The Measure of the Magic (59 page)

O
N THE DAY PANTERRA QU HAD CHOSEN FOR HIS
departure, almost a month after his battle with the demon at Declan Reach, Prue Liss walked to the edge of the village with him to say good-bye. Aislinne Kray went with them, mostly because she wanted to say good-bye, too, but also to make sure Prue was able to return home safely. By now, Prue had learned to make her way about the village unaided, able to find her way from Aislinne’s home, where she was living and studying, to visit with her parents and others and to run small errands. Every day she became more capable, less hindered by her blindness. Her instincts, still strong in spite of the death of the scarlet dove, seemed to provide her with a fresh way of seeing things; much of the time it was as if she could actually see with her other senses. Aislinne was teaching her to become self-reliant, working with her on counting steps and marking obstacles, tracking her movements to familiar places until she was able to go to them alone.

“Gray out here today,” Pan said to her. He was holding her hand as
if they were children again. He was not guiding her; he knew better than to do that. She thought that mostly he just wanted to be close to her until it was time. “Rain clouds everywhere.”

She could smell the air, damp and metallic. For some, it might seem a reflection of the dark mood of the people of the valley, almost all of whom had found their lives upended in one way or another since the Drouj invasion had been turned back. Even in the farthest corners south, where no hint of the danger had manifested itself and life had gone on pretty much as always during the time of the threat, the confidence and certainty of earlier times had evaporated. No longer could anyone afford to feel safe behind the protective walls that had offered sanctuary for so long. No longer could they rely on the valley to protect them. Those days were gone forever, and no one knew what life would be like in the aftermath.

Nor were the peoples of the valley united in even the smallest of ways now that both the Elves and the people of Glensk Wood had been left to defend the valley on their own. None of the resident Trolls or Spiders had come forward to help. None of the other villages or towns or city fortresses south had chosen to stand with them. Not even Hadrian Esselline, after making his vaunted promises of assistance personally to Sider Ament, had materialized. In the end, no one had come, and those who had been betrayed were not about to forget it.

This had more than a little to do with Panterra’s leaving, Prue believed, although he would never admit it to her.

“You understand why I’m doing this, don’t you?” he asked her suddenly, as if reading her mind. “Why I’m going?”

“I do,” she assured him.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he added. An uncomfortable silence settled in place between then. He squeezed her hand gently. “If there were another way, I wouldn’t.”

She looked up at him with her milky eyes and smiled. “Stop apologizing, Pan. You don’t have to keep reassuring me about this. I know I can’t go with you. Not like this. You can’t be out there worrying about me. You have to do this without me, and I am at peace with that.”

“I just feel bad about it.”

She would have felt bad, as well, in other circumstances. Terrible,
in fact, if not for what she had been told by the King of the Silver River. If Pan survived his battle with the demon hunting him, his destiny was to guide the people of the valley to a new safehold in a new country in much the same way as their ancestors were guided here five hundred years earlier. She believed it was so, and if it were to happen Pan must return from his search. It might take him months, but eventually he would come back. When he did, he would take her with him to wherever he was going. She was certain that was how it would happen.

“Where are we meeting them?” Aislinne asked suddenly, walking a discreet distance behind the couple.

The Orullians. They were coming down out of Arborlon to make the journey with Pan. It had been their idea, in fact. With the people of the valley now fully aware of the dangers lurking without and splintered in ways that might never be repaired, thoughts had turned anew to striking out for distant territories. The Elves had always wanted to go, foremost of all the races to wander and resettle, and now they had both their incentive and their chance.

Tasha and Tenerife had made the decision weeks ago, not long after Phryne’s death. With the old order wiped out, the Amarantynes forever gone, they had little connection to those who now struggled to determine how the new order would be shaped. Better to be elsewhere while things were being sorted out, Tasha argued. To be among the first to find another place where those who might be dissatisfied with life in the valley could resettle, Tenerife added.

They had asked Panterra to come with them, and he had agreed.

Prue wasn’t entirely sure why. It might have been for much the same reasons that the Orullians were leaving. Or perhaps he already had an inkling that the best use of his newly established responsibility as a bearer of the black staff meant discovering what was out there instead of trying to imitate his predecessors. Whatever his thinking, he was unwittingly fulfilling the destiny that the King of the Silver River had said would be his.

They reached the western edge of the village, and as they did so Tasha and Tenerife stepped out of the trees. “Late again,” the former chided Pan. “You’ll have to do better if you intend to travel with us.”

They hugged, all of them sharing a warm greeting, even Aislinne,
and then stood awkwardly, looking for a way to avoid what was coming next.

“You look well enough for someone who fought and killed a demon,” Tenerife observed, mostly to Pan, but taking in Prue and Aislinne with a sideways glance.

“We’re hardy folk down here in the valley,” Pan replied. “Are you both healed, as well?”

The brothers shared a shrug and an exchange of glances. “Mostly. On the outside, at least. I think we’re still a little bruised in here.” Tenerife touched his heart. “When we think of Phryne.”

Pan felt a sudden tightening in his throat, and he had to fight to hold himself steady so that no more tears would be shed when so many already had been. “We all miss her,” he said.

It was all he could manage. It didn’t begin to express what he was really feeling, the intense pain her loss had caused him, the dark emotions he was keeping closed away. But Phryne was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. In truth, he didn’t think there ever had been anything.

“Did they ever catch the Queen?” Prue asked.

“Neither her nor her consort. Both disappeared without a trace.”

“But they’ll be found sooner or later,” Tasha insisted.

The way he said it told her more than he had intended. Prue could read things into the way people spoke, her instincts telling her what wasn’t said as surely as what was. Tasha was telling them what they wanted to hear. She wondered what that meant about the fate of Isoeld Severine.

Aislinne cleared her throat. “Have the Elves chosen a new leader yet?”

Tasha shook his head. “They debate endlessly, each faction trying to persuade the other of the rightness of their own choice. All are suitable, if your standards are minimal. None is outstanding. I think the discussion will go on awhile longer.”

“In the meantime, the High Council rules the Kingdom and no one seems entirely displeased that this is so. Perhaps the days of a monarchy are coming to a close.”

Tasha gave him a look. “Well, we’ll know soon enough on our return. Are you ready, Panterra Qu?”

Prue heard Pan hesitate. “I need a moment to speak with Prue. Alone.”

She felt him take her arm and guide her some distance away from the others. When she could sense that they were far enough removed that their conversation would not be overheard, he stopped and faced her.

“I have some things to say before I go. Some things I need to say. I want to begin with this: I will never forget what you did for me. Not ever. I owe you my life, and I will dedicate that life to doing the things I think you would want me to do. You gave up so much for me, Prue. Your sight, but more than that. Your whole life was settled. We were to be together, partners and Trackers. Now that won’t happen. But maybe some other things will.”

“Pan, you don’t have to—”

“Just listen,” he interrupted. “Just let me get this out. I’m going with the Orullians because I believe that at the end of the day we will all have to go. We will have to leave this valley and find new homes. We won’t leave together or stay together. Trolls, humans, Spiders, Elves, whatever names we give ourselves, we won’t stay together. Different paths will be taken and different futures found. What I want to do is find our future, yours and mine.”

She felt tears spring to her eyes. “I would like that.”

“I can’t imagine my life without you, Prue. You are my best friend; you always will be. You are another part of me, a part that when missing leaves me feeling incomplete. I want us to be together again. I want us to get back what we can of our old life, even if it’s not here. Will you wait for me so that we can try to do that?”

She put her arms around him. “You know I will, Pan. I will always wait for you.”

His hand came up to cup the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her red hair. “I won’t make you wait long, I promise.”

He held her and for a long moment neither of them spoke. Then Prue broke away, stepping back, pushing at him. “You have to leave now. Go on. Tasha and Tenerife are waiting.”

He stayed where he was for a moment longer, and then she heard him walk away. She followed, taking her time, listening to the voices of the others greeting him as he returned.

Then they were all hugging one another a final time, exchanging good-byes and good lucks and promises to be careful and to meet again soon.

When it came Tasha’s turn to hug her, Prue felt his hand press something into hers. “These are for you,” he said. “Keep them safe until you find the right person to give them to. It isn’t me or Tenerife, and just now I can’t say who it is. But I know they will be safe with you.”

She realized from the size and shape of what she held that he had given her the blue Elfstones. “I can’t take these,” she said. “They belong to the Elves.”

“They do,” the big man agreed. “To all the Elves, in point of fact. But only one can wield them, and it shouldn’t be just anyone. It should be someone who thinks less of himself than of his people. Or her people, perhaps. For now, they should be put away somewhere safe. Phryne gave them to me … there, at the end, when I was carrying her from the pass. She told me to keep them safe. You may be blind, little sister, but you see things much more clearly than most people.”

Prue shook her head. “This just doesn’t feel right. I’m not even an Elf.”

“Ah, but you are. We’ve already established that, haven’t we, Tenerife?”

“Some time back,” his brother replied. “In fact, you yourself told Xac Wen you were an Elf, if I remember right.”

“So keep them safe until the Elves are ready for them again. You’ll know when the time is right.”

Then they were moving away, the brothers and Pan, calling back to them, their voices fading out as they passed through the trees and down the pathways and beyond her hearing.

She felt Aislinne put her arm around her shoulders. “They will be back before you know it,” she whispered. “Safe and sound.”

Prue nodded wordlessly. She knew without question that what Aislinne said was true.

T
ERRY
B
ROOKS
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of more than thirty books, including the Legends of Shannara novels
Bearers of the Black Staff
and
The Measue of the Magic;
the Genesis of Shannara novels
Armageddon’s Children, The Elves of Cintra
, and
The Gypsy Morph; The Sword of Shannara;
the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy:
Ilse Witch, Antrax
, and
Morgawr;
the High Druid of Shannara trilogy:
Jarka Ruus, Tanequil
, and
Straken;
the nonfiction book
Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life;
and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas,
Star Wars:
^®
Episode I The Phantom Menace.
^™
His novels
Running with the Demon
and
A Knight of the Word
were selected by the
Rocky Mountain News
as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century. The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.