by Terry Brooks
But with the sunrise her strength had begun to fail, and now she wondered if she would be worth anything even when she found him.
Ahead stood the ruins of a house sitting silent and deserted amid fields freshly plowed and awaiting spring plantings. The dove had flown toward it and now sat upon its blackened eaves, awaiting her. She trudged ahead to catch up, the muscles of her legs operating on memory and not much else. She had to sleep soon, she knew. Even if the dove went on, she could not. She was too tired to keep going. She had to rest.
She had almost reached the ruins when she heard a stirring inside the broken walls and saw a shadow of movement pass across the timbers of the far wall.
“Hello?” she called out.
When Aislinne Kray—dirty and bedraggled and grim—came around the corner of the doorway with a steel-tipped arrow and unstrung longbow gripped in one hand, she was shocked into complete silence.
“Prue?” the other asked in disbelief. “Is it you?”
They rushed to each other in mutual relief and hugged long and hard. “I didn’t know what had become of you after the Trolls took you,” Aislinne said. “How did you get free? What brought you here? Where is Pan?”
She backed away from Prue and gasped. “Your eyes! You’re blind!”
“Not so blind that I can’t see you!” Prue laughed. “Mostly, I just can’t see colors now. I can still see everything else. I’ll explain. But what are you doing so far from home? You don’t look as if you’ve eaten or drunk anything in days, and your clothes … Aislinne, what’s happened?”
They sat down together at the edge of the fields and began to trade stories, a process that took them much time. They had not seen each other since Aislinne had been imprisoned and Prue had escaped the Drouj and encountered the King of the Silver River. When they had caught each other up on everything that had transpired and what it was that had brought them to this time and place, they stopped talking altogether for long moments, locked in an awkward silence that discouraged either from saying anything more.
“What will you do now?” Prue asked the other finally. “Where will you go, if you can’t go back to Glensk Wood? Is there family that will take you in?”
Aislinne shook her head. “Distant family, people I know about who live in other villages but that I haven’t seen in years. Or in some cases, ever. There is no one else. Not even Brickey now. Not you or Pan, either, it seems. I came here because I could think of nowhere else and because I felt Sider calling me here. It’s silly, I know. Irrational. But I thought I saw him when I was fleeing, and I was so afraid of that creature—”
“When he came for me in the ruins,” Prue interrupted, “I could barely breathe. All I could think about was getting away. I don’t ever want to see him again, and yet I know I must. The King of the Silver River made it clear that sooner or later Pan would have to face him. When that happens, I have to be there to try to protect him.”
“But what will you do? How can you help?”
Prue shrugged. “I don’t know. I will do whatever I can. But I was sent back for that express purpose, Aislinne. My sight is diminished, but I was given back my ability to sense danger so that I could aid him. I must try.”
“You have greater courage than I do.” Aislinne brushed back locks of her graying hair, her face suddenly old and worn. “I could never have done what you are doing if it were asked of me. I couldn’t even make myself go with Sider when he chose to take up the black staff.”
“He never asked it of you.” The girl smiled. “Besides, you don’t know what you can or can’t do until you are forced to find out. I discovered that among the Drouj.”
Aislinne nodded, sighed. “So this scarlet dove? Do you intend to follow it farther?”
Prue nodded. “I think I must. It came to me so that I would. Like before, it will lead me to Pan. But I think that maybe this time, given what you’ve told me, the demon might be waiting. The dove leads me toward Glensk Wood, and that is where the demon is. And even if Pan isn’t there now, he might be coming soon. I have to hurry.”
Aislinne considered. “The demon intends to lead the people of the village out of the valley, so he won’t be there long. But wherever Pan is, that’s where the demon might be going, too.” Aislinne shook her head. “I think I should go with you.”
“But this isn’t your …”
“It isn’t my fight? My problem? My responsibility?” Aislinne smiled. “I think it is all of that and more, Prue. Besides, what else would I do? Hide out here in the ruins of Sider’s past? What sort of coward would that make me? No, I want to come with you.”
She picked up the ash bow and looked at it. “I don’t know what made me decide to come here and find this, but I think maybe it was Sider. He’s gone, but it feels like he is still looking out for me. He meant this bow for me, you know. It was to be a gift. But I wouldn’t take it. Not if he wasn’t going to stay with me. But I was good with it once, and I have used a bow since and think I am good with it still. I don’t know how much help it will be, but it might be some. Please let me come with you.”
“You’ve done more than enough for us …”
“Please, Prue. Let me come.”
Prue had never seen Aislinne like this. Always so self-assured, so much in command of every situation, so much the leader when others were lost—now she seemed none of these. She was a woman searching for a reason to go on, trying to find a way to heal the damage that had been done to her. She had lost so much. Maybe she was entitled to get something back.
“All right,” she said to the older woman. “We will go together.”
“And look out for and take care of each other.”
“And find Pan.”
Aislinne reached out and gave the girl a hug. “You’re all grown up, Prue Liss. Whatever you’ve lost of your sight, you’ve made up for with your courage. I am proud of you.”
Prue blushed. Final smiles were exchanged; no further words were needed. Then Prue caught sight of the scarlet dove lifting away from the ruins of Sider Ament’s abandoned home, and the girl and the woman rose together and set out to follow it.
THE DAY WAS BRIGHT AND CLEAR AND FILLED WITH sunshine all the way from the valley floor to the mountain heights, and it seemed on such a day as if anything was possible. The demon, caring nothing for the day itself but understanding the impact of its false promise on those foolish creatures he led, was pleased. Stretched out behind him for almost half a mile, the people of Glensk Wood marched forth at his beckoning to fulfill the destiny he had arranged for them. The men bore weapons, most of them crude and ancient, not concerned they might be needed, secure in the knowledge that their faith in their leader would sustain and protect them.
Just as he had intended, the demon thought, turning back suddenly to give those who pressed closest a dazzling smile of reassurance.
“Sing for me!” he cried out to them. “Lift your voices and fill the world with joyful sounds!”
Someone began to sing, a woman, her voice high and clear. Her song must have been a familiar one, an old favorite, for almost instantly others joined in. The song was of planting and harvesting a crop and knowing it would keep their stomachs full and their families safe and well.
“Sing!” he encouraged, walking back to where the next group was bunched together, urging them to take up the song. After he had heard the verses repeated, he joined in, making himself one of them, caught up in the euphoria of the moment.
So they went, passing through the forests and climbing toward the peaks north and west, to where Declan Reach waited. The pass would be empty, the defenses abandoned. No one had gone up there to replace those the Drouj had killed; Pogue Kray had begun the job of gathering fresh defenders but had failed to dispatch them before his untimely end. Nor would the Drouj summoned by Arik Siq have replaced them. The demon had made it clear when he set the other free what it was that he intended. Arik Siq would not go against him; he would do as he was told.
Such a wonderful
day! So filled with promise, so rich with possibilities! The demon was pleased.
The march continued, although after a while the singing faded. It became obvious that conserving energy was necessary because the climb to the pass was a long one. Few had made it recently; some had never gone. Those who knew warned those who didn’t, and soon everyone had lapsed into a resigned, somewhat worried silence. The demon heard the muttering. No one liked the idea that there would be no rest, but they knew the Seraphic was a hard man with deep convictions in the purpose he had set himself. It was another test of faith, they whispered. It was a proving of devotion to the cause, and all of them were being measured.
The demon moved among them freely, cheerfully urging them on, asking them to hold on to their faith and each other. He let the lines spread out, the stronger outdistancing the weaker, the young moving well ahead of the elderly and the women and children. Morning passed into afternoon, and still he kept them moving. When the weak faltered, he sent the strong back to help them, thereby depleting the energy of those who had charged ahead, wearing them down, as well. The whole procession continued at a halting, determined pace, and the demon worked hard at shaping its look and feel. What had started out so positively quickly degenerated into a slog that wore at the body and mind.
By midafternoon, people were dropping by the wayside.
They started giving up one at a time, the old fading first, followed by mothers with children. Their numbers were small at first, one or two here and there. Others stopped to help, sometimes picking up the children and carrying them, sometimes giving the old people an arm or shoulder for support.
But even that wasn’t enough, as the demon knew it wouldn’t be. A steady ten-hour march would test even a seasoned hunter. So, eventually, the numbers of those failing increased and of those helping declined. The march pushed on, and in its wake bodies lay scattered across the landscape, collapsed and spent or simply abandoned. Some families left their weaker members behind simply because they didn’t want to be burdened by them. Some left them out of a selfish desire not to be left out of what waited ahead, when their destination was reached. Some left them because their own strength was so badly eroded that they could barely keep going themselves.
All the while, the demon kept them moving, moving, moving. He ordered, demanded, cajoled, and threatened. He made promises of help to those left behind, never intending to keep them. In a few instances, he lent his own strength to those begging for it, demonstrating his commitment to them. He was everywhere, a steady, dependable presence, infusing the air with his words and his magic, keeping them all on the path he had set.
“No stopping!” he shouted to them. “No resting! Eat and drink of your food and water as you walk! We have a goal and we must attain it this day! We must reach our destination! We must sacrifice the few for the greater good! Press on!”
Amazingly, they did. Though he was using his magic and his oratory, those would not have been enough without a blind willingness to be misled. They were tough and strong, these people, but they were like sheep. They believed without question that what waited was worth any sacrifice. Years of expectancy, generations of stories told about their arrival and eventual departure from this valley, made them blind to the truth.
By sunset, they had reached the opening to the pass at Declan Reach. It rose ahead of them, a black gap in the mountains, empty and shadowed. Behind them, the valley was already cloaked in twilight and the first stars were beginning to appear. People hurried now, throwing aside whatever caution remained, anxious to gain the opening, to pass through and reach the outside world and the safety that had been promised them. They went forward in large knots, following the Seraphic, keeping him in sight as he beckoned, showing them the way.
They did not look back at what they had left behind. They did not see those still limping or crawling to catch up. They did not see those who could not do so. They barely noticed the desiccated corpses of those who had died defending the pass days earlier.
They did not see the truth of things.
“I WISH I COULD SEE what you see,” Aislinne said at one point, walking side by side with Prue Liss. “This scarlet dove you follow—it’s frustrating watching you search for it while I’m not able to see it at all. It might as well be invisible.”
Prue smiled. “Then you have a small sense of what it’s like for me. I can’t see colors, except for the dove, and it only lets me see it in small glimpses as it flies away and waits for me to catch up to it. I see only grays and blacks and nothing else. I search for the things that you can see without even trying, but they are lost to me.”
She glanced over. “Like you, I want to see them for myself.”
Aislinne nodded. “I suppose it’s the same thing. But it’s worse for you than it is for me, isn’t it? All those beautiful colors turned to shadows. How were you able to adapt, Prue? Are you getting used to it at all?”
“I didn’t have a choice. I had to get used to it. And you’re right—it’s not easy. I haven’t really managed it yet. Maybe I never will. I miss some things so much. The different blues of the sky and the greens of the trees and grasses and plants, just for starters. And I think sometimes that not seeing colors is affecting my emotional state. I cry a lot just thinking about it.”
“That doesn’t seem so strange,” Aislinne said quietly. “I find myself crying a lot, too, lately.”
She was thinking of Sider. But there was Brickey, too. There was Pogue, a loss she felt far more keenly than she was willing to admit. She was wondering what it would be like to live without all those people she had been close to. Prue could read it in her face as she turned away and pretended to study the countryside. She could see it in the tears that ran down her cheeks before she quickly wiped them away.
“We don’t seem to be going toward Glensk Wood anymore,” Aislinne said suddenly, trying to mask her discomfort. “For a while, I thought that was where we were being led—back to the village. But the dove doesn’t seem to be flying that way anymore, if I read the course of our passage right.”
“You read it right,” Prue said. “I thought the same until the dove brought me to you. I thought it was taking me back to the village, and I would find Panterra there. But we’re heading for the mountains.”
She paused, considering. “For Declan Reach, in fact. Look.” She pointed. “That notch in the peaks. Do you see it? That marks the way to the pass, and we’re traveling straight toward it.”
“Then what we’re looking for is somewhere up there,” Aislinne said.
Prue nodded. She’d been keeping close watch on their direction, worried as well that the scarlet dove might be taking them back to Glensk Wood, back to where Aislinne had seen the demon last. That old man frightened her more than anyone or anything she had ever encountered, and she did not relish a further confrontation, even knowing that one was coming. Better that she find Pan first, if it was meant to happen. Better that she have him standing next to her so they could face the demon together.
Now she was wondering if the flight of the scarlet dove meant she was to leave the valley entirely. Was it possible that when Pan disappeared below the Ashenell he somehow ended up outside their safe haven once more?
She watched the dove fly into view ahead of her, a quick flash of crimson against the grays and blacks, before disappearing. It was still traveling toward the mountains.
Toward Pan.
She wondered suddenly if she were taking something for granted that she shouldn’t. There was nothing to say that even though the dove had led her to Pan once it would do so a second time. It was a creature of the King of the Silver River and perhaps of her own magically altered condition, and it might well be serving more than one purpose. She couldn’t really be sure. She couldn’t know until she had arrived at wherever she was being taken.
But something odd was happening through all this. She was experiencing a strange new connection with the dove. When she had first seen it, when it had revealed to her that
she had lost the ability to see colors, she had felt an immediate closeness to it. Then the dove had disappeared, and she had not thought she would see it again and the connection felt broken. But when it had returned and ever since, their bond, built on little else than its presence and her unmistakable sense of emotional attachment, had grown steadily stronger. The scarlet dove had come to mean something more to her than a symbol of what had been lost or what might be found. It had evolved into a companion, a living reassurance that there was purpose in what together they were doing. It represented their shared connection to Panterra, their commitment to protect him so he could fulfill his obligations as the new bearer of the black staff.
It was a strange way to look at it, as if it were a belief carved out of air and faith and promises. Yet it felt real and tangible. When she saw the dove, flying on ahead in search of Pan—which she believed deep down it was doing—she was filled with unmistakable hope.
It was midafternoon and they were ascending the slopes through the forests toward the mountain peaks, the air cool and brisk with the steady retreat of the sun west, when they began to find the stragglers from the Glensk Wood evacuation. There were a few old people at first, limping back down the hillside, holding one another up, heads down, bodies bent. Their faces were stricken as they spoke, and their voices were infused with bitterness.
“Left us, they did. Just left us like trash thrown away.”
