The Elves of Cintra

by Terry Brooks

  “Medical. Plague medicine.”

  She did not flinch or back away. She kept tickling Rabbit’s ears as if what he had said was no more significant than a comment about the weather.

  “Why are you out here by yourself?” he asked her.

  “Who says I am?”

  The reply was quick and certain, not sharp or defensive. He resisted the urge to search the surrounding shadows. If he hadn’t been able to detect her, he might have missed detecting others who were with her.

  “Don’t worry, there’s no one else,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

  He nodded and let the matter drop. “Is there a compound inside that dome? I thought I might find something there.”

  She straightened, taking her fingers away from the cat. Not once when she moved did she reveal even the slightest detail about herself. “You don’t want to go there. No one there will help you.”

  “You seem awfully sure…”

  “I am. Do you know why? I was born in that compound. My parents and my brothers and sisters still live there. All except my sister Evie; she died when I was four. The rest are still there. They live underground, in the basement rooms. They hide during the night. No lights or movement is allowed aboveground. That way, no one knows they are there.”

  He stared at her.

  “Stupid, isn’t it? If you pretend no one can find you, then maybe no one will. That’s what it amounts to. Pretending. They pretend a lot. I guess it’s what keeps them from falling apart.”

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Eighteen. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-eight. How long since you lived inside the compound?”

  “Six years. I was put out when I was twelve.”

  He hesitated, wondering how far he should pursue this. “Why were you put out?”

  “I got sick.”

  She didn’t offer anything more. He stood watching her, leaning on his staff, studying her posture for some clue about what was wrong with her. The night tightened about them, as if to hide the secret she was obviously keeping. Rabbit stood up, walked over to him, and sat down again, just out of reach but close enough that her eyes reflected the moonlight.

  “Why do you need plague medicine?” she asked.

  “I have some sick kids with me. They need it. We’re traveling south.”

  “There isn’t anything south,” she said. “Just more of the same. More plague and poisoned air and water, and bad chemicals. And insects—lots and lots of insects.”

  He had heard something of this but not yet come across it. Apparently the disruption of the ecosystems and the poisoning of the earth and water had fueled rapid growth in certain species of insect life. The giant centipede the Ghosts had killed was one example. But in other cases, the results were different. Instead of one giant insect, accelerated procreation resulted in thousands and thousands of smaller forms, hordes that were eating their way through every type of plant life that was left, denuding the earth.

  “How old are your kids?” she asked suddenly.

  “They’re not my kids. I’m just helping them. The oldest is maybe twenty. The youngest is ten.”

  “Are they street kids or compound kids?”

  “Some of both, I guess.”

  “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Were you a street kid or a compound kid?”

  “A compound kid, but I was orphaned at eight. Why are you asking all these questions?”

  “Do you want my help finding your plague medicine?”

  He sighed. “I want any help I can get.”

  “Then just tell me what I want to know. Where are your kids?”

  “I left them outside the city when I came to look for the medicine.”

  “That’s dangerous, coming in alone at night. Aren’t you scared?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I know my way around.”

  “So do I. Look, can you help me find what I need?”

  She came forward a step. “Maybe. Maybe I’m the only one who can help you. The only one who’s willing. No one in the compound will help you. No one in the streets, either. Just me.”

  He gave her a hard look. “Uh-huh. Only you. Why is that? Because your cat likes me?”

  “Because I need something from you.”

  Rabbit was rubbing up against him, acting as if they had been friends all their lives. He hadn’t even noticed her until just now. He glanced down and shifted his leg away by stepping back. The cat looked up at him with saucer eyes.

  Logan faced the girl. “What is it you need?”

  “I need you to take me with you when you leave.”

  As if he needed another kid to look after. As if he hadn’t just been contemplating finding a way to lose the ones he already had. It struck him as incredibly funny; he found himself wanting to laugh, even though he knew it was no laughing matter to the girl. But it didn’t matter how she felt. He wasn’t going to take her. He wouldn’t.

  “Do you know why they put me out of the compound?” she asked suddenly. “My parents and my brothers and sisters and my friends and all the rest? Why they never stopped to think twice about it, even though I was only twelve years old and had been born in the compound and had never been outside, even with adults? Why do you think?”

  She started toward him.

  “They were afraid of you?” he guessed. He held his ground against her advance, not sure what was going to happen but unwilling to back away.

  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.”r />
  “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.

  “Why do you carry that staff?” she asked him.

  “I’ll tell you sometime. How do you know where to find plague medicine?”

  “The Lizards keep stores of it to trade with. They don’t have much use for most of it. Their immune systems aren’t affected in the same way as humans, so the medicines mostly don’t help. What kind is it that you need?”

  “Cyclomopensia.” He reached in his pocket, took out the empty container Owl had given him, and handed it to her. “Look familiar?”

  She examined it carefully and then pocketed it. “I think I’ve seen it. We can take some of the other kinds, too. In case.”

  He glanced at her, but she kept looking straight ahead, a step or two in front of him. “What if my kids don’t like you?” he asked after a moment. “I probably can’t change it if they don’t.”

  “Some of them will like me, I bet.”

  “Some of them, yes.” He thought of Owl. She would be quick enough to take Cat under her wing. Maybe Candle, too. But he wasn’t so sure about the others.

  “Are you worried about me?”

  He thought about it a moment. “I don’t know.”

  She reached down abruptly and scooped up Rabbit, cradling him in her arms. “Don’t be. I can take care of myself.”

  He didn’t know about that, either.

  NINETEEN

  B EAR STOOD IN THE SHADOWS fifty yards from the little shed in which Owl kept watch over River and Fixit. It was nearing midnight—or maybe midnight had already come and gone, he couldn’t be sure. He had taken the first watch after dinner and carried the heavy Tyson Flechette out into the darkness, choosing this spot in which to hide, the shadows so thick and deep that no one approaching would see him until they were within a dozen feet. At least, that was what he hoped. If a predator had eyesight good enough to spy him out from any farther away, they were all in a lot of trouble.

  But experience had taught him that even the most dangerous predators in this postapocalyptic world lacked good eyesight. Something about the quality of the air or the ingestion of poisons from food and drink had weakened the vision of living things in general. There were exceptions. Hawk was one, Cheney another. But the eyesight of the monsters and the Freaks had not evolved in proportion to their appetites and their cunning and strength. Their hearing was keen, though. It didn’t pay to move around a whole lot at night if one of them was hunting. Their sense of smell was pretty good, too, most times. If they were four-legged rather than two-legged predators.

  He knew these things because he had made it his business to know. All the way back to before he was a Ghost, before he even knew where Seattle was or that he might one day end up there. He knew it from the time he was six and had to stand guard while the rest of his family toiled in the fields. In those days, it was believed that not all of the land had been poisoned and that some of it, particularly in distant corners of the United States, was still fertile enough to grow crops. That idea lasted about five years, and then it became clear that whether or not everything was contaminated was beside the point. There was no way to harvest what was grown and no sustainable market to purchase it. You could grow crops if you wanted, but you were likely to end up feeding the wrong mouths.

  Bear learned it the first time the raiders appeared, took what they wanted of the crop, and burned the rest to the ground. He learned it when they took his two uncles, whom he never saw again. He learned it when they killed his dog.

  He tried to tell his family that it was too risky even before the raiders appeared, but they were not much interested in hearing what he had to say. They never had been. Bear was big and slow and gave the impression of being a trifle stupid. He took his time answering questions and seldom spoke unless spoken to first. He ambled when he walked, and he always seemed to be trying to figure out where he should go and what he should do. He was enormously strong, but his strength seemed to bother him. He walked carefully and responded tentatively. He thought everything through. He saw life in slow motion. His brothers liked to joke that he could do anything, but by the time he got around to doing it, everyone would have gone to bed.

  Bear didn’t like being thought of as stupid. He didn’t like being called names and made fun of. Who does? But there wasn’t much he could do about it that didn’t involve crushing someone’s ribs, so he learned to live with the abuse. His parents had too much else on their minds to spend time worrying about him, let alone trying to protect him. So he was pretty much left to deal with things as best he could.

  He dealt with them by choosing jobs that kept him apart from the others. Standing watch. Running errands. Engaging in heavy lifting for which only he, of all his siblings and cousins, was suitable. His father worked with him, and his uncles sometimes, and they didn’t make fun of him or call him names. Mostly. He wondered about that now and then, thinking back. It might be that they had, and he just didn’t want to remember.

  Bear was smart, beneath his slow-moving, slow-talking, slow-acting veneer, and he knew how to pay attention. While others got along as best they could in a world they hated and a family that valued work over everything, Bear spent his time absorbing and remembering. He learned, and he didn’t forget.

  Little things.

  Big things.

  Everything he could.

  That’s how he knew how best to keep watch against the predators. That’s how he knew how to stay awake and not fall asleep in the slow, heavy hours of early mo
rning when your most pressing need was to close your eyes. That’s how he knew that no matter what Panther or Sparrow or the others thought—even Hawk—it was his job to protect them all.

  He glanced over to where his family lay sleeping on the ground, Candle and Sparrow in sleeping bags, the boys rolled up in blankets. There was no fire, no warmth to be found other than from their own bodies. But the night air was mild, and there was only a little wind. Behind the sleeping forms, the shed in which Owl tended River and Fixit was still and black. On the dark ribbon of the highway, some hundred yards from where they were settled, nothing moved.

  He shifted the weight of the Tyson Flechette from one thigh to the other with a slow, methodical movement. He glanced over to where the boy who had shot Squirrel lay curled up next to the north side of the shed, a small black puddle in the darkness. He didn’t like the boy, and if Owl had allowed it, he would have agreed to give him to Panther for disposal. But Owl wanted the boy unharmed and had charged Bear with seeing that he was left alone. Bear took this charge, as he took all charges that either Owl or Hawk gave him, very seriously. He didn’t have to like it. He just had to do what he knew was right.

  Bear was a soldier; he understood orders and he responded to them. Not because he couldn’t think, but because he believed in order. He believed in a place for everyone and everyone in their place. He didn’t understand kids like Panther, who often did whatever they felt like. In a family, you survived by knowing your place and behaving in a consistent, orderly fashion.

  You did what you were told to do. You did what was right.

  When you reached a point where the two didn’t agree, it was time to move on.

  He had found that out the hard way.

  HE IS ELEVEN when the stealing begins. It isn’t anything important at first—a tool, a small sack of grain, a piece of children’s clothing, that sort of thing. One by one, they disappear, not all at once, but gradually. Bear thinks nothing of it, but his father and uncles take it seriously. Theft is an unpardonable offense in the world of his childhood. Too much has already been taken away to allow the taking of anything more. The older members of his family still remember the world as it was before everything was ruined or destroyed. There is bitterness and resentment at that loss, a rage at the inexplicable madness of it. Blame is easy to assess and difficult to fix. But the sense of deprivation is raw and festering, and theft is a reminder of how easily you can be dispossessed.