He shook his head slowly and continued on toward the manor house.
Gael was still on duty, his face drawn with fatigue and his eyes troubled. It was inevitable that he should come to know of the problem they faced, but he could be trusted to maintain secrecy. Now he started to rise, then sank back again at Ander’s motion. “The King is expecting you,” he said. “He’s in his study, refusing to retire. If you could persuade him to sleep, even for a few hours . . .”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ander promised.
Within his private study, Eventine Elessedil looked up as his son entered. His eyes studied Ander’s face momentarily, reading the failure written there. Then he pushed himself back from the reading table at which he had been seated and rubbed his eyes wearily. He rose, stretched, and walked slowly to the curtained windows, peering through the folds into the darkness beyond. On the book-littered table, a tray of food had been pushed aside, hardly touched. Candles burned low, their wax dripping and puddling on the metal holders. The small study was still and somber, its oak bookcases and tapestry-covered walls a dim mix of faded colors and shadow. Scattered about in piles lay the books that Gael must have spent the day bringing up from the vaults.
The King looked back momentarily at his son. “Nothing?” Ander shook his head silently. Eventine grimaced. “Nor I—” He shrugged, pointing to the book that lay open on the table. “The last hope. It contains a single reference to the Ellcrys seed and the Bloodfire. Read it for yourself.”
The book was one of more than a hundred volumes of the histories kept by the Elven Kings and their scribes from days that were lost in myth. They were worn and old, carefully bound in leather and brass, sealed in coverings that served to protect them against the ravages of time. They had survived the Great Wars and the destruction of the old race of Man. They had survived the First and Second Wars of the Races. They had survived the ages and ages of life and death that they chronicled. They contained the entirety of the known history of the Elven people. Thousands and thousands of pages, all carefully recorded through the years.
Ander bent to the open pages; the ink had turned brown with age and the script was of an ancient style. But the words were clear enough to read.
“Then shall the One Seed be delivered unto the Bearer that is Chosen. And the Seed shall be borne by the Bearer to the Chambers of the Bloodfire, there to be immersed within the Fire that it might be returned to the earth. Thereupon shall the Tree be Reborn and the Great Forbidding endure forever. Thus spake the High Wizard to his Elves, even as he did perish, that Knowledge be not lost unto his People.”
Eventine nodded as Ander looked up again. “I have read through every one of those books, studying every passage that might apply. There are others—but none tells more than the one you read.”
He walked back to the reading table and stood fingering the gilt-edged pages of the volume idly. “This is the oldest volume. It contains much that may be only myth. The tale of the ancient war between good and evil magics, names of heroes, everything that led up to the Forbidding. But no mention of Safehold or of the location of the Bloodfire. And nothing on the nature of the sorcery that gave life to the Ellcrys and to the power of the Forbidding.”
The last omission was hardly unusual, Ander thought. His ancestors had seldom placed the secrets of their magics in writing. Such things were handed down by word of mouth so that they could not be stolen by their enemies. And some sorceries were said to be so powerful that their use was limited to but a single time and place. It might have been so with the sorcery that had created the Ellcrys.
The King lowered himself back into his chair, studied the book a moment longer, then wordlessly closed it.
“We will have to rely on the little we have learned from the Ellcrys,” he said quietly. “We will have to use that to determine the possible locations of the Bloodfire and then search each of them out.”
Ander nodded wordlessly. It seemed hopeless. There was only the smallest chance that they could find Safehold with nothing more than that vague description to aid them.
“I wish Arion were here,” his father murmured suddenly.
Ander said nothing. There was good cause for the King to have need of Arion this time, he admitted to himself. For the leadership that would be required in directing and furthering the search, Arion was the proper choice. And his presence might give some comfort to their father. Now was no time to begrudge him that.
“I think you should sleep, father,” Ander suggested after a moment of silence. “You’ll need rest for what lies ahead.”
The King rose once more and reached out to extinguish the candles on the table. “Very well, Ander,” he said, making an effort to smile at his son. “Send Gael in to me. But your day, too, has been a long one. You go on to bed as well and get whatever sleep you can.”
Ander returned to his cottage. To his surprise, he did sleep. While his mind spun dully in useless circles, sheer physical fatigue took over. He awoke only once during the night, his rest broken by a nightmare of indescribable horror that left him damp with sweat. Yet within seconds of waking, he drifted back asleep, the dream forgotten. This time, he slumbered undisturbed.
It was already dawn when he came awake again, slipping hurriedly from the bedcovers to dress. A sense of renewed determination strengthened him as he breakfasted hastily and prepared to leave his house. Somewhere there was an answer to this dilemma, a means by which Safehold could be found. Perhaps it lay with the dying Ellcrys. Perhaps it lay with the Chosen. But there was an answer—there had to be an answer.
As he went down the gravel walkway, he could see the early morning sunlight seeping through the screen of the surrounding forests as the new day began. He would go first to the Chosen—they would be in the Gardens of Life by now, their day already begun—in the hope that by talking once again with them something new would be discovered. They would have been thinking about the matter, turning it over and over in their minds, and possibly one of them might have recalled something more. Or perhaps the Ellcrys would have spoken to them again this morning.
He stopped first at the manor house, where Gael was already at his post. But the young Elf raised a finger to his lips, indicating silently that the King still slept and should not be disturbed. Ander nodded and left, grateful for any rest his father might find.
Dew still glimmered on the palace lawn as he moved toward the gates. He glanced expectantly at the gardens as he passed and was surprised to see that Went was not at work. He was more surprised still to see a scattering of the old fellow’s tools at the edge of the rose beds, dirt still fresh upon their metal. It was not like Went to leave a job half done. If he was having that much trouble with his back, he should be checked on. But that would have to wait. There were more pressing concerns at the moment. He glanced through the shrubbery at the flower beds a final time, then hurried on.
Minutes later he was striding past the ivy-grown walls of the Gardens of Life, following the worn pathway that led to their gates. From atop the Carolan—the towering wall of rock that rose abruptly from the eastern shore of the Rill Song, lifting Arborlon above the lands about it—he could see the vast sweep of the Westland stretched forth below: to the east and north, the towers and tree lanes of the Elven home city, wrapped close within the dense tangle of the forestland; to the south, the distant mist-gray crags of the Rock Spur and Pykon, laced with bits and pieces of blue ribbon where the Mermidon River cut apart the aged rock on its long passage eastward into Callahorn; to the west, below the Carolan and beyond the swift flow of the Rill Song, the valley of the Sarandanon, the breadbasket of the Elven nation. The homeland of the Elves, Ander thought with pride. He must find a way, he and the Chosen and his father, to save it.
Moments later he stood before the Ellcrys. There was no sign of the Chosen. The tree stood alone.
Ander stared about in disbelief. It seemed impossible that the Chosen could have all overslept, even though their routine had been so upset by the rev
elation of the Ellcrys. In hundreds of years, the Chosen had never failed to greet the tree at the first touch of morning light.
Ander left the Gardens hurriedly and was almost running as he came within sight of the walled compound of the Chosen. Evergreens surrounded it, flower gardens banked its stone and brick walkways, and vegetable patches ran in even rows along its backside, the black earth dotted with green stalks and sprouts. A low wall of worn rock enclosed the yard, breached on each side by white picket gates.
The house itself was shadowed and still.
Ander slowed. By now, the Chosen must surely be awake. Yet there was no sign of life. Something cold seemed to settle into the Elven Prince. He moved ahead, eyes peering into the shadowy dimness beyond the open door of the house, until at last he stood at the entrance.
“Lauren?” He spoke the young Elf’s name quietly.
No answer came. He stepped through the entry into the darker shadows beyond. A flicker of movement registered at the edge of his vision, movement that came from somewhere within the surrounding evergreens. A sudden apprehension swept through him, leaving him cold all over. What was back there?
Belatedly he thought of the weapons he had left within his lodgings. He stood motionless for a time, waiting for something more. But there was no further movement, no sounds betraying the presence of another living being. Resolutely he went forward.
“Lauren . . . ?”
Then his sight adjusted to the dimmer interior, and the young Elf’s name caught in his throat.
Bodies lay strewn about the main room like discarded sacks, torn and broken and lifeless. Lauren, Jase—all of the Chosen dead, ripped apart as if by maddened animals. Despair filled him. Now no Chosen remained to carry the seed of the Ellcrys in search of Safehold and the Bloodfire. Now there could be no rebirth of the tree, no salvation for the Elves. Sickened by the carnage, he nevertheless could not bring himself to move. He stood there, horror and revulsion sweeping through him, a single word shrieking in his mind:
Demons!
A moment later, he staggered outside, retching uncontrollably as he leaned up against the cottage wall and fought to still his shaking. When at last he had recovered, he went at once to give the alarm to the Black Watch, then hurried on to the city. His father would have to be told, and it was best that the news come from his son.
What had befallen the Chosen was all too clear. With the failing of the Ellcrys, the Forbidding had begun to erode. The stronger Demons were breaking loose. Nothing but a Demon could or would have done such a thing to the Chosen. In a single strike, the Demons had made certain that they would never again be imprisoned. They had destroyed all those who might aid in the rebirth of the Ellcrys and the restoration of the Forbidding that had confined them.
Back through the gates that fronted the manor house grounds he ran, down the gravel walkway that led past the gardens that old Went tended. Went was there now, digging and weeding, his leathered face lifting momentarily as the Prince went past. Ander barely saw him, said nothing to him, as he hurried on.
Went’s eyes lowered in satisfaction. Hands sifting idly through the black earth, the Changeling went on with his work.
V
It was evening again when Ander Elessedil closed the door to the cottage that had housed the Order of the Chosen, latching it firmly for the final time. Silence fell about him as he paused to stare out into the growing dark. The cottage stood empty now; the bodies of the six murdered youths had long since been taken from it, and Ander had removed the last small personal possessions to return to their relatives. For these few brief moments, he was alone with his thoughts.
But his thoughts were not ones he cared to dwell on. He had supervised the removal of the mutilated bodies and then the gathering of the histories of their Order, taken now for safekeeping to the vaults beneath the Elessedil manor house. At his father’s suggestion, he had gone through those records, page by page, searching for that small bit of revelation on Safehold’s puzzle that they had somehow overlooked. He had found nothing. He shook his head. What difference anyway, he thought bleakly. What difference now what was learned of Safehold? Without a Chosen to carry the seed, what was the need to locate the Bloodfire? Still, he had been glad to have something to do—anything to do—that would help take his mind from what he had seen when he found Lauren and the others.
He stepped away from the empty cottage, crossed the yard of the compound, and turned down the path leading to the Gardens of Life. All across the Carolan, the flicker of torches burned through the gathering darkness. There were soldiers everywhere; Black Watch ringed the Gardens and Home Guard—the King’s personal corps of Elven Hunters—patrolled the streets and tree lanes of the city. The Elves were understandably frightened by what had happened. When word of the slain Chosen had spread, Eventine had acted quickly to reassure his people that they would be protected against a similar fate—though in truth, he believed them to be in no immediate danger. The thing that had killed the Chosen had not been after anyone else. The Chosen had been its sole target. Nothing else made sense. Still, it did no harm to take precautions. Such measures would do as much to stem the panic the King could sense building in his people as to safeguard the city.
The real damage, of course, had already been done. The tree was dying, and now there would be no rebirth. Once she was dead, the Forbidding would fail entirely and the evil locked within would break free. Once free, it would seek out and destroy every last Elf. And with the Ellcrys gone, what miracle of Elven magic could be found to prevent it?
Ander paused outside the wall of the Gardens. He drew a slow breath to steady himself, forcing down the feeling of helplessness that had been building inside all day, little by little, like some insidious sickness. What in the name of sanity were they to do? Even with the Chosen alive, they had not known where the Bloodfire was to be found. With the Forbidding already beginning to crumble, there had never been enough time to search it out. And now, with the Chosen dead . . .
Amberle.
Her name whispered in his mind. Amberle. Lauren’s last words to him had been of her. Perhaps she could help, the red-haired Chosen had suggested. Then the idea had seemed impossible. Now anything at all seemed better than what they had. Ander’s mind raced. How could he convince his father that he must consider the possibility that Amberle might help? How could he convince his father even to talk to him about the girl? He remembered the old King’s bitterness and disappointment the day he had learned of Amberle’s betrayal of her trust as a Chosen. Ander balanced that against the despair he had seen in his father’s face this morning when he had brought him the news of the slaughtered Chosen. His decision was easily made. The King was desperate for help from some quarter. With Arion gone into the Sarandanon, Ander knew that that help must come from him. And what other help could he give but to suggest to his father that Amberle must be sought?
“Elven Prince?”
The voice came from out of nowhere, startling Ander so that he jumped away from it with a gasp. A shadow slipped from the shelter of the pines that grew close against the walls of the Gardens of Life, darker than the night about it. For an instant Ander stopped breathing altogether, freezing with indecision. Then, as he reached hurriedly for the short sword he wore belted at his waist, the shadow was upon him and a hand lay over his own, an iron grip holding back his arm.
“Peace, Ander Elessedil.” The voice was soft but commanding. “I am no enemy of yours.”
The shadowy form was that of a man, Ander saw now, a tall man, standing well over seven feet. Black robes were wrapped tightly about his spare, lean frame, and the hood of his traveling cloak was pulled close about his head so that nothing of his face could be seen save for narrow eyes that shone like a cat’s.
“Who are you?” the Elven Prince managed finally.
The other’s hands lifted and drew back the folds of the hood to reveal the face within. It was craggy and lined, shadowed by a short, black beard that framed a wide, unsmiling
mouth and by hair cut shoulder-length. The cat’s eyes, piercing and dark, stared out from beneath heavy brows knit fiercely above a long, flat nose. Those eyes stared into Ander’s, and the Elven Prince found that he could not look away.
“Your father would know me,” the big man whispered. “I am Allanon.”
Ander stiffened, his face incredulous. “Allanon?” His head shook slowly. “But . . . but Allanon is dead!”
There was sarcasm in the deep voice, and the eyes glinted once more. “Do I appear to you to be dead, Elven Prince?”
“No . . . no, I can see . . .” Ander’s faltered. “But it has been more than fifty years . . .”
He trailed off as the memories of his father’s stories came back to him: the search for the Sword of Shannara; the rescue of Eventine from the camp of the enemy armies; the battle at Tyrsis; the defeat of the Warlock Lord at the hands of the little Valeman, Shea Ohmsford. Through it all, Allanon had been there, lending to the beleaguered peoples of the Four Lands his strength and wisdom. When it was finished and the Warlock Lord destroyed, Allanon had disappeared entirely. Shea Ohmsford, it was said, had been the last to see him. There had been rumors afterward that Allanon had come to the Four Lands at other times, in other places. But he had not come to the Westland and the Elves. None of them had ever expected to see him again. Still, where the Druid was concerned, his father had often told him, one soon learned to expect the unexpected. Wanderer, historian, philosopher and mystic, guardian of the races, the last of the ancient Druids, the wise men of the new world—Allanon was said to have been all of these.