to grope ahead in the darker pockets, to pause and listen and
then judge where it was safe to venture. The demons seemed to
be ahead of them-massed, Wren was willing to bet, between
themselves and their destination.
She discovered soon enough that she had guessed right. The
company crested a rise on a slide of lava rock thick with with-
ered scrub, and abruptly the mist cleared. Quickly they flat-
tened themselves into the brush. Hunched close together in the
shadows, they stared out at what lay before them.
Arborlon stood on a rise less than a mile ahead and was itself
the source of the strange glow. The glow emanated from a mas-
sive wall that ringed the city, pulsing faintly against the mist and
clouds. All about, the demons pressed close, shadows that
slipped in and out of the vog and mist, faceless, formless wraiths
caught momentarily in the glare of fires that burned from fis-
sures in the earth where spouts of molten lava had broken
through. Jets of steam filled the air with ash and heat and turned
the charred earth into a ghostly, fiery netherworld. Demon
growls disappeared into rumblings that rose from deep within
the earth where the volcano’s molten core churned and tossed.
In the distance, looming high above the city and the wraiths
that besieged it, Killeshan’s maw steamed, jagged and threaten-
ing, a fire monster waiting to feast.
Wren’s eyes shifted from the besieged city to the ruined
landscape in shock. That the Elves could have allowed them-
selves to be trapped in a world such as this was beyond belief.
She felt herself go hollow with fear and loathing. How could
this have come about? The Elves were healers, trained from the
moment of their birth to restore life, to keep the land and its
living things whole. What had prevented that here? Arborlon
was an island within its walls-its people somehow preserved,
somehow still able to sustain themselves-while the world with-
out had become a nightmare.
She bent close to Stresa. “How long have things been like
this?”
The Splinterscat hissed. “Fffpphtt! Years. The Elves have
been barricaded away for as long as any of us can remember,
hiding behind their magic. Ssstttppp! See the light that rises
from the wall that shields them? Mmssst. That is their protec-
tion!”
The Tree Squeak chittered softly, causing her to turn. Stresa
grunted. “Hwrrrll. The Squeak says the light weakens and the
magic fails. Not much time left before it goes out completely.”
Wren stared out again at the carnage. Not much time, she
repeated to herself. Shades, there could be little doubt of that.
She experienced a sudden sense of futility. What was the point
of her search now? She had come to Morrowindl to find the
Elves and return them to the world of Men-Allanon’s charge
to her at the Hadeshorn. But how could the Elves ever return
out of this? Surely they would have done so long ago if it were
at all possible. Yet here they remained, ringed all about. She
took a deep breath. Why had Allanon sent her here? What was
she supposed to do?
A great sadness filled her. What if the Elves were lost? The
Elves were all that was left of the world of faerie, all that re-
mained of the first people, of the magic that had given life when
life began. They had done so much to bring the Four Lands into
being when the Great Wars ended and the old ways were lost.
All of the children of Shannara had come from Elven blood; all
of the struggles that had been waged to preserve the Races had
been won by them. It seemed impossible that it could all be
relegated to history’s scroll, that nothing would remain of the
Elves but the stories.
Myths and legends, she reflected-the way it is now.
She thought again of the promise she had made to herself
to learn the truth about her parents, to find out who they were
and why they had left her. And what of the Elfstones? She had
vowed to discover why they had been given to her. Her fingers