The Heritage of Shannara (181 page)

Garth stirred, his hands moving.
Wren,
he signed.
I did what I was asked, what I promised. I did the best I could. I wish it had not been necessary to deceive you. I wish I had been able to give you the chance you ask for.

She looked at him for a long time, and finally nodded. “I know.”

The strong, dark face was rigid with concentration.
Don't be angry with your mother and father. They did what they thought they had to do, what they believed was right.

She nodded again. She did not trust herself to speak.

You must find a way to forgive us all.

She swallowed hard. “I wish … I wish I didn't hurt so much.”

Wren, look at me.

She did so, reluctantly, warily.

We are not finished yet. There is one thing more.

She felt a chill settle in the pit of her stomach, an ache of something sensed but not yet fully realized. She saw Stresa appear out of the trees to one side, lumbering heavily, winded and damp. He slowed as he approached them, aware that something was happening, a confrontation perhaps, a revelation, a thing inviolate.

“Stresa,” Wren greeted quickly, anxious to avoid hearing any more from Garth.

The Splinterscat swung his blunt cat face from one human to the other. “We can go now,” he said. “In fact, we should. The mountain is coming down. Sooner or later it will reach here.”

“We must hurry,” she agreed, rising. She snatched up the Ruhk Staff, then looked down anxiously at her injured friend. “Garth?”

We need to speak alone first.

Her throat tightened anew. “Why?”

Ask the others to go ahead a short distance and wait for us. Tell them we won't be long.

She hesitated, then looked at Stresa and Triss. “I need a moment with Garth. Wait for us up ahead. Please.”

They stared back at her without speaking, then nodded reluctantly, Triss first, lean face expressionless, and Stresa with sharp-eyed suspicion.

“Take Faun,” she asked as an afterthought, disengaging the Tree Squeak from its perch on her shoulder and setting it gently on the ground.

Stresa hissed at the little creature and sent it racing off into the trees. He looked back at her with sad, knowing eyes. “Call, rwwwlll Wren of the Elves, if you need us.”

When they had gone, the sound of their footsteps fading, she faced Garth once more, the Staff gripped tightly in both hands. “What is it?”

The big man beckoned.
Don't be frightened. Here. Sit next to me. Listen a moment and don't interrupt.

She did as he asked, kneeling close enough that her leg was pressed up against his body. She could feel the heat of his fever. Mist and pale light obscured him in a shading of gray, and the world about was fuzzy and thick with heat.

She lay the Ruhk Staff down beside her, and Garth's big hands began to sign.

Something is happening to me. Inside. The Wisteron's poison, I think. It creeps through me like a living thing, fire that sears and deadens. I can feel it working about, changing me. It is a bad feeling.

“I'll wash the wounds again, rebind them.”

No, Wren. What is happening now is beyond that, beyond anything you can do. The poison is in my system, all through me.

Her breath was hurried, angry. “If you are too weak, we will carry you.”

I was weak at first, but the weakness is passing now. I am growing stronger again. But the strength is not my own.

She stared at him, not really understanding, but frightened all the same. She shook her head. “What are you saying?”

He looked at her with fierce determination, his dark eyes hard, his face all angles and planes, chiseled in stone.
The Wisteron was a Shadowen. Like the Drakuls. Remember Eowen?

She shuddered, jerked back and tried to rise. He grabbed her and held her in place, keeping their eyes locked.
Look at me.

She tried and couldn't. She saw him and at the same time didn't, aware of the lines that framed him but unable to see the colors and shadings between, as if doing so would reveal the truth she feared. “Let me go!”

Then everything broke within her, and she began to cry. She did so soundlessly, and only the heaving of her shoulders gave her away. She closed her eyes against the rage of feelings within, the horror of the world about her, the terrible price it seemed to require over and over again. She saw Garth even there, etched within her mind—the dark confidence and strength radiating from his face, the smile he reserved exclusively for her, the wisdom, the friendship, and the love.

“I can't lose you,” she whispered, no longer bothering to sign, the words a murmur. “I can't!”

His hands released her, and her eyes opened.
Look at me.

She took a deep breath and did so.

Look into my eyes.

She did. She looked down into the soul of her oldest and most trusted friend. A wicked red glimmer looked back.

It already begins,
he signed.

She shook her head in furious denial.

I can't let it happen, Wren. But I can't do it alone. Not and be sure. You have to help me let go.

“No.”

One hand slipped down to his belt and pulled free the long knife, its razor-sharp blade glinting in the half-light. She shuddered and drew back, but he grabbed her wrist and forced the handle of the knife into her palm.

His hands signed, quick, steady.
There is no more time left to us. What we've had has been good. I do not regret a moment of it. I am proud of you, Wren. You are my strength, my wisdom, my skill, my experience, my life, everything I am, the best of me. And still your own person, distinct in every way. You are what you were meant to be—a Rover girl become Queen of the Elves. I can't give you anything more. It is a good time to say good-bye.

Wren couldn't breathe. She couldn't see clearly. “You can't ask this of me! You can't!”

I have to. There is no one else. No one I could depend upon to do it right.

“No!” She dropped the knife as if it had burned her skin. “I would rather,” she choked, crying, “be dead myself !”

He reached down for the knife and carefully placed it back in her hand.

She shook her head over and over, saying no, no. He touched her, drawing her eyes once more to his own. He was shivering now, just cold perhaps, but maybe something more. The red glow was more pronounced, stronger.

I am slipping away, Wren. I am being stolen from myself. You have to hurry. Do it quickly. Don't let me become …
He couldn't finish, his great, strong hands shaking now as well.
You can do it. We have practiced often enough. I can't trust myself. I might …

Wren's muscles were so tight she could barely move. She glanced over her shoulder, thinking to call Stresa back, or Triss, desperate for anyone. But there was no one who could help her, she knew. There was nothing anyone could do.

She turned quickly back. “There must be an antidote that will counteract the poison, mustn't there?” Her words were frantic. “I'll ask Stresa! He'll know! I'll get him back!”

The big hands cut her short.
Stresa already knows the truth. You saw it in his eyes. There isn't anything he can do. There never was. Let it go. Help me. Take the knife and use it.

No!

You have to.

No!

One hand swept up suddenly as if to strike her, and instinctively she reacted with a block to counter, the hand with the knife lifting, freezing, inches above his chest. Their eyes locked. For an instant, everything washed away within Wren but the terrible recognition of what was needed. The truth stunned her. She caught her breath and held it.

Quick, Wren …
She did not move. He took her hand and gently lowered it until the knife blade was resting against his tunic, against his chest.
Do it.

Her head shook slowly, steadily from side to side, a barely perceptible movement.

Wren. Help me.

She looked down at him, deep into his eyes, and into the red glare that was consuming him, that rose out of the horror growing within. She remembered standing next to him as a child when she had first come to live with the Rovers, barely as tall as his knee. She remembered herself at ten, whip-thin, leather-tough, racing to catch him in the forest. She remembered their games, constant, unending, all directed toward her training.

She felt his breath on her face. She felt the closeness of him and thought of the comfort it had given her as a child.

“Garth,” she whispered in despair, and felt the great hands come up to tighten over her own.

Then she thrust the long knife home.

S
he fled then. She ran from the clearing into the trees, numb with grief, half blind with tears, the Ruhk Staff clutched before her in both hands like a shield. She raced through the shadows and half-light of the island's early morning, oblivious to Killeshan's distant rumble, to Morrowindl's shudder in response, lost to everything but the need to escape the time and place of Garth's death, even knowing she could never escape its memory. She tore past brush and limbs with heedless disregard, through tall grasses and brambles, along ridges of earth encrusted with lava rock, and over deadwood and scattered debris. She sensed none of it. It was not her body that fled; it was her mind.

Garth!

She called out to him endlessly, chasing after her memories of him, as if by catching one she might bring him back to life. She saw him race away, spectral, phantasmagoric. Parts of him appeared and faded in the air before her, blurred and distant images from times gone by. She saw herself give chase as she had so many times when they had played at being Tracker and prey, when they had practiced the lessons of staying alive. She saw herself that last day in the Tirfing before Cogline had appeared and everything had changed forever, skirting the shores of the Myrian, searching for signs. She watched him drop from the trees, huge, silent, and quick. She felt him grapple for her, felt herself slip away, felt her long knife rise and descend. She heard herself laugh.
You're dead, Garth.

And now he really was.

Somehow—it was never entirely clear—she stumbled upon the others of the little company, the few who remained alive, Triss, the last of the Elves, the last besides herself, and Stresa and Faun. She careened into them, spun away angrily as if they were hindrances, and kept going. They came after her, of course, running to catch up, calling out urgently, asking what was wrong, what had happened, where was Garth?

Gone, she said, head shaking. Not coming.

But it was okay. It was all right.

He was safe now.

Still running, she heard Triss demand again,
What is wrong?
And Stresa reply,
Hsssstt, can't you see?
Words, whispered furtively, passed between them, but she didn't catch their meaning, didn't care to. Faun leapt from the pathway to her arm, clinging possessively, but she shook the Tree Squeak off roughly. She didn't want to be touched. She could barely stand to be inside her own skin.

She broke free of the trees.

“Lady Wren!” she heard Triss cry out to her.

Then she was scrambling up a lava slide, clawing and digging at the sharp rock, feeling it cut into her hands and knees. Her breath rasped heavily from her throat, and she was coughing, choking on words that wouldn't come. The Ruhk Staff fell from her hands, and she abandoned it. She cast everything away, the whole of who and what she was, sickened by the thought of it, wanting only to flee, to escape, to run until there was nowhere left to go.

When she collapsed finally, exhausted, stretched flat on the slide, sobbing uncontrollably, it was Triss who reached her first, who cradled her as if she were a child, who soothed her with words and small touches and gave her a measure of the comfort she needed. He helped her to her feet, turned her about, and took her back down to the forest below. Carrying the Ruhk Staff in one arm and supporting her with the other, he guided her through the morning hours like a shepherd a stray lamb, asking nothing of her but that she place one foot before the other and that she continue to walk with him. Stresa took the lead, his bulky form becoming the point of reference on which she focused, the steadily changing object toward which she moved, first one foot, then the other, over and over again. Faun returned for another try at scrambling up her leg and onto her arm, and this time she welcomed the intrusion, pressing the Tree Squeak close, nuzzling back against the little creature's warmth and softness.

They traveled all day like this, companions on a journey that required no words. The few times they paused to rest, Wren accepted the water Triss gave her to drink and the fruit he pressed into her palm and did not bother to ask where it came from or if it was safe to eat. The daylight dimmed as clouds massed from horizon to horizon, as the vog thickened beneath. Killeshan stormed behind them, the eruptions unchecked now, fire and ash and smoke spewing skyward in long geysers, the smell of sulfur thick in the air, the island shaking and rocking. When darkness finally descended, the crest of the mountain was bathed in a blood-red corona that flared anew with each eruption and sent trailers of fire all down the distant slopes where the lava ran to the sea. Boulders grated and crunched as the molten rock carried them away, and trees burned with a sharp, crackling despair. The wind died to nothing, a haze settled over everything, and the island became a fire-rimmed cage in which the inhabitants bumped up against one another in frightened, angry confusion.