by Terry Brooks
“Do you mind if I ask you something?” she wanted to know.
He grinned. “How do I know if I mind, if I don’t know what it is you plan to ask?”
“Well, you needn’t answer if you don’t wish to—but this has been bothering me ever since we left the Rover camp.”
“In that case, ask.”
The small clearing in which they sat was very dark, the pale light of the moon and stars screened by the tangle of tree limbs that interlocked above them, and she moved close to him so that she could see his face clearly.
“Will you be honest with me?” Her eyes fixed on his.
“I will.”
“When you used the Elfstones, did you …?” She hesitated, as if not sure of the word she wanted. “Did you … hurt yourself?”
He stared at her, a sudden premonition stirring at the back of his mind, undefined still, but there nevertheless.
“That is a curious question.”
“I know.” She nodded, and a faint smile escaped before her face grew serious once more. “I cannot explain it, really—it was a feeling I had when I watched you. At first you could not seem to control the Elfstones. You held them up and nothing happened, although it was clear enough that you were trying to use their power to stop the Demon. Then, when they did at last come alive, there was a change in you—a change that showed in your face … almost like pain.”
The Valeman was nodding slowly. He remembered now, and the memory was not pleasant. After it had happened, he had blocked it from his mind—blocked it without thinking, almost as a reflex action. Even now, he did not know why. It was not until this moment, when she recalled it to him, that he remembered what he had felt.
There was concern mirrored in the Elven girl’s eyes as he stared into them now. “If you do not wish …” she began quickly.
“No.” His voice was quiet, firm. He shook his head slowly. “No. I do not know if I understand it myself, though—but it would help to talk about it, I think.”
He took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. “There was a block somewhere within me. I do not know what it was or what caused it, but it was there and it would not let me use the Stones. I could not seem to pass around it or go through it.” He shook his head again. “Then the Demon was almost on top of me, and you and Eretria were both there, and all of us were going to die, and I somehow smashed the block—smashed it apart and reached down into the Stones …”
He paused. “There was no pain, but a sense of something unpleasant happening within me, something … I don’t know how to describe it. A sense of having done something wrong—yet there was nothing wrong in what I did.”
“The wrong may have been to yourself,” she murmured after a moment’s consideration. “Perhaps the Elven magic is harmful to you in some way.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “Yet my grandfather never spoke of this. Can it be that the magic did not affect him, yet does affect me? Why would it be different with me?”
She shook her head doubtfully. “Elven magic causes different reactions in different people. It has always been so. It is a magic born of the spirit, and the spirit is never a constant.”
“But my grandfather and I are so much alike—even more so than my father and I were.” Wil pondered. “Kindred spirits, you might say—and not so diverse as to cause this … this difference in our use of the Stones. Surely he would have felt this as well—and he would have told me.”
Amberle’s hand reached for his arm, holding it firmly.
“I do not think you should use the Elfstones again.”
He smiled. “Even to protect you?”
He said it lightly, but she did not return the smile. There was nothing humorous in this to her.
“I would not be the cause of any injury to you, Healer,” she announced quietly. “It was not my choice that brought you on this journey, and I feel badly that you are here at all. But since you are here, I will speak my mind. Elven magic is nothing to be toyed with; it can prove to be more dangerous than the evil it was created to protect against. Our histories have left us with that warning, if little else. The magic may act against not only the body, but the spirit as well. Wounds of the body may be treated. But what of wounds to the spirit? How will you treat them, Healer?”
She bent close. “No one is worth such injury—no one. Especially me.”
Wil stared at her silently for a moment, startled to see tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. He reached out his hand to cover hers.
“We shall be careful for each other,” he promised. He tried a quick smile. “Maybe we won’t have need of the Stones again.”
The look she gave him in response suggested that she did not believe a word of it.
It was midnight when the howl of the Demon-wolves rose out of the stillness of the grasslands, shrill, hungry, and filled with hatred. Wil and Amberle came awake at once, the contentment of their sleep twisted with fear. For an instant they did not move, their bodies pushed upright from beneath the blankets, their eyes wide and staring as they sought each other out in the dark. The cry died, echoed in the silence that followed, then rose again, piercing and high. This time neither Valeman nor Elven girl hesitated. Without a word, both were on their feet, pulling on their boots, slipping their riding cloaks about their shoulders. In seconds they had saddled Artaq, mounted, and were riding north once more.
They moved ahead at a steady trot, keeping to the open plains where the way was clear and lit by moon and stars, following the line of the forestland. Cool night air rushed over them as they rode, damp with moisture gathering into morning dew, filled with the smells of the dark. Behind them, the howling continued, far back still, somewhere above the line of the Mermidon. The Demon-wolves were searching. The trail they followed was a day old; they did not realize yet how close they actually were to their prey.
Artaq ran smoothly, his great body working effortlessly as he raced across the grasslands, little more than another shadow slipping through the summer night. He had gotten most of the rest he needed for this run and he would not be winded quickly. Wil rated him carefully, keeping the pace steady, not letting the black overextend himself. It was early still; the chase had just begun. Their pursuers would discover soon enough the truth of matters. The Valeman was angry with himself; he had not believed they could be found again so quickly. The Elfstones must have revealed their presence in the Tirfing. The Demon-wolves had come for the Valeman and the Elven girl immediately, tracked them north, and now flushed them from the Westland forests. Once they found the campsite their quarry had abandoned, the wolves would come after them with a vengeance. The Demons would run them until they were caught.
They rode on for better than an hour without sighting the valley, the howling trailing after them as they fled. It was answered now by cries that rose out of the grasslands below the Dragon’s Teeth and the plains to the north. Wil felt his heart sink. The wolves had them ringed. Only the Westland had been left open to them. He wondered suddenly if that way, too, might be closed. He remembered how it had been at the Silver River. The Valley of Rhenn might be a trap as well. Perhaps they were purposely being driven into the valley and it was there that the Demons planned to finish them. Yet what other choice was left them but to take that chance?
Moments later the howls behind them rose in a frenzy. The Demon-wolves had found their camp.
Wil put Artaq into a full gallop. The Demons would come quickly now, certain that their prey was close ahead, knowing that they could be caught. Cries north and east of them sounded in answer to those behind, shrill and ragged as the hunters began to run. Artaq was sweating, his head extended forward, his ears laid back. The grasslands thinned into barren scrub; they had crossed into the Streleheim. The Valley of Rhenn could not be far. Wil stretched himself low over Artaq’s straining neck and urged the gallant horse onward.
It was during the third hour of the chase, when the grasslands of Callahorn had been left far behind and the earth beneath Artaq’s pou
nding hooves had gone hard and cracked, when the howls of the Demon-wolves had drawn so near that it seemed the huge gray forms must spring into view at any moment, when wind and dust had blinded them and sweat from fear had streaked their bodies beneath their tangled clothes, that Valeman and Elven girl at last caught sight of the broken ridges that formed the mouth of the Valley of Rhenn. They rose out of the flatlands below the Elven forests, rock and scrub black against the night sky. The riders turned toward the pass without slowing. Artaq’s flanks were heaving, his nostrils flaring; sweat and lather coated his sleek black body. He stretched out further, racing through the darkness, the two hunched forms on his back holding on desperately.
In seconds, the pass was before them, craggy ridges looming up on either side. Down into the narrow slot of the valley thundered the black. Wil peered frantically through tear-filled eyes as the wind ripped across his face, searching for the Demons that he had feared would be waiting to trap them. Astonishingly, he found none. They were alone in the valley. He felt a quick sense of exhilaration. They were going to escape! Their pursuers were too far back to catch them before they were safely into the Westland forests, into the country of the Elven. By then there would be help…
The incomplete thought hung suspended in his mind, repeating itself over and over in cadence with the sound of Artaq’s pounding hooves as the black raced along the floor of the valley. Wil went cold. What was he thinking? There would be no help for them. No one even knew they were coming—no one but Allanon, and the Druid was gone. Help? What help did he expect? Already the Demons had gone into the very heart of the city of Arborlon to destroy the Chosen. What did he think would stop them from trailing one incredibly foolish Valeman and an unarmed Elven girl into forestland miles from anything? All he had succeeded in doing in gaining the Valley of Rhenn was to take Artaq out of the open grasslands, where he could run, into the confinement of the woods, where he could not. There was nothing there that would prevent the wolves from coming after them—creatures that were quicker and more agile than they, better able to penetrate the maze of trees and brush, better able to pursue than they would be able to flee. He wanted to scream what he was feeling. Stupid! His shortsightedness had taken away their one slim chance of escape. He had been so concerned with what they had been running from that he had forgotten to consider what they had been running into. They were not going to escape at all. They would be caught; they would be killed. It was his fault. He had done this to them.
He must do something.
His mind raced, searching desperately. He had only one weapon left.
The Elfstones.
Then Amberle screamed. The Valeman jerked about, following the Elven girl’s rigid arm as it pointed skyward.
Through the mouth of the valley flew a monstrous black creature with leathered wings that spanned the line of the ridges and a head hooked and bent like some twisted limb. Shrieking, it swept out of the Streleheim into the crease of the valley and came for them. Wil had never seen anything so huge. He yelled frantically to Artaq, but the black had nothing left to give—he was running now on spirit alone. A hundred yards away loomed the draw that marked the far pass. Beyond lay woods that would hide them from this nightmare, woods into which a thing of such size could not possibly go. All they needed was a few seconds more.
The creature dove for them. It seemed to fall toward them like some massive rock, plummeting downward out of the night. Wil Ohmsford saw it come and glimpsed momentarily the rider it bore, a thing vaguely manlike, yet humped and misshapen, its eyes red against the black of its face. The eyes seemed to transfix him, and he felt his courage melt.
For an instant he thought they were finished. But then, with a final lunge, Artaq gained the far pass, broke clear of the high ridges, and plunged into the darkness of the trees.
Down a narrow rutted earthen trail the big horse thundered, barely slowing as his sleek body dodged and twisted through the tangle of trunks and heavy brush. Wil and Amberle hung on desperately, limbs and vines whipping across them, threatening to unseat them at every turn. Wil tried to slow the black, but Artaq had taken the bit between his teeth. The Valeman had lost control of him entirely. He was running his own race now.
In seconds the riders lost all sense of direction, confused by the forest dark that had closed about them and by the winding trail. Although he could no longer hear the howl of the Demon-wolves nor the shriek of that flying monster, Wil was terrified that they might inadvertently become turned about and end up traveling back toward the very creatures from whom they sought to escape. He sawed angrily on the reins in an effort to free the bit, but Artaq held on firmly.
The Valeman had just about given up hope of ever stopping the black when the big horse abruptly slowed and then stopped altogether. Standing in the middle of the forest trail, sides heaving, nostrils flaring, he lowered his finely shaped head and nickered softly. A long moment of silence followed. Wil and Amberle glanced at one another questioningly.
Then a tall, black form appeared right in front of them, slipping from the forest night without a sound. It happened so quickly that Wil did not even have time to think to reach for the Elfstones. The dark figure stepped forward, one hand touching gently Artaq’s sweating neck, slowly stroking the satin skin. From out of the shadow of a hooded cloak, his face lifted to the light.
It was Allanon.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly, reaching up to take Amberle from the saddle and lower her carefully to the ground.
The Elven girl nodded wordlessly, astonishment filling her sea-green eyes—astonishment, and a touch of anger. The Druid frowned, then turned to aid Wil, but the Valeman was already scrambling down from Artaq’s back.
“We thought you dead!” he burst out in disbelief.
“It seems that someone is forever declaring me dead before the fact,” the mystic remarked somewhat petulantly. “As you can see, I am quite …”
“Allanon, we have got to get out of here.” Wil was already glancing anxiously over his shoulder. His words tripped over one another in his haste to get them out. “The Demon-wolves chased us north all the way from the Mermidon, and there’s a black, flying thing that …”
“Wil, slow down.”
“… almost caught us in the valley, bigger than anything I’ve ever …”
“Wil!”
Wil Ohmsford went silent. Allanon shook his head reprovingly.
“Would you please let me get a word in edgewise?” The Valeman flushed and nodded. “Thank you. First of all, you are quite safe now. The Demons no longer pursue you. The one who leads them can sense my presence. He is wary of me and has turned back.”
The Valeman looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure. No one has followed you. Now come over here with me, both of you, and sit down.”
He led them to a fallen log that lay next to the trail, and the Valeman and Elven girl seated themselves wearily. Allanon remained standing.
“We must go on to Arborlon tonight,” he advised them. “But we can spare a few moments to rest before we leave.”
“How did you get here?” Wil asked him.
“I might ask you the same question.” The big man hunched down on one knee, drawing the black robes close about him. “Do you understand what happened to you at the river?”
The Valeman nodded. “I think so.”
“It was the King of the Silver River,” Amberle interjected quietly. “We saw him; he spoke to us.”
“It was to Amberle that he spoke,” Wil corrected. “But what happened to you? Did he help you as well?”
Allanon shook his head. “I am afraid I did not even see him—only the light which enveloped and took you away. He is a reclusive and mysterious being, and he shows himself to very few. This time, he chose to appear to you. His reasons must remain his own, I suppose. In any case, his appearance caused considerable confusion among the Demons, and I took advantage of that confusion to make my own escape.”
He
paused. “Amberle, you said that he spoke with you. Do you recall what it was that he said?”
The Elven girl looked uneasy. “No, not exactly. It was like a dream. He said something about … joining.”
For an instant there was a flicker of understanding in the Druid’s dark eyes. But neither Wil nor Amberle saw it, and it disappeared at once.
“No matter.” The mystic brushed the incident aside casually. “He helped you when you needed help, and for that we are in his debt.”
“His debt, to be sure—but certainly not yours.” Amberle did not bother to disguise her anger. “Where have you been, Druid?”
Allanon seemed surprised. “Looking for you. Unfortunately, when he helped you, the King of the Silver River caused us to become separated. I knew you were safe, of course, but I did not know where you had been taken nor how to go about finding you again. I might have used magic, but that seemed unnecessarily risky. The one who leads these Demons who have broken through the Forbidding has power as great as my own—perhaps greater. Using magic might have led him to us both. So I chose instead to continue on toward Arborlon, searching for you as I went, believing that you would remember and follow accordingly the instructions I had given you. Because I was forced to go afoot—your gray, Wil, was lost in the battle—I was certain that you were ahead of me the entire time. It was not until you used the Elfstones that I realized I was mistaken.”
He shrugged. “By then I was almost to Arborlon. I started back at once, traveling south through the forestland, thinking that you would seek sanctuary by entering the woods below the Mermidon. Again, I was mistaken. When I heard the howling of the Demon-wolves, I realized that you were trying to reach the Valley of Rhenn. That brought me here.”
