The voices grew louder, more insistent, and she saw figures
begin to take form at the edges of her vision, faint and ethereal
in the mist. A ravine opened before her-the one in which she
had lost Eowen? she wondered. She didn’t know and didn’t care.
She went down into it without slowing, following the magic’s
lead, feeling the iron of it fill her now with its heat, fired in the
forge of her soul. She didn’t know how much time had passed
an hour, more? She had lost all track of time, all sense of ev-
erything but what she had come to do. Queen of the Elves,
keeper of the Rikh Staff and Loden, bearer of Druid magic, and
heir to the blood of Elessedils and Ohmsfords alike-she was all
these and she was none, made instead of something more, some-
thing undefinable.
Nothing, she told herself, could stand against her.
The darkness closed about as she reached the bottom of the
ravine, the faint light above lost in mist and shadows. The Drak-
uis appeared boldly now, skeletal forms come slowly into view,
gaunt and stripped of all life but that which their Shadowen
existence gave them. They were hesitant still, afraid of the magic
and at the same time eager for it. They looked upon her with
hungry eyes, anxious to taste her, to make her their own. She
felt the Elfstones burn against her palm in warning, but still she
did not summon their magic. She walked ahead boldly, the liv-
ing among the dead.
Wren, she heard Eowen call again.
A wall of pale bodies blocked her way. They were human
of a sort, shaped as such, but twisted, pale imitations of what
they had been in life. They turned to meet her, no longer ap-
paritions that shimmered and threatened to dissolve at a breath
of wind, but things taking on the substance of life.
“Eowen!” she cried out.
One by one the Drakuls stood away, and there was Eowen.
She lay cradled in their arms, as white-skinned as they save for
her fire-red hair and emerald eyes. The eyes glittered as they
sought Wren’s own, alive with horror. Eowen’s mouth was open
as if she were trying to breathe-or scream.
The mouths of the Drakuls were fastened to her body, feed-
ing.
For an instant Wren could not move, stricken by the sight,
trapped in a web of indecision.
Then Eowen’s head jerked up, and her lips parted in a snarl
to reveal gleaming fangs.
Wren howled in dismay, and the Drakuls came for her. She
brought the Elfstones up with the quickness of thought, called
forth their power in rage and terror, and turned the fire of the
magic on everything in sight. It swept through her attackers like
a scythe, incinerating them. Those who had taken solid form,
those feeding and Eowen with them, were obliterated. The oth-
ers, wraiths still, vanished. Flames engulfed everything. Wren
scattered fire in every direction, feeling the magic course
through her, hot and raw. She howled, exultant as the fire
burned the ravine from end to end. She gave herself over to its
heat-anything to block away the image of Eowen. She em-
braced it as she would a lover. Time and place disappeared in
the rush of sensations.
She began to lose control.
Then, a bare instant before she would have disappeared into
the power completely, she realized what was happening, remem-
bered who she was, and made a last, desperate attempt to re-
cover herself. Frantically she clamped her fingers about the
Stones. The fire continued to leak through. Her hand tightened,
and her body convulsed. She doubled over with the effort, fall-
ing to her knees. Finally, the magic swept back within her, raked
her one final time with the promise of its invincibility, and was
gone.
She crouched in the mist, fighting to regain mastery of her-
self, seeing once more with her mind’s eye a picture of the
Drakuls and Eowen as they disappeared into flames, consumed
by the Elfstone magic.
Power! Such power! How she longed to have it back!
Shame swept through her, followed by despair.
She lifted her eyes wearily, already knowing what she would