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.»
Aheady 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 onto 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.
«Why was I chosen?» she asked softly, her words barely more than a whisper. «There was no reason for it. I did not seek it — and there were so many others who did.» Her hands clenched in her lap. «It was a mockery, Druid — a joke. Do you see that? No woman had been chosen in over five hundred years. Only men. But then I was chosen — an impossible, cruel mistake. A mistake.»
The Druid stared at the gardens, his face expressionless once more.
There was no mistake,“ he responded, though Wil believed he was speaking almost to himself. The Druid looked back at her, turning quietly. ”What frightens you, Amberle? You are afraid, aren’t you?“
She did not look up, did not open her eyes. Her head nodded once.
Allanon reseated himself. His voice was gentle now. «Fear is part of life, but it should be faced openly, never hidden. What is it that frightens you?»
There was a long silence. Wil leaned forward quietly on his seat several benches away.
Finally Amberle spoke, her words whispered. «She does.»
