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

She stopped when she was less than ten feet away. “That’s exactly right. They were afraid of me. Of this.”


She pulled back the hood of her cloak and tilted her head into the pale wash of the moonlight. Dark splotches covered large portions of her face and neck. When she stretched out her arms so that the concealing folds of the cloak fell away, he could see the same markings there, as well. She turned herself slightly so that the color and shape of the markings were more clearly revealed by the angle of the light. The skin had turned rough and scaly like the hide of a reptile.

He understood at once. She was turning into a Lizard.

“Are you afraid of Freaks, Logan?” she asked him. She came forward another few steps, bold and challenging, but stayed just out of reach.

“No. But the people in the compounds are.”

“Terrified. Even my own family. They thought it was catching. They didn’t know, but they didn’t want to take the chance. What’s one kid’s life against so many? Easier to put me out than risk a widespread infection of Lizard skin.”

Her voice had turned harsh and bitter, but she faced him squarely and did not try to turn away. There were no tears. He wondered how long it had taken her to learn not to cry when she talked about it.

“It’s happening everywhere,” he said. “I’ve seen it over and over. I don’t think anyone knows what causes it. Something about being exposed to all the chemicals. Something about the air or water or food. Like everything else that’s happened to create mutations, there are too many possibilities to know.”

She nodded, said nothing.

“How did you survive? You were put out of the compound more than six years ago.”

She smiled. Her smile, beneath the patch of reptilian skin that covered the entire left side of her lower face, was pretty. “A family of Lizards helped me. They took me in, fed me, clothed me, and then raised me. They understood what it was like to change because it had happened to them. They knew others who had been put out in the same way I was, others who had the disease. They were street people, this family. But they understood.”

“What happened to them?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Nothing. I just decided I wanted to be on my own. Will you take me with you if I help you?”

“You get me my medicine, and I take you back with me. Then what?”

“I go with you and your kids, wherever you are going. It doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to be here anymore. I want to get away.”

“Why?”

“I told you, I just don’t want to…”

He walked up to her then, reached out and ran two fingers along the rough patch covering her jaw. Uncertainty reflected in her blue eyes. Her hair, he saw, was cinnamon-colored. But even in her scalp, the patches showed.

“I know something of your disease,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of it, talked to those who had it. It covers the skin and absorbs it. It changes a human into a mutant. It acts quickly. That doesn’t seem to have happened to you. You’ve had this disease six years, you said?”

“It doesn’t work the same with everyone.” She looked away now, and then reached down quickly to snatch up Rabbit in her arms and backed away. “If you don’t want me to go with you, just say so.”

“I want you to tell me the truth,” he said. “Why are you living out here on your own?”

She started to tell him something—another lie, he guessed—but cut herself off with a tightening of her lips and a muted sigh.

“I quit changing. Something stopped it. I knew that when my new family realized I wasn’t going to be like them, they would put me out, too. I decided not to wait around for that to happen.”

Logan stepped back, giving her some space. She didn’t belong anywhere. She wasn’t one thing or the other, and no one wanted you if you weren’t like them. Not in this world. The Lizards were no different. They understood what it meant to change, but not what it meant to get halfway there and then stop. Catalya wasn’t about to have the same thing happen twice, not when it hurt as much as it must have the first time.

“So,” she said. “Will your kids want to put me out, too?”

“Maybe. Some of them. I don’t know. I’ve only been with them a few days now.”

“What about you? Now that you know.”

He looked off into the darkness, making up his mind. For some reason, he found himself remembering Meike. How much trouble would it have been for him to have taken her with him? Even knowing as little about her as he did. Even knowing he might not have saved her anyway.

Rabbit was looking at him from the cradle of her arms. Waiting.

“I don’t put people out,” he said.

She waited, too. To hear the words.

“Okay,” he agreed. “You have a deal.”

THEY WALKED THROUGH the darkened streets, the girl leading, the cat ambling along beside him, hopping every now and then as if to prove to him how strange things had become. The world was silent around them, the buildings dark and the sky vast and empty.