by Terry Brooks
Home Guard fanned out around her. They would stay with her now everywhere she went, disappearing completely with the darkness, invisible protectors against any threat. She smiled. They worried so for her safety, and yet she was better able than they to protect against danger, better trained and better equipped. They thought themselves necessary, and she did not do anything to discourage that belief. But she always knew where they were, could always sense them out there watching over her, even in the deepest night. She had been trained to be aware of such things since she was a child. Her teacher had been the best.
Garth. The memories rushed through her, and she forced them away. Garth was gone.
She reached the entrance to the Gardens of Life. The Black Watch stood at attention as she approached, protectors of the Ellcrys, the tree of the Forbidding. Their eyes followed her as she passed, though she did not acknowledge them. She went into the Gardens, into their seclusion, listening to the chirps and clicks of insects come awake in the growing darkness, smelling the flowers and grasses more strongly here, the rich scent of black earth. She climbed the hill to where the Ellcrys stood and stopped in front of her. She did this every night, a ritual of sorts. At times she would do nothing but stand there, looking and thinking. At times she would reach out and touch the tree, as if to let it know that she was there. Coming to the Ellcrys seemed to renew her own strength, to give her a fresh determination to carry through with her life. The kinship she felt with the tree, with the woman it had been, with the strength of commitment embodied in the tale of how it had come into being, was sustaining. From flesh and blood to leaves and limbs, from woman to tree, from mortal life to life everlasting.
On her shoulder Faun rubbed against her neck as if to reassure her that everything was all right.
A cure for the Races, she mused, changing subjects if not moods, thinking again of the army that approached, of the Shadowen threat she must find a way to end. It would take more than the Elves to accomplish this, she knew. Allanon had told the Ohmsfords as much when he had sent them to fulfill their separate charges—Par to find the Sword of Shannara, Walker Boh to find the Druids and Paranor, and Wren to find the Elves. Had Par and Walker succeeded as she had? Were all the charges now fulfilled? She knew that she had to find out. Somehow she had to make contact with the others who had gathered at the Hadeshorn. On the one hand she must discover what had become of them and on the other apprise them of what had happened to her. They must be told the truth of the Shadowen, that the Shadowen were Elves who had recovered the old magic of faerie and become subverted by it in the same way as the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers nearly five hundred years earlier. How they had recovered this magic and how it sustained them remained a mystery. But the knowledge she held must be passed on to the others. She felt it instinctively. Until that was done, any cure for the Shadowen sickness would remain out of reach.
What to do? Already some among the Elves had gone out from Arborlon into the far reaches of the Westland to establish new homes. Farmers had begun to settle in the Sarandanon, the fertile valley that had served as the breadbasket of the Elven nation for centuries. Trappers and hunters had begun ranging north to the Breakline and south to the Rock Spur. Craftsmen were anxious to open new markets for their wares. Everywhere, there was a push to reclaim old homesteads and towns. Most important of all, Healers and their acolytes had gone forth to seek out those places in which the Westland’s sickness was worst in an attempt to stem its spread—carrying on an Elven tradition that had lasted since the beginning of time. For the Elves had always been healers, a people who believed that they were one with the earth into which they were born, the purveyors of the philosophy that something must be given back to the world that sustained them. As with the Gnome Healers at Storlock, who cared for the earth’s people, the Elven Healers were committed in turn to the people’s earth.
But they and the farmers, trappers, hunters, traders, and others were at risk in the Westland unless the Elven army protected them against the threat mounting from without. If the Queen of the Elves could not find a way to keep the Federation at bay long enough to put an end to the Shadowen …
She left the thought hanging, turning away from the Ellcrys in disgust. So much was needed, and try as she might she could not provide it alone.
The sky was streaked scarlet above the trees west, a vivid smear against the mountainous horizon that had the look of blood. Or at least that was the image that flashed in Wren Elessedil’s mind.
Your memories never leave you, she thought—even those you wish would, even those you wish had never been.
She walked down out of the Gardens, eyes on the ground in front of her. She wondered about Stresa. It had been days since she had seen the Splinterscat. Unlike Faun, Stresa was more comfortable in the wild and preferred the woods to the city. He had made his home somewhere close to Arborlon and would appear unexpectedly from time to time, but consistently refused to think about living with her in the Elessedil family home. Stresa was content with his new country, happy in his solitary life, and he had promised more than once that he would be there if she ever needed him. The trouble was that she needed Mm more than she cared to admit. But Stresa had gone through a lot for her already and was happy now; she did not have the right to place fresh demands on him just to assuage her own insecurity.
Still, she missed him greatly. Stresa, that strange and unpredictable creature from the world that had cost the Elves so much, would always be her friend.
It was dark now, the sun disappeared entirely beneath the horizon west, the stars a scattering of pinprick lights, the moon a fading crescent east above the treetops, the night’s sounds gentle and soothing and filled with the promise of sleep. Would that it were so for her, she thought. Sleep would come hard this night, harder than most, for she must meet with the High Council and determine the fate of the Elves. And of herself, perhaps, as well.
She walked from the Gardens, passing the Black Watch once more, listening to the barely discernible sounds of the Home Guard shadowing her. Sometimes she found herself wishing she were a Rover girl again and nothing more, her life made simple anew, all of the constraints of her stewardship lifted, her freedom restored. She would give up being queen. She would give up the Elfstones, those three blue talismans that nestled within the leather bag hung about her neck, the symbol of the magic that had been bequeathed to her by her mother, of the power she had been given to wield. She would shed her life as if it were a season’s skin grown old, and she would become …
What? What would she become, she wondered?
In truth, she no longer knew—maybe because it no longer mattered.
When she walked into the chambers of the High Council barely a quarter of an hour later, those she had summoned were waiting, seated about the council table at which the queen presided. She entered with Tiger Ty trailing (he had remained outside until now, uncertain of his welcome in her absence) and walked directly to her seat at the head of the table. Everyone rose in deference, but she perfunctorily waved them back into their seats.
The room was cavernous. High walls of stone and wood supported a star-shaped ceiling formed of massive oak beams. The High Council was dominated at the far end by a dais which supported the throne of the Elven Kings and Queens and which was flanked by the standards of the ruling Elven houses and at its center by the ancient twenty-one-chair round table. Benches forming gallery seats for public viewing when the full Council was in session ran the length of either wall.
There were six members present this night besides herself, the full complement of the High Council’s inner circle, Triss was there, as Captain of the Home Guard; Eton Shart as First Minister; Barsimmon Oridio as General of the Elven Armies; Perek Arundel as Minister of Trade; Jalen Ruhl as Minister of Home Defense; and Fruaren Laurel as Minister of Healing. Only Laurel was new, appointed on the Council’s recommendation when Wren told them she wanted a minister responsible for overseeing efforts to heal the Elven Westland. Laurel was coope
rative and hardworking, a woman in her middle years with a steady, likeable disposition; but like Wren she was unproven. She held a secondary position in the eyes of the remainder of the Council. Wren liked her but wasn’t sure she could be counted on in a fight.
She would find out tonight.
She stood in front of her chair and faced the High Council. “I asked Wing Rider Tiger Ty to sit in on this session of the Council since the subject matter directly concerns his people.” She made it a statement of fact and did not ask approval. She beckoned the gnarled Wing Rider forward from where he stood by the door. “Sit there, please,” she said, indicating a vacant seat by Fruaren Laurel.
Tiger Ty sat. The chamber went very still as those assembled waited for Wren to speak. The doors leading in were closed, sealed by the Home Guard on Wren’s orders until such time as she permitted them to be opened again. Torches burned in brackets affixed to the stone of the walls and in freestanding stanchions at the front and back of the room. Smoke rose toward the ceiling and dispersed through air loops high overhead. The smoke left a faint coppery taste to the chamber air.
Wren straightened. She had not bothered to change her clothes, deciding she would not make the concession to the dictates of formality. They would have to accept her as she was. She had left Faun in her chambers. She would have wished for Cogline or Walker Boh or any of those who had stood with her once and were now dead or scattered, but wishing for help from any quarter was pointless. If she was to succeed this night in what she intended to do, she would have to do it on her own.
“Ministers, Council Members, my friends,” she began, looking from face to face, her voice measured and calm. “We have all come a very long way from where we were only weeks ago. We have seen a great many changes take place in the life of the Elven people. None of us could have foreseen what would happen; maybe some of us wish things had turned out differently. But here we are, and there is no going back. Morrowindl is behind us forever, and the Four Lands are before us. When we agreed to come back, we knew what would be waiting for us—a struggle with the Federation, with the Shadowen, with Elven magic hideously subverted, with our past brought forward to become our future. We knew what would be waiting, and now we must face it.”
She paused, her gaze steady. “Yesterday the Wing Riders spotted a Federation army coming up from the deep Southland. Today, with Tiger Ty, I flew south to have a look for myself. We found the army within the Tirfìng, a day’s march above the Myrian. The army is ten times ours and travels with siege and war machines and supplies to sustain it well into another month. It comes north and west. It comes in search of us. If I were to guess, I would say it would reach us in another ten days.”
She stopped, waiting for a response. Her eyes traveled from face to face.
“Ten times ours?” Barsimmon Oridio repeated doubtfully. “How accurate is your estimation, my lady?”
Wren had been anticipating this. She gave him a count, column by column, company by company, machines and wagons, foot soldiers and horsemen, leaving nothing out. When she was finished, the general of her armies was pale.
“An army of that size will wipe us out,” said Eton Shart quietly. As always, he was composed, his hands folded on the table before him, his expression unreadable.
“If we engage it,” Jalen Ruhl amended. The minister of defense was slight and stoop-shouldered, his voice a deep rumble in his narrow chest. “The Westland is a big place.”
“Are you suggesting we hide?” Barsimmon Oridio demanded incredulously.
“Hiding won’t work,” Eton Shart interjected shortly. “We can’t leave the city or we give up the Ellcrys. If the Ellcrys is destroyed, the Forbidding comes down. Better we all perish than that happen.”
There was a long pause as the ministers glanced at each other doubtfully.
“A concession of some sort, perhaps?” Perek Arundel suggested, ever the compromiser. He was handsome in a soft way, rather vain, but shrewd and quick-thinking. He looked about. “There must be a way to make peace with the Coalition Council.”
Again Eton Shart shook his head. “It was tried before. The Coalition Council is a puppet of the Shadowen. Any compromise will involve occupation of the Westland and agreement to serve the Federation. I don’t think we came all the way back from Morrowindl to embrace a lifetime of that.”
He looked at Wren. “What are your thoughts, my lady? I am certain you have assessed the situation on your own.”
Again she was ready. “It seems our choices are these. Either we fortify Arborlon and await the Federation army here or we take our army out to meet them.”
“Go out to meet them?” Barsimmon Oridio was aghast. His heavy frame shifted combatively, and his aged face furrowed. “You have said yourself they have ten times our strength. What point would there be in forcing a battle?”
“It would give us the advantage of not letting them dictate time and place and circumstance,” she replied. She was still standing, keeping her vantage point so that she could continue to look down at them and they up at her. “And I said nothing about forcing a battle.”
Again there was silence. Barsimmon Oridio flushed. “But you said that—”
“She said we could go out and meet them,” Eton Shart interrupted. He was sitting forward now, interested. “She did not say anything about fighting them.” His gaze stayed on Wren. “But what would we do once we were out there, my lady?”
“Harass them. Draw them off. Hit and run. Whatever it takes to delay them. Fight them if we get a chance to hurt them badly, but avoid a direct confrontation where we would lose.”
“Delay them,” the first minister repeated thoughtfully. “But sooner or later they will catch up to us—or reach Arborlon. Then what?”
“We would be better off spending the time setting traps, fortifying the city, and gathering in supplies,” Perek Arundel offered. “We withstood the demons when the Ellcrys failed two hundred years ago. We can withstand the Federation as well.”
Barsimmon Oridio grunted and shook his head. “Study your history, Perek. The gates to the city were taken and we were overrun. If the young girl Chosen hadn’t transformed into the Ellcrys anew, it would have been over for us.” He swung his heavy head away. “Besides, we had allies in that fight—not many, but a few, some Dwarves and the Legion Free Corps.”
“Perhaps we shall have allies again,” Wren declared suddenly, bringing all eyes back to her. “There are free-born in the mountains north of Callahorn, a sizable number, the Dwarf Resistance in the Eastland, and the Troll nations north. Some of them might be persuaded to help us.”
“Not likely,” the general of her armies said gruffly, incisively, declaring the matter at an end. “Why should they?”
Wren had brought the discussion to where she wanted it; she had the Council listening to her, looking for an answer to what seemed an unsolvable dilemma.
She straightened. “Because we’ll give them a reason, Bar.” She used his nickname easily, familiarly, the way Ellenroh had. “Because we’ll give them something they didn’t have before. Unity. The Races united against their enemies in a common cause. A chance to destroy the Shadowen.”
Eton Shart smiled faintly. “Words, my lady. What do they mean?”
She faced him. He was her biggest hurdle in this business. She had to have his support. “I’ll tell you what they mean, Eton. They mean that for the first time in three centuries we have a chance to win.” She paused for emphasis. “Do you remember what brought me in search of the Elves, First Minister? Let me tell the story once again.”
And she did, all of it, from the journey to the Hadeshorn and the Shade of Allanon to the search for Morrowindl and Arborlon. She repeated Allanon’s charges to the Ohmsfords. She had shown no one the Elfstones save Triss, but she brought them out now as she finished her tale, dumped them in her hand, and held them out to be seen.
“This is my legacy,” she said, shifting the hand with the Elfstones from face to face. “I did not want it, d
id not ask for it, and more than once have wished it gone. But I promised my grandmother I would use it on behalf of the Elves and I will. Magic to combat magic. The Shadowen must deal with me and with the others the shade of Allanon has called upon—my kindred in some instances, but whoever is destined to wield the Sword of Shannara and the Druid power. I think all the talismans have been brought back, not just the Elfstones—all the magics that the Shadowen fear. If we can combine their power and unite the men and women of the free-born and the Resistance and perhaps even the Trolls of the Northland, we have the chance we need to win this fight.”
Eton Shart shook his head. “There are a great many conditions attached to all of this, my lady.”
“Life is filled with conditions, First Minister,” she replied. “Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is assured. Especially for us. But remember this. The Shadowen come from us, and their magic is ours. We created them. We gave them life through our misguided efforts to recapture something that was best left in the past. Like it or not, they are our responsibility. Ellenroh knew this when she decided we must come back into the Four Lands. We are here, First Minister, to set things right. We are here to put an end to what we started.”
“And you will lead us in this, of course?”
He put just enough emphasis on the question to convey his own doubts that she possessed the strength and ability to do so. Wren fought down her anger.
“I am Queen,” she pointed out quietly.
Eton Shart nodded. “But you are very young, my lady. And you have not ruled long. You must expect some hesitation from those of us who have helped govern longer.”
“What I expect is your support, First Minister.”
“Unconditional support for anyone would be foolish.”
“A reluctance to acknowledge that there may be wisdom in youth would be foolish as well. Get to the point.”
Eton Shart’s bland face tightened. There was an uncomfortable shifting about the table. No one was looking at him. He was as alone in this as Wren.