"That much is certainly true." He wondered if she actually knew about his problems with Skeal Eile and the sect. Tasha might have said something, but that wasn't like Tasha. "I'm not really in any trouble."

"Well, my father doesn't need to know that. He just needs to know not to say or do anything that will cause you some."

They walked on in silence for a time, heads lowered against a gusting wind that had begun blowing down out of the mountains. Tasha was in the lead, his broad frame acting as a windbreak for the rest of them as they wound their way through the tangle of the meres. Tenerife walked beside Prue, talking to her in low tones, his eyes on his brother's back. Both Elves were heavily armed with javelins, longbows, hunting knives, and short swords. They carried small bags of throwing stars, as well, and daggers stuffed in their boots. He and Prue, on the other hand, carried only their longbows and knives. Phryne didn't seem to be carrying any sort of weapon. All five shouldered bedrolls, food, extra clothing, and medicines stuffed in backpacks.

The Elven Princess dropped back momentarily, apparently having lost interest in their conversation, but then suddenly she moved up next to him again, closer now than before, her eyes on his face. "Tell me something interesting about yourself."

He looked over at her to see if she was joking. "What sort of something?"

"Something I might not learn on my own without knowing you better than I do. Something no one else knows. Something about the sort of person you are. Maybe about why you're a Tracker and not a mushroom hunter or a farmer."

She looked at him expectantly, and he laughed. "If I were a mushroom hunter or a farmer, I would starve to death." He furrowed his brow. "Besides, there's not much of anything about me that Prue doesn't know already. So you might have to live with sharing any insights I offer."

"How did the two of you become so close, Pan? She's not related to you, is she?"

He shook his head. "No, we just grew up together, played together when we were little because we lived next door to each other. Our families were friends. We had the same interests, liked the same things. Being outside and exploring was what mattered to us." He smiled, thinking back on it. "She was special."

"Tasha says she can sense danger before she sees it. Before anyone sees it. Is that so?"

"It is. She's always had that gift."

"A useful gift. What's yours?"

"Maybe I don't have one." He shrugged. "I'm not anyone special, Phryne. I'm just someone who likes being a Tracker."

She linked her arm in his, pulling them close. "I don't think that's so, and I'm not usually wrong about these things. There is something different about you; I sensed it right away. I see the way my cousins defer to you at times, how they look to see what your response might be. I see how they talk to you. They think you're special. Tell me why."

He gave her a grin. "There isn't anything to tell."

"Tell me, Pan."

She wasn't going to give up. He sighed. "I'm good at tracking."

"Better than good, perhaps?" She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow.

"Better than good. I can find sign where no one else can. I can sense it sometimes. I don't know why it is, but just like Prue knows of danger she can't see, I know of sign I can't see. I guess it's instinct."

She released his arm and went back to walking at his side without touching him. He missed it right away. "Tasha was right about you," she said. "You are more Elf than human. You should be one of us."

They walked on, stopping finally at midday for lunch at the edge of one of the larger meres, sitting on a gra.s.sy patch and watching the big fishing birds swoop and glide above the surface of the waters. They talked a little about what they were going to do when they got up into the mountains and reached Aphalion Pa.s.s, but mostly Tasha told stories, although Tenerife, who had heard them all before, was less enthralled than the others.

"Everyone knows about Kirisin Belloruus," Tasha said, beginning a fresh story as lunch was ending and the last of the ale was being consumed. "At least, everyone who is an Elf or has made even a cursory study of Elven history. He was the spiritual leader of the Elves when they came into this valley, the founder of the practice of accepting a commitment from birth on to maintaining and healing the land, and dedicated to the restoration of ancient magic lost sometime after the end of Faerie. He was the seminal force behind the Elven nation's evolution for many years. They say he'd made a pact with the shades of our ancestors to recover the lost arts and practices, which in large part had been forgotten. But who present knows of his sister?"

Tenerife raised his hand. "Besides you, enlightened one," Tasha amended. "And Phryne, of course. Who else?"

Neither Panterra nor Prue knew anything at all about a sister, although both had heard the story of Kirisin Belloruus countless times.

"Her name was Simralin, wasn't it?" Phryne offered.

"It was." Tasha beamed at her as a teacher might an exceptionally bright student, although Pan suspected that as the daughter of the King, she was at least as well versed as Tasha in Elven history. "A forgotten figure to some extent, but an equally important one. She was older than he was and something of a warrior. She fought against the demons and their minions countless times and helped in the recovery of what up until then had been the missing Elfstones."

"Aren't they still missing?" Phryne interrupted.

"The blue ones, the seeking-Stones, yes," Tasha agreed. "Although the Loden Elfstone remains in the possession of the royal family, as you well know." He gave her a look. "Can I finish my story now? Because it deals with that very subject."

He waited for her nod, and then continued. "She fell in love with a Knight of the Word, from the old order, one of the last. When they found their way here, she bound herself to him in the Elven way, and they lived together until he died. She took his staff then and gave it to his son. It was said that he instructed her to do so when he was gone, and so she did. His son, in turn, pa.s.sed it on, and so things proceeded for generations until it was destroyed. Do you know how it was destroyed?"

Tenerife, who had poured himself a second cup of ale, shook his head in dismay. "Just tell the story and get on with things, Tasha," he admonished. "We have to be going."

Tasha ignored him. "It was destroyed in a struggle between the descendants of the only two Knights of the Word known to have survived the Great Wars and made it safely into the valley. One was an Elf, the other a human. Apparently, they knew each other well and had even liked each other. But something triggered a deep-seated and long-lasting dispute between the descendants, the source of which has been forgotten over time. In the ensuing battle, the human prevailed. The Elf was killed and his staff shattered in the bargain."

He paused. "The Gray Man now carries the remaining staff. It was his predecessor who fought the Elf who bore the other."

"I hadn't heard that," Panterra said, thinking anew of his encounter with Sider Ament. "How long ago was this?"

"Twenty years, at least." Tasha Orullian shrugged. "It's not well known outside the Elven royal family. Even they never talk about it. It's rumored that Sider Ament witnessed the struggle and took the last staff from the hands of his predecessor, who died in the battle, as well."

There was a long silence as his listeners mulled over the details of his story. "What about the blue Elfstones?" Prue asked.

"The blue Elfstones were in the possession of the descendants of Kirisin and Simralin Belloruus and could be traced through the first four centuries of our time in this valley. But a hundred years ago, they disappeared again. Someone took them."

"Supposedly," Phryne interrupted suddenly. "No one knows for sure. Isn't that so, Tasha?"

"It is. So you've heard the story?"

She shrugged, made a dismissive gesture. "It's just a story, a myth. Except for the parts about the Elfstones being missing and the last staff being in the hands of Sider Ament, which everyone knows, it's all speculation. No one was there to witness the battle between the bearers of the staffs, or when the Elfstones disappeared."

"Tasha and I heard the story from our grandfather years ago, but admittedly he wasn't the most reliable source," Tenerife cut in. "Tasha just likes it because it's strange."

His brother got to his feet abruptly. "As you say, it's just a story, Phryne. No need to question it. Anyway, it's time to be going. Enough of stories for now."

They packed up their gear and set out anew, striding off into the mistiness of Eldemere, heading toward the mountains north and Aphalion Pa.s.s.

XAC WEN WAS TRYING for what must have been the thousandth time to restring a bow that was several sizes too big for him, an effort that was generating new levels of frustration, when the old lady hobbled into view. Xac was sitting outside his cottage home, propped up on a stool, the bow clutched between his knees as he struggled to bring the loose end of the bowstring to the notch. He wouldn't have put so much into doing this if the bow hadn't belonged to his father, who had been killed when Xac was only four. The bow had been given to him by his mother as a gift to remember his father by. The boy remembered his father well enough anyway, a tall, kindly man with great patience and a decided lack of good sense, which was the reason he had gotten himself killed, choosing a thunderstorm to go looking for his missing dog. He found the dog, but a bolt of lightning found him. He died instantly, they said, didn't suffer, an unfortunate accident, but all Xac knew was that once you were dead you weren't coming back, so what did it matter how you died?

The old woman drew his attention immediately. She was stooped over and shuffling like she might not be too far off from joining his father in the world of shades. She was clothed in layers of blouses and skirts and scarves and such, a woman who apparently dressed without knowing when to stop. A cloth sack bundled full of something loose and soft was clutched under one arm, a change of clothes, perhaps. He stopped trying to do anything with the bow when he saw that she was making directly for him and instead set down his work and stood up.

"Good day, young man," the old lady greeted him, her voice high and querulous. "Is your name Xac Wen?"

Xac almost said no. The old lady was just this side of scary, a crone all the way from the frizzled tips of her thick black hair, where it escaped the scarf that was trying futilely to bind it, to the tips of her worn boots, the leather cracked and the iron-shod tips scuffed and worn. She barely looked at him as she spoke, her head lowered like a supplicant's, her eyes flicking up just momentarily to take him in before shifting away again. One mottled hand gestured at him like a claw.

"I'm Xac Wen," he admitted.

"I'm looking for my daughter," the old woman said. "Her name is Prue. She came to Arborlon in the company of a young man from the village of Glensk Wood, some miles west of here. I've been looking for her for days. Do you know her?"

Xac hesitated, not certain he wanted to reveal anything. "How would I know her? Why are you asking me?"

"When I talked to some people in the city, they told me they might have seen her with you. Please, young man, it's very important. I need to tell her that her brother is very sick and ask her to come home right away."

Xac found the old woman repulsive, but that didn't give him the right to keep her from her daughter. Maybe the brother would die and the girl never get to see him, and it would all be his fault.

"She was here a couple of days ago, but she left again. She went up into the mountains with some friends of mine. But she'll probably be back before the week is out."

The old woman nodded without speaking, swaying a bit unsteadily. "I will wait for her, then. I'm too old to go searching in the mountains. Can you tell me one more thing? Where should I look for her when she returns?"

"She's been staying with the Orullian brothers, Tasha and Tenerife. That's who she left with."

The old woman turned and started away. Her boots made a sc.r.a.ping sound on the loose stone of the walkway. "I will look for her there, then. Thank you, young man."

Xac watched her go, wondering suddenly how she had managed to get this far, as hobbled as she was. Why had she even come, in fact? Why hadn't she sent someone in her place?

He wondered, as well, with the instinctive suspicion of the young for what any older person tells them, if he had done the right thing.

THE LITTLE COMPANY FROM ARBORLON slept that night at the foot of the northern peaks, sheltered in a copse of fir backed against the rock of the foothills, and though it rained, they stayed warm and dry in their blankets. At first light, they set out once more, beginning their climb into the mountains. The pa.s.ses of the safehold were more numerous and easily reached to the west and south than to the north and east, and Aphalion was a particularly difficult ascent, even in good weather, which today's was not. They were on their second day out of Arborlon, and the weather had taken an unpleasant turn. It had begun raining before sunrise, and the rain got heavier as the day progressed, the skies remaining gray and unfriendly.

The climb was difficult under the best of conditions, steep and winding, the footing made treacherous by loose rock and sharp drops that fell away hundreds of feet as the five progressed. That it was raining and the ground slick made everything much worse, and the climbers were forced to keep their attention focused on where they placed their feet and found their handholds. They climbed in single file with Tasha and Tenerife trading off as leaders. Panterra and Prue knew the trail as well as the Elves, but deferred to their hosts. It was their country, after all.

Pan dropped back to the rear of the procession, glancing up periodically at Phryne Amarantyne as she climbed just ahead of him, nimble and sure-footed. He found her an enigma. The more time he spent with her, the more confused he became. Her admitted interest in him didn't make sense. Nor could he come to terms with her easy friendship. She barely knew him, had spent only a handful of hours with him, and yet she was acting as if she had known him all her life.

But then girls confused him, anyway. Prue was the exception, and that was probably because he had known her for so long. She was the "little sister" to him that she was to Tasha and Tenerife, and their familiarity with each other had been tested and earned. Phryne, on the other hand, just a.s.sumed it was there and that it needed no seasoning and no consideration. It was enough for her that they were together on this journey and shared a common purpose in being so. Panterra, who had spent so much of his life alone and away from other people, save for Prue, was more comfortable staying apart. He was more reticent, more measured in developing his relationships. Phryne Amarantyne seemed to find this unnecessary.

At one point in their climb, Prue dropped back beside him. She didn't say anything for a long time, but only kept him silent company.

Finally, she whispered, her voice so low he could barely hear it, "Do you see how she looks at you?" He knew right away whom she meant, so he simply shook his head no. In truth, he did not.

Prue c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him. "I think she likes you. A lot."

That was all she said, and moments later she moved ahead of him again, joining Tenerife at the front of the climb. Pan stared after her, wondering if she had lost her mind. Phryne was an Elf and a Princess. He was a human and a Tracker. Two different Races and two very different worlds. Any relationship beyond casual friendship was impossible. He put Prue's comments out of his mind.

The hours pa.s.sed, and by early afternoon they had reached the summit of the mountain they were climbing and could see the head of Aphalion Pa.s.s through a defile in the higher peaks ahead. They pressed on, heads bent against a much stronger wind, out in the open as they crossed the vast expanse of the ridgeline toward the dark gap. The rain had tapered off and turned to a fine mist that verged on crystalline and stung when it struck their exposed skin. No one was talking now, all efforts directed at moving ahead as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It took them the better part of two hours to reach their destination, and when they did they collapsed in exhaustion inside the shelter of the split, dropping their packs and breathing hard. They drank water from their skins, ate some bread and cheese, and recovered themselves as the wind howled across the open s.p.a.ces behind them.

Finally, as if of a single accord, they rose, shouldered their packs, and started into the pa.s.s.

Aphalion was much different from Declan Reach. The latter was twisty and narrow, and the terrain through the cliffs much more uneven. Aphalion was a broad, wide pa.s.sage between a pair of towering peaks that shut out all but a narrow band of sky, the rock dropping away from the highest points overhead in straight, black curtains. The trail leading through twice angled sharply, once right and once left, but otherwise did not vary. Huge sections of stone that had split off the cliff walls in times past lay in ma.s.sive shards, but did not entirely block the way. The wind, as it blew across the gap overhead, was a mournful howl that refused to let up, its cry like that of a creature in misery.

When they were deep into the pa.s.s, Tasha, who was in the lead, brought them to a halt, and they huddled close.

"This is where the pa.s.s has been closed in times past!" He had to shout to be heard as he gestured ahead of them. "Before, there was fog and darkness too heavy to penetrate! All that's gone! I think the wall has failed here, too! But we'll see!"

He turned away and started ahead once more, the others following. Almost at once the rain returned, sweeping down out of the split between the peaks in long, hard streamers that felt almost like waterfalls as they struck the travelers. Panterra was soaked in seconds, even with his heavy travel cloak for protection. He stumbled under the weight of the beating he was taking, only barely managing to keep himself upright. Ahead, Phryne went down, collapsing on her hands and knees, head lowered. Pan reached her in seconds, pulled her to him and straightened her up. Once on her feet, she glanced at him and nodded, and he released his grip. She went on without a word.

Now the wind was howling with fresh determination, the sound so overwhelming that it was all Pan could do not to put his hands over his ears. The five pushed ahead, but the effort it required increased and their progress slowed. Time ceased to have meaning, blown away in the wind, buried in wild sound.

Just ahead, there within the brume's roiling curtains, as faint and shadowy as a dim memory, something moved.

Prue must have seen it first, or at least sensed the danger, because she was racing ahead to catch up to Tasha, grabbing at his arm and gesturing. The others closed the gap, coming together just as the shadowy form suddenly blossomed into something much larger and more formidable. It seemed to unfold right in front of them, gaining size and weight. They stood frozen in place as they saw it grow, their weapons already drawn and held ready.

Tasha gestured them back with frantic movements, his big frame flattening against the stone of the cliff wall. Panterra tried to penetrate the concealing gloom to see what was there, but could not manage it.

Then the shadow surged into view with frightening quickness, lurching out of mist and rain and darkness, rising up to a.s.sume monolithic proportions and suddenly Pan could see clearly what they had stumbled upon, and the words were a cold, silent whisper in his head.

A dragon!

FOURTEEN.

PANTERRA QU HAD NEVER SEEN A DRAGON. BUT HE knew what they were from tales he'd heard as a child, and he knew enough of how they looked to recognize one when he saw it. What he wasn't prepared for was how really terrifying it would be. It was a ma.s.sive beast, squat and bulky through its midsections, but its neck and limbs long and sinewy. Scales covered its body in armored plates, and its back and tail were ridged with spikes. When it swung its head toward him, Pan could see bony protrusions on its snout, a beard hanging from its lower jaw, and teeth the size of his forearm protruding from its maw. It was black and slick with moisture, and its eyes had the feral gleam of a predator.

Every impulse screamed at Panterra to run. But Tasha remained flattened against the cliff face and was furtively gesturing for the others to do the same. All five were backed up against the rock, so still that they didn't even seem to be breathing. The dragon was huffing, as if trying to cough, the sound penetrating even the wind's shrill howl. It spread its huge wings, and they spanned the width of the pa.s.s. It arched its neck, its jaws split wide, and a huge, long tongue licked out at the rain.

Panterra could not look away from the beast. A part of him said he should, that he didn't want to see what was going to happen next. Another part said that so long as he kept watching, he had a chance of staying alive.

A dragon, he repeated over and over in the silence of his mind. There were no dragons in the valley. Dragons didn't exist in his world.

The dragon screamed-there was no other way to describe it, the sound high and shrill and bone chilling-causing Pan to press even harder against the impermeable stone. The monster's shadow fell over him as it surged forward, and in that instant he knew he was dead.

But then, a miracle. The dragon's wings flapped twice, the turbulence they generated sudden and ma.s.sive, and the beast lifted away through the gap in the cliffs, rose skyward like a great bird of prey, and disappeared north away from the valley.

It all happened so quickly that for long moments afterward, no one moved. Pan kept thinking it might return, that it was only a trick to catch them out when they tried to run. He kept thinking there was no way it could be gone. Not really gone.

Then Phryne Amarantyne was next to him, pressing close, her blue eyes wild and excited. "Wasn't that wonderful?" she breathed. "Wasn't that the most beautiful and terrible thing you've ever seen?"

It was all of that, Pan thought, but mostly it was heart stopping. "Yes," he said, managing to look at her without something approaching disbelief. "But I never want to see it again."

"Oh, I do!" she said with a gasp, and she actually laughed.

Tasha was calling to them, and they hurried to group around him, casting anxious glances at the sliver of sky visible through the gap in the peaks. Prue's eyes were wide and her face white as she caught Pan's eye and shook her head in an unmistakable signal. She wanted nothing more to do with this business.

"Everyone's heart still beating?" Tasha asked, scanning their faces. When no one spoke, he continued, "Well, at least we know now that the protective barrier is truly down. That dragon-"

"Was that really a dragon?" Tenerife cut in, as if not quite ready to accept that it was. "When we know that dragons don't exist?"

"It was a dragon," Tasha a.s.sured him. "A clear signal that Panterra and little sister are in no way mistaken about those creatures they encountered and the warning of the Gray Man is not to be disregarded. We have to let the King and the Elven Council know. With five of us to testify, there can't be much room for doubt."

"I would like to see the outside world before we go back," Phryne cut in quickly. She looked from face to face, seeing reluctance and doubt mirrored in each. "If we follow the pa.s.s to its other end and see for ourselves that the outside world is open to us, we have even better proof of what's happened. I don't think we should underestimate those who will question our claims."

Tenerife shook his head. "I don't think we should do anything of the sort. We might get to the end of the pa.s.s, but there's nothing to say we'll be able to get back again. If that dragon returns, it could block our way."

"If that happens, we need only to wait until it flies out again. Or follow the mountains west along their outer perimeter to a different pa.s.s. If one is down, it stands to reason the rest are down, as well."