep a dozen feet away and Stresa hunkered down at the clearing's edge, perhaps asleep, perhaps not. She stared into blackness, stroking Faun absently, thinking thoughts darker than the night.

Gavilan. He had been so charming, so comfortable when she had met him. She had liked him—perhaps more than liked him. She had harbored expectations for them that even now she could not bring herself to admit. He had promised to be a friend to her, to look after her, to give her what answers he could to the questions she asked, and to be there when she needed him. He bad promised so much. Perhaps he could have kept those promises if they had not been forced to leave the protection of the Keel. For she had not been mistaken in assessing Gavilan's weakness; he was not strong enough for what lay beyond the safety of Arborlon's walls. The changes in him had been apparent almost immediately. His charm had faded into worry, then edginess, and finally fear, He had lost the only world he had ever known and been left naked and unprotected in a waking nightmare. Gavilan had been as brave as he could manage, but everything he had known and relied upon had been stripped away. When the queen had died and the Staff had been entrusted to Wren, it had just been too much. He had counted himself the queen's logical successor, and with the power of the Elven magic he still believed he could accomplish anything. He was committed to it; he had made it his cause. He was convinced that he could save the Elves, that he was destined to do so, that the magic would give him the means.

Let me have the Staff,
she could still hear him plead.

And she had foolishly given it to him.

Tears came to her eyes. He probably panicked, she thought. He probably decided that she was dead, that they were all dead, and that he was alone. He tried to leave, and Dal stopped him, telling him, no, wait, underestimating the depth of his fear, his madness. He would have heard the sounds of the Drakuls, the whispers, and the lures. They would have affected him. He killed Dal then because . . .

No!
She was crying, unable to stop. She let herself, furious that she should try to make excuses for him. But it hurt so to admit the truth, harsh and unavoidable—that he had been weak, that he had been greedy, that he had rationalized instead of reasoned, and that he had killed a man who was there to protect him. Stupid! Such madness! But the stupidity and the madness were everywhere, all about them, a mire as vast and impenetrable as Eden's Murk. Morrowindl's fostered it, succored it within each of them, and for each there was a threshold of endurance that once crossed signaled an end to sanity. Gavilan had crossed that threshold, unable to help himself perhaps, and now he was gone, faded into mist. Even if they found him, what would be left?

She bit at her wrist, making herself feel pain. They must find him, of course—even though he no longer mattered. They must regain possession of the Ruhk Staff and the Loden or everything they had gone through to get clear of Morrowindl and all of the lives that had been given up—her grandmother's, the Owl's, Eowen's, and those of the Elven Hunters—would have been for nothing. The thought burned through her. She could not tolerate it. She would not permit them to fail. She had promised her grandmother. She had promised herself. It was the reason she had come—to bring the Elves back into the Westland and to help find a way to put an end to the Shadowen. Allanon's charge—hers now as well, she admitted in black fury. Find yourself, and she had. Discover the truth, and she had. Too much of both, but she had. Her life was revealed now, past, present, and future, and however she felt about it she would not let it be taken away without her consent.

I don't care what it takes,
she vowed.
I don't care!

She was sleeping when Triss touched her shoulder and brought her awake again. “Lady Wren,” he whispered gently. “Go lie down. Rest now.”

She blinked, accepting the blanket he slipped about her. “In a minute,” she replied. “Sit with me first.”

He did so, a silent companion, his lean brown face strangely untroubled, his eyes distant. She remembered how he had looked when she had told him of Gavilan's treachery.
Treachery, wasn't that what it was?
That look was gone now, washed away by sleep or by acceptance. He had found a way to come to terms with it. Triss, the last of those who had come out of Arborlon's old life—how alone he must feel.

He looked over at her, and it seemed as if he could read her thoughts. “I have been Captain of the Home Guard for almost eight years,” he ventured after a moment. “A long time, Lady Wren. I loved your grandmother, the queen. I would have done anything for her.” He shook his head. “I have spent my whole life in service to the Elessedils and the Elven throne. I knew Gavilan as a child; we were children together. I grew to manhood with him. We played. My family and his still wait within the Loden, friends, . . .” He drew a deep breath, groping for words, understanding. “I knew him. He would not have killed Dal unless . . . Could it be that something happened to change him? Could one of the demons have done something to him?”

She had not considered that possibility. It could have happened. There had been opportunity enough. Or why not something else, a poison, for instance, or a sickening like that which had killed Ellenroh? But she knew in her heart that it was none of those, that it was simply a wearing away of his spirit, a breaking apart of his resolve.

“It could have been a demon,” she lied anyway.

The strong face lifted. “He was a good man,” he said quietly. “He cared about people; he helped them. He loved the queen. She would have named him king one day, perhaps.”

“If not for me.”

He turned away, embarrassed. “I should not have said that. You are queen.” He looked back again. “Your grandmother would not have given the Staff to you if she had not believed it best. She would have given it to Gavilan instead. Perhaps she saw something in him that the rest of us missed. Yours is the strength the Elven people need.”

She faced him. “I didn't want any part of this, Triss. None of it.”

He nodded, smiled faintly. “No. Why would you?”

“I just wanted to find out who I was.”

She saw a flicker of despair in his dark eyes. “I don't pretend to understand what brought you to us,” he told her. “I only know that you are here and you are Queen of the Elves.” He kept his eyes fixed on her. “Don't abandon us,” he said quietly, urgently. “Don't leave us. We need you.”

She was amazed at the strength of his plea. She placed her hand on his arm reassuringly. “Don't worry, Triss. I promise I won't run away. Ever.”

She left him then, went over to where Garth slept and curled up next to her big friend, needing both his warmth and bulk for comfort this night, wanting to retreat into the past, to recover the protection and safety it had once offered, to recapture what was irretrievably lost. She settled instead for what was there and finally slept.

At dawn she was awake, more rested than she had a right to expect. The light was faint and gray through the haze, and the world about them was still and empty feeling, smelling of rot. Killeshan's rumble was distant and faint, yet steady now for the first time since they had begun their journey, a slow building of tremors that promised bigger things to come. Time was running out, Wren knew—quicker now, swifter with the passing of each hour. The volcano's fire was beginning to build at the core of the island toward a final conflagration, and when it exploded everything would be swept away.

They set out immediately, Stresa leading, Garth a step behind, Wren following with Faun, and Triss trailing. Wren was calmer now, less distraught. Gavilan, she reasoned, had nowhere to go. He might run for the beaches in search of Tiger Ty and Spirit, but how likely was he to find his way through the In Ju? He was not a Tracker and had no experience in wilderness survival. He was already half mad with fear and despair. How far could he get? He would likely travel in circles, and they would find him quickly.

Yet in the back of her mind lurked the specter of his somehow managing to get clear of the jungle, finding his way down to the beach, convincing Tiger Ty that everyone else was dead, and having himself and the Ruhk Staff carried safely away while the rest of the company was left behind. The possibility infuriated her, the more so when she considered the possibility that Gavilan didn't really think her dead at all and had simply decided to strike out on his own, convinced of the rightness of his cause and the inevitability of his rule.