a few questions, asked here and there. Had anyone heard if there
reallY were any Elves? Had anyone ever seen one? Did anyone
know where they might be found? They were questions that
were asked lightly at first, self-consciously, but with growing
curiositY as time wore on, then almost an urgency.
What if Allanon were right? What if the Elves were still out
there somewhere? What if they alone possessed whatever was
necessary to overcome the Shadowen plague?
But the answers to her questions had all been the same. No
one knew anything of the Elves. No one cared to know.
And then someone had begun following them-someone or
something-their shadow as they came to call it, a thing clever
enough to track them despite their precautions and stealthy
enough to avoid being caught at it. Twice they had thought to
trap it and failed. Any number of times they had tried to back-
track to get around behind it and been unable to do so. They
had never seen its face, never even caught a glimpse of it. They
had no idea who or what it was.
It had still been with them when they had entered the Wilde-
run and gone down into Grimpen Ward. There, two nights ear-
lier, they had found the Addershag. A Rover had told them of
the old woman, a seer it was said who knew secrets and who
might know something of the Elves. They had found her in the
basement of a tavern, chained and imprisoned by a group of
men who thought to make money from her gift. Wren had
tricked the men into letting her speak to the old woman, a
creature far more dangerous and cunning than the men holding
her had suspected.
The memory of that meeting was still vivid and frightening.
The old woman was a dried husk, and her face had withered into a
maze of lines and furrows. Ragged white hair tumbled down about her frail
shoulders Wren approached and knelt before her. The ancient head lifted,
revealing blind eyes that were milky and fixed.
“Are you the seer they call the Addershag, old mother?” Wren asked
softly.
The staring eyes blinked and a thin voice rasped. “Who wishes to know?
Tell me your name.”
“My name is Wren Ohmsford.”
Aged bands reached out to touch her face, exploring its lines and hollows,
scraping along the skin like dried leaves. The hands withdrew.
“You are an Elf.”
“I have Elven blood.”
“An Elf!” The old woman’s voice was rough and insistent, a hiss against
the silence of the alehouse cellar. The wrinkled face cocked to one side as if
reflecting. “I am the Addershag. What do you wish of me?”
Wren rocked back slightly on the heels of her boots. “I am searching
for the Westland Elves. I was told a week ago that you might know where
to find them-if they still exist.”
The Adders hag cackled. “Oh, they exist, all right. They do indeed.
But it’s not to everyone they show themselves-to none at all in many years.
Is it so important to you, Elf-girl, that you see them? Do you search them
out because you have need of your own kind?” The milky eyes stared
unseeing at Wren’s face. “No, not you. Why, then?”
“Because it is a charge I have been given a charge I have chosen to
accept,” Wren answered carefully.
“A charge, is it?” The lines and furrows of the old woman’s face deep-
ened. “Bend close to me, Elf-girl.”
Wren hesitated, then leaned forward tentatively. The Addershag’s hands
came up again, the fingers exploring. They passed once more across Wren’s
face, then down her neck to her body. When they touched the front of the
girl’s blouse, they jerked back as if burned and the old woman gasped.
“Magic!” she howled.
Wren started, then seized the other’s wrists impulsively. “What magic?
What are you saying?”
But the Addershag shook her head violently, her lips clamped shut, and
her head sunk into her shrunken breast. Wren held her a moment longer,
then let her go.
“Elf-girl,” the old woman whispered, “who sends you in search of the
Westland Elves?”