Wil stared at it all in wonderment. Everywhere there were touches of color and life—all with the look of something drawn from a child’s storybook. Everything was perfectly ordered.
He glanced questioningly at Allanon. The mocking smile flashed briefly, and the Druid motioned for him to come. They followed the pathway through the gardens to the benches, then moved on toward the cottage. Light shone brightly through the curtained windows of the little house, and from within came the low, gentle sound of voices—no, Wil corrected himself, children’s voices! He was mildly surprised at his discovery and very nearly missed seeing the fat, striped house cat that lay sprawled across the first step of the porch. He caught himself just in time to keep from stepping on the sleeping animal. The cat raised its bewhiskered face and stared up at him insolently. Another cat, this one coal black, scooted off the porch hurriedly and slipped down into the bushes without a sound. Druid and Valeman climbed the porch steps and moved to the front door. From within, the children’s voices rose sharply in laughter.
Allanon knocked firmly and the voices went still. Footsteps came to the other side of the door and stopped.
“Who is it?” a voice asked softly, and the patterned curtains that screened a glass port parted slightly.
The Druid leaned forward, allowing the light from within to fall across his dark countenance.
“I am Allanon,” he answered.
There was a long silence, then the sound of a latch drawn back. The door opened and an Elven girl stepped through. She was small, even for an Elf, her body slender and brown with sun. Chestnut hair fell all the way to her waist, shadowing a child’s face at once both innocent and knowing. Her eyes flashed briefly to Wil—eyes that were green and deep with life—then settled once more on the Druid.
“Allanon has been gone from the Four Lands for more than fifty years.” Her voice was steady, but there was fear in her eyes. “Who are you?”
“I am Allanon,” he repeated. He let a moment of silence pass. “Who else could have found you here, Amberle? Who else would know that you are one of the Chosen?”
The Elven girl stared up at him speechlessly. When she tried to speak, the words would not come. Her hands came together tightly; with a visible effort, she composed herself.
“The children will be frightened if they are left alone. They must be put to bed. Wait here, please.”
Already there was a scurrying of small feet at the other side of the door and the faint whisper of excited voices. Amberle turned and disappeared back into the cottage. They could hear her voice, low and soothing, as she ushered the children up wooden stairs to the loft overhead. Allanon moved to a wide-backed bench at the other end of the porch and seated himself. Wil remained where he was, standing just to one side of the door, listening to the sounds of the Elven girl and the children from within, thinking as he did so: she is only a child herself, for goodness’ sake!
A moment later she was back, stepping lightly onto the porch, closing the cottage door carefully behind her. She glanced at Wil, who smiled at her awkwardly.
“This young man is Wil Ohmsford.” Allanon’s voice floated out of the dark. “He studies at Storlock to become a Healer.”
“Hello …” Wil began, but she was already walking past him to the big man.
“Why have you come here, Druid—if Druid you are?” she demanded, a mixture of anger and uncertainty in her voice. “Has my grandfather sent you?”
Allanon rose. “Can we sit in the gardens while we talk?”
The girl hesitated, then nodded. She led them from the porch back along the stone walkway to the benches. There she seated herself. The Druid sat across from her, Wil a little off to one side. The Valeman recognized that his rôle in this confrontation was that of a spectator and nothing more.
“Why are you here?” Amberle repeated, her voice a bit less unsettled than a moment earlier.
Allanon folded his robes about him. “To begin with, no one has sent me. I am here of my own choice. I am here to ask you to return with me to Arborlon.” He paused. “I will be brief. The Ellcrys is dying, Amberle. The Forbidding begins to crumble; the evil within breaks free—Demons all. Soon they will flood the Westland. Only you can prevent this. You are the last of the Chosen.”
“The last …” she whispered, but the words caught in her throat.
“They are all dead. The Demons have found and killed them. The Demons search now for you.”
Her face froze in horror. “No! What trick is this, Druid? What trick …” She did not finish this either, but stopped as tears formed in her eyes and streaked her child’s face. She brushed them away swiftly. “Are they really all dead? All of them?”
The Druid nodded. “You must come with me to Arborlon.”
She shook her head quickly. “No. I am no longer one of the Chosen. You know that.”
“I know that you would wish it so.”
The green eyes flared angrily. “What I would wish is of no matter in this. I no longer serve; that is all behind me. I am no longer one of the Chosen.”
“The Ellcrys selected you as one of the Chosen,” Allanon replied calmly. “She must decide whether you remain one. She must decide whether you shall carry her seed in search of the Bloodfire, so that she may be reborn and the Forbidding restored. She must decide—not you, not I.”
“I will not go back with you,” Amberle stated quietly.
“You must.”
“I will not. I will never go back. This is my home now; these are my people. I have made this choice.”
The Druid shook his head slowly. “Your home is wherever you make it. Your people are whomever you wish them to be. But your responsibilities are sometimes given you without choice, without consent. It is so in this, Elven girl. You are the last of the Chosen; you are the last real hope of the Elves. You cannot run away from it; you cannot hide from it. You most certainly cannot change it.”
Amberle rose, paced away a step, and turned. “You do not understand.”
Allanon watched her. “I understand better than you think.”
“If you did, you would not ask me to return. When I left Arborlon, I knew that I would never go back again. In the eyes of my mother, my grandfather, and my people, I had disgraced myself. I did something that could not be forgiven—I rejected the gift of being a Chosen. Even should I wish it, and I do not, this cannot be undone. The Elves are a people whose sense of tradition and honor runs deep. They can never accept what has happened. If it were made known to them that they would all perish from the earth unless I alone chose to save them, still they would not have me back. I am outcast from them, and that will not change.”
The Druid rose and faced her, tall and black as he towered over her small form. His eyes were frightening as they fixed on hers.
“Your words are foolish ones, Elven girl. Your arguments are hollow and you speak them without conviction. They do not become you. I know you to be stronger than what you have shown.”
Stung by the reprimand, Amberle went taut.
“What do you know of me, Druid? You know nothing!” She stepped close to him, green eyes filled with anger. “I am a teacher of children. Some of them you saw this night. They come in groups of half-a-dozen or eight and stay with me one season. They are given into my care by their parents. They are entrusted to me. While they are with me, I give to them my knowledge of living things. I teach them to love and to respect the world into which they were born—the land and sea and sky and all that lives upon and within it. I teach them to understand that world. I teach them to give life back in exchange for the life they were given; I teach them to grow and nurture that life. We begin simply, as with this garden. We finish with the complexity that surrounds human life. There is love in what I do. I am a simple person with a simple gift—a gift I can share with others. A Chosen shares nothing with others. I was never a Chosen—never! That was something I was called upon to be that I did not wish to be nor was suited to be. All that, I have left behind me. I hav
e made this village and its people my life. This is who I am. This is where I belong.”
“Perhaps.” The Druid’s voice was calm and steady and it brushed aside her anger. “Yet will you turn your back on the Elves for no better reason than this? Without you, they will surely perish. They will stand and fight as they did in the old world when the evil first threatened. But this time they lack the magic to make them strong. They will be destroyed.”
“These children have been given into my keeping …” the girl began hurriedly, but Allanon’s hand rose abruptly.
“What do you think will happen once the Elves are destroyed? Do you think the evil ones will be content to stay within the borders of the Westland? What of your children then, Elven girl?”
Amberle stared at him wordlessly for a moment, then dropped slowly back down onto the bench. Tears ran again from her eyes, and she closed them tightly.
“Why was I chosen?” she asked softly, her words barely more than a whisper. “There was no reason for it. I did not seek it—and there were so many others who did.” Her hands clenched in her lap. “It was a mockery, Druid—a joke. Do you see that? No woman had been chosen in over five hundred years. Only men. But then I was chosen—an impossible, cruel mistake. A mistake.”
The Druid stared at the gardens, his face expressionless once more.
“There was no mistake,” he responded, though Wil believed he was speaking almost to himself. The Druid looked back at her, turning quietly. “What frightens you, Amberle? You are afraid, aren’t you?”
She did not look up, did not open her eyes. Her head nodded once.
Allanon reseated himself. His voice was gentle now. “Fear is part of life, but it should be faced openly, never hidden. What is it that frightens you?”
There was a long silence. Wil leaned forward quietly on his seat several benches away.
Finally Amberle spoke, her words whispered. “She does.”
The Druid frowned. “The Ellcrys?”
But this time Amberle did not answer him. Her hands lifted to her stricken face and wiped away the tears. Her green eyes opened, and she came to her feet once more.
“If I were to agree to travel with you to Arborlon, if I were to agree to face my grandfather and my people, if I were to go before the Ellcrys one final time—if I were to do all this, all that you have asked, what then if she will not give to me her seed?”
Allanon straightened. “Then you may return to Havenstead, and I will trouble you no more.”
She paused. “I will think about it.”
“There is no time to think about it,” Allanon insisted. “You must decide now, tonight. The Demons search for you.”
“I will think about it,” she repeated. Her eyes settled on Wil. “What is your part in all of this, Healer?” Wil started to reply, but her quick smile stopped him. “Never mind. Somehow I sense that we are alike in this. You know no more than I.”
Less, Wil wanted to tell her, but she had already turned away.
“I have no place for you in my home.” She spoke to Allanon again. “You may sleep here, if you like. Tomorrow we’ll talk about this further.”
She started toward the cottage, chestnut hair trailing sail-like down her back.
“Amberle!” the big man called after her.
“Tomorrow,” she replied and did not slow.
Then she was gone, disappearing silently through the cottage door, leaving Druid and Valeman staring after her in the dark.
11
The creature came for Wil through the sluggish haze of his sleep, a formless creation of his dreams that rose up hauntingly out of the depths of his subconscious. It was a thing of terror, a thing that lurked in the dark recesses of his mind where he hid his deepest fears. It came for him with stealth and cunning, slipping easily past the obstacles with which he sought to block it, its motion fluid and quick as it pressed in about him. He could not see it as it came; he never would. It lacked substance or identity; it lacked reason. There was only the overwhelming sense of terror it created by its being. He ran from it, of course—ran swiftly through the landscapes of his imagination, ran and ran until it seemed he must surely have left it behind. But he had not. It was there at once, closing swiftly, surely. He lunged from it in desperation, screaming soundlessly for help, anyone’s help. But there was no one. He was alone with this thing and he could not escape it. Yet he must, for if it were to reach him, if it were to touch him, he knew with certainty that he would die. So he ran in fear, blindly, feeling the breath of the thing hot upon his neck…
He came awake with a start, lurching upward from beneath the blankets to a sitting position. The night air was cold on his face and body. Sweat ran from beneath his arms, and from within his head he could hear the sound of his heart pounding wildly.
Allanon’s dark form crouched next to him, strong hands holding fast to Wil’s shoulders. The Druid’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“Quick, Valeman. They have found us.”
Wil Ohmsford did not need to ask who it was that had found them. It was his dream become reality. He came to his feet with a bound, grabbing up his blanket and hurrying after the Druid, who was already moving toward the little cottage. As if by intuition, Amberle appeared at the edge of the porch, white night dress blowing eerily about her slender form, giving her a ghostly appearance. Allanon went to her at once.
“I told you to dress,” he whispered angrily.
She looked unconvinced. “You would not seek to trick me, Druid? This would not be some game you are playing to help me make up my mind to come back with you to Arborlon?”
Allanon’s face went black. “Another few minutes of standing around and you will have your answer! Now dress!”
She stood her ground. “Very well. But I cannot leave the children. They must be taken to a place of safety.”
“There is not time enough for that,” the Druid urged. “Besides, they will be safer here than stumbling about in the dark.”
“They will not understand being left like this.”
“Remain and they will share your fate!” Allanon’s patience was gone. “Wake the oldest. Tell him that you must go away for a time, that you have no choice. Tell him that when it is light out, to take the others to a neighbor’s home. Now do as I say—hurry!”
This time she did not argue, but turned and disappeared back inside the cottage. Wil straightened his clothing and rolled his blanket tight. Together, Druid and Valeman saddled the horses and brought them around to the front of the darkened home to wait for the Elven girl. She was with them almost immediately, dressed in boots, slacks, belted tunic and a long blue riding cloak.
Allanon brought the girl and the Valeman close before Artaq, whispering softly to the animal, stroking the satin neck. Then he handed the reins to Wil. “Get on.”
Wil did as he was told, scrambling aboard the big black. Artaq shook his head and whickered. Allanon continued to whisper gently, then took Amberle by the waist and swung her up behind the Valeman as if she were no more than a feather’s weight. Then he mounted Spitter.
“Quiet, now,” he cautioned. “Not a word.”
They turned onto the roadway that ran in front of the little cottage and followed it eastward through the sleeping village. Only the sound of their horses’ hooves thudding softly on the earthen trail broke the deep stillness. In minutes, the buildings of the village were behind them, and they were at the forest’s edge. Before them stretched the tilled fields, the waters of the irrigation ditches sparkling with moonlight as they crisscrossed through neatly planted rows of grain and corn already grown and ripening. In the distance, on either side, the wooded slopes of the valley fell away into the grasslands.
Allanon dismounted wordlessly. He stood motionless for a time, listening to the silence of the night, his dark face anxious. Finally he stepped close to Artaq, motioning for Wil and Amberle to bend close.
“They are all around us.” He breathed the words. Wil went cold. The Druid looked at him a
s if to measure his worth. “Have you ridden in hunt before?” Wil nodded. “Good. You and Amberle will stay with Artaq. If you are pressed, give him his head. He will see you safely through this. We will ride north along the edge of the village to where the valley drops into the grasslands. Once there, we will break through their circle. Do not stop for anything, do you understand? If we become separated, do not turn back. Ride north until you reach the Silver River. If I do not come at once, cross and ride west to Arborlon.”
“What will you …?” Wil asked hurriedly.
“Do not concern yourself with what I might be doing,” the Druid cut him short. “Just do as you are told.”
Wil nodded reluctantly. He did not like the sound of this at all. When Allanon turned away, he glanced back at Amberle.
“Hold tight,” he whispered and tried a quick smile. She did not smile back. There was undisguised fear in her eyes.
Allanon remounted. Slowly, cautiously they made their way along the forest’s edge, skirting the western borders of the village of Havenstead. Silence hung deep and penetrating across the whole of the valley. Like shadows, they slipped through the darkness of the trees, their eyes searching the night for movement. Ahead of them, the north slope of the valley began to loom up darkly through breaks in the forest.
Then Allanon reined in sharply, motioning for them to be still. He pointed wordlessly toward the fields on their left. Wil and Amberle followed the line of his arm. At first, there was nothing to be seen, only row upon row of stalks shaded dark gray in the moonlight. But a moment later their eyes picked out the quick movement of something vaguely like an animal as it crept from one of the irrigation ditches and disappeared into the stalks of the field.
They waited for a time, frozen against the trees, then started forward once more. They had only gone a short distance when, from out of the woodlands behind them, a deep, searing howl rose. Amberle tightened her grip about Wil’s waist and put her head against his back.