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

He studied the container and the paper a moment, and then shoved them into one of his pockets. He called the Ghosts together. “Listen carefully. I have to leave you for tonight and maybe all of tomorrow, too, if I’m going to find the medicine that River and Fixit need. I’ll need the Lightning to get the job done. You have to be careful while I’m gone. No one leaves this place. No one does anything to draw attention. Someone stands guard all the time. If you have to move, carry River and Fixit on the stretchers and walk toward the city. Leave everything else. Look for the Lightning or me. We won’t be far from each other.”


He gave the Parkhan Sprays to Sparrow and Panther, and then handed a short-barreled Tyson Flechette, like the one his father had carried the day he had died, to Bear.

“Don’t use any of these unless you have to. If you fire them, you will draw a lot of attention. The best thing you can do for yourselves is to be as inconspicuous as you can. Understand?”

They all nodded solemnly. “We know what to do,” said Panther. “We ain’t stupid.”

That remained to be seen, Logan thought, remembering that it was Panther who had caused the incident with the machines at Oronyx Experimental. But there was no help for it. He couldn’t leave them out here unarmed. He had to trust that they would use good judgment and common sense where the weapons were concerned.

“Owl,” he said, drawing her attention. “I’ll put River and Fixit inside that shed over there.” He pointed to the building that was in the best shape of the bunch. “No one goes inside except you, and you only go in to give them medicine or liquids or whatever you think might help. But everyone else stays out. If this thing spreads, we could all come down with it.”

She nodded wordlessly. He hesitated, trying to think what else he should tell them, worried suddenly that this was a mistake and he was leaving them here to die. They were only children, he told himself for what must have been the hundredth time since they had set out from Seattle. They did not have his survival skills. They did not have his experience or training. But there was no point in worrying over things that couldn’t be helped.

He drove the hay wagon over to the buildings and behind the other machinery, then unhitched it. Mostly it looked like everything else, and it would go unnoticed if no one stopped to look or got too close.

“Remember what I said,” he told them in parting. “Be careful. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

But even as he was driving away, he was thinking again about leaving them for good.





Chapter EIGHTEEN


LEAVING THE GHOSTS and their field camp behind, Logan Tom drove down the highway through the deepening twilight toward the darkened buildings of Tacoma. The city hunkered down on a mostly flat plain bordered by water on one side and hills on the other. Its look was a familiar one, residences on the perimeter, downtown in the center, the whole of it a shadowy presence, unlit and seemingly uninhabited.

But there would be people, of course, perhaps living in a compound, perhaps living on the streets. There would be Freaks. There would be the usual strays and homeless. There would be things no one could imagine without first seeing them, creatures formed of the poisons and the plagues, the monsters of this brave new world.

And always, there would be feeders, waiting.

He scanned the shadows as he drove, weaving through the debris, angling for the open spots on the cracked, weed-grown pavement. He searched for movement, for any indication of life, and found little. Feral dogs and street kids. The flicker of solar-powered lamps from the dark recesses of buildings.

The faint sounds of life that belied the otherwise deep silence. Now and then, he passed the remains of the dead, some of the bodies so old they had been reduced to little more than bones and bits of clothing. He tried to imagine how it had been before the wars had begun and the way back had been lost, and he could not.

His mind drifted to other times and places. It was like this in so many other cities, the aftermath of destruction, the leavings of madness and despair.

So much had been rendered useless. He looked around at the devastation, at the emptiness, and it made him want to cry. But he didn’t cry anymore. Not for this. He had seen it too often. It was the legacy of his time, a world depopulated, a civilization destroyed.

Ahead, a huge domed building rose against the skyline, and in the fading light he could make out its massive support arches. It was an entertainment arena, a leftover from the time when there was order in the world. It was black and silent now, an edifice that had lost its place and purpose, a mausoleum for a time of life that was dead and gone.

He drove toward it.