Chapter Eleven

They set out at dawn of the following day, Tay and Jerle and the few they had chosen to go with them, leaving the city quietly, while its citizens were still waking and their departure would go unnoticed. They were only fifteen in number, so it was not difficult to slip away without being seen.

Tay and Jerle had advised the others of the little company only the night before. They were not being underhanded in their stealth; they were simply being cautious. The fewer who knew of their departure or who saw them leave, the fewer who could talk about it. Even idle conversation had a way of reaching me wrong ears.

The High Council knew of their plans. Alyten, still not returned from his hunting trip, would be told later. That was enough. Even their immediate families did not know where they were going or what they were about. After what had happened to the Ballindarrochs, no one was taking any unnecessary chances.

It was a worrisome situation they were leaving behind. Ballindarroch hovered near death, and it was not clear yet whether he would recover. The High Council would manage the affairs of state in his absence, as Elven law required, but as a practical matter would do little until the king’s fate was determined. Alyten, as the only surviving son, would rule in his father’s place, but only nominally until a formal coronation became necessary. Life would go on, but the business of governing would slow to a near halt. The army would stay on alert, its commanders doing what was necessary to protect the city and its people and to a lesser extent the Elves living in the countryside beyond. But the army’s actions would be strictly defensive in nature, and no one would advocate forays beyond the Westland borders until Ballindarroch recovered or his son took his place. That meant no aid would be sent to the Dwarves. So hidebound was the High Council on this matter that it refused even to commit to sending word to the Dwarves about what had befallen. Both Tay and Jerle separately begged the Council to do so, but they were told only that their request would be considered. Suddenly, secrecy became the order of the day. Since there was nothing more they could do about the matter, Tay and Jerle chose not to delay their departure. The king would live or he would die, Alyten would become king or he wouldn’t, and the High Council would send word to the Dwarves or stay silent — all of it would work out one way or the other, and their presence in Arborlon would change nothing. It was better to get on with their search for the Black Elfstone and make a difference where they could.

There were other reasons for leaving as well. Two unexpected issues had surfaced as a result of the assassinations, one affecting Tay, the other Jerle. Both lent urgency to their plans to depart the city.

As to the first, there were some who had begun wondering aloud why the attack on the Elven royal family coincided so closely with Tay’s return from Paranor. The Druids were respected, but they were also mistrusted. The ones who mistrusted them were few, but in the wake of such a frightening and unexpected disaster, their voices were commanding more attention.

The Druids wielded power and their ways were mysterious, a combination that was inherently disturbing, especially with their decision to isolate themselves from the general populace following the First War of the Races. Wasn’t it possible, the voices whispered, that the Druids were somehow involved in what had happened to the Ballindarrochs? Tay had gone to see the king and to speak before the High Council the very night of the killings.

Had there been an argument that angered Tay — that thereby angered all the Druids? Hadn’t he been the first to enter the king’s chamber while the killings were taking place? Was this simply a coincidence? Did anyone see what happened? Did anyone see what he did? It didn’t matter that the questions had already been addressed in one forum or another, by one official or another, and that no one in the High Council or army seemed the least con cemed about Tay’s conduct. What mattered was that there were no definitive answers being offered and no indisputable facts being supplied, and in their absence wild theories were bound to flourish.

The second issue was even more troubling. Because almost the entire Ballindarroch family had been wiped out, there were some who were saying that if Courtann Ballindarroch died, too, Jerle Shannara should be king. It was all well and good to adhere to the rules of ascendancy, but Alyten was weak and indecisive and not well liked by the people he would govern. And if he should falter, the next in line to rule would be a child of four. That meant years of regency rule, and no one wanted that. Besides, these were dangerous, demanding times, and they required a strong ruler. This attack on the royal family signaled the start of something bad. Everyone recognized that much. The Northland was already conquered by the Warlock Lord and his winged hunters and demon followers. What if he turned on the Elves next? There were rumors that his armies were on the move already, traveling south. Jerle Shannara was the king’s first cousin and next in tine to rule if the Ballindarrochs were wiped out. Perhaps it would be best if he ruled now, regardless of who was left after Courtann. A former Captain of the Home Guard, a strategist to the army’s high command, an advisor to the High Council and the king, he was well suited. Perhaps the choice should be made regardless of precedent and protocol. Perhaps it should be made quickly.

Tay and Jerle heard of these rumors soon enough, saw where they might lead, and realized that the best way to deal with them was to remove themselves from the scene until things settled down. This loose talk provided additional impetus beyond the urgency of their quest for them to hasten their departure, and they were quick to do so. In twenty-four hours, they put together their company, their supplies, their transportation, and their travel plans, and set out.

It was raining when they departed, a cool, misty drizzle that had begun falling several hours earlier and was showing no signs of abating. The roads and trails were already sodden, and the limbs and trunks of the trees were stained black. Mist crept out of the forest, risen from the still warm earth, filling the gaps and crevices with strange movement. Gloom and damp shrouded everything, and the company moved through the early dawn like wraiths chasing after night. They traveled afoot, carrying only their weapons and the food and clothing they would require for twentyfour hours. After that, they would wash what they wore and hunt for their meals until they reached the Sarandanon, a hike of approximately three days. There they would be provided with horses, fresh clothing, and supplies for the remainder of the journey west to the Breakline.

They were a diverse group. Jerle Shannara had selected all but one. He had done so with Tay’s approval, because Tay had been gone too long from Arborlon and the Elves to know who was best suited to help them in their quest. Elven Hunters were needed, fighters of the first rank, and Jerle selected ten, which brought their number to twelve. Preia Starle had already announced that she was going, as certain of herself as ever, and neither Tay nor Jerle cared to challenge her. Jerle chose another Tracker as well, a weathered veteran named Retten Kipp, who had served with the Home Guard for better than thirty years. More than one Tracker would be necessary if they were to keep close watch of their rear as well as their front. Besides, if anything happened to Preia, they would need a replacement. Tay did not like hearing the words, but he could not find fault with them.

That brought their number to fourteen. Tay asked for one more.

The man he wanted was Vree Erreden. It was an odd choice at first glance, and Jerle was quick to say so. Vree Erreden was not well regarded among the Elves, a reclusive, distracted, shy man with little concern for anything besides his work. What he did was a source of ongoing controversy. He was a locat, a mystic who specialized in finding people who were missing and objects that were lost. How successful he was at what he did was the subject of much debate. Those who believed in him possessed an unshakable faith. Those who didn’t found him foolish and misguided. He was tolerated because he enjoyed occasional, verifiable success, and because the Elven people were understanding of differences in general, having themselves been the subject of much suspicion over the years in the eyes of the other Races. Vree Erreden did not himself make any claims about his accomplishments; the claims were provided by others. But the origin of the claims did nothing to improve the image of the man in the eyes of his detractors.

Tay was not among them. Tay identified closely with Vree Erreden, though he had never said so to anyone. They were kindred spirits, he believed. Had Vree chosen to do so, he might have become a Druid. His skills would have allowed for the possibility, and Tay would have recommended him. Both were possessors of talents developed through years of practice, Tay the elementalist, Vree the locat. Tay’s was the more visibly demonstrable talent, however, utilizing magic and science culled from the earth’s resources, a harnessing of power that gave clear evidence of what it was he could do. Vree Erreden’s talent, on the other hand, resided almost entirely within, was passive in nature, and was difficult to verify. Mystics operated on prescience, intuition, even hunches, all of them stronger than the instincts normal men and women might experience, all of them impossible to see. Locals were once heavily in evidence, in a time when Elves and other faerie creatures exercised such power routinely. Now only a handful remained, the others lost with the passing of the old world and the irrevocable change in the nature of magic. But Tay was a student of the old ways and understood the origins of Vree Erreden’s power, and it was as real to him as his own.

He went to see the locat late on the afternoon of the day before the scheduled departure and found him in his yard, bent over a tattered collection of maps and writings, his small, slender form hunched protectively, his hands tracing lines and words across the paper. He looked up as Tay came through the gate of the small, unremarkable cottage, peering myopically at him as he approached. The locat squinted against the sunlight and his own failing sight. Each year, it was rumored, his eyes failed a little more — but as his eyes failed, his intuition sharpened.

“It is Tay Trefenwyd,” Tay announced helpfully, coming over so that the light fell on his face.

Vree Erreden peered up at him without recognition. Tay had been gone for five years, so it was possible the man no longer remembered him. Nor was Tay wearing the robes of his order, having reverted to the loose-fitting Elven garb preferred by the Wesdand people, so it was possible the locat was unable to identify him as a Druid either.

“I need your help in finding something,” Tay continued, undaunted. The other’s thin face cocked slightly in response. “If you agree to help me, you will have the opportunity of saving lives, many of them Elven. It will be the most important finding you will ever undertake. If you succeed, no one will ever doubt you again.”

Vree Erreden looked suddenly amused. “That is a bold claim, Tay.”

Tay smiled. “I am in a position where I must make bold claims. I leave tomorrow for the Sarandanon and beyond. I must convince you to go with me when I do. Time doesn’t allow for a more subtle persuasion.”

“What is it you are looking for?”

“A Black Elfstone, lost since the end of the world of faerie, thousands of years ago.”

The small man looked at him. He did not ask Tay why he had come to him or question the strength of his belief. He accepted that Tay had faith in his power, perhaps because of who he was, perhaps because of what he did. Or perhaps because it didn’t matter. But there was curiosity in his eyes — and a hint of doubt.

“Give me your hands,” he said.

Tay stretched out his hands, and Vree Erreden clasped them tightly in his own. His grip was surprisingly strong. His eyes met Tay’s, held them for a moment, then looked through them and beyond, losing focus. He stayed like that for a long time, as still as stone, seeing something hidden from Tay. Then he blinked, released his grip, and sat back. A small smile played across his thin lips.

“I will come with you,” he said, just like that.

He asked where they were to meet and what he was required to bring, then turned back to his maps and writings without another word, the matter forgotten. Tay lingered just long enough to make certain there was no further reason to stay, and then left.

So they numbered fifteen in the end as they departed Arborion in the slow rain of early dawn, cloaked and hooded and faceless in the gloom, and they had come for reasons best known to themselves. No one would speak hereafter of these reasons. No one would believe it made a difference. A decision made was a decision accepted. Armored in that conviction, they wound down out of the Carolan to where the Rill Song churned within its banks, crossed on a ferry raft kept in service for the city, and struck out west through the shadowed corridors of the ancient woods.

They marched all day through the rain, which did not cease, though after a time it lessened. They stopped once for lunch and twice at springs to refill their water skins, but they did not rest otherwise. No one tired, not even Vree Erreden. They were Elves and used to walking long distances, and all of them were fit enough to keep up with Jerle Shannara’s moderate pace. The way was muddied and the footing uncertain, and on more than one occasion they were forced to find a way across a ravine which had flooded because of the rains. No one complained. No one said much of anything. Even when they stopped to eat, they sat apart from each other, withdrawn into their cloaks from the weather, thinking their separate thoughts. Once Tay stopped Vree Erreden to tell him how much he appreciated his decision to come with them, and the locat looked at him as if he had lost his mind, as if he had just made the most ridiculous statement in the history of mankind. Tay smiled and backed off and did not try to approach the other man again.

They moved steadily farther away from the mountains that warded Arborion and closer to the Sarandanon. Night came, and they made camp. No fire was built, and the evening meal was eaten cold. It was dark and still within the trees, and there was no movement save for the steady falling of the rain. Another day or so would pass before they were free of the woods and onto the open grasslands of the valley. The country would change dramatically then as they traveled through the farmlands that produced the crops and livestock that fed the Elven nation. Beyond, the better part of a week’s ride farther, waited the Breakline and their destination.

Damp, chilled, and lost in thought, Tay sat by himself when the meal was finished and stared out into the gloom. Hoping to find something he had missed, he replayed in his mind the vision of the Black Elfstone that Bremen had been shown at the Hadeshorn.

The details of the vision were familiar by now, smoothed out like wrinkled paper so that they might be reexamined and considered at leisure. Bremen had given him the description of the talisman’s hiding place just as it had been revealed by the shade of Galaphile, so that all that remained was to find it again in real life. There were several ways that might happen. The Trackers Preia Starle and Retten Kipp might discover the Black Elfstone through an accumulation of physical evidence in the course of their scouting. Tay might discover it as an elementalist, finding the breaks in the lines of power caused by the talisman’s magic. And Vree Erreden might discover it by employing his special skill as a locat, tracing the Elfstone as he would any other lost object, through prescient thought and intuition.

Tay looked over at the locat, who was already asleep. Most of the others were sleeping as well by now, or in the process of drifting off. Even Jerle Shannara was stretched out, rolled into his blanket. A single Elven Hunter kept watch at one end of the camp, walking the perimeter, drifting through the gloom, just another of night’s shadows. Tay watched him for a moment, thinking of other things, then looked again at Vree Erreden. The locat had spied out Bremen’s vision when he had taken hold of his hands on that first visit. He was certain of it now, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. It was what had decided the locat on coming, that momentary glimpse of a place lost in time, of a magic that had survived a world now gone, of what once was known and might now be revealed again. The theft was a clever piece of work, and Tay admired the other man’s audacity in committing it. It was not everyone who would dare to pick the lock on a Druid’s mind.

He rose after a while, still not sleepy, and walked out to stand where the guard patrolled. The Elven Hunter noted him, but made no move to approach, continuing his rounds as before. Tay looked out into the sodden trees, his eyes adjusting to the light, seeing strange shapes and forms in the rain, even in the absence of moon and stars. He watched a deer pass, small and delicate in the concealment of the gloom, eyes watchful, ears pricked. He saw night birds speed swiftly from branch to branch, hunters in search of food, finding it now and again, diving with shocking quickness to the forest floor and then lifting away, small creatures clutched tightly by claws and beaks. He saw in these victims an image of the Elven people if the Warlock Lord prevailed. He imagined how helpless they would be when Brona began his hunt. Already there was a sense of being sought out, of being considered prey. While he did not like to contemplate it, he did not think the feeling would diminish any time soon.

He was still considering what this meant when Preia Starle appeared out of nowhere at his elbow. He gasped in spite of himself, then forced himself to recover as he saw the smile twitch at the comers of her mouth. She had been gone all day, leaving early with Retten Kipp to scout the land ahead. No one had known when either of them would be back. Trackers having the freedom to do whatever they felt they must and to keep to their own schedule. She winked as she saw the shock leave his face, replaced by chagrin. Saying nothing, she took his arm and led him back off the perimeter and into the camp. She was wearing loosefitting forest clothing, with gloves and soft boots, and all of it was soaked through. Rain plastered her curly, short-cropped, cinnamon hair to her head and ran down her face. She didn’t seem to notice.

She sat him down some yards away from where the other members of the company were sleeping, choosing a dry spot beneath an oak where the thickness of the grass offered some comfort. She removed the brace of long knives, the short sword, and the ash bow she carried, looking altogether too fragile and young to be bearing such weapons, and sat next to him.

“Can’t sleep, Tay?” she asked quietly, squeezing his arm.

He folded his long legs before him and shook his head. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there.” She brushed the rain from her face and smiled. “You didn’t see me, did you?”

He gave her a rueful look. “What do you think? Do you enjoy shortening people’s lives by scaring them so? If I wasn’t able to sleep before, how will I ever be able to sleep now?”

She suppressed a laugh. “I expect you will manage. You are a Druid after all, and Druids can manage anything. Take heart from Jerle. He sleeps like a baby all the time. He refuses to stay awake, even when I would have it otherwise.”

She blinked, realizing what she had implied, and looked quickly away. After a moment, she said, “Kipp has gone on ahead to the Sarandanon to make certain that the horses and supplies are ready. I came back to tell you about the Gnome Hunters.”

He looked sharply at her, waiting. “Two large parties,” she continued, “both north of us. There might be more. There are a lot of tracks. I don’t think they know about us. Yet. But we need to be careful.”

“Can you tell what they are doing here?”

She shook her head. “Hunting, I would guess. The pattern of their tracks suggests as much. They are keeping close to the Kensrowe, north of the grasslands. But they may not stay there, especially if they leam about us.”

He was silent for a moment, thinking it through. He could feel her waiting him out, studying his face in the gloom. Amid the sleepers, a snore turned into a cough, and a bundled form shifted.

Rain fell in a slow patter, a soft backdrop against the black.

“Did you see any of the Skull Bearers?” he asked finally.

She shook her head once more. “No.”

“Strange tracks of any kind?”

“No.”

He nodded, hoping that was indicative of something. Perhaps the Warlock Lord had left his monsters at home. Perhaps Gnome Hunters were all they faced.

She shifted beside him, rising to her knees. “Give Jerle my report, Tay. I have to go back out.”

“Now?”

“Now is better than later if you want to keep the wolf from the door.” She grinned. “Do you remember that saying? You used it all the time when you were talking about going to Paranor and becoming a Druid. It was your way of saying you would protect us, the poor, homebound friends you were leaving behind.”

“I remember.” He took her arm. “Are you hungry?”

“I’ve eaten already.”

“Why not stay until dawn?”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to give your report to Jerle yourself?”

She studied him a moment, reflecting on something. “What I want is for you to give it for me. Will you do that?”

The tone of her voice had changed. She was not open to a discussion on this. He nodded wordlessly and took his hand away.

She rose, strapped the knives and sword back in place, took up the bow, and gave him a quick smile. “You think about what you just asked of me, Tay,” she said.

She slipped back into the gloom, and a moment later she was gone. Tay sat where he was for a time, considering what she had said, then climbed to his feet to wake Jerle.

Rain fell all the following day, a steady downpour. The company continued on through the forest, keeping watch for Gnomes, staying alert to everything. The hours passed slowly, sunrise easing toward sunset, the whole of the day marked by graying half-light filtered through banks of clouds and water-laden boughs. Travel was slow and monotonous. They came upon no one in the woods. In the sodden gloom, nothing moved.

Night came and went, and neither Preia Starle nor Retten Kipp returned. By dawn of the third day, the company was nearing the Sarandanon. The rain had stopped and the skies had begun to clear. Sunlight peeked through gaps in the departing clouds, narrow shafts of light come out of the bright blue. The air wanned, and the earth began to steam and bake.

In a clearing bright with sunlight on spring wildflowers, they came upon Preia Starle’s ash bow, broken and muddied. There was no other sign of the Elf girl.

But the boot prints of Gnome Hunters were everywhere.