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

“But I don’t know what the Loden looks like.”


“Maybe all you need to do is to imagine the Elfstones showing you the way to where the Loden is hidden,” Angel suggested. “Maybe knowing exactly what it looks like isn’t important. There must be a great many things that someone using these Stones wouldn’t have seen before.”

“She’s right,” Simralin interjected quickly. “They’re seeking-Stones. They should be able to find anything you can put a name or a face to. Just try.”

“But what am I…?”

“Try.” Angel added emphasis to the word. “I don’t want to frighten you, Kirisin, but we don’t have much time. I just caught another glimpse of whatever follows us coming out of the pass and across the open slopes.”

Kirisin glanced westward into the mountains despite himself, a chill running down his spine. He wanted to ask what their pursuer looked like, but knew it could not appear as more than shadowy movement from this distance. Demon or Elven Hunter? He glanced down at his fist and brushed at his mop of dark hair in frustration, wishing he understood even a little of the skills necessary to what he was trying to do. But no one had held a set of Elfstones in thousands of years, so there wasn’t much point in wishing for help of any sort. Someone had to learn the process anew, and it looked like it was going to be him.

He thought about it a moment more, his brow furrowed, the Elfstones clutched tightly. Picture what it is you are looking for. Put a name to it. How difficult could that be? He held out his hand and closed his eyes.

His concentration locked down on what it was he wanted the Elfstones to do.

Show me where the Loden is hidden. Show me how to find it. He pictured the three of them traveling toward another Elfstone, one that glowed as brightly and deeply as these, one just as perfectly formed. He gave it a color, and then changed it several times. He imagined the forest and the mountains giving way before them. He imagined darkness and mist falling back before sunlight.

His hand tightened further.

Suddenly he felt something change, a shift that he could not put a name to.

Then he heard a sharp intake of breath from one of the women.

His eyes snapped open.

His entire fist was bathed in a deep blue glow. He almost dropped the Elfstones in shock, but managed to keep from doing so by reassuring himself that the glow wasn’t hurting, that his hand felt all right, that this was what was supposed to happen.

In the next instant, a shaft of blue light exploded from his fist and lanced away into the darkness north, cutting through everything that lay in its path—through trees and mountains and earth, just as he had imagined it would—dissolving away all obstacles to stretch into a distance that he could not begin to measure. From the speed it maintained and the ground it covered, it seemed a long way, a vast reach through the night to a singular peak that rose in snowcapped magnificence against a clouded sky. The light found the peak, held it momentarily, and then moved high up onto its slopes and into caverns that were studded with stalactites dripping with moisture and brightened only faintly by phosphorescence glowing in bright streaks along their walls.

The light held this vision for a long moment, flared once as if to punctuate the importance of its revelation, and then went dark.

Kirisin had held his ground through all of this, but now took a step back, nearly falling over in the aftershock of what he had witnessed. Simralin caught his arm, steadying him as she did so.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he gasped, swallowing.

“Did you see that mountain, Little K?” his sister whispered.

He nodded. “I saw. A mountain with some caves. A long way off, I think.”

She grinned, sharing her pleasure with him. “Not so far. I know that mountain. I know where it is and how to get there.”

“Then maybe it would be a good idea if we got started,”

Angel suggested, nodding toward the darkness of the Cintra and whatever was tracking them.

Without waiting for their response, she shouldered her pack and started away, moving north.

Kirisin dumped the Elfstones back into the pouch and shoved the pouch into his pocket. “You know that mountain?” he asked Simralin, falling into step beside her as she moved after Angel.

His sister glanced over. “You know it, too, even though you’ve never been there. That’s the mountain where Father and Mother wanted to establish the new community of Cintra Elves before Arissen Belloruus rejected the idea.