“It warns when danger threatens either me or those around me. It tells me when to be careful or turn back or do something to avoid what might otherwise happen.” She paused. “But you’re right. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it fails to warn me of anything. Then I am at risk—as are those who depend on me. Was it like that for Candle, too?”
The King of the Silver River nodded. “It was. Too much so. It almost killed her. Not only her, but others, too. The boy Hawk almost lost his life because of her inability to control the magic. But that is its nature. Magic works differently for different people, and there is no way of knowing how it will respond. Even those who have used it repeatedly and come to rely on it have found that it can abandon them.”
She wrinkled her forehead in thought and brushed at her red hair. “Do you know why that happens?”
He shook his head. “Mostly, we have to accept it as it is.” He paused. “But there is something I can do about your specific problem.”
She looked at him hopefully. “Do you have that kind of power? Could you make it predictable? Could you make it do what it’s supposed to do and warn me when I’m in danger? Or if Pan is in danger when he’s with me? I can’t help him otherwise, and I have to help him. He needs me to help him.”
“Panterra Qu. Your best friend since you both were small. He’s very important to you, isn’t he?”
She nodded quickly. “More important than anything.”
“Did you know that he now carries the black staff? That he has become the bearer whom the demon hunts and seeks to destroy?”
She went pale. “Why would Pan be carrying the black staff? It belongs to Sider.”
“Sider Ament is dead, killed just outside the walls of your valley. He was hunting the Drouj who betrayed you, the one you believed was your friend.”
Quickly he told her the truth about Arik Siq and what he had been seeking to do when he left her imprisoned in the Drouj camp and accompanied Panterra Qu back into the valley.
“Sider found out the truth and tried to stop him from leaving the valley to impart what he knew to the Drouj. He was successful, but it cost him his life. As he was dying, he persuaded your friend to take the black staff and become its new bearer. Your friend did so out of a strong sense of responsibility for the people of your valley. But also out of a sense of responsibility for you. By accepting the staff, he believed he might have a chance of freeing you from the Trolls who held you prisoner.”
“Not knowing that Deladion Inch had already freed me,” she added. “Oh, Pan.”
“He searches for you now.”
“And the demon searches for him.” She got to her feet quickly. “I have to warn him. I have to help him.”
The King of the Silver River did not move. He remained where he was, his face calm and his gaze steady upon her. “Do you really want to help him? Doing so may prove much more dangerous than you think. It might cost you something precious. It might take something away from you that you could never get back again. Would you still want to help him, knowing this?”
“Can you show me a way, if I say yes?”
He nodded, his eyes still fixed on her.
“I will do whatever it takes because he would do the same for me.”
“Let me explain something,” the other said quietly, his eyes shifting momentarily to his gardens before returning to meet hers. “You are a child of one of those who were called Ghosts. But so is Panterra Qu. Not a child of those who followed Hawk, but of the boy himself. He doesn’t know this; no one does except me. Family members knew it once, but over time the family grew large enough that the connection lost importance.
None of Hawk’s descendants had the use of his magic, and none played a role in the events that followed. Eventually, the family died back again, and their memory of their lineage was lost to time and circumstance. But Panterra, while not the last of that family, is the one who matters.”
He leaned forward slightly, as if in confidence. “If I tell you why, you must not tell him. Not of that or of anything else I confide in you. You must promise me. It is important that you know but equally important that he does not. Do you understand?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure I do. But if that is what you require, I give you my word.”
The King of the Silver River nodded. “Very well. Panterra Qu has a destiny to fulfill that is not altogether dissimilar from the one given to the boy Hawk. But Panterra is not imbued with magic like his ancestor was. What he has is the ability to wield magic in a way no other has since the Knights of the Word came into the valley to escape the Great Wars. What he also has is a task that would crush the soul and spirit of anyone who knew the truth of its demands. It is a task which he must assume nevertheless.”
He paused, and then unexpectedly he smiled. “He is to lead the people of the valley back into the larger world, where they and their descendants will settle and multiply and eventually become dominant once again.”
“Panterra?” she asked in disbelief.
He nodded. “Assuming the demon doesn’t find him and kill him first.”