His daughter had done well, he reflected.

His daughter had done well, he reflected. But the thought was strangely bleak and empty. He had cre- ated an elemental out of the life of his Gardens and sent that elemental forth to serve his needs. She had been nothing to him-a daughter in name only, a child merely by designation. She had been only a momentary reality, and he had never in- tended that she be anything more. Yet he missed her. Shaping her as he did, breathing his life into her, he had brought himself too close. The human feelings they had shared would not dissolve as easily as their human forms. She should have meant nothing to him, now that she was gone. Instead, her absence formed a void he could not seem to fill. Quickening. A child of the elements and his magic, he repeated. He would do the same again-yet perhaps not so readily. There was some- thing in the ways of the creatures of the mortal Races that en- dured beyond the leaving of the flesh. There was a residue of 370 The Druid of Shannara their emotions that lingered. He could still hear her voice, see her face, and feel the touch of her fingers against him. She was gone from him, yet remained. Why should it be so? He sat there as darkness cloaked the land and wondered at himself.