Terry Brooks: Bloodfire Quest

They passed down pathways that skirted the city proper, avoiding the main roadways, the palace, the Gardens of Life, everything that might bring them into contact with anyone who would want to stop them and talk. They used the dawn as a shield, keeping to the shadowy, less traveled byways until they had reached the cottage at the edge of the gardens where the Chosen records were housed.

There was no one inside when they entered. The Chosen were performing the ritual dawn greeting, a welcoming of the Ellcrys to the new day. They would be missing Arling, but several had already seen her fleeing, and they would not come looking for her until their duties as Chosen were fulfilled. The sisters and Cymrian had at least several hours to complete their search.

Aphen had never examined the Chosen records. These were unofficial writings that belonged solely to the order and consisted of everything from personal diaries to catalogs and lists of those who had served. Even Arling, who had never had reason to consult them, wasn’t certain what they contained. But she knew where they were kept and how to open their keyless locks, and she went to them immediately upon entering the cottage and brought them out for her sister and Cymrian to examine with her.

Together they sat down at the communal dining table and began to read backward through the paperwork, beginning by searching for references to Amberle Elessedil, the last Chosen to become an Ellcrys. Most of the serious record keeping had begun with her transformation, hundreds of years ago. If there was anything to be found, it would most likely be found there.

As she perused the records, Aphenglow was consumed by a fresh wave of despair. Having come to terms with losing both Bombax and Paranor—and needing to seek out the rest of the Druids to let them know of it—she was now sidetracked by the possibility of another, even more terrible loss. She felt pulled two ways at once, and the combination generated an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. Dealing with one only made her more certain she should be dealing with the other, and she felt as if the fabric of the world had been pulled apart beneath her and she had been left hanging in midair, unable to move and waiting to fall.

She forced herself to read the diaries—still more diaries!—in their entirety, hating every minute she was giving up to do this. She was searching, but what was she searching for? What was it she expected to discover that would change anything? Something more about Aleia Omarosian, which she had once intended to seek out in these pages? How would that help? It all seemed so futile.

“Here,” Cymrian said suddenly. “Read this.”

She had no idea how much time had passed. But when he handed her the logbook he had been reading, she took it and began to read aloud.

After resuming her role as a Chosen in service to the Ellcrys and thereafter accepting her mission to carry the seed of the tree to the Bloodfire, Amberle Elessedil left Arborlon in the company of the Valeman Wil Ohmsford and a contingent of Elven Hunters under the command of Captain of the Home Guard Crispin Islanbor. Traveling south toward the Wilderun, they were tracked and set upon by a demon that had broken free of the Forbidding, and all were killed but the Chosen and the Valeman.

Within the Wilderun, the Chosen immersed the seed of the Ellcrys in the Bloodfire as she had been commanded to do by the Ellcrys, and thereby quickened the process of transformation. The demon found them engaged in the process, but was killed by the Valeman. On returning to Arborlon, the Chosen found the city besieged by demon hordes, but completed the transformation and restored the wall of the Forbidding in time to save the city and its Elves.

Written and recorded in the days immediately following the death of the Elven King Eventine Elessedil. Peace and long life be ours now and forever.

There was no signature and no indication of who had made the entry.

“That’s all?” she asked, glancing at Cymrian. “Isn’t there anything more of this business?”

“Only records compiled from various sources of what happened during some of the preceding centuries. I didn’t read them all. That was the last entry, the only one dealing with Amberle Elessedil. There’s more. About her childhood, her family, her choosing, her …”

He gestured at the logbook. “Why don’t you study it for yourself? I only wanted you to read the last part first because there doesn’t appear to be any mention of where the Bloodfire can be found.”

While the other two went back to searching the remainder of the records, Aphenglow did as Cymrian had suggested. What she found was either disturbing or heartening, depending on your point of view. Amberle had begun communicating with the Ellcrys early on in her service, very much like Arling. As a consequence of what she had begun to understand from the tree, she had rejected her choosing and had fled Arborlon for the wilds of the Eastland, where she had remained until the Druid Allanon had found and persuaded her to return to her Elven homeland. But the implication of what this must have meant to the young girl—though not expressly stated—was heart wrenching. She had given up everything, lost everything, in order to fulfill her service as a Chosen. It was impossible not to wonder whether Amberle had ever been able to come to terms with her fate in a way that provided her peace of mind.

Aphen looked up, gazing at Arlingfant, barely able to stop the tears from coming as she envisioned this fate for her sister. She closed the book and set it aside. There would be plenty of time later for Arling to read it.

She picked up a fresh logbook, one compiled more recently, but one that had exhumed bits and pieces of records from the times before the destruction of the Old World. It was the third of three volumes, and she dug around until she found the first and second, as well, and began reading the former. It was a mess. There were various references to the Chosen and their service, but they were haphazard and there was a noticeable lack of continuity. Obviously, much had been omitted or lost from the chronology, leaving gaps of dozens of years. She read through it all dutifully, one volume after another. But there was nothing personal, no stories that would help explain why one Chosen was selected and another was not.

Nor were there any stories of those who had become transformed into an Ellcrys in the years before Amberle Elessedil.

Aphenglow set the books aside with a sigh. Neither Arling nor Cymrian had said a word in some time, so she knew they had failed to unearth anything useful, either. Perhaps this had been a bad idea. What they had discovered of Amberle Elessedil was of no help at all in deciding what to do about Arling. It was one thing to promise her sister that she would help her find a way through this. It was another to actually make that happen.

She was shoveling the stack of books, diaries, and loose-leaf notes closest to her back into a pile when she caught sight of a slim, leather-bound booklet bound in copper that had oxidized to a dark greenish color. She pulled it free and read the letters carved into the leather front of the casing.

Holding her breath, she opened the cover and skimmed the pages quickly. It was a recitation of all the Chosen who had become the Ellcrys since back in the time of Faerie when she was first created. Names, dates of birth and death and rebirth, family and history, the ways in which they were selected, and how they came to accept their choosing.

She went quickly to the last entry. There was Amberle Elessedil’s name along with everything about her life.

She skipped back to the front and caught her breath in shock and disbelief.

The first name entered was printed in bold, black letters: