Read Online The Elves of Cintra by Terry Brooks - Free Book Online Page A

world, but time has little meaning here. It will seem to you as if no time at all has passed.”
    A few weeks. Hawk thought of the Ghosts, wondered how they were managing without him. “How will I know what to do?”
    “You will know.”
    “How will I find my way back here? Where are we, anyway?”
    “Nowhere you can find on a map. But you will find the way nevertheless. Your heart will tell you where to go.”
    It sounded so absurd that Hawk almost laughed, but the old man’s tone of voice did not suggest that he had any doubts in the matter. Hawk glanced at him but held his tongue.
    “You have doubts?”
    “Your faith in me is stronger than my own,” Hawk answered.
    The King of the Silver River shook his head. “It might seem so, but perhaps your faith in yourself is stronger than you think.”
    Hawk didn’t care to argue the matter. “Can I see Tessa now?”
    The old man rose, his arm extending. “Down that path a short distance. She is sleeping. You might want to join her.”
    Hawk started away, then stopped and turned. “If I do this, whoever I bring is welcome?”
    The old man nodded.
    “The Knight of the Word, Logan Tom, will protect me?”
    “To the death.”
    The words hung in the air, hard and certain. Hawk understood. Logan Tom would die first, but that might not be enough to save him. He hesitated a moment, then started away again. This time, he did not look back.
     

     
    T HE K ING OF THE S ILVER R IVER watched him go. The boy would find the girl less than a hundred yards away, so deeply asleep that he could not wake her, even though he would try. Eventually, weary himself, he would lie down beside her and fall asleep. The dog who had chosen to be the boy’s companion would be next to him when he woke, and the three would be back in their own world. Their journey would begin.
    It would be a journey of more complicated and far-reaching consequences than the boy realized.
    The King of the Silver River watched him until he was almost out of sight. There was much he had not told him, much he kept secret. To tell the boy everything would have placed too great a burden on him, and he was already carrying weight enough. There was an element of chance, of fate, to everything. It was no different here. But the boy would know this instinctively and without needing to hear the details.
    The boy was beyond his line of sight now, and he turned away.
    “You are as much my child as you are anyone’s,” he said quietly. “My last, best hope.”
    In the golden light of the gardens, it seemed possible to believe that this would be enough.

 
    FIVE
    T HE HANDGUN FIRED BY the boy with the ruined face made a soft popping sound as it discharged a pair of filament-thin wires. Owl could barely make out the wires in the darkness, could only just see the gleam of metal threads as they connected with their target. It happened so fast that it was over almost before she knew it was happening. Her hand was still raised to stay the boy’s precipitous action. She was still saying, “No!”
    Then the wires found their target, the charge exploded out of the solar pack, and it was too late.
    But not for Owl. Although the charge was meant for her, fired directly at her midsection, it was Squirrel who took the hit. Curled up in her lap, he provided an unintended shield against the strike. Perhaps the boy with the ruined face hadn’t even seen him, his vision limited by his injuries. Perhaps he really didn’t care. That he acted carelessly and out of fear and confusion was a given. That he actually understood what he was doing was less certain.
    Whatever the case, the wires from the handgun struck Squirrel, and the electrical charge surged into him. Owl heard the little boy gasp sharply and felt his small body jerk. In the next instant the wires retracted into the barrel of the handgun, and Squirrel went limp and still.
    Bear was already charging for the boy with the ruined face, roaring with rage, his heavy cudgel lifted.