Bearers of the Black Staff

Prue shook her head. “No, I think I’ll just go home and find something there. I want to go to bed.”


They didn’t say anything more until their lane, with its neat row of cottages, appeared through the trees. Lights flickered in a few windows, but none of them were theirs. Prue’s parents were visiting her mother’s sister in the neighboring community of Fair Glade End. Panterra’s parents were two years dead from a wasting sickness that no one had known how to treat.

They stopped in front of Prue’s cottage, looking at everything but each other. “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Panterra told her. “I’m sorry I did.”

She shrugged. “I know that. You don’t have to apologize to me. I don’t need you to do that ever, Pan.”

“Maybe I need to hear myself say it.”

She gave him a small smile. “See you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

She turned and walked down the path to her doorway. Panterra waited until she had entered and closed the door, then turned and started for his own home. His older brother and sisters had shared the house with him until the last of them married and moved away. Now he lived alone, not quite certain what to do with either the house or himself when he wasn’t tracking. Trow was right about that much: tracking was his life, and he didn’t want to do anything that would force him to give it up.

He was almost to his doorstep when he heard someone call out in a low voice. He turned to find a small figure darting out of the trees to catch up to him. At first he thought it might be Prue—even though there was no reason for her to be appearing out of the forest when he had seen her go into her house. But as the figure neared, he realized who it was.

“Brickey,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “I was just going to bed.”

The little man slowed to a walk but continued to approach until he was close enough that his whispers could only be heard by Pan. “Big day, I imagine, tracking monsters and what-have-you. Tiring work. Can you tell me what they looked like?”

Panterra snatched him by his tunic front and hauled him close. “That was you I heard outside the longhouse, listening in!”

Brickey managed a crooked smile, his features twisting uncomfortably. “Another wouldn’t have heard me at all, Panterra. You are to be commended for your sharp senses.”

Pan held him fast. “How did you even know we were back?”

“I saw you coming through the woods and decided to follow. I have an instinct for that sort of thing. Like you and the lovely little Prue, my instincts tell me what to do and I tend to listen to them.”

Panterra studied him silently for a moment. Brickey had a shock of black hair, knotted, unattractive features, a gnarled little body, and scruffy clothes. They all screamed thief and they weren’t lying. Brickey was a thief down to the soles of his boots, and the best that could be said about him was that he was very good at what he did. No one knew where he came from; he had just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, a little more than two years ago. He had taken a liking to Pan for reasons that escaped the latter, showing up on his doorstep and at places he frequented, always acting as if they shared something approaching a friendship.

Pan let him get away with this because it appeared that Brickey had few friends, and there wasn’t any harm in letting him act as if he were an exception. Brickey was in trouble a good deal of the time, his reach exceeding his grasp more often than not, but he never involved Pan and never asked for his help. Mostly, he just seemed to want someone he could talk to now and then.

“Let me give you some good advice, Brickey,” Pan said, releasing his tunic front and brushing out the wrinkles. “Don’t repeat anything you’ve heard tonight. Not to anyone. If anyone hears it, I better know that it came from me.”

Brickey held up his hands defensively. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that! I won’t breathe a word of it.” He raised a cautionary finger. “But listen now. Let me give you some good advice in return for yours. Pay attention to what Trow Ravenlock told you. Don’t give this report. Let things be for now—until you have hard evidence of what you claim to have seen.”

“What I did see, you mean!” Pan snapped.

“Yes, yes, what you did see. But what no one else saw, you might want to remember.” He leaned close. “I know Skeal Eile and his kind. I know how they think. You anger them, and you will live to regret it. You don’t want to find out what that means by giving this report. Leave it with Trow.”

Panterra nodded. “I appreciate your advice, but I’ve made up my mind.”

Brickey backed away, shaking his head with disappointment. “Strong-willed and stubborn is what you are, Pan. But I can admire that in a man. Even when it’s wrongheaded. Good night.”

He gave a perfunctory wave and disappeared back into the trees. Pan watched him go, then turned back to his home and went inside.

It took him a long time to get to sleep.





FIVE