The Heritage of Shannara (162 page)

She bathed Ellenroh's face and whispered and sang to her, trying to dispel the fever, searching for some small sign that her grandmother was mending and the sickness would pass. She stayed clear of the others, save for Eowen, and even when she was close to the seer she spoke little. Her mind was restless, however, and filled with misgivings to which she could not give voice. The Ruhk Staff was a constant reminder of how much was at stake. Thoughts of the Elves plagued her; she could see their faces, hear their voices, and imagine what they must be thinking, more trapped than she was, more powerless. It terrified her to be so inextricably tied to them. She could not shake the feeling that she was all they had, that they must rely on her alone and no one else in the company mattered. Their lives were her charge, and while she might wish it otherwise, the fact of it could not be easily changed.

Night fell, and Ellenroh's condition grew worse.

Wren sat alone at one point and cried without being able to stop, hollow with losses that suddenly seemed to press about her at every turn. Once she would have told herself that none of it mattered—that the absence of parents and family, of a history, of a life beyond the one she lived was of no consequence. Coming to Morrowindl and finding Arborlon and the Elves had changed that forever. What had once seemed of so little importance had inexplicably become everything. Even if she survived, she would never be the same. The realization of what had been done to her left her stunned. She had never felt more alone.

She slept then for a time, too exhausted to stay awake longer, her emotions gone distant and numb, and woke again with Garth's hand on her shoulder. She rose instantly, frightened by what he might have come to tell her, but he quickly shook his head. Saying nothing, he simply pointed.

From no more than six feet away, a bulky, spiked form stood staring at her with eyes that gleamed like a cat's. Faun was dancing about in front of it, chittering wildly.

Wren stared. “Stresa?” she whispered in disbelief. She scrambled up hurriedly, throwing her blanket aside, her voice shaking. “Stresa, is that really you?”

“Come back from the dead, rwwlll Wren of the Elves,” the other growled softly.

Wren would have thrown her arms about the Splinterscat if she could have managed to find a way, but settled instead for a quick gasp of relief and laughter. “You're alive! I can't believe it!” She clapped her hands and hugged herself. “Oh, I am so glad to see you! I was certain you were gone! What happened to you? How did you escape?”

The Splinterscat moved forward several paces and seated himself, ignoring Faun, who continued to dart about excitedly. “The—ssppht—serpent barely missed me when it destroyed the raft. I was dragged beneath the surface and towed by the current all the way back—hsstttt—across the Rowen. Phhhffft. It took me several hours to find another crossing. By then, you had gone into Eden's Murk.”

Faun skittered too close, and the spines rose threateningly. “Foolish Squeak. Hsssttt!”

“How did you find us?” Wren pressed. Garth was seated next to her now, and she signed her words as she spoke.

“Ha! Ssspptt! Not easily, I can tell you. I tracked you, of course— hsssstt—but you have wandered in every direction since you entered. Lost your way, I gather. I wonder that you managed to find the cliffs at all.”

She took a deep breath. “I used the magic.”

The Splinterscat hissed softly.

“I had to. The queen is very sick.”

“Sssttt. And so the Ruhk Staff is yours now?”

She shook her head hurriedly. “Just until Ellenroh is better. Just until then.”

Stresa said nothing, yellow eyes agleam.

“I'm glad that you're back,” she repeated.

He yawned disinterestedly. “Phhfft. Enough talk for tonight. Time to get some rrwwoll rest.”

He made a leisurely turn and ambled off to find a place to sleep, looking for all the world as if nothing unusual had happened, as if tonight were just like any other night. Wren stared after him for a moment, then exchanged a long look with Garth. The big Rover shook his head and moved away.

Wren pulled the blanket back around her shoulders and cradled Faun in her arms. After a moment, she realized that she was smiling.

E
llenroh Elessedil died at dawn. Wren was with her when she woke for the last time. The darkness was just beginning to lighten, a pale violet tinge within the mist, and the queen's eyes opened. She stared up at Wren, her gaze calm and steady, seeing something beyond her granddaugh-ter's anxious face. Wren took her hand at once, holding it with fierce determination, and for just an instant there appeared the faintest of smiles. Then she breathed once, closed her eyes, and was gone.

Wren found it odd when she could not cry. It seemed as if she had no tears left, as if they had been used up in being afraid that the impossible might happen, and now that it had she had nothing left to give. Drained of emotion, she was yet left feeling curiously unprotected in her sense of loss, and because she had no one she wanted to turn to and nowhere else to flee she took refuge within the armor of responsibility her grandmother had given her for the fate of the Elves.

It was well that she did. It appeared no one else knew what to do. Eowen was inconsolable, a crumpled, frail figure as she huddled next to the woman who had been her closest friend. Red hair fallen down about her face and shoulders, body shaking, she could not manage even to speak. Triss and Dal stood by helplessly, stunned. Even Gavilan could not seem to summon the strength to take charge as he might have before, his handsome face stricken as he stared down at the queen's body. Too much had happened to destroy their confidence in themselves, to shatter any belief that they could carry out their charge to save the Elven people. Aurin Striate and the queen were both gone—the two they could least afford to lose. Trapped within the bottomland of Eden's Murk on the wrong side of Blackledge, they were consumed with a growing premonition of disaster that was in danger of becoming self-fulfilling.

But Wren found within herself that morning a strength she had not believed she possessed. Something of who and what she had once been, of the Rover girl she had been raised, of the Elessedil and Shannara blood to which she had been born, caught fire within her and willed that she should not despair.

She rose from the queen and stood facing them, the Ruhk Staff gripped in both hands, placed in front of her like a standard, a reminder of what bound them.

“She's gone,” Wren said quietly, drawing their eyes, meeting them with her own. “We must leave her now. We must go on because that is what we have sworn we would do and that is what she would want. We have been
asked to do something that grows increasingly difficult, something we all wish we had not been asked to do, but there is no point in questioning our commitment now. We are pledged to it. I don't presume to think I can be the woman my grandmother was, but I shall try my best. This Staff belongs in another world, and we are going to do everything we can to carry it there.”

She stepped away from the queen. “I only knew my grandmother a short time, but I loved her the way I would have loved my mother had I been given the chance to know her. She was all I had of family. She was the best she could be for all of us. She deserves to live on through us. I do not intend to fail her. Will you help me?”

“Lady, you need not ask that,” Triss answered at once. “She has given the Ruhk Staff to you, and while you live the Home Guard are sworn to protect and obey you.”

Wren nodded. “Thank you, Triss. And you, Gavilan?”

The blue eyes lowered. “You command, Wren.”

She glanced at Eowen, who simply nodded, still lost within her grief.

“Carry the queen back into the Eden's Murk,” Wren directed Triss and Dal. “Find a sinkhole and give her back to the island so that she can rest.” The words fought their way clear, harsh and biting. “Take her.”

They bore the Queen of the Elves into the swamp, found a stretch of mire a hundred feet in, and eased her down. She disappeared swiftly, gone forever.

In silence, they retraced their steps. Eowen was crying softly, leaning on Wren's arm for support. The men were voiceless wraiths turned silver and gray by the shadows and mist.

When they reached the base of Blackledge, Wren faced them once again. “This is what I think. We have lost a third of our number and have barely gotten clear of Killeshan's slopes. Time slips away. If we don't move quickly, we won't get off the island, any of us. Garth and I know something of wilderness survival, but we are almost as lost as the rest of you here on Morrowindl. There is only one of us remaining who stands a chance of finding the way.”

She turned to look at Stresa. The Splinterscat blinked.

“You brought us safely in,” she said quietly. “Can you take us out again?”

Stresa stared at her for a long moment, his gaze curious. “Hrrwlll, Wren of the Elves, bearer of the Ruhk Staff, I will take a chance with you, though I have no particular reason to help the Elves. But you have promised me passage to the larger world, and I hold you to your promise. Yes, I will guide you.”

“Do you know the way, Scat,” Gavilan asked warily, “or do you simply toy with us?”

Wren gave him a sharp glance, but Stresa simply said, “Stttsst. Come along and find out, why don't you?” Then he turned to Wren. “This is not
country through which I have traveled often. Here the Blackledge is impassable. Hssstt. We will need to—rrwwlll—travel south for a distance to find a pass through which to climb. Come.”

They gathered what remained of their gear, shouldered it determinedly, and set out. They walked through the morning gloom, into the heat and the vog, following the line of the cliffs along the boundary of Eden's Murk. At noon they stopped to rest and eat, a gathering of hard-faced, silent men and women, their furtive, uneasy eyes scanning the mire ceaselessly. The earth was silent today, the volcano momentarily at rest. But from within the swamp there was the sound of things at hunt, distant cries and howls, the splashing of water, the grunting of bodies locked in combat. The sounds followed after them as they trudged on, an ominous warning that a net was being gathered in about them.

By midafternoon, they had found the pass that Stresa favored, a steep, winding trail that disappeared into the rocks like a serpent's tongue into its maw. They began their ascent quickly, anxious to put distance between themselves and the sounds trailing after, hopeful that the summit could be reached before nightfall.

It was not. Darkness caught them somewhere in midclimb, and Stresa settled them quickly on a narrow ledge partially in the shelter of an overhang, a perch that would have looked out over a broad expanse of Eden's Murk had it not been for the vog, which covered everything in a seemingly endless shroud of dingy gray.

Dinner was consumed quickly and without interest, a watch was set, and the remainder of the company prepared to settle in for the night. The combination of darkness and mist was so complete that nothing was visible beyond a few feet, giving the unpleasant impression that the entire island had somehow fallen away beneath them, leaving them suspended in air. Sounds rose out of the haze, guttural and menacing, a cacophony that was both disembodied and directionless. They listened to it in silence, feeling it track them, feeling it tighten about.

Wren tried to think of other things, wrapping her blanket close, chilled in spite of the heat given off by the swamp. But her thoughts were disjointed, scattered by a growing sense of detachment from everything that was real. She had been stripped of the certainty of who and what she was and left with only a vague impression of what she might be—and that a thing beyond her understanding and control. Her life had been wrenched from its certain track and settled on an empty plain, there to be blown where it would like a leaf in the wind. She had been given trusts by the shade of Allanon and by her grandmother, and she knew not enough of either to understand how they were to be carried out. She recalled why it was that she had accepted Cogline's challenge to go to the Hadeshorn in the first place, all those weeks ago. By going, she had believed, she might learn something of herself; she might discover the truth. How strange that belief seemed now. Who she was and what she was supposed to do seemed
to change as rapidly as day into night. The truth was an elusive bit of cloth that would not be contained, that refused to be revealed. It fluttered away at each approach she made, ragged and worn, a shimmer of color and light. Still, she was determined that she would follow the threads left hanging in its wake, thin remnants of brightness that would one day lead to the tapestry from which they had come unraveled.

Find the Elves and bring them back into the world of Men.

She would try.

Save my people and give them a new chance at life.

Again, she would try.

And in trying, perhaps she would find a way to survive.

She dozed for a time, her back against the cliff wall, legs drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped guardedly about the polished length of the Ruhk Staff. Faun was asleep at her feet in the blanket's folds. Stresa was a featureless ball curled up within the shadows of a rocky niche. She was aware of movement about her as the watch changed; she even considered asking to take a turn, but let the thought pass. She had slept little in two nights and needed to regain her strength. There was time enough to take the watch another night. She rested her cheek against her knees and lost herself in the darkness behind her eyes.