No response.
“Maybe they don’t want to see you, boy,” the Drouj taunted. “Maybe they have less use for you than you realize.”
Pan ignored him. He walked to the door and flagged down the first person he saw. As it happened, it was Collwyn, a friend from the old days and someone he knew he could depend upon.
“Collwyn!” he called. “Can you help me?”
The other boy, the same age as Pan, though considerably smaller, hurried up the steps to embrace him. “What’s happened to you, Pan? You look a wreck!”
Pan nodded, managed a small smile. “I need you to find Pogue Kray and the Seraphic and bring them to me. Can you do that? It’s important that they come right away.”
Collwyn nodded wordlessly and dashed off. To his credit, no questions were asked and no objections raised. Pan watched him go, glanced over his shoulder to where Arik Siq sat slumped on the bench, and stepped back inside, taking a position by a window where he could watch who was passing by without losing sight of his prisoner. The Drouj might look tired, but given the opportunity he would be gone in a second. Pan was not underestimating the other’s cunning.
His weariness washed over him suddenly in a massive wave that threatened to knock him off his feet. It had taken everything he had just to get this far, and he still hadn’t resolved what he was going to do now that he was here. He had brought back Arik Siq, but he needed to find a way to exchange Taureq’s son for Prue. What help did he think he could expect from Pogue Kray or Skeal Eile? Why would they want to help him at all? They had already pronounced him a nuisance and would have preferred it if he simply went somewhere else and stayed there. He knew this. Yet here he was, back in a place where he wasn’t wanted.
He exhaled slowly, watching the road. He supposed he was here because there was nowhere else for him to go. He couldn’t get any farther without sleep. This was his home; he should be allowed to rest here. He knew it was possible that he wasn’t seeing things clearly. But so much had happened so quickly. Without Prue to advise him, to act as his conscience and be his friend, he was adrift. Aislinne would help if she could. Yet he did not care to take the man who had killed Sider Ament into her presence. No, he would not do that.
But what would he do?
The enormity of his situation reared in front of him. He was the new bearer of the black staff, the successor to the Gray Man, and he was only seventeen years old. How could he possibly expect anyone to take him seriously? Why would anyone listen to him? They would brush him aside as a boy who had been in the right place at the right time and so had inherited the staff. But he had no stature that would justify it as right and proper. He lacked any credentials, any evidence that would suggest he could wield the magic. They would not accept him for who he had become, or believe he could do what he claimed.
How could he prove them wrong? How could he convince them they should listen?
Movement near the front of the building caught his attention. Collwyn was approaching with Pogue Kray following, the latter’s burly form striding ahead with clear determination and purpose. Pogue’s bearded face was dark with emotion and the big fists were clenched. Not an auspicious beginning to things, Pan thought.
He stepped away from the window as boots clomped up the steps to the veranda and slowed. “Leave,” Pan heard Pogue Kray order Collwyn.
Then Collwyn was gone, and the big man shouldered through the door and stopped dead, staring first at Panterra, then at Arik Siq, and then back again at Pan. “Boy, what’s happened to you?” he whispered.
There was genuine concern in the query, and it took Pan by surprise. He had expected to be attacked straight off; he hadn’t expected this softer response. For a moment, he was speechless.
“Who is this?” Pogue asked, nodding toward Arik Siq, who was now sitting up straight and watching carefully.
“Someone who would betray us all,” Pan answered, meeting his prisoner’s dark gaze.
“Someone who pretended to be my friend so I would bring him into the valley.” He paused. “Even worse, only a day ago he killed Sider Ament.”
Pogue Kray’s face went white. “The Gray Man is dead?”
“Killed at the far end of the pass at Declan Reach. Poisoned by darts from a blowgun.
He was caught unawares. The poison was too strong for him to fight off, even with his magic to aid him.”
“Sider Ament is dead?” a voice demanded. “You’re certain?”
Skeal Eile stood in the doorway, staring at him. The way he asked the question did not suggest it was voiced out of concern, but out of a need to make certain the deed was done and no mistake.