Brooks, Terry - Shannara Heritage 3 The Elf Queen of Shannar

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2024-12-07 0 0 600.29KB 332 页 5.9玖币
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torches bracketing road intersections and gates. It glowed
through breaks in the leafy branches of the ancient oak and
hickory where glassed lanterns lined the treelanes. Bits and pieces
of flickering light, the flames were like tiny creatures that the
night threatened to search out and consume.
Like ourselves, she thought.
Like the Elves.
Her gaze lifted, traveling beyond the buildings and walls of
the city to where Killeshan steamed.
Fire.
It glowed redly out of the volcano's ragged mouth, the glare
of its molten core reflected in the clouds of vog-volcanic ash-
that hung in sullen banks across the empty sky. Killeshan loomed
over them, vast and intractable, a phenomenon of nature that
no Elven magic could hope to withstand. For weeks now the
rumbling had sounded from deep within the earth, dissatisfied,
purposeful, a buildingup of pressure that would eventually de-
mand release.
For now, the lava burrowed and tunneled through cracks
and fissures in its walls and ran down into the waters of the
ocean in long, twisting ribbons that burned off the jungle and
the things that lived within it. One day soon now, she knew,
this secondary venting would not be enough, and Killeshan
would erupt in a conflagration that would destroy them all.
If any of them remained by then.
She stood at the edge of the Gardens of Life close to where
the Elicrys grew. The ancient tree lifted skyward as if to fight
through the vog and breathe the cleaner air that lay sealed
above. Silver branches glimmered faintly with the light of lan-
terns and torches; scarlet leaves reflected the volcano's darker
glow. Scatterings of fire danced in strange patterns through
breaks in the tree as if trying to form a picture. She watched
the images appear and fade, a mirror of her thoughts, and the
sadness she felt threatened to overwhelm her.
fine linen of her clothing. She was tall, her body angular and
long limbed. The bones of her face were prominent, shaping
features that were instantly recognizable. Her cheekbones were
high, her forehead broad, and her jaw sharp-edged and smooth
beneath her wide, thin mouth. Her skin was drawn tight against
her face, giving her a sculpted look. Flaxen hair tumbled to her
shoulders in thick, unruly curls. Her eyes were a strange, pierc-
ing blue and always seemed to be seeing things not immediately
apparent to others. She seemed much younger than her fifty-
odd years. When she smiled, which was often, she brought
smiles to the faces of others almost effortlessly.
She was not smiling now. It was late, well after midnight,
and her weariness was like a chain that would not let her go.
She could not sleep and had come to walk in the Gardens, to
listen to the night, to be alone with her thoughts, and to try to
find some small measure of peace. But peace was elusive, her
thoughts were small demons that taunted and teased, and the
night was a great, hungering black cloud that waited patiently
for the moment when it would at last extinguish the frail spark
of their lives.
Fire, again. Fire to give life and fire to snuff it out. The
image
whispered at her insidiously.
She turned abruptly and began walking through the Gar-
dens. Cort trailed behind her, a silent, invisible presence. If she
bothered to look for him, he would not be there. She could
picture him in her mind, a small, stocky youth with incredible
quickness and strength. He was one of the Home Guard, pro-
tectors of the Elven rulers, the weapons that defended them, the
lives that were given up to preserve their own. Cort was her
shadow, and if not Cort, then Dal. One or the other of them
was always there, keeping her safe. As she moved along the
pathway, her thoughts slipped rapidly, one to the next. She felt
the roughness of the ground through the thin lining of her slip-
the jungles and swamps, that pressed up against the Keel, wait
ing.
The monsters.
The trail she followed ended at the northern most edge of
the Gardens on a promontory overlooking her home. The pal-
ace windows were dark, the people within asleep, all but her.
Beyond lay the city, clusters of homes and shops tucked behind
the Keel's protective barrier like frightened animals hunkered
down in their dens. Nothing moved, as if fear made movement
Impossible, as if movement would give them away. She shook
her head sadly. Arborlon was an island surrounded by enemies.
Behind, to the east, was Killeshan, rising up over the city, a
great, jagged mountain formed by lava rock from eruptions over
the centuries, the volcano dormant until only twenty years ago,
now alive and anxious. North and south the jungle grew, thick
and impenetrable, stretching away in a tangle of green to the
shores of the ocean. West, below the slopes on which Arborlon
was seated, lay the Rowen, and beyond the wall of Blackledge.
None of it belonged to the Elves. Once the entire world had
belonged to them, before the coming of Man. Once there had
been nowhere they could not go. Even in the time of the Druid
Allanon, just three hundred years before, the whole of the West-
land had been theirs. Now they were reduced to this small space,
besieged on all sides, imprisoned behind the wall of their failing
magic. All of them, all that remained, trapped.
She looked out at the darkness beyond the Keel, picturing
in her mind what waited there. She thought momentarily of the
irony of it-the Elves, made victims of their own magic, of their
own clever, misguided plans, and of fears that should never have
been heeded. How could they have been so foolish?
Far down from where she stood, near the end of the Keel
where it buttressed the hardened lava of some long past runoff,
there was a sudden flare of light-a spurt of fire followed by a
quick, brilliant explosion and a shriek. There were brief shouts
wac thick and gnarled and polished to a fine sheen. It had been
hewn from black walnut and imbued with the magic of her
people. Fixed to its tip was the Loden, white brilliance against
the darkness of the night. She could see herself reflected in its
facets. She could feel herself reach within. The Ruhk Staff had
given strength to the rulers of Arborlon for more than a century
But the Staff could not protect the Elves either.
"Cort?" she called softly.
The Home Guard materialized beside her.
"Stand with me a moment," she said.
They stood without speaking and looked out over the city.
She felt impossibly alone. Her people were threatened with ex-
tinction. She should be doing something. Anything. What if the
dreams were wrong? What if the visions of Eowen Cerise were
mistaken? That had never happened, of course, but there was
so much at stake! Her mouth tightened angrily. She must be-
lieve. It was necessary that she believe. The visions would come
to pass. The girl would appear to them as promised, blood of
her blood. The girl would appear.
But would even she be enough?
She shook the question away. She could not permit it. She
could not give way to her despair.
She wheeled about and walked swiftly back through the
Gardens to the pathway leading down again. Cort stayed with
her for a moment, then faded away into the shadows. She did
not see him go. Her mind was on the future, on the foretellings
of Eowen, and on the fate of the Elven people. She was deter-
mined that her people would survive. She would wait for the
girl for as long as she could, for as long as the magic would keep
their enemies away. She would pray that Eowen's visions were
true.
She was Ellenroh Elessedil, Queen of the Elves, and she
would do what she must.
ancient willow. The ocean stretched away before her,
a shimmering kaleidoscope of colors at the horizons
edge where the sunset streaked the waters with splashes of red
and gold and purple and low-hanging clouds formed strange pat-
terns against the darkening sky. Twilight was settling comfort-
ably in place, a graying of the light, a whisper of an evening
breeze off the water, a calm descending. Crickets were begin-
ning to chirp, and fireflies were winking into view.
Wren drew her knees up against her chest, struggling to stay
upright when what she really wanted to do was lie down. She
hadn't slept for almost two days now, and fatigue was catching
up with her. It was shadowed and cool where she sat beneath
the willow's canopy, and it would have been easy to let go, slip
down, curl up beneath her cloak, and drift away. Her eyes closed
involuntarily at the prospect, then snapped open again instantly.
She could not sleep until Garth returned, she knew. She must
stay alert.
She rose and walked out to the edge of the bluff, feeling the
breeze against her face, letting the sea smells fill her senses.
Cranes and gulls glided and swooped across the waters, graceful
and languid as they flew. Far out, too far to be seen clearly,
some great fish cleared the water with an enormous splash and
disappeared. She let her gaze wander. The coastline ran unbro-
ken from where she stood for as far as the eye could see, ragged,
tree-grown bluffs backed by the stark, whitecapped mountains
of the Rock Spur north and the Irrybis south. A series of rocky
beaches separated the bluffs from the water, their stretches lit-
tered with driftwood and shells and ropes of seaweed.
Beyond the beaches, there was only the empty expanse of
the Blue Divide. She had traveled to the end of the known
world, she thought wryly, and still her search for the Elves
went on.
An owl hooted in the deep woods behind her, causing her
She wished he would return.
A pool sat just within the trees behind the bluff and she
walked to it, knelt, and splashed water on her face. The pond's
surface rippled with the touch of her hands and cleared. She
could see herself in its reflection, the distortion clearing until
her image was almost mirrorlike. She stared down at it-at a girl
barely grown, her features decidedly Elven with sharply pointed
ears and slanted brows, her face narrow and high cheeked, and
her skin nut-brown. She saw hazel eyes that seldom stayed fixed,
an off-center smile that suggested she enjoyed some private joke,
and ash-blond hair cut short and tightly curled. There was a
tautness to her, she thought-a tension that would not be dis-
pelled no matter how valiant the effort employed.
She rocked back on her heels and permitted herself a wry
smile, deciding that she liked what she saw well enough to live
with it awhile longer.
She folded her hands in her lap and lowered her head. The
Search for the Elves-how long had it been going on now? How
long Since the old man-the one who claimed he was Cogline-
had come to her and told her of the dreams? Weeks? But how
many? She had lost count. The old man had known of the
dreams and challenged her to discover for herself the truth be-
hind them. She had decided to accept his challenge, to go to
the Hadeshorn in the Valley of Shale and meet with the shade
of Allanon. Why shouldn't she? Perhaps she would learn some-
thing of where she had come from, of the parents she had never
known, or of her history.
Odd. Until the old man had appeared, she had been disin-
terested in her lineage. She had persuaded herself that it didn't
matter. But something in the way he spoke to her, in the words
he used-something-had changed her.
She reached up to finger the leather bag about her neck self-
consciously, feeling the hard outline of the painted rocks, the
play Elfstones, her only link to the past. Where did they come
who hadn t been seen by anyone in over a hundred years, who
were believed by most never even to have existed, and who
were presumed a child's faerie tale-she was to find them.
She had not planned to look at first, disturbed by what she
had heard and how it had made her feel, unwilling to become
involved, or to risk herself for something she did not understand
or care about. She had left the others and with Garth once again
her only companion had gone back into the Westland. She had
thought to resume her life as a Rover. The Shadowen were not
her concern. The problems of the races were not her own. But
the Druid's admonition had stayed with her, and almost without
realizing it she had begun her search after all. It had started with
a few questions, asked here and there. Had anyone heard if there
reallY were any Elves? Had anyone ever seen one? Did anyone
know where they might be found? They were questions that
were asked lightly at first, self-consciously, but with growing
curiositY as time wore on, then almost an urgency.
What if Allanon were right? What if the Elves were still out
there somewhere? What if they alone possessed whatever was
necessary to overcome the Shadowen plague?
But the answers to her questions had all been the same. No
one knew anything of the Elves. No one cared to know.
And then someone had begun following them-someone or
something-their shadow as they came to call it, a thing clever
enough to track them despite their precautions and stealthy
enough to avoid being caught at it. Twice they had thought to
trap it and failed. Any number of times they had tried to back-
track to get around behind it and been unable to do so. They
had never seen its face, never even caught a glimpse of it. They
had no idea who or what it was.
It had still been with them when they had entered the Wilde-
run and gone down into Grimpen Ward. There, two nights ear-
lier, they had found the Addershag. A Rover had told them of
the old woman, a seer it was said who knew secrets and who
lifted,
revealing blind eyes that were milky and fixed.
"Are you the seer they call the Addershag, old mother?" Wren
asked
softly.
The staring eyes blinked and a thin voice rasped. "Who wishes to
know?
Tell me your name."
"My name is Wren Ohmsford."
Aged bands reached out to touch her face, exploring its lines and
hollows,
scraping along the skin like dried leaves. The hands withdrew.
"You are an Elf."
"I have Elven blood."
"An Elf!" The old woman's voice was rough and insistent, a hiss
against
the silence of the alehouse cellar. The wrinkled face cocked to one
side as if
reflecting. "I am the Addershag. What do you wish of me?"
Wren rocked back slightly on the heels of her boots. "I am
searching
for the Westland Elves. I was told a week ago that you might know
where
to find them-if they still exist."
The Adders hag cackled. "Oh, they exist, all right. They do
indeed.
But it's not to everyone they show themselves-to none at all in many
years.
Is it so important to you, Elf-girl, that you see them? Do you search
them
out because you have need of your own kind?" The milky eyes stared
unseeing at Wren's face. "No, not you. Why, then?"
"Because it is a charge I have been given a charge I have chosen
to
gasped.
"Magic!" she howled.
Wren started, then seized the other's wrists impulsively. "What
magic?
What are you saying?"
But the Addershag shook her head violently, her lips clamped
shut, and
her head sunk into her shrunken breast. Wren held her a moment
longer,
then let her go.
"Elf-girl," the old woman whispered, "who sends you in search of
the
Westland Elves?"
Wren took a deep breath against her fears and answered, "The
shade of
Allanon."
The aged head lifted with a snap. "Allanon!" She breathed the
name
like a curse. "So! A Druid's charge, is it? Very well. Listen to me,
then.
Go south through the Wilderun, cross the Irrybis and follow the coast
of
the Blue Divide. When you have reached the caves of the Rocs, build a
fire
and keep it burning three days and nights. One will come who can help
you. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Wren replied, wondering at the same time if she really
did.
"Beware, Elf-girl," the other warned, a stick-thin hand lifting.
"I see
danger ahead for you, hard times, and treachery and evil beyond
imagining.
My visions are in my head, truths that haunt me with their madness.
Heed
ping to sleep, anxious to put as much distance between them
selves and Grimpen Ward as possible and eager as well to make
yet another attempt to shake loose of their shadow. Wren had
thought earlier that day they might have done so. Garth was
not so certain. His uneasiness would not be dispelled. So when
they had stopped for the night, needing at last to sleep and
regain their strength, he had backtracked once more. Perhaps
he would find something to settle the matter, he told her. Per-
haps not. But he wanted to give it a try.
That was Garth. Never leave anything to chance.
Behind her, in the woods, one of the horses pawed restlessly
and went still again. Garth had hidden the animals behind the
trees before leaving. Wren waited a moment to be certain all
was well, then stood and moved over again beneath the willow,
losing herself in the deep shadows formed by its canopy, easing
herself down once more against the broad trunk. Far to the west,
the light had faded to a glimmer of silver where the water met
the sky.
Magic, the Addershag had said. How could that be?
If there were still Elves, and if she was able to find them,
would they be able to tell her what the old woman had not?
She leaned back and closed her eyes momentarily, feeling
herself drifting, letting it happen.
When she jerked awake again, twilight had given way to
night, the darkness all around save where moon and stars bathed
the Open spaces in a silver glow. The campfire had gone cold,
and she shivered with the chill that had invaded the coastal air.
Rising, she moved over to her pack, withdrew her travel cloak,
and wrapped it about her for warmth. After moving back be-
neath the tree, she settled herself once more.
You fell asleep, she chided herself. What would Garth say if he
were to discover that?
She remained awake after that until he returned. It was near-
ing midnight, the world about her gone still save for the lulling
摘要：

torchesbracketingroadintersectionsandgates.Itglowedthroughbreaksintheleafybranchesoftheancientoakandhickorywhereglassedlanternslinedthetreelanes.Bitsandpiecesofflickeringlight,theflameswereliketinycreaturesthatthenightthreatenedtosearchoutandconsume.Likeourselves,shethought.LiketheElves.Hergazelifte...

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