The Elf Queen of Shannara

She shook her head slowly, as if the idea of her daughter’s return were incomprehensible even now. “By then, the demons had overrun Morrowindl; the city was all that was left to us. The Keel had been formed of our magic to protect us, but the demons were everywhere without. Wing Riders were coming in less and less frequently. The Roc Alleyne and her husband were riding came down through the vog and was struck by some sort of missile. He landed short of the city gates. The demons . . .”


She stopped, unable to continue. There were tears in her eyes. “We could not save them,” she finished.

Wren felt a great hollowness open within. In her mind, she saw her mother die. Impulsively she leaned forward and put her arms around her grandmother, the last of her family, the only tie that remained to her mother and her father, and hugged her close. She felt the queen’s head lower to her shoulder and the slender arms come about her in reply. They sat in silence for a long time, just holding each other. Wren tried to conjure up images of her mother’s face in her mind and failed. All she could see now was her grandmother’s face. She was conscious of the fact that however deep her own loss, it would never match the queen’s.

They pulled away from each other finally, and the queen smiled once more, radiant, bracing. “I am so glad you have come, Wren,” she repeated. “I have waited a very long time to meet you.”

“Grandmother,” Wren said, the word sounding odd when she spoke it. “I still don’t understand why I was sent. Allanon told me that I was to find the Elves because there could be no healing of the Lands until they returned. And now you tell me Eowen has foretold that my coming will save the Elves. But what difference does my being here make? Surely you would have returned long ago if you were able.”

The smile faded slowly. “It is more complicated than that, I am afraid.”

“How can it be more complicated? Can’t you leave, if you choose?”

“Yes, child, we can leave.”

“If you can leave, why don’t you? What is it that keeps you? Do you stand because you must? Are these demons come from the Forbidding? Has the Ellcrys failed again?”

“No, the Ellcrys is well.” She paused, uncertain.

“Then where did these demons come from?”

There was a barely perceptible tightening of the queen’s smooth face. “We are not certain, Wren.”

She was lying. Wren knew it instinctively. She heard it in her grandmother’s voice and saw it in the sudden lowering of Eowen’s green eyes. Shocked, hurt, angry as well, she stared at the queen in disbelief. No more secrets between us? she thought, repeating the other’s own words. What are you hiding?

Ellenroh Elessedil seemed not to notice her grandchild’s distress. She reached out again and embraced her warmly. Though tempted, Wren did not push away, thinking there must be a reason for this secrecy and it would be explained in time, thinking as well that she had come too far to discover the truth about her family and give up on finding it out because some part of it was slow in coming. She forced her feelings aside. She was a Rover girl, and Garth had trained her well. She could be patient. She could wait.

“Time enough to speak more of this tomorrow, child,” the queen whispered in her ear. “You need sleep now. And I need to think.”

She drew back, her smile so sad that it almost brought tears to Wren’s eyes. “Eowen will show you to your room. Your friend Garth will be sleeping right next door, should you need him. Rest, child. We have waited a long time to find each other and we must not rush the greeting.”

She came to her feet, bringing Wren up with her. Across from them, Eowen Cerise rose as well. The queen gave her grandchild a final hug. Wren hugged her back, masking the doubts that crowded within. She was tired now, her eyes heavy, and her strength ebbing. She felt warm and comforted and she needed to rest.

“I am glad to be here, Grandmother,” she said quietly, and meant it.

But I will know the truth, she added to herself. I will know it all.

She let Eowen Cerise lead her from the bedchamber and into the darkened hallway beyond.





XI


When Wren awoke the following morning she found herself in a room of white-painted walls, cotton bedding with tiny flowers sewn into the borders, and tapestries woven of soft pastel threads that shimmered in the wash of brilliant light flooding through breaks in lace curtains that hung in folds across the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Sunlight, she marveled, in a land where beyond the walls of the city and the power of the Elven magic there was only darkness.