by Terry Brooks
47
In the next instant Wil Ohmsford realized that he could no longer see Amberle. He hesitated, thinking that somehow his eyes were deceiving him, that the Fire was hiding her in its mix of shadows and crimson light, that she must still be standing there on that shelf of rock where she had stood a moment earlier. Yet if that were so, why was it that he couldn’t see her?
He was starting toward the Bloodfire to find out when the scream sounded—high and terrible as it lingered in stillness.
“Wisp!” Eretria whispered in horror.
She was already moving toward the passageway when Wil caught up with her and pulled her quickly back toward the Fire. Hebel backed away with them, one hand gripping Drifter’s neck as the big dog growled in warning.
Then they heard something pass through the waterfall. Not Wisp, Wil knew; this was something else, something much bigger than Wisp. The sound of its passing told him that much. And if it was not Wisp then…
The hackles on the back of Drifter’s neck bristled up in fear and the big dog dropped to a crouch, snarling.
“Behind me.” Wil motioned Eretria and Hebel back.
Already he was reaching into his tunic, pulling free the pouch that held the Elfstones. Backing to the edge of the rock shelf where the Bloodfire burned, his eyes fixed on the chamber entry, he yanked open the leather drawstrings, his fingers groping frantically.
It was the Reaper.
Its shadow moved in the chamber entry, as soundless as the passing of the moon. The Reaper walked like a man, though it was much larger than any ordinary man, a massive, dark thing, larger even than Allanon. Robes and a cowl the color of damp ashes were all that could be seen of it. As it slipped from the passage, the Fire’s crimson light fell across it like blood.
Eretria’s frightened hiss cut through the silence. From a gathering of great hooked claws dangled the broken form of Wisp.
Instantly the curved dagger appeared in the Rover girl’s hand. From within the black shadow of its cowl, the Reaper stared out at her, faceless, implacable. Wil felt himself go impossibly cold, colder even than when he had first seen Mallenroh. He felt total evil in the Demon’s presence. He thought suddenly of its victims, of the Elven watch at Drey Wood, of Crispin, Dilph, and Katsin at the Pykon, of Cephelo and the Rovers at Whistle Ridge—all of them destroyed by this monster. And now it had come for him.
He began to shake, the fear within him so strong that it was like a living thing. He could not take his eyes from the Demon, could not bring himself to look away, though every fiber of his body begged him to do so. At his side, Eretria’s face was gray with terror, her dark eyes darting to find the Valeman’s. Hebel retreated a step further, and Drifter’s snarl became a frightened whine.
When the Reaper stepped clear of the chamber wall, the motion was smooth and noiseless. Wil Ohmsford braced himself. The hand that held the Elfstones came up. The Reaper stopped, its faceless hood lifting slightly. But it was not the Valeman that caused it to hesitate. It was the crimson Fire that burned beyond. There was something about the Fire that disturbed the Reaper. Silently the Demon studied the blood-red flames as they licked at the smooth surface of the rock shelf and rose to the chamber ceiling. The Fire did not appear to threaten. It simply burned, cool, smokeless, and steady, leaving no mark. The Reaper waited a moment longer, watching. Then it started forward.
The dreams came back to Wil Ohmsford in that instant, the dreams that had plagued his sleep at Havenstead and again at the fortress in the Pykon, the dreams of the thing that hunted him through mist and night, the thing from which he could not escape. The dreams came to him now as they had come to him in his sleep, and all of the feelings that had swept through him then were reborn, yet stronger and more terrifying. It was the Reaper that had pursued him, its face never seen as it stalked him from one imagined dream world to the next, always just a step away—the Reaper, now come out of nightmare into reality. But this time there was nowhere to flee, nowhere to hide, no waking out of sleep. This time there was no escape.
Allanon! Help me!
He retreated deep within himself and found the Druid’s words floating in a sea of unreasoned fear. Believe in yourself. Believe. Have confidence. I depend on you most of all. I depend on you.
He gathered the words to him. Hand steady, he called upon the magic of the Elfstones with everything that he could muster. Down into the Stones he plunged, feeling himself drop through layers of deep blue light. His vision seemed to cloud as he fell, and the scarlet glow of the Bloodfire seemed to fade to gray. He was close now, close. He could feel the fire of the Elfstone’s power.
Yet nothing happened.
He panicked then, and for an instant the fear overwhelmed him so completely that he almost broke and ran. It was only the realization that there was nowhere left to run to that made him stand fast. The barrier was still there, still within him—just as it had been within him following the encounter with the Demon in the Tirfing—as it would always be within him because he was not a true master of the Elfstones, not their rightful holder, nothing but a foolish Valeman who had presumed that he could be something more than what he was.
“Healer!” Eretria cried desperately.
Again the Valeman tried and again he failed. The power of the Elfstones would not be called forth. He could not reach it, could not command it. Sweat bathed his face, and he clenched the Elfstones so tightly that the edges cut into his palm. Why would the power not come?
Then Eretria stepped away from him, feinting suddenly with the dagger, calling the Demon after her. The Reaper turned, the faceless cowl following her as she moved slowly down the rock shelf, as if she thought to escape back through the chamber entry. Wil recognized at once what she was doing; she was giving him time—a few precious seconds more to bring the power of the Elfstones to life. He wanted to call out to her, to tell her to come back and to warn her that he could no longer use the magic. But somehow he could not speak. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes as he strained to break the barrier that locked him from the Stones. She was going to die, he thought frantically. The Reaper was going to kill her while he stood there and watched it happen.
Lazily, the Reaper tossed aside what remained of Wisp. From beneath its robes, hooked claws stretched out into the crimson light of the Bloodfire and stretched out toward the Rover girl.
Eretria!
What happened next was to be etched in his mind as if carved into rock. In a few seconds of frozen time, past and present were gathered into one; as had once happened to his grandfather, Wil Ohmsford came face to face with himself.
He seemed to hear Amberle speaking to him, her voice lifting from out of the red glow cast by the Bloodfire on the chamber rock, steady, calm, and filled with hope. She spoke to him as she had spoken to him that morning after they had fled the Pykon, when the Mermidon was carrying them safely south, far from the horror of the night gone past. She told him, as she had told him then, that despite all that had happened the power of the Elfstones was not lost, that it was still his and that he might use it.
But the power was lost. She had seen what had happened on the fortress catwalk. He had wanted desperately to destroy the Demon after what he had seen it do to the gallant Crispin! Yet he had stood there, the Elfstones clutched uselessly in his hand, unable to do anything. If the wind had not caused the catwalk to collapse, the Reaper would have had them. Surely she must see that the power was lost.
Her sigh came back, a whisper in his mind. It was not lost. He was trying too hard. He was trying so hard that he was shutting himself away from the Elfstones, something that would not be happening but for his inability to understand the nature of the power he sought to master. He must try to understand. He must remember that Elven magic was but an extension of the user…
Her voice faded and Allanon’s replaced it. Heart and mind and body—one Stone for each. A joining of the three would give life to the Elfstones. But Wil must create that joining. Maybe it would not be as effortless
for him as it had been for his grandfather because he was a person different from his grandfather. He was two generations removed from Shea Ohmsford’s Elven blood, and what had come to his grandfather with but a thought might not come so easily to him. Much within him resisted the magic.
Yes, yes! Wil cried to himself. The Man blood resisted. It was the Man blood that kept him from the power of the Elfstones. It was the Man blood, the non-Elven part of him that rejected the magic.
Allanon’s laugh was low and mocking. If that were so, then how was it that he had been able to use the Elstones once before …?
The Druid’s voice faded as well.
And then Wil Ohmsford saw the deception he had worked upon himself since that moment within the Tirfing when he had called forth the power of the Elfstones and felt the awesome magic flood through him like liquid fire. He had let the lie grow out of doubt that the power of the Elfstones was ever truly his to wield, and he had unwittingly reinforced it with Allanon’s startling revelation that only Elven blood gave mastery over the Stones. How quick he had been to conclude that his Man blood was the reason for his failure to use again the very same power that he had used within the Tirfing—even though his mix of Man blood and Elven blood was no different now than it had been then.
He had deceived himself completely! Perhaps not knowingly, perhaps not willingly, but he had deceived himself nevertheless, and in doing so had lost the power of the Elfstones. How had it happened? Amberle had touched upon the truth when twice during their travels she had cautioned that in his use of the Stones within the Tirfing it seemed as if he had done something to himself. He had made light of the caution, trying to brush aside her concern—even while admitting to her that she was right. He had done something to himself when he had used the Elfstones. Yet he could not trace it. He had thought that what he had done was physical in nature, but he found nothing wrong. Amberle had suggested that it might be something more, that Elven magic could affect the spirit as well. But he hadn’t wanted to believe that. When he found nothing immediately wrong, he had been quick to dismiss the entire matter, to block it from his mind completely because after all he could not afford to spend time worrying about himself when he had Amberle to look out for. That had been a very large mistake. He should have seen then as he saw now that Amberle had been right, that his use of the Elfstones had most certainly done something to his spirit, something so damaging that, until he came to grips with it, the power of the Stones would be lost to him.
For what had happened to Wil Ohmsford was that he had become afraid.
He could admit it now. He must admit it. This was a fear he had not been able to recognize until now, easily confused, cleverly concealed. All these weeks it had been there, and he had not recognized it for what it was. For this was not a fear of the thing that haunted him in his dreams or of the Demon that had hunted Amberle and him south from Arborlon. It was fear of the very thing that he had relied upon to protect them, of the Elfstones and of the effect that the use of their awesome, unpredictable power might have upon him.
Understanding flooded through him. It was not the mix of his Man blood with his Elven blood that was shutting him from the power of the Stones. It was his fear of the magic.
It had been his own doing. So determined had he been to succeed in the task that Allanon had given him and that nothing would prevent him from carrying it out that he had buried his fear at the instant of its birth in a well of determination. He had refused to admit it might exist, but had hidden it, even from himself. Eventually it had begun to affect his use of the Elfstones. There could be no joining of himself, of heart and mind and body, with the power of the Stones while such fear lay unrecognized within him. He had let himself believe that he was experiencing a rejection of the Elven magic by his Man blood. With that, he had made the deception complete, and any further use of the Stones had become impossible.
Until now. Now he understood the nature of the barrier that shut him from the power of the Elstones. It was the fear that had blocked him from the Stones—and he might deal with that.
He reached down within himself, a quick and deliberate act, joining as one heart, mind, and body, willingness and thought and strength, in a single, unbreakable purpose. It did not happen easily. The fear was still there. It rose up before him like a wall, warning him back, eroding his purpose. It was strong, so strong that for an instant Wil thought that he could not go on.
There was danger in his use of the Elfstones, a danger that he could neither see nor touch, define nor understand. It was there, real and tangible, and it could damage body and spirit irreparably. It could destroy him. Worse, it could let him live. There were things more terrible than dying…
He fought against it. He thought of his grandfather. When Shea Ohmsford had used the Sword of Shannara, there had been danger that the Valeman had sensed yet not understood. He had told Wil that. But there had been need for the magic of the Sword, and the choice his grandfather had made had been a necessary one. So it was now with Wil. There was need greater than his own. There was a trust that had been given him, and there were lives that only he could preserve.
He thrust himself deep into the blue light of the Elfstones, and the fear shattered before him. Man blood gave way to Elven, and the power of the Stones surged up within him.
Past and present split apart, and the seconds were gone.
Eretria!
The Reaper was moving, springing soundlessly through the Bloodfire’s crimson glow toward the Rover girl. Wil brought up the Elfstones and their fire exploded from his hands into the Demon, driving the creature back into the cavern wall.
There was no sound as the Reaper struck—only a terrible silence as its robes collapsed against the rock. In the next instant it was on its feet again, lunging for the Valeman. Wil would not have believed that anything so huge could be that quick. Almost before he could act, the Reaper was before him, claws ripping downward. Again the blue fire burst from the Elfstones, hammering into the Demon, hurtling it backward like a rag doll. Again there was no sound. Wil felt the fire within his body this time, coursing through him as if it were his lifeblood, and the feeling was as it had been in the Tirfing. Something had been done to him—something not altogether pleasant.
But there was no time to think on it. The Reaper’s ash-gray form darted like a shadow through the half-light in a soundless rush. Fire burst from the Valeman’s outstretched hand, but this time the Reaper was too quick. Dodging the attack, it came on. Again Wil tried to stop it, and again he failed. He stumbled back, frantically trying to bring the Elven magic to bear, but his concentration was broken, and the fire had begun to scatter. The Reaper darted through it, looming up before him. At the last possible moment, Wil managed to gather the fire before him like a shield. Then the Reaper was upon him, knocking him violently back. Down he went, head slamming against the stone of the chamber floor. For an instant he thought he would black out. Claws tore at the blue fire, struggling to reach him. But the Valeman fought the dizziness and the pain, and the Elfstones’ magic stayed alive. The Reaper sprang back in frustration and circled silently away.
Dazed, Wil scrambled to his feet. His body ached from the force of the Reaper’s attack, and there were spots dancing before his eyes. With an effort, he kept himself erect. Things were not working out as he had expected. He had thought when he had broken through to the Elven magic that the worst was over, that at last he possessed mastery of a weapon against which the Reaper could not stand, that however powerful and dangerous the Demon, it would be no match for the Stones. Now he was no longer certain.
Then he remembered Eretria. Where was Eretria? Within him the Elven fire twisted like an imprisoned creature. For one terrible moment he was afraid that he had lost control of it completely. In that moment, the Reaper attacked him again. It came out of the shadows, silent and swift, bounding into the glare of the Bloodfire and into the Valeman. Almost of its own volition, the Elven magic flared up between the combatants in a blindi
ng explosion that threw both from the narrow shelf. The unprepared Valeman was flung back into the cavern wall, ribs and the elbow of his free arm cracking like deadwood as he smashed against the rock. Searing pain lanced through him, and the arm went quickly numb.
Somehow he struggled up again, bracing himself against the wall. Fighting the pain and the nausea that washed through him, he cried out for Eretria. The Rover girl darted from the shadows, reaching him barely a step ahead of the Reaper. With a noiseless lunge the monster came for them, too quickly this time for the dazed Valeman to act. It would have had them but for Drifter. Forgotten by all, the huge dog tore free of Hebel’s grip and hurtled into the Demon. The monster tumbled back, a blur of bristling hair and teeth ripping into the ash-colored robes. For an instant both disappeared into the shadows at the front of the cavern. Drifter’s snarl was deep and terrible. Then the Reaper heaved upward, flinging the gallant dog from him, swatting it as one might swat a fly. Drifter flew through the air and smashed into the cavern wall, collapsing with a startled whimper into silence.
Yet even those few seconds gave Wil the time he needed to recover. His arm rose instantly, and the blue fire thrust out. It caught the Reaper a glancing blow, but again the creature twisted free, circling swiftly away through the cavern half-light until the pillar of the Bloodfire screened it from view.
The Valeman waited, eyes sweeping the chamber. There was no sign of the Demon. Frantically he searched the shadows, knowing that it would come again. He could not find it. Eretria crouched sobbing beside him, one hand still clutching the dagger, her face streaked with dirt and sweat. Hebel bent close to Drifter, whispering urgently. The seconds slipped away. Still nothing moved.
Then Wil glanced up. The Reaper was on the cavern roof.
He saw it just as it dropped toward him, gray robes flying wide. Frantically he shoved Eretria aside and brought up the Elfstones. Like a cat, the Demon landed before them, massive and soundless. Eretria screamed and stumbled back in horror. Slowly, slowly, the black hole of the cowl widened, freezing Wil Ohmsford with its empty stare. The Valeman could not move. The blackness held him, faceless and deep.