Terry Brooks - The Elves of Cintra

She wished suddenly that Johnny were there to stand beside her. It would make this so much easier, knowing he was there. But then, she thought, perhaps he was, in spirit if not in flesh. Perhaps he was there still, her guardian angel.

She remembered a time not long after he had first found her–she might have been nine or ten–when he had told her he was going out for longer than usual and that she must wait alone until his return. She was instantly terrified, certain that he would not be coming back, that he was leaving her. She threw herself against him, sobbing wildly, begging him not to go, not to abandon her. Carefully, gently he soothed her, stroking her long black hair, telling her it was all right, that he would be back, that no matter what happened he would never leave her.

When she had quieted enough that she was coherent again, he had said, ”Yo no abandono a mi I would never leave my girl, little one. Wherever you are, I will always be close by. You might not see me, but I will be there. You will feel me in your heart."

She supposed that it was true: that he had never really left her and had always been there in her heart. She could feel his presence when she was lonely or frightened if she searched hard enough. She could re–assure herself by remembering that his word had always been good. Even when he was gone from her life and from the world of the living, some essential part of him was still there.

It would be so this time, too. He would be there for her.

She walked to the edge of the boulders and stopped, searching the air for the demon's smell. She found it almost immediately, rank and poisonous, the stench of something that had cast aside any semblance of humanity. The air was thick with it, the sweet clean scent of the mountainside smothered under its heavy layers. It crouched within the rocks, still hidden, waiting on her. She could feel its rage and hatred and its need to sate both with her blood.

How should she handle this?

She stared into the black shadows of the boulders, searching the twisting passages that wound between. She did not believe it would be smart to go in there. Better to wait out here, to make it come to her.

Then she saw the first of the feeders as they slid like oil from out of the rocks, their shadows splotches of liquid darkness. They seemed in no hurry, their appearance almost casual. But where only a handful sur–faced at the outset, there were soon a dozen and then a dozen more.

She glanced back up the mountainside to where she had left Kirisin and his sister. They were no longer in view. With luck, they were no longer in hearing, either.

It was time to get this over with.

"Demon!" she shouted into the rocks.

Then she waited.

KIRISIN CAUGHT UP to his sister, who glanced around as he reached her and said, "Where's Angel?"

He shook his head. "She said she had something she needed to do." "Did she tell you what it was?"

"She just said we should go on without her. I told her we could wait until she was done with whatever she had to do. But she wouldn't allow it. She was pretty insistent." He shook his head. "I don't know, Sim. It doesn't feel right."

"No, it doesn't." His sister looked back down the mountain slope to where they could just make out the Knight of the Word as she stood before the cluster of massive boulders they had come past earlier.

"What do you think she is doing?" he asked her.

She hesitated a moment, and then said, "I think she's protecting us. I think that's the way she wants it. We'd better do what she says. Come on. The caves are just ahead."

They climbed the gradually steepening slope, relying on the cram–pons and ice axes for purchase. It was a slow and arduous trek, but they pushed ahead steadily, working their way across the ice field. Kirisin watched how his sister used the ax, driving it into the ice and then pulling herself forward, and he did the same. Once or twice, he glanced back to look for Angel, and each time he found her right where he had seen her last, poised and waiting at the edge of the boulders. Once, he thought he heard her shout something, but the wind blowing down from the higher elevations masked her words.

Again, he almost turned back, the need to do so suddenly com–pelling. But he kept moving anyway, putting one foot in front of the other, hammering his ax into the ice and pulling himself ahead.

Then he topped a rise that led onto a rocky flat, and he couldn't see her anymore.

"Kirisin!" his sister called back to him, shouting to be heard above the wind. She pointed ahead.

The entrance to the caves was a black hole almost buried within a cluster of snow–shrouded boulders, shards of ice hanging off the open–ing like a frozen curtain. From where they stood, it looked small and al–most insignificant against the broad sweep of the mountain, as if it might be no more than the burrow of some animal. As they drew closer, it became steadily larger, taking on more definition. When they reached it, they stopped for a more careful look. It was hard to deter–mine much from the outside. The entrance sloped downward into the mountain, narrow and low enough that they could tell they would have to stoop to get through. Farther back, it seemed to widen, but the shadows made it hard to be sure. Beyond that, it was too dark to see anything.

Simralin looked at him. "Ready, Little K?"

He nodded, not at all sure that he was, but determined to finish this no matter what.

His sister took out her solar torch from her pack and switched it on.

With a final glance at Kirisin, she started ahead, stooping to clear the entrance, shining the broad beam of the torch into the blackness ahead. Kirisin followed wordlessly, his own torch in hand. In moments they were inside, swallowed by the shadows and the rock, the snowy slopes of the mountainside left behind.

To Kirisin's surprise, the way forward was bright enough that their torches were unnecessary. Light seeped through cracks in the tunnel rock, diffused by ice windows that had frozen permanently beneath the outer layers of snow. Ice coated the walls and ceiling of the cave, sculpted as in the visions shown him twice now by the Elfstones, sym–metrically formed scallops running back along the walls and ceiling for as far as the eye could see. The light reflected off the scallops in strange patterns that lay all across the surface of the cave. Here and there, rain–bow colors flashed, formed of unexpected and random refractions, small wonders amid the gloom.

Fifty yards back, a frozen pillar of ridged ice rose from the cavern floor to a gap in the ceiling. A waterfall had tumbled through a hole in the cavern ceiling in another, warmer time, freezing in place as the cold set in, creating this strange column. Sunlight channeled downward by the ice created the impression that the column was lit from within. Kirisin stepped close and peered into the ice. Within its cloudy depths, tiny creatures hung suspended in time.

The caves grew darker after that, the sources of light fading one by one, the gloom enveloping everything. The solar torches became neces–sary, and the way forward could only be glimpsed in patches as the beams crossed from one place to another. The cold grew deeper and more pervasive, matched by an intense silence. If not for the crunch of their crampons digging into the ice–coated cave floor and the huff of their rough breathing, there would have been no sound at all.

Ahead, the walls of the cavern began to broaden and the ceiling to lift. Stalactites dripped and became ice–coated spears, some as thick as a man's leg, some longer than Simralin was tall. The shadows rippled in the glow of the solar torches, and the sheen of ice that coated every–thing glimmered with colors that danced like flames. From deeper in, still beyond the reach of the torchlight, water rushed and cascaded over rocks.