kneeling anxiously beside her. “Wren is right,” she whispered.
‘The queen is very sick.”
Wren kept her eyes fixed on Gavilan, trying to read his face,
to make him understand. “We have to get her out of here.”
Triss pushed forward hurriedly. “Do you know a way?” he
asked, his lean features lined with worry.
“I do,” Wren answered. She glanced quickly at the Captain
of the Home Guard, then back again at Gavilan. “I don’t have
time to argue about this. I don’t have time to explain. You have
to trust me. You have to.”
Gavilan remained stubbornly unconvinced. “You ask too
much. What if you’re wrong? If we move her and she dies . .
But Triss was already gathering up their gear, motioning Dal
to help. “The choice has been made for us,” he declared quietly.
“The queen has no chance if we don’t carry her from this swamp.
Do what you can, Wren.”
They collected what remained of their supplies and equip-
ment, and built a hasty litter from blankets and poles on which
they placed the queen. When they were finished, they turned
expectantly to Wren. She faced them as if she were condemned,
thinking that she had no choice in this matter, that she must
forget her fears and doubts, her resolutions, the promises she
had made herself regarding use of the magic and the Elfstones,
and do what she could to save her grandmother’s life.
She reached down into her tunic and pulled free the leather
bag. A quick loosening of the drawstrings, and the Elfstones
tumbled into her hand with a harsh, blue glitter.
Feeling small and vulnerable, she walked to the edge of the
campsite and stood staring out for a moment into the shadows
and mist. Faun tried to scramble up her leg, but she reached
down gently and shooed the Tree Squeak away. Vog swirled
everywhere, a vile stench of sulfur and ash clinging to its skirts.
A mix of haze and steam rose off the swamp’s fetid waters. She
was at the edge of her life, she sensed, brought there by circum-
stance and fate, and whatever happened next, she would never
be the same. She longed for what once had been, for what might
have been, for an escape she could not hope to find.
Frightened that she might change her mind if she considered
the matter longer, she held forth the Elfstones and willed them
to life.
Nothing happened.
Oh, Shades!
She tried again, concentrating, letting herself form the words
carefully in her mind, thinking each one in order, picturing the
power that lay within stirring, rising up. She had the Elven
blood, she thought desperately. She had summoned the power
before .
And then abruptly the blue fire flared, exploding out of the
Stones as if a stopper had been pulled. It coalesced about her
hand, brilliant and stunning, brightening the swamp as if day-
light had at last broken through into the mire. The members of
the company reeled away, crouching guardedly, shielding their
eyes. Wren stood erect, feeling the power of the Stones flow
through her, searching, studying, and deciding if it belonged. A
pleasant, seductive warmth enveloped her. Then the light shot
away to her right, scything through the mist and haze and the
dying trees and scrub and vines, shooting across the empty wa-
ters hundreds of yards, farther than the eye should have been
able to see, to fix upon a rock wall that lifted away into the
night.
Blackledge!
As quickly as it had come, the light was gone again, the
power of the Elfstones dying, returned from whence it had come.
Wren closed her fingers about the Stones, drained and exhila-
rated both at once, swept clean somehow by the magic, invig-
orated but left weak. Shaking in spite of her resolve, she slipped
the talismans back into their pouch. The others straightened
uncertainly, eyes shifting to find her own.
“There,” she said quietly, pointing in the direction that the
light had taken.
For an instant, no one spoke. Wren’s mind was awash with
what she had done, the magic’s rush still fresh within her body,
warring now with the guilt she felt for betraying her vow. But