The Elf Queen of Shannara

Who was she?

She hadn’t found out at the Hadeshorn. Allanon had come as promised, dark and forbidding even in death. But he had told her nothing. Instead, he had given her a charge—had given each of them a charge, the children of Shannara, as he called them, Par and Walker and herself. But hers? Well. She shook her head at the memory. She was to go in search of the Elves, to find them and bring them back into the world of Men. The Elves, who hadn’t been seen by anyone in over a hundred years, who were believed by most never even to have existed, and who were presumed a child’s faerie tale—she was to find them.

She had not planned to look at first, disturbed by what she had heard and how it had made her feel, unwilling to become involved, or to risk herself for something she did not understand or care about. She had left the others and with Garth once again her only companion had gone back into the Westland. She had thought to resume her life as a Rover. The Shadowen were not her concern. The problems of the races were not her own. But the Druid’s admonition had stayed with her, and almost without realizing it she had begun her search after all. It had started with 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 backtrack 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 Wilderun and gone down into Grimpen Ward. There, two nights earlier, 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 hands 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 Addershag 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 deepened. “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?”