“And on the other side of the Harrow?”
“The In Ju. And the beaches beyond.”
Triss had moved up beside her. His lean face was intense. “Aurin Striate used to speak of the Drakuls,” he advised softly. His gaze fixed on her. “He said there was no defense against them.”
“But they sleep now,” she replied, just as softly.
The gray eyes shifted away. “Do they?”
A new rumble shook the island, deep and forbidding, rising like a giant coming awake angry, thunderous as the tremors built upon themselves. Cracks appeared in the ground about them and rock and silt fell away into the void. Steam and ash belched out of the Killeshan, showering skyward in towering geysers, arcing away into the gloom. Fire trailed ominously from the volcano’s lip, a trickle only, just visible in the haze.
Garth caught Wren’s attention, a simple shifting of his shoulders. His fingers moved. Be quick, Wren. The island begins to shake itself apart.
She glanced at them in turn—Garth, as enigmatic and impassive as ever, steady Triss, her protector now, given over to his new charge; Dal, restless as he stared out into the haze—she had never even heard him speak; Eowen, a white shadow against the gray, looking as if she might disappear into it; and Gavilan, uneasy, unpredictable, haunted lost to her.
“How long will it take us to cross?” she asked Stresa. Faun scrambled down off her shoulder and moved away, picking at the earth.
“Half a day, a little more,” the Splinterscat advised.
“A lifetime if you are wrong, Scat,” Gavilan intoned darkly.
“Then we will have to hurry,” Wren declared, and called Faun back to her shoulder. She brought the Ruhk Staff before her, a reminder. “We have no choice. Let’s be off. Stay close to each other. Keep watch.”
They struck out across the flats, winding down into the maze of depressions, through the tangle of tree husks, cautious eyes scanning the blasted land about them. Stresa took them along as quickly as he could, but travel was slow, the terrain broken and uneven, filled with twists and turns that prevented either rapid or straight passage. The Harrow swallowed them after only moments, gathering about them almost magically until there was nothing else to be seen in any direction. Mist swirled and spun in the wind currents, steam rose out of cracks in the earth that burrowed all the way to Killeshan’s core, and vog drifted down from where it spewed out of the volcano. Nothing moved in the land; it was still and empty all about. Shadows played, black lines cast earthward by the skeletal trees, iron bars against the light. All the while the earth beneath rumbled ominously, and there was a Sense of something dangerous awakening.
The voices began in the first hour. They lifted out of nothingness, whispers on the air that might have come from anywhere. They called compellingly, and for each of the company the words were different. Each would look at the others, thinking that all must have heard, that the voices were unmistakable. They asked, anxious, intense: Did you hear that? Did you hear? But none had, of course—only the speaker, called specifically, purposefully, drawn on by some mirror of self, by a reflection of sense and feeling.
The images came next, faces out of the air, figures that quickly formed and just as quickly faded in the shifting haze, visions of things peculiar to whomever they addressed—personifications of longings, needs, and hopes. For Wren, they took the form of her parents. For Triss and Eowen, it was the queen. For the others, something else. The images worked the fringes of their consciousness, struggling to break through the barriers they had erected to keep them at bay, working to turn them from their chosen path and lead them away.
The Elf Queen of Shannara
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene