The Elf Queen of Shannara

They landed at noon in a meadow on the south edge of the Sarandanon and ate fruit and cheese and goat’s milk provided by Tiger Ty. Birds flitted in the trees, and small animals disappeared along branches and into burrows. Faun watched everything as if she were seeing it for the first time. Stresa sniffed the air, cat’s face wrinkling and twitching. Triss was well enough to sit and stand alone now, though bandaged and splinted still, his strong face scarred and bruised. He smiled often at Wren, but his eyes remained sad and distant. Tiger Ty continued to keep to himself. Wren knew he was mulling over what she was about, wanting to ask but unwilling to do so. She found him a curious man.

They continued their journey when their meal was finished, sweeping down the valley toward the Rill Song. By midafternoon they were following the river’s channel north in a slow, steady glide toward sunset.

It was approaching twilight when they reached the Carolan. The rock wall rose in stark relief from the eastern shore of the river to a vast, empty bluff that jutted outward from a protective wall of towering hardwood and sheltering cliffs that rose higher still. The bluff was rocky and bare, a rugged stretch of earth on which only isolated patches of scrub grass grew.

It was atop the Carolan that Arborlon had been built. It was from here more than a hundred years ago that the city had been taken away.

Tiger Ty directed Spirit downward, and the giant Roc dropped smoothly to the center of the bluff. The riders dismounted, one after the other, Wren and Tiger Ty working side by side in silence to unwrap Stresa and set him on the ground. They stood clustered together for a moment, staring across the empty plain at the forest dark east and the cliff drop west. The country beyond was hazy with shadows, and the skies were faintly tinged with purple and gold.

“Ssssttt! What is this place?” Stresa questioned uncomfortably, staring about at the ravaged bluff.

“Home,” Wren answered distantly, lost somewhere deep within herself.

“Home! Sssppph!” The Splinterscat was aghast.

“What are we doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?” Tiger Ty snapped, unable to contain himself any longer.

“What Allanon’s shade asked of me,” she said.

She reached up along Spirit’s harness and pulled free the Ruhk Staff. The walnut heft was marred and dirtied and the once gleaming surface dulled and worn. Fastened in the clawed grips at one end, the Loden shone with dull, worn persistence in the fading light.

She put the Staff butt downward against the earth and gripped it before her with both hands. Her eyes fixed on the Stone, and her thoughts traveled back to Morrowindl again, to the long, endless days of mist and darkness, of demon Shadowen, of monsters and pitfalls, and of horror born of the Elven magic. The island world rose up out of memory and gathered her in, a frantic, doomed lover too dangerous for any to hold. The faces of the dead paraded before her—Ellenroh Elessedil, to whom the care of the Elves had been given and who in turn had given it to her; Eowen, who had seen too much of what was to be; Aurin Striate, who had been her friend; Gavilan Elessedil, who could have been; Cort and Dal, her protectors; and Garth, who had been, in the end, all of these. She greeted them silently, reverently, promising each that a measure of what had been given would be returned, that she would keep the trust that had been passed on to her, and that she would respect what it had cost to keep it safe.

She closed her eyes and sealed away the past, then opened them again to stare into the faces of those gathered about her. Her smile was, for an instant, her grandmother’s. “Triss, Stresa, Tiger Ty, and you, little Faun—you are my best friends now, and if you can, I would like you to stay with me, to be with me, for as long as you are able. I will not hold you—not even you, Triss. I do not charge you in any way. I ask that you decide freely.”

No one spoke. There was uncertainty in their eyes, a hint of confusion. Faun edged forward and pulled at her leg anxiously.

“No, little one,” she said. She beckoned to the others. “Walk with me.”

They moved across the Carolan—the girl, the Elf, the Wing Rider, his Roc, and the two creatures from Morrowindl—trailing their shadows in the dust behind them. Birdsong rose from the trees and cliff rocks as darkness fell, and the Rill Song churned steadily below.

When they reached the cliff edge, she turned, then stepped away several paces so that the others were behind her. She was facing back across the bluff toward the forest, back into the closing night. Above the trees, stars were coming out, bright pinpoints against the deepening black. Her hands tightened on the Ruhk Staff. She had anticipated this moment for days, and now that it was here she found herself neither anxious nor excited, but only weary. Once, she had wondered if she would be able to invoke the Loden’s magic when it was time—what she would decide, how she would feel. She had wondered without cause, she thought. She felt no hesitation now. Perhaps she had always known. Or perhaps all the wondering had simply resolved itself somewhere along the way. It didn’t matter, in any case. She was at peace with herself. She even knew how the magic worked, though her grandmother had never explained. Because it hadn’t been necessary? Because it was instinctive? Wren wasn’t sure. It was enough that the magic was hers to call upon and that she had determined at last to do so.