Stranger still is the sudden reaction of the thousands of markings carved into the surface of the wood. He has not noticed them before, but when he takes the staff he can feel them. Now they flare to life, the etchings become bright with a pulsating light that outlines each against the dark surface of the wood. All up and down the staff, the markings glow as if alive with an inner fire. And there is heat-not one that scorches or burns, but a heat that warms first the palms of his hands and then spreads from his hands into his arms and then his body, filling him with something that approaches rea.s.surance and comfort. It is hard to describe and harder still to accept. He flinches slightly, but still keeps his hold on the staff, letting the sensations wash through him, entranced now, enraptured, eager for more.

"Do you feel it?" the old man asks eagerly, recognizing the look on the boy's face. "The warming?"

Sider nods, speechless. He is looking down at the black staff with its markings, noting that their light has grown brighter, more insistent. The warmth is all through him now, and the staff feels so much a part of him that for one confusing instant he believes it now belongs to him and he will not be able to give it up. Magic, he thinks. There is a life to the staff fueled by magic. They say the old man wields it as the Knights of the Word once did, but until this moment he has never believed that it was so.

"What am I to do?" he asks the old man, uncertain of what is expected, of why this is happening.

The answer comes in three soft-spoken words. "Close your eyes."

He does so, relaxed now, rea.s.sured, and the images begin to flood his mind almost immediately. He sees a world he does not recognize, filled with huge buildings and strange objects that travel very fast and carry many people, some on the ground, some over water, and some in the air. He sees vast fields and valleys in which crops grow, covering miles of ground in all directions. He sees thousands upon thousands of people, some cl.u.s.tered close together in small s.p.a.ces, some spread out over vast areas. He sees animals and plants and bodies of water and all of it is bright and shining and filled with life and color.

Then, in what seems an instant, it is all shattered. Explosions of unimaginable proportions obliterate everything in blinding flashes. Sickness and poison turn living things to dead husks. The air and earth and water turn foul and blackened. Everything fades, and he senses it happening not all at once, but over a period of time. What is left is wasteland. What remains are creatures both feral and desperate, hunter and hunted, and no law or behavioral code governs either. There is only a need to survive and the ways of making it happen. None of it promises anything good. None of it suggests that life will ever be the same.

The images disappear, and he opens his eyes. The old man is looking at him intently. "Did you see?"

He nods. "What was it?"

"The old world. A world that once existed and then ended and led to our migration to this valley. A world that will one day soon begin to intrude on our own and to which we must return."

Sider shudders. "I will never return to that."

The old man nods. "Not if you are prepared. Not if all those who live within the valley are prepared. Not if we are made ready." He pauses. "But we are not ready yet. Will you do your part to help?"

Sider stares at him. What is he asking? He still holds the staff in both hands, the feel of it comforting, even after the images. They are only images, after all-only images from a past about which he knows little. The staff is hard and real and present.

"What do you mean?" he asks finally. "What is my part?"

When the old man tells him, he knows instantly that if he agrees all of his plans for the girl from Glensk Wood are finished.

SIDER AMENT STOOD SILENTLY in the shadows, watching the lights in the cottages beyond the trees where he hid as night descended on Glensk Wood. It had taken him two days to return from the ruins in which Deladion Inch had kept him company while he recovered from his injuries, and it felt now as if he had been away for years, rather than days. Sider had healed quickly, a phenomenon that puzzled Inch and about which he had asked repeatedly. But while they got on well enough, Sider chose to keep the secrets of the staff to himself. It was force of habit, for the most part, a natural caution he would have exercised under any circ.u.mstances. He liked and trusted Inch, but the power of his staff wasn't a secret to be shared with anyone.

When he left the big man finally, healed and strong again, they promised to meet at another place and time down the road. In parting, the other gave him a small metal object with a single b.u.t.ton. It was a tracking device, he informed Sider. Press the b.u.t.ton once and a red light would come on. It would lead Inch right to him, wherever he was. If he were ever in danger, if he ever needed help, if he just wanted to find Inch, the device would bring him. It was small and easily hidden, and Sider had placed it in a sleeve st.i.tched to the inside of his belt. After all, you never knew.

In truth, he felt he would indeed see Deladion Inch again, but he could not have said when or where and there was no point making plans when you lived the kind of life they lived. So he had taken his leave and come back into the valley, returned from a world none of those he had left behind had thought they would ever see. He was back, and there was much for him to do.

But first he would do something he had not done in more than twenty years. He would speak with her.

He stood in the shadows for a long time, watching the cottages around him, but hers particularly. He had chosen a spot where he was completely concealed from anyone looking but still able to see through her front windows into the room in which she sat, working on her sewing. She had always been clever, capable of looking after herself without needing to ask for help, and he supposed she still was. She looked after her husband as well now, a man he knew almost nothing about. He had kept it that way on purpose. It was difficult giving up something you loved so much. It was even more difficult accepting that someone else now possessed it. But that had been his choice, and the time for second-guessing himself had long since pa.s.sed.

When he had waited long enough to be certain that she was alone, that her husband was either away or sleeping and no other people occupied the house, he stepped out of the shadows and walked to the door. He stood there for a moment, wondering if he was doing the right thing, then decided he was and knocked softly.

The seconds ticked away.

Then the door opened, and she was standing there.

"Aislinne," he said, speaking her name in a whisper.

She took a step back, her face shocked, her eyes blinking rapidly. He thought for just a second she might even collapse. But the second pa.s.sed, and she was still standing there, staring at him. "Sider," she said in turn.

For a moment, neither said anything more. It had been so long. Perhaps she felt the same way he did, that just standing face-to-face like this was enough. She was still beautiful, still infused with a look of resolution that shone past the momentary surprise, and when she took his arm and pulled him inside, it was as if they had never parted.

He saw her glance at the black staff he carried, saw a flicker of distaste mar her soft features, and then she was looking back at him once more. "What do you want, Sider?" She closed the door behind him. "Why are you here?"

"To speak with you." He held her eyes with his own. "For just a moment, and then I'll go."

She hesitated, as if considering what the consequences of such a bargain might be. But then she nodded. "Wait here."

She was still holding her sewing, and she walked back across the room and set it down on the chair where she had been sitting, crossed again to a rack that held several cloaks, pulled one off and draped it over her shoulders, and returned to where he stood. "Not here. Pogue will be home soon, and I don't want to have to explain you."

She took him back outside and walked him away from the house then down a tiny lane that led through the cl.u.s.ter of homes to a small woodland honeycombed with trails. They walked without speaking, she leading, he following, the night about them silent and dark. They pa.s.sed deep into the woods, angling this way and that along the trails until they reached an end to one and a wooden bench formed by a split tree trunk mounted horizontally on two stumps.

They sat down next to each other, not touching, but close enough that they could see each other's faces clearly, even in the darkness. "You've come about the breach in the protective wall, haven't you," she said.

She got right to the point, as always. Direct, purposeful. He almost smiled, pleased to find her still so much like the girl he had known. "I have. But how did you know?"

"We have friends in common. Panterra Qu and Prue Liss told me about your encounter with the creatures from the outside world and your suspicions that the wall was collapsing. Is it so, then?"

He nodded. "I have just returned through the pa.s.s in Declan Reach. The wall is down and may have been so for some time. Those creatures found their way through. I tracked them along the high slopes, killed one, and then tracked the other back out through the pa.s.s. But there are more, and many other things. Monsters, mutants, creatures we've never seen before. There are humans living in the outside world, too. Lizards, Spiders, and probably Elves, as well. Not so many yet; probably most were destroyed in the time when our ancestors first came into the valley. But enough of them, and they are finding their way to us, Aislinne. We cannot keep them out. Nor can we expect to stay safe within."

She shook her head in something like disapproval. "So Pan and Prue suggested. But your words-the words you so foolishly told them to carry to our village council-were a mistake. It did nothing to help; instead, it made them enemies. Now Skeal Eile and his minions hunt them." She was suddenly angry. "Have you no sense at all, Sider? Did you think they would be welcomed for bringing such heretical news?"

He was taken aback. "I did what I thought I had to do. Glensk Wood sits closest to the pa.s.s. The people had to be warned. I would have done it myself if I didn't think it more important to track down the second creature so that it wouldn't lead others of its kind back into the valley."

"Very n.o.ble of you. But your lack of foresight almost got those young people killed! After the council rejected their tale, Skeal Eile sent an a.s.sa.s.sin to make certain they never spoke of it again. They barely escaped him. If I had not been with them and foreseen-"

"You were there?" he interrupted, realizing what that meant.

"I was there, yes!" she snapped. "And after the a.s.sa.s.sin was dispatched, I sent them to the Elves to find safety. They have friends in Arborlon and intend to tell your story to them. Perhaps they will have better luck this time. Perhaps the Elven High Council will be more willing to listen than my own council members were. But if the Elves aren't better disposed toward them than the people of Glensk Wood, I won't be there to save them." She paused. "So tell me this. Will you?"

He hesitated. "I will go directly there after I leave you."

She nodded. The anger faded from her eyes. She reached out one hand and touched his cheek. "I'm sorry. You don't deserve my anger. You have enough of anger and distrust in your life without my adding to it. I am too hard on you." Her hand dropped away. "It's been a difficult road you've had to travel, hasn't it?"

He smiled and shrugged. "I made my choice." He looked at her anew, taking in the details of her face. Older now, but the girl he remembered was still there. "And you? How is your life?"

She laughed softly. "Not what I had expected it to be. I am married to a good man who looks after me, but I am not his pa.s.sion as I was yours. Nor is he mine. We live together, childless and estranged in many ways, sharing s.p.a.ce but little more. He governs the people of Glensk Wood; he heads the council. It gives him purpose, and I think that is enough for him."

"But there's not much of anything for you, is there?"

"I have my work in the community, helping where I can, trying to make things easier for people who don't have a voice of their own. Being married to the leader of the village doesn't hurt my efforts. Though Skeal Eile detests me."

"More so now, if he knows what you've done."

"He suspects but doesn't know. Not for certain. In any case, Pogue protects me from him."

The Gray Man wondered if that were so, but he let the matter drop. There was no point in voicing his doubts; Aislinne would do what she felt she must, and any words of caution from him would be wasted. "Tell me of the boy and girl. I met them; they seem capable enough, reliable and honorable. Am I right to think so?"

"You are. They will do what they say and attempt to convince the Elves of the danger. But they can only do so much. Word must still be gotten to the other villages, to the other communities, to all the Races. Everyone needs to come together and decide what to do."

He nodded. "Can you help me with that? Do you have friends whom you can trust and can send as messengers, warning of the danger? I know I ask a lot ..."

She placed her fingers quickly to his lips. "You ask little enough, Sider. I will do what I can. But you must promise to go after our young friends and see to it that they are protected. They escaped once, but I am not sure they are safe yet. Skeal Eile is not one to forget. He knows the danger they represent, and he may try to do something to put an end to it-and to them-even as far away as they are. He is a ruthless man."

Sider nodded, and they were silent for a moment, looking at each other in the darkness. "I don't like leaving you here," he said finally. "I think you should come with me. To Arborlon or somewhere else. But away."

She shook her head. "You don't have the right to ask that of me anymore, Sider." Her smile was wan and tight. "You gave it up when you chose that staff over me."

He glanced down at the talisman, tightly gripped in one hand, and then he looked back at her. "I know what I gave up. A day doesn't pa.s.s that I don't think of it. Not a day that I don't regret it and wish it could have been otherwise. That I don't ..."

He trailed off. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

She gave him a perplexed look. "How strange to hear you say so. I've had that same worry about you every single day since you left me. You might want to consider that after you're gone."

He stared at her, his words all drained away.

Then she rose. "I think we've said all there is to say, Sider. Thank you for coming to let me know what's happened to the wall. And for promising to look after Panterra and Prue." She stepped back. "I should leave now. I can go back alone."

But she stood where she was, looking at him, as if undecided. "Please be careful," he said.

She nodded, but still said nothing and still did not move.

Without looking away, he laid the staff against the makeshift bench and reached for her, enfolding her in his arms, pressing her against him. He felt the softness and warmth of her, and for just an instant it was twenty years ago. "I never stopped loving you," he whispered. "I never will."

"I know," she whispered back, her head buried in his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry."

"There's no need. Not anymore."

She broke away from him, turned quickly, and went back down the path that had brought them. She took long, purposeful strides, and her long hair swung from side to side like a dusky curtain.

She did not look back.

SIXTEEN.

PAN! WAKE UP!"

A familiar voice, hushed and urgent. It was both close and at the same time a long way off, indistinct and fuzzy. He tried to put a name to it and failed.

"Pan! Please!"

Prue. He blinked against the woolly darkness that wrapped him like a blanket and opened his eyes. She was looking at him from only inches away, her eyes huge and gleaming in a wash of firelight. Her face was tight with fear.

"Are you all right?" she whispered.

Good question, he thought. His head was pounding and he was trussed hand and foot with ropes. He tried to remember what had happened. Something big and black had fallen on him while they were stalking the builders of the fire. Prue had sensed its presence, they had tried to escape, the black thing had ...

A cloud of acrid smoke blew past him from the fire as the wind shifted. Sparks erupted from the blaze in a bright shower, and he caught a glimpse of huge bodies standing all around him, leaning on clubs and spears, shoulders hunched. Somewhere farther off voices argued. He could not make out the words, but there was no mistaking the tone.

Then a wolfish head swung into view directly in front of him, and he caught his breath. Yellow eyes fixed on him as jaws split wide in a lean muzzle to reveal rows of white teeth. A tongue licked and lolled alternately from between hooked incisors. He could smell the beast's fetid breath, could feel the heat of its humped, s.h.a.ggy body as it moved to block his view, eyeing him as it might a piece of raw meat. Some sort of wolf? A feral dog? He couldn't tell; he only knew that he had never seen anything like it. He shrank from it, pressing himself up against Prue.

The beast regarded him a moment, looked deep into his eyes as if seeking something, and then turned away and moved off, joining another of its kind, a second beast that looked exactly the same, a few yards off. They touched noses, giving greeting. Tongues licked out, and muzzles rubbed affectionately.

"That was what jumped on you and knocked you down," Prue whispered over his shoulder. "You hit your head on a rock and lost consciousness. Then the Lizards took us both."

Lizards, Panterra repeated silently. He was conscious suddenly of the source of the insistent throbbing: a sharp pain that emanated from a point far up on his forehead. It was there he had hit his head; he could feel a small trickle of blood running down his face. He tried to reach up to feel the wound, but his hands were tied around his waist, and he couldn't raise them.

"It isn't too bad," Prue a.s.sured him. "Mostly, it's just a big knot."

Mostly. Pan shook his head. He wasn't sure if he was more angry or embarra.s.sed, being caught like this. He should have known better than to listen to Phryne Amarantyne. There was no good reason for him to have done what he did, coming out of cover and exposing himself just to see who had built a fire. But it was wrong to blame the Elven Princess; he was the one who had made the decision, the one who had given in when he should have known better.

He wondered suddenly where she was, where the Orullians were, too, for that matter. Did they realize what had happened to Prue and himself? Had they tried to come after them when they didn't return? Had they sought a way to save them? He looked around more carefully, scanning the darkness, but he didn't see anything.

He felt Prue edge closer, positioning herself so that she could whisper in his ear. "They were waiting for us, Pan. They built and lit the campfire as a trap. It's some kind of game, I think. There were dozens of them in hiding, but they were too far away and too well concealed for me to detect. It was those beasts that did all the work. It was too late to do anything by the time I sensed them. They stalked us, cornered us, and knocked you down, and then the Lizards came, too."

"Why do you say it's a game?" he asked. "Did they tell you this?"

She shook her head. "They haven't told me anything. They speak a language I don't understand. It isn't like the one the Lizards speak in the valley. These Lizards are different in other ways, too. They don't look or dress the same. Their skin is different-darker, coa.r.s.er, like tree bark. They don't dress the same, either. They wear armor and carry shields." She paused. "I think maybe they are part of an army."

"But you think this was some sort of game that got us captured?"

"Just the way they acted when they saw us. Just how they moved and talked. They laughed a bit, pointed at us, made fun of the beasts that had us pinned. They seemed to be having fun." She gestured suddenly. "Except for the two over there. Those two, they don't seem happy at all. I think from the way the others treat them they might be the leaders. They've been arguing ever since they found us. I don't know why."

Pan looked at the two figures standing nose-to-nose some distance off, the first a little taller than the second, the second a little more aggressive. They were shouting now, the second gesturing toward their captives, the first giving him a look and a shrug. The taller was very black and very lean, not so burly and ma.s.sive as the shorter or the Lizards with them. In the darkness, the fire crackled as someone fed it wood while the others stood idly by, watching the argument.

"If I could loosen these knots ..." Pan trailed off and began working his wrists about experimentally, but the knots held.

"If you could loosen those knots and somehow make it to your feet, those beasts would be on top of you in about five seconds," Prue pointed out. "I don't think you want that."

He glanced over at the wolfish creatures. They were sitting on their haunches, gleaming eyes fixed and eager. As if antic.i.p.ating that he might make the effort to flee and give them some sport. Pan watched them for a minute, and then gave up trying to free himself. Prue was right; there wasn't any point to it.

Then all at once the argument between the two Lizards ended, and the shorter of the two stomped over to where they were tied up and glowered down at them. There was a darkness in his gaze that left Pan feeling cold. He seemed very young, his skin still smooth in places and his features almost boyish. But there was nothing about him to suggest that he was in any way friendly or inclined to be helpful. Animosity radiated off him in bright waves. If Pan had wondered for a moment whether the Lizards might reconsider and let them go, he abandoned all such thoughts now.

All at once the Lizard began shouting at them, so furious that he was spitting. His words were indecipherable, although it seemed that he was asking them questions, demanding that they answer. Both pulled back in the face of his wrath, unable to respond in any other way. Furious, he kicked Pan in the ribs, glared at them one last time, and turned back to the other Lizard, shouting now at him.

The taller one walked over to join him, taking his time. The build of his body and the definition of his facial features suggested he was older, more mature, and he did not seem angry like the other. He was calm as he studied them, standing with his still-furious companion, his dark eyes taking in everything about them.

Then he spoke, a few words only in their own language, and the other, after a moment's hesitation, walked away. They saw him move over to the gimlet-eyed beasts and reach down to ruffle their ears. The beasts growled appreciatively.

The newcomer knelt next to them, bending close. "Can you understand me?" he asked, speaking their tongue in something that approached a mix of a growl and a cough.