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

She was quiet for a moment, then sighed heavily. “You’re right. I do. I’m snapping at you for no good reason. It was smarter to wait. I just hate being left out of things.”


He understood that. He hated being left out as much as she did, and it happened more than he liked to think, mostly because he didn’t encourage inclusion by his standoffish attitude. He wished he was better at being a part of things, but it didn’t come naturally to him. He had always gone his own way, and by doing so he deliberately set himself apart from other Elves.

“When do you think we will hear something from Culph?” he asked, changing the subject.

She shrugged. “He wasn’t sure when he would get a chance to look at the genealogy tables. He has to do it when my father isn’t around. My father has him looking for something more on the Elfstones, and he can’t afford to be caught doing anything else.” She paused, looking at him hopefully. “Maybe my father has changed his mind about things, Kirisin. I mean, if he has Culph searching for information about the Elfstones, maybe he has decided to help us.”

Kirisin wasn’t convinced, but he nodded anyway. “Maybe.”

“Anyway, there isn’t anything we can do now but wait until Culph finds what we’re looking for.”

She had gone to find the old man early this morning, soon after meeting with Kirisin at sunrise and learning the details of what had transpired after she had gone to bed. Leaving with the other Chosen to work in the gardens following the morning greeting, she had disappeared, returning a short time later to whisper that she had spoken with Culph and he would see what he could find out about Pancea Rolt Cruer’s maiden name.

Kirisin went back to digging in the caerwort, unearthing the dead vines and scraping off insect bodies and blight from the good ones. He worked smoothly and easily, the effort neither tedious nor difficult for him.

He thought momentarily about how gifted he had always been with plants of all sorts, of how natural he found caring and nurturing them. It was an Elven trait, but in his case something more. He seemed to know exactly what was needed and how to do it. It was almost as if he could understand what the plant was feeling, could come so close to communicating without using language.

Was that a remnant of the old magic? Had he inherited just a little of what had been lost to the Elves over the centuries? He liked the idea that he carried inside something of the past that had once been so important and was now little more than myth. He had wondered before if his skills were a residual effect of Faerie. After Angel had pressed him so hard last night about not having even a little of it as one of the Chosen, he was wondering anew if perhaps he might.

The sun was bright this day, the air warm and filled with the smells of flowers and conifers, and all of it felt like it was trying to reassure him of the permanence of his life and home. But he knew it was misleading and unreliable, a trick of the senses that could be swept away in a moment if the course of things was not altered soon.

“What is the tatterdemalion like?” Erisha asked quietly, not looking at him as she worked diligently and seemingly single-mindedly on the caerwort.

Kirisin thought about it. “Ephemeral,” he said finally. “It seems that a strong wind could blow her away. You can see right through her much of the time, like she isn’t even there. She talks and acts like you and me, but I don’t feel there’s much of anything about her that is anything like us.” He paused. “There is something very sad about her.”

“She probably misses her home.” Erisha glanced over at him.

“What about the Knight? She seems very young.”

“But tough,” he said at once. “Much stronger than she looks. I wouldn’t want to have to fight her. She looks like she’s just a girl, but she’s a lot more, too. That staff she carries is infused with the magic of the Word. Those runes. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

Erisha nodded. “Culph says the staffs are the symbol of the Knights’ order. No one knows where they come from, but all the Knights carry them until the day they die. I asked him how they worked, but he doesn’t know.

He says a Knight of the Word is very powerful, and almost nothing can stand against it.”

“Maybe a demon can.” Kirisin looked at her. “Maybe some of the monsters they create.”

Erisha nodded solemnly. “Maybe. I hope we don’t have to find out.”

They resumed work, and little more was said. It was midday and they were eating when Culph appeared, beckoning them away from the others.

Kirisin was aware that Biat was watching him closely as he rose and left. Biat watched him all the time now, suspecting from the suddenness of his apparent reconciliation with Erisha that something had happened that the two were keeping to themselves. Kirisin thought more than once to speak with his friend, but couldn’t think what he would say and so kept silent.