Bearers of the Black Staff

“I thought he was merely a thief,” Panterra observed. “It seems he is something more.”


“Brickey is many things. But he keeps what he is to himself.” Aislinne motioned impatiently. “Pack, Panterra. You have to leave.”

It took them only a short time to gather the clothes, weapons, and supplies they needed to set out. They were practiced at this, good at packing on short notice, efficient at collecting what was needed. Aislinne trailed after them, glancing outside now and then, studying the darkness as if to uncover its secrets. The rustle of their packing efforts were all the noise any of them made. They saw and heard nothing further of Brickey, who had faded back into the night. Panterra found himself wondering how much of the other’s interest in him was fostered by his relationship to Aislinne. How had the little man come to know Aislinne so well? He wanted to ask her, but decided against it.

When they were ready, Aislinne walked them outside to the edge of the trees. All around them, the night provided a dark, silent cloaking. There were few lights in the windows of houses and no one about. Overhead, the sky was clear and filled with stars.

“I’ll tell your parents, Prue, and anyone else who needs to know that you have gone to visit friends and will return in a week. If you don’t come back by then, I’ll make up something else to keep them from worrying. Try to convince the Elves to help you. Perhaps events will dictate when you’ll be able to come back again. It might not be very long at all if Sider is right; another intrusion from the outside world is more likely than not if the protective wall is failing. Still, we can’t count on that; we have to rely on our own resourcefulness.”

She sounded as if she meant to place herself in their company, as if she shared the danger they faced. Panterra shook his head. He didn’t want Aislinne to do anything more for them, anything that might put her at further risk. But he knew she would do whatever she felt she must, and that his admonitions against doing so would be wasted effort.

“We’ll get word to you,” he promised.

“Walk softly,” she cautioned, and he was struck by the familiarity of that phrase: Sider Ament had used it as well.

“Thank you for everything.” Prue embraced the tall woman and held her close. “We owe you so much.”

Aislinne broke away. “You owe me nothing. Just keep safe until we meet again. Now go.”

They moved into the trees. Panterra looked back and waved good-bye to her. She was already turning away.

When he looked back again, she was gone.





SEVEN




AFTER LEAVING PRUE LISS AND PANTERRA, SIDER Ament set out to track down the second of the two creatures that had broken through his wards.

He was struggling with a number of issues. The weightiest of these was accepting that after all these years, the barrier that had kept his valley home safe was crumbling. It wasn’t that he found the idea impossible to believe; it was that it felt so personal. It had been five centuries, and there had been dozens of others who had patrolled the valley before him, all descendants of the old Knights of the Word. In all that time, the mists that barred passage in or out had held firm against intrusion. But now, in his time, while it was his turn to bear the black staff of power, they were breaking down.

He couldn’t know this for certain yet, even given what he believed to be clear evidence. But if the creature he tracked was attempting to get back to where it had come from, and if he failed to catch up to it before it succeeded, he would soon learn the truth. He supposed that he would find out in any case, because he had no choice now but to test the barrier no matter where he found the creature. The creature’s appearance might have been unexpected and hence unforeseeable, but that didn’t change the inevitable consequences. Depending on where it had come from, either the inhabitants of the valley were still safe from the outside world or they were not. Either life would go on as before or it would be changed forever.

It was his realization of what this meant that was so overwhelming. Like most, he knew something of what had happened five hundred years earlier to bring their ancestors here. The Great Wars—the wars of power, the wars of science—had destroyed civilization. They had leveled governments and institutions, obliterated cities and entire nations, poisoned air and water and earth, and left the larger world virtually uninhabitable. No one who had come into the valley had ever been able to go back out again to see what that meant. But the stories had persisted—the old world was lost and it wasn’t coming back; the new world was the world they would make here, within the confines of the mountain walls and the protective mists.