desperate for anyone. But there was no one who could help her,
she knew. There was nothing anyone could do.
She turned quickly back. “There must be an antidote that
will counteract the poison, mustn’t there?” Her words were fran-
tic. “I’ll ask Stresa! He’ll know! I’ll get him back!”
The big hands cut her short. Stresa already knows the truth. You
saw it in his eyes. There isn’t anything he can do. There never was. Let it
go. Help me. Take the knife and use it.
No!
You have to.
No!
One hand swept up suddenly as if to strike her, and instinC
tively she reacted with a block to counter, the hand with the
knife lifting, freezing, inches above his chest. Their eyes locked.
For an instant, everything washed away within Wren but the
terrible recognition of what was needed. The truth stunned her.
She caught her breath and held it.
Quick, Wren . . . She did not move. He took her hand and
gently lowered it until the knife blade was resting against his
tunic, against his chest. Do it.
Her head shook slowly, steadily from side to side, a barely
perceptible movement.
Wren. Help me.
She looked down at him, deep into his eyes, and into the
red glare that was consuming him, that rose out of the horror
growing within. She remembered standing next to him as a child
when she had first come to live with the Rovers, barely as tall
as his knee. She remembered herself at ten, whip-thin, leather-
tough, racing to catch him in the forest. She remembered their
games, constant, unending, all directed toward her training.
She felt his breath on her face. She felt the closeness of him
and thought of the comfort it had given her as a child.
“Garth,” she whispered in despair, and felt the great hands
come up to tighten over her own.
Then she thrust the long knife home.
CHAPTER
28
SHE FLED THEN. She ran from the clearing into the trees,
numb with grief, half blind with tears, the Ruhk Staff
clutched before her in both hands like a shield. She
raced through the shadows and half light of the island’s
early morning, oblivious to Killeshan’s distant rumble, to Mor-
rowindi’s shudder in response, lost to everything but the need
to escape the time and place of Garth’s death, even knowing she
could never escape its memory. She tore past brush and limbs
with heedless disregard, through tall grasses and brambles, along
ridges of earth encrusted with lava rock, and over deadwood
and scattered debris. She sensed none of it. It was not her body
that fled; it was her mind.
Garth!
She called out to him endlessly, chasing after her memories
of him, as if by catching one she might bring him back to life.
She saw him race away, spectral, phantasmagoric. Parts of him
appeared and faded in the air before her, blurred and distant
images from times gone by. She saw herself give chase as she
had so many times when they had played at being Tracker and
prey, when they had practiced the lessons of staying alive. She
saw herself that last day in the Tirfing before Cogline had ap-
peared and everything had changed forever, skirting the shores
of the Myrian, searching for signs. She watched him drop from
the trees, huge, silent, and quick. She felt him grapple for her,
felt herself slip away, felt her long knife rise and descend. She
heard herself laugh. You’re dead, Garth.
And now he really was.
Somehow-it was never entirely clear-she stumbled upon
the others of the little company, the few who remained alive,
Triss, the last of the Elves, the last besides herself, and Stresa
and Faun. She careened into them, spun away angrily as if they
were hindrances, and kept going. They came after her, of course,
running to catch up, calling out urgently, asking what was
wrong, what had happened, where was Garth?
Gone, she said, head shaking. Not coming.
But it was okay. It was all right.
He was safe now.
Still running, she heard Triss demand again, What is wrong?
And Stresa reply, Hsssstt, can’t you see? Words, whispered fur-