Bearers of the Black Staff

They were all looking at Panterra now, so he shrugged away his discomfort with an irritated gesture. “Let’s stop talking about it and just get it done.”


They set out again quickly, keeping close to the cliff wall on the left side of the pass, looking skyward at every opportunity. No one was sure of anything after the unexpected appearance of the dragon, and no one wanted to be caught off guard again.

As they advanced, Pan moved up beside Prue. “That was pretty awful, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “It makes me wonder what else is out there. If I hadn’t sensed the danger, we might have walked right into that thing.”

“I saw you react. That was quick thinking. You saved us all.”

“This time I did.” She looked decidedly unhappy. “But maybe I won’t the next. You should have said something back there when Phryne insisted on going ahead. She seems to think this is all a game. She might have listened to you.”

She gave him a look and abruptly rushed ahead, rejoining Tasha. She was angry and no mistake. But he didn’t know what to do about it. He wasn’t responsible for Phryne; it hadn’t been his suggestion that they keep going instead of turning back. Prue was being unreasonable, and that wasn’t like her.

They slogged on through the steady rain, all of them on edge. Shadows, fluid and elongated, chased one another along the walls and floor of Aphalion Pass, seeping off rocky outcroppings, and the five companions constantly found themselves searching for things that weren’t there. The wind continued to howl mournfully as it whipped across gaps in the peaks, its whistle shrill and unrelenting. Ahead and behind, the darkness had closed away all traces of where they were going and where they had been.

The pass wound through the mountains for a much longer time than Panterra had supposed it would, but after a while it narrowed to a width of less than twenty feet and began to angle first one way and then another. No dragon of the size they had encountered could hope to get through at this juncture, Panterra thought, taking some comfort from the fact. But he was bothered that his sense of direction had failed him some time back, and he had no clear idea where they were.

Finally, when it seemed there would never be an end to their trek, the way ahead brightened, the rock walls opened up, and the members of the little company found themselves climbing a slope of loose rock to a broad ridgeline swept by long streamers of rain and mist. Hunkering down within their travel cloaks, they stood together on the ridge and peered out into the grayish haze beyond. Clouds roiled across a patchwork collection of streams and rivers carved out of the earth by time and weather, waterways that interconnected and spread over terrain both blasted and barren. What trees there were looked stunted or dead, their branches withered and their greenery gone, bearing silent witness to the cataclysm that had destroyed the old world centuries ago. There was nothing for as far as the eye could see but dead things. Bare earth and rock, ruined forest and erosion, it was a more stark and empty landscape than Panterra would have imagined possible.

“Shades,” whispered Phryne, standing next to him.

“Everything’s dead.” Prue voiced Panterra’s unspoken thought. “Everything.”

“Not quite,” said Tenerife, pointing.

Far off in the distance, well beyond where specific details could be determined, dozens of columns of smoke rose through the deep gloom. With the weather as bad as it was, it was impossible to be certain, but that was how it appeared to them. They stood together staring at the smoke for a long time.

“I can’t be sure what I’m seeing,” Tasha said finally.

His eyes were the best of the five, so the others accepted that they would find nothing, either. “We should go find out,” Phryne said suddenly. Again, she saw the looks on their faces. “We’ve come this far; why not go a little farther?”

“Because now we are setting out across country we know nothing about,” Tasha pointed out. “That makes exploring a whole lot more dangerous. I can’t imagine that your father would have much good to say about us if we follow your suggestion. I think we’ve done as much as we can. It’s time to be going back.”

“But what if those are people out there? What if they can tell us something about what’s happened to the world?”

“What if they aren’t and they can’t and they only want to eat us?” Tenerife asked with a grunt. “Let it go, cousin.”

She wheeled on him. “I don’t want to let it go! I want to have a look for myself!”

Without a word, Tasha scooped her up in his long arms and threw her over his shoulder. “Time to be going, Princess. Satisfying your curiosity will have to wait for another day.”