FIFTEEN      

HE IS SIXTEEN, LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR OLDER than when he fell in love, when the bearer of the black staff comes to him. The appearance of the old man is entirely unexpected. Sider Ament knows who the bearer is and has even seen him now and then, but he has never spoken to him, has never even come close. Nor has the old man ever approached him as he does now, coming out of the trees.

Sider’s first thought will haunt him for the rest of his life.

What does he want with me?

It is a question, he will think later, that he should never have asked.

It has been a wondrous year for the boy. The days have been filled with dreams of the girl from Glensk Wood. When they are together, some of those dreams are realized. But this happens all too infrequently, for he still lives on his parents’ farm and must still find excuses to go down into the valley to see her. Yet when he cannot be with her, he thinks of her constantly. He imagines a life together, married with a home and children, inseparable. He knows it will happen one day, and he is impatient for it. He is consumed by his dreams and his expectations, and lost to everything else.

And now the old man comes to him.

It is an ordinary day, and he is working in the north pasture repairing the fencing where the livestock had broken through some days earlier, forcing him to collect them and bring them home. It is mindless work, and he is free to dream of what really matters to him. He knows he will see her again in less than a week’s time, a visit to the village for supplies and materials already planned, the opportunity he needs. She will be waiting for him; she is always waiting for him. From the first time he was with her, he knew what their future would be. And though she did not say so, he could tell that she knew it, too.

He turns from his work and stands waiting as the old man comes up to him. He has known of him from the time he was a small boy. His father has told him of the bearer of the black staff, of his solitary life as guardian of the people of the valley. He has told him of the old man’s legacy, of the history of his staff and the Knights of the Word. It is not common knowledge, but somehow his father knows. Perhaps he learned it from the travelers who sometimes pass through, the men and women of the high country who live apart from the rest of the world. Perhaps the old man himself has told him.

Either way, Sider has given the matter little thought. It has nothing to do with him.

“Sider Ament?” the old man asks, stopping a few feet away. He is leaning on the black staff, gripping it tightly with both hands. He looks tired. Even more, he looks haunted. It is there in his eyes, in the lines of his face, in the way he holds himself.

Sider nods but says nothing.

“You and I must talk,” the old man declares. His voice is surprisingly gentle. “Walk with me.”

Together they set out across the grassy slopes of his farm, a slow, meandering wander that lacks discernible purpose and destination and, in the end, needs neither. The day is warm and the air smells sweet, and it feels as if time has slowed. The old man’s voice is rich and full, and while he looks weary, he sounds strong.

“I have been watching you,” the old man says. “When I find time, when it is possible. I have been measuring you. I like what I see. Others speak well of you, your father especially. You have a direct and purposeful way that reflects your character. When you are given something to do, you see it through. You make no excuses for yourself. You accept work as a part of life and self-sacrifice as a part of work. You will make a fine life on this farm one day, should you choose to do so, but I think you are made for other things.”

Sider does not understand what the old man means. He looks at him curiously, but the old man does not look back.

“This world we inhabit, here in the valley, is mostly good and nurturing, but it is fragile, too. It feels as if it will last forever, but it will not. No one wants to acknowledge this; no one ever wants to believe that what he has will not endure. This home was given to us as a safehold against the destruction of the old world, of the apocalypse that ended a civilization. It was given to us as a place in which we could survive until it was time to leave. That time approaches.”

Now Sider is beginning to see what the old man means, but he cannot accept it. It makes no sense. “What are you saying?” he asks.

“I am saying that the end of our stay in this valley is coming, perhaps in your lifetime, and we must all prepare for it.”

Sider shakes his head in disbelief. “How do we do that?”

“The transition will be difficult and not without cost. Coming into the valley was dangerous; leaving will be no less so. Almost no one will want to accept that it is necessary. But if they do not, it will be made clear to them in ways that are not pleasant. The outside world will not be as hesitant as they. The outside world will begin to encroach, and what lives there survived an almost total annihilation of life. Think what sort of creatures could manage to do that.”

Sider does, and the images are not ones he cares to examine too closely. But he still does not see what the old man wants. “Shouldn’t you discuss this with my father? He is a reasonable man. If you tell him what you have told me, I am sure he will do what he must to prepare our family.”

He sounds so grown-up when he says it, as if he is the elder speaking to a young listener. The old man smiles. “Good advice. But that is not the reason I have come to you.”

Sider studies the other quizzically. “Am I missing something?”

“Everything. But I find no fault in you for that. Why should you see so clearly in a matter of minutes what I have lived with for years? It will not be easy for you now or later. It will never be easy. But it will be important. It will matter.”

He stops where he is and turns to face the boy. “This,” he says, holding out the black staff, “is why I have come to you.”

Sider looks at the staff, and then looks at the old man again. There is something in the other’s eyes that borders on dangerous, but mostly there is that immense weariness, deep and abiding.

“Take it,” the old man tells him. When Sider hesitates, he adds, “It will not harm you. But I want you to see what it feels like to hold it. There is a reason for this. Please do as I ask.”

Sider is not afraid, but he is wary. He does not know the old man well enough to trust him completely. Nevertheless, he does not feel threatened by the request and does not want to refuse when there is no solid reason for doing so. He reaches out his hand and takes the staff.

As he does so, strange things begin to happen almost immediately. They are not so frightening or intimidating that he releases his grip, but they are both startling and unexpected. When he takes the staff from the old man, he finds it immensely heavy, as if it were cast in iron rather than carved from wood. But its weight changes almost immediately to something much lighter and more manageable. His grip, when he first grasps the staff, is uncertain and feels odd. But that changes, as well, and within seconds it feels comfortable, as if the staff is an old friend, as if it’s something he has carried around for years and can’t imagine being without.

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 reassurance 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, reassured, 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 clustered close together in small spaces, 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 circumstances. 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 button. It was a tracking device, he informed Sider. Press the button 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 stitched 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 passed.

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 passed, 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 cluster 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 passed 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 pass 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 pass. 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 pass. 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 noble of you. But your lack of foresight almost got those young people killed! After the council rejected their tale, Skeal Eile sent an assassin 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 assassin 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 passion as I was yours. Nor is he mine. We live together, childless and estranged in many ways, sharing space 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 pass 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.