felt with the tree, with the woman it had been, with the
strength of commitment embodied in the tale of how it had
come into being, was sustaining. From flesh and blood to
leaves and limbs, from woman to tree, from mortal life to life
everlasting.
On her shoulder Faun rubbed against her neck as if to reas-
sure her that everything was all right.
A cure for the Races, she mused, changing subjects if not
moods, thinking again of the army that approached, of the
Shadowen threat she must find a way to end. It would take
more than the Elves to accomplish this, she knew. Allanon had
told the Ohmsfords as much when he had sent them to fulfill
their separate charges—Par to find the Sword of Shannara,
Walker Boh to find the Druids and Paranor, and Wren to find
the Elves. Had Par and Walker succeeded as she had? Were all
the charges now fulfilled? She knew that she had to find out.
Somehow she had to make contact with the others who had
gathered at the Hadeshom. On the one hand she must dis-
The Talismans of Shannara 137
cover what had become of them and on the other apprise them
of what had happened to her. They must be told the truth of
the Shadowen, that the Shadowen were Elves who had recov-
ered the old magic of faerie and become subverted by it in the
same way as the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers nearly
five hundred years earlier. How they had recovered this magic
and how it sustained them remained a mystery. But the knowl-
edge she held must be passed on to the others. She felt it in-
stinctively. Until that was done, any cure for the Shadowen
sickness would remain out of reach.
What to do? Already some among the Elves had gone out
from Arborlon into the far reaches of the Westland to establish
new homes. Farmers had begun to settle in the Sarandanon, the
fertile valley that had served as the breadbasket of the Elven
nation for centuries. Trappers and hunters had begun ranging
north to the Breakline and south to the Rock Spur. Craftsmen
were anxious to open new markets for their wares. Every-
where, there was a push to reclaim old homesteads and towns.
Most important of all. Healers and their acolytes had gone
forth to seek out those places in which the Westland’s sickness
was worst in an attempt to stem its spread—carrying on an
Elven tradition that had lasted since the beginning of time. For
the Elves had always been healers, a people who believed that
they were one with the earth into which they were born, the
purveyors of the philosophy that something must be given
back to the world that sustained them. As with the Gnome
Healers at Storlock, who cared for the earth’s people, the Elven
Healers were committed in turn to the people’s earth.
But they and the farmers, trappers, hunters, traders, and oth-
ers were at risk in the Westland unless the Elven army pro-
tected them against the threat mounting from without. If the
Queen of the Elves could not find a way to keep the Federa-
tion at bay long enough to put an end to the Shadowen …
She left the thought hanging, turning away from the Ellcrys
in disgust. So much was needed, and try as she might she
could not provide it alone.
The sky was streaked scarlet above the trees west, a vivid
smear against the mountainous horizon that had the look of
blood. Or at least that was the image that flashed in Wren
Elessedil’s mind.
138 The Talismans of Shannara
Your memories never leave you, she thought—even those
you wish would, even those you wish had never been.
She walked down out of the Gardens, eyes on the ground in
front of her. She wondered about Stresa. It had been days since
she had seen the Splinterscat. Unlike Faun, Stresa was more
comfortable in the wild and preferred the woods to the city. He
had made his home somewhere close to Arborlon and would
appear unexpectedly from time to time, but consistently re-