Chapter Twenty

The rain was falling in Arborlon, a slow, steady downpour that draped the city in a curtain of shimmering damp and hazy rain. It was midafternoon. The rain had begun at dawn and now, more than nine hours later, showed no signs of lessening.

Jerle Shaimara watched it from the seclusion of the king’s summer home, his current retreat, his present hideaway. He watched is spatter on the windowpanes, on the walkways, in the hundreds of puddles it had already formed. He watched it transform the trees of the forest, turning their trunks a silky black and their leaves a vibrant green. It seemed to him, in his despondency, that if he watched it long and hard enough, it would transform him as well.

His mood was foul. It had been so since his return to the city three days earlier. He had come home with the remnant of his battered company, with Preia Starle, Vree Erreden, and the Elvers Hunters Obann and Rusk. He had carried back the Black Elfstone and the body of Tay Trefenwyd. He had brought no joy with him and found none waiting. In his absence, Courtann Ballindarroch had died of his wounds. His son, Alyten, had assumed the throne, his first order of business to sally forth on an expedition dedicated to tracking down his father’s killers. Madness. But no one had stopped him. Jerle was disgusted. It was the act of a fool, and he was afraid that the Elves had inherited a fool for a king. Either that, or the Elves once again had no king at all. For Alyten Ballindarroch had departed Arborlon a week earlier, and there had been no word of him since.

He stood in the silence and stared out the window at the rain, at the space between the falling drops, at the grayness, at nothing at all. His gaze was empty. The summerhouse was empty as well — just him, alone in the silence with his thoughts. Not pleasant company for anyone. His thoughts haunted him. The loss of Tay was staggering, more painful than he could have imagined, deeper than he would let himself admit. Tay Trefenwyd had been his best and closest friend all his life. No matter the choices they had made, no matter the length of their occupational separations, no matter the events that had transformed their lives, that friendship had endured. That Tay had become a Druid while Jerle had become Captain of the Home Guard and then Court Advisor to the king had altered nothing. When Tay had come home from Paranor this final time, when Jerle had first seen his friend riding up the roadway to Arborlon, it was as if only a few moments had passed since last they had parted, as if time meant nothing. Now Tay was gone, his life given so that his friends and companions could live, so that the Black Elfstone could be brought safely to Arborlon.

The Black Elfstone. The killing weapon. A dark rage surged through Jerle Shannara as he thought of the cursed talisman. The cost of keeping the Elfstone had been his friend’s life, and he still had no concept of its purpose. For what use was it intended? What use, that he could measure its worth against the loss of his dearest friend?

He had no answer. He had done what he must. He had carried the Elfstone back to Arborlon, keeping it from falling into the hands of the Warlock Lord, thinking all the way that it would be better if he were to rid himself of the magic, if he were to drop it down the deepest, darkest crevice he could find. He might have done so if he had been alone, so intense was his anger and frustration at the loss of Tay. But Preia and Vree Erreden accompanied him, and the care of the Stone had been given over to them as well.

So he had carried it home as Tay had wanted, prepared to relinquish all claim to it the moment he arrived.

But fate worked against him in this as well. Courtann Ballindarroch was dead, and his successor son was off on a fool’s mission.

To whom, then, should he give the Elfstone? Not to the Elven High Council, a clutch of ineffectual, bickering old men who lacked foresight and reason, and were concerned mostly with protecting themselves now that Courtann was dead. Not to Alyten, who was absent in any case — the Elfstone had never been intended for him. Bremen then, but the Druid had not yet arrived in Arborion — if he was to arrive at all.

So on Preia’s advice and with Vree Erreden’s concurrence, these two the only ones he could consult on the matter, he hid the Black Elfstone deep in the catacombs of the palace cellars, down where no one could ever find it without his help, away from the prying eyes and curious minds that might attempt to unlock its power. Jerle, Preia, and the local understood the danger of the Elfstone as no other could. They had seen what the Elfstone’s dark magic could do. They had witnessed firsthand the extent of its power. All those men, human and inhuman alike, burned to ash in the blink of an eye. Tay Trefenwyd, ruined by the backlash despite his Druid defenses. Such power was anathema. Such power was black and witless and should be locked away forever.

I hope it was worth your life, Tay, Jerle Shannara thought bleakly. But I cannot conceive that it was.

The chill of the rain worked through him, causing his bones to ache. The fire, the sole source of heat for the large gathering room, was dying in the hearth behind him, and he walked over to add a few more logs. He stared down into the rising flames when he had done so, wondering at the vagaries of circumstance and fate. So much had been lost these past few weeks. What purpose had these losses served? Where would it all culminate? In what cause? Jerle shook his head and brushed back his blond hair. Philosophical questions only confused him. He was a warrior, and what he understood best was what he could strike out against. Where was the hard substance of this matter to be found? Where was its flesh and blood? He felt ruined, battered without and empty within. The rain and the gray suited him. He was come back to nothing, to no purpose, to no recognizable future, to great loss and pain.

On the day of his return, he had gone to Tay’s parents and Kira to tell them of his death. He would have it no other way. Tay’s parents, old and easily confused, had accepted the news stoically and with few tears, seeing with the approach of the end of their own lives the inevitability and capriciousness of death. But Kira had been devastated. She had hung on Jerle as she cried, clutching him in desperation, seeking strength he did not have to give. He held her thinking she was as lost to him as her brother. She clung to him, a crumpled bit of flesh and bone and cloth, as light as air and as insubstantial, sobbing and shaking, and he thought in that moment that their grief for Tay was all they would ever share again.

He turned from the fire and stared out the window once more. Gray and damp, the day wore on, and nothing of its passing gave hope.

The front door opened and closed, a cloak was removed and hung, and Preia Starle walked into the room. Dampness glistened on her face and hands, on the smooth, brown skin still marred by the cuts and bruises of their journey to the Breakline. She brushed at the water that beaded on her curly, cinnamon hair, flicking it away. Honey-brown eyes studied him, as if surprised by what they saw.

“They want to make you king,” she declared quietly.

He stared at her. “Who?”

“All of them. The High Council, the king’s advisors, the people on the streets, the Home Guard, the army, everyone.” She smiled wanly. “You are their only hope, they say. Alyten is too unreliable, too reckless for the job. He has no experience. He has no skills. It doesn’t matter that he is already king, they want him gone.”

“But two grandchildren survive after him! What of them?”

“Babies, barely grown old enough to walk. Besides, the Elven people don’t want children sitting on the Ballindarroch throne. They want you.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “They haven’t the right to make that decision. No one has.”

“You do,” she said.

She crossed to the fire, her slim, supple body catlike in the near gloom, all grace and efficiency. Jerle marveled at the ease with which she moved. He marveled at her composure. He was awed by the depth of her strength, even now, in the face of all that had happened. She stood before the fire, rubbing her hands to warm them. After a moment she stopped and just stared.

“I heard his voice today,” she said. “On the streets. Tay’s voice. He was calling after me, speaking my name. I heard it clearly. I turned, so eager to find him I collided with a man following me. I pushed past him, ignoring what he said, looking for Tay.“ She shook her head slowly. ”But he wasn’t there. I only imagined it.‘

Her voice died away in a whisper. She did not turn.

“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” Jerle said after a moment. “I keep thinking that it’s a mistake, that he’s out there and any moment he will walk through the door.”

He looked off into the shadows of the front entry. “I don’t want to be king. I want Tay to be alive again. want everything back the way it was.”

She nodded wordlessly and watched the fire some more. They could hear the patter of the rain on the roof and against the window glass. They could hear the whisper of the wind.

Then Preia turned and walked over to him. She stood before him, motionless. He could not read the look she gave him. It was filled with so many emotions that it lacked definition. “Do you love me?” she asked directly, staring into his eyes.

He was so surprised by the question, so caught off guard that he could not manage an answer. He just stared at her, openmouthed.

She smiled, laying claim to something that had eluded him. Her eyes filled with tears. “Did you know that Tay was in love with me?”

He shook his head slowly, stunned. “No.”

“For as long as I can remember.” She paused. “Just as you’ve always been in love with Kira.” She reached up quickly and put a finger to his lips. “No, let me finish. This needs to be said. Tay was in love with me, but he would never have done anything about it He wouldn’t even speak of it. His sense of loyalty to you was so strong that he couldn’t make himself. He knew I was pledged to you, and even though he was uncertain of your own feelings, he did nothing to interfere. He believed that you loved me and would marry me, and he would not jeopardize his relationship with either of us to change that. He knew of Kira, but he knew as well that she was not right for you — even when you did not.”

She came a step closer. The tears were beginning to run down her cheeks now, but she ignored them. “That was a side of Tay Trefenwyd you never saw. You didn’t see it because you didn’t look. He was a complex man, just as you are. Neither of you understood the other as clearly as you thought. You were each the shadow of the other, but as different in some ways as the shadow is from the flesh. I know that difference. I have always known.”

She swallowed. “Now you have to face up to it as well. And to what it means to be alive when your shadow is dead. Tay is gone, Jerle. We remain. What is to become of us? We have to decide. Tay loved me, but he is dead. Do you love me as well? Do you love me as strongly? Or will Kira always be between us?”

“Kira is married,” he said softly, his voice breaking.

“Kira is alive. Life breeds hope. If you want her badly enough, perhaps you can find a way to have her. But you cannot have both of us. I have lost one of the two most important men in my life. I lost him without ever taking time to speak with him as I am speaking with you. I will not let that happen a second time.”

She paused, uncomfortable with what she was about to say, but refusing to look away. “I am going to tell you something. If Tay had asked me to choose between you, I might have chosen him.”

There was an endless silence between them. Their eyes locked and held. They stood in the center of the room, motionless. The fire in the hearth crackled softly and the rain beat down. The shadows in the room had begun to lengthen with the approach of nightfall.

“I do not want to lose you,” Jerle said quietly.

Preia did not respond. She was waiting to hear more.

“I did love Kira once,” he admitted. “I love her still, I suppose. But it’s not the same as it was. I know I have lost her, and I no longer mourn that loss. I haven’t for years. I care for her. I think of her when I think of Tay and our childhood. She was part of that, and I would be foolish if I tried to pretend that it was otherwise.”

He took a deep breath. “You asked me if I loved you. I do. I haven’t really thought about it in any deliberate way — I just always accepted it. I suppose I believed that you would always be there and so dismissed any further consideration as unnecessary. Why examine something that was so obvious? There seemed no need to do so. But I was wrong. I see that. I took you for granted without even realizing it. I thought that what we shared was sufficient as it was. I didn’t allow for change or doubts or complacency.

“But I have lost Tay and a large part of myself with him. I have lost direction and purpose. I am come to the end of a road I have traveled for a long time and find no way to turn. When you ask if I love you, I am faced with the fact that loving you is perhaps all I have left. It is no small thing, no consolation to measure against my pain. It is much more than that. I feel foolish saying this. It is the one real truth I can acknowledge. It means more than anything else in my life. Tay let me discover this by dying. It is a high cost to pay, but there it is.”

His big hands reached out and fastened gently on her shoulders.

“I do love you, Preia.”

“Do you?” she asked quietly.

He felt a vast distance open between them as she spoke the words. He felt an immense weight settle on his shoulders. He stood awkwardly in front of her, unable to think of what else he could do. His size and strength had always been a source of reassurance, but with Preia they seemed to work against him.

“Yes, Preia,” he said finally. “I do. I love you as much as I have ever loved anyone. I don’t know what else to say. This, I guess — that I hope you still love me.”

She said nothing even then, standing there motionless before him, looking into his eyes. The tears had stopped, but her face was streaked and damp. A tiny smile lifted the comers of her mouth. “I have never stopped loving you,” she whispered.

She stepped forward into his arms and let him hold her. After a while, she held him back.

They were sitting together before the fire when Vree Erreden appeared several hours later. It was dark by then, the last of the daylight faded, the rain lessened to a drizzle that fell without sound on the already drenched woodlands. A silence had fallen across the weary city, and lights had begun to appear in the windows of buildings barely glimpsed through gaps in the sagging, water-laden boughs of the trees. No one lived in the palace now, the building empty while repairs were made and a ruler determined, and only the summerhouse saw life within the grounds.

Even so, the Home Guard watched over Jerle Shannara, come to protect one of their own as much as to protect a member of the royal family and a rumored king-to-be.

The Guard stopped Vree Erreden three times before he reached the door to the summerhouse, letting him pass then only because Jerle had made certain that the locat was to be given free access to him at all times. It was strange how their relationship had changed.

They had little in common, and Tay’s death might easily have ended any pretense at friendship between them, for the Druid Elf was the source of any bonding they had forged on their journey west. With Tay dead, they might have drifted apart again, each suspicious and disdainful of the other, each drawing back into himself.

But that had not happened. Perhaps it was their unspoken, individual resolve that it should not happen, that they owed Tay this much. Perhaps it was a common need that bound them, a need to understand the terrible events of their journey, a need to make something good come out of their friend’s death. Tay had sacrificed himself for them — shouldn’t they put aside their differences for his sake? They talked of many things on their return — of what their friend had done, of the importance he attached to carrying out Bremen’s charge, of the deadly nature of the Black Elfstone, of its place in the greater scheme of things, of the darkening shadow of the Warlock Lord hanging over them all. With Preia Starle, they talked of what Tay had hoped to accomplish and how they must see that his goals were realized — to see that the Black Elfstone reached Bremen and that the Elven army was dispatched in aid of the Dwarves. Their thoughts were not of themselves, but of the greater world and the danger that threatened it.

Two nights out of Arborlon on their return from the Breakline, Jerle asked the locat if he would reveal to him any visions or whisperings hereafter that might affect what they had agreed to try to accomplish. It was not easy for him to ask, and Vree Erreden knew it. The locat said, after a few moments’ reflection, that he would — that he would do anything in his power to help. He would like, in fact, to offer his services to Jerle personally, if the other thought he might have use of them. Jerle accepted the offer. They shook hands to seal their arrangement and, though they would not say so, the beginnings of their friendship.

So here was the locat come for the first time in two days, stepping in out of the rain like a beaten creature, his worn cloak soaked clear through, his small, thin form hunched and shivering. Preia met him at the door, took his cloak away and led him to the fire so that he might warm himself. Jerle poured a measure of strong ale and gave it to him. Preia wrapped him in a blanket. Vree Erreden accepted all with muttered thanks and furtive looks. His eyes were intense. He had come to them for a reason.

“I have something to tell you,” he said to Jerle after the chill had left him sufficiently that he could speak without shaking. “I have had a vision, and it involves you.”

Jerle nodded. “What have you seen?”

The locat rubbed his hands together, then drank some of the ale, a few sips only. His face was pinched and his eyes deep-set and hollow, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. But he had looked haunted ever since their return from the Breakline. The events in the Chew Magna had devastated his psyche. The fortress and its occupants had attacked him mercilessly, tried to crush him so that he would be of no use to Tay Trefenwyd, whom they had intended for their own. They had failed, but the damage to the locat from their attack was evident.

“When Tay first came to me to solicit my help in his search for the Black Elfstone, I used my skills to look into his mind.” Vree Erreden shifted suddenly to face the other, his gaze unexpectedly steady. “It was a way to discover quickly and accurately what it was that he believed I might find. I did not tell him what I was doing; I did not want him to shade any truths that he possessed.

“What I discovered was more than what I sought. He had been told by the Druid Bremen of four visions. One was of the Chew Magna and the Black Elfstone. This was the one that I was supposed to see. But I saw the others as well. I saw the destruction at Paranor as Bremen searched for a medallion that hung from a chain. I saw the Druid again at a dark lake...”

He trailed off, then brushed aside what he was about to say with a quick, anxious wave of his hand. “Never mind either of those. It is the last that matters.”

He paused, distracted. “I have heard talk. The Elves would make you king. They would be done with Alyten and the grandchildren and crown you.”

“Just talk, nothing more,” Jerle interjected quickly.

Vree Erreden folded into himself beneath his robes. “I don’t think so.” He let the words hang.

Preia edged forward beside Jerle. “What have you seen, Vree? Is Alyten Ballindarroch dead?”

The locat shook his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t shown that. I was shown something else. But it impacts on the matter of kingship.” He took a deep breath. “The vision, Bremen’s last, that I glimpsed within Tay’s memory, was of a man standing on a battlefield armed with a sword. The sword was a talisman, a powerful magic. The Eilt Drain’s image of a hand holding forth a burning torch was graven on the pommel of the sword, clearly revealed. Across from the man was a wraith cloaked all in black, featureless and impenetrable save for eyes that were pinpricks of red fire. The man and the wraith were engaged in mortal combat.”

He sipped again at his ale, and now his gaze dropped away. “I only had a single glimpse of this vision, and I did not pay it much mind. It was not important then. It gave credence to the rest of what Tay told me of his quest, nothing more. I had not really thought about it again until now.”

The dark eyes lifted. “Today, I read my maps before the fire. The warmth of the flames and the rain falling outside in steady cadence caused me to doze, and as I slept I had a vision. It was sudden, intense, and unexpected. This is unusual, because mostly the visions, the hunches, the indicators of what is lost and might be found, are slower and more gentle in their coming. But this vision was sharp, and I recognized it immediately. It was Bremen’s vision of the man and the wraith on the battlefield. But this time I knew them. The wraith was the Warlock Lord. The man, Jerle Shannara, was you.”

Jerle wanted to laugh. For some reason, this struck him as ridiculous. Perhaps it was the impossibility of the idea. Perhaps it was his inability to believe that Tay had not recognized him in the vision, yet Vree Erreden had. Perhaps it was simply a reaction to the twinge of misgiving he felt on hearing the local’s words, “There is more.” The locat did not give him time to think. “The sword you carried bore the emblem of the medallion that Bremen carried in the vision of Paranor destroyed. The medallion is called the Eilt Drum. It is the symbol of office of the High Druids of Paranor. Its magic is very powerful. The sword was the weapon forged to destroy Brona, and the Eilt Drain was made a part of that weapon. No one told me these things, you understand. No one said they were so. I simply knew them to be true. Just as I knew, seeing you standing on that battlefield for that single moment in time, that you had become King of the Elves.”

“No.” Jerle shook his head stubbornly. “You are mistaken.”

The locat faced him and did not look away.

“Did you see my face?”

“I did not need to see your face,” Vree Erreden declared softly. “Or hear your voice. Or look about to see if others followed you as they would their king. It was you.”

“Then the vision itself is false. It must be!” Jerle looked to Preia for help, but her response to his gaze was deliberate silence. His fists knotted angrily. “I do not want any part of this!”

No one spoke. The fire crackled softly, and the night was deep and still, as if listening covertly to what was taking place, an eavesdropper waiting to see what would happen. Jerle rose and walked to the window. He stood looking out at the trees and the mist. He tried to will himself to disappear. “If I were to let them make me king...”

He did not finish. Preia rose and stood looking across the room at him. “It would give you a chance to accomplish the things Tay Trefenwyd could not. If you were king, you could persuade the High Council to send the Elves to give aid to the Dwarves. If you were king, you could dispose of the Black Elfstone at a time and place of your own choosing and not be answerable to any. Most important of all, you would have an opportunity to destroy the Warlock Lord.”

Jerle Shannara’s head snapped around quickly. “The Warlock Lord destroyed the Druids. What chance would I have against a thing so monstrous?”

“A better chance than anyone else I can think of,” she answered at once. “The vision has been shown twice now, once to Bremen, once to Vree. Perhaps it is prophetic. If so, then you have a chance to do something that not even Tay could do.You have a chance to save us all.”

He stared at her. She was telling him she believed he would be king. She was saying that he must. She was asking him to agree with her.

“She is right,” Vree Erreden said softly.

But Jerle wasn’t listening to him. He continued to stare at Preia, thinking back to several hours earlier when she had demanded that he make his choice on a different matter. How much do I mean to you? How important am I? Now she was asking the questions again, the words altered only slightly. How much do your people mean to you? How important are they to you? He was aware of a sudden, precipitous shift in both the nature of their relationship and the direction of his life, both brought about by Tay Trefenwyd’s death. Events he would never have dreamed possible had conspired to create this shift. Fate of a willful and deliberate sort had settled her hands squarely on his shoulders. Responsibility, leadership, and the hopes of his people — all hung in the balance of the decision demanded of him.

His mind raced in search of answers that would not come. But he knew, with a certainty that was terrifying, that whatever choice he made, it would haunt him always.

“You must stand and face this,” Preia said suddenly. “You must decide.”

He felt as if the world was spinning out of control. She asked too much of him. There was not yet need to decide anything. Any present need was fueled by rumors and speculation. No formal overture had been made concerning the kingship. Alyten’s fate was not determined. What of Courtann Ballindarroch’s grandchildren? Tay Trefenwyd himself had saved their lives. Were they to be cast aside without a thought? His own mind was not made up on any of this. He could barely conceive of what he was being asked to consider.

But his thoughts had a hollow and ill-considered ring to them, and in the silence of their aftermath he found himself face-to-face with the grinning specter of his own desperation.

He turned away from the two who waited for him to speak and looked out the window into the night.

No answer would come.