The Elf Queen of Shannara (37 page)

Unable to ponder the matter further, she brushed it roughly aside.

Blackledge began to drop away from the Harrow almost immediately, but it was not as steep here as where Garth and she had climbed up. The cliff face was craggy and thick with vegetation, and it was not difficult for them to find a pathway down. They descended quickly, Stresa keeping Gavilan's scent firmly before them as they went. Broken limbs and crushed leaves marked clearly the Elven Prince's passing; Wren could have followed the trail alone, so obvious was it. Time and again they discovered places where the fleeing man had fallen, apparently heedless of his safety, anxious only to escape. He must be frantic, Wren thought sadly. He must be terrified.

They reached the edge of the In Ju at midday and paused to eat. Stresa was gruffly confident. They were only a few hours behind Gavilan, he advised. The Elven Prince was staggering badly now, clearly exhausted. Unless something happened to change things, they would catch him before nightfall.

Stresa's prediction was prophetic—but not in the way they had hoped. Shortly after they resumed tracking Gavilan's futile efforts to circumvent the In Ju, it began to rain. The air had grown hotter with the descent off the mountain, a swelter that built slowly and did not recede. When the rain commenced, it was a dampness that layered the air, a thick moisture that hung like wet silk draped against their skin, beading on their leather clothing. After a time, the dampness turned to mist, then drizzle, and finally a torrent that washed over them with ferocious determination. They were blinded by it and forced to take shelter beneath a giant banyan. It swept through quickly and took Gavilan's scent with it. Stresa searched carefully in the aftermath, but all trace was gone.

Garth studied the damp green tangle of the jungle. He beckoned Wren.
The marks of his passing are still evident. I can track him.

She let Garth assume the lead with Stresa a half step behind, the former searching for signs of their quarry's passing, the latter keeping watch for Darters and other dangers.
Their quarry,
Wren thought, repeating the words. Gavilan had been reduced to that. She felt pity for him in spite of herself, thinking he should have stayed within the city, reasoning she should have done more to keep him safe, still wishing for what could never be.

They progressed more slowly now. Gavilan had given up his efforts to bypass the In Ju and plunged directly in. What signs they found—broken twigs and small branches, vegetation disturbed, an occasional print—suggested he had abandoned any attempt at stealth and was simply trying to reach the beaches by the shortest possible route. Speed over caution was a poor choice, Wren thought to herself. They tracked him steadily, without difficulty, and at each turn Wren expected to find him, the chase concluded and the inevitable confirmed. But somehow he kept going, evading the pitfalls that were scattered everywhere, the bogs and sinkholes, the Darters, the things that lay in wait for the unwary, and the traps and the monsters made of the Elven magic he so foolishly thought to wield. How he managed to stay alive, Wren could only wonder. He should have been dead a dozen times over. A step either way, and he would have been. She found herself wishing it would happen, that he would make that one mistake and that the madness would cease. She hated what they were doing, hunting him like an animal, chasing after him as if he were prey. She wanted it to stop.

At the same time, she dreaded what it would take to make that happen.

When they began to catch sight of the Wisteron's webbing, she despaired.
Not like that,
she found herself pleading with whatever fate controlled such things.
Give him a quick end.
Trip lines were strung all about, draped from the trees, looped along the vines, and attached in, deadly nets. Stresa retook the lead from Garth in order to guide them past the snares, pausing often to listen, to sniff the air, and to judge the safety of the land ahead. The jungle thickened into a maze of green fronds and dark trunks that crisscrossed one another in jigsaw fashion. Shadows moved slowly and ponderously about them, but the sounds they made were anxious and hungry. The afternoon shortened toward evening, and it grew dark. Far distant, screened by the mountain they had descended, Killeshan rumbled. Tremors shook the island, and the jungle's green haze shivered with the echo. Explosions began to sound, muffled still, but growing stronger. Whole trees trembled with the reverberations, and steam geysered out of swamp pools, hissing with relief. As the light darkened, Wren could see through the ever-present haze of vog and mist the sky above Killeshan turn red.

It has begun,
she thought as Garth's worried eyes met her own.

She wondered how much time was left to them. Even if they regained the Staff, it was still another two days to the beach. Would Tiger Ty be there waiting? How often had he promised he would come? Once a week, wasn't it? What if a whole week must pass before he was scheduled to return? Would he see the volcano's glare and sense the danger to them?

Or had he given up his vigil long ago, convinced that she had failed, that she had died like all the others and that there was no point in searching further?

She shook her head in stern admonishment. No, not Tiger Ty. She judged him a better man than that. He would not give up, she told herself. Not until there was no hope left.

“Phhffttt! We have to stop soon,” Stresa warned. “Hssstt. Find shelter before it grows any darker, before the Wisteron hunts!”

“A little farther,” Wren suggested hopefully.

They went on, but Gavilan Elessedil was not to be found. His ragged trail stretched before them, worming ahead into the In Ju, a line of bent and broken stalks and leaves disappearing into the shadows.

Finally, they quit. Stresa found shelter for them in the hollow stump of a banyan toppled by age and erosion, a massive trunk with entries through its base and a narrow cleft farther up. They blocked off the larger and set themselves to keep watch at the smaller. Nothing of any size could reach them. It was dark and close within their wood coffin and as dry as winter earth. Night descended, and they listened to the jungle's hunters come awake, to the sounds of coughing roars, of sluggish passage, and of prey as it was caught and killed. They huddled back to back with Stresa hunched down before them, spikes extended back toward the faint light. They took turns standing guard, dozing because they were too tired to stay awake but too anxious to sleep. Faun lay cradled in Wren's arms, as still as death. She stroked the little creature affectionately, wondering at how it could have survived in such a world. She thought of how much she hated Morrowindl. It was a thief that had stolen everything from her—the lives of her grandmother and her friends, the innocence she had harbored of the Elves and their history, the love and affection she had discovered for Gavilan, and the strength of will she had thought she would never lose. It was the loss of the latter that bothered her most, her confidence in who and what she was and in the certainty that she could determine her own fate. So much was gone, and Morrowindl, this once paradise made into a Shadowen nightmare, had taken it all. She tried to picture life beyond the island and failed. She could not think past escape, for escape was still uncertain, still a fate that hung in the balance. She remembered how once she had thought that traveling to find Allanon and speak with his shade might be the beginning of a great adventure. The memory was ashes in her mouth.

She slept for a time, dreamed of dark and terrible things, and came awake sweating and hot. At watch, she found her thoughts straying once again to Gavilan, to small memories of him—the way he had touched her, the feel of his mouth kissing hers, and the wonder he had invoked in her through nothing more than a chance remark or a passing glance. She smiled as she remembered. There was so much of him she had liked; she hurt for the loss of him. She wished she could bring him back to her and return him to the person he had been. She even wished she could find a way to make the magic do what nature could not—to change the past. It was foolish, senseless thinking, and it teased her mercilessly. Gavilan was lost to her. He had fallen prey to Morrowindl's madness. He had killed Dal and stolen the Ruhk Staff. He had turned himself into something unspeakable. Gavilan Elessedil, the man she had been so attracted to and cared so much for, was no more.

At daybreak they rose and set out anew. They did not have to bother with breakfast because there was nothing left to eat. Their supplies were exhausted, those that hadn't been lost or abandoned. There was a little water, but not more than enough for another day. While they traveled the In Ju, they would find nothing to sustain them. One more reason to get clear quickly.

Their search that day was over almost before it began. In less than an hour, Gavilan's trail abruptly ended. They crested a ravine, slowed on Stresa's warning hiss, and stopped. Below, amid the wreckage of small plants and grasses trampled almost flat in what must have been a frantic struggle, lay the shreds of one of the Wisteron's webs.

Stresa eased down into the ravine, sniffed cautiously about, and climbed out again. The dark, bright eyes fixed on Wren. “Hsssttt. It has him, Wren Elessedil.”

She closed her eyes against the horrific vision the Splinterscat's words evoked. “How long ago?”

“Ssspptt. Not long. Maybe six hours. Just after midnight, I would guess. The net snared the Elf Prince and held him until the Wisteron came. Rwwlll. The beast carried him away.”

“Where, Stresa?”

The other pricked his ears. “Its lair, I expect. It has one deep within a hollow at the In Ju's center.”

She felt a new weariness steal through her. Of course, a lair—there would have to be. “Any sign of the Ruhk Staff?”

The Splinterscat shook his head. “Gone.”

So unless Gavilan had abandoned it—something he would never do—it was still with him. She shuddered in spite of her resolve. She was remembering her brief encounter with the Wisteron on her way in. She was remembering how just its passing had made her feel.

Poor, foolish Gavilan. There was no hope for him now

She looked at the others, one by one. “We have to get the Ruhk Staff back. We can't leave without it.”

“No, Lady Wren, we can't,” Triss echoed, hard-eyed.

Garth stood, his great hands limp at his sides.

Stresa shook out his quills and his sharp-nosed face lifted to her own. “Rrwwll Wren of the Elves, I expected nothing less of you. Hssttt. But you will have to—sspppptt—use the Elf Magic if we are to survive. You will have to, against the Wisteron.”

“I know,” she whispered, and felt the last vestige of her old life drop away.

“Chhttt. Not that it will make any difference. Phhfftt. The Wisteron is—”

“Stresa,” she interrupted gently. “You needn't come.”

The silence of the moment hung against the screen of the jungle. The Splinterscat sighed and nodded. “Phhfft. We have come this far together, haven't we? No more talk. I will take you in.”

 

 

 

XXV

 

I
n the long, deep silence of Paranor's endless night, in the limbo of her gray, changeless twilight, Walker Boh sat staring into space. His hand was closed into a fist on the table before him, his fingers locked like iron bands about the Black Elfstone. There was nothing more to do—no other options to consider, no further choices to uncover. He had thought everything through to the extent that it was possible to do so, and all that remained was to test the right and wrong of it.

“Perhaps you should take a little more time,” Cogline suggested gently.

The old man sat across from him, a frail, skeletal ghost nearly transparent where caught against the light. Increasingly so, Walker thought in despair. White, wispy hair scattered like dust motes from the wrinkled face and head, robes hung like laundry set to dry on a line, and eyes flickered in dull glimmerings from out of dark sockets. Cogline was fading away, disappearing into the past, returning with Paranor to the place from which it had been summoned. For Paranor would not remain within the world of Men unless there was a Druid to tend it, and Walker Boh, chosen by time and fate to fill those dark robes, had yet to don them.

His eyes drifted over to Rumor. The moor cat slouched against the far wall of the study room in which they were settled, black body as faint and ethereal as the old man's. He looked down at himself, fading as well, though not as quickly. In any event, he had a choice; he could leave if he chose, when he chose. Not so Cogline or Rumor, who were bound to the Keep for all eternity if Walker did not find a way to bring it back into the world of Men.

Strangely enough, he thought he had found that way. But his discovery terrified him so that he was not certain he could act on it.

Cogline shifted, a rattle of dry bones. “Another reading of the books couldn't hurt,” he pressed.

Walker's smile was ironic. “Another reading and there won't be anything left of you at all. Or Rumor or the Keep or possibly even me. Paranor is disappearing, old man. We can't pretend otherwise. Besides, there is nothing left to read, nothing to discover that I don't already know.”

“And you're still certain that you're right, Walk?”

Certain? Walker was certain of nothing beyond the fact that he was most definitely not certain. The Black Elfstone was a deadly puzzle. Guess wrong about its workings and you would end up like the Stone King, enveloped by your own magic, destroyed by what you trusted most. Uhl Belk had thought he had mastered the Stone's magic, and it had cost him everything.

“I am guessing,” he replied. “Nothing more.”

He allowed his hand to open, and the Elfstone to come into the light. It lay there in the cup of his palm, smooth-faced, sharp-edged, opaque and impenetrable, power unto itself, power beyond anything he had ever encountered. He remembered how it had felt to use the Stone when he had brought back the Keep, thinking it would end then, that the retrieval out of limbo where Allanon had sent it was all that was required. He remembered the surge of power as it joined him to the Keep, the entwining of flesh and blood with stone and mortar, the reworking of his body so that he was as much ghost as man, changing him so that he could enter Paranor, so that he could discover the rest of what he must do.

A metamorphosis of being.

Within, he had encountered Cogline and Rumor and heard the tale of how they had survived the attack of the Shadowen by being caught up in the protective shield of the Druid Histories' magic and spirited into Paranor. Though Walker had brought Paranor out of the limbo place into which Allanon had dispatched it, it would not be fully returned until he had found a way to complete his transformation, to become the Druid it was decreed he must be. Until then, Paranor was a prison that only he could leave—a prison rapidly drawing back into the space from which it had come.

“I am guessing,” he repeated, almost to himself.

He had read and reread the Druid Histories in an effort to discover what it was that he must do and found nothing. Nowhere did the Histories relate how one became a Druid. Despairing, he had thought the cause lost to him when he had remembered the Grimpond's visions, two of which had come to pass, the third of which, he realized, would happen here.

He faced the old man. “I stand within a castle fortress empty of life and gray with disuse. I am stalked by a death I cannot escape. It hunts me relentlessly. I know I must run from it, yet cannot. I let it approach, and it reaches for me. A cold settles within, and I can feel my life ending. Behind me stands a dark shadow holding me fast, preventing my escape. The shadow is Allanon.”

The words were a familiar litany by now. Cogline nodded patiently. “Your vision, you said. The third of three.”

“Two came to pass already, but neither as I anticipated. The Grimpond loves to play games. But this time I shall use that games playing to my advantage. I know the details of the vision; I know that it will happen here within the Keep. I need only decipher its meaning, to separate the truth from the lie.”

“But if you have guessed wrong . . .”

Walker Boh shook his head defiantly. “I have not.”

They were treading familiar ground. Walker had already told the old man everything, testing it out on someone who would be quick to spot the flaws he had missed, putting it into words to see how it would sound.

The Black Elfstone was the key to everything.

He repeated from memory that brief, solitary passage inscribed in the Druid Histories:

 

Once removed, Paranor shall remain lost to the world of Men for the whole of time, sealed away and invisible within its casting. One magic alone has the power to return it—that singular Elfstone that is colored Black and was conceived by the faerie people of the old world in the manner and form of all Elfstones, combining nevertheless in one stone alone the necessary properties of heart, mind, and body. Whosoever shall have cause and right shall wield it to its proper end.

 

He had assumed until now that the Black Elfstone was meant to restore Paranor to its present state of half-being and to gain him entry therein. But the language of the inscription didn't qualify the extent of the Elfstone's use. One magic alone, it said, bad the power to restore Paranor. One magic. The Black Elfstone. There wasn't any other magic mentioned, not anywhere. There wasn't another word about returning Paranor to the world of Men in all the pages of all the Druid Histories.

Suppose, then, that the Black Elfstone was all that was required, but that it must be used not just once, but twice or even three times before the restoration process was complete.

But used to do what?

The answer seemed obvious. The magic that Allanon had released into the Keep three hundred years ago was a sort of watchdog set loose to do two things—to destroy the Keep's enemies and to dispatch Paranor into limbo and keep it there until it was properly summoned out again. The magic was a living thing. You could feel it in the walls of the castle; you could hear it stir in its bowels. It watched and listened. It breathed. It was there, waiting. If the Keep was to be restored to the Four Lands, the magic Allanon had loosed must be locked away again. It was reasonable to assume that only another form of magic could accomplish this. And the only magic at hand, the only magic even mentioned in the Druid Histories where Paranor was concerned, was the Black Elfstone.

So far, so good. Druid magic to negate Druid magic. It made sense; it was the Black Elfstone's stated power, the negation of other magics. One magic, the inscription read. And Walker must wield it, of course. He had done so once, proved that he could.
Whosoever shall have cause and right.
Himself. Use the Black Elfstone against the watchdog magic and secure it. Use the Black Elfstone and bring Paranor all the way back.

But there was still something missing. There was no explanation of how the Black Elfstone would work. It was infinitely more complicated than simply calling up the magic and letting it run loose. The Black Elfstone negated other magics by drawing them into itself—and into its holder. Walker Boh had already been changed when he had used the Elfstone to bring Paranor back and gain entry, turned from a whole man into something incorporeal. What further damage might he do to himself if he used the Elfstone on the watchdog? What further transformation might take place?

And then, abruptly, he realized two things.

First, that he was still not a Druid and would not become one until he had established his right to do so—that his right would not come from study, or learning, or wisdom gleaned from a reading of the Druid Histories, that it was not foreordained, not predetermined by the bestowal of Allanon's blood trust to Brin Ohmsford three hundred years earlier, but that it would come at the moment he found a way to subdue the watchdog that guarded the Keep and brought Paranor fully back into the world of Men, because that was the test that Allanon had set him.

Second, that the third vision the Grimpond had shown him, the one that would take place within Paranor, the one where he was confronted by a death he could not escape, held fast by the ghost of Allanon, was a glimpse of that moment.

His arguments were persuasive. The Druids would not commit to writing a process as inviolate as this one when there was a better way. Only Walker Boh could use the Black Elfstone. Only he had the right. Somehow, in some way, that use would trigger the required transformation. When it was necessary to know, Walker would discover what was needed. So much of the Druid magic relied on acceptance—use of the Elfstones, of the Sword of Shannara, even of the wishsong. It was only reasonable that it would be the same here.

And the Grimpond's vision only cemented his thinking. There would have to be a confrontation of the sort depicted. A literal reading of the vision suggested that such a confrontation would result in Walker's death, that Allanon by sending him here had bound him so that he must die, and that whatever he might try to do to escape would be futile. But that was too simplistic. And it made no sense. Why would Allanon send him all this way to certain death? There had to be another interpretation, another meaning. The one he favored was the one that ended one life and began another, that established him once and for all as a Druid.

Cogline was not so sure. Walker had guessed wrong on both of the Grimpond's previous visions. Why was he so convinced that he was not guessing wrong here as well? The visions were never what they seemed, devious and twisted bits of half-truth concealed amid lies. He was taking a terrible gamble. The first vision had cost him his arm, the second Quickening. Was the third to cost him nothing? It seemed more reasonable to believe that the vision was open to a number of interpretations, any one of which could come to pass in the right set of circumstances, including Walker's death. Moreover, it bothered Cogline that Walker had no clear idea of how use of the Black Elfstone was to effect his transformation, how it was to subdue the Druid watchdog, how Paranor itself was to be brought fully alive—or how any of this was to work. It could not possibly be as easy as Walker made it sound. Nothing involving use of the Elven magic ever was. There would be pain involved, enormous effort, and the very real possibility of failure.

So they had argued, back and forth, for longer than Walker cared to admit, until now, hours later, they were too tired to do anything but exchange a final round of perfunctory admonishments. Walker's mind was made up, and they both knew it. He was going to test his theory, to seek out and confront the thing that Allanon had let loose within Paranor and use the magic of the Black Elfstone to resecure it. He was going to discover the truth about the Black Elfstone and put an end to the last of the Grimpond's hateful visions.

If he could make himself rise from this table, take up the talisman, and go forth.

Though he had sought to keep it hidden from Cogline with hard looks and confident words, his terror bound him. So much uncertainty, so many guesses. He forced his fingers to close again over the Black Elfstone, to grip so hard he could feel pain.

“I will go with you,” Cogline offered. “And Rumor.”

“No.”

“We might be able to help in some way.”

“No,” Walker repeated. He looked up, shaking his head slowly. “Not that I wouldn't like you to. But this isn't something you can help me with, either of you. It isn't something anyone can help me with.”

He could feel an ache where his missing arm should be, as if it were somehow there and he simply couldn't see it. He shifted uneasily, trying to relieve muscles that had tightened and cramped while he had stayed seated with the old man, arguing. The movement gave him impetus, and he forced himself to rise. Cogline stood with him. They faced each other in the half-light, in the fading transparency of the Keep.

“Walker.” The old man spoke his name quietly. “The Druids have made us both their creatures. We have been twisted and turned in every direction, made to do things we did not wish to do and become involved in matters we would rather have left alone. I would not presume to argue with you now the merits of their manipulation. We are both beyond the point where it matters.”

He leaned forward. “But I would tell you, would ask you to remember, that they choose their paladins wisely.” His smile was worn and sad. “Luck to you.”

Walker came around the table, wrapped his good arm about the old man, and hugged him tight. He held him momentarily, then released him and stepped away.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

There was nothing more to be said. He took a deep breath, walked over to scratch Rumor between his cocked ears, gazed into the luminous eyes, then turned and disappeared out the door.

 

With slow, cautious steps, moving through the vast, empty hallways as if the walls might hear him coming, as if his intentions could be divined, he proceeded toward the center of the Keep. Shadows hung about him in colorless folds, a sleep-shroud that cloaked his thoughts. He buried himself in the sanctuary of his mind, drawing his determination and strength of will about him in protective layers, summoning from deep within the resolve that would give him a chance at life.