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

He lifted his head and found himself staring at the shade of an old woman.

The shade stood atop the tomb of Pancea, and he knew in an instant that it was her. She was small and wizened, bent at the shoulders as if the bearer of a great weight, her face so wrinkled that it had the look of leather crumpled by time and use. But her eyes were sharp and steady as they regarded him, and her talon-tipped fingers gripped a staff with strength that belied her seeming frailty.

He had never seen a shade. He had heard rumors of them, but they had always seemed to him to be the product of overactive imaginations. He swallowed hard. He would think differently after this.

The light of the torches, steady once more, passed through the old woman’s transparent form in a shimmer of refracted light, and her image wavered and settled like mist.

–Why are the living come here. They do not belong–She spoke again, the question repeated. Her voice scraped and dragged over the words. Her eyes changed color, gone from black to a dangerous green.

“We had no choice,” he answered, knowing he must say something. “We are searching for the blue Elfstones, and a journal we uncovered said they could be found in the tomb of Pancea Rolt Cruer.”

She regarded him without speaking, her gaze steady.

He waited a moment, and then asked, “Are you her? Are you Pancea Rolt Cruer?”

–I am Queen Pancea Rolt Gotrin. Show me respect–“I apologize, Your Majesty,” he said quickly. He tried to think what to say next.

“I am a Chosen. She is another.” He pointed to Erisha. “The Ellcrys sent us to find the blue Elfstones. There is a terrible struggle taking place on the surface of the world between demons and their allies and Elves and Men. The demons are winning. The Ellcrys says that she is threatened and must be moved.

She says we must use the blue Elfstones to find the Loden and place her inside.”

He hesitated, and then gestured at Angel. “This is a Knight of the Word, sent to warn us that our world will be destroyed. The Word says the Elves must leave the Cintra. To do that, we must take the Ellcrys with us.

So we’ve come here, looking for a place to start.”

–You would start your journey with the dead? Is that not strange? The dead have nothing to offer the living. The dead are of the past and never of the present. The dead do not pretend to care about what is or will be. The dead seek only to keep what is theirs–She lifted a hand and pointed at them, one by one. As she did so, Kirisin felt a stab of cold rage spear him, projected from the shade’s own dark heart.

–You trespass where you do not belong. You have entered sacred ground and defiled it. Your arrogance is offensive to me–Her hands lifted and swept the air on both sides, sending strange trailers of light scattering from her fingertips. The light fragmented and settled atop the surrounding tombs, flaring as it touched each crypt.

Then the air itself shimmered, and the shades of the Gotrin dead began to rise out of their resting places, lifting into the near darkness in ghostly white transparencies, the outlines of their bodies and faces a liquid shimmer, the whisper of their awakening a cacophony of hissing that matched that which had first drawn Kirisin and his companions. One by one, they appeared, shades of all sizes and shapes, ghosts come out of the stone that housed their mortal remains.

Kirisin took a step back. He could feel the threat implicit in their presence, as dark and cold as the rage that Pancea had projected from her heart. The dead did not want them here. The dead did not want the living in their private sanctuary, and they were prepared to reveal in no uncertain terms what his intrusion meant.

“We came because we had to!” he repeated desperately.

“Would you wish the living as dead as you? Do you think we are wrong to try to save them?”

The shades of the Gotrins began to creep closer, floating on the cold cavern air, tightening their circle. Simralin was standing next to him by now, and he was aware of Angel and Erisha coming up as well. He caught a glimpse of Angel’s black staff out of the corner of his eye, its runes glowing with white fire.

“If you do not help us, all the Elves will die!” he insisted.

–The dead care nothing for the living and their problems–She rose from the lid of her crypt and settled to the ground. She was small, but he could feel her power radiating out from her ethereal form in cold waves.

“Get back from her, Kirisin,” his sister ordered. “Get back right now!”

When he failed to move quickly enough, she took him roughly by his shoulder and dragged him away. But the shade of Pancea Rolt Gotrin kept coming, her advance slow and inexorable as she glided across the darkness that separated them.

“What about the magic?” Kirisin demanded, desperate now.