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

He studied Hawk a moment, then shook his head. “I should be better at this, but I don’t get much practice. Mostly, I tend these gardens and let the affairs of humans and others take whatever course fate decrees. But the old world is ending, and the new one requires my help. So I must do the best I can with this. Logan Tom has begun this task, but it is up to me to try to finish it.

“Here is what you must know. You have powerful enemies, one in particular. They hunt you relentlessly. They have done so since the time of your conception in the world of men. For many years, they thought you dead.

Nest Freemark saved you and took you away from them, her unborn child, a life they could not detect while it grew inside her. But after you were born, the danger became greater. You did not yet know what or who you were. You did not yet understand that you possessed magic. The magic had not yet manifested itself. But I knew that sooner or later it would, and when that happened your enemies would come for you.”

He folded his hands in his lap, skeletal digits as white and brittle as bleached bones. “There was a second, perhaps more important, consideration.

The fate of the human race in its war with the demons had not yet been decided. The balance between the Word and Void had not yet been tipped, and until that happened—or even if it happened, because at that point no one could be sure—you couldn’t be left exposed when your time and the need for your peculiar magic was not yet at hand.

“For these reasons, I took you from Nest Freemark and brought you here to live until the balance was not just tipped, but toppled and the end assured.

Then I sent you back into the human world to fulfill your destiny. You have a purpose, and that purpose is to save the human race.”

Hawk almost laughed, but the look on the old man’s face kept him from doing so. He tried to say something, but he couldn’t find the right words.

“You are the boy who will lead his children to the Promised Land,” the King of the Silver River said to him. “Your dream is your destiny. I gave you that dream when you left my care and went back out into the world. But the dream is real, a foretelling of what you are meant to do. Your small family in the ruins of the city, those you left behind when you came here, are the beginning of a much larger family. You will lead them to a haven that will shelter them until the madness is finished. The destruction is not over, nor the devastation complete. That will take time. It will take more time still for the world to heal. While that happens, some will need to be kept safe and well so that the people of the Word will not all die.”

Hawk nodded, then shook his head no. “I don’t think any of this is right. I don’t think I can do any of what you seem to think I can do. I believe the dream, but the dream is a small one. It is only for me and for the Ghosts.

My family. Not…how many are we talking about?”

“Several thousand, perhaps. Humans, Elves, and others. An amalgam of those who struggle to survive the demons and the once-men and all the others who serve the Void.”

Hawk stared. Elves? “How am I supposed to do this? You say I have magic, and maybe I do. I think I may have helped heal Cheney when he was injured by a giant centipede. But that’s not going to mean much with what you say I have to do. Healing is one thing. Fighting off demons or whatever to get several thousand people to a safe place is something else again. I mean, look at me! I’m not anything special. I can’t do anything to save all these people!

I can barely help the family I’ve got now, and that’s only nine kids, a dog, and an old man!”

The more he talked, the more adamant he became. The more adamant he became, the more frightened he grew. The enormity of what the old man was asking of him—no, telling him he must do—was overwhelming. He tried to say something more and gave it up, getting to his feet in disgust and staring off into the distance in a mix of rage and frustration.

“I just don’t think I can do this,” he said finally. “I don’t even know how to begin.”

He waited for the old man to say something, and then when he didn’t turned around again.

The old man was gone.

HE SEARCHED FOR the old man then, hunting through gardens he knew nothing about, not even where they began or ended. When that proved fruitless, he searched for Tessa. He walked aimlessly because moving was better than sitting; doing something was better than doing nothing. The effort began to tire him, and he slowed and finally stopped altogether. He looked about in bewilderment. Everything looked the same as it had when he had started out. The fountain and the pool were off to one side. The wisteria hung from the trellis in a shower of purple. It was as if nothing had changed—as if he had not moved at all.

Maybe that’s the message, he thought. Maybe no matter what I do, nothing will change and I will get nowhere.

He was very thirsty, and after thinking it over he tried the water in the fountain. It tasted sweet and clean, so he drank. He reassured himself that the old man wouldn’t bring him all this way only to let him drink poisoned water.