Bearers of the Black Staff

Tasha leaned back, exchanged a look with his brother, and shook his head. “Not yet, at least. If we take it before the High Council at this point, we risk losing all credibility if they fail to believe any part of your story. As well, the Queen will find out, and as I’ve said there are a number of reasons for all of us not to want that to happen. I think we should keep this quiet until we know more.”


“We need to make a trip up into the mountains and see what we can find out for ourselves about the passes,” Tenerife declared. “After we’ve done that, we can decide how to attack this.”

“But we’ll need the King’s permission to do that.” Tasha drummed his fingers on the table.

“Yes, of course. But maybe we can gain that permission quietly.”

“Without the Queen knowing what we’re doing?”

Tenerife stretched his lean body, extending his legs and looking skyward contemplatively. “Difficult, but not impossible.”

“The King will tell her.”

“Not if we can find a way to persuade him not to. Of course, we can’t just ask him outright. We might be his cousins, but he won’t stand for that sort of interference.”

They looked at one another in silence. Tasha drank some more ale and contemplated the tabletop. Tenerife kept looking up at the sky, and Prue stared down at her hands, folded in front of her. Panterra found himself wondering what they were getting themselves into.

“What we need is a bit of misdirection,” Tenerife said suddenly.

When he had finished explaining what it was that he meant, everyone was smiling.





TWELVE




FOUR HOURS LATER, PHRYNE AMARANTYNE SAT SILENTLY across the table from the Orullian twins and the boy and girl from Glensk Wood, studying their faces. She let them wait on her, not wanting to respond too quickly. Their story was outlandish and dangerous, and she hadn’t yet decided how much of it she believed. If it had been the Orullians telling it, she would have dismissed it out of hand. Cousins or not, they were well known for tall tales and clever pranks, and this wouldn’t be the first time they had tricked her into believing something that wasn’t true.

But the story had come from Panterra Qu, a boy she had met only once before and didn’t know much about. That he was friendly with the Orullians didn’t invest him with much credibility. But his demeanor and his presence suggested that tall tales and clever pranks were not something he engaged in. So she had listened until his story was finished. She liked the girl, too. Prue Liss. A tiny thing, but obviously self-possessed and able. She did not seem the sort to engage in foolishness, either.

It was late in the evening by now, the sun two hours gone, the moon up, and the sky ablaze with stars. Neither clouds nor mist obscured the view this night, something exceedingly rare. Phryne was enjoying it, even knowing that she might be wasting her time at this meeting. But it was her time to waste, and she had discovered years ago that an Elven Princess could do pretty much what she wanted. Her parents had told her otherwise, but she quickly came to understand the reality of her situation. If she was discreet and caused no harm, she didn’t need to answer to anyone.

She sighed as she gazed off into the trees, still keeping them waiting. It wasn’t that simple, of course. Never had been. And certainly wasn’t now, with her father married to the stepmother from the black pits of the dead. Sometimes she could barely make herself believe that things had come to this. She had loved and revered her mother. She still loved and revered her father, even after his remarriage. Her stepmother was a different story.

“This is all true, is it?” she asked Panterra Qu suddenly, shifting her eyes to his, pinning him against the darkness. “All of it?”

He didn’t flinch. “It is.”

“I would not like it very much if this turned out to be another Orullian trick performed at my expense.”

He looked confused. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“It is all true, cousin,” Tasha Orullian assured her, reaching out to pour a little more ale into her tankard. “This is no joke.”

She thought about it a moment more. The possibility of the protective wall giving way, of the valley suddenly vulnerable to whatever lived without, whatever had survived the horrors of the Great Wars, was overwhelming. She imagined for a moment what might be out there, and her thoughts were not pleasant.

She was a practical girl—well, girl was not really the right term anymore—a practical young woman. She had become more so since her mother’s death and her father’s remarriage. She had grown up quickly in that new environment, learned how to adapt to unfavorable situations and difficult people. She had grown to accept unpleasantness as a part of life rather than to struggle futilely against truths that could not be changed. Admittedly, this new truth was of a different sort than anything she had encountered before, and she was still not quite sure she believed it. But the possibility of its existence was not something that could be dismissed out of hand.

“So your plan is to go up into the passes and find out if the barrier is still in place or if it is crumbling?”