Bearers of the Black Staff

  It took him about forty minutes to find the trail again. It came in from the west, which meant the creature had deviated for some reason. The tracks were scrapes from claw marks on the stone and small disturbances of the loose rock. There was no sign of blood. The creature might be wounded, but it was not bleeding. Nor did it appear to be disoriented or desperate. It was choosing its way with intent to hide its passage and escape any pursuit.

  Sider Ament picked up the pace.

  The morning stretched on, but he reached the head of the pass by midday. The creature was no longer bothering to conceal its trail by then, clearly believing that a quick escape back into its own world would be its best course of action. Sider was surprised to find traces of blood again on the rocks; the creature’s wounds had reopened. He followed blood drops and tracks to where his wards hung in tatters from the rocks, stopped to examine them, and quickly determined that the damage had been caused by his quarry exiting rather than something else entering.

  It bothered him that the creature could reason as well as it did. This wasn’t some dumb brute. Its deliberate efforts at concealing its tracks, doing something to stanch its wounds, and making a conscious decision to get out of the valley, now that its companion was dead, demonstrated the depth of its intelligence. Sider knew that he would have to be careful. A creature like this would know how to set an ambush, how to hide and catch by surprise anything that threatened.

  He left the wards down, took a deep, steadying breath, and started into the pass.

  The mists closed about him almost instantly, but the dampness did not feel as heavy as it had when he had tested the barrier on other occasions. There was a difference of another sort, as well, but he could not immediately define it. He pressed ahead, hands gripping his black staff as they might a lifeline, aware that he could see little and hear nothing and that almost anything might be waiting for him in the haze. His instincts should warn him, but he could never be sure. In his line of work, in his life, it was often so.

  He slowed, and his eyes swept the wall of mist ahead for signs of movement or a hidden presence and found nothing. The runes of his staff, which would glow in warning if there were danger threatening, remained dark. He pushed on, thinking suddenly that the reason the mist felt different was that it was warmer than he remembered. The air, in fact, was warmer. He was several thousand feet up from the valley floor and well above the snow line, and within the valley it was verging on bitter cold. Yet here, within the pass, the temperature was thirty degrees higher.

  He shook his head and continued on.

  The defile he followed twisted and turned through walls of rock, layered in shadows and the curtain of the mists. He could see nothing of the sky or the mountain peaks, nothing ahead or behind. It seemed to him that the ground climbed for a long time and then leveled out. If things progressed in the way that they had for the past five centuries, the mists would turn him around and send him back to where he had started. Or they would swallow him completely, as they had others who had come this way without the magic he possessed, and he would never be seen again.

  But he did not turn back. He had penetrated much farther than ever before, and he was beginning to believe that this time he would make it all the way through.

  He would be the first to do so in five centuries. The very thought was overwhelming.

  Then, almost imperceptibly, the way ahead grew brighter. At first, he thought he was imagining it, that it was an illusion brought on by his own wish for something—anything—to change. But as the brightness heightened, he realized that he was coming out of the heavy brume into whatever lay beyond. He slowed automatically, still on watch against unexpected attacks.

  Abruptly, the brume began to fade, and he passed through the last faint traces, walked out onto an uneven ledge—and caught his breath.

  He was facing row after row of mountains, their sharp-edged peaks backlit by a sunset that refracted across the western sky in bands of crimson, scarlet, and azure, their colors so bright it almost hurt his eyes to look at them. Behind him and overhead, the night sky was engulfing the last of the light, ink black and thick with stars. All around, the air was chill and clear and sharp. He was not back where he had started, not back inside the valley.

  He was through the pass and in another place entirely.

  He looked more closely at the mountains that stretched westward ahead of him. Some were heavily forested, green and fresh with trees. Some were choked with ruined masses of trunks and brush and that exposed a bare and blasted earth that was as dead as yesterday. The two environments were juxtaposed in patchwork fashion, although he knew that each patch stretched for miles and miles. He peered more closely, trying to make out anything else. But from where he stood, he could not see any rivers or lakes and could not find even small glimpses of flatlands. There were only the mountains, the haven of both the living and the dead, and the fire of the sunset with its wild colors blazing bright against the black of night’s coming.

  He looked at his immediate surroundings, studying them carefully. The ledge he stood upon was flat and wide and dipped downward on his left to become the threshold to a long rocky slide that in turn appeared to angle through a split in the towering peaks. Although in the fading light it was hard to be certain, he knew there had to be a passage out of this maze somewhere. If those creatures could find a way in, he could find a way out.

  But not this night—not in this growing darkness in a land with which he was totally unfamiliar.

  He moved into the shelter of the rocks, close to where he had emerged from the valley, and sat down with his back against the mountain and his staff cradled in his arms.

  For a long time, he just stared out at this new country, this world that had belonged to his ancestors and now would belong to their descendants. If they wanted it badly enough. If they could make a place for themselves. A lot of ifs littered the path into the future. But there it was, anyway—the future they had always known would one day come around.

  He looked out over the countryside, marveling at how widespread it was, how enormous. And that was only what he could see. He had never imagined how much larger the outside world would be than their valley home. No one had imagined it could be like this. When they saw it for themselves, they would be stunned—just as he was. He wondered if they were equal to what it would demand of them. He wondered if he was.

  He was still wondering when he fell asleep.

  HE WOKE AT DAYBREAK, the sunrise no more than a faint gray glow against the rugged outline of the peaks behind him. Ahead, the land was still dark and empty feeling. He rummaged in his pack for food and ate quickly, watching the light slowly begin to etch out the lines and angles of what waited ahead. By the time he was finished and packed up anew, it was light enough for him to set out.

  He descended the rocky slide he had spied the previous night, working his way downward to where it became a trail that ran between those two peaks. He scanned the ground for signs of the creature, but saw nothing. He kept his eyes and ears trained on his surroundings, knowing that the emptiness of the land was only an illusion, that there would be life of some sort.

  But nothing showed itself, and after a while he wondered if he was mistaken in his assumption. Maybe the life he presumed he would find was small and scattered, and its numbers were tiny. Maybe the destruction of the Great Wars had done more lasting damage than he wanted to believe, and only a handful of life-forms had survived. Maybe those that were left were like those creatures—mutants and freaks. He could not assume anything about what he was going to find, he told himself. He must keep an open mind.

  He must also remember the way back.

  He glanced around, searching the slide until he found the dark slit in the rocks that marked the opening back into the pass. Not so difficult from here, but it would become more so the farther he went.

  Nevertheless, he did not consider turning back. He pushed on, making his way along the trail, covering ground steadily as the sun ros
e and the daylight brightened. He followed the trail all the way through to the other side of the mountain wall, and there he found his first fresh traces of the creature he tracked. It was bleeding again, and the pattern of its footprints suggested that its wounds were bothering it more than before. He looked ahead, finding changes in the terrain only a short distance off. The mountains he traversed ended in woods that were barren and dead, the trees stripped of life and toppled onto one another.

  Beyond that, he could see nothing but the hazy roll of a landscape that stretched on for miles and miles until it reached another range of mountains.

  He made a fresh determination of where he was, taking mental notes of landmarks he knew he must find again on his return, and started walking once more.

  Ahead, the skies were beginning to darken with towering rain clouds that were streaked with lightning and filled the horizon. A storm was coming on, and it was coming on quickly. Sider picked up his pace. A heavy rain now would wash away all trace of his quarry’s tracks, and he would have virtually no chance of finding it after that. It wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen; it seemed unlikely that the creature would be eager to venture back into the valley after having suffered its injuries. But he couldn’t afford to chance it.

  His thoughts drifted randomly, as thoughts will do, to memories of his early years, before he carried the black staff, before his predecessor sought him out and told him he was the one who was meant to carry it next, before he was anything but a boy not as old as Panterra Qu was now. It was a long time ago, both in years and experience, and much he could just barely remember. But there was one memory that he kept, one that he would never lose. It surfaced unexpectedly now and then, a long slow teasing of what might have been if he had taken another path than the one he was on. Life would have been so different. Everything would have been changed.

  He gazed off into the distance, seeing not the landscape but the promise of something he had let pass by.

  There was a girl …

  He sensed the creature an instant before it attacked him, his instincts warning him as they always did, if only barely this time. The beast catapulted out of the rocks like a juggernaut set loose on a steep downhill run, all speed and bulk and power as it came at him. He brought up the black staff, runes blazing to life in response, a protection that reacted more quickly than thought. His magic surged about him in a shield that kept him from being trampled into the earth and instead resulted in a glancing blow that flung him twenty feet to one side. He struck the ground with stunning force, but scrambled up anyway, fighting to orient himself as the creature swung back around.

  Sider Ament roared at it as he fought to bring his magic to bear, but the creature was on him too quickly, and he managed only to keep his defenses in place long enough to save his life for a second time. The creature, a thousand pounds if it weighed an ounce, caught him up with its lowered head and threw him again. This time he slammed into the hardwood trunk and branches of an oak and dropped like a stone. Pain lanced through his left side, and he could feel rib bones crack. He only barely managed to hang on to the staff. Nausea swept through him, followed by a hot searing agony that caused him to cry out.

  He was a fool, he thought, struggling to rise, making it to one knee. The creature had done exactly what he had warned himself it might. Sensing that it was being followed—or perhaps catching sight of him at some point in his pursuit—it had circled back and waited in ambush. He had aided the beast in its efforts by allowing his attention to wander. He had allowed himself to think of her, when thinking of her was always dangerous, always and always …

  The creature struck again, and his thoughts scattered. Whipping the black staff about so that one blunt end pointed directly at his attacker, he sent a sharp burst of magic exploding into its muzzle. The beast barely slowed. Shaking off the attack, grunting in a heavy rumble that generated deep in its belly, it lowered its head further and came on. Sider watched through the screen of his pain and desperation, knowing he lacked strength enough to stop it.

  In the final seconds before the creature reached him, he shrugged off his backpack, struggled the rest of the way up, and staggered two steps to his right to find what protection he could behind the huge oak, then used the staff to generate clouds of black smoke and fire to try to confuse his attacker.

  He knew even as he tried this final ruse that it wasn’t enough. The beast was too big and too enraged to be turned aside. Enveloped in smoke and the thunder of its charge, it brushed off Sider’s defenses, shattered the oak tree, caught him with its snout and tossed him.

  The last thing he remembered after that was the strange sound of multiple explosions. One, two, three in quick succession. There was rage and pain in the huffing roar that the beast emitted, and it seemed to him that the sounds were all one and all right on top of him.

  Then he lost consciousness and didn’t hear anything more.

  EIGHT

  HE IS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD AND LIVING IN THE HIGH country with his parents and his younger brother, the family home settled below the snow line but not so close to the communities that they have to worry about more than occasional contact with other people. No one comes into the high country save trappers and hunters, and these people keep to themselves. It is the way his parents like things; company is welcome when invited but not otherwise encouraged.

  He does not know what has fostered this attitude, but he accepts it as reasonable. His parents are good and kind people, but they like living apart. They are self-sufficient folk content with their own company. On some days, they exchange barely two dozen words between dawn and dusk. They assign him chores and responsibilities and expect him to follow through. He is as reliable and self-sufficient as they are. He does not need minding and prefers his own company. He seldom fails to do what is asked of him.

  The hunters and trappers who come by now and then sometimes stop but more often do no more than wave as they pass. Everyone living in the high country knows everyone else; there are few enough of them that it isn’t hard. They look out for one another in a haphazard sort of way, mostly when it is convenient and they think to do so. No one expects anything more. Self-sufficiency is a code of living that all embrace and accept.

  It is a good life.

  Now and then, he is dispatched to the villages of Glensk Wood or Calling Wells for supplies the members of the family cannot fashion or grow on their own. A trip to one of the villages happens perhaps once a month in good weather, less in bad. It has become his task to make these trips; he is good at bartering and cautious in his dealings. When he is sent to procure something, he is usually successful. Because he is less annoyed by the communities and their larger populations than are his parents, he is not unhappy about being sent. He finds that although he is happy living alone, he likes people, too. He comes to know a handful of those who live on the valley floor, and a very few become his friends.

  One of them is a girl.

  He meets her by accident, just a few days shy of his fourteenth birthday, while walking home from Glensk Wood. She is coming down the trail as he is going up, and when he sees her he thinks his heart will stop beating and never start up again. She is tall and strong and beautiful, and he has never seen anyone like her. He slows without thinking, captivated for reasons he will never be able to fully explain, but she seems not to notice. She approaches, nods a greeting, and passes by. She does not say a word. She does not look back as she walks away.

  He knows because he looks back at her.

  It is several weeks before he is able to return to Glensk Wood, and then only because he finds an excuse that will hide his real purpose in going. He does not know the girl’s name. He does not know where she lives. But he is confident, in the way young people are, that he will find her. He sets out early, eagerly. He walks quickly to Glensk Wood and then spends several hours looking for her in a random sort of way, thinking that somehow he will stumble on her. When that proves unsuccessful, he begins asking about her, h
inting at a business transaction he hopes to conduct. Again, he fails. The day ends, and he is forced to return home knowing nothing more than he did when he came down out of the high country—save one thing.

  No matter how long it takes or what he must do, he will find her.

  It is another month before he makes a second try. By then he is beginning to believe that he is fooling himself about what is and is not possible. The girl might have been visiting. She might have passed through one time and then gone back to wherever she came from. She might never return. He begins to question his behavior. Thinking it over in a more rational state of mind, he feels both foolish and strangely unsettled. He has never felt this way about anyone. He barely knows any girls his age, and none of them affect him in this way. Why are things so different with this girl? He does not like it that he so obsessed with her when in truth he has no reason for being so.

  But still he goes and still he looks, and this time he finds her.

  Once again, it happens by accident. He arrives in Glensk Wood not long after sunrise, having set out while it was still dark in order to make the most of his day. He is just passing through the cottages at the north end, not even really looking for her yet, just making his way toward the center of the village, and suddenly there she is. She is standing in a garden digging rows in the freshly hoed earth and planting seedlings for her flowers. He stops at the edge of the stone pathway leading to her doorway and watches, not sure what he should do next.

  After a moment, without looking up from her work, she says, “Do you prefer azaleas or sweet peas?”

  He hesitates. “Azaleas are the more hardy, sweet peas the more fragrant.”

  He cannot believe he has just said this. He knows almost nothing about flowers and does not have strong feelings one way or the other about most of them. He admires them but has seldom voiced any kind of opinion on the matter, even to his mother, who adores them.