pick up on things. I don’t miss much. Like your big friend over
there, all bandaged up the way he is. Scratched and marked
from a fight, a recent one, a bad one. You have a few marks
yourself. And there was a dark scar on the rocks, the kind made
from a very hot fire. Wasn’t where the signal fire usually burns
and it was new. And the rock was scraped pretty bad a place or
two. From iron dragging, I’d guess. Or claws.”
Wren had to smile in spite of herself. She regarded Tiger
Ty with newfound admiration. “You’re right-you don’t miss
much. There was a fight, Tiger Ty. Something tracked us for
weeks, a thing we call a Shadowen.” She saw recognition in his
eyes instantly. “It attacked us when we lit the signal fire. We
destroyed it.”
“Did you now?” the little man sniffed. “Just the two of you.
A Shadowen. I know a little of the Shadowen. Way I understand
it, it would take something special to destroy one of them. Fire,
maybe. The kind that comes from Elven magic. That would
account for the burn on the rock, wouldn’t it?”
He waited. Wren nodded slowly. “It might.”
Tiger Ty leaned forward. “You’re like the rest of them some-
how, aren’t you, Miss Wren. You’re an Ohmsford like the oth-
ers. You have the magic, too.”
He said it softly, speculatively, and there was a curiosity
mirrored in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He was right
again, of course. She did have the magic, a discovery she had
pointedly avoided thinking about since she had made it because
to do otherwise would be to acknowledge that she had some
responsibility for its possession and use. She continued to tell
herself that the Elfstones did not really belong to her, that she
was merely a caretaker and an unwilling one at that. Yes, they
had saved Garth’s life. And her own. And yes, she was grateful.
But their magic was dangerous. Everyone knew that. She had
been taught all of her life to be self-sufficient, to rely upon her
instincts and her training, and to remember that survival was
dependent principally on your own abilities and thought. She
did not want a reliance on the magic of the Elfstones to under-
mine that.
Tiger Ty was still looking at her, waiting to see if she was
going to respond. Wren met his gaze boldly and did not.
“Well,” he said finally, and shrugged his disinterest. “Time
to get a bite to eat.”
The island was thick with fruit trees, and they made a sat-
isfactory meal from what they picked. Afterward, they drank
from a freshwater stream they found inland. Flowers grew ev-
erywhere-bougainvillea, oleander, hibiscus, orchids, and many
more-massive bushes filled with their blooms, the colors bright
through the green, the scents wafting on the air at every turn.
There were palms, acacia, banyan, and something called a
ginkgo. Strange birds perched in the branches of armored, spiny
recops, their plumage a rainbow’s blend. Tiger Ty described it
all as they walked, pointing, identifying and explaining. Wren
stared about in amazement, not permitting her gaze to linger
anywhere for more than a few seconds, anxious that she not
miss anything. She had never seen such beauty, a profusion of
incredibly wonderful living things. It was almost overpowering.
“Was Morrowindl like this?” she asked Tiger Ty at one point.
He gave her a brief glance. “Once,” he replied, and did not
elaborate.
They climbed back atop Spirit shortly afterward and re-
sumed their flight. It was easier now, a bit more familiar, and
even Garth seemed to have discovered a way to make the jour-
ney bearable. They flew west and north, angling away from the
Sun as it passed overhead. There were other islands, small and
mostly rocky, though all sustained at least a sprinkling of growth.
Ihe air was warm and soothing against their skin, and the sun
burned down out of a cloudless sky, brightening the Blue Divide
until it glistened. They saw massive sea animals that Tiger Ty
called whales and claimed were the largest creatures in the ocean.
There were birds of all sizes and shapes. There were fish that