by Terry Brooks
She saw the confusion in Wren’s eyes and smiled. “I know, child. I speak in riddles. You have been very patient with me, and it has not been easy. You are anxious to hear of your mother and to discover why it is that you are here. Very well.”
The smile softened. “Three generations before my own birth, while the Elves still lived within the Westland, several members of the Ohmsford family, direct descendants of Jair Ohmsford, decided to migrate to Arborlon. Their decision, as I understand it, was prompted by the encroachment of the Federation on Southland villages like Shady Vale and the beginnings of the witch hunt to suppress magic. There were three of these Ohmsfords, and they brought with them the Elfstones. One died childless. Two married, but when the Elves chose to disappear only one of the two went with them. The second, I was told, a man, returned to Shady Vale with his wife. That would have been Par and Coll Ohmsfords’ great-grandparents. The Ohmsford who remained was a woman, and she kept with her the Elfstones.”
Ellenroh paused. “The Elfstones, Wren, as you know, were formed in the beginning by Elven magic and could be used only by those with Elven blood. The Elven blood had been bred out of the Ohmsfords in the years since the death of Brin and Jair, and they were of no particular use to those Ohmsfords who kept custody of them. They decided therefore at some point and by mutual agreement that the Stones belonged back with the people who had made them—or, more properly, I suppose, with their descendants. So when the three who came from Shady Vale married and began their new lives, it was natural enough for them to decide that the Elfstones, a trust to the Ohmsford family from Allanon since the days of their ancestor Shea, should remain with the Elves no matter what became of them personally.
“In any case, the Elfstones disappeared when the Elves did, and I suppose I need to say a word or two about that.” She shook her head, remembering. “Our people had been receding farther into the Westland forests for years. They had become increasingly isolated from the other Races as the Federation expansion worked its way north. Some of that was their own doing, but an equal share was the result of a growing belief, fostered by the Federation’s Coalition Council, that the Elves were different and that different was not good. The Elves, after all, were the descendants of faerie people and not really human. The Elves were the makers of the magic that had shaped the world since the advent of the First Council at Paranor, and no one had ever much trusted either the magic or its users. When the things you call Shadowen began to appear—there was no name for them then—the Federation was quick to place the blame for the sickening of the land on the Elves. After all, that was where the magic had originated, and wasn’t it magic that was causing all the problems? If not, why were the Elves and their homeland not affected? It all multiplied as such things do until finally our people had had enough. The choice was simple. Either stand up to the Federation, which meant giving them the war they were so actively seeking, or find a way to sidestep them completely. War was not an attractive prospect. The Elves would stand virtually alone against the strongest army in the Four Lands. Callahorn had already been absorbed and the Free Corps disbanded, the Trolls were as unpredictably tribal as ever, and the Dwarves were hesitant to commit.
“So the Elves decided simply to leave—to migrate to a new territory, resettle, and wait the Federation out. This decision wasn’t arrived at easily; there were many who wanted to stand and fight, an equal number who thought it better to wait and see. After all, this was their homeland they were being asked to abandon, the birthplace of Elves since the cataclysm of the Great Wars. But, in the end, after much time and deliberation, it was agreed that the best choice was to leave. The Elves had survived moves before. They had established new homelands. They had perfected the art of seeming to disappear while in fact still being there.”
She sighed. “It was so long ago, Wren, and I wasn’t there. I can’t be certain now what their motives were. The move began a slow gathering together of Elves from every corner of the Westland so that villages simply ceased to exist. Meanwhile, the Wing Riders found this island, and it suited the needs of the Land Elves perfectly. Morrowindl. When it was settled that this is where they would come, they chose a time and just disappear.”
She seemed to deliberate as to whether to explain further, then shook her head. “Enough of what brought us here. As I said, one among the Ohmsfords stayed. Two generations passed with children being born, and then my mother married the King of the Elessedils, and the Ohmsford and Elessedil families merged. I was born and my brother Asheron after me. My brother was chosen to be king, but he was killed by the demons—one of the first to die. I became queen then instead. I married and your mother was born, Alleyne, my only child. Eventually the demons killed my husband as well. Alleyne was all I had left.”
“My mother,” Wren echoed. “What was she like?”
The queen smiled anew. “There was no one like her. She was smart, willful, pretty. She believed she could do anything—some part of her wanted to try, at least.” She clasped her hands and the smile faded. “She met a Wing Rider and chose him for her husband. I didn’t think it a good idea—the Sky Elves have never really bonded with us—but what I thought didn’t really matter, of course. This was nearly twenty years ago, and it was a dangerous time. The demons were everywhere and growing stronger. We were being forced back into the city. Contact with the outside world was becoming difficult.
“Shortly after she was married, Alleyne became pregnant with you. That was when Eowen told me of her vision.” She glanced at the other woman, who sat watching impassively, green eyes huge and depthless. “Eowen is a seer, Wren, perhaps the best that ever was. She was my playmate and confidante when I was a child, even before she knew she bad the power. She has been with me ever since, advising and guiding me. I told you that she was the reason you are here. When Alleyne became pregnant, Eowen warned me that if my daughter did not leave Morrowindl before you were born, both of you would die. She had seen it in a vision. She told me as well that Alleyne could never return, but that one day you must and that your coming would save the Elves.”
She took a deep breath. “I know. I felt as you must now. How can this be true? I did not want Alleyne to go. But I knew that Eowen’s visions were never wrong. So I summoned Alleyne and had Eowen repeat what she had told to me. Alleyne did not hesitate, although I know she was inwardly reluctant. She said she would go, that she would see to it that the baby was kept safe. She never mentioned herself. That was your mother. I still had possession of the Elfstones, passed down to me through the union of my parents. I gave them to Alleyne to keep her safe, first changing their appearance with a bit of my own magic to see to it that they would not be immediately recognizable or appear to have any value.
“Alleyne was to return to the Westland with her husband. She was to journey from there to Shady Vale and reestablish contact with the descendants of the Ohmsfords who had gone back when the Elves had come to Morrowindl. I never knew if she did. She disappeared from my life for nearly three years. Eowen could only tell me that she—and you—were safe.
“Then, a little more than fifteen years ago now, Alleyne decided to return. I don’t know what prompted that decision, only that she came. She gave you the leather bag with the Elfstones, placed you in the care of the Ohmsfords in Shady Vale, and flew back with her husband to us.”
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 s
he 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.
She lay back, drowsy still, taking time to gather her thoughts. She had not seen much of the room the night before. It had been dark, and Eowen had used only candlelight to guide her. She had collapsed into the down-stuffed bed and been asleep almost immediately.
She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to connect what she was seeing to what she remembered, this dreamlike, translucent present to the harsh, forbidding past. Had it all been real—the search to find where the Elves had gone, the flight to Morrowindl, the trek through the In Ju, the climb up Blackledge, the march to the Rowen and then Arborlon? Lying there as she was, swathed in sunlight and soft sheets, she found it hard to believe so. Her memory of what lay without the city’s walls—the darkness and fire and haze, the monsters that came from everywhere and knew only how to destroy—seemed dim and far away.
Her eyes blinked open angrily, and she forced herself to remember. Events paraded before her, vivid and harsh. She saw Garth as he stood with her against the Shadowen at the edge of the cliffs above the Blue Divide. She pictured once more how it had been that first night on the beach when Tiger and Spirit had left them. She thought of Stresa and Faun, forced herself to remember how they looked and talked and acted, and what they had endured in helping her travel through this monstrous world, friends who had helped her only to be left behind.
Thinking of the Splinterscat and the Tree Squeak was what finally brought her awake. She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked slowly around. She was here, she assured herself, in Arborlon, in the palace of the Elf Queen, in the home of Ellenroh Elessedil, her grandmother. She took a deep breath, wrestling with the idea, working to make it be real. It was, of course—yet at the same time it didn’t yet seem so. It was too new, she supposed. She had come looking to find the truth about her parents; she could not have guessed the truth would prove so startling.
She remembered what she had said to herself when Cogline had first approached her about the dreams: What she learned by agreeing to travel to the Hadeshorn to speak with Allanon might well change her life.
She could not have imagined how much.
It both intrigued and frightened her. So much had happened to bring her to Morrowindl and the Elves, and now she was faced with confronting a world and a people she did not really know or understand. She had discovered last night just how difficult things might prove to be. If even her own grandmother would choose to lie to her, how much trust could she put in any of the others? It rankled still that there were secrets being kept from her. She had been sent to the Elves for a purpose, but she still didn’t know what it was. Ellenroh, if she knew, wasn’t saying—at least not yet. And she wasn’t saying anything about the demons either—only that they hadn’t come through the Forbidding and that the Ellcrys hadn’t failed. But they had come from somewhere, and the queen knew where that was, Wren was certain. She knew a lot of things she wasn’t telling.
Secrets—there was that word again.
Secrets.
She let the matter drop with a shake of her head. The queen was her grandmother, the last of her family, the giver of life to her mother, and a woman of accomplishment and beauty and responsibility and love. Wren shook her head. She could not bring herself to think ill of Ellenroh Elessedil. She could not disparage her. She was too like her, perhaps—physically, emotionally, and in word and thought and act. She had seen it for herself last night; she had felt it in their conversation, in the glances they exchanged, and in the way they responded to each other.
She sighed. It was best that she do as she had promised, that she wait and see.
After a time, she rose and walked to the door that led to the adjoining chamber. Almost immediately the door opened and Garth was there. He was shirtless, his muscled arms and torso wrapped in bandages, and his dark bearded face cut and bruised. Despite the impressive array of injuries, the big Rover looked rested and fit. When she beckoned him in, he reached back into his own room for a tunic and hastily slipped it on. The clothes that had been provided him were too small and made him look decidedly outsized. She hid her smile as they moved over to sit on a bench by the lace-curtained window,
happy just to see him again, taking comfort from his familiar presence.
What have you learned? he signed.
She let him see her smile now. Good, old, dependable Garth—right to the point every time. She repeated her previous night’s conversation with the queen, relating what she had been told of the history of the Elessedils and Ohmsfords and of her mother and father. She did not voice her suspicion that Ellenroh was shading the truth about the demons. She wanted to keep that to herself for now, hoping that given a little time her grandmother would choose to confide in her.
Nevertheless, she wanted Garth’s opinion about the queen.
“What did you notice about my grandmother that I missed?” she asked him, fingers translating as she spoke.
Garth smiled faintly at the implication that she had missed anything. His response was quick. She is frightened.
“Frightened?” Wren had indeed missed that. “What do you think frightens her?”
Difficult to say. Something that she knows and we don’t, I would guess. She is very careful with what she says and how she says it. You saw as much.
He paused. She may be frightened for you, Wren.
“Because my mother was killed by coming back here, and now I am at risk as well? But I was supposed to return according to Eowen’s vision. They have been expecting me. And what do you make of this vision anyway? How am I supposed to save the Elves, Garth? Doesn’t that seem silly to you? After all, it was all we could do just to stay alive long enough to reach the city. I don’t see what difference my being here can make.”
Garth shrugged. Keep your eyes and ears open, Rover girl. That’s how you learn things.
He smiled, and Wren smiled in return.
