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.”

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 of 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.

Leaders are all the same, however; they might profess otherwise, but they do not wish to give up their positions or their power. His predecessor had tried to ease him aside and, failing that, to eliminate him. The assassins who served the sect were always waiting for an opportunity, like jackals prowling at the edge of the pack for the weak and the injured. His predecessor mistook him for a victim and sent an assassin to make an example of him. The attempt failed, and the man ended up a victim himself. It caused Skeal Eile a certain amount of regret because he was not a bad man, he told himself, only a committed one. He understood what so many others did not—that he had been born to lead the faithful and that obstacles to his leadership needed to be removed. What was one life compared with the importance of the teachings of the sect?

So he became their leader, donning the mantle he had been born to wear. He was generous and helpful to all who embraced him; he was a teacher and a giver of hope. He possessed magic, but he kept that mostly to himself and only now and then revealed glimpses of his talent. His voice was strong and ubiquitous, and he was both expected and welcomed at all council meetings and gatherings. Even those who did not subscribe directly to the teachings of the sect respected his power and his ability. They might not accept him as their leader, but they understood that his dominance was unquestionable. In turn, he did not insist on their loyalty, only on their recognition of his place.

His influence began to reach beyond Glensk Wood to the surrounding villages, until soon he had solidified his place as Seraphic to the sect throughout the valley. It was enough for now, although his plans were grander and more far reaching and would in time elevate the place of the Children of the Hawk to one of unquestionable dominance.

It was the right thing for everyone, he knew. It was way the Hawk himself would have wanted it—the way he would expect to find things on his return. Disruption or denial of this truth was the great heresy of his time, and Skeal Eile could not abide it.

There had been some who had committed that heresy over the years, some who could not accept the truths embedded in the sect’s teachings. Skeal Eile had dealt with each of them as need required. Some he had managed to convince of the error of their ways, and had turned them about. Some he had marginalized or simply destroyed by discovering their unpleasant secrets and revealing them to all. Some he had driven out through threats and intimidation.

Some he had been forced to eliminate in a more permanent fashion, their presence alone an abomination. These unfortunates had committed heresy that was beyond redemption, had spewed out poison that would infect others if left untreated. For those few, the assassins were required.

But even the assassins were not always sufficient to right matters. Witness their failure with the boy and the girl.

The mystery of that failure troubled him. He had heard that the two possessed special talent, although he had never witnessed it himself. He did not think they enjoyed the use of magic, as he did, but he could not be certain. Somehow they had managed to overcome and kill a skilled assassin, this boy and girl. He could not shake the feeling that Aislinne Kray was a part of what had happened, that somehow she had intervened in the matter. But even she was no match for a trained killer. Besides, she was mostly a bothersome presence. Her husband was the one that mattered, and he was firmly committed to the sect and its teachings and bonded to Skeal Eile, in particular. That didn’t mean he didn’t love his wife enough to turn it all around if something should happen to her. Pogue Kray knew it had happened to others who had defied the sect, and he had made it plain to the Seraphic that he would not allow it to happen to her. So the troublesome Aislinne had been tolerated up until now, although that might have to change.

This was not so when it came to Sider Ament, but Eile had never been able to get his hands on the Gray Man. A loner who seldom came down off the valley rim and never into open view, he was an elusive target. Someday, maybe. Eile looked forward to putting an end to that man. But for now he, too, had to be tolerated.

Not so the boy and the girl.

Yet he must be careful here. He must be creative in his efforts to resolve the matter. Something out of the ordinary was required if he didn’t want to experience still another failure.

He was well back in the trees now, on the outskirts of the village. It was deeply wooded here, the path nearly nonexistent, the underbrush thick and tangled. He slipped through openings that few could find even in daylight, the way clear to him, as it would not be to others. Ahead, a small cabin appeared through the undergrowth, a dilapidated structure with a sagging porch and blacked-out windows that gave it the look of a dead thing. But there would be eyes watching. There always were.

Yet the eyes of the old man who met him at the door when he stepped up on the porch were as milky and blind as a cave bat’s, staring blankly at a point some six inches over Skeal Eile’s head.

“Who’s that?” the old man asked in a whisper.

“Tell him I’m here,” the Seraphic ordered, ignoring the question.

“Ah, it’s you!” the old man exclaimed in delight. He cackled and turned away. “Always a pleasure to see you. Always a joy! I’ll send him right out. Just one minute.”

Off he went, back into the darkened interior of the cabin. Skeal Eile did not try to follow. He had never been inside the cabin and had no wish to enter it now. He had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t like it much in there. Not given what he knew of the occupants.

He waited a full five minutes for Bonnasaint to appear. By then, he was standing out in the tiny yard, studying the weeds and the bare ground and thinking of other things. The boy materialized silently, emerging from the darkness of the cabin interior, pausing momentarily in the doorway as if to take stock of things and then stepping down to confront the Seraphic.

“Your Eminence,” the boy greeted, bowing deeply. “How may I help you?”

There wasn’t a hint of irony in the other’s voice, only a clear expression of abiding respect. Skeal Eile had always liked that about the boy. Even when they’d first met and the boy was only twelve, that respect was evident. Now Bonnasaint was more than twenty, and their relationship was unchanged. Skeal Eile still thought of him as a boy because he looked barely older than one, his skin fair and unblemished, his features fine, his face beardless, and his limbs slender and supple. There was nothing of the man physically evident in the boy, but get below the skin and you found a creature that was very, very old indeed.

“I require your services,” the Seraphic said quietly, casting a quick glance at the cabin.

“He knows better than to listen in,” Bonnasaint advised, offering up a dazzling smile.

“I trust no one, not your father, not even you.”

“Not even me?” The smile disappeared. “I am hurt.”

“You are never hurt. You are as cold and hard as the stones of the mountains. That is why you are my favorite.”

“It has been a while since you came to see me, Eminence. I thought that perhaps I had fallen from favor.”

“I only come to you when I have a problem lesser men cannot solve. I have one now.”

The dazzling smile returned. The boyish face brightened. “Please enlighten me.”

Skeal Eile stepped close to him. “A boy and a girl. I want them to disappear.”