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

Mostly, he thought about the King, who now, almost inescapably in the light of everything that had happened, seemed the demon that had hidden itself among them.

When they stopped at midday to consume a short lunch, he could contain himself no longer. “I just don’t see how anyone but Erisha’s father can be the one who’s responsible for what’s happened,” he began all at once.

Angel shook her head. “I don’t like it that he’s so obviously the right choice. Ailie was right. Demons do everything they can to shift suspicion from themselves when they’re working in secret. That’s been their history since the beginning.”

They were eating from a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese and washing it down with Elven ale, sitting up on the rocks in the lee of an overhang that provided some shelter from the wind. Even so, their words were carried away almost as soon as they were spoken, and they had to lean close to one another to hear. Overhead, sparse clouds spun like great, frothy pinwheels, caught in the air currents generated by the peaks.

Kirisin shaded his eyes from the blinding orb of the sun.

“But the King was the one who told Erisha not to pursue the Ellcrys’s plea for help. He was the one who told me not to do anything or tell anyone until I heard from him, and then I never heard a word. He was the one who lied to me about what he and Erisha knew. Even when you and Ailie confronted him, he tried to cast doubt on what you claimed. He blocked every attempt to find the Elfstones.”

“He also stood to gain from the deaths of Ailie and Erisha,”

Simralin added. She handed the ale skin to Kirisin, who drank deeply. “Sooner or later, he would have been placed in proximity to Ailie, and she would have exposed him if he was a demon. You said as much yourself, Angel. And killing Erisha gave him a way to blame us for what happened and force us to flee. Now he can hunt us down and kill us, and no one will do anything to stop him.”

“Culph was probably killed because he discovered the truth,” Kirisin continued. “He was still poking around in the histories, trying to find out something more about Elfstones. He probably got caught where he shouldn’t have been.”

“Arissen Belloruus hasn’t been himself for some time now, but more so of late.” Simralin took back the ale skin from her brother and passed it to Angel. “He was always high-strung and temperamental, but in recent weeks he has been especially edgy. Everyone could tell that something was bothering him.”

They stopped talking and waited for the Knight of the Word to say something in response. Angel shrugged. She adjusted herself on the rocks, putting aside her food. “Demons live long lives. This one is probably very old and has been in place for a long time. It is a changeling, so it would have assumed various identities over the years, switching off one disguise for another when it became necessary or convenient to do so. It could have been an animal as easily as a human. Changeling demons can take the shape of any living creature. But this is what you should remember. The reason they make their choice of disguise is what matters. This demon was set in place to keep an eye on the Elves, to make certain they don’t interfere in the affairs of humans, to keep them in their Cintra enclave until it’s time to dispose of them for good.”

The Elves stared at her in disbelief. “What do you mean, dispose of them?”

Kirisin managed.

Angel paused, choosing her words carefully. “The demons and their kind have a very specific goal—to eliminate the human race. They are doing so in a variety of ways, but however they achieve it they want us all dead. When they finish with us, they will go to work on the Elves. They leave you alone for now because you don’t present an immediate threat. I didn’t even know you existed until Ailie told me. You are only a myth to humans. You work hard to keep it that way, mostly by staying apart, staying hidden. That serves the purposes of the demons exactly. By the time they come for you—which they will—there won’t be any humans left to take your part. You will be on your own, and you will be overrun and destroyed. Every last one of you.”

Kirisin looked as if he had been struck a physical blow.

“They want to kill us all?”

Angel nodded. “The Void’s path is one of destruction.”

“Is this the destruction the Ellcrys was warning us about?”

the boy pressed. He was trying to make sense of what he was hearing, but its implications were so overwhelming that he could not. “The end of the world she says is coming?”