Stresa’s words were a taunt. “Phhffft. I know you cared for him,
but…”
“Stresa!” she screamed.
“. . . the magic will not protect against what you cannot see,”
the other finished, calm, unruffled. “Ssstttpp! We must wait until
morning.”
The silence was immense. Inside, Wren could hear herself
shriek. She looked up as Garth stepped in front of her. The
Splinterscat is right. Remember your training, Wren. Remember who
you are.
What she could remember at the moment was the look she
had seen in Gavilan Elessedil’s eyes when she had given him the
Ruhk Staff. She met Garth’s gaze squarely. What she saw in his
eyes stayed her anger. Reluctantly she nodded. “We’ll wait until
morning.
She kept watch then while the others slept, her own ex-
haustion forgotten, buried in her anger and despair over Gavi-
Ian. She could not sleep while feeling so unsettled, her mind
racing and her emotions in disarray. She sat alone with her back
against a stand of rocks while the men curled up in sleep a dozen
feet away and Stresa hunkered down at the clearing’s edge, per-
haps asleep, perhaps not. She stared into blackness, stroking
Faun absently, thinking thoughts darker than the night.
Gavilan. He had been so charming, so comfortable when
she had met him. She had liked him-perhaps more than liked
him. She had harbored expectations for them that even now she
could not bring herself to admit. He had promised to be a friend
to her, to look after her, to give her what answers he could to
the questions she asked, and to be there when she needed him.
He had promised so much. Perhaps he could have kept those
promises if they had not been forced to leave the protection of
the Keel. For she had not been mistaken in assessing Gavilan’s
weakness; he was not strong enough for what lay beyond the
safety of Arborlon’s walls. The changes in him had been
apparent almost immediately. His charm had faded into worry,
then edginess, and finally fear He had lost the only world
he had ever known and been left naked and unprotected in a
waking nightmare. Gavilan had been as brave as he could
manage, but everything he had known and relied upon had
been stripped away. When the queen had died and the Staff
had been entrusted to Wren, it had just been too much.
He had counted himself the queen’s logical successor, and
with the power of the Elven magic he still believed he could
accomplish anything. He was committed to it; he had made it
his cause. He was convinced that he could save the Elves, that
he was destined to do so, that the magic would give him the
means.
Let me have the Staff, she could still hear him plead.
And she had foolishly given it to him.
Tears came to her eyes. He probably panicked, she thought.
He probably decided that she was dead, that they were all dead,
and that he was alone. He tried to leave, and Dal stopped
him, telling him, no, wait, underestimating the depth of his fear,
his madness. He would have heard the sounds of the Drakuls,
the whispers, and the lures. They would have affected him. He
killed Dal then because . .
No! She was crying, unable to stop. She let herself, furious
that she should try to make excuses for him. But it hurt so to
admit the truth, harsh and unavoidable-that he had been weak,
that he had been greedy, that he had rationalized instead of
reasoned, and that he had killed a man who was there to protect
him. Stupid! Such madness! But the stupidity and the madness
were everywhere, all about them, a mire as vast and impenetra-
ble as Eden’s Murk. Morrowindi fostered it, succored it within
each of them, and for each there was a threshold of endurance
that once crossed signaled an end to sanity. Gavilan had crossed
that threshold, unable to help himself perhaps, and now he was
gone, faded into mist. Even if they found him, what would be
left?
She bit at her wrist, making herself feel pain. They must