The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (91 page)
“How much longer is this nonsense going to continue?” he demanded.
Shea looked up in surprise.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he answered truthfully, glancing at Flick, who shrugged blankly.
“Not eating much either, I see.” His father spied the dinner plate. “How do you expect to get your strength back if you don’t eat properly?”
He paused for a moment, and then seemed to recall that he had gotten off the subject entirely.
“Strangers, that’s what I mean. Now I suppose you’ll be off again. I thought that was all done with.”
Shea stared at him.
“I’m not going anywhere. What in the world are you talking about?”
Curzad Ohmsford seated himself heavily on a vacant stool and eyed his foster son closely, apparently resigned to the fact that he was not going to get a straight answer without a little unnecessary effort.
“Shea, we have never lied to each other, have we? When you came back from your visit with the Prince of Leah, I never pressed you about what went on while you were there, even though you left in the middle of the night without a word to anyone, even though you came back looking like your own ghost and very carefully avoided telling me exactly how you got that way. Now answer me,” he continued quickly when Shea tried to object. “I never once asked you to tell me anything, did I?”
Shea shook his head silently. His father nodded in satisfaction.
“No, because I happen to believe that a man’s business is mostly his own affair. But I cannot forget that the last time you disappeared from the Vale was right after that other stranger appeared asking for you.”
“Other stranger!” the brothers exclaimed together. Instantly all the old memories came back to them—Allanon’s mysterious appearance, Balinor’s warning, the Skull Bearers, the running, the fear … Shea slid down from his stool slowly.
“There’s someone here … looking for me?”
His father nodded, his broad face clouding darkly as he caught the look of concern mirrored in his son’s furtive glance at the doorway.
“A stranger, like before. He got in several minutes ago, looking for you. He’s waiting out in the lobby. But I don’t see …”
“Shea, what can we do?” Flick interrupted hurriedly. “We don’t even have the Elfstones to protect us anymore.”
“I … I don’t know,” his brother mumbled, desperately trying to think through his confusion. “We could slip out the back way …”
“Now wait a minute!” Curzad Ohmsford had heard enough. He gripped their shoulders tightly and turned them about to face him, staring at them in disbelief.
“I did not raise my sons to run away from trouble.” He studied their worried faces a moment and shook his head. “You must learn to face your problems, not run from them. Why, here you are in your own home, among family and friends who will stand by you, and you talk about running away.”
He released them and stepped back a pace.
“Now we’ll all go out there together and face this man. He looks a hard sort, but he seemed friendly enough when we talked. Besides, I don’t think a one-handed man is any kind of a match physically for three whole men—even with that pike.”
Shea started abruptly.
“One-handed …?”
“He looks like he traveled a long way to get here.” The elder Ohmsford did not seem to have heard him. “He’s carrying a little leather pouch that he claims belongs to you. I offered, to take it, but he wouldn’t give it to me. Said he wouldn’t give it to anyone but you.”
Now suddenly Flick understood.
“It must be something important,” his father declared. “He told me you dropped it on your way home. Now how could that happen?”
Curzad Ohmsford had to wait awhile longer for his answer. In a rush, his sons were past him, through the kitchen door, and halfway down the hallway to the lobby of the inn.
For Barbara,
T
he night sky brightened faintly in the east with the approach of dawn as the Chosen entered the Gardens of Life. Without, the Elven city of Arborlon lay sleeping, its people still wrapped in the warmth and solitude of their beds. But for the Chosen, the day had already begun. Their trailing white robes billowing slightly with a rush of summer wind, they passed between the sentries of the Black Watch, who stood rigid and aloof as such sentries had stood for centuries gone before the arched, wrought-iron gateway inlaid with silver scroll and ivory chips. They passed quickly, and only their soft voices and the crunch of their sandaled feet on the gravel pathway disturbed the silence of the new day as they slipped into the pine-shadowed dark beyond.
The Chosen were the caretakers of the Ellcrys, the strange and wondrous tree that stood at the center of the Gardens—the tree, as the legends told, that served as protector against a primordial evil that had very nearly destroyed the Elves centuries ago, an evil that had been shut away from the earth since before the dawn of the old race of Men. In all the time that had followed, there had been Chosen to care for the Ellcrys. Theirs was a tradition handed down through generations of Elves, a tradition of service that the Elves regarded as both a coveted honor and a solemn duty.
Yet there was little evidence of solemnity in the procession that passed through the Gardens this morning. Two hundred and thirty days of the year of their service had gone by, and youthful spirits could no longer be easily subdued. The first sense of awe at the responsibility given them had long since passed, and the Chosen of the Elves were now just six young men on their way to perform a task they had performed each day since the time of their choosing, a task grown old and familiar—the greeting of the tree at the first touch of sunrise.
Only Lauren, youngest of this year’s Chosen, was silent. He lagged a bit behind the others as they walked, taking no part in their idle chatter. His red head was bent in concentration, and there was a deep frown on his face. So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that he was not aware when the noise ahead ceased, nor of the steps that fell back beside him, until a hand touched his arm. Then his troubled face jerked up abruptly to find Jase regarding him.
“What’s the matter, Lauren? Are you sick?” Jase asked. Because he was a few months older than the rest, Jase was the accepted leader of the Chosen.
Lauren shook his head, but the frown did not leave his face entirely. “I’m all right.”
“Something
is bothering you. You’ve been brooding all morning. Come to think of it, you were rather quiet last night, too.” Jase’s hand on his shoulder brought the younger Elf about to face him. “Come on, out with it. Nobody expects you to serve if you’re not feeling well.”
Lauren hesitated, then sighed and nodded. “All right. It’s the Ellcrys. Yesterday, at sunset, just before we left her, I thought I saw some spotting on her leaves. It looked like wilt.”
“Wilt? Are you sure? Nothing like that ever happens to the Ellcrys—at least that’s what we’ve always been told,” Jase said doubtfully.
“I could have been mistaken,” Lauren admitted. “It was getting dark. I told myself then that it was probably just the way the shadows lay on the leaves. But the more I try to remember how it looked, the more I think it really was wilt.”
“There was a disconcerted muttering from the others, and one of them spoke. “This is Amberle’s fault. I said before that something bad would come from having a girl picked as a Chosen.”
“There were other girls among the Chosen, and nothing happened because of it,” Lauren protested. He had always liked Amberle. She had been easy to talk to, even if she was King Eventine Elessedil’s granddaughter.
“Not for five hundred years, Lauren,” the other said.
“All right, that’s enough,” Jase interrupted. “We agreed not to talk about Amberle. You know that.” He stood silently for a moment, pondering what Lauren had said. Then he shrugged. “It would be unfortunate if anything happened to the tree, especially while she was under our care. But after all, nothing lasts forever.”
Lauren was shocked. “But Jase, when the tree weakens, the Forbidding will end and the Demons within will be freed …”
“Do you really believe those old stories, Lauren?” Jase laughed.
Lauren stared at the older Elf. “How can you be a Chosen and
not
believe?”
“I don’t remember being asked what I believed when I was chosen, Lauren. Were you asked?”
Lauren shook his head. Candidates for the honor of being Chosen were never asked anything. They were simply brought before the tree—young Elves who had crossed over into manhood and womanhood in the prior year. At the dawn of the new year, they gathered to pass beneath her limbs, each pausing momentarily for acceptance. Those the tree touched upon the shoulders became the new Chosen, to serve until the year was done. Lauren could still remember the mix of ecstasy and pride he had felt at the moment
a slender branch had bent to touch him and he’d heard her speak his name.
And he remembered, too, the astonishment of all when Amberle had been called …
“It’s just a tale to frighten children,” Jase was saying. “The real function of the Ellcrys is to serve as a reminder to the Elven people that they, like her, survive despite all the changes that have taken place in the history of the Four Lands. She is a symbol of our people’s strength, Lauren—nothing more.”
He motioned for them all to resume their walk into the Gardens and turned away. Lauren lapsed back into thought. The older Elf’s casual disregard for the legend of the tree disturbed him. Of course Jase was from the city and Lauren had observed that the people of Arborlon seemed to take the old beliefs less seriously than did those of the little northern village from which he came. But the story of the Ellcrys and the Forbidding wasn’t just a story—it was the foundation of everything that was truly Elven, the most important event in the history of his people.
It had all taken place long ago, before the birth of the new world. There had been a great war between good and evil—a war that the Elves had finally won by creating the Ellcrys and a Forbidding that had banished the evil Demons into a timeless dark. And so long as the Ellcrys was kept well, so long would the evil be locked from the land.