Bearers of the Black Staff

“I am the only one responsible for me!” she snapped. She realized how arrogant that sounded and immediately held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Listen to me, please. If I agree to go back now, without Panterra and Prue, and my father learns what has happened, it will be years before I am allowed to do anything of this sort again. It will simply reconfirm what he already suspects—that I am a child, a girl, and I must be coddled and watched over until I am someone’s wife.”


“Better that than ending up dead or a prisoner of those Lizards,” Tenerife pointed out. “You didn’t see them. I did. They aren’t like the Lizards we know. These creatures are huge and dangerous beyond anything I’ve ever known. They wear armor and carry weapons of war. This isn’t a group of travelers on a journey; this is a war party, and it is too much for three Elves to try to overcome.”

“All right, I agree,” she said quickly, not wanting to cede him any of the territory she had already made up her mind to claim. “But we could follow them, track them to wherever they are taking Panterra and Prue. We could look for a chance to rescue them. Then, if no opportunity shows itself, if nothing happens to allow us to free them, we can come back into the valley and tell my father.”

“We lose time that way, cousin.”

“We lose opportunity the other way, cousin.”

“Following your advice the last time didn’t work out so well. Perhaps this time you should defer to us.”

“Thank you for pointing that out. I had forgotten completely. Now that I am reminded, I should probably crawl back into my hole and defer to your superior good judgment for the rest of my life!”

They glared at each other. Tasha, listening silently until now, gave a heavy sigh. “Enough. Both arguments have merit. No good purpose is served if we fight among ourselves. We must weigh the choices and decide. Time slips away.”

“You decide, then,” his brother ordered. “The vote is split between Phryne and me. She says we stay, and I say we go back. You choose, and we will abide by your choice.”

He obviously felt that his brother would side with him. Phryne almost objected to the proposal, but decided to hold her tongue. Better to wait and hear what Tasha had to say before attacking him. She had done enough of that already, and she had a sense that any more of the same would only be counterproductive. Besides, he was going to have his say in any case. She desperately wanted to stay, to make right the things she had helped make wrong, to not return as the instigator of what could only be termed a disaster. But she had to accept that she could not make this happen by herself, that she needed the acquiescence and support of her cousins.

“What do you say, Tasha?” she asked him, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “What should we do?”

Tasha seemed to consider. “There is one aspect of all this that neither of you has mentioned, one that might be more important than any of the others we have discussed. If we do the smart thing, the reasonable thing, and we return to Arborlon and ask your father to let us return and search for Panterra and little sister, will he allow it? Not just you, cousin, but any of us. Or any Elves at all, for that matter.”

He paused. “Because the people we are asking him to rescue, the people his Hunters must search out and do battle for, are humans. No, don’t say anything yet, Phryne. I know your father is a reasonable and good man. But he differs not so much from other Elves in his dislike and mistrust of humans. He will weigh that against any obligation he feels toward you or us in making his decision. I cannot say for certain which way he will go, even knowing him as I do. That troubles me. If he refused to help our young friends, Tenerife and I would have to come back on our own, likely in direct disobedience of the King, and do what little we could to make things right.”

He looked from his brother to Phryne. “What do you think?”

Phryne knew what she thought. She thought her father was a better man than that. She thought he would stand up for those his daughter had taken responsibility for. But she also knew Tasha was not wrong in his assessment. She shook her head, an indication of her own uncertainty.

Tenerife shrugged. “You make it all sound so reasonable, brother. As you always seem to. I find nothing to disagree with, so I withdraw my vote against abandoning our friends and suggest we go after them.”

He walked over and put an arm around Phryne’s shoulders. “We should leave now before they get any farther ahead, don’t you think?”

She gave him a broad smile in response and kissed him lightly on the cheek.





SEVENTEEN