by Terry Brooks
The old woman was a dried husk, and her face had withered into a maze of lines and furrows. Ragged white hair tumbled down about her frail shoulders. Wren approached and knelt before her. The ancient head lifted, revealing blind eyes that were milky and fixed.
“Are you the seer they call the Addershag, old mother?” Wren asked softly.
The staring eyes blinked and a thin voice rasped. “Who wishes to know? Tell me your name.”
“My name is Wren Ohmsford.”
Aged hands reached out to touch her face, exploring its lines and hollows, scraping along the skin like dried leaves. The hands withdrew.
“You are an Elf.”
“I have Elven blood.”
“An Elf!” The old woman’s voice was rough and insistent, a hiss against the silence of the alehouse cellar. The wrinkled face cocked to one side as if reflecting. “I am the Addershag. What do you wish of me?”
Wren rocked back slightly on the heels of her boots. “I am searching for the Westland Elves. I was told a week ago that you might know where to find them—if they still exist.”
The Addershag cackled. “Oh, they exist, all right. They do indeed. But it’s not to everyone they show themselves—to none at all in many years. Is it so important to you, Elf girl, that you see them? Do you search them out because you have need of your own kind?” The milky eyes stared unseeing at Wren’s face. “No, not you. Why, then?”
“Because it is a charge I have been given—a charge I have chosen to accept,” Wren answered carefully.
“A charge, is it?” The lines and furrows of the old woman’s face deepened. “Bend close to me, Elf-girl.”
Wren hesitated, then leaned forward tentatively. The Addershag’s hands came up again, the fingers exploring. They passed once more across Wren’s face, then down her neck to her body. When they touched the front of the girl’s blouse, they jerked back as if burned and the old woman gasped. “Magic!” she howled.
Wren started, then seized the other’s wrists impulsively. “What magic? What are you saying?”
But the Addershag shook her head violently, her lips clamped shut, and her head sunk into her shrunken breast. Wren held her a moment longer, then let her go.
“Elf-girl,” the old woman whispered, “who sends you in search of the Westland Elves?”
Wren took a deep breath against her fears and answered, “The shade of Allanon.”
The aged head lifted with a snap. “Allanon!” She breathed the name like a curse. “So! A Druid’s charge, is it? Very well. Listen to me, then. Go south through the Wilderun, cross the Irrybis and follow the coast of the Blue Divide. When you have reached the caves of the Rocs, build a fire and keep it burning three days and nights. One will come who can help you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, “ Wren replied, wondering at the same time if she really did.
“Beware, Elf-girl,” the other warned, a stick-thin hand lifting. “I see danger ahead for you, hard times, and treachery and evil beyond imagining. My visions are in my head, truths that haunt me with their madness. Heed me, then. Keep your own counsel, girl. Trust no one!”
Trust no one!
Wren had left the old woman then, admonished to leave even though she had offered to stay and help. She had rejoined Garth, and the men had tried to kill them then, of course, because that had been their plan all along. They had failed in their attempt and paid for their foolishness—perhaps with their lives by now if the Addershag had tired of them.
Slipping clear of Grimpen Ward, Wren and Garth had come south, following the old seer’s instructions, still in search of the disappeared Elves. They had traveled for two days without stopping to sleep, anxious to put as much distance between themselves and Grimpen Ward as possible and eager as well to make yet another attempt to shake loose of their shadow. Wren had thought earlier that day they might have done so. Garth was not so certain. His uneasiness would not be dispelled. So when they had stopped for the night, needing at last to sleep and regain their strength, he had backtracked once more. Perhaps he would find something to settle the matter, he told her. Perhaps not. But he wanted to give it a try.
That was Garth. Never leave anything to chance.
Behind her, in the woods, one of the horses pawed restlessly and went still again. Garth had hidden the animals behind the trees before leaving. Wren waited a moment to be certain all was well, then stood and moved over again beneath the willow, losing herself in the deep shadows formed by its canopy, easing herself down once more against the broad trunk. Far to the west, the light had faded to a glimmer of silver where the water met the sky.
Magic, the Addershag had said. How could that be?
If there were still Elves, and if she was able to find them, would they be able to tell her what the old woman had not?
She leaned back and closed her eyes momentarily, feeling herself drifting, letting it happen.
When she jerked awake again, twilight had given way to night, the darkness all around save where moon and stars bathed the open spaces in a silver glow. The campfire had gone cold, and she shivered with the chill that had invaded the coastal air. Rising, she moved over to her pack, withdrew her travel cloak, and wrapped it about her for warmth. After moving back beneath the tree, she settled herself once more.
You fell asleep, she chided herself. What would Garth say if he were to discover that?
She remained awake after that until he returned. It was nearing midnight, the world about her gone still save for the lulling rush of the ocean waves as they washed onto the beach below. Garth appeared soundlessly, yet she had sensed he was coming before she saw him and took some small satisfaction from that. He moved out of the trees and came directly to where she hid, motionless in the night, a part of the old willow. He seated himself before her, huge and dart, faceless in the shadows. His big hands lifted, and he began to sign. His fingers moved swiftly.
Their shadow was still back there, following after them.
Wren felt her stomach grow cold and she hugged herself crossly.
“Did you see it?” she asked, signing as she spoke.
No.
“Do you know yet what it is?”
No.
“Nothing? Nothing about it at all?”
He shook his head. She was irritated by the obvious frustration she had allowed to creep into her voice. She wanted to be as calm as he was, as clear thinking as he had taught her to be. She wanted to be a good student for him.
She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Is it coming for us yet, Garth? Or waiting still?”
Waiting, he signed.
He shrugged, his craggy, bearded face expressionless, carefully composed. His hunter’s look. Wren knew that look. It appeared when Garth felt threatened, a mask to hide what was happening inside.
Waiting, she repeated soundlessly to herself. Why? For what?
Garth rose, strode over to his pack, extracted a hunk of cheese and an aleskin, and reseated himself. Wren moved over to join him. He ate and drank without looking at her, staring off at the black expanse of the Blue Divide, seemingly oblivious of everything. Wren studied him thoughtfully. He was a giant of a man, strong as iron, quick as a cat, skilled in hunting and tracking, the best she had ever known at staying alive. He had been her protector and teacher from the time she was a little girl, after she had been brought back into the Westland and given over to the care of the Rovers, after her brief stay with the Ohmsford family. How had that all come about? Her father had been an Ohmsford, her mother a Rover, yet she could not remember either of them. Why had she been given back to the Rovers rather than allowed to stay with the Ohmsfords? Who had made that decision? It had never really been explained. Garth claimed not to know. Garth claimed that he knew only what others had told him, which was little, and that his only instruction, the charge he had accepted, was to look after her. He had done so by giving her the benefit of his knowledge, training her in the skills he had mastered, and making her as good at what he did as he
was himself. He had worked hard to see that she learned her lessons. She had. Whatever else Wren Ohmsford might know, she knew first and foremost how to stay alive. Garth had made certain of that. But this was not training that a normal Rover child would receive—especially a girl-child—and Wren had known as much almost from the beginning. It led her to believe Garth knew more than he was telling. After a time, she became convinced of it.
Yet Garth would admit nothing when she pressed the matter. He would simply shake his head and sign that she needed special skills, that she was an orphan and alone, and that she must be stronger and smarter than the others. He said it, but he refused to explain it.
She became aware suddenly that he had finished eating and was watching her. The weathered, bearded face was no longer hidden by shadows. She could see the set of his features clearly and read what she found there. She saw concern etched in his brow. She saw kindness mirrored in his eyes. She sensed determination everywhere. It was odd, she thought, but he had always been able to convey more to her in a single glance than others could with a basketful of words.
“I don’t like being hunted like this,” she said, signing. “I don’t like waiting to find out what is happening.”
He nodded, his dark eyes intense.
“It has something to do with the Elves,” she followed up impulsively. “I don’t know why I feel that is so, but I do. I feel certain of it.”
Then we should know something shortly, he replied.
“When we reach the caves of the Rocs,” she agreed. “Yes. Because then we’ll know if the Addershag spoke the truth, if here really are still Elves.”
And what follows us will perhaps want to know, too.
Her smile was tight. They regarded each other wordlessly for a moment, measuring what they saw in each other’s eyes, considering the possibility of what lay ahead.
Then Garth rose and indicated the woods. They picked up their gear and moved back beneath the willow. After setting themselves at the base of its trunk, they spread their bedrolls and wrapped themselves in their forest cloaks. Despite her weariness, Wren offered to stand the first watch, and Garth agreed. He rolled himself in his cloak, then lay down beside her and was asleep in seconds.
Wren listened as his breathing slowed, then shifted her attention to the night sounds beyond. It remained quiet atop the bluff, the birds and insects gone still, the wind a whisper, and the ocean a soothing, distant murmur. Whatever was out there hunting them seemed very far away. It was an illusion, she warned herself, and became all the more wary.
She touched the bag with its make-believe Elfstones where it rested against her breast. It was her good-luck charm, she thought, a charm to ward off evil, to protect against danger, and to carry her safely through whatever challenge she undertook. Three painted rocks that were symbols of a magic that had been real once but was now lost, like the Elves, like her past. She wondered if any of it could be recovered.
Or even if it should be.
She leaned back against the willow’s trunk and stared out into the night, searching in vain for her answers.
III
At sunrise the following morning, Wren and Garth resumed their journey south in search of the caves of the Rocs. It was a journey of faith, for while both had traveled parts of the coastline neither had come across caves large enough to be what they were looking for or had ever seen a Roc. Both had heard tales of the legendary birds—great winged creatures that had once carried men. But the tales were only that, campfire stories that passed the time and conjured up images of things that might be but probably never were. There were sightings claimed, of course, as with every fairy-tale monster. But none was reliable. Like the Elves, the Rocs were apparently invisible.
Still, there didn’t need to be Rocs in order for there to be Elves. The Addershag’s admonition to Wren could prove out in any case. They had only to discover the caves, Rocs or no, build the signal fire, and wait three days. Then they would learn the truth. There was every chance that the truth would disappoint them, of course, but since they both recognized and accepted the possibility, there was no reason not to continue on. Their only concession to the unfavorable odds was to pointedly avoid speaking of them.
The day began clear and crisp, the skies unclouded and blue, the sunrise a bright splash across the eastern horizon that silhouetted the mountains in stark, jagged relief. The air filled with the mingled smells of sea and forest, and the songs of starlings and mockingbirds rose out of the trees. Sunshine quickly chased the chill left by the night and warmed the land beneath. The heat rose inland, thick and sweltering where the mountains trapped it, continuing to burn the grasses of the plains and hills a dusty brown as it had all summer, but the coastline remained cool and pleasant as a steady breeze blew in off the water. Wren and Garth kept their horses at a walk, following the narrow, winding coastal trails that navigated the bluffs and beaches fronting the mountains east. They were in no hurry. They had all the time they needed to get to where they were going.
There was time enough to be cautious in their passage through this unfamiliar country—time enough to keep an eye out for their shadow in case it was still following after them.
But they chose not to speak of that either.
Choosing not to speak about it, however, did not keep Wren from thinking about it. She found herself pondering the possibility of what might be back there as she rode, her mind free to wander where it chose as she looked out over the vast expanse of the Blue Divide and let her horse pick its way. Her darker suspicions warned her that what tracked them was something of the sort that had tracked Par and Coll on their journey from Culhaven to Hearthstone when they had gone in search of Walker Boh—a thing like the Gnawl. But could even a Gnawl avoid them as completely as their shadow had succeeded in doing? Could something that was basically an animal find them again and again when they had worked so hard to lose it? It seemed more likely that what tracked them was human—with a human’s cunning and intelligence and skill: a Seeker, perhaps—sent by Rimmer Dall, a Tracker of extraordinary abilities, or an assassin, even, though he would have to be more than that to have managed to stay with them.
It was possible, too, she thought, that whoever was back there was not an enemy at all, but something else. “Friend” was hardly the right word, she supposed, but perhaps someone who had a purpose similar to their own, someone with an interest in the Elves, someone who . . .
She stopped herself. Someone who insisted on staying hidden, even knowing Garth and she had discovered they were being followed? Someone who continued playing cat and mouse with them so deliberately?
Her darker suspicions reemerged to push the other possibilities aside.
By midday they had reached the northern fringe of the Irrybis. The mountains split off in two directions, the high range turning east to parallel the northern Rock Spur and enclose the Wilderun, the low running south along the coastline they followed. The coastal Irrybis were thickly forested and less formidable, scattered in clusters along the Blue Divide, sheltering valleys and ridges, and forming passes that connected the inland hill country to the beaches. Nevertheless, travel slowed because the trails were less well defined, often disappearing entirely for long stretches. At times the mountains ran right up against the water, falling away in steep, impassable drops so that Wren and Garth were required to circle back to find another route. Heavy stands of timber blocked their path as well, forcing them to go around. They found themselves moving away from the beaches, higher into the mountain passes where the land was more open and accepting. They worked their way ahead slowly, watching as the sun drifted west to sink into the sea.
Night passed uneventfully, and they were awake again at daybreak and on their way. The morning chill again gave ground to midday heat. The ocean breezes that had cooled the previous day were less noticeable in the passes, and Wren found herself sweating freely. She shoved back her tousled hair, tied a scarf about her head, splashed water on her face, and forced herself to think a
bout other things. She cataloged her memories as a child in Shady Vale, trying to recall once again what her parents had been like. As usual, she found that she couldn’t. What she remembered was vague and fragmented—bits and pieces of conversation, small moments out of time, or words or phrases out of context. All of what she recalled could as easily be identified with Par’s parents as with her own. Had any of it come from her parents—or had it all come from Jaralan and Mirianna Ohmsford? Had she ever really known her parents? Had they ever been with her in Shady Vale? She had been told so. She had been told they had died. Yet she had no memory of it. Why was that so? Why had nothing about them stayed with her?
She glanced back at Garth, irritation mirrored in her eyes. Then she looked away again, refusing to explain.
They stopped to eat at midday and rode on. Wren questioned Garth briefly about their shadow. Was it still following? Did he sense anything? Garth shrugged and signed that he was no longer certain and that he no longer trusted himself on the matter. Wren frowned doubtfully, but Garth would say nothing further, his dart, bearded face unreadable.
The afternoon was spent crossing a ridgeline over which a raging forest fire had swept a year ago, leveling the land so thoroughly that only the blackened stumps of the old growth and the first green shoots of the new remained. From atop the spine of the ridge Wren could look back across the land for miles, her view unobstructed. There was nowhere that their shadow could hide, no space it could traverse without being seen. Wren looked for it carefully and saw nothing.
Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was still back there.
Nightfall brought them back along the rim of a high, narrow bluff that dropped away abruptly into the sea. Below where they rode, the waters of the Blue Divide crashed and boomed against the cliffs, and seabirds wheeled and shrieked above the white foam. They made camp in a grove of alder, close to where a stream trickled down out of the mountain rock and provided them with drinking water. To Wren’s surprise, Garth built a fire so they could eat a hot meal. When Wren looked at him askance, the giant Rover cocked his head and signed that if their shadow was still following, it was also still waiting. They had nothing to fear yet. Wren was not so sure, but Garth seemed confident, so she let the matter drop.