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

The highway dipped slightly in a long sloping ramp toward the domed building, but huge piles of trash and parts of discarded cars had been hauled over to form a barricade that blocked the exit. He drove a bit closer and abandoned his plan to follow the pavement. Instead he began driving across the open spaces adjacent to the highway and then through the yards of perimeter residences, cutting past other, smaller roads, choosing rougher terrain that offered more accessible passage for the AV. The Lightning was built to crawl over barriers from which other vehicles would have turned back.

When he had gone as far as he could, close now to the dome and in sight of buildings that were clearly storefronts and warehouses, Logan stopped the AV and got out. He stood looking around for a few moments, taking in the feel of his surroundings, watching and listening. Nothing drew his attention. Satisfied, he triggered the Lightning’s security locks and protective devices and, picking up his staff, set out on foot.

He walked softly, noiselessly, in the way he had learned from Michael, an almost invisible presence, just another of night’s shadows. The houses on either side were squat, dark structures empty of life. Once or twice, cats crossed his path, and once a pair of street kids, furtive and hunched over as they moved across his line of sight. Once, he thought he heard voices, but he could not decipher the words or detect their source.

And once, like a vision, a woman appeared—or maybe a girl—sliding out of the shadows into the light, her hair long and blond and flowing, her form slender. He could only imagine that she was beautiful—her features hidden behind the night’s dark mask—yet he felt certain of it, even though she was there for only a moment.

She made him feel something unexpected with her passing, a deep, inexplicable loss coupled with a sadness that left his throat tight and his mouth dry. He could not explain it, could not find a reason for it. He had disdained companionship since Michael and the others had died. He had jealously safeguarded his solitary existence, actively avoiding the company of others. It was his nature as a Knight of the Word. It was one of the dictates of the life he had chosen. The presence of others only complicated his work. Attachments only served to tie him down.

Like the Ghosts threatened to do.

And yet…He took a moment longer to search for the woman, peering into the shadows between the houses as, without thinking, he slowed. The silence deepened around him; the night closed about. There was no sign of her. It seemed to him now that he might have imagined her.

He quickened his pace and moved on.

He was twenty-eight years old, if his calculations were correct. He relied to a great extent on the calendar that Michael had built into the AV. Without it, time would have been lost to him completely. The seasons were unrecognizable, often passing from one into the other with little evidence of change. Clocks and watches had ceased to work years ago, save for a stubborn few that he came across now and then, and most of these only gave the time of day. There was an order to things when you could recite your age, when you could say with some certainty that you knew the day and month and year. There was a sense of being grounded in the world.

Twenty-eight, and he felt disconnected from everything. Except for his work as a Knight of the Word. And now, perhaps, even from that. Now that he had been saddled with these street kids and their problems. He would have to leave them, he knew. He would have to find a way. Once they were no longer sick and safely away from the threat of being overtaken by demons and once-men. Once it felt right to him. He shook his head at the confusion this caused. Because his charge, his mission, was to find and give aid to the imprisoned and abandoned. His life was dedicated to helping those who were not as strong as he was, who required deliverance from evil and could be saved only by his special power.

Were the Ghosts not most of these? Was he not bound to help them, too? Still, they were not of the same sort as those imprisoned in the slave camps or imperiled by the dark things that prowled the countryside. They did not need him in the same way as so many others.

Or at all, really, if you thought about it. If you weighed their need against that of so many others. They did not need him.

Did they? He was aware suddenly of a cat walking next to him. It had appeared out of nowhere, a burly, grizzled beast, brindle and black in color with a strange white slash across its blunt face—as if it had been slapped with a paintbrush. It had a peculiar gait, the like of which he had never encountered in a cat. Although it mostly ambled, it also hopped. It took no more than a couple of hops at a time, but that was enough to be noticeable. It was while it was trailing along slightly off to his right that he caught sight of the unusual movement out of the corner of his eye and was alerted to its presence.

He stopped and looked down at the cat. The cat stopped and looked up at him.

“Shoo,” he whispered.

The cat blinked, then hissed back at him.

He hesitated, thought about chasing it away, and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He started walking again. Right away the cat followed. He picked up his pace, but the cat picked up its pace, too. When he stopped again, the cat stopped with him, staying back and well out of reach of the black staff.

Not that he would strike out at it, but the cat couldn’t know.