The Elf Queen of Shannara

The silence was immense. Inside, Wren could hear herself shriek. She looked up as Garth stepped in front of her. Remember your training, Wren. Remember who you are.

What she could remember at the moment was the look she had seen in Gavilan Elessedil’s eyes when she had given him the Ruhk Staff. She met Garth’s gaze squarely. What she saw in his eyes stayed her anger. Reluctantly she nodded. “We’ll wait until morning.”

She kept watch then while the others slept, her own exhaustion forgotten, buried in her anger and despair over Gavilan. She could not sleep while feeling so unsettled, her mind racing and her emotions in disarray. She sat alone with her back against a stand of rocks while the men curled up in sleep a dozen feet away and Stresa hunkered down at the clearing’s edge, perhaps asleep, perhaps not. She stared into blackness, stroking Faun absently, thinking thoughts darker than the night.

Gavilan. He had been so charming, so comfortable when she had met him. She had liked him—perhaps more than liked him. She had harbored expectations for them that even now she could not bring herself to admit. He had promised to be a friend to her, to look after her, to give her what answers he could to the questions she asked, and to be there when she needed him. He bad promised so much. Perhaps he could have kept those promises if they had not been forced to leave the protection of the Keel. For she had not been mistaken in assessing Gavilan’s weakness; he was not strong enough for what lay beyond the safety of Arborlon’s walls. The changes in him had been apparent almost immediately. His charm had faded into worry, then edginess, and finally fear, He had lost the only world he had ever known and been left naked and unprotected in a waking nightmare. Gavilan had been as brave as he could manage, but everything he had known and relied upon had been stripped away. When the queen had died and the Staff had been entrusted to Wren, it had just been too much. He had counted himself the queen’s logical successor, and with the power of the Elven magic he still believed he could accomplish anything. He was committed to it; he had made it his cause. He was convinced that he could save the Elves, that he was destined to do so, that the magic would give him the means.

Let me have the Staff, she could still hear him plead.

And she had foolishly given it to him.

Tears came to her eyes. He probably panicked, she thought. He probably decided that she was dead, that they were all dead, and that he was alone. He tried to leave, and Dal stopped him, telling him, no, wait, underestimating the depth of his fear, his madness. He would have heard the sounds of the Drakuls, the whispers, and the lures. They would have affected him. He killed Dal then because . . .

No! She was crying, unable to stop. She let herself, furious that she should try to make excuses for him. But it hurt so to admit the truth, harsh and unavoidable—that he had been weak, that he had been greedy, that he had rationalized instead of reasoned, and that he had killed a man who was there to protect him. Stupid! Such madness! But the stupidity and the madness were everywhere, all about them, a mire as vast and impenetrable as Eden’s Murk. Morrowindl’s fostered it, succored it within each of them, and for each there was a threshold of endurance that once crossed signaled an end to sanity. Gavilan had crossed that threshold, unable to help himself perhaps, and now he was gone, faded into mist. Even if they found him, what would be left?

She bit at her wrist, making herself feel pain. They must find him, of course—even though he no longer mattered. They must regain possession of the Ruhk Staff and the Loden or everything they had gone through to get clear of Morrowindl and all of the lives that had been given up—her grandmother’s, the Owl’s, Eowen’s, and those of the Elven Hunters—would have been for nothing. The thought burned through her. She could not tolerate it. She would not permit them to fail. She had promised her grandmother. She had promised herself. It was the reason she had come—to bring the Elves back into the Westland and to help find a way to put an end to the Shadowen. Allanon’s charge—hers now as well, she admitted in black fury. Find yourself, and she had. Discover the truth, and she had. Too much of both, but she had. Her life was revealed now, past, present, and future, and however she felt about it she would not let it be taken away without her consent.

I don’t care what it takes, she vowed. I don’t care!

She was sleeping when Triss touched her shoulder and brought her awake again. “Lady Wren,” he whispered gently. “Go lie down. Rest now.”