Bearers Of The Black Staff Part 2

"You haven't been there yourself?" Panterra asked.

Sider Ament shook his head. "Not yet. No reason to go looking for trouble when it will find you all on its own. I was hoping, of course, that I wouldn't have to go out at all, that a healing would take place. But it hasn't, so now maybe I'll have to go."

He gave Pan an enigmatic smile. "Maybe all of us will."

The boy's throat tightened in response, and he tried to imagine just for a moment what that would mean. He could not.

Sider Ament stepped close to them. "Now you listen. You're young, but you're capable. I regret having to ask this of you, though sometimes life doesn't give us the choices we might like. You have to do what needs doing here, but you can be careful about it. This is a dangerous time, and some of what's dangerous about it might not come from the direction you're looking, if you take my meaning."

Pan nodded. He understood.

"So you watch out for each other and you do what's right in this. Don't doubt yourselves and don't be turned aside from what's needed. A lot is going to depend on how quickly people of all the Races come around to seeing the truth of things. You can help make that happen, and what you do might make all the difference."

"We can do what's needed," Prue volunteered. "Can't we, Pan?"

Panterra nodded. "We can."

"I'll tell you more about all this the next time we meet." Sider Ament stepped away again. "One thing more. Remember what it felt like today, having one of those things bearing down on you like a landslide. Remember what it made you feel. That was real. And those things aren't the worst of what's waiting out there. I don't know that for sure, you understand. But I feel it in my bones."

He hefted the black staff and turned away. "Walk softly, Trackers, until we meet again."

They watched him stride off into the trees, a tattered wraith wrapped in what might have been the trappings of the dead, sliding from trunk to trunk, silent as dust falling, until at last he was gone.

The woods were silent now, the swamp a vast graveyard of dead things, the air rank with their smells. Panterra took a deep breath and looked over at Prue. Her small face was set with that familiar determined look, and her green eyes were serious.

"This isn't going to be easy," she told him.

He nodded. "I know."

"We have to think it through."

"I know that, too."

"Then we better get to it."

FOUR.

NEITHER PANTERRA NOR PRUE SPOKE UNTIL THEY had retraced their steps through the deep woods and were back in the relatively clear stretch below the snow line, and then they both began talking at once.

"I should have asked him about that staff ..."

"He's nothing like the stories we've heard ..."

They stopped speaking and looked at each other, and then Prue said, "He doesn't seem at all like the person in the stories." She wrinkled her freckled nose. "What does that suggest?"

"That the stories are either mistaken or lies." Pan walked with his eyes sweeping the woods along the lower slopes and the craggy rock along the upper. He didn't intend to get caught off guard again, even if he supposed that the danger was past. "Or maybe some of each."

"Trow told us most of them," she said.

"Most, but not all. And the stories are always the same. The Gray Man is a wild man, a recluse living in the upper reaches of the valley, keeping apart from everyone. He wanders from this place to that, his clothes ragged and torn, his face haunted by memories that no one knows but him. He carries that black staff, a remnant of the old world, a talisman once, but an outdated symbol of something long since turned to dust. He scavenges to stay alive, and you don't want him near your children because it is said he sometimes takes them and they are never seen again."

"That isn't what we saw," she pressed.

He glanced over. "No, it isn't. But we only saw him for a short time, so we don't know all that much."

"We know enough."

When Prue made up her mind about something, that was the end of it. That seemed to be the case here. Besides, Panterra wasn't inclined to disagree. What they had seen of Sider Ament was not in keeping with the stories. The Gray Man was wild enough, but he seemed sane and directed, and what he had to say about those beasts and the other creatures breaking through the mists could not be ignored.

"What do you suppose he does, living out there by himself?" Prue asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Pan shook his head. "I don't know. Watches, mostly. He seemed to know about those creatures quick enough to come after them. He must watch the pa.s.ses, too. Otherwise he wouldn't know about the collapse of the barriers. Weren't the Knights of the Word dedicated to doing something like that once?"

"They were servants of the Word, Aislinne says. They fought against the demons that tried to destroy everything. So I guess they must have kept watch over our ancestors just like Sider Ament is keeping watch over us." She paused. "If Sider Ament is one of them, as the stories say, he would be doing the same thing, wouldn't he? He's certainly more than what they claim. You saw what he did with that black staff. He threw those beasts aside as if they were made of straw. I've never heard any stories about him being able to do that."

In truth, Panterra thought, they had never heard any stories about the black staff that didn't refer to it as a useless relic. The tales noted that he carried the staff, but used it only as a walking stick.

He found himself wis.h.i.+ng he had the Gray Man back again so he could ask him about the power it contained. Was it a form of magic or science? It could have been either, but it was still from another era and something no one in the valley had ever seen before.

"Anyway, I don't care what the stories say, he was keeping watch over us," Prue finished, putting emphasis on her words. She gave Panterra a look.

"He did what I should have done," Pan admitted. "I led us right into a trap that would have gotten us killed."

"You did the best you could. How could you know what those creatures were like? How could you know they were from outside the valley?" She put a hand on his arm. "I should have sensed we were in danger, and I missed it."

"You don't have to take responsibility for my mistake," Pan insisted. "I know what I did."

She shrugged. "Let it go, Pan. We're safe now, and we have other things to worry about."

They talked for a while about how they were going to approach carrying out the charge given to them by Sider Ament. It would not be easy. Only a few were likely to accept that the world was changing in such a drastic way, and not many of them were in a position to do anything about it.

Trow Ravenlock might be one. He was a member of the Hawk sect and a subscriber to the belief that the Hawk would return to lead them out of the valley when it was time. But he was also a man who could be persuaded to a cause where there was evidence it was right to do so. He might hew to the party line, but he was independent enough in his thinking to listen to what Pan and Prue would tell him.

The other possibility was Aislinne. But getting her to help them would be tricky. She was impossible to predict; she might choose to do everything in her power to help or she might do nothing at all.

The hours slipped by, midday turning into afternoon and afternoon to dusk. By the time they had come down out of the high regions and onto the flats at the west end of the valley, the sun had dropped behind the rim of the mountains and the sky was coloring to gold and pink. On another day, the boy and the girl would have stopped to admire it. But the news they brought of the deaths of their friends and the charge they had been given did not allow for pauses.

So they crossed the gra.s.sy foothills to the thick woodlands beyond and made their way down familiar paths to their destination. The windows of the cottages and longhouses shone as firefly lights through the trees long before they arrived, and they could hear the sounds of voices and evening tasks being carried out as they approached, familiar and comforting.

"I could eat something," Prue observed.

"Right after we give our report," Panterra agreed.

They entered the village and made their way to the longhouse that served both as a gathering point for the Trackers of Glensk Wood and as a residence for their leader, Trow Ravenlock. It was early still, and there were torches burning at the entrance and candlelight flickering from within. But when they climbed the steps of the porch and peered through the door, they found the common rooms empty of everyone but Trow himself.

The Tracker leader was seated at one of the tables, studying a collection of hand-drawn maps. His short, lean body was hunched over as he worked, and his angular features were tightened in concentration. But he looked up quickly as they entered and hesitated only a moment before getting to his feet. "What's happened?"

Clearly he had read something in their faces. They walked over until they were standing in front of him. "Bayleen and Rausha are dead," Panterra said. "Killed before sunrise, probably in their sleep."

"Before sunrise," the other repeated. He looked from face to face. "So you've been tracking the killers?"

Pan nodded. "Since early this morning, up the slopes of Declan Reach and back down again. We cut the trail of the killers first and then discovered the killing ground. We kept tracking until we found where they had bedded down amid the remains. Then, toward midday, we caught up to them."

He stopped, waiting to see if Trow had heard clearly. The Tracker leader ran his hand through his iron-gray hair and blinked. "They killed them and then ate them later?" he asked slowly. "Is that what you're saying?"

"They dismembered them so that they were all but unrecognizable," Prue answered. "Show him, Pan."

Panterra reached in his pocket and produced Bayleen's bracelet. "That was how we know who it was," he said.

Trow Ravenlock sat back down slowly. "What sort of creatures would do something like that? Were they Kodens?"

Pan shook his head. "We thought they might be Kodens, but they weren't. They weren't like anything we've ever seen. Like anything anyone in this valley has ever seen. We tracked them, Trow, but they caught our scent or heard us. They set a trap for us; they were waiting in ambush. We almost died. But someone saved us."

He told the Tracker leader then about their encounter with Sider Ament and how the Gray Man had done battle with the creatures, killing one and driving off the other. They told him, as well, of the Gray Man's warning that the wall of the protective mists that had kept them safe for five centuries was breaking down. Prue added her own opinion: that Sider Ament was right and the things that had killed their friends had not come from within the valley but from somewhere without, from the world their ancestors had abandoned, because nothing so terrible had ever been seen in their own world.

Trow Ravenlock listened silently, and when Panterra and Prue were done, he looked at them a moment before shaking his head. "It isn't possible. What you're telling me about the mists? It isn't possible. The legend says-"

"It doesn't matter what the legend says!" Prue interrupted heatedly. "What matters is what we saw! Those things, Trow, were clear proof of what the Gray Man says is happening."

"Maybe, maybe not." Trow held up his hand as they both started to argue anew. "It doesn't matter what you or I think, in any case. What matters is what the members of the council think, and they're going to listen to the Seraphic. His voice is the law on matters concerning the Hawk and the future of this community's people beyond the valley. We can argue this until the cows come home and beyond, but it doesn't change things." He paused, looking from one face to the other. "Does it."

He made it a statement of fact. He sounded so calm about it Panterra was immediately angry.

"No, it doesn't," he agreed. "But we are obligated to make our report to you, and you are obligated to carry it before the council."

Trow shook his head. "I am obligated to do what I feel is best. In this case, giving a report to the council is not a wise idea. What I will do is to send other Trackers back up into Declan Reach to see if we can make sense of things. I will even order them to test the strength of the mists, so far as we are able to do so."

"'To see if we can make sense of things'?" the boy repeated.

"Don't make it sound like that. It's just a precaution to make sure you didn't miss something, that what you think you saw is what you actually did see."

Panterra started to respond and then hesitated, glancing back at the open longhouse door. Had he heard something? He walked across the room to the door and looked outside. The porch was empty, and there was no sign of anyone beyond. He searched the darkness for a moment, and then closed the door and walked back to Trow.

"If you won't give my report to the council, will you give it to Pogue Kray, at least?"

"The council chair will have the same reaction as mine, Panterra, only more so. He hews to the teachings of the sect much more closely than I do. It will accomplish nothing to tell him something he will not accept. You have to face the truth about this. No one is going to believe something so radical. They'll think you're seeing things and are unfit for your position."

Panterra and Prue exchanged a glance. "I request that I be allowed to make the report for you," Pan said. "I have the right to speak before the council on matters that concern the safety of the community. I am exercising that right now."

There was a tight silence as the two faced each other. "You have to let him," Prue agreed.

"I know what I have to do, young lady," Trow Ravenlock replied, looking over at her sharply. "I don't need you to remind me." He paused, turning his gaze back on Pan. "Why don't you sleep on this and we'll talk in the morning?"

Panterra shook his head. "A night's sleep won't change the truth of what we saw. We're wasting time. I want to give my report to the full council. Let them hear me out and decide for themselves."

"And hear me out, as well," Prue added bravely.

Trow looked from one to the other. "Don't put yourself in a position where you'll end up looking like fools. Worse, don't jeopardize your careers as Trackers. You might be throwing everything away by insisting on this. You're talented, but you're young still; you have some things to learn yet about prudence and common sense. This one time, listen to me. Let this go."

"We would be cowards if we did that," the boy said. "Bayleen and Rausha were friends; they deserve better."

"They were my friends, too. But they're dead and gone, and you can't change that." The Tracker's sharp eyes held them. "If you can find some hard evidence to support your statement, then you can give it."

Pan shook his head. "If we wait on this, people will wonder why we held our tongues. If it's true, why did we keep it from them?"

"We risk people finding out the hard way what we already know," Prue added. "We risk watching others die." She threw up her hands. "Why not just tell them? These people know us! They know we don't lie!"

Trow Ravenlock shook his head. "Skeal Eile might make them think otherwise. He has the skills to do that; I've seen it happen before. If you make him your enemy, he has the power to turn everyone against you. By giving this report, you might as well call him a fraud and a liar. You are declaring to everyone that the Children of the Hawk have been mistaken in their beliefs for five centuries. You can't do that and not expect retaliation. And you aren't ready for that."

"What I am not ready for," Panterra declared, "is sitting on my hands and doing nothing. I saw what I saw. We both did. These creatures we encountered were not from this valley. The Gray Man may be right-the wall of protection may be eroding. Whatever the case, he asked us to tell the people of Glensk Wood what he believes is happening, and we agreed to do so. I won't go back on my word."

The Tracker leader rose and stood looking at Pan. "You're making a mistake, but it's your mistake to make. Don't say you weren't warned. I'll give it until morning, in the unlikely case you change your mind. Then I'll speak to Pogue Kray and arrange for you to appear before the council tomorrow night."

He shook his head. "Now go-get out of here."

THE BOY AND THE GIRL WALKED from the longhouse and stood together on the porch for a moment, staring out at the lighted windows of the community buildings where they glimmered in the darkness. As if by accord, neither spoke for a very long time.

"Maybe he's right," Prue said finally.

Pan gave her a look. "Maybe he's not."

"I'm just saying."

"Well, don't."

She tightened her lips petulantly. "Maybe we should just go to bed."

"Maybe we should get something to eat first. Like we planned."

They went down off the steps and followed the path toward their homes. It was growing late, and there were only a few people still out and about at this hour. Those they pa.s.sed nodded politely or said h.e.l.lo, safe in the knowledge that all was right with the world, oblivious to the truth. For reasons that he found hard to explain, it irritated Panterra immensely.

"Will you come to my house and eat with me?" Pan asked finally.

Prue shook her head. "No, I think I'll just go home and find something there. I want to go to bed."

They didn't say anything more until their lane, with its neat row of cottages, appeared through the trees. Lights flickered in a few windows, but none of them were theirs. Prue's parents were visiting her mother's sister in the neighboring community of Fair Glade End. Panterra's parents were two years dead from a wasting sickness that no one had known how to treat.

They stopped in front of Prue's cottage, looking at everything but each other. "I didn't mean to snap at you," Panterra told her. "I'm sorry I did."

She shrugged. "I know that. You don't have to apologize to me. I don't need you to do that ever, Pan."