The Elf Queen of Shannara

Don’t think about it!

She concentrated harder on what she was doing, blocking out her anxious, frightened thoughts. The signal fire burned on, flames leaping at the darkness, and wood crackling as it disintegrated with the heat. She labored in silence, yet she could hear everything about her—the fire’s roar, the whistle of the wind across the rocks, the lapping of waves against the shore, the hum of insects far back in the valley, and the hiss of her own breathing. It was as if all of the night sounds had been magnified a hundredfold—as if she had been placed in a great, empty canyon where even the smallest whisper had an echo.

She finished with Garth and for a moment felt faint, a swarm of images swimming before her eyes. She saw again the wolf thing that was a Shadowen, all teeth and claws and bristling hair. She saw Garth, locked in combat with the monster. She saw herself as she rushed to help him, a vain attempt. She saw the fire’s glow spread across them all like blood. She saw the Elfstones come to life, flaring with white light, with ancient power, filling the night with their brilliance, lancing out and striking the Shadowen, burning it as it struggled to break free . . .

She tried to rise and fell back. Garth caught her in his arms, having risen somehow to his knees, and eased her to the ground. He held her for a moment, cradled her as he might a child, and she let him, her face buried against his body. Then she pushed gently away, taking slow, deep breaths to steady herself. She rose and moved over to their cloaks, retrieved them and brought them back to where Garth waited. They wrapped themselves against the night’s chill and sat staring at each other wordlessly.

Finally Wren lifted her hands and began to sign. Did you know about the Elfstones? she asked.

Garth’s gaze was steady. No.

Not that they were real, not what they could do, nothing?

No.

She studied his face for a moment without moving. Then she reached into her tunic and drew out the leather bag that hung about her neck. She had slipped the Elfstones back inside when she had gone to help Garth. She wondered if they had transformed again, if they had returned to being the painted rocks they once were. She even wondered if she had somehow been mistaken in what she had seen. She turned the bag upside down and shook it over her hand.

Three bright blue stones tumbled free, painted rocks no longer, but glittering Elfstones—the Elfstones that had been given to Shea Ohmsford by Allanon over five hundred years ago and had belonged to the Ohmsford family ever since. She stared at them, entranced by their beauty, awed that she should be holding them. She shivered at the memory of their power.

“Garth,” she whispered. She placed the Elfstones in her lap. Her fingers moved. “You must know something. You must. I was given into your care, Garth. The Elfstones were with me even then. Tell me. Where did they really come from?”

You already know. Your parents gave them to you.

My parents. She felt a welling up of pain and frustration. “Tell me about them. Everything. There are secrets, Garth. There have always been secrets. I have to know now. Tell me.”

Garth’s dark face was frozen as he hesitated, then signed to her that her mother had been a Rover and that her father had been an Ohmsford. They brought her to the Rovers when she was a baby. He was told that the last thing they did before leaving was to place the leather bag with its painted rocks about her neck.

“You did not see my mother. Or my father?”

Garth shook his head. He was away when they came and when he returned they were gone. They never came back. Wren was taken to Shady Vale to be raised by Jaralan and Mirianna Ohmsford. When she was five, the Rovers took her back again. That was the agreement the Ohmsfords had made. It was what her parents had insisted upon.

“But why?” Wren interrupted, bewildered.

Garth didn’t know. He had never even been told who had made the bargain on behalf of the Rovers. She was given into his care by one of the family elders, a man who had died shortly after. No one had ever explained why he was to train her as he did—only what was to be done. She was to be quicker, stronger, smarter, and better able to survive than any of them. Garth was to make her that way.

Wren sat back in frustration. She already knew everything that Garth was telling her. He had told it all to her before. Her jaw tightened angrily. There must be something more, something that would give her some insight into where she had come from and why she was carrying the Elfstones.

“Garth,” she tried again, insistent now. “What is it that you haven’t told me? Something about my mother? I dreamed of her, you know. I saw her face. Tell me what you are hiding!”