magic’s chain forever.
“Lady Wren!”
The shout was an anguished howl, and for a moment’s time
it didn’t register. Then her eyes snapped open, and her body
tensed. The strange sleep that had almost claimed her hovered
close, a whisper of insistent need. Through its fog, beyond its
pall, she saw two figures crouched at the edge of the light. They
held swords in their hands, the metal glinting faintly.
“Phfftt! Don’t move, Wren of the Elves!” she heard another
cry out in warning. Stresa.
“Stay where you are, Lady Wren,” the first cautioned fran-
tically. Triss.
The Captain of the Home Guard inched forward, his weapon
held before him. She saw his face now, lean and hard, filled
with determination. Behind him was Garth, a larger form, darker,
inscrutable. Leading them both, spines bristling, was the Splin-
terscat.
A cold place opened in the pit of her stomach. What were
they doing here? What had happened to bring them? She felt a
surge of fear strike her, a sense that something was about to
happen and she had not even been aware of it.
She forced back the lassitude, the calm, and the whisper of
the wind and made herself see again. The cold turned to ice.
The light surrounding her emanated from the things that clus-
tered close. Drakuls, all about. They were so close she could
feel their breath-or seem to. She could see their dead eyes,
their gaunt, nearly featureless faces, and their ivory fangs. There
were dozens of them, pressed about her, parted only at the point
where Triss and Garth and Stresa sought to approach, a window
into the dark of the Harrow. Their hands and fingers clutched
her, held her fast, bound her in ropes of hunger. They had lured
her to them, lulled her almost to slumber as they must have
done Eowen. Turned from phantoms to things of substance,
they were about to feed.
For an instant Wren hung suspended between being and
nonbeing, between life and death. She could feel the draw of
two choices, very different, each compelling. One would have
her break free of the soothing, deadly bonds that held her, would
have her rise up in revulsion and fury and fight for her life
because that was what her instincts told her she must do. The
other would have her do as the wind voice had whispered and
simply let go because that was the only way she would ever be
free of the magic. Time froze. She weighed the possibilities as
if detached from them, a judging that seemed to bring into focus
the whole of her existence, past, present, and future. She could
see her rescuers creep nearer, their gestures unmistakable. She
could feel the Drakuls draw a fraction of an inch closer. Neither
seemed to matter. Each was a distant, slow-moving reality that
could change in the blink of an eye.
Then fangs brushed her throat-a whisper of hunger and
need.
Drakuls.
Shadowen.
Elves.
An evolution of horror-and only she knew.
if I do not escape Morrowindl and return to the Four Lands, who else
will ever know?
“Lady Wren!” Triss called softly to her, his voice pleading,
desperate, angry and lost.
She stepped back from the precipice and took a long, deep
breath. She could feel the strength of her body return, a rising
up out of lethargy. But she would still be too slow. She flexed
gently, almost imperceptibly, seeking to discover if she could
move, testing the limits of her freedom. There were none; the
hands that secured her held her so fast that she might as soon
have been chained to the earth.
One chance, then. One hope. Her mind focused, hard and
insistent, reaching deep within. Her fingers slipped open.
Now.
Blue fire exploded into the night, racing up her body to
sheathe her in flames. The fangs jerked back, the hands fell
away, the Drakuls shrieked in fury, and she was free. She stood
within a cylinder of fire, the magic’s heat racing over her, wrap-
ping her about as she waited for the pain to begin, anticipated
what it would feel like to be burned to ash. Better that than to