The Elf Queen of Shannara

Perhaps the loss of the Owl called attention to it more dramatically than would have otherwise been the case. She didn’t know. It was hard to think clearly just now, and yet she knew she must. Emotions would only distract and confuse, and in the end they might even kill. Until they were clear of Morrowindl and safely back in the Westland, there could be little time wasted on longings and needs, on what-ifs and what-might-have-beens, or on what once was and could never be again.

She felt her throat tighten and the tears spring to her eyes. Even with Faun sleeping in her lap, Garth a whisper away, her grandmother found again, and her identity known, she felt impossibly alone.

Sometime after midnight, when Triss had given over the watch to Dal, Gavilan came to sit with her. He didn’t speak, just wrapped the blanket he had carried over around her and positioned himself at her side. She felt the warmth of his body through the damp and the chill of the swamp night, and it gave her comfort. After a time, she leaned against him, needing to be touched. He took her in his arms then, cradled her to his chest, and held her until morning.



At first light, they resumed their trek through Eden’s Murk. Garth led now, the most experienced survivalist among them. It was Wren who suggested that he lead and Ellenroh who quickly approved. No one was Garth’s equal as a Tracker, and it would take a Tracker’s skill to get them free of the swamp.

But even Garth could not unravel the mystery of Eden’s Murk. Vog hung over everything, shutting out the sky, wrapping everything close about so that nothing was visible beyond a distance of fifty feet. The light was gray and weak, diffused by the mist, reflected by the dampness, and scattered so that it seemed to come from everywhere. There was nothing from which to take direction, not even the lichen and moss that grew in the swamp, which seemed clustered like fugitives against the coming of night, as confused and lost as those of the company who sought their aid. Garth set a course and stayed with it, but Wren could tell that the signs he needed were not to be found. They traveled without knowing what direction they were taking, without being able to chart their progress. Garth kept his thoughts to himself, but Wren could read the truth in his eyes.

Travel was steady, but slow, in part because the swamp was all but impassable and in part because Ellenroh Elessedil was ill. The queen had caught a fever during the night, and it had spread through her with such rapidity that she had gone from headaches and dizziness to chills and coughing in a matter of hours. By midday, when the company stopped for a quick meal, her strength was failing badly. She could still walk, but not without help. Triss and Dal shared the task of supporting her, arms wrapped securely about her waist to hold her up as they traveled. Eowen and Wren both checked her for injuries, thinking that perhaps she had been scratched by the spikes of the Darter and poisoned. But they found nothing. There was no ready explanation for the queen’s sickness, and while they administered to her as best they could, neither had a clue as to what remedy might help.

“I feel foolish,” she confided to Wren at one point, her wan features bathed in a sheen of sweat. They sat together on a log, eating a little of the cheese and bread that was their meal, wrapped in their great cloaks. “I was fine when I went to sleep, then woke sometime during the night feeling . . . odd.” She laughed dryly. “I do not know any other way to describe it. I just didn’t feel right.”

“You will be better again after another night’s sleep,” Wren assured her. “We are all worn down.”

But Ellenroh was beyond simple weariness, and her condition worsened as the day wore on. By nightfall, she had fallen so often that the Elven Hunters were simply carrying her. The company had spent the afternoon wallowing about in a chilly bottomland, a pocket of cold that had strayed somehow into the broad stretch of the swamp’s volcanic heat and become trapped there, sending down roots into the mire, turning water and air to ice. Ellenroh, already on the verge of exhaustion, was weakened further. What little strength remained to her seemed to seep quickly away. When they stopped finally for the night, she was unconscious.

Wren watched Eowen bathe her crumpled face as Gavilan and the Elven Hunters set camp. Garth was at her elbow, his dark face impassive but his eyes clouded with doubt. When she met his gaze squarely, he gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. His fingers gestured. I cannot read the signs. I cannot even find them.