Терри Брукс - The Elf Queen of Shannara

She wondered how much time was left to them. Even if they regained the Staff, it was still another two days to the beach. Would Tiger Ty be there waiting? How often had he promised he would come? Once a week, wasn’t it? What if a whole week must pass before he was scheduled to return? Would he see the volcano’s glare and sense the danger to them?

Or had he given up his vigil long ago, convinced that she had failed, that she had died like all the others and that there was no point in searching further?

She shook her head in stern admonishment. No, not Tiger Ty. She judged him a better man than that. He would not give up, she told herself. Not until there was no hope left.

“Phhffttt! We have to stop soon,” Stresa warned. “Hssstt. Find shelter before it grows any darker, before the Wisteron hunts!”

“A little farther,” Wren suggested hopefully.

They went on, but Gavilan Elessedil was not to be found. His ragged trail stretched before them, worming ahead into the In Ju, a line of bent and broken stalks and leaves disappearing into the shadows.

Finally, they quit. Stresa found shelter for them in the hollow stump of a banyan toppled by age and erosion, a massive trunk with entries through its base and a narrow cleft farther up. They blocked off the larger and set themselves to keep watch at the smaller. Nothing of any size could reach them. It was dark and close within their wood coffin and as dry as winter earth. Night descended, and they listened to the jungle’s hunters come awake, to the sounds of coughing roars, of sluggish passage, and of prey as it was caught and killed. They huddled back to back with Stresa hunched down before them, spikes extended back toward the faint light. They took turns standing guard, dozing because they were too tired to stay awake but too anxious to sleep. Faun lay cradled in Wren’s arms, as still as death. She stroked the little creature affectionately, wondering at how it could have survived in such a world. She thought of how much she hated Morrowindl. It was a thief that had stolen everything from her—the lives of her grandmother and her friends, the innocence she had harbored of the Elves and their history, the love and affection she had discovered for Gavilan, and the strength of will she had thought she would never lose. It was the loss of the latter that bothered her most, her confidence in who and what she was and in the certainty that she could determine her own fate. So much was gone, and Morrowindl, this once paradise made into a Shadowen nightmare, had taken it all. She tried to picture life beyond the island and failed. She could not think past escape, for escape was still uncertain, still a fate that hung in the balance. She remembered how once she had thought that traveling to find Allanon and speak with his shade might be the beginning of a great adventure. The memory was ashes in her mouth.

She slept for a time, dreamed of dark and terrible things, and came awake sweating and hot. At watch, she found her thoughts straying once again to Gavilan, to small memories of him—the way he had touched her, the feel of his mouth kissing hers, and the wonder he had invoked in her through nothing more than a chance remark or a passing glance. She smiled as she remembered. There was so much of him she had liked; she hurt for the loss of him. She wished she could bring him back to her and return him to the person he had been. She even wished she could find a way to make the magic do what nature could not—to change the past. It was foolish, senseless thinking, and it teased her mercilessly. Gavilan was lost to her. He had fallen prey to Morrowindl’s madness. He had killed Dal and stolen the Ruhk Staff. He had turned himself into something unspeakable. Gavilan Elessedil, the man she had been so attracted to and cared so much for, was no more.

At daybreak they rose and set out anew. They did not have to bother with breakfast because there was nothing left to eat. Their supplies were exhausted, those that hadn’t been lost or abandoned. There was a little water, but not more than enough for another day. While they traveled the In Ju, they would find nothing to sustain them. One more reason to get clear quickly.

Their search that day was over almost before it began. In less than an hour, Gavilan’s trail abruptly ended. They crested a ravine, slowed on Stresa’s warning hiss, and stopped. Below, amid the wreckage of small plants and grasses trampled almost flat in what must have been a frantic struggle, lay the shreds of one of the Wisteron’s webs.

Stresa eased down into the ravine, sniffed cautiously about, and climbed out again. The dark, bright eyes fixed on Wren. “Hsssttt. It has him, Wren Elessedil.”

She closed her eyes against the horrific vision the Splinterscat’s words evoked. “How long ago?”

“Ssspptt. Not long. Maybe six hours. Just after midnight, i would guess. The net snared the Elf Prince and held him until the Wisteron came. Rwwlll. The beast carried him away.”

“Where, Stresa?”

The other pricked his ears. “Its lair, I expect. It has one deep within a hollow at the In Ju’s center.”

She felt a new weariness steal through her. Of course, a lair—there would have to be. “Any sign of the Ruhk Staff?”

The Splinterscat shook his head. “Gone.”

So unless Gavilan had abandoned it—something he would never do—it was still with him. She shuddered in spite of her resolve. She was remembering her brief encounter with the Wisteron on her way in. She was remembering how just its passing had made her feel.

Poor, foolish Gavilan. There was no hope for him now.

She looked at the others, one by one. “We have to get the Ruhk Staff back. We can’t leave without it.”

“No, Lady Wren, we can’t,” Triss echoed, hard-eyed.

Garth stood, his great hands limp at his sides.

Stresa shook out his quills and his sharp-nosed face lifted to her own. “Rrwwll Wren of the Elves, I expected nothing less of you. Hssttt. But you will have to—sspppptt—use the Elf Magic if we are to survive. You will have to, against the Wisteron.”

“I know,” she whispered, and felt the last vestige of her old life drop away.

“Chhttt. Not that it will make any difference. Phhfftt. The Wisteron is—”

“Stresa,” she interrupted gently. “You needn’t come.”

The silence of the moment hung against the screen of the jungle. The Splinterscat sighed and nodded. “Phhfft. We have come this far together, haven’t we? No more talk. I will take you in.”

In the long, deep silence of Paranor’s endless night, in the limbo of her gray, changeless twilight, Walker Boh sat staring into space. His hand was closed into a fist on the table before him, his fingers locked like iron bands about the Black Elfstone. There was nothing more to do—no other options to consider, no further choices to uncover. He had thought everything through to the extent that it was possible to do so, and all that remained was to test the right and wrong of it.

“Perhaps you should take a little more time,” Cogline suggested gently.

The old man sat across from him, a frail, skeletal ghost nearly transparent where caught against the light. Increasingly so, Walker thought in despair. White, wispy hair scattered like dust motes from the wrinkled face and head, robes hung like laundry set to dry on a line, and eyes flickered in dull glimmerings from out of dark sockets. Cogline was fading away, disappearing into the past, returning with Paranor to the place from which it had been summoned. For Paranor would not remain within the world of men unless there was a Druid to tend it, and Walker Boh, chosen by time and fate to fill those dark robes, had yet to don them.

His eyes drifted over to Rumor. The moor cat slouched against the far wall of the study room in which they were settled, black body as faint and ethereal as the old man’s. He looked down at himself, fading as well, though not as quickly. In any event, he had a choice; he could leave if he chose, when he chose. Not so Cogline or Rumor, who were bound to the Keep for all eternity if Walker did not find a way to bring it back into the world of Men.