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

She glanced at the other Elves, and then looked back at Angel and Ailie. “Perhaps there is a way for all of us to save a little face.

If you are willing to make a small concession to protocol?” She reached behind her back and pulled scarves from a ring in her weapons belt. “Blindfolds. I expect they are pointless, but it will help blunt an obvious breach of the rules if it appears they are serving their purpose.”

She paused, a faint smile creasing her strong features.

“So. Will you agree to wear them?”

She held out the scarves and stood waiting for a response.





Chapter EIGHT


KIRISIN DRAGGED his weary body home in the slow fading of the light, evening shadows settling in around him in deepening layers. He meandered down the trails and paths that bypassed the city and led to his home, lost in thought, the growing darkness mirroring his deep disappointment with the day’s wasted efforts.

He had been so sure they would find something.

He had met Erisha and old Culph as planned at the entrance to the Ashenell burial grounds at just past midday, excited and anxious to begin their search. But Ashenell was vast and sprawling, a forest of headstones and monuments, mausoleums and simple markers that defied any easy method of sorting out. The terrain itself was daunting, hilly and wooded, the burial sections chopped apart by deep ravines and rocky precipices that made it difficult to determine where anything was. Searching out any single grave without knowing where it was seemed impossible. Nevertheless, they had begun on a hopeful note with the older sections, the ones where members of the Cruer family were most likely to be interred. They found recognizable markers quickly enough, dozens of graves and simple headstones embedded in the ground that gave the names and dates of birth and death of members of the family. Oddly, for a family that had enjoyed such prestige and power, there were no sepulchers or tombs that could be entered. They had finished looking them over in little more than an hour and had nothing to show for it.

“Sometimes these families sent their dead back into the earth without any sort of marker at all,” Culph had observed. “Sometimes they chose to be buried apart from the family. No way of knowing. We have to keep looking until we’re certain.”

So look they did, all the remainder of the afternoon, combing the burial ground from one end to the other, searching out every grave site, gaining entry to every sepulcher and tomb, and digging up anything that might have been a Cruer marker covered over by time and nature. It was hard, exhausting work, and by the time it had grown too late to see clearly anymore, all three of them were covered in dirt and debris, hot and sweaty and sore from their efforts.

“We’ll have to leave it for today,” Culph announced, grimacing as he straightened his aching back. “We’ve covered as much as we can this day. We can try again day after tomorrow. Best I can do. We’ll meet at midday. Maybe we’ll have better luck, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

At this point, neither would Kirisin. They hadn’t searched everywhere yet; there were still large sections of the Ashenell they had failed to explore. What worried Kirisin most at this point was that Pancea Rolt Cruer, Queen of the Elves and the mother of Kings, might have decided to let the earth reclaim her and leave no mark of her passing, as Culph had suggested. If that was the case, they would never find either her or the missing blue Elfstones.

He brushed dust from his thighs and the front of his shirt and wondered how bad he looked to anyone passing by. Pretty bad, he thought.

Like he had rolled in dirt and leaves. Like he had been lost in the forest.

Well, he was lost, all right. He was so lost that he was having difficulty believing he would ever be found again. The Ellcrys should have picked someone else to depend upon. All he could manage was to thrash around in the playground of the dead, wasting the one opportunity he had been given to make a difference. He kicked at the dirt pathway, furious and frustrated and scared all at the same time. Time was slipping away, he told himself. Time he didn’t have to waste.

Still muttering under his breath and cursing himself for being so stupid and worthless, aware as he did so that this wasn’t helping anything and wasn’t, in fact, even true, he passed out of the trees that fronted his home and stopped.

Someone was sitting on the steps of the veranda, leaning back against the roof support, arms resting loosely on drawn-up knees, a glass of ale in one hand. Not his father or mother. They were away for a few nights at his grandparents’ home in a small community to the south. This was someone else, someone who looked like…He blinked in disbelief. Simralin! It was Simralin!

She saw him and waved. “Hey, Little K!” she called out, using the nickname she had given him.

“Sim!” he shouted in delight and rushed forward to greet her, bounding up the steps, throwing his arms around her, and hugging her tight. “You’re back!”