by Terry Brooks
Wisp did not seem to understand. “Leave?”
“Go out of the Hollows?” Wil pressed.
Wisp shook his head quickly. “Never leave. Never. Wooden figures.” He waved to Eretria. “Pretty thing for Wisp. Take good care of pretty thing. Talk some more. Talk later.”
He turned and darted up the stairs into the gloom. Wordlessly, the prisoners watched him go. Above them, the bell sounded a second time, its echo reverberating into silence.
Wil spoke first. “Wisp could be wrong. Mallenroh wants the Elfstones badly. I think she would let us leave the Hollows if I agreed to give them to her.”
They huddled down before the door of their cell, eyes drifting uneasily to the darkness of the stairway beyond.
“Wisp is not wrong.” Amberle shook her head slowly. “Hebel told us that no one goes into the Hollows. And he said that no one ever comes out, either.”
“The Elven girl is right,” Eretria agreed. “The Witch will never let us go. She will make wooden figures of us all.”
“Well, then, we had better come up with another plan.” Wil gripped the bars of the cell, testing their strength.
Eretria rose, peering guardedly into the gloom of the stairway. “I have another plan, Healer,” she said softly.
She reached down into her right boot, separated the folds of leather along the inner side, and extracted a narrow metal rod with a curious hook at one end. Then she reached into her left boot and pulled forth the dagger she had displayed to Wil when they had been surprised by Hebel on the rim of the Hollows. She held up the dagger with a quick grin, then slipped it back into the boot.
“How did Mallenroh miss that?” Wil asked her in surprise.
The Rover girl shrugged. “She did not bother to have the stick men search me. She was too busy making us feel helpless.”
She moved to the cell door and began examining the lock.
“What are you doing?” Wil came over to her.
“I am getting us out of here,” she declared, peering carefully into the keyhole. She glanced back at him momentarily and indicated the metal rod. “Picklock. No Rover would be without one. Too many ill-advised citizens spend their time trying to keep us locked up. I guess they don’t trust us.” She winked at Amberle, who frowned.
“Some of those people probably have good reason not to trust you,” Amberle suggested.
“Probably.” Eretria blew dust from the lock. “We all deceive one another at times—don’t we, sister Amberle?”
“Wait a minute.” Wil dropped down beside her, ignoring the exchange. “Once you succeed in picking that lock, Eretria, what do we do then?”
The Rover girl looked at him as if he were a fool. “We run, Healer—just as fast and as far as we can away from this place.”
The Valeman shook his head. “We can’t do that. We have to stay.”
“We have to stay?” she repeated in disbelief.
“For a while, at least.” Wil glanced momentarily at Amberle, then made his decision. “Eretria, I think this might be a good time to put aside a few of those deceptions you mentioned. Listen carefully.”
He motioned for Amberle to join them, and the three hunched down together in the gloom. Quickly Wil explained to the Rover girl the truth of who Amberle was, who he was, why they had come into the Wilderun, and what it was that they were really seeking. He left nothing out of his narration, for it was necessary now that Eretria appreciate the importance of their search for the Bloodfire. They were in grave danger in this tower, but the danger to them would not lessen, even if they were to get clear of it. If anything were to happen to him, he wanted to be certain that the Rover girl would do what she could to see that Amberle escaped the Hollows.
He finished, and Eretria stared at him wordlessly. She turned to Amberle.
“Is all this true, Elven girl? I trust you better, I think.”
Amberle nodded. “It is all true.”
“And you are determined to stay until you find this Bloodfire?”
Amberle nodded again.
The Rover girl shook her head doubtfully. “Can I see this seed you carry?”
Amberle withdrew the Ellcrys seed, carefully wrapped in white canvas, from within her tunic. She unwrapped it and held it forth, silver-white and perfectly formed. Eretria stared at it. Then the doubt faded from her eyes, and she turned again to Wil.
“I go where you go, Wil Ohmsford. If you say we must stay, then the matter is settled. Still, we have to get out of this cell.”
“All right,” Wil agreed. “Then we find Wisp.”
“Wisp?”
“We need him. He knows where Mallenroh has hidden the Elfstones and all about Safehold, its tunnels, and its secrets. He knows the Hollows. If we have Wisp to guide us, then we have a chance to do what we came here to do and still escape.”
Eretria nodded. “First we have to escape from here. It will take me a while to figure out this lock. Be as quiet as you can. Watch the stairs.”
Carefully she inserted the hooked metal rod into the keyhole and began to work it about.
Wil and Amberle moved to the far end of the iron bars, where they could watch more closely the darkened passageway leading down the flight of stairs from the tower. The minutes slipped away, and still Eretria did not open the cell door. Faint scrapings cut through the deep silence as the hooked rod moved about within the lock, the Rover girl muttering as time and again the latch mechanism slipped free. Amberle crouched close against Wil, and her hand rested loosely on his knee.
“What will you do if she fails?” the Elven girl whispered after a time.
Wil kept his eyes on the passageway. “She won’t.”
Amberle nodded. “But if she does—what then?”
He shook his head.
“I do not want you to give Mallenroh the Elfstones,” Amberle announced quietly.
“We have been over that. I have to get you out of here.”
“Once she has the Stones, she will destroy us.”
“Not if I handle it right.”
“Listen to me!” Her voice was angry. “Mallenroh has no regard for human life. Humans serve no purpose in her eyes beyond the uses she may put them to. Hebel did not understand that when he met her that first time on the rim of the Hollows sixty years ago. All he could see was the beauty and the magic with which she cloaked herself, the dreams she spun with her words, the impressions she left by her passing—all fabrication. He did not see the evil that lay beneath—not until it was too late.”
“I am not Hebel.”
She took a deep breath. “No. But I worry that your concern for me and what I have come here to do is beginning to color your judgment. You have such determination, Wil. You think that you can overcome any obstacle, however formidable. I envy you your determination—it is something that I sadly lack.”
She took his hands in her own. “I just want you to understand that I depend on you. Call it what you wish—I need your strength, your conviction, your determination. But neither that nor what you feel for me must be allowed to distort your judgment. If it does, we are both lost.”
“Determination is just about all I have to work with,” he responded, eyes shifting momentarily to find hers. “Nor do I agree with you that you lack that same determination.”
“But I do, Wil. Allanon knew that when he chose you to be my protector. He knew, I think, how important your own determination would be to our survival. And without it, Wil, we would have been dead long ago.” She paused, her voice softening further until she could barely be heard. “But you are wrong when you say that I do not lack that same determination. I do. I always have.”
“I do not believe that.”
She caught his sudden glance down. “You do not know me as well as you think, Wil.”
He studied her face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are things about me . . .” She stopped. “I mean that I am not as strong as I would like to be—not as courageous, not even as dependable as you. Remember, Wil, wh
en we began the journey from Havenstead? You did not think much of me then. I want you to know that I did not think much of me either.”
“Amberle, you were frightened. That does not . . .”
“Oh, I was frightened all right,” she interrupted quickly. “I am still frightened. My being frightened is the reason for everything that has happened.”
By the cell door, Eretria muttered angrily and sat back, eyeing the still tightly locked barrier. She glanced once at the Valeman and went back to work.
“What are you trying to tell me, Amberle?” Wil asked quietly.
Amberle shook her head slowly. “I suppose I am trying to work up enough courage to tell you the one thing that I have been unable to bring myself to tell you since we began this journey.” She stared back into the gloomy interior of their little cell. “I suppose I want to tell you now because I do not know if I will have another chance.”
“Then tell me,” he encouraged.
Her child’s face lifted. “The reason that I left Arborlon and did not continue as a Chosen in service to the Ellcrys was that I became so frightened of her that I could no longer bear even to be around her. That sounds foolish, I know, but hear me out, please. I have never told this to anyone. I think that my mother understood, but no one else ever has. I cannot blame them for that. I might have explained myself, but I chose not to. I felt that I could not tell anyone.”
She paused. “It was difficult for me once I had been chosen by her. I knew well enough the uniqueness of my selection. I knew that I was the first woman to be chosen in five hundred years, the first woman since the time of the Second War of the Races. I accepted that, though there were many who questioned it and questioned it openly. But I was the granddaughter of Eventine Elessedil; it was not then altogether strange that I should be chosen, I thought. And my family—especially my grandfather—were so proud.
“But the uniqueness of my selection went beyond the fact that I was a woman, I discovered. From the first day of my service, it was different for me from what it was for my companion Chosen. The Ellcrys, it was well known, seldom spoke to anyone. It was virtually unheard of for her to converse with her Chosen after the time of their selection, save in very rare instances. Even then, a conversation with her might take place once during the entire time of a Chosen’s service. But from the first day forward, she spoke to me—not once or twice, but every day; not in passing, not in brief, but at length and with purpose. Always, I was alone; the others were never there. She would tell me when to come, and I would do so, of course. I was honored beyond belief; I was special to her, more special than anyone had ever been, and I took great pride in that.”
She shook her head at the memory. “It was wonderful at first. She told me things that no one else knew, secrets of the land and the life upon it that had been lost to the races for centuries—lost or forgotten. She told me of the Great Wars, of the Race Wars, of the birth of the Four Lands and their peoples, of all that had been since the beginning of the new world. She told me something of what the old world had been like, though her memory failed her as she went back in time. Some of what she told me, I did not understand. But I understood much. I understood what she told me of growing things, of planting and nurturing. That was her gift to me, the ability to make things grow. It was a beautiful gift. And the talks were magical—just being able to hear about all those wonderful things.
“That was at first. That was when I had just begun my service and the talks were so new and exciting that I accepted what was happening without question. But soon something very unpleasant began to take place. This will sound odd, Wil, but I began to lose myself in her. I began to lose all sense of who I was. I wasn’t me anymore; I was an extension of her. I still do not know if that was intentional on her part or merely the natural result of our close relationship. At the time, I believed it intentional. I grew frightened of what was happening to me—frightened and then angry. Was I expected as a Chosen to forgo my own personality, my own identity, in order to satisfy her needs? I was being toyed with, I felt; I was being used. It was wrong.
“The rest of the Chosen began to see a change in me. They began to suspect, I think, that there was something different about my relationship with the Ellcrys. I felt them avoiding me; I felt them watching. All the while, I was losing myself in her—a little more of me gone with every day. I was determined to stop it. I began avoiding her as the other Chosen avoided me. I refused to go to her when she asked; I sent another in my stead. When she asked me what was wrong, I would not tell her. I was frightened of her; I was ashamed of myself; I was angry at the whole situation.”
Her mouth tightened. “At last I decided that the real problem was that I was never meant to be a Chosen. I did not seem able to cope with the responsibility, to understand what was expected of me. She had done something for me that she had done for no other Chosen—a wondrous, marvelous thing—and I could not accept it. It was wrong that I should feel this way; none of the others would have reacted as I had. My selection as a Chosen had been a mistake.
“So, I left, Wil, barely a month after my choosing. I told my mother and my grandfather that I was leaving, that I could no longer continue to serve. I did not tell them why. I could not bring myself to do that. Failing as a Chosen was bad enough. But to fail because she had made demands on me that anyone else would have been pleased to meet—no. I could admit to myself what had happened between the Ellcrys and me, but I could not admit it to anyone else. My mother seemed to understand. My grandfather did not. There were harsh words exchanged that left us both bitter. I went out of Arborlon disgraced in my own eyes as well as in the eyes of my family and my people, determined that I would not come back again. I swore an Elven vow of outland service; I would make my home in one of the other lands and teach what I knew of the care and preservation of the earth and her life. I traveled until I found Havenstead. That became my home.”
There were tears in her eyes. “But I was wrong. I can say that now—I must say it. I walked away from a responsibility that was mine. I walked away from my fears and my frustrations. I disappointed everyone and in the end, I left my companion Chosen to die without me.”
“You judge yourself too harshly,” Wil admonished her.
“Do I?” Her mouth twisted. “I am afraid that I do not judge myself harshly enough. If I had remained in Arborlon, perhaps the Ellcrys would have spoken sooner of her dying. I was the one to whom she had spoken before—not the others. They did not even realize what had taken place. She might have spoken to me, soon enough that the Bloodfire could have been found and the seed planted before the Forbidding began to crumble and the Demons to break through. Don’t you see, Wil? If that is so, then all the Elven dead must be on my conscience.”
“It is equally possible,” the Valeman pointed out, “that had you not gone out from Arborlon, but remained as you suggest, the warning from the Ellcrys would have come no sooner than it did. Then you would lie dead with the others and be of no use whatsoever to the Elves still living.”
“You are asking me to justify my actions through the convenience of hindsight.”
He shook his head. “I am asking you not to use hindsight to second-guess what is past. Perhaps it was intended that matters should work out the way they have. You cannot know.” His voice hardened. “Now listen to me a minute. Suppose that the Ellcrys had decided to select another of your companion Chosen as the one to whom she would speak. Would that Chosen have reacted any differently from the way you did to the experience? Would another have been immune to the emotions that affected you? I do not think so, Amberle. I know you. Maybe I know you better than anyone, after what we have been through. You have strength of character, you have conviction and, despite what you say, you have determination.”
He took her chin in his hand and held it. “I do not know anyone—anyone, Amberle—who would have weathered this journey and all its perils any better than you have. I think that it is time for me to tell you what you are so fond of tell
ing me. Believe in yourself. Stop doubting. Stop second-guessing. Just believe. Put a little trust in yourself. Amberle, you merit that trust.”
She was crying openly, silently. “I do care for you.”
“And I for you.” He kissed her forehead, no longer doubting. “Very much.”
She lowered her head against his shoulder, and he held her. When she looked up at him again, the tears were gone.
“I want you to promise me something,” she told him.
“All right.”
“I want you to promise me that you will make certain that I see this quest through to its conclusion—that I do not falter, that I do not stray, that I do not fail to do what I came to do. Be my strength and my conscience. Promise me.”
He smiled gently. “I promise.”
“I am still afraid,” she confessed softly.
At the door to their cell, Eretria stood up. “Healer!”
Wil scrambled to his feet, Amberle with him, and together they hurried over to join the Rover girl. Her black eyes danced. Wordlessly she slipped the metal rod from the keyhole and returned it to her boot. Then with a wink at the Valeman, she grasped the iron bars to the cell door and pulled. The door swung silently open.
Wil Ohmsford gave her a triumphant grin. Now if they could only find Wisp.
XLV
They found him almost immediately. They had left the cell, moved to the bottom of the stairway, and were peering upward tentatively into the gloom of the passageway when they heard the sound of approaching footfalls. Quickly, Wil motioned Eretria to one side of the passage opening, while drawing Amberle back against the other. Flattened against the stone, they waited expectantly as the footsteps drew closer, a light, familiar scuttling sound that Wil recognized at once.
Seconds later, Wisp’s wizened face poked out of the darkness of the passage.
“Pretty one, hello, hello. Talk with Wisp? . . .”
Wil’s hand latched firmly onto his neck. Wisp gasped in fright, struggling madly to break free as the Valeman lifted him clear of the floor.
