by Terry Brooks
She handed it to Redden. “Stones inside. Pretty colors.” She cocked her head. “What do they do?”
Redden took the box from her, holding it out so that he could study it. “I don’t know. No one does.”
He experienced an emotional tightening in his chest. The missing Elfstones, lost for all these centuries, were now in his hands. He couldn’t quite believe it. Finding them was so far removed from anything he had imagined possible that he was afraid to look inside for fear it was all a mistake.
He glanced at Oriantha and shook his head. “I don’t know if I can bear to open it.”
She smiled encouragingly. “You can. Go ahead.”
Still, he hesitated. This was what had brought the entire company into the Forbidding in the first place—what had led them to their destruction, what had swept most of them away and changed the lives of the rest forever. There had been no reason for weeks now to think that finding the Elfstones was any sort of possibility. In his own mind, the quest had been abandoned after the destruction of the Druid order.
Now here he was with the box that might contain the precious talismans in hand, and it was all he could do to make himself believe that it was real.
He knelt, balancing the metal box on one knee, and released the catch securing it. Slowly, he raised the lid and peered inside.
Soft black cloth layered the bottom of the box. Into it had been fashioned five molded depressions. Four contained sets of gemstones, each a different color—crimson, emerald, saffron, and white.
The last depression was empty.
Redden had never seen the blue Elfstones, but he knew instinctively they had come from the empty space, and these other stones were the ones that had been missing all these years. He stared down at them, studying the smooth facets and even, geometrical shapes. Save for their colors, all were exact duplicates. Even in the gloom and the swirl of rock dust, they glittered with brilliant insistence.
He looked up at Oriantha and Tesla Dart. “We’ve found them!”
His companions crowded close, peering into the box, taking in the beauty of the gemstones. After a moment, Oriantha asked quietly, “Is that a piece of paper tucked underneath the edge of the cloth?”
She pointed to where something white poked out from the gathered velvet just above the nestled crimson stones. Redden bent close. She was right; something was there. He reached in and extracted a folded piece of paper, carefully opening it. There was writing, but he couldn’t make out what it said. It was in a form he had never seen before. He guessed it might be as ancient as the stones themselves—a language lost in the passage of time, abandoned as the world changed. The things of Faerie had mostly been forgotten over the centuries because so much of the past had been lost.
Oriantha took a look, as well, but shook her head. “I can’t read it, either.”
Redden started to put the paper back in the box, then changed his mind and slipped it into his pocket instead. He looked down at the Elfstones. “Should we see what they do?” he asked, suddenly eager to know.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, now that we’ve found them, shouldn’t we discover their powers? What if their magic could carry us back into the Four Lands with nothing more than a wish? Maybe it could let us fly? Don’t you want to know?”
But Oriantha shook her head. “You need an Elf to test them, Redden. A full-blooded Elf, if you want to be sure. You know the history.”
He did. Anyone other than a pureblood Elf risked injury or even death by attempting to make use of Elfstone magic. It was a part of the Ohmsford legacy, written down during the time of Wil Ohmsford, when he dared to use the seeking-Stones to save the life of Amberle Elessedil, the King’s daughter, so she could become the new Ellcrys. He had chosen to ignore the danger posed to someone who was of mixed Elven–human blood. As a result, his body had been altered by the power of the magic, generating within him the seeds for the birth of the wishsong—a magic he had passed down to his children, Brin and Jair Ohmsford, and which had subsequently been discovered in other Ohmsford descendants ever since, including most recently Redden and Railing.
“We should go,” Tesla Dart said to them. She was looking about now, hopping from foot to foot. “Past time. Still dangerous here.”
Redden looked up from the box, realizing he had lost all track of time while he was admiring his find. He closed the lid and secured the catch. “Do we go back out tonight or wait for morning?”
“Not wait,” the Ulk Bog answered at once. She looked suddenly skittish, uneasy. “Takes time to climb back up. Morning light is close by then.”
They started back across the chamber and were almost to the passageway that had brought them in when a flash of movement appeared in the gloom and Lada shot into view. Tesla Dart bent down to greet the Chzyk, and the two chattered back and forth for brief moments before the Ulk Bog sprang up again.
“Tarwick comes! Has tracked us!” Her face was taut. “Comes down into this place. Traps us here!”
There was real fear in her dark eyes. “He brings Furies!”
28
No one panicked, though there was ample reason to do so. Furies were monsters, catlike beings that hunted in packs and lacked any semblance of rational behavior. It was said they could not be controlled, but it appeared that someone had found a way. If Furies were included among Tarwick’s hunters, they had to be doing his bidding, and the Catcher would not hesitate to use them.
Redden was so cold inside that it seemed the temperature in the cavern must have fallen below freezing. He could not imagine what they were going to do. They were deep underground with the way out blocked and their pursuers coming for them. They lacked any reasonable chance of escaping or even of defending themselves. The wishsong remained an uncertain protection, although Redden would use it as best he could. Oriantha was quick and strong in her animal form, but she alone would not be enough. Tesla Dart had no discernible defenses at all.
“Is there another way out?” he asked the Ulk Bog.
She shook her head. “No way. Only how we come in. We must fight our way free.”
“Can we hide?” Oriantha asked. “Another tunnel? Another cavern where they won’t find us? Can we slip past them somehow?”
Tesla Dart’s wizened face knotted. “One way down, one way up.” She hesitated. “Maybe I can say you are prisoners of me. Maybe say I found you here.”
Oriantha shook her head. “We’re not letting them take us. I promised Redden, and I meant it. We break free or we die.”
Redden nodded, not caring for the odds, but knowing he could never go back into a cage. Another imprisonment and he would lose what was left of his already damaged mind. He could feel what it would be like already, just thinking of it. Nothing would save him if they got hold of him again.
He was still clutching the box with the Elfstones as he turned around and looked back across the cavern at the niche with the collected implements of magic brought over from Faerie. “Do you think there might be something there?” he asked the shape-shifter.
Oriantha sprinted back across the chamber and began searching. Tesla Dart had not reset any of the traps or released the serpents anew, so there was no danger of anything harming her while she did so. The Ulk Bog followed, looking decidedly forlorn.
Redden watched them for long moments, standing close to the mouth of the passage, desperately trying to keep himself together. His emotional stability was already dangerously thin, his sense of self reduced to a small hard kernel of doubt. Being trapped like this was the worst fate he could imagine, the one thing he hadn’t wanted to happen. Oriantha had recognized the danger when she had urged him not to go looking for the missing Elfstones.
He should have listened.
But he had been determined to come here, to search out the Elfstones, to find them and bring them back. Diverting from their original plan posed a terrible risk, and in hindsight he knew he should not have insisted on it. This would not end well for either of his co
mpanions. Oriantha would almost certainly fight until she was killed. She would never be taken alive. Tesla Dart might choose death, as well.
It gave him pause. Was he strong enough to follow them? Was his determination enough to keep him from being imprisoned anew?
Still watching his companions as they rooted through the ancient treasures in the niche across the cavern, he opened the box containing the Elfstones and glanced down at them.
Was there a way to make use of them? Even without knowing what they did, even without knowing what it would mean to summon their magic, should he try anyway? Should he risk releasing their power, whatever form it might take, against the creatures coming for them? Even knowing the magic was dangerous to use since his Elven blood was so thin?
Or should he rely on the magic of the wishsong—a magic he had employed once already against his pursuers? Would it be powerful enough? Could he even manage to summon it again?
There were no answers to be found. The risk was clear, whichever way he went. But he had to do something. Neither of the others had the power he possessed, regardless of which path he chose. Their lives were in his hands.
He stared across the blackness of the cavern at the bobbing torchlight of his companions, conflicted. If he guessed wrong, if he made a mistake in his choice of magic, they were finished. In all probability, he would only get one chance. He watched Lada skitter past him, disappearing into the black hole of the tunnel behind him. He had only a short time to wait before the little creature was back again, chittering wildly.
He knew at once that their hunters were close.
Barely conscious of what he was doing—almost as if his fingers were acting on their own—he reached inside the metal box and extracted a single set of Elfstones. He knew instinctively which ones he wanted and where within the velvet cushioning they lay. Then he closed the lid, tucked the box under his arm, and moved back across the room to join his friends.
The search had yielded little. There were weapons available, but they were ancient and clearly meant to be used as talismans. And there was nothing to reveal what sort of magic any of them possessed and no way of knowing how to summon that magic.
“When they come,” Tesla Dart announced suddenly, “I will throw the box with the serpents at them.”
Oriantha said nothing. She moved away from them and began to shape-shift into her animal self, stretching out and turning sleek and powerful, abandoning her human form in favor of something faster and stronger and more dangerous. She had made her choice in this matter, as Redden had known she would. She would make no concessions to her hunters.
Tesla Dart started scurrying about, finding additional torches at the entrance to the niche that she lit with fire from the torch she carried. Then she began placing them about the cavern at regular intervals, trying to make it easier for them to see what was coming, hoping to give them some small advantage.
She took the last two brands, dashed all the way across the chamber, and jammed them into the rocks on either side of the tunnel opening before rushing back again.
Sounds from within the tunnel’s blackness grew audible. Their time was almost up. Redden summoned the magic of the wishsong, emitting a soft hum to begin the process, bringing the heat of it out of his core to be balanced invisibly within his chest, ready for use when it was needed.
Oriantha was completely changed by now. On all fours, she slunk into the shadows and disappeared. She would choose her own place to make her final stand. She would face what was coming on her own terms.
Across the chamber, shadows emerged from the tunnel and started toward them. They were just a handful at first, then a dozen, and then many more. At least thirty or forty by Redden’s quick count, too many for them to withstand. Too many for them to escape. They crossed the chamber and hovered in the shadows just beyond the light, vague forms that emitted a strange hissing; that grunted and growled; that gave high, keening moans. Eyes glittered from out of the dark here and there, but never for more than a moment, always shifting away again.
Tarwick appeared suddenly before them, his scarecrow form materializing out of the gloom. His lean feral features were bladed and planed by the deep shadows, and his eyes glittered as they fixed on his prey. All around him, his hunters pressed forward eagerly—Goblins with demon-wolves on leashes, Furies with their terrifying cat faces, and creatures that had no name Redden could determine.
There were so many, he thought in despair.
Tarwick began speaking, and the language he used was unknown to the boy. But Tesla Dart understood. “Says we put down weapons. Says we are his prisoners.”
Now the Furies were mewling and hissing, and the demon-wolves were snapping at the air. If they all came at once, Redden knew it was the end—even with the power of the wishsong to aid them.
“What does Tesla say to Tarwick?” the Ulk Bog whispered back at him.
She was deferring to him, which he found oddly ridiculous. As if he knew what to do. As if he were leader of their little group. He did not answer, but instead concentrated on bringing the magic of the wishsong closer. He took deep breaths and centered himself inside, where the fear and doubt fought to claim him. Words whispered in his head, repeating themselves over and over.
We will fight them. We will stand until we fall. We will never go back into the cages.
Almost without thinking about it, he stepped backward into a pool of shadow and knelt, setting the metal case on the cavern floor. When he rose again, his fingers were closed so tightly about the crimson Elfstones he could feel the edges cutting into his palm.
What sort of power did they possess?
He was remembering those times he had linked the magic of the wishsong to another form of power—to when Railing and he had flown the Sprints through the Shredder and again when he had used the wishsong to enhance the power of the fire launchers aboard the Quickening.
But he remembered, too, when he had tried to escape the Straken Lord’s camp, been confronted by a giant that could crush him with a single blow, and almost failed in his efforts to summon the wishsong’s power.
He remembered what he had felt in those crucial moments, and how he had responded. He remembered how good it was to be free again and how desperate he was to remain so.
“Move back,” he said to Tesla Dart. “Behind me.”
She stared at him in surprise, but then did as she was told. “What are you doing?” she hissed at him.
He ignored her. He didn’t know what he was doing. Not specifically. But he knew what he wanted to happen, and that was enough.
Tarwick was watching him suspiciously and the creatures that served the Catcher were beginning to edge forward, no longer content to stand and wait. The volume of their cries was increasing, and the gnarled bodies were edging closer, pressing them backward toward the niche.
“I will get serpents and throw!” Tesla Dart insisted.
“Stay where you are,” Redden said.
He was gathering himself, trying to make certain that what he did next would achieve the result he sought—or at least something close. He was seeking a way to shape it into something formidable through the use of his magic, through strength of heart, mind, and body.
With so little of each to call upon, he must be certain he found enough of each if they were to survive.
Something dark flashed through a wash of torchlight to the left of where he stood, and Oriantha tore into a clutch of attackers. Redden’s arm rose instantly, extending like a weapon, and his voice filled the cavern with a roar that sounded like a mountain coming down.
At the next instant, red light blossomed from his clutched fingers, turned to fire, and exploded into their attackers. Two forms of magic at once, one feeding the other, wishsong and Elfstone magic blended into a firestorm of light and sound. He felt them tear out of him, generated not just from throat and hand, but from everything he was, as well. A strange, terrible wrenching shook him to the soles of his feet, and he could tell that something unpl
easant was happening.
But the result he had been seeking was achieved. Red light surrounded and absorbed the creatures of the Straken Lord. Tarwick and his minions were snatched up like toys, wrapped in unbreakable chains of magic. Shuddering and thrashing, they were encased in red fire.
It happened quickly, a wrenching away of substance—of flesh and blood and bone. Through a miasma of pain and shock, his body shuddering from what the combined magic of wishsong and Elfstones was doing to him, Redden Ohmsford watched it unfold. Some essential part of him was disappearing, disintegrating with the power he was releasing. Another almost physical form of disintegration was taking place among the demonkind. Bodies lurched and shook and convulsed as if jerked by invisible strings. The sounds the stricken creatures made were terrible to hear, and the boy knew he would never be able to forget them. Screams and howls and shrieks; they were burned forever into his memory. His own sounds were equally terrifying, for what was emanating from them seemed to be coming from him, as well.
He was going to die. He knew he was. By ending their lives, he was ending his own.
But it was worth the price. It was worth any price.
Then his voice and his strength gave out. The light and the sound collapsed, and the magic faded. Redden sagged to his knees, drained of strength and in shock, but still alive. In the flickering of torchlight he saw the predators that would have torn them apart reduced to heaps of ash and scraps of clothing. There was nothing left of any of them.
Tesla Dart bent close, bracing his shoulders, speaking to him. He couldn’t hear what she was saying and stared at her blankly. Oriantha reappeared out of the darkness, having escaped the fate of the Straken Lord’s creatures. He had hoped to keep her safe, but he hadn’t been sure he could make that happen. He hadn’t been sure of anything.
He found himself crying at the sight of her, whole and unharmed. She was changing back into her human form even as she approached, her strange eyes fixing on him, reflecting her disbelief and awe.