everyone, even him-orphaned and homeless, a stray shunted
from one family to the next without belonging to anyone, having
no idea at all who she really was. It bothered her that she didn’t
know more about herself and that no one else seemed to know
either. She had asked often enough, but the explanations were
always vague. Her father had been an Ohmsford. Her mother
had been a Rover. It was unclear how they had died. It was
uncertain what had become of any other members of her im-
mediate family. It was unknown who her ancestors had been.
She possessed, in fact, but one item that offered any clue at
all as to who she was. It was a small leather bag she wore tied
about her neck that contained three perfectly formed stones.
Elfstones, one might have thought-until one looked more
closely and saw that they were just common rocks painted blue.
But they had been found on her as a baby and they were all she
had to suggest the heritage that might be hers.
Garth knew something about the matter, she suspected. He
had told her that he didn’t when she had asked once, but there
was something in the way he had made his disavowal that con-
vinced her he was hedging. Garth kept secrets better than most,
but she knew him too well to be fooled completely. Sometimes,
when she thought about it, she wanted to shake an answer out
of him, angry and frustrated at his refusal to be as open with
her in this as he was in everything else. But she kept her anger
and her frustration to herself. You didn’t push Garth. When he
was ready to tell her, he would.
She shrugged as she always ended up doing whenever she
considered the matter of her family history. What difference did
it make? She was who she was, whatever her lineage. She was
a Rover giri with a life that most would envy, if they bothered
to be honest about it. The whole world belonged to her, because
she was tied to no part of it. She could go where she wanted
and do what she pleased, and that was more than most could
say. Besides, many of her fellow Rovers were of dubious par-
entage, and you never heard them complain. They reveled in
their freedom, in their ability to lay claim to anything and any-
one that caught their fancy. Wasn’t that good enough for her as
well?
She stirred the dirt in front of her with her boot. Of course,
none of them were Elven, were they? None of them had the
Ohmsford-Shannara blood, with its history of Elven magic.
None of them were plagued by the dreams . . .
Her hazel eyes shifted abruptly as she became aware of Garth
looking at her. She signed some innocuous response, thinking
as she did so that none of the other Rovers had been as thor-
oughly trained to survive as she had and wondering why.
They drank a little more of the ale, built the fire up again,
and rolled into their blankets. Wren lay awake longer than she
wished to, caught up in the unanswered questions and unre-
solved puzzles that marked her life. When she did sleep, she
tossed restlessly beneath her blankets, teased by fragments of
dreams that slipped from her like raindrops through her fingers
in a summer storm and were forgotten as quickly.
It was dawn when she came awake, and the old man was
sitting across from her, poking idly at the ashes of the fire with
a long stick. “It’s about time,” he snorted.
She blinked in disbelief, then started sharply out of her blan-
kets. Garth was still sleeping, but awoke with the suddenness of
her movement. She reached for the quarterstaff at her side, her
thoughts scattering into questions. Where had this old man come
from? How had he managed to get so close without waking
them?
The old man lifted one sticklike arm reassuringly, saying,
“Don’t be getting yourself all upset. Just be grateful I let you
sleep.”
Garth was on his feet as well now, crouched, but to Wren’s