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

“Did you hear? They intend to work behind our backs,” she whispered to Ailie as they stepped outside the Council buildings and into the cool night air. Ortish had gone on ahead, beckoning to Simralin, who stood waiting in the shadows to take them back to their quarters.

“It is much worse than you think,” the tatterdemalion whispered back. Her eyes were depthless black pools as she bent closer to Angel, and her voice dropped farther still. “The Elves are already compromised.”

Angel stopped where she was. “What do you mean?”

“There was a demon in the Council chambers.”

“You saw it? I sensed nothing!”

Ailie shook her head. “I did not see it, but I smelled its stench. It wears an Elven disguise, so I cannot tell which of them it is.

Apparently it is talented and clever enough to hide its presence from a Knight of the Word, but it cannot hide from a Faerie creature.”

The tatterdemalion shivered suddenly, as if the admission chilled her to the bone. “It was there. It was one of them.”





Chapter TEN


KIRISIN SLIPPED BACK through the underground tunnel steps behind Erisha and Culph, each of them lost in thought. They kept silent for two reasons—to avoid risking discovery, and to give space to ponder what they had just heard. They would talk of it later, when they could do so safely. Kirisin kept thinking that what hadn’t been said was almost as important as what had.

Erisha’s father had been very careful not to disclose that he had both discouraged and delayed Kirisin’s efforts to act on what the Ellcrys had asked.

He had also been very careful not to reveal anything about his daughter’s involvement. None of it felt right to him now, reflecting back.

Everything he had heard made him uneasy.

When they reached the Belloruus home, he said good night to the other two, slipped back out the door, and headed home. It was too dangerous for him to remain longer when it was likely the King would be returning. They couldn’t afford to do anything that would risk giving away what they were up to. He would see Erisha at sunrise when they rose to fulfill their daily duties as Chosen, and they would talk then.

Even so, Kirisin thought about nothing else as he walked back through the trees toward his house. The coming of the Knight of the Word and the tatterdemalion was all the proof he needed to confirm that the Ellcrys was not mistaken in believing that she and the Elves were in danger. If there was one thing of which Kirisin was now convinced, it was that he needed to act swiftly on her plea for help. Especially pressing was the need to find the missing Elfstones. They had seemed so close to doing so only hours earlier—he and Erisha and old Culph, searching Ashenell—that he could not bring himself to believe it had been wasted effort. A fresh start was needed, a new approach perhaps, but giving up at this point was out of the question.

He pondered again the King’s reticence, trying to divine its source. There was something happening with Arissen Belloruus that none of them understood, something that was making him act in a way that was foreign to his character. That he was suspicious of Angel Perez was not surprising; most Elves were suspicious of humans. But his reaction in this instance seemed wildly against reason. That the tatterdemalion had confronted him with the truth about what he knew—about Kirisin, in particular—was the only reason he had revealed anything. All this time, the King had kept everything Kirisin had told him to himself; he had not discussed it with a single member of the High Council. Nor, it appeared, had he acted on it in any way.

The wind gusted sharply across his heated face, causing him to flinch at the contact. There was a chill in the air that didn’t belong to the season, one that mirrored the chill in his heart. Despite himself, he glanced around uneasily. This was his home, the only home he had ever known. He had spent his entire life here. He knew all of its roads and trails, most of its families, and many of its secrets. There was nowhere he could go that he would not feel he was in familiar territory.

Yet tonight Arborlon seemed a strange and unwelcoming place; he, an intruder who did not belong and might even be at risk.

He trudged on, hunching his shoulders, glancing left and right into the shadows, searching for things that he knew were not there, but that his instincts warned him might appear anyway.

When he reached his home, lights shone from within and Simralin was back on the porch steps, waiting. She was not alone. Angel Perez and the tatterdemalion, Ailie, were waiting with her.

He brushed his windblown hair from his eyes, gathered himself for what he already knew lay ahead, and marched up to his sister. “Kind of late for visitors, Sim,” he said.