them-its earth, air, and water, the elements of its life. But magic
is precious and not without its limits. Time replenishes what is
used, but slowly. What the Elves did not realize was that the
demons, as they changed, began to have need of the magic
themselves. Created from it, they now discovered they required
it in order to survive. They began to systematically siphon it
from the earth and the things that lived upon it, killing whatever
they fed upon. They devoured it faster than it could regenerate.
The island began to change, to wither, to sicken and die. It was
as if it could no longer protect itself from the creatures that
ravaged it, demon and Elf alike. By the time the Elves recognized
the truth, not enough magic remained to make a difference. The
demons had grown too numerous to be destroyed. Everything
beyond the city was abandoned to them. Morrowindl survived,
if barely, but it had been subverted, changed so that it was
either wasteland or carnivorous jungle, so that almost everything
that lived upon it killed as swiftly and surely as the demons.
Nature was no longer in balance. Killeshan came awake and
boiled within its cauldron. And finally the island’s magic began
to dry up altogether, and that compelled the demons to lay siege
to Arborlon. The scent of the Keel’s magic was irresistible. It
drew them as a magnet would iron, and they became determined
to feed on it.”
Wren paled. “And now they will come for us as well, won’t
they? We have the Keel’s magic, all of the magic of Arborlon
and the Elves, stored within the Loden, and they will seek it
out.”
“Yes, Wren. They must.” Eowen’s voice was a hiss. “But that
is not the worst of what I have to tell you. There is more. Listen
to me. It is bad enough that the Elves made the monsters that
would destroy them, that they subverted Morrowindl beyond
any possible salvation, that perhaps they have destroyed them-
selves as a people. Ellenroh could scarcely bear to think of it,
of the part she played in stealing away the island’s magic, or of
her own failure to set things right again. But what devastated
her was knowing why the Elves had come to Morrowindl in the
first place. Yes, it was to escape the Federation and the Shad-
owen and all that they represented, to isolate themselves from
the madness, to begin again in a new world. But, Wren, it was
the Elves who ruined the old!”
Wren stared, disbelieving. “The Elves? How could that be?
What are you saying, Eowen?”
The hands released her own and clasped together with white-
knuckle determination, as if nothing less could persuade the red-
haired seer to continue. “After the demons had claimed virtually
all of Morrowindl, after it was clear that the island was lost and
the Elven people had been made prisoners of their own folly,
the queen had ferreted out and brought before her those who
still sought to play with the power, foolish men and women
who could not seem to learn from their mistakes, who persisted
in thinking the magic could be mastered. Among them were
those who had created the demons. She had them thrown from
the walls of the city. She did so not because of what they had
done but because of what they were attempting to do. They
were attempting to use the magic in another way, a way that
had been employed almost three hundred years earlier in the
days following the death of Allanon and the disappearance of
the Druids from the Four Lands.”
She took a deep breath. “Not all of those who sought to
reclaim the old ways went with us to Morrowindl. Not all of
those who were Elves came out of the Four Lands. A handful
of the magic-wielders remained behind, disowned by their peo-
ple, cast out by the Elessedil rulers.” Her voice lowered until it
was almost inaudible. “That handful, Wren, created monsters of
another sort.”
There was a long, terrible silence as the seer and the Rover
girl faced each other in the gloom. The cold in Wren’s stomach