by Terry Brooks
PANTERRA QU FELT A CHANGE in the temperature of the air and in the brightness of the light, and then all at once he was in a different place entirely. He stopped where he was and looked around, discovering that the portal through which he had entered was nowhere to be found and that instead of standing beneath the Belloruusian Arch, he was in a tunnel. For a moment he was confused; he tried to get his bearings and at the same time figure out what had caused this to happen. He knew at once that magic was at work, and that in all likelihood his own had responded to it. He glanced briefly at the black staff, but its rune carvings were dark. Whatever help it had given him was finished. He thought briefly of Prue, knowing how frantic she would be, watching him disappear and not being able to reach him—it was a safe assumption she couldn’t or she would have been there beside him by now—or know where he had gone.
Then he put it aside. There was nothing he could do about any of it, and for the moment none of it mattered. What mattered was finding Phryne. Wherever he was, it was entirely possible that she was there, too. According to Xac Wen, she’d done exactly what he’d done almost two days earlier when she disappeared. It was reasonable to assume that whatever had happened to him had happened to her, too. If he was lucky, he might be able to find her.
He started walking down the tunnel in the direction he had been facing on passing through the portal. The passageway looked the same both ways, but he had to assume Phryne would have made the same choice he was making. Veins of phosphorescent minerals embedded in the walls gave off enough light to let him find his way. Starting slowly, he scanned the rocky surface of the tunnel floor for signs of other footprints and after a short time found what he was looking for—scuff marks and small pieces of debris knocked free of the stone. Reassured, he kept going.
He walked for a very long way, wondering as time passed if he had made a mistake in reading the signs. It was unlikely, he told himself. His tracking skills wouldn’t allow for it. But the distance seemed great for an underground tunnel with no branches. Still, he pushed ahead, determined to see this through.
In the end, he reached a place where the passageway branched either right or left or continued ahead, angling downward. He took a long time to study the rocky floor at this point, searching for fresh sign. He found what he was looking for when he had followed the middle passageway to where a set of stone steps began a steep descent. There he discovered a clear boot marking and knew this was the way Phryne had gone.
Shouldering his pack and taking a fresh grip on his staff, he started down the stairway.
He descended many steps, winding his way downward in circular fashion, water dripping, splashing on his face and hands and soaking his clothing. He listened carefully for voices, but the only sound he heard was a strange hissing, something that resembled the breathing of a huge creature. He recalled the dragon in Aphalion Pass and wondered if it were possible that it made its home this far under the earth. He wondered what he would do if he found it.
At the bottom, he found another passageway, this one with its ceiling clustered with stalactites, puddled below with small pools of the mineral-infused water they had shed. He continued on, moving carefully, quietly through the near-darkness. The hissing sound was growing louder; whatever its source, it lay not too far ahead. A snake? He didn’t care much for the thoughts that image conjured, imagining how large the snake would have to be to make a sound of that size. No, it was something else. More like a waterfall. Or steam escaping from a vent.
Finally, he arrived at a massive cavern dominated by a lake that was ringed by hundreds of tombs and markers stretching away for as far as the eye could see. Phosphorescence infused the walls here, too, illuminating the stone garden and casting shadows in strange shapes and forms.
He walked forward cautiously, wending his way into the burial ground, through the clusters of tombs and markers, down toward the edge of the lake. The hissing grew louder, and suddenly he could discern voices. He recognized now what he was hearing. It was whispering, a vast collection of hushed voices all speaking at once. He could catch snatches of words and phrases, but not enough so that any of it made sense. He wondered where the voices were coming from, and an instant later knew the answer.
He was listening to the dead speaking to one another.
A moment after that, he saw Phryne.
PHRYNE. WAKE UP.
She heard her grandmother’s voice from a long way off, from far down in a warm drowsiness that wrapped her like a blanket. She tried to ignore it, anxious to be left alone, content in her sleepy world. But the voice became more insistent, a barrage of words that prodded like sharp sticks.
He is here. The boy you hoped would come. I have brought him to you.
Phryne responded, knowing at once that her grandmother was speaking of Panterra Qu. She had told her grandmother of him, tested her command of the Elfstone magic by finding him, and Mistral Belloruus would have been quick to recognize the attraction. But why would she bring Pan here? He would want to help, but he was no match for a creature like Pancea Rolt Gotrin.
Struggling to wake up all the way and frightened now for Pan, she forced herself into a sitting position and cast about. Her grandmother was seated right where she had been sitting when Phryne had fallen asleep—hadn’t her grandmother done something to make that happen?—still holding the pouch with the Elfstones clasped in her hands. Time had passed—it must have passed—but there was no way Phryne could know how long she had been sleeping.
“Why is Pan here?” she demanded. “Why did you bring him?”
Her grandmother’s face had assumed a stronger look.
Watch and see.
Pancea’s shade had reappeared atop the triangular marker, all gnarled and bent, radiating its sickly green light, ghostly in the darkness of the cavern. She was turned away from them, looking back over the clusters of markers and tombs to where Panterra was walking toward her. It took a moment for Phryne to realize that the black staff he was carrying was the same one she had last seen in the hands of Sider Ament.
“Phryne!” he called out to her.
She started to reply, but Mistral quickly hushed her. Atop her perch, Pancea was shrieking as if scalded, her rage directed at the boy. In response, the dead who followed her were rising from their resting places and filling the empty spaces between markers and tombs with their ghostly forms, all white and transparent and ephemeral as mist. Their whispers were wild and excited as they drifted into view and formed clusters, all of them massing and then coming together about their leader.
Mistral Belloruus had gone into a crouch, fingers pressed to her lips.
Watch.
Pancea Rolt Gotrin’s hands swept up and wicked green fire flashed at her fingertips, driving into Panterra Qu. But his black staff responded more quickly still, blocking the attack and shattering its thrust. The boy held the staff before him, sweeping away shards of flame, but the attack had staggered him, and Phryne could see him falter.
“Phryne!” he called again, but his voice was weaker.
Now.
Her grandmother tossed the pouch with the Elfstones toward Phryne, but it landed short and lay halfway between them, unprotected. The Elven girl flung herself across the space that separated them, fingers closing on the little bag. She heard Pancea scream again, saw another flash of green fire that flared all around her and everywhere at once. Curling herself into a ball around the bag and its contents, she tore the leather bindings apart and dropped the blue Elfstones into her hand. A moment later, she was on her feet, the Stones clutched tightly in her hand as she turned to face the malevolent shade.
But Pancea was no longer atop the triangular marker. Instead, she was right in front of Phryne.
-Give them to me-
The words had the force of a curse laid upon her, but Phryne only clutched the Elfstones tighter, fingers wrapped around them as she raised her arms defensively.
-Little fool-
Green fire lashed at the girl, tearing at her
with such force that she felt as though her arms had been pulled from their sockets and her legs shattered. She was flung backward onto the cavern floor, pain ratcheting through her unprotected body. But even though she felt she might lose consciousness, she was determined not to let go of the Elfstones. Fighting through her weakness and nausea, she rolled away from the shade and struggled to her knees, still trying to bring the Elven magic to life, to focus her efforts on making it hers. She could feel the immediate connection, the magic of the Stones filling her body, white-hot as it surged into her, but she could not bring it to bear.
Pancea screamed at her.
-Give them to me now, Princess of nothing-
She started toward Phryne, fingers extended like claws, face twisted into something more animal than human, less shade and more ghoul. Phryne, still trying to recover from the damage that had been done to her, scrabbled backward toward the lake, blinking rapidly, shaking her head. There was no sign of Panterra, nothing to tell her what had happened to him, nothing to show that he was even still upright.
“Pan,” she managed to whisper.
Then Mistral Belloruus threw herself on top of Pancea Rolt Gotrin and bore her to the ground. The Queen shrieked in fury and thrashed wildly, trying to break free. But Mistral would not release her grip, pinning the other shade’s arms to her sides, holding her fast. Locked together, they rolled over and over on the cavern floor, a strange jumble of diaphanous whites and greens. Jets of fire rocketed from Pancea’s arms, but did nothing more than sear the stone and foul the cavern air.
“Grandmother!” Phryne howled, trying to focus the magic of the Elfstones, desperate to help, dancing this way and that around the combatants.
Run, Phryne!
Her grandmother’s words were quick and certain and pregnant with emotion that brooked no argument and left no room for doubt about what she was doing. Phryne saw it at once.
Mistral was giving whatever life she had left to save her granddaughter.
Run.
Phryne broke and ran, propelled by the force of her grandmother’s words, knowing that this was the only chance she was going to get. It was there in her act of sacrifice and in the force of her words. It was unmistakable and inexorable. Phryne ran as fast as she could toward the place where she had last seen Panterra, ignoring her pain and fear, fighting through her clouded vision and diminished strength. Something exploded behind her, and a huge boom filled the cavern with light as bright as the sun’s. The shades of the dead disappeared. The whispering died. All that remained were echoes and wisps of something that looked like smoke and might have been souls.
Phryne, one tiny scrap wailed as it flew past, and then it was gone.
WHEN MISTRAL CALLED HER NAME THAT FINAL time, her grandmother reduced to a scrap of smoke, Phryne lost all control. Wailing in despair, she tore ahead faster than ever—faster than common sense dictated or reason allowed—through clouds of spirit smoke and shrill echoes that resonated off the cavern walls. She didn’t think about where she was going and what she was doing; she just ran. She caromed off the walls of the tombs and sepulchers, dodged through the forests of stone markers, a rat trapped in a maze, and fled from both what she could see and what she could not. She heard Pan call her name—heard him call it more than once—but she did not slow.
Behind her, the shades of the dead faded along with the smoke that marked the passing of their remains, and the echoes of the struggle between Mistral Belloruus and Pancea Rolt Gotrin subsided. The dark and the silence closed about her, wrapping her with the ragged rasping of her breathing and the pounding of her footsteps.
“Phryne, stop!”
Pan’s voice. Again. No mistake. But she didn’t slow, couldn’t stop running, continued her uncontrolled flight.
Had to get out of there. Had to escape.
Then she was clear of the cavern and into the tunnel beyond, still running, her lungs burning, her body aching, her vision beginning to fail as small white dots filled the blackness right in front of her eyes. She caught glimpses of the phosphorescent veins of minerals buried in the rock as she sped on and so was not entirely blind to where she was going. But the blindness was coming on as stress and exhaustion threatened, and now she was running from that, as well.
She might have kept running forever had she the strength to match her intent. But she was tiring so quickly, she was beginning to stumble. She fought to keep going, blinded to everything, even to Panterra, who had caught up and was yelling at her to stop.
Then she felt him slam into her, tackling her and bringing her down in a crumpled heap. He crawled on top of her, holding her fast even as she struggled to get up again. His arms encircled her, and he held her to him, lying close, telling her it was all right, they were safe, it was over.
She shook her head violently, sobbing. “It’s not all right! She’s gone! Mistral’s gone! That other woman, that shade, Pancea … Did you see? My grandmother’s just …”
Words failed her, turned to mush, a jumble of sounds that lost coherence. She lapsed into crying jags so deep and long that she was shaking all over and gasping for breath. She couldn’t stop. She tried and couldn’t. Panterra continued to hold her, even when she begged him to let her go. He held on, all the while hushing her, telling her he was there, that he would stay no matter what, that he wouldn’t leave her.
She cried herself out. She couldn’t remember ever crying so hard, not even for her father after he was killed. But for her grandmother, she gave up everything she had, sobbing until she was exhausted and was left lying inert and all but lost to herself in Panterra’s arms on the cold and the damp of the tunnel floor.
“She did it for you,” she heard him say in her ear. “She did it to save you, to give you a chance.”
Was that what had happened? It had ended so quickly, so abruptly, the thrusting of the Elfstones into her hands, her grandmother’s attack on the Queen of the Dead, the battle between them as the magic exploded out of them both and Mistral yelling at her to run …
Run to where?
Where had she run?
“Let go of me, Pan,” she told the boy. “I’m all right now. I need to sit up. Please, let me go.”
He did so, albeit reluctantly, and she drew herself up and looked around. She had no idea where she was. Except she didn’t think she was in the same tunnel that had brought her to the cavern and her grandmother.
She turned to him, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Do you know where we are? Did you come in this way? I don’t think I did. I don’t recognize anything. Pan?”
He shook his head. “You ran so fast. I just ran after you. I didn’t pay attention to where we were going. But I think you’re right. This isn’t the same tunnel. I came in the same way you did. I just followed your trail until I found you.”
“Through the Belloruusian Arch? You followed me?” She was incredulous. “How did you do that? How did you even know to come here?”
So he told her everything that had happened to him since he had left her all those weeks ago, leaving Arborlon with Sider Ament and going in search of help from the cities and villages to the south. She listened with a mix of awe and disbelief as he related the story of Sider’s death, the passing of the staff, and his own part in taking up the Gray Man’s work and of his efforts at hunting down Arik Siq in order to bring him to Glensk Wood. She was filled with relief at the news that Prue Liss was alive, even though her relief was tempered as she learned further of Prue’s encounter with the King of the Silver River and the burden she had been given to bear as protector of Pan. She found herself wondering how a girl no older than fifteen and no bigger than a minute could possibly do anything to keep a bearer of the black staff safe from the demon that hunted him.
When he finished telling her how Xac Wen had found him and brought him to the Belloruusian Arch, where he had used the magic of the staff to force his way through a gap in the door that led down below the Ashenell, she put a hand on his cheek and began to cry again. “I ho
ped you would come for me. I prayed for it. I didn’t think anyone else would—Tasha and Tenerife confined to Aphalion Pass, my whole family dead or missing, Isoeld and her creatures taking control of everything. I didn’t know what to do. I thought if I could find Mistral, she would tell me …”
She caught her breath, stopped talking, and shook her head. “And now Grandmother’s dead, too. I didn’t think anything would ever happen to her. She was so strong. It still doesn’t seem possible.”
She closed her eyes, lips tightened into a thin line. She was dirty and ragged and worn to the bone, and she couldn’t imagine that things had come to this. When she opened her eyes again, the look she gave Panterra was hard and brittle. “If I get out of this alive, if I live to see Isoeld again, she will be the sorriest thing that ever walked.”
“We’ll get out of this. We’ll find a way. Do you still have the Elfstones?”
She had forgotten about them completely. In her panic and desperation, she had lost track of what had become of them. But when she glanced down at her tightly clenched fist she realized she was still gripping the Elfstones.
“We can use them to find our way out,” she said, her voice tired but hopeful. “These are seeking-Stones. Mistral told me what they could do. I can make the magic show us where to go.”
She climbed to her feet, and Pan rose with her. He didn’t look much better than she did, but she was so happy he was there she wouldn’t have cared if he had looked twice as bad. She saw the way he gripped the black staff. It suggested an inner confidence that she had not seen the last time they were together. It suggested that whatever they faced, he was equal to the task.
She gave him a smile. “All right. Let’s see what the Elfstones tell us. Let’s see where we should go.”
When she opened her fingers, the Stones lay glittering in the faint light of the tunnel, their deep blue color alive with an inner glow. She could already feel the magic responding to her, as if it recognized that she was their new owner, their caretaker. She felt its soft heat penetrate her skin and fill her with warmth she remembered from when she’d used the Stones last.
