dering through the harsh emotions that even the barest thought
of it invoked. Whenever she brought the memories out again,
she felt as if her skin was being flayed from her body. She felt
as if fire was searing her, burning down to her bones. The Elves,
victims of their own misguided belief in the power of the
magic-how much of that belief had been bequeathed to her?
She shuddered at the thought. There were truths to be weighed
and measured, motives to be examined, and lives to be set aright.
Not the least of those belonged to her.
“Tiger Ty,” she said quietly. “The Elves are here, with
me. I carry them . . .” She hesitated as he stared at her expec-
tantly. “I carry them in my heart.” Confusion lined his brow.
Her eyes lowered, searching her empty hands. “The problem is
deciding whether they belong.”
He shook his head and frowned. “You’re not making sense.
Not to me.”
She smiled. “Only to myself. Be patient with me awhile,
would you? No more questions. But when we get to where we’re
going, we’ll find out together whether the lessons of Morrowindl
have taught the Elves anything.”
Triss awoke then, stirring sluggishly from his sleep, and they
rose to tend him. As they worked, Wren’s thoughts took flight.
Like a practiced juggler she found herself balancing the demands
of the present against the needs of the past, the lives of the Elves
against the dangers of their magics, the beliefs she had lost
against the truths she had found. Silent in her deliberation, her
concentration complete, she moved among her companions as
if she were there with them when in fact she was back on Mor-
rowindl, watching the horror of its magic-induced evolution,
discovering the dark secrets of its makers, reconstructing the
bits and pieces of the frantic, terrifying days of her struggle to
fulfill the charges that had been given her. Time froze, and
while it stood statuelike before her, carved out of a chilling,
silent introspection, she was able to cast away the last of the
tattered robes that had been her old life, that innocence of being
that had preceded Cogline and Allanon and her journey to her
past, and to don at last the mantle of who and what she now
realized she had always been meant to be.
Good-bye Wren that was.
Faun squirmed against her shoulder, begging for attention.
She spared what little she could.
An hour later, Splinterscat, Tree Squeak, Captain of the El-
yen Home Guard, Wing Rider, and the girl who had become
the Queen of the Elves were winging their way eastward atop
Spirit toward the Four Lands.
CHAPTER
29
IT TOOK THE REMAINDER of the day to reach the main-
land. The sun was a faint melting of silver on the west-
ern horizon when the coastline finally grew visible, a
agged black wall against the coming night. Darkness
had fallen, and the moon and stars appeared by the time
they descended onto the bluff that fronted the abandoned
Wing Hove. Their bodies were cramped and tired, and their eyes
were heavy. The summer smells of leaves and earth wafted
out of the forest behind them as they settled down to
sleep.
“Phfffttt! I could grow to like this land of yours, Wren
of the Elves,” Stresa said to her just before she fell
asleep.
They flew out again at dawn, north along the coastline. Ti-
ger Ty rode close against Spirit’s sleek head, eyes forward, not
speaking to anyone. He had given Wren a long, hard look when
she had told him where she wanted to go and he had not glanced
her way since. They rode the air currents west across the Irrybis
and Rock Spur and into the Sarandanon. The land gleamed be-
neath them, green forests, black earth, azure lakes, silver rivers,
and rainbow-colored fields of wildflowers. The world below ap-
peared flawless and sculpted; from this high up, the sickness that
the Shadowen had visited on it was not apparent. The hours
slipped by, slow and lazy and filled with memories for the Roc’s
riders. There was an ache in the heart on such perfect days, a