The Elves of Cintra (Book 2 of The Genesis of Shannara)

Yet it was all somehow very familiar.

He frowned in confusion, sitting up for a better look, trying to understand what he was feeling. His mind was clear now, his limbs and body fresh and rested. The lethargy was gone, dissipated with the light. He felt that he might have slept a long time, but could not account for how that might be. Everything had changed so completely that there was no way he could make sense of it. It was magic, he thought suddenly, but he had no way of knowing where such magic might have come from.

Not from himself, he knew.

Not from Logan Tom, the Knight of the Word.

His confusion exploded into questions. Why am I alive? What saved me from the fall off the compound wall? How did I get here? Then he remembered Tessa, and he looked around for her in a welter of sudden fear and desperation.

“She is sleeping still,” a voice said from right behind him.

The speaker was so close and had come up on him so quietly that Hawk jumped despite himself, wheeling into a defensive crouch without even thinking about what he was doing. Breathing hard, arms cocked protectively in front of him, he stared up into the face of the old man who stood there.

The old man never moved. “You needn’t be afraid of me,” he said.

He was ancient by any standards, rail-thin and bent by time, his body swathed in white robes that hid everything but the outline of his nearly fleshless bones. His beard was full and white, but his hair was thinning to the point of wispiness, and his scalp showed through in mottled patches. His features were gaunt, his cheeks sunken, and his brow lined. But all of this was of no importance to Hawk when he looked into the old man’s eyes, which were clear and blue and filled with kindness and compassion.

Looking into those eyes made the boy want to weep. It was like seeing a reflection of everything that was good and right in the world, all gathered in a perfect vision, bright and true.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Someone who knows you from before you were born,” the other answered, smiling as if having Hawk standing before him was the most welcome of sights. “Someone who remembers how important that event was.” His eyes never left Hawk’s face. “What matters is not who I am, but who you are.

Here and now, in this time and place, in the world of the present. Do you know the answer?”

Hawk nodded slowly. “I think so. The Knight of the Word told me when I was locked away in the compound. He said I was a gypsy morph and that I had magic. I saw something of what he was talking about in a vision when I touched my…my mother’s finger bones.” He hesitated. “But I still don’t know if I believe it.”

The old man nodded. “What he told you is the truth. Or at least, the part of it he knows. It is given to me to tell you the rest. Walk with me.”

He started away, and Hawk followed without thinking.

Together they moved down the pathways and grassy strips that crisscrossed the gardens, passing through rows of flower beds and flowering bushes and trellises of flowering vines. They moved without purpose and without any seeming destination, simply walking, first in one direction and then in another, the boundaries of the gardens—if there were any—never drawing any nearer, never even coming into sight. They continued for a long time, the old man moving slowly but purposefully, with Hawk matching his pace as he tried to gather his thoughts, to give voice to the questions swimming in his head. Spoor and tiny seedlings drifted in the air around him, shimmering with a peculiar brightness. Hawk could hear insects buzzing and chirping. He could see flashes of bright color from birds and butterflies. He could not stop looking.

“Did you bring me here?” he asked the old man finally.

The old man nodded. “I did.”

“Tessa, too? She’s all right? She’s not hurt?”

“She sleeps until we are done.”

Hawk scuffed his tennis shoes on a patch of gravel, looking down at the skid marks, still trying to make what was happening feel real. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said finally.

The old man had been studying the landscape ahead, but now he looked over.

“No, I don’t suppose you do. It must all seem very strange to you. A lot has happened in the past few weeks. A lot more will happen in the weeks ahead. You are different from who you were, but not as different as you will be.”