Bearers of the Black Staff

The King rose. “Rest here tonight, then, and leave in the morning. You won’t be much good to anyone if you’re exhausted, and you look it now.” He sighed. “I have to have a talk with my impetuous daughter about the difference between the keeping and breaking of promises.”


The Gray Man nodded, rising with him. “Allow me one more question. We face great dangers in reemerging from our safehold, High Lord. Some of these may hark back to the time of the Great Wars. Some may possess magic. Once, the Elves had use of magic, too. Is there none at hand now that you can call upon? Do you know nothing of the whereabouts of the blue Elfstones?”

There was a tense moment of silence as the King faced him, his features tightening. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “The Elfstones were left in the hands of the Belloruus family, even after the Amarantynes became rulers of the Elves. As far as I know, that never changed. No one has heard anything of the Elfstones for years. Not since the Belloruusian line failed and the Amarantynes became rulers.”

“But you married into the family, didn’t you? Was your wife told anything about what happened to the Elfstones?”

“Not that she ever made known to me. By the time of our marriage, the Elfstones had long since gone missing. There was no reason to speak of them, no reason that anyone should bother.”

Sider shifted his rangy frame as if to get a better view of things. “Is it possible the Stones could be found now, that whoever has them might consider producing them, when the need for their magic is so great?”

Oparion Amarantyne held his gaze a moment longer before turning away. “Anything is possible. It would be up to whoever took them to give them back.” He gestured abruptly. “You had better rest now. You have much to do in the days ahead. I wish you luck.”

The Gray Man knew better than to say anything more, even though he would have liked to. The matter of the missing Elfstones was troubling, but not as much so as the King’s strange disinterest in their whereabouts. As if he couldn’t care less; as if he couldn’t be bothered. Such magic should not be dismissed so casually. Sider promised himself he would discover why Oparion Amarantyne seemed so willing to do so.

Later, when there was time.

Shouldering his black staff, he set the matter aside and followed the King from the room.





TWENTY




IT IS THREE YEARS SINCE THE OLD MAN WITH THE black staff appeared to him, a harbinger of a future that would change his life. The boy is mostly a man by now, though not yet twenty, grown tall and broad-shouldered, strong in body and self-confident. He has left his family and the farm to go with the old man, to study what the other would teach him, to be mentored in the usage of the magic of the black staff and in the ways of the larger world. He has left the girl he once thought he would never leave, but even now she shines in his memory with the clarity and brightness of crystalline dew in sunlight.

He thinks that this will never change. He will discover to his sadness and regret that he is right.

Sometimes he wants to go to her, to see her once more if only momentarily, to measure how she is and what her life is like. He does not do this, of course. Only once does he suggest this to the old man, in a moment of weakness that betrays him. The old man neither denies nor permits; he simply asks him to reconsider. Reason takes hold, and an awareness of consequence stills his eagerness. What would a visit accomplish other than to reaffirm what he already knows he has lost? Quickly enough, he abandons the idea.

He thinks often, however, of their last meeting and the way they left things as he said good-bye to her.

“I wish it could be different,” he tells her, a trite and inadequate attempt at demonstrating regret he cannot begin to express.

“It could be different, Sider,” she responds. “You need only make it so. No one has a claim on your life. No one but yourself. This is your decision, and it has not been forced on you. But once you make it, do so without regret or apology. Do so with commitment and determination.”

“I love you,” he manages, the words like sand in his mouth.

She smiles sadly, leans in and kisses him. She touches his cheek. She says nothing. Then she turns and walks away and does not look back.