by Terry Brooks
“Prue! Are you all right? I heard you scream!”
He had his long knife out, prepared to defend her against whatever danger threatened. A brave little boy, she thought. Now she really was ashamed.
She held out her hands to hold him back. “It isn’t anything. I just got frightened. I thought I saw something, but I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “Well, I just wanted to be sure you weren’t in any … I don’t know. What was it you thought you saw, anyway?”
“A ghost. A shade. Forget it. Any luck finding Pan?”
He shook his head. “Why don’t you go look for a while and I’ll stay here. Go that way.” He pointed. “I haven’t searched over there yet.”
Because she didn’t want to talk to him anymore about the scream and needed uninterrupted time by herself to think about the words of the King of the Silver River, she nodded her agreement and started off. She didn’t think she would accomplish anything by doing so, but she was anxious to be alone again.
She moved through the tombstones and sepulchers at a steady pace, casting about idly as she walked. The day was gray and overcast, the smell of rain in the air, sweet and slightly metallic. The dawn had left a layer of dew on the grasses and leaves, and moisture stained the stones of the graveyard in dark patches. She kicked at the earth in frustration, her thoughts scattered by Xac Wen’s abrupt appearance and an ensuing rush of doubts about what she should do or even if she were going to be given a chance to do it.
Birdsong rippled through the stillness in small chirps and long cries, and she found herself staring through the shades of gray that colored her new world, trying to find the birds themselves while at the same time attempting not to think of how bleak everything looked. She blinked a few times, as if by doing so she might improve her ability to see colors. But nothing changed. She realized that her sight impairment was beginning to depress her in a way that was pervasive and crippling. She couldn’t quite escape the sense of loss that grew out of having everything she saw reduced to grays and blacks. She could remember other colors so clearly, could still picture them in her mind. But it wasn’t the same when she couldn’t actually see them. The loss diminished her world, and by doing so it diminished her, as well.
Tears filled her eyes. Suddenly she wanted to cry.
Then she saw the scarlet dove. It was soaring high above the oak trees that were clustered all through the cemetery, a splash of brilliant red against the moody gray backdrop of her vision, a thing so beautiful that she could no longer hold back her tears. That something so wonderful could exist was a cause for celebration and the giving of thanks. She watched it swoop and dart, winging this way and that, riding on the back of the wind.
When it changed course abruptly and came flying directly toward her, she uttered an exclamation of delight and hugged herself. The dove flew at her with fierce determination, then banked away at the last minute and came to roost on a tree branch not thirty feet away.
Prue stared at it in disbelief. She had thought she would never see it again. Yet here it was, returned out of nowhere. It perched quietly on the branch, its sharp little eyes fixed on her as if watching to see what she would do. Prue was afraid to move, worried she might frighten it away. She badly wanted it to stay where it was so she could look at it, the only color she was allowed in her sight-impaired world. She wanted to look at it forever.
But at the same time she was admiring it, she could not help wondering why it was there. Why had it come back? Why now? She had thought it lost to her forever, once she found Pan.
Once she found Pan, she repeated.
And now she needed to find him again.
Go where you are led …
She heard the words of the King of the Silver River whispering in her mind, her memory of them clear and sharp. She stifled a gasp of recognition, still staring at the bird. It was the scarlet dove that had appeared to her when she was alone in the wilderness and had first discovered her sight was diminished. It was the dove that had shown her the way home—and to Pan.
She knew at once it wasn’t a coincidence that the dove had returned.
She couldn’t help herself. “Do you know where he is?” she whispered. “Beautiful thing, have you come to help me?”
The bird lifted off, flew a short distance away, and landed on a different branch. Prue walked toward it slowly, trying hard not to hurry, not to frighten it. “Are you taking me to him?”
When she was close, the dove flew to another branch, this one a little farther away, and landed once more. Prue stopped questioning whether the bird might be leading her to Pan. She knew that was exactly what it was doing. She rushed after it, no longer trying to hold back.
The bird flew swiftly, and soon she was running to catch up to it. She had gone all the way to the boundaries of the Ashenell when she realized she was being taken a different way than she had come. If she continued, she would leave the cemetery without passing Xac Wen.
Which would mean, of course, he would not know where she had gone, only that she had disappeared like Panterra and Phryne before her.
She almost turned back, but the fear of losing sight of the scarlet dove kept her from doing so. It was more important to find Pan than to explain herself.
Once she had passed through the south gates, she knew there was no going back, only forward. She hesitated one final time, still debating about taking time to find the boy. After all, when she had followed the dove back to the valley from wherever the King of the Silver River had left her, it had waited on her when she faltered to make certain she could follow it. Wouldn’t it be the same here? But watching as the scarlet dove circled back and then flew on and out of sight, she experienced doubts she could not banish. Finally, she gave up thinking she could do anything else but follow it and ran on.
As she did so, the Elves she passed gave her second looks, apparently noticing her eyes and wondering how a blind girl could run as quickly and unerringly as she did. She slowed, tiring anyway, still not recovered from her journey coming up from Glensk Wood to Aphalion Pass and then back down to Arborlon. She had slept little and eaten less. She was already wondering how far she would get before thirst and hunger knocked her down.
She was still struggling with the guilt she felt for running out on Xac when she passed a boy who was about his age. She gave him a quick glance, then wheeled back and called him over.
“Do you know a boy called Xac Wen?” she asked him.
“Everyone does,” the boy answered, trying hard not to look at her milky eyes. His narrow face and severely downward slanted eyes gave him a feral look. “What’s he done now?”
“Nothing. But he’s sitting at the Belloruusian Arch waiting for me, and I need someone to tell him I’m not coming. Can you do that? Do you know the arch?”
The boy nodded. “I know it. But I’m not going there.”
She glanced over her shoulder, searching for the dove. She saw a flash of scarlet far in the distance, high in the trees. “I’ll give you something if you do.” She rifled through her pockets and produced a small metal bracelet Pan had made for her years ago. It was one of her most treasured possessions. “I’ll give you this,” she said, holding it out.
The boy took it from her, looked it over carefully, and nodded. “Bargain. I’ll tell him what you said. Who are you?”
“My name is Prue. Tell him I think I know where Panterra is, and I have to go there right away. Can you remember to tell him that?”
He nodded, gave her a kind of salute, and dashed off, heading in the general direction of the Ashenell. She had to hope for the best now. She had to pray he would do what he had promised.
She wheeled back and began running again. Ahead, the scarlet dove swept across the trees, just barely staying in view. She followed it out of the city and down the Elfitch and back toward Glensk Wood. She found that odd. It wouldn’t be going there, would it? Would Pan have gone home?
Even when she was well beyond Arborlon and
continuing south, the scarlet dove leading her on, she was still trying to decide.
THE OTHER BOY’S NAME WAS ALIF, and Xac Wen had seen him around, but didn’t know him otherwise. He listened to what Alif had to tell him, questioned the boy’s memory, and dismissed him.
That Prue Liss.
Girls were strange anyway, but she was stranger than most. First she screamed like she was under attack when she wasn’t and said she saw a ghost. Then she went looking for Panterra Qu and claimed she’d found him and was going off to join him. Alone. Without coming back to tell any of it to Xac and without asking for his help—which she almost certainly would need—but instead sending Alif in her place.
No explanation for any of it.
How did she find out where Panterra was if all she was doing was searching for him in the Ashenell? She was already leaving the cemetery when she encountered Alif, so she hadn’t found him there. But where had she found him?
He started off in the direction she had taken—the one she must have taken to have encountered Alif where she did, not too far outside the south gates. Maybe it was too late to catch up to her, but he intended to try. He didn’t like being left behind like this. She owed him an explanation, and if he could find her he would demand one. Hadn’t he done an awful lot for her? Hadn’t he stayed with her when he could just as easily have left?
But instead, she had left him! That was the thanks he had been given for all he had done!
He passed through the south gates and began walking toward the edge of the city and the Elfitch. Along the way, he stopped Elves he knew and asked if they had seen a young girl, describing her. A few had noticed such a girl, a strange one who was half running, half walking, staring off into the distance as if she were seeing something they weren’t. Xac Wen didn’t know about this last part, but the “strange” label certainly fit. He picked up his pace, thinking he might still catch up to her.
But when he reached the Elfitch, he discovered she had passed the guards stationed there some time ago and no one had seen which way she went after that.
He stood at the top of the ramps, staring off into the distance. There were only two choices, really. She could have gone south and home to Glensk Wood or she could have gone north to Aphalion Pass. He couldn’t imagine why she would choose the former; Panterra Qu would hardly go back to his village after coming all the way to Arborlon to help Phryne. There was no imaginable reason for it.
He looked over his shoulder and back at the city. Of course, she might still be somewhere close by if she thought that was where Panterra might have surfaced.
What was he supposed to do?
Having no better plan, he backtracked into the city to gather together supplies before heading out to Aphalion Pass to relate what had happened to the Orullian brothers.
LOCKED AWAY IN THE BASEMENT STOREROOM OF the council chambers at Glensk Wood—the very same storeroom that had once imprisoned Arik Siq—Aislinne Kray wondered if everyone had forgotten her. She had been imprisoned for so long now that she no longer even knew if it was day or night. They had given her a box of candles so she wouldn’t be left in the dark, a pitcher of water and bowl with which to wash herself, a pallet and blanket so she would have a place to sleep, a chamber pot, and nothing else. They came now and then with food and to empty the pot—guards who had been given the task of keeping watch over her—but they never spoke to her, not even when she asked them questions, and they never responded to her requests for sewing materials or books to read or even implements with which to draw.
Even now, she had no real idea what had happened to bring her to this sorry state.
What she did know, and even this was by way of an educated guess, was that she was being blamed for Arik Siq’s escape. She could not imagine why that was. That she would do anything to help one of the Drouj—especially the one responsible for the death of Sider Ament—was preposterous. She had no reason to want to help such a man and nothing to gain by doing something that would harm her own people.
Yet here she sat, accused of a gross betrayal and consigned to this room for what it seemed might be the rest of her life.
Rationally, she knew it wouldn’t really be that long, but it was beginning to feel like it. When you couldn’t see outside and know whether it was dark or light, when you couldn’t speak with anyone about what was happening in the larger world, it felt as if time had stopped completely.
That even Pogue had not come to see her was particularly hurtful. She knew their relationship had been suffering, especially since Sider Ament had appeared in the village with his news of the collapse of the protective wall. But she hadn’t thought he would abandon her completely. She had assumed he would at least want to hear her explanation of the charges her accusers—whoever they were—had placed against her. She had thought he would be willing to let her offer a defense. But apparently she was wrong. He had not come once, had not sent word, had done nothing to contact her since her imprisonment.
She bent to the bowl and splashed water on her face. She did this more often than she liked to admit, trying to wash off the grit and dust that seemed to attach itself to her body even though she mostly just sat in one place. It was becoming a habit she couldn’t seem to break, a response to the way her skin was tightening and her nerves were always on edge. Being shut away like this was beginning to affect her in unpleasant ways. Washing herself seemed to help, but in the end, she knew, it might not be enough to keep her sane.
Finished with her ritual, she sat thinking about the world outside the walls of her prison, about sunlight and fresh air, about the sound of children’s voices, and all at once she was crying. She didn’t try to stop, letting it go, wanting to try to get it out of her system. At some point, she was going to need to be strong enough to deal with whatever her jailors had planned for her. Because if there was one thing she was sure about, it was that she wasn’t going to escape further punishment.
Even so, she was surprised when the lock to the storeroom door released, the door swung open, and Pogue Kray walked in.
She rose to meet him. She had given up expecting anyone other than the guards who kept watch on her, least of all her husband. To her surprise, she was pleased to see him, relieved that he had come to her at last. Better late than never, and maybe now he could be made to see the wrong that had been done to her.
Although nothing in the hard set of his face suggested that this would be the way things went.
“Aislinne.”
He spoke her name not as a greeting but as an expression of distaste. He did not approach her, made no attempt to embrace her. Instead, he moved off to one side, allowing the guard to pull the door closed behind him. He stood in the shadows, just barely at the edge of the candlelight, arms folded over his chest.
Suddenly angry, she said, “Why have you waited so long to come to see me? Am I that loathsome to you?”
He nodded slowly. “Worse, Aislinne. You have betrayed me as a husband and as leader of this village and its council. You have shamed me with your actions—not only now, but before, over and over again.”
“You speak of Sider Ament. I never betrayed you with him, not ever. Nor did I do anything to help free the Drouj. He is no friend of mine.”
Her husband turned away from her and spat. “He was your lover. Most likely, they both were.”
Aislinne was astonished. “That is not true! That doesn’t even make any sense! I can understand your suspicions about Sider, unfounded though they are. But the Drouj? Why would you think something like that?”
“Because you were seen!” he roared, causing her to flinch in spite of herself. “Because it was reported, and now everyone knows!”
“Seen? Seen by whom?”
He made a dismissive motion with one hand. “What does it matter? You were seen, your actions reported, your betrayal revealed. You must have thought I wouldn’t care, since our marriage flounders and our time together no longer means anything. You must have been attracted to the Drouj a
nd acted in your impulsive way.”
“Pogue, this is nonsense …”
“But setting him free?” Her husband ignored her efforts to interrupt. “Letting him loose knowing he will go back to his people and bring them through the passes and into the valley to kill us all? Did he promise he would come back to save you if you helped him? Did you believe him?”
He was almost in tears, this big, burly man who could crush her with barely a thought. He stopped abruptly, putting his hands over his face in an effort to hide it from her.
“Pogue, no.”
With complete disregard for what he might do to her, she walked to him and put her hands on his shoulders and held fast to him. “These accusations are all lies,” she said quietly. “I don’t care who spoke them or who repeated them afterward. I have never even spoken with the Drouj. I have never been in the same room with him. I have not betrayed you in any way. I did not set him free. I would never do anything like that, not for any reason. Certainly not because of an attraction to him. Look at me, Pogue.”
He dropped his hands and faced her.
“I will say it again. I did not set him free. My word on this as your wife. My most sacred word.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” he said finally. “Not anymore.”
“Look at me,” she said again. He had shifted his gaze downward, but now he lifted it and stared into her eyes once more. “Believe in me. Just on this, if nothing else. Believe what I am telling you. Do not abandon me. Do not let them do this to me. Let me face my accusers. Make them bring my accusers forward to condemn me to my face. I ask nothing more. Just that.”
He shook his head, signifying the impossibility of her request. “Skeal Eile says there is no doubt. You were seen.”
Skeal Eile. She had thought as much. “Skeal Eile hates me. You know that. If he were looking to place the blame on anyone, he would think of me first. If he has witnesses, let him produce them. Let me face them. This is wrong, Pogue. You know it is.”
He ran his big hands through his coarse, dark hair and down over his face, wiping away the tears that streaked his cheeks. “I want to believe that. I want to believe what you tell me. But something … something keeps me from doing so. Doubts I cannot shake. They haunt me. I see you with him. Then I see you with Sider.” He shook his head once more. “It drives me half mad. I can barely function. That’s why I didn’t come sooner. I couldn’t make myself.”
