Bearers of the Black Staff

When they reached the top of the Elfitch and turned onto the Carolan heights, they began to see a larger number of Elves going about their business. Now heads began to turn and gazes to focus. The presence of humans in Arborlon was rare, the result of isolating themselves from the other Races. Lizards and Spiders were frequent visitors, smaller in population and eager to make alliances. Elves were more willing to accommodate them than Men. Men couldn’t seem to help wanting to attach conditions to their friendship, while Elves simply asked that you honor their ways and respect their place in the world. Men were the most numerous of the peoples residing in the valley, yet the most difficult to be around. Panterra found that both strange and unfortunate, but that was the way of things.

Some of it, he knew, had to do with the practices of the Children of the Hawk. But much of it was tied to a history that over the centuries had shaped the thinking of the Race of Men to such an extent that it was virtually impossible to change. Because Mankind had always been the dominant Race, the reasoning went, it was predestined that it always should be. Other Races were inferior, not of the same intelligence and ability or of the same high moral makeup or possessed of humans’ innate appreciation of life’s purpose. The excuses went on and on, and Panterra had heard them all, most often from members of the sect, but sometimes from those who ought to know better. It was the sort of thinking generated by hidden fears and doubts, by a nagging sense that maybe you weren’t as special as you had been told and would like to think.

Neither Pan nor Prue—for they had discussed it many times when they were alone in the high country—had any use for that sort of rationalization. Nor was either particularly concerned with Man’s insistence on establishing some order of dominance among the Races. It was enough if you knew where you stood with any individual from any Race, and the pecking order would have to sort itself out over time and through trial by fire. Everyone was trying to do the best they could, and success was predicated on things like determination and strength of character and even luck. It had always been so, and they kept clear of those who thought otherwise.

Of course, the Elves were not immune to this sort of oneupmanship, but they were less vocal about it and less inclined to make it known at every opportunity. Some among them believed that theirs was the dominant Race and always had been. They were the oldest of the Races and the most talented. They had been given the gift of magic, and they had used it to great effect until they had lost it through neglect and indecision. That their numbers were less than those of humans because they procreated so much more slowly was of little consequence in the larger scheme of things. What mattered was that they alone had found ways to survive since the time of Faerie. Some even believed that it had been a mistake to come out of hiding during the Great Wars, that if they had stayed hidden the other Races—Man, in particular—would have destroyed themselves, and the Elves would have been the better for it.

The upshot of all this was that neither Men nor Elves had a whole lot of use for the other and kept apart to the extent that it was possible, each casting a wary eye for the other to cause trouble. Only a handful of individuals within each Race understood that they were all rowing in the same boat and all likely to stand or fall on how willing they were to unite in the face of dangers that eclipsed their own petty squabbles.

But that sort of danger hadn’t appeared until now, Panterra knew. So a testing of each Race was close at hand.

Pan flashed momentarily on all of this in response to the looks cast at him by some of the Elves they passed. He knew that his worldview wasn’t particularly sophisticated or experienced. He was not schooled in reading and writing, and he owned no books himself. He had learned to read signs rather than books because teaching himself to be a Tracker was what really mattered to him. He was ignorant of many things, but he was not stupid. He was a keen observer, and he was well traveled throughout the valleys, so he understood a few things about the way the Races related to one another and had thought at length about what that meant. What you knew about people mostly came from coming in contact with them, he reasoned. If your instincts and your senses didn’t lie to you, if your reasoning was sound, then you could draw your own conclusions about the human condition. All you needed to do was to pay attention to what was going on around you. That was what he had done.

His thoughts on the matter were only momentary and then they were gone as swiftly as they had come, and he moved on to what was always a fresh appreciation of the place to which they had journeyed.

Arborlon was an impressive city by any measure, the more so for being the largest and oldest of the centers of habitation in the safehold. Arborlon had been built in a time before Mankind itself was born, in the time of Faerie and magic, before humans and all their offspring. Built and rebuilt over the centuries, encapsulated by the magic of the Loden Elfstone so that it and its inhabitants might be preserved against the greatest of evils and moved when moving was the only option available, it was the only city of its kind still in existence. There were rumors of others, of cities vast and wondrous, all reduced to ruins and rubble, empty of life, testaments to what had come and gone in other times. But Arborlon was the real thing, a city of the most distant past, built by the oldest of Races, alive and well after all this time.