All the while, the demon kept them moving, moving, moving. He ordered, demanded, cajoled, and threatened. He made promises of help to those left behind, never intending to keep them. In a few instances, he lent his own strength to those begging for it, demonstrating his commitment to them. He was everywhere, a steady, dependable presence, infusing the air with his words and his magic, keeping them all on the path he had set.
“No stopping!” he shouted to them. “No resting! Eat and drink of your food and water as you walk! We have a goal and we must attain it this day! We must reach our destination! We must sacrifice the few for the greater good! Press on!”
Amazingly, they did. Though he was using his magic and his oratory, those would not have been enough without a blind willingness to be misled. They were tough and strong, these people, but they were like sheep. They believed without question that what waited was worth any sacrifice. Years of expectancy, generations of stories told about their arrival and eventual departure from this valley, made them blind to the truth.
By sunset, they had reached the opening to the pass at Declan Reach. It rose ahead of them, a black gap in the mountains, empty and shadowed. Behind them, the valley was already cloaked in twilight and the first stars were beginning to appear. People hurried now, throwing aside whatever caution remained, anxious to gain the opening, to pass through and reach the outside world and the safety that had been promised them. They went forward in large knots, following the Seraphic, keeping him in sight as he beckoned, showing them the way.
They did not look back at what they had left behind. They did not see those still limping or crawling to catch up. They did not see those who could not do so. They barely noticed the desiccated corpses of those who had died defending the pass days earlier.
They did not see the truth of things.
“I WISH I COULD SEE what you see,” Aislinne said at one point, walking side by side with Prue Liss. “This scarlet dove you follow—it’s frustrating watching you search for it while I’m not able to see it at all. It might as well be invisible.”
Prue smiled. “Then you have a small sense of what it’s like for me. I can’t see colors, except for the dove, and it only lets me see it in small glimpses as it flies away and waits for me to catch up to it. I see only grays and blacks and nothing else. I search for the things that you can see without even trying, but they are lost to me.”
She glanced over. “Like you, I want to see them for myself.”
Aislinne nodded. “I suppose it’s the same thing. But it’s worse for you than it is for me, isn’t it? All those beautiful colors turned to shadows. How were you able to adapt, Prue?
Are you getting used to it at all?”
“I didn’t have a choice. I had to get used to it. And you’re right—it’s not easy. I haven’t really managed it yet. Maybe I never will. I miss some things so much. The different blues of the sky and the greens of the trees and grasses and plants, just for starters. And I think sometimes that not seeing colors is affecting my emotional state. I cry a lot just thinking about it.”
“That doesn’t seem so strange,” Aislinne said quietly. “I find myself crying a lot, too, lately.”
She was thinking of Sider. But there was Brickey, too. There was Pogue, a loss she felt far more keenly than she was willing to admit. She was wondering what it would be like to live without all those people she had been close to. Prue could read it in her face as she turned away and pretended to study the countryside. She could see it in the tears that ran down her cheeks before she quickly wiped them away.
“We don’t seem to be going toward Glensk Wood anymore,” Aislinne said suddenly, trying to mask her discomfort. “For a while, I thought that was where we were being led —back to the village. But the dove doesn’t seem to be flying that way anymore, if I read the course of our passage right.”
“You read it right,” Prue said. “I thought the same until the dove brought me to you. I thought it was taking me back to the village, and I would find Panterra there. But we’re heading for the mountains.”
She paused, considering. “For Declan Reach, in fact. Look.” She pointed. “That notch in the peaks. Do you see it? That marks the way to the pass, and we’re traveling straight toward it.”
“Then what we’re looking for is somewhere up there,” Aislinne said.
Prue nodded. She’d been keeping close watch on their direction, worried as well that the scarlet dove might be taking them back to Glensk Wood, back to where Aislinne had seen the demon last. That old man frightened her more than anyone or anything she had ever encountered, and she did not relish a further confrontation, even knowing that one was coming. Better that she find Pan first, if it was meant to happen. Better that she have him standing next to her so they could face the demon together.
Now she was wondering if the flight of the scarlet dove meant she was to leave the valley entirely. Was it possible that when Pan disappeared below the Ashenell he somehow ended up outside their safe haven once more?
She watched the dove fly into view ahead of her, a quick flash of crimson against the grays and blacks, before disappearing. It was still traveling toward the mountains.