The Elf Queen of Shannara

Garth shifted, pushing himself into a sitting position, giving his hands more freedom. He grunted with the effort. Wren could see blood soaking through the bandages of his wounds.

She came with her husband to the Rovers, sent by the Wing Riders. She came to us because she was told that we were the strongest of the free peoples, that we trained our children from birth to survive because survival is the hardest part of every Rover’s life. We have always been an outcast people and as such have found it necessary to be stronger than any other. So your mother and your father came to us, to my family, a tribe of several hundred living on the plains below the Myrian, and asked if there were someone among us who could be trusted in the schooling of their daughter. They wished her to be trained in the Rover way, to begin learning as soon as she was old enough how to survive in a world where everyone and everything was a potential enemy. I was recommended. We talked, your parents and I, and I agreed to be your teacher.

He coughed, a deep, racking sound that tore from the depths of his chest. His head lowered momentarily as he gasped for breath.

“Garth,” she whispered, frightened now. “Tell me about this later, after you have rested.”

He shook his head. No. I want this finished. I have carried it with me for too long.

“But you can hardly breathe, you can barely . . .”

I am stronger than you think. His hand closed over her own momentarily and released. Are you afraid I might be dying?

She swallowed against her tears. “Yes.”

Does that frighten you so? After all I have taught you?

“Yes.’’

The dark eyes blinked, and he gave her a strange look. Then I will not die until you are ready for me to do so.

She nodded wordlessly, not understanding what he meant, wary of the look, anxious only that he live, whatever bargain it required.

His breath exhaled in a thick rattle. Good. Your mother, then. She was everything you have been told—strong, kind, determined, devoted to you. But she had decided that she must return to her people. She had made up her mind before she left Morrowindl, I think. Your father acquiesced. I don’t know the reason for their decision; I only know that your mother was bound in countless ways to her own mother and to her people, and your father was desperately in love with her. In any case, it was agreed that you should be sent to live with the Ohmsfords in Shady Vale until you were five—the beginning age for training a Rover child—and then given back to me. You were to be told that your mother was a Rover and your father an Ohmsford and. that your ancestors were Elves. You were to be told nothing else.

Wren shook her head in disbelief. “Why, Garth? Why keep it all a secret from me?”

Because your mother understood how dangerous it was to try to influence the workings of a prophecy. She could have tried to keep you safe, to prevent you from returning to Morrowindl. She could have stayed with you and told you what was foreordained. But what harm might she have caused by interfering so? She knew enough of prophecies to recognize the threat. It was better, she believed, that you grow to womanhood without knowing the specifics of what Eowen had foretold, that you find your destiny on your own, however it was meant to be. It was given to me to prepare you.

“So you knew everything? All of it? You knew about the Elfstones?”

No. Not about the Elfstones. Like you, I thought them painted rocks. I was told to make certain that you knew where they came from, that they were your heritage from your parents. I was to see to it that you never lost them. Your mother was convinced, I suppose, that like your destiny, the power of the Elfstones would reveal itself when it was time.

“But you knew the rest, all the time I was growing up? And after, when I went to the Hadeshorn, when I was sent in search of the Elves?”

I knew.

“And didn’t tell me?” There was a hint of anger in her voice now, the first. The impact of what he was telling her was beginning to set in. “Never a word, even when I asked?”

I could not.

“What do you mean, you could not?” She was incensed. “Why?”

Because I promised your mother. She swore me to secrecy. You were to know nothing of your true heritage, nothing of the Elessedils, Arborlon, or Morrowindl, nothing of the prophecy. You were to discover it on your own or not, as fate decreed. I was not to aid you in any way. I was to go with you when it came time if I chose. I was to protect you as best I could. But I was to tell you nothing.

“Ever?”

The big man’s breath rattled in his chest, and his fingers hesitated. I swore an oath. I swore that I would tell you nothing until the prophecy came to pass, if it ever did—nothing until you had come back into Arborlon, until you had discovered the truth for yourself, until you had done whatever it was you were fated to do to help your people. I promised.

She sank back on her heels, despair washing through her. Trust no one, the Addershag had warned. No one. She had believed she realized the impact of those words. She had thought she understood.