He dreamed that night, something he seldom did these days, and the dreams were filled with dark images and fleeting shadows that lacked specific identity or purpose, but whispered of secrets. He tracked after them, using all his skills, but somehow they were always quicker than he was, always smarter. And at some point, he came to the terrifying realization that his efforts were failing because it was the images and shadows that were tracking him.
When he woke, the sun was cresting the horizon of jagged mountain peaks in a wash of crimson light and he was bathed in his own sweat.
He set out at once.
He swept the area in all four directions, but his search yielded nothing. He found himself wishing he had that boy with him—what was his name? Panterra? He might have found something with his young eyes that Sider, with his old, had not. A talented youth, with good instincts and skills and not afraid even when that beast came right at him. He liked the girl, too. The pair made a good match. He wished there were more like those two, but he knew there weren’t.
Too bad he had to send them back down into Glensk Wood without him. They would not have been received well by the Seraphic and his followers. Maybe not by anyone. But it had to be done. Even if their efforts failed. Even if almost everyone refused to believe, there would be one or two who would. Word of mouth would spread, and eventually someone in a position to do so would act. It was the most he could expect, and it would have to be enough.
He abandoned his sweeping search of the lower slopes, deciding that no creature could hide its passing on such soft ground and so the one he tracked must have gone up into the rocks. He struck out in a deliberately straight line, looking to cut the creature’s trail at some point between where he was and the head of the pass or, failing that, to find its tracks inside the pass itself. He went quickly, climbing steadily with the sun’s rising, pushing aside the lingering memories of last night’s dreams.
It took him about forty minutes to find the trail again. It came in from the west, which meant the creature had deviated for some reason. The tracks were scrapes from claw marks on the stone and small disturbances of the loose rock. There was no sign of blood. The creature might be wounded, but it was not bleeding. Nor did it appear to be disoriented or desperate. It was choosing its way with intent to hide its passage and escape any pursuit.
Sider Ament picked up the pace.
The morning stretched on, but he reached the head of the pass by midday. The creature was no longer bothering to conceal its trail by then, clearly believing that a quick escape back into its own world would be its best course of action. Sider was surprised to find traces of blood again on the rocks; the creature’s wounds had reopened. He followed blood drops and tracks to where his wards hung in tatters from the rocks, stopped to examine them, and quickly determined that the damage had been caused by his quarry exiting rather than something else entering.
It bothered him that the creature could reason as well as it did. This wasn’t some dumb brute. Its deliberate efforts at concealing its tracks, doing something to stanch its wounds, and making a conscious decision to get out of the valley, now that its companion was dead, demonstrated the depth of its intelligence. Sider knew that he would have to be careful. A creature like this would know how to set an ambush, how to hide and catch by surprise anything that threatened.
He left the wards down, took a deep, steadying breath, and started into the pass.
The mists closed about him almost instantly, but the dampness did not feel as heavy as it had when he had tested the barrier on other occasions. There was a difference of another sort, as well, but he could not immediately define it. He pressed ahead, hands gripping his black staff as they might a lifeline, aware that he could see little and hear nothing and that almost anything might be waiting for him in the haze. His instincts should warn him, but he could never be sure. In his line of work, in his life, it was often so.
He slowed, and his eyes swept the wall of mist ahead for signs of movement or a hidden presence and found nothing. The runes of his staff, which would glow in warning if there were danger threatening, remained dark. He pushed on, thinking suddenly that the reason the mist felt different was that it was warmer than he remembered. The air, in fact, was warmer. He was several thousand feet up from the valley floor and well above the snow line, and within the valley it was verging on bitter cold. Yet here, within the pass, the temperature was thirty degrees higher.
He shook his head and continued on.
The defile he followed twisted and turned through walls of rock, layered in shadows and the curtain of the mists. He could see nothing of the sky or the mountain peaks, nothing ahead or behind. It seemed to him that the ground climbed for a long time and then leveled out. If things progressed in the way that they had for the past five centuries, the mists would turn him around and send him back to where he had started. Or they would swallow him completely, as they had others who had come this way without the magic he possessed, and he would never be seen again.
Bearers of the Black Staff
Terry Brooks's books
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- City of Ruins
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)
- The Council of Mirrors
- Born of Ice
- Born of Fire
- Born of Defiance
- Gates of Paradise (a Blue Bloods Novel)
- A Very Levet Christmas (Guardians of Eternity)
- Darkness Eternal (Guardians of Eternity)
- City of Fae
- The Invasion of the Tearling
- The Book of Speculation: A Novel