Late that afternoon they arrived at the legendary Silver River and came upon a company of Dwarf Sappers engaged in the construction of a footbridge at a heavily forested narrows. Leaving Wil concealed in a copse of fir with the horses, the Druid went down to the river’s edge to confer with the Dwarves. He was gone for a time and, when he returned, seemed preoccupied with something. It was not until they had remounted and were riding downriver away from the Dwarves that he volunteered to Wil that he had given warning of the danger to the Elves and requested that the Dwarves send aid as quickly as possible. One among the Sappers had recognized the Druid and had promised that help would be sent. Still, marshaling any sizable force would take time …
Allanon left the matter there. Minutes later they forded the Silver River at a shallows where a broad sandbar split the clear waters apart and rock shallows slowed the current enough to permit horse and rider safe passage. From there they rode south at a leisurely pace, watching the shadows they cast lengthen as the day wore on. It was nearly sunset when Allanon reined in Artaq at the crest of a tree-lined rise and dismounted. Wil followed him down, leading Spitter forward several paces to where the Druid waited. They tethered the horses in a small grove of hickory and together walked ahead to where an outcropping of rock split apart the wall of trees. With Allanon in the lead, they moved up into the rocks and peered out.
Below them lay a broad, horseshoe-shaped valley, its slopes and floor heavily forested, but open at its western end to grasslands that had been tilled and planted with farm crops. A village sat at the juncture between forest and field, and a narrow stream ran from the woodlands through the cluster of homes north across the top of the farmland, its waters irrigating the soil in dozens of neatly inscribed ditches. Men and women moved busily about the little community, tiny figures to the two who looked down on them from the valley rim. Far to the south, the grasslands ended in a rock-strewn lowland that stretched unbroken to the horizon and disappeared.
“Havenstead,” Allanon announced, indicating the village and the farmlands. His finger lifted slightly and pointed into the lowland. “Out there is the Battlemound.”
Wil nodded. “What do we do now?”
The Druid seated himself comfortably. “We wait until it gets dark. The fewer people who see us, the better. The Stors would say nothing in any case, but these villagers are free with their talk. Secrecy is still our greatest ally, and I don’t intend to lose it unnecessarily. We’ll go in quickly and quietly and leave the same way.” He glanced up at the sun, already beginning to drop rapidly into the western horizon. “We only have about an hour.”
They sat together without talking until the rim of the sun was barely visible above the tree line, and the dusk had begun to slip her gray shadow over the length of the valley. Finally, Allanon rose. They walked back to where they had tied the horses, remounted and started out once more. The Druid led them eastward for a time, skirting the valley rim until they had reached a heavily forested section of the slope that concealed a narrow draw. There they started down. They wound their way slowly through the trees, watching the woodlands darken steadily into night, allowing the horses to pick their way through the brush. Wil quickly lost all sense of direction, but Allanon seemed to know exactly where he was going and did not slow as he guided them forward.
After a time, they reached the valley floor, and travel grew easier. A clear, moonlit sky peeked down on them through breaks in the forest roof, and night birds called out sharply at their passing. The air was sweet and heavy with the smell of the woods, and Wil grew drowsy.
Finally, scattered bits of yellow light began to flicker into view ahead of them, slipping through the screen of the forest, and the faint sounds of voices reached out through the stillness. Allanon dismounted, motioning for Wil to do likewise, and they walked the horses forward afoot. The forest thinned out noticeably, clear of heavy brush and deadwood, and ahead of them they could see a low stone wall with a wooden gate. A line of tall evergreens bordered the wall and screened away most of what lay beyond, though it was clear to Wil that they were at the eastern edge of the farming village and the yellow lights were the flames of oil lamps.
Upon reaching the wall, they tied the horses to an iron post. Allanon put a single finger across his lips. Silently, they passed through the little wooden gate.
What they found on the other side brought Wil up short. A sweeping, terraced garden spread out before them, its tiers of multicolored flowers dazzling even in the pale moonlight. A stone walkway, glistening with flecks of silver, wound downward out of the gardens to a gathering of wooden benches and from there to a small cottage constructed of timber
and stone. The cottage was a single story with a loft and was fronted by the familiar open-air porch. Flower boxes hung below latticed windows, and thick, low bushes bordered the roughened walls. Crimson yews and blue spruce grew at the immediate front of the home. A second walkway ran from the porch beneath the arch of a magnificent white birch and disappeared through a hedgerow to a roadway beyond. In the distance, glimmerings of light from other cottages broke the night.
Wil stared at it all in wonderment. Everywhere there were touches of color and life—all with the look of something drawn from a child’s storybook. Everything was perfectly ordered.
He glanced questioningly at Allanon. The mocking smile flashed briefly, and the Druid motioned for him to come. They followed the pathway through the gardens to the benches, then moved on toward the cottage. Light shone brightly through the curtained windows of the little house, and from within came the low, gentle sound of voices—no, Wil corrected himself, children’s voices! He was mildly surprised at his discovery and very nearly missed seeing the fat, striped house cat that lay sprawled across the first step of the porch. He caught himself just in time to keep from stepping on the sleeping animal. The cat raised its bewhiskered face and stared up at him insolently. Another cat, this one coal black, scooted off the porch hurriedly and slipped down into the bushes without a sound. Druid and Valeman climbed the porch steps and moved to the front door. From within, the children’s voices rose sharply in laughter.
Allanon knocked firmly and the voices went still. Footsteps came to the other side of the door and stopped.
“Who is it?” a voice asked softly, and the patterned curtains that screened a glass port parted slightly.
The Druid leaned forward, allowing the light from within to fall across his dark countenance.
“I am Allanon,” he answered.
There was a long silence, then the sound of a latch drawn back. The door opened and an Elven girl stepped through. She was small, even for an Elf, her body slender and brown with sun. Chestnut hair fell all the way to her waist, shadowing a child’s face at once both innocent and knowing. Her eyes flashed briefly to Wil—eyes that were green and deep with life—then settled once more on the Druid.
“Allanon has been gone from the Four Lands for more than fifty years.” Her voice was steady, but there was fear in her eyes. “Who are you?”
“I am Allanon,” he repeated. He let a moment of silence pass. “Who else could have found you here, Amberle? Who else would know that you are one of the Chosen?”
The Elven girl stared up at him speechlessly. When she tried to speak,
the words would not come. Her hands came together tightly; with a visible effort, she composed herself.
“The children will be frightened if they are left alone. They must be put to bed. Wait here, please.”
Already there was a scurrying of small feet at the other side of the door and the faint whisper of excited voices. Amberle turned and disappeared back into the cottage. They could hear her voice, low, and soothing, as she ushered the children up wooden stairs to the loft overhead. Allanon moved to a wide-backed bench at the other end of the porch and seated himself. Wil remained where he was, standing just to one side of the door, listening to the sounds of the Elven girl and the children from within, thinking as he did so: she is only a child herself, for goodness’ sake!
A moment later she was back, stepping lightly on to the porch, closing the cottage door carefully behind her. She glanced at Wil, who smiled at her awkwardly.
“This young man is Wil Ohmsford.” Allanon’s voice floated out of the dark. “He studies at Storlock to become a Healer.”
“Hello …” Wil began, but she was already walking past him to the big man.
“Why have you come here, Druid—if Druid you are?” she demanded, a mixture of anger and uncertainty in her voice. “Has my grandfather sent you?”
Allanon rose. “Can we sit in the gardens while we talk?”
The girl hesitated, then nodded. She led them from the porch back along the stone walkway to the benches. There she seated herself. The Druid sat across from her, Wil a little off to one side. The Valeman recognized that his role in this confrontation was that of a spectator and nothing more.
“Why are you here?” Amberle repeated, her voice a bit less unsettled than a moment earlier.
Allanon folded his robes about him. “To begin with, no one has sent me. I am here of my own choice. I am here to ask you to return with me to Arborlon.” He paused. “I will be brief. The Ellcrys is dying, Amberle. The Forbidding begins to crumble; the evil within breaks free—Demons all. Soon they will flood the Westland. Only you can prevent this. You are the last of the Chosen.”
“The last …” she whispered, but the words caught in her throat.
“They are all dead. The Demons have found and killed them. The Demons search now for you.”
Her face froze in horror. “No! What trick is this, Druid? What trick …” She did not finish this either, but stopped as tears formed in her eyes and streaked her child’s face. She brushed them away swiftly. “Are they really all dead? All of them?”
The Druid nodded. “You must come with me to Arborlon.”
She shook her head quickly. “No. I am no longer one of the Chosen. You know that.”
“I know that you would wish it so.”
The green eyes flared angrily. “What I would wish is of no matter in this. I no longer serve; that is all behind me. I am no longer one of the Chosen.”
“The Ellcrys selected you as one of the Chosen,” Allanon replied calmly. “She must decide whether you remain one. She must decide whether you shall carry her seed in search of the Bloodfire, so that she may be reborn and the Forbidding restored. She must decide—not you, not I.”
“I will not go back with you,” Amberle stated quietly.
“You must.”
“I will not. I will never go back. This is my home now; these are my people. I have made this choice.”
The Druid shook his head slowly. “Your home is wherever you make it. Your people are whomever you wish them to be. But your responsibilities are sometimes given you without choice, without consent. It is so in this, Elven girl. You are the last of the Chosen; you are the last real hope of the Elves. You cannot run away from it; you cannot hide from it. You most certainly cannot change it.”
Amberle rose, paced away a step, and turned. “You do not understand.”
Allanon watched her. “I understand better than you think.”
“If you did, you would not ask me to return. When I left Arborlon, I knew that I would never go back again. In the eyes of my mother, my grandfather, and my people, I had disgraced myself. I did something that could not be forgiven—I rejected the gift of being a Chosen. Even should I wish it, and I do not, this cannot be undone. The Elves are a people whose sense of tradition and honor runs deep. They can never accept what has happened. If it were made known to them that they would all perish from the earth unless I alone chose to save them, still they would not have me back. I am outcast from them, and that will not change.”
The Druid rose and faced her, tall and black as he towered over her small form. His eyes were frightening as they fixed on hers.
“Your words are foolish ones, Elven girl. Your arguments are hollow and you speak them without conviction. They do not become you. I know you to be stronger than what you have shown.”
Stung by the reprimand, Amberle went taut.
“What do you know of me, Druid? You know nothing!” She stepped close to him, green eyes filled with anger. “I am a teacher of children. Some of them you saw this night. They come in groups of half a dozen or eight and stay with me one season. They are given into my care by their
parents. They are entrusted to me. While they are with me, I give to them my knowledge of living things. I teach them to love and to respect the world into which they were born—the land and sea and sky and all that lives upon and within it. I teach them to understand that world. I teach them to give life back in exchange for the life they were given; I teach them to grow and nurture that life. We begin simply, as with this garden. We finish with the complexity that surrounds human life. There is love in what I do. I am a simple person with a simple gift—a gift I can share with others. A Chosen shares nothing with others. I was never a Chosen—never! That was something I was called upon to be that I did not wish to be nor was suited to be. All that, I have left behind me. I have made this village and its people my life. This is who I am. This is where I belong.”
“Perhaps.” The Druid’s voice was calm and steady and it brushed aside her anger. “Yet will you turn your back on the Elves for no better reason than this? Without you, they will surely perish. They will stand and fight as they did in the old world when the evil first threatened. But this time they lack the magic to make them strong. They will be destroyed.”
“These children have been given into my keeping …” the girl began hurriedly, but Allanon’s hand rose abruptly.
“What do you think will happen once the Elves are destroyed? Do you think the evil ones will be content to stay within the borders of the Westland? What of your children then, Elven girl?”
Amberle stared at him wordlessly for a moment, then dropped slowly back down onto the bench. Tears ran again from her eyes, and she closed them tightly.