Bearers of the Black Staff

“Most won’t. But one or two will. Enough to nurture a seed of doubt that will start to grow in the others. There will be other incursions into the valley, other killings, and then more will believe. But we don’t want to wait on that. We have to start telling people now.”


“What about the Elves and Lizards and the others?” Pan asked quickly. “Especially the Elves. We know some of their Trackers and Hunters are already looking to finding a way to leave the valley. They just don’t know it’s possible yet. But they will be quicker to believe.”

The Gray Man nodded. “Then tell them. Or someone else from your village can. But I would think you would do the job best, if you can persuade your unit commander to let you.”

The boy and the girl exchanged a doubtful look. Trow Ravenlock was a member of the sect and not likely to receive their news with an open mind.

“We’ll do what we can,” Prue said quickly.

Sider Ament smiled for the second time. “That’s all I can ask. Spread the word, ask people to prepare.” He rose. “I must be going.”

Panterra and Prue stood up with him. “Will we see you again?” the girl asked.

“I imagine so.” The Gray Man stretched his lean frame and rolled his shoulders. “Once I’ve tracked down that other beast, I’ll come looking for you.” He paused. “It might take a while, though. If it goes through the mists. It came in that way, after all. I imagine it will try to go back out.”

“You haven’t been there yourself?” Panterra asked.

Sider Ament shook his head. “Not yet. No reason to go looking for trouble when it will find you all on its own. I was hoping, of course, that I wouldn’t have to go out at all, that a healing would take place. But it hasn’t, so now maybe I’ll have to go.”

He gave Pan an enigmatic smile. “Maybe all of us will.”

The boy’s throat tightened in response, and he tried to imagine just for a moment what that would mean. He could not.

Sider Ament stepped close to them. “Now you listen. You’re young, but you’re capable. I regret having to ask this of you, though sometimes life doesn’t give us the choices we might like. You have to do what needs doing here, but you can be careful about it. This is a dangerous time, and some of what’s dangerous about it might not come from the direction you’re looking, if you take my meaning.”

Pan nodded. He understood.

“So you watch out for each other and you do what’s right in this. Don’t doubt yourselves and don’t be turned aside from what’s needed. A lot is going to depend on how quickly people of all the Races come around to seeing the truth of things. You can help make that happen, and what you do might make all the difference.”

“We can do what’s needed,” Prue volunteered. “Can’t we, Pan?”

Panterra nodded. “We can.”

“I’ll tell you more about all this the next time we meet.” Sider Ament stepped away again. “One thing more. Remember what it felt like today, having one of those things bearing down on you like a landslide. Remember what it made you feel. That was real. And those things aren’t the worst of what’s waiting out there. I don’t know that for sure, you understand. But I feel it in my bones.”

He hefted the black staff and turned away. “Walk softly, Trackers, until we meet again.”

They watched him stride off into the trees, a tattered wraith wrapped in what might have been the trappings of the dead, sliding from trunk to trunk, silent as dust falling, until at last he was gone.

The woods were silent now, the swamp a vast graveyard of dead things, the air rank with their smells. Panterra took a deep breath and looked over at Prue. Her small face was set with that familiar determined look, and her green eyes were serious.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” she told him.

He nodded. “I know.”

“We have to think it through.”

“I know that, too.”

“Then we better get to it.”





FOUR




NEITHER PANTERRA NOR PRUE SPOKE UNTIL THEY had retraced their steps through the deep woods and were back in the relatively clear stretch below the snow line, and then they both began talking at once.

“I should have asked him about that staff …”

“He’s nothing like the stories we’ve heard …”

They stopped speaking and looked at each other, and then Prue said, “He doesn’t seem at all like the person in the stories.” She wrinkled her freckled nose. “What does that suggest?”

“That the stories are either mistaken or lies.” Pan walked with his eyes sweeping the woods along the lower slopes and the craggy rock along the upper. He didn’t intend to get caught off guard again, even if he supposed that the danger was past. “Or maybe some of each.”