Thus he had committed himself. It was not something that could be undone, even if he should choose to do so, and he did not. But from here forward, he would be on his guard against such clever manipulation by the Druid. In so far as it was possible for him to do so, he would look beyond the words and actions of the big man to the reasons that lay behind them, the better to see where it was that he was being led. Wil Ohmsford was nobody’s fool. He had been looking after himself for several years, and he was not about to quit doing so now. He must be wary of the Druid. He would trust him, but not blindly and not without proper consideration. Perhaps he could be of service to the Elves and to the girl Amberle; he did not reject that possibility simply because of what he felt about the manner in which his cooperation in all this had been secured. But he would be careful to choose his own manner of giving aid. He would be careful to decide for himself whose interests he might best look after. He would accept nothing as he found it.
His face lifted guardedly, and he peered through the rain at the dark form riding ahead of him—Allanon, last of the Druids, a being who came from another age, whose powers dwarfed anything known to this current world. And Wil must both trust him and yet not trust him. He felt a moment of deep consternation. What had he gotten himself into? Perhaps Flick had been right after all. Perhaps he would have done well to have given a little more thought to his decision. But it was too late for that now. Too late, as well, for thoughts such as these. He shook his head. There was little point in dwelling on it further. He would be well advised to turn his thoughts in another direction.
He spent the remainder of the day trying unsuccessfully to do so.
The rain turned to drizzle as the day lengthened, then at last died away entirely in the cold gray of early evening. Thunderclouds continued to blanket the skies as nightfall turned from gray to black, and the air filled with mist that wandered at the forest’s edge like a child lost. Allanon turned into the shelter of the great trees, and they made camp in a small clearing several hundred yards from the borders of the Rabb. Behind them, rising above the roof of the forest, was the dark wall of the Wolfsktaag, little more than a deeper shade of black against the night. Despite the damp, they managed to salvage enough dry wood and kindling to make a small fire, and the flames lent some warmth to the evening chill. Travel cloaks were hung on lines stretched overhead, and the horses were tethered close by.
They consumed a sparse meal of cold beef, fruit, and nuts that they had packed before leaving Storlock, exchanging only a few perfunctory words as they ate. The Druid sat in brooding silence, preoccupied with his own thoughts, as he had been ever since they had left the village, and seemingly uninterested in carrying on any sort of conversation. But Wil had determined to learn something more of what lay ahead and he had no intention of waiting any longer to begin talking about it. When they had finished their meal, he eased himself a bit closer to the fire, making sure the movement caught Allanon’s attention.
“Can we talk a bit?” he asked carefully, bearing in mind his grandfather’s many tales of the big man’s uncertain temperament.
The Druid stared at him expressionlessly for a moment, then nodded.
“Can you tell me something more about the history of the Elven people?” Wil decided the conversation should begin there.
Allanon smiled faintly. “Very well. What would you like to know, Wil Ohmsford?”
The Valeman hesitated. “Last night you told us that even though the histories of the old world make no mention of the Elven people other than in fairy tales and in folklore, they were a real people nevertheless, just as men were. You said they were there, but humans couldn’t see them. I didn’t understand that.”
“You didn’t?” The big man seemed amused. “Well, then you shall have an explanation. Simply put, the Elves have always been creatures of the forest—but more so in the times before the Great Wars. In those days, as I’ve told you before, they were creatures of magic. They possessed the ability to blend in quite naturally with their surroundings, much as if they were a bush or plant that you might pass by a thousand times and never notice. Humans couldn’t see them because they did not know how to look for them.”
“But they weren’t invisible?”
“Hardly.”
“Just difficult to see?”
“Yes, yes.” There was a touch of annoyance in the Druid’s answer.
“But why don’t we have trouble seeing them now?”
Allanon straightened himself. “You’re not listening. In the old world, the Elves were creatures of magic, as were all the creatures of faerie. They are creatures of magic no longer. They are men, just as you are a man. Their magic is lost to them.”
“How did this happen?” Wil settled his elbows against his knees and propped his chin in his hands, somewhat in the manner of a curious child.
“That is not so easy to explain,” the Druid advised him. “But I can see that you will not be satisfied until I’ve tried, so I will attempt to do so.”
He leaned forward slightly. “After the creation of the Ellcrys, after the banishment of the creatures of evil magic from the earth, the Elves and their faerie brethren drifted apart once more. It was natural enough that this should happen, since they had united in the first place only for the purpose of defeating their common enemy and, once that was accomplished, there was little left to keep them together. Beyond their general concern in preserving the earth as a homeland, they had almost nothing in common. Each species of creature had its own way of life, its own habits, its own interests. Elves, Dwarves, Sprites, Gnomes, Trolls, Witches, and all the rest, were as different from each other as the beasts of the forest from the fish in the sea.
“Humankind had not yet begun to emerge from its early, primitive existence, and would not do so for hundreds of years to come. The faerie creatures paid the humans little attention, and indeed there seemed little reason to do so. After all, at this stage in time humans were simply a higher form of animal life, possessing greater innate intelligence than other animals, but lesser instincts. The Elves and their brethren did not foresee the influence that humans would eventually have upon the development on the earth.”
The Druid paused. “It was something they could have foreseen, had they paid closer attention to the differences between themselves and humankind. Two differences were of particular importance. The Elves and their brethren did not procreate rapidly; humans did. The Elves, for example, were one of the more populous faerie people, yet their longer life spans resulted in fewer births. Many of the other faerie creatures gave birth only once every several hundred years. But humans had frequent multiple births within the family unit, and their population grew quickly. In the beginning, the creatures of magic far outnumbered the humans. Within a thousand years time, that situation reversed itself dramatically. Thereafter the human population expanded steadily, while the faerie population began to diminish—but I’ll get to that in a moment.
“The second difference between the Elves and their brethren and humankind had to do with the ability to adapt, or lack thereof. The Elves were creatures of the forestland; they seldom left the shelter of their woods. It was the same with most of the others. Each resided within a particular geographic area, a carefully bounded terrain. It had always been so. Some lived within the forests, some within the rivers and seas, some within the mountains, some within the plainlands. They had adapted their way of life to the terrain that served as their homeland; they could not and would not live anywhere else. But humans were more adaptable; they lived everywhere. The forests, the rivers, the mountains, the plains—they claimed it all. Thus their expansion as their population grew came naturally, easily. They adapted to any change in environment. The Elves and their brethren resisted all change.”
Allanon paused, then smiled faintly. “There was a time, Wil Ohmsford, when life in the old world was much as life is now—when humans lived and worked and played much as the races do in this world. Does that surprise you?”
&n
bsp; Wil nodded. “A little, I guess.”
The Druid shook his head. “There was such a time. It was then that the Elves should have come forward and joined with humans to shape their world. But they did not—neither they nor their brethren. They chose instead to remain hidden within their forestland, observers only, still believing that their own existence would not be affected by the development of humankind. They saw no threat to themselves; the humans possessed no magic and their ways were not destructive—not then. So the Elves kept to their policy of isolation, foolishly thinking it could always be so. It was their undoing. The human population continued to expand and to develop. As time wore on, they learned of the Elves and their brethren. But because the faerie creatures chose concealment as their way of life, they earned the distrust of humans. They were deemed creatures of ill-fortune, creatures who spied and connived against others, creatures who performed acts of mischief and whose favorite pastime was to discover new ways of making the lives of hardworking humans more difficult. There was some truth to the charges, since a few of the faerie creatures did indeed delight in tormenting humans with small acts of enchantment, but by and large the reputation was undeserved. In any case, the Elves and their brethren chose to ignore it all. The attitude of humankind toward them did not concern them. Their sole concern was with the preservation and protection of the land and the living things within it, and this they could accomplish very well, despite the ill feelings humans bore them.
“Then even this state of affairs began to change. Humans continued to populate the earth with increasing rapidity, growing, expanding, now building cities and fortresses, now sailing the seas in search of new lands, now pushing back the wilderness about them. They began, for the first time, seriously to affect the character of the land, changing whole regions for habitation and consumption needs. The Elves were forced to move deeper and deeper into the forestlands that were their homes, as the human population cut away the trees and brush. All of the faerie creatures found their homelands being encroached upon by this expansion until finally, for some, there were no homes at all.”
“But didn’t they resist this intrusion?” Wil interrupted suddenly.
“It was far too late for that,” Allanon replied, his smile bitter. “By this time, many of the faerie creatures had become extinct, some by failure to reproduce sufficient young, some by their failure to adapt to a changing environment. Those who remained were no longer able to unite as they once had done; it had been hundreds of years since their war with the faerie creatures of evil magic, and they had scattered far and wide about the earth and long since lost contact with one another. Worst of all, they no longer had their own magic. When the evil magic had flourished upon the earth, there had been need for good magic to withstand it. But once that evil had been banished, the need for the good magic was past. The faerie creatures ceased using most of it. As time passed, much of it was forgotten altogether. Human beings used no magic of any consequence, so the Elves and their brethren saw no need for the very powerful magics that had once been employed to defeat their evil counterparts. By the time they recognized the need for it again, it was lost to them—all but a small part of it. Thus their resistance to the expansion of the human population into their homelands was weakened badly. At first they fought very hard, using all the power they still possessed to stop what was happening. It availed them nothing. There were too many humans and too few of them. Their magic was ineffective. It won them small victories, brief respites, nothing more. They were simply overwhelmed in the end, driven from their homes to find new ones or to perish—driven out, in the final analysis, by sciences and technologies against which they had no real defense.”
“And the Elves—what of them?” Wil asked quietly.
“They learned to survive. Their population dwindled, but they did not become extinct as did so many of the others. They remained within their forestland, moving steadily deeper, hidden now completely from the humans who had come to occupy almost the whole of the earth. They watched in horror the destruction that was being performed on their world. They watched it being stripped of its resources and its animal life. They watched as its ecological balance was utterly and irreversibly disrupted. They watched the humans war between themselves incessantly as the separate governments struggled to achieve domination over one another. They watched and they waited and they prepared—for they saw how it all must end.”
“The Great Wars.” The Valeman anticipated the Druid.
“The Great Wars.” Allanon nodded. “The Elves foresaw that such horrors would come. They used what magic they still possessed in an effort to preserve themselves and a few carefully chosen treasures of their past—among these, the Ellcrys—from the holocaust that followed. It was a remarkable effort, and it allowed them to survive. Most of the other faerie creatures were destroyed. A small number of humans survived, though it was not through their foresight that they did so. They survived because there were so many of them in so many different parts of the earth that the holocaust simply missed a few of them. But everything that the humans had built was destroyed. All of their vast, sprawling civilization was erased. The old world was reduced to a barren, desolate wilderness.
“For hundreds of years after, all life was caught up in a savage struggle to stay alive. The few creatures that remained alive in this new world were forced to adapt to the primitive environment about them, an environment in which nature had been altered beyond recognition. Humankind was changed forever. From out of the old race of humans emerged four new and distinct races: Men, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Trolls. It was believed, and is still believed by most, that the Elves were a fifth race born of the holocaust. For the new races, it was the beginning of life. Most of the history of the old world was quickly forgotten; most of the old ways vanished. The Elves kept much of their history and their tradition. Only their magic was lost to them—but this time it was lost for good. Their need to adapt resulted in changes that would not otherwise have occurred, changes that brought them closer culturally and physiologically to the new races. Reborn humans and surviving Elves assimilated together in their new world until finally, inexorably, they became much the same.
“And when at last, almost a thousand years after the Great Wars had ended, the new races began to emerge from the primitive lives they had endured while struggling to survive the aftereffects of the holocaust, the Elves stood with them. No longer would they hide in their forestland as impartial observers to the development of a world. This time they would be a part of that development, working openly with the new races to be certain that men did not travel a second time that roadway which had almost ended with the destruction of all life. Thus did the Elves, through the Druid Galaphile, convene the First Council at Paranor. Thus did the Elves seek to turn the races from an ill-advised search for the old sciences of energy and power, counseling instead a more cautious approach to life’s mysteries. Thus did they seek to regain the small magics they had lost, believing these arts would help them best in their efforts to preserve their new world and its life.”
“Yet the Elves have no magic,” Wil reminded the big man. “Only the Druids did.”
“The Druids and a handful of others scattered through the land,” Allanon corrected. He seemed to lose himself momentarily. When he spoke again, his voice was distant. “The Druids learned early of the dangers inherent in the search for the lost magic. A Druid named Brona taught them well. His need to explore the limits of the magic destroyed him, created in his physical shell the creature we know as the Warlock Lord. When the Druids realized what hunger for the magic had done to him, they forbade further exploration. The magic they had found was not altogether good, nor altogether bad; it was simply powerful—too powerful for mortal men to master. For a time, it was left alone. Then Brona caught and killed all of the Druids at Paranor, signaling the start of the Second War of the Races, and suddenly there was only Bremen left to teach the magic. Then, when he was gone, there was only me . . .”
 
; He trailed off momentarily, dark eyes narrowing as he stared down into the little fire at their feet. Then he looked back suddenly at Wil.
“What else would you know, Valeman?”
The tone of his voice was sharp, almost angry. Its abruptness caught Wil by surprise, but he kept his gaze steady, forcing his eyes to meet the Druid’s.
“What else would you have me know?” he replied quietly.
Allanon said nothing, waiting. There was a long, uncomfortable silence as the two men faced each other. At last the Valeman looked away again, poking idly at the embers of their fire with the toe of one boot.
“These creatures that were shut within the place beyond the Forbidding—what of them?” he asked finally. “How have they survived for so many years? Why have they not perished?”
Allanon’s dark expression did not change. “Call them Demons, for that is what they have become. They were sent to a non-place, a dark emptiness beyond any living world. Within that darkness, there was no passing of time to bring age and death. The Elves failed to realize this, I suppose, or perhaps thought it of little importance, since their only concern was to remove the evil from their own world. In any case, the Demons did not die; rather, they multiplied. The evil that lived within them fed upon itself and grew stronger. It bred new life. For evil left to itself, Valeman, does not simply perish; it thrives. Evil contained is not evil destroyed. It nourishes itself, grows within its confinement, swells and rages until it works loose, and then . . . then it runs free.”
“And its magic?” Wil followed quickly. “Has its magic grown also?”
Some of the harshness faded from the other’s visage, and he nodded. “Fed in the same way, and practiced, for the evil ones warred with each other in their prison, driven nearly mad with need to release their hatred of what had been done to them.”