She breathed the warm air as if drawing in the fading light. She listened to the sound of her heart.
Then she jammed the Ruhk Staff into the earth, twisting it in her hands, grinding it into the soil. Earth magic, Eowen had told her. All of the Elven magic was earth magic, its power drawn from the elements within. What came from there must necessarily be returned.
Her eyes fixed on the gleaming facets of the Loden. The world around her went still and breathless.
Her hands loosened their grip on the Staff, her fingers light and feathery on the gnarled, polished wood, a lover’s caress. She need only call for them, she knew. Just think it, nothing more. Just will it. Just open your mind to the fact of their existence, to their life within the confines of the Stone. Don’t debate it, don’t question it. Summon them. Bring them back. Ask for them.
Yes.
I do.
The Loden flared brightly, a fountain of white light against the darkness, springing forth like fire, then building with blinding intensity. Wren felt the Ruhk Staff tremble in her hands and begin to heat. She tightened her grip on it, her eyes squinting against the brightness, then lowering into shadow. The light rose and began to spread. There was shape and movement within. And suddenly there was wind, a wind that seemed to come from nowhere, whipping across the bluff, sweeping up the light and carrying it across the barren expanse to the trees and rocks and back again, spreading it from end to end. The wind roared, yet lacked strength and impact as it raced past, all sound and brightness as it swallowed the light.
Wren tried to glance back at her companions to make certain they were safe, that the magic had not harmed them, but she could not seem to turn her head. Her hands were clutched tight about the Ruhk Staff now, and she was joined to it, enmeshed in the workings of the magic, given over to that alone.
The light filled the bluff plain, building on itself, rising up until the trees and cliffs that bracketed it had disappeared entirely, until the skies had folded into it and everything was colored silver. There was a wrenching sound, a rending of earth and rock, and a settling of something heavy. Through the slits of her eyes she could see the shapes in the light growing large and taking form as buildings and trees, roadways and paths, and lawns, and parks appeared. Arborlon was coming back into being. She watched it materialize as if seeing it from behind a window streaked with rain, hazy and indistinct. At its center, like a gleaming arch of silver and scarlet in the mist, was the Ellcrys. She felt her strength begin to fail, the power of the magic stealing it away for its own use, and she found herself fighting to stand upright. White light whirled and spun like clouds before a storm, gathering in force until it seemed it must explode everything about it in a roar of thunder.
Then it began to fade, dimming steadily, wanning back into darkness like water into sand.
It was finished then, Wren knew. She could see Arborlon within the haze, could even pick out the people standing in clusters at the edges of the brightness as they peered to see what lay without. She had done what her grandmother had asked of her, what Allanon had asked, and had accomplished all with which she had been charged by others—but not yet that with which she had charged herself. For it would never be enough simply to restore the Elves and their city to the Westland. It would never be enough to give them back to the Four Lands, a people returned out of self-imposed exile. Not after Morrowindl. Not when she knew the truth about the Shadowen. Not while she lived with the horror of the possibility that the magic might be misused again. The lives of the Elves had been given to her on others’ terms; she would give them back again on her own.
She clamped her hands about the Ruhk Staff and sent what was left of its magic soaring out into the light, burning downward into the earth, all of it that remained, all that could ever be. She drained it in a final fury that sent a crackle of fire exploding through the shimmering air. It swept out like lightning, flash after flash. She did not let up. She expended it all, emptying the Staff and the Stone, burning the power away until the last of it flared a final time and was gone.
The Elf Queen of Shannara
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene