The Elf Queen of Shannara

A cold place opened in the pit of her stomach. What were they doing here? What had happened to bring them? She felt a surge of fear strike her, a sense that something was about to happen and she had not even been aware of it.

She forced back the lassitude, the calm, and the whisper of the wind and made herself see again. The cold turned to ice. The light surrounding her emanated from the things that clustered close. Drakuls, all about. They were so close she could feel their breath—or seem to. She could see their dead eyes, their gaunt, nearly featureless faces, and their ivory fangs. There were dozens of them, pressed about her, parted only at the point where Triss and Garth and Stresa sought to approach, a window into the dark of the Harrow. Their hands and fingers clutched her, held her fast, bound her in ropes of hunger. They had lured her to them, lulled her almost to slumber as they must have done Eowen. Turned from phantoms to things of substance, they were about to feed.

For an instant Wren hung suspended between being and nonbeing, between life and death. She could feel the draw of two choices, very different, each compelling. One would have her break free of the soothing, deadly bonds that held her, would have her rise up in revulsion and fury and fight for her life because that was what her instincts told her she must do. The other would have her do as the wind voice had whispered and simply let go because that was the only way she would ever be free of the magic. Time froze. She weighed the possibilities as if detached from them, a judging that seemed to bring into focus the whole of her existence, past, present, and future. She could see her rescuers creep nearer, their gestures unmistakable. She could feel the Drakuls draw a fraction of an inch closer. Neither seemed to matter. Each was a distant, slow-moving reality that could change in the blink of an eye.

Then fangs brushed her throat—a whisper of hunger and need.

Drakuls.

Shadowen.

Elves.

An evolution of horror—and only she knew.

If I do not escape Morrowindl and return to the Four Lands, who else will ever know?

“Lady Wren!” Triss called softly to her, his voice pleading, desperate, angry and lost.

She stepped back from the precipice and took a long, deep breath. She could feel the strength of her body return, a rising up out of lethargy. But she would still be too slow. She flexed gently, almost imperceptibly, seeking to discover if she could move, testing the limits of her freedom. There were none; the hands that secured her held her so fast that she might as soon have been chained to the earth.

One chance, then. One hope. Her mind focused, hard and insistent, reaching deep within. Her fingers slipped open.

Now.

Blue fire exploded into the night, racing up her body to sheathe her in flames. The fangs jerked back, the hands fell away, the Drakuls shrieked in fury, and she was free. She stood within a cylinder of fire, the magic’s heat racing over her, wrapping her about as she waited for the pain to begin, anticipated what it would feel like to be burned to ash. Better that than to become one of them, the thought flashed through her mind, the corner of her life’s need turned and become a certainty she would not question again. Just let it be quick!

The fire pillared over her, rising up against the black, searing the curtain of the vog. The Drakuls flung themselves into the flames, desperately trying to reach her, moths bereft of reason. They died in sudden bursts of light, incinerated as quick as thought. Wren watched them come at her, reach for her, become entangled in the fire and disappear. Her eyes snapped open seeking the Elfstones. She found them in the cup of her open hand, white with magic, as brilliant as small suns.

Yet she did not burn. The fire raged about her, swallowed her attackers, and left her untouched.

Oh, yes!

Now the exhilaration began, the sense of power that the magic always gave her. She felt invincible, indestructible. The fire could not hurt her, would not—and she must have known as much. She flung her hands out, carrying the fire away from her in a sweep, into the maelstrom of Drakuls that circled about her. They were engulfed and consumed, shrieking in despair. For you, Eowen! She watched them perish and felt nothing beyond the joy that use of the magic gave her, the Drakuls reduced to things of no consequence, as insignificant to her as dust. She embraced the magic’s power and let it carry her beyond reason, beyond thought.

Use it, she told herself. Nothing else matters.