Bearers of the Black Staff

by Terry Brooks

  He wondered how the boy Panterra and his young friend were doing in convincing anyone in the village of Glensk Wood or in any other place they might choose to visit that this was true.

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” he said finally, looking over at Inch. “I thank you for doing so.”

  The big man smiled. “My pleasure. I hope it helped.” He reached over and touched Sider gently on the arm. “One more thing. Something I have to ask. When you’ve healed sufficiently to leave here, will you go back to the mountains and your valley home? Back to where you came from?”

  Sider nodded. “I expect I will.”

  “Do you have family there? A wife or children? I have none, so I have nothing to go back to and moving ahead is all I know. No ties of any sort. But is that so for you or is there someone back there who still means something to you? A loved one you think about when you’re out alone and far away from your people?”

  “No, no one.” Sider hesitated. “Once, but not anymore. Not for a long time now.”

  Deladion Inch shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change what I want to say. You speak of the way you watch over the people of your home, of the commitment that black staff requires of you once you choose to carry it. That sort of dedication, that’s very rare. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it before. I just thought that maybe …”

  He trailed off, the sentence left unfinished. “Do yourself a favor. When you get there and you’ve told your people whatever you think you need to tell them, stay there. Keep your people there, too. Don’t come out here again until you’re better prepared for it. You haven’t seen enough of what’s out here. You’ve no idea how dangerous it is. I do. And I’m telling you that you’re not ready for it.”

  “Maybe that’s so,” Sider acknowledged. “But maybe I won’t have a choice in the matter.”

  The big man chuckled softly. “You always have a choice, Sider. Do what I say. Stay in your valley and stay safe.”

  After that, they were quiet for a long time.

  TEN

  I DON’T LIKE IT THAT WE RAN AWAY,” PANTERRA WAS saying as they climbed out of the valley in which Glensk Wood was now little more than a darker shading of color amid the green of the trees. “It makes it look like we did something wrong.”

  Prue, walking to his right and just ahead, gave him a look. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. What matters is the truth, and the truth is that we were just trying to help.”

  “You and I and Aislinne know that. But no one else does. No one else even heard me once I got to the part about the protective wall breaking down. No one wanted to hear that the things that killed Bayleen and Rausha were from outside that wall and might be just the first of an entire world of monsters trying to break in. Who can blame them? They’re terrified of the possibility. Aren’t you?”

  “I’m fifteen. Everything terrifies me.”

  He laughed in spite of himself.

  The sun was just cresting the jagged line of the mountains east, spearing the retreating dark with lances of gold and silver daylight, the clouds of the previous night dissipating and leaving only heavy fog that pooled in the gaps of the peaks. The boy and the girl had been walking steadily since they had left home during the night, heading east and north toward the Elven city of Arborlon. It was a two-day walk at best, but there was no reason for them to believe that anything ahead might obstruct their passage or anyone behind find their carefully hidden tracks.

  “Do you think they’ll send someone after us?” Prue asked suddenly, as if reading his thoughts.

  He shook his head. “Skeal Eile? No, I think he’ll be content to have us gone. If we’re not there, we can’t repeat our story. Eile doesn’t care about us specifically—only what we might do if we continue to stir things up. He might like to have some private time with us, maybe find a way to make us recant. But he won’t waste time trying to track us down.”

  “What makes you think that?” She looked irritated at the idea. “He’s already tried to kill us. Why do you think he’ll stop there?”

  Pan shrugged. “I just do. All he worries about is protecting his place as leader of the Children of the Hawk. Last night is over and done with.”

  They walked on in silence, concentrating on the terrain ahead, their climb steepening as they approached the rim, their eyes lowering to avoid the rising sun’s glare. The land about them was a mix of bare rock, tough mountain grasses, and small, sturdy conifers that could only live at great heights. Birds flitted past, and now and then a ground squirrel or chipmunk, but nothing bigger. Behind them, the valley that had been their home stretched away in a broad green sweep, its night-shrouded lines taking on clearer definition with the sun’s rapid approach.

  Once, a hawk passed directly overhead, sailing out of the valley and toward the rim to which they were headed. They stopped as one and watched its progress as it flew east and disappeared.

  “A good omen, don’t you think?” Panterra said.

  Prue frowned. “Maybe.”

  She didn’t say anything more, and he let the conversation lapse. But his thoughts drifted to the legend of the Hawk, to the boy who had brought their ancestors out of the destruction of the Great Wars and into the safe haven of these connected valleys. He wished sometimes he could have been there to see it, although he had a feeling that he wouldn’t have much liked the experience if he were living it. A lot of people had died, and the survivors had endured tremendous hardship. The transition from the old life to the new must have been difficult, as well. Nothing would have been easy, even after they were safely closed away.

  But why he really wished he could have been there was that he might better understand how things had come to their present state of affairs. The Children of the Hawk had been formed originally to honor the father of all the generations of survivors who had followed after the first. It had been a celebration of life and love and the durability of the human spirit. When so many had died, these few had lived. It was a wonderfully inspiring story of the human condition.

  And yet it had come to this: a cult that followed a dogmatic hard line of exclusion and repression, believed its teachings alone were the way that others must follow, and claimed special knowledge of something that had happened more than five centuries ago. It did nothing to soften its rigid stance, nothing to heal wounds that it had helped to create by deliberately shunning people of other Races, and nothing to explore the possibility of other beliefs. It held its ground even in the face of hard evidence that perhaps it had misjudged and refused to consider that it was courting a danger that might destroy everyone.

  How could something so wrong grow out of something that had started out so right?

  They climbed on until they reached the rim, the sun now well above the horizon and moving toward midday, and turned north where the rim flattened into a narrow trail that wound through clusters of rock and small stands of alpine. The air was cold, and the winds blew in sudden, unexpected gusts that required travelers to pay attention and mind the placing of their feet. But the boy and the girl had come this way many times before, and so they knew what was required.

  By midday, they had reached a point where they were starting down the other side, and in the distance they could see the gathering of lakes that marked the Eldemere, the forested waterways that formed the western boundary of Elven country.

  In the distance, a rain squall was blowing across the lakes and through the woods, a ragged gray curtain that hung from towering masses of cumulus clouds.

  “I think we might get wet,” Prue observed.

  Panterra nodded. “I think we might also get some help from Mother Nature in covering our tracks.”

  She glanced over quickly. “I thought you said Skeal Eile wouldn’t bother coming after us.”

  “I did. But in case I’m wrong, it doesn’t hurt to have help.”

  Prue gave him a disgusted look. “In case you’re wrong, huh.”

  “Not that it’s likely, but even so.”<
br />
  She grimaced. “No wonder I’m afraid of everything.”

  They took some time to eat a quick lunch, watching the storm roll across the Eldemere, the clouds thick and roiling and deep. There was no lightning or thunder, and except for the sound of the wind gusting, it was oddly silent. There was movement in the leaves on the trees, from the bushes and grasses below, and on the surface of the water. The scudding clouds and breaks of sun that streamed over the canopy of the woods cast legions of moving shadows, an entire community of dark wraiths that lacked substance and purpose. The boy and the girl sat eating and watching, not quite mesmerized, but definitely captivated. It was moments like this that made them feel at home and welcome in the world. It was here in the wild, outside of walls and open to the elements, that they had always felt most at peace.

  “What do you think the Elves will say when we give them Sider’s message?” Prue asked.

  Pan shrugged. “I don’t know. I think they’ll listen without calling us names and looking at us like we’re bad people, though.”

  He began packing up their gear, burying the remains of their lunch, scuffing over the earth, and doing what he could to hide their passing. He didn’t think anyone would find the site, since it was well off the pathway and back in the rocks where no one was likely to venture by accident, but there was no point in taking chances.

  “So we start with the Orullians?” Prue rose to help him, glancing down toward the Eldemere. “The rain is getting worse. I can’t see an end to the storm driving it, either. Maybe we should make camp here.”

  “That wastes half a day we don’t have,” Pan replied, shouldering his pack. “I think we need to reach Arborlon as soon as possible. The things trying to break in from the outside world aren’t going to wait on the weather.”

  She nodded, shouldering her own pack, and together they set out once more, regaining the path leading down and making their way toward the dark sweep of the storm.

  “The Orullians will be more willing than anyone else to hear us out,” Pan said finally. “Since they are cousins to the Belloruus family, they can get us an audience with the King and the High Council. If we deliver Sider’s message to them, we will have done as much as we can.”

  “Do you think he’ll be able to find us there? Sider, I mean? He said he would find us, but I don’t see how he can do that. We aren’t in Glensk Wood anymore, and no one knows where we’ve gone. Except for Aislinne.”

  Panterra shook his head. “I don’t know. I keep saying that, don’t I? I guess there’s a lot we don’t know, when you come right down to it.”

  Afternoon eased toward evening, and soon they had reached the edges of the storm; rain was falling all around them. They were wrapped in their all-weather cloaks as they pushed ahead, heads bent against wind and water, eyes blinking away both. The ground softened as they finished their descent and began to cross the valley floor into the Eldemere. Earth and grass replaced stone and crushed rock, but while their boots left clear tracks in the muddied ground they knew surface water would fill and smooth over their footprints by morning. Already sprawling ponds were collecting on the flats, connected by a network of streams that crisscrossed the valley like silver snakes.

  Ahead, the country shimmered like a mirage.

  “We better find somewhere to make camp,” Panterra said finally, noting that the light was beginning to fail and the misty rain to thicken.

  “There’s that big chestnut,” Prue suggested, and he knew at once the one she meant.

  They made their way through the steadily falling rain, into the woods and around the lakes and waterways, angling slightly north above the largest of the meres, the name given to the lakes. The dampness was turning colder, and the air was filled with the smell of rain-soaked wood and grasses, rich and pungent. Panterra glanced back a final time to see if their tracks were visible, out of force of habit more than need, and he could see nothing of their passage beneath the slick of rainwater. Satisfied, he put the matter from his mind and slogged on.

  It took them another hour to reach their destination, a huge old shade tree with a thick, almost impenetrable canopy that even in a steady rain such as this one kept the earth around the trunk dry for twenty feet in all directions. Smaller trees clustered close about the larger, a brood nurtured by their mother, and while the storm raged without it was calm and dry within their shelter. Tired and cold, the boy and the girl moved over to the trunk and dropped their gear. Wordlessly, they separated, moving to opposite sides of the trunk where they stripped off their wet clothing, dried off as best they could, and put on the spare set of clothes they had packed before leaving.

  “Can we have a fire?” Prue asked when they had rejoined each other. “It would help us to dry out and warm up. If you think we’re safe now.”

  He did, so he agreed. He gathered stray wood from within the shelter of the grove, and then ranged a little farther out to add some more. He kindled the wood with his flint and soon had flames curling up from a small pile of shavings and mosses. The fire was cheerful and welcome in the darkness and damp, crackling in steady counterpoint to the patter of the rain. Prue set out food for them to eat, and soon they were consuming a meal they hadn’t quite realized they were so hungry for.

  Pan’s thoughts drifted once more to home and the series of events that had led them to flee it, wondering how it was that circumstance and chance played so large a part in the twists and turns his life had taken. He didn’t regret what had happened, though; he knew it was their good fortune to discover the danger because at least they were doing something about it where others might have done nothing. That they were fugitives was unfortunate, but not permanent; the situation would correct itself eventually when they were proven right. He had the confidence and faith of the young that there was time and space enough for anything. You just had to be patient; you just had to believe.

  “It isn’t right that they can do this to us,” Prue said softly, her eyes lowered as they cleaned the dishes. “Skeal Eile and his followers, chasing us away like this. You know it isn’t.”

  “I know. And Eile doesn’t seem the sort to let something like that bother him, either. What’s right for him is whatever’s necessary to keep him leader of the Children of the Hawk.”

  “You would think someone would notice that his moral compass is broken. Are his followers all blind?”

  Panterra shrugged. “In a way, I think maybe they are. They want so hard to believe in what they’ve been taught that they find ways to rationalize things they wouldn’t stand for otherwise. They need to keep their faith intact or risk losing it. No one likes letting go of what they have always believed, even when they know it’s right to do so.”

  “But you think the Elves will see things differently.” She made it a statement of fact.

  “I think the Orullians will. I think some of their family will. If we convince even those few, we have a chance of convincing the others.”

  They talked some more about the future, agreeing that on their arrival later tomorrow they needed to sit the Orullian siblings down and tell them everything. No delays, no standing on ceremony, no equivocation—just lay it out there and let them ponder on it.

  After a time, their eyes grew heavy and they curled up in their blankets. Because the skies were still overcast, the darkness was very nearly complete. The air remained chill and damp, and not even the dry ground beneath the chestnut could help with that. A shivering Prue hunched over to lie close against Pan, her small body knotted up. He took one end of his own blanket and wrapped them both.

  “Thanks, Pan,” she whispered.

  He was reminded in that moment of how young she was. She might possess considerable talent and skill, but she was still only fifteen and barely more than a child.

  He patted her hair gently, and then wrapped his arms about her, wanting her to be warm and safe. “Go to sleep,” he whispered.

  Then he fell asleep himself.

  SKEAL EILE WALKED THROUGH THE VILLAGE o
f Glensk Wood in the darkness of the early morning, neither furtive nor fearful of discovery but confident, a man who knew his way and had tested his limits.

  He was many things, was the Seraphic, but above all he was careful. He was ambitious, ruthless, and vengeful. He was fanatical in his commitment to the teachings of his sect and consumed by the struggle within himself to differentiate between what he knew was right and what he believed was necessary. But all of these were tempered by his caution. He had always understood how necessary it was to be cautious, how important never to act in haste. Others might act in the heat of the moment, might choose to disdain patience, might think that power alone was enough to protect against those who wished them harm, but he knew better.

  Unfortunately, he had forgotten that lesson yesterday when he had sent his assassin to eliminate the boy and the girl who had brought their wild, desperate tales of creatures from the outer world. Such tales could only cause dissent among the faithful and foster cracks in the beliefs he had instilled in them, and that could never be allowed.

  So he had acted in haste and been left to repent at leisure. The assassin had failed—disappeared without a trace—and the boy and the girl were gone. Now he had to set things right, though not in haste and not without caution. He had to set them right in deliberate and purposeful fashion, and he knew how to do that.

  He had been the leader of the Children of the Hawk for a long time. He had been a Seraphic even longer, although no one knew of this but him. He had been born with the talent, his ability clear to him from early on. Devoted to the teachings of the sect, he had waited to be noticed so that his talent might be employed in their service. But time had come and gone, and no one bothered to approach him. So he took it upon himself to gain their attention. He began speaking at meetings, usually unbidden, often barely tolerated. But his oratory was powerful, and his fervor infectious. While the leader of the sect and his followers dallied, the faithful began to gravitate toward him.