Bearers of the Black Staff

by Terry Brooks

  But when he was finished and had returned his empty plate to the kitchen and lowered himself into a chair across from the boy, he said, “Are you ready for this?”

  Pan nodded. “What do you think will happen?”

  The Gray Man shook his head. “No one will be happy to see us, Skeal Eile least of all. But they will stay and listen because they will know that our being here means we have something important to tell them. They’ll listen, but maybe they won’t believe. It depends.”

  “I guess it does,” Pan agreed. He thought about it for a minute. “What will you do about Skeal Eile?”

  Sider Ament shrugged. “That depends, too. If I don’t like what I see in his eyes, I’ll have to reconsider my thinking. Otherwise, I’ll seek a promise of unconditional support in front of the other two. That sort of public oath carries weight. Since we won’t be staying, we won’t be at much risk. It’s Aislinne who should worry.”

  “Aislinne seems able to take care of herself,” Pan said. “And she has friends besides us who can protect her.”

  The Gray Man nodded and looked away, his gaze drifting toward the curtained windows and the night beyond. “She was always resourceful.”

  Panterra wanted to ask him about Aislinne, wanted to know more. There was a history between the two that went way back; any fool could tell as much. He wanted to know what that history was. But he knew that asking would be wrong and likely brushed aside. He would have to wait and hope that at some point Sider Ament would choose of his own volition to talk about it.

  They waited in silence then, listening to the night’s deep stillness, searching for sounds that would signal the coming of the others. It was not long before they heard footsteps and accompanying voices. Those approaching did not do so cautiously or with any indication that they knew who was waiting inside. Pan heard Pogue Kray’s deep voice rumble in sharp cadence to Trow Ravenlock’s quieter tones. But he did not hear Skeal Eile or Aislinne, and wondered if something had happened.

  The door opened and both speakers stepped inside, drawing to an abrupt halt the moment they saw Panterra and Sider. Aislinne and Skeal Eile followed, Aislinne entering last and closing the door firmly behind her.

  “What is the meaning of this, Aislinne?” her husband asked at once, never for a moment turning away from the two visitors, his dark eyes angry.

  “We have a nice piece of trickery at work here, Pogue.” Skeal Eile offered a guarded smile, but his voice was smooth and pleasant. “Your wife possesses depths of deception still unplumbed, it seems.”

  Only Trow showed any semblance of calm, giving Sider a nod and saying to Pan, “How are you, Tracker? We miss you and your partner. Have you come back to stay?”

  Ignoring the others, Aislinne moved to the front, turning to face her husband. “I did not tell you who waited because you would not have come and it was important that you did. If you hear them out, I think you will agree with me and forgive me my deliberate omissions.”

  Pogue Kray glowered at her. “Sometimes, you step too far over the line with me, Aislinne. You should not presume—”

  “I see no harm in hearing what they have to say,” Skeal Eile said suddenly, cutting the other short. “We’re here, after all. What harm can come from it?”

  And right away, Panterra knew that something was amiss. For the Seraphic to be this calm suggested he was not altogether surprised to find them there, and that was troubling. No one should have known they were coming. No one should have been prepared for this.

  But maybe it was simply the Seraphic’s discipline and training that allowed him to give this impression, and he was simply disguising his real feelings beneath a façade of apparent calm.

  In any case, there was no time to find out. An argument between Aislinne and Pogue Kray was pushing everything else aside.

  “I don’t like being deceived!” Pogue Kray snapped, his eyes flicking dark with anger. “Especially not by my wife! I expect better than that from her!”

  “Any deception in this business exists only in your mind!” Aislinne replied quietly.

  “Tricking me into this meeting does not count as deception?”

  Sider Ament suddenly stepped between them. “Instead of attacking Aislinne, perhaps you would do better to listen to what I have to say.”

  “Keep your opinions to yourself, Gray Man!” the other snapped, coming forward to meet him. “You and your black staff, thinking you can do whatever you wish. Think again! I don’t need to listen to anything you have to say, not now and not—”

  “Perhaps it would suit you better if I simply left and you found out on your own that the protective wall you all believe in so strongly is broken and an army of thousands waits just on the other side of the pass at Declan Reach. Perhaps you would prefer to tell what’s left of your people after that army destroys the village, kills the men, and makes slaves of the women and children that this was all Aislinne’s fault. Perhaps they will understand your refusal to speak with me about it now. Perhaps. I won’t be there to find out, however. Come, Panterra.”

  He pushed past Pogue Kray and moved toward the door. After a moment’s hesitation, a stunned Panterra followed in his wake.

  “Sider, wait!” Trow Ravenlock moved to block his way. Smaller than the other, he stood defiantly in place before him. “Don’t go. Tell him to stay, Pogue.”

  The big man stood frozen in place, silent.

  “Tell him,” Skeal Eile advised quietly. He gathered his white robes closer about him and lifted his head slightly to emphasize his insistence. “This is no time for soothing your injured pride by acting the part of the child. We need to know what he’s talking about.”

  Again, the voice of reason, and again Panterra felt the wrongness of it. But he avoided looking at the other, keeping his eyes averted.

  Aislinne walked up to her husband, stood directly in front of him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I did what I thought needed doing to get all of you in this room. Now, please. Listen to Sider.”

  Pogue Kray took a deep breath. “All right, Aislinne.” He turned about to find Sider facing him. “Speak, then. We will hear whatever you have to say on this.”

  It cost him something to do that, and Panterra thought he paid it mostly because of what he felt for Aislinne. It might have cost Sider Ament something, as well, and it was Aislinne who had exacted the price from him, too.

  “Here is what the boy and I know,” Sider began without preliminaries, still standing by the door, facing them. “We have been through the passes at Declan Reach and Aphalion and seen for ourselves that the protective walls are down. A handful of Elves went with us, and they know this, too. The outside world is open to us, and we are open to it. There are dangerous things out there, and some of them have already come into the valley, as the boy has told you. More of them are coming.”

  Then he told them of the Troll army under Taureq Siq and of Panterra’s encounter of several days earlier, leaving out only the part about Prue’s capture. He simply told them that the boy, once it was discovered who he was and where he was from, was released to come back and ask for a meeting between the Maturen and the leaders of those who lived in the valley. He added that the Drouj were migrating in search of a new home, and it might well be that Taureq Siq believed that this valley, with its mountain walls and natural defenses, would provide him with what he needed.

  “I think they will try to force their way in if we refuse them entry. I think they intend to take the valley away from us. We have to prepare for this, without reliance on the barriers that have kept us safe, and we have to do so now.”

  Trow Ravenlock cocked an eyebrow at Panterra. “You told them where we were, Pan? You gave them that information willingly?”

  The boy flushed at the rebuke. “I was a prisoner and under threat of being harmed. I didn’t know their intentions at the time. I didn’t even know that they were migrating.”

  “It isn’t his fault; they would have discovered the truth easily enough without hi
s help. You should be grateful that he had the presence of mind to deceive them as to your strength of numbers and preparedness.” The Gray Man brushed the comments aside. “Concentrate your thinking on what’s needed now. The three of you are the leaders of this community. The boy and I have chosen to come to you first because the danger to Glensk Wood is greatest. If the Trolls look to come into the valley, they will come through either Declan Reach or Aphalion. The Elves will set defenses at the latter; you should think of doing the same here.”

  “We have no army,” Pogue Kray pointed out. “We have no skills or training at organized fighting. What can we do?”

  “Whatever is needed.” Sider Ament held his gaze. “Others will come to help you once they know of the danger, but while you wait for help to arrive you had better do what you can to prepare yourselves. Fortify the pass. Use your Trackers to show you how; they have training and skills. But if you just sit here …”

  He trailed off and shook his head.

  “You make your point.” Skeal Eile looked around the room, measuring everyone. “If there were to be an objection to all of this, it should come from me. What Sider Ament says is a blasphemy on the teachings of the Children of the Hawk. But I say nothing against him. It is clear he believes what he says and has seen what he claims. I was wrong to doubt him, and I am sorry for my mistake. We must rethink our beliefs—no one more than myself. I acknowledge this. I believe still that the Hawk will return when it is time, but until then he expects us to help ourselves. Gray Man, as Seraphic of this and many other villages I defer to you and to your best judgment in how this should be handled. I stand ready to help.”

  As if things couldn’t possibly get any stranger than they already were, Panterra thought. Skeal Eile offering to help Sider Ament? Acknowledging that his teachings might be wrong? It was insane.

  “My Trackers and I stand ready as well,” Trow Ravenlock added, clearly spurred by the commitment from Skeal Eile. “Pogue, surely the council will rally behind us?”

  For a long moment, Pogue Kray was silent, glowering at nothing in particular, his head lowered, his shoulders hunched. He looked to be a fighter in search of an opponent, not knowing where to find one. He seemed worn out, suddenly reduced in size in spite of his bulk. He shifted his gaze from one of them to the next, quick looks that refused to linger, as if he were dismayed.

  “I don’t know what to think,” he said finally. “We have no proof of any of this. We have only the word of the Gray Man and this boy, who is already under a cloud of suspicion. How is it that we should believe either?”

  “The boy has never lied to me before,” Trow Ravenlock said quietly. “I doubt that he does so now. Tell us, Pan. Does the Gray Man speak for you, too, in this matter?”

  Panterra nodded quickly. “He does. Everything he says is true. I was there; I saw it. Some of it, I told him myself.”

  Ravenlock looked back at Pogue Kray. “That’s good enough for me. If the Seraphic and I are willing to look further into this, you should be willing to do so, too.”

  Pogue Kray shook his head, still doubtful.

  “What have you got to lose?” Sider asked. “Send men up into the pass and see what you find there. If the protective barrier is down, you have your answer and can do what’s needed about the rest of it. Doing nothing is what puts you at risk.”

  The big man looked at him, studied him carefully, but not in a good way, and then finally nodded. “I will look into it. Maybe you do speak the truth, although I question if that is possible.”

  Sider said nothing, but Panterra could tell that the antagonism between them had as much to do with Aislinne as it did with the news the Gray Man had brought. Their rivalry might be buried in the past, but Pogue Kray had unearthed it and set it out for everyone to view.

  The Gray Man turned to Skeal Eile. “I want your word that neither you nor any of your followers will harm either Panterra or Aislinne for their part in all of this. If they have done anything to offend, put the blame on me. I encouraged it.”

  The Seraphic managed a shocked look. “I have already admitted my failings and promised that I would stand by you. That oath includes the boy and the woman. I give you my word that both are perfectly safe from any who serve or follow the teachings of the Children of the Hawk. I will see to it that my word is kept.”

  Something about the way he said it was immediately troubling to Panterra, much the way his attitude in all of this had been. But on the face of things, the oath seemed straightforward enough, and Sider apparently took it to be so, nodding in satisfaction.

  “Very well,” he said. He looked at the other two. “The boy and I will spend the night and leave in the morning for Calling Wells, Porterria, and Mountain View. We will warn the people there, their leaders and councils, and ask them to send you armed help. Two have small armies, as you know, which can stand with you against the Trolls. Will you send word to the small villages while I’m gone?”

  “I will see that it is done,” Trow Ravenlock said, apparently thinking to speak for all of them. “You needn’t worry.”

  They probably did need to worry, Pan thought, but this was the best they could hope for.

  Good nights were exchanged in an uneasy parting, and the boy followed the Gray Man out the door and into the dark.

  THEY HAD GOTTEN ONLY AS FAR AS THE EDGE of the surrounding trees when Aislinne caught up with them. “A moment, Sider,” she said, bringing him around to face her. “Panterra, stand over there and wait on us.”

  She pointed to one side, and the boy walked over obediently and turned his head away.

  “What did you tell Pogue about running after me like this?” Sider asked at once.

  She gave him a look. “Not everything that passes between us is about you, Sider. Pogue understands this, even if you don’t. I told him that I needed to apologize to both Panterra and you for the way you were treated. I told him that this was in no way a threat to him and he should not take it so—that he and I are married and that whatever was between you and me was over and done with a long time ago. He accepts that.”

  Sider felt a sharp ache when he heard her speak those words, but he understood the need for them and simply nodded.

  “What I want to say to you has nothing to do with an apology,” she continued. “You require no apology; you knew what you were getting yourself into, as you mostly always do. But I want to remind you of what I said earlier. Leave Panterra alone. Let him live his life. Do not think to make him your apprentice. Don’t try to take him away from Prue. He is not ready for that and neither is she. Find another apprentice or let the matter be until one comes along. I mean it, Sider. I am warning you.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought that matters would ever come to this, Aislinne. Warnings are not required. We have always understood each other better than that. What’s done is done between us, but I still read you like a Tracker can read a trail sign. I still know what’s in your heart. Your caution is noted. Do not presume further.”

  She gave him a long, searching look. “I rather doubt you know as much as you think. I would guess you know almost nothing of me, even now. But I will take it that my warning is understood and you will act accordingly.” She seemed about to say something more, then shook her head. “Good luck to you.”

  She started to turn away, then hesitated and looked back again. “Be careful, Sider. I do not trust Skeal Eile’s word. You might have noticed that he did not give a promise of safety to you, only to Panterra and me. And I don’t trust even that.”

  She walked away quickly, back toward the house, and he had to fight down the urge to go after her and claim her and take her away with him once and for all. But that ship had sailed a long time ago, and so he beckoned to Panterra and disappeared into the trees.

  “SEE HOW THEY TALK WITH EACH OTHER?” Skeal Eile whispered. He was standing close to Pogue Kray, close enough to feel the heat of the other’s anger as he watched his wife with the Gray Man. “See how they incline t
heir heads so that they are almost touching?”

  Trow Ravenlock was already gone, anxious to get back to his Trackers, already thinking ahead to what he must do on the morrow. But the Seraphic had lingered, sensing an opportunity.

  “She has said it is nothing,” Pogue Kray replied without conviction.

  “She would say that, wouldn’t she? I warned you, Pogue. I said she was duplicitous. I said she does not hold you as close as you believe she does. Now this.”

  The big man had not looked away once from the scene at the edge of the trees and did not do so now. “I believe her,” he said.

  “Your sense of loyalty is admirable.” Skeal Eile let the moment pass, watching as the two former lovers parted and Aislinne started back toward the cottage. “Well, duty calls. Much needs doing yet this night.”

  He went out the door swiftly, moving down off the porch and turning away from the approaching woman, heading toward the center of the village. He had done as much as he could to sow the necessary seeds of distrust in Pogue Kray. The rest would have to wait. He could sense the big man weakening, growing doubtful, less confident of his wife’s fidelity. He would continue to doubt her, even though he would hate himself for doing so, and would eventually cease to trust her altogether. The Seraphic would see to that. As her credibility with her husband waned, Aislinne Kray would become more vulnerable and ultimately cease to be a threat. All of which would permit him to proceed with his newly revised plan for domination of the valley’s populace without interference from either of the Krays.

  But all that was for later. More pressing matters needed his attention just now.

  He hurried on through the night, bypassing the main roadways in favor of the more obscure paths, anxious not to be recognized. Soon he was across the village and approaching its outskirts, the houses fewer and population sparser. He was replaying in his mind Sider Ament’s words, considering how they impacted his plans, grateful that he had known in advance that the Gray Man and the boy were coming, that he had been prepared for them and able to think through carefully in advance the nature of his response.