He noticed that Sider, when not appearing to pay attention to the speakers, was watching him. Closely.

"Enough," the King said finally, as the brothers Orullian repeated their argument for mobilization for what must have been the third or fourth time. "I think you've said all that needs saying and I have heard enough to give thought to what is needed.

"Phryne, clean up and wait on me. Tasha and Tenerife, take the Troll to your home and keep watch on him until I decide what needs doing. Eat, drink, and bathe yourselves. Better take Panterra Qu, as well. Go."

He gestured them up from their seats and ushered them out the doors into the hallway beyond, where Arik Sarn was sitting and the Home Guard were waiting to escort them out. No one said anything. They barely looked at one another. There was a shared feeling of uncertainty and dismay as they departed the building and emerged outside once more.

Panterra noticed that Sider Ament did not come with them.

OPARION AMARANTYNE WAITED until the others were gone, and then he took the Gray Man out of the reception chamber and down the halls of the palace to the small library that served as his private reception room. It was not entirely unexpected. The looks they had exchanged earlier had told Sider that the King would speak to him alone when the others were finished. They were not friends in the common sense, but had grown up in their valley world at the same time and were of a like age. They had been boys when Sider had become bearer of the last black staff and Oparion had been made King. The deaths of a mentor and a father had brought them together under awkward and difficult circ.u.mstances, which they had managed to surmount. An unconventional friendship had developed, one founded for the most part on mutual respect and a willingness to meet halfway. That friendship had lasted now for more than twenty years.

Even so, the Gray Man could not be certain what stance Oparion would take in this business.

When they reached the King's reception chamber, they took seats by a cold fireplace across from each other, sitting close in a wash of gray light that filtered through cracks in draped windows.

"I will tell you up front that I find this tale more than a little incredible," the King began. "But not so incredible that I don't believe it. Perhaps it is rather that I find it overwhelming. Five hundred years of safekeeping and now the protective walls are down. Without warning. Without apparent reason."

"Not a reason we can discern, although the Seraphic will tell you it signals the return of the Hawk."

The King made a dismissive gesture. "It signals the end of an age. It signals the beginning of a fresh struggle."

Sider nodded. "That it does. What will you do?"

"In truth? I don't know." The King leaned back in his chair. "The boy's promise to the Drouj that he would arrange a meeting is worthless. Even if I could identify who our leaders are, I could never manage such a thing. Most of them barely speak to one another. We'll have to think of something else."

"Agreed. The boy's promise was made under duress. Given the circ.u.mstances, he gave the best response he could manage."

The King shook his head. "Forgive me for asking, but is the threat from this Troll army as great as the boy thinks? Can we believe him?"

The Gray Man shrugged. "The threat is real enough. I saw the army, measured its size. It's as Panterra Qu described. Still, it's hard to be sure what to believe. The boy is young, and he doesn't have the wisdom and experience to see things as clearly as I'd like. He sees too much with his heart. Losing the girl as he did makes his observations less than reliable. But he is no fool, either. On the face of things, what he's told us makes sense."

"But you are not certain?"

"I'm not."

"About the Troll?"

"Not only the Troll, but the whole of what's happened. The boy showed courage and quick thinking in making the Trolls think us much stronger and more united than we actually are. But he is still only a boy. He may be seeing things that aren't really there, reaching conclusions that he shouldn't. I don't know. I'll need to spend time with him to determine that. I'll have to leave the valley again, as well. But first I'll go south. I'll take the boy with me."

"To the villages of Men?"

Sider nodded. "I have an obligation to warn them. Whether they listen or not is another matter. But the pa.s.ses must be fortified and defended, no matter the outcome of this business with the Trolls. Others will follow, sooner or later. It is inevitable. I'll try to arrange for a defense of Declan Reach if you agree to send your Elves to Aphalion Pa.s.s. You had better fortify against an attack on your city, as well. Even if you can only manage to erect barriers on the ramp leading in, that will help. Send to the Lizards and Spiders, as well. Ask them to come join you. I don't think they would do so for Men, but they might for Elves."

The King smirked. "An irony that does not escape me." He sighed. "I will have to tell the High Council of this. Some will doubt the need for what you are asking."

"I won't be the one asking. You will. They won't challenge you."

"Of course they will. They challenge me on everything. I let them because tolerance is necessary when you are King. I might have thought otherwise when I was young, but no more. Sometimes it's like letting the fox into the henhouse." He gave the Gray Man a look. "Your task seems the harder of the two. How will you make anyone believe you? Few believe you now. Some don't even believe you exist."

Sider Ament smiled. "That's a problem. But we'll need help from everyone if we are to survive. Prejudice and animosity will have to give way to expediency and common sense. A banding together of all the Races will be necessary. The Trolls are merely our first test in what I can only think of as a collision between two very different worlds. We have to prepare ourselves before it's too late. Maybe I can make the councils of Men see as much."

"Maybe. Maybe not." The King c.o.c.ked a questioning eyebrow. "What about our visitor. What do you suggest I do with him?"

"What you have already done. Give him over to the care of the Orullians. Let them spend time together. Perhaps the brothers will learn something useful. But watch him, too. Just to be certain we haven't made a mistake by bringing him here. I won't be gone more than two weeks, time enough to return for the meeting with Taureq Siq."

"That's being optimistic. You won't begin to reach all the southern villages before you have to come back."

Sider shrugged. "Can't be helped. I'll try to arrange for others to act as messengers in my place. It's the best I can do."

The King rose. "Rest here tonight, then, and leave in the morning. You won't be much good to anyone if you're exhausted, and you look it now." He sighed. "I have to have a talk with my impetuous daughter about the difference between the keeping and breaking of promises."

The Gray Man nodded, rising with him. "Allow me one more question. We face great dangers in reemerging from our safehold, High Lord. Some of these may hark back to the time of the Great Wars. Some may possess magic. Once, the Elves had use of magic, too. Is there none at hand now that you can call upon? Do you know nothing of the whereabouts of the blue Elfstones?"

There was a tense moment of silence as the King faced him, his features tightening. "Nothing," he said quietly. "The Elfstones were left in the hands of the Belloruus family, even after the Amarantynes became rulers of the Elves. As far as I know, that never changed. No one has heard anything of the Elfstones for years. Not since the Belloruusian line failed and the Amarantynes became rulers."

"But you married into the family, didn't you? Was your wife told anything about what happened to the Elfstones?"

"Not that she ever made known to me. By the time of our marriage, the Elfstones had long since gone missing. There was no reason to speak of them, no reason that anyone should bother."

Sider shifted his rangy frame as if to get a better view of things. "Is it possible the Stones could be found now, that whoever has them might consider producing them, when the need for their magic is so great?"

Oparion Amarantyne held his gaze a moment longer before turning away. "Anything is possible. It would be up to whoever took them to give them back." He gestured abruptly. "You had better rest now. You have much to do in the days ahead. I wish you luck."

The Gray Man knew better than to say anything more, even though he would have liked to. The matter of the missing Elfstones was troubling, but not as much so as the King's strange disinterest in their whereabouts. As if he couldn't care less; as if he couldn't be bothered. Such magic should not be dismissed so casually. Sider promised himself he would discover why Oparion Amarantyne seemed so willing to do so.

Later, when there was time.

Shouldering his black staff, he set the matter aside and followed the King from the room.

TWENTY.

IT IS THREE YEARS SINCE THE OLD MAN WITH THE black staff appeared to him, a harbinger of a future that would change his life. The boy is mostly a man by now, though not yet twenty, grown tall and broad-shouldered, strong in body and self-confident. He has left his family and the farm to go with the old man, to study what the other would teach him, to be mentored in the usage of the magic of the black staff and in the ways of the larger world. He has left the girl he once thought he would never leave, but even now she shines in his memory with the clarity and brightness of crystalline dew in sunlight.

He thinks that this will never change. He will discover to his sadness and regret that he is right.

Sometimes he wants to go to her, to see her once more if only momentarily, to measure how she is and what her life is like. He does not do this, of course. Only once does he suggest this to the old man, in a moment of weakness that betrays him. The old man neither denies nor permits; he simply asks him to reconsider. Reason takes hold, and an awareness of consequence stills his eagerness. What would a visit accomplish other than to reaffirm what he already knows he has lost? Quickly enough, he abandons the idea.

He thinks often, however, of their last meeting and the way they left things as he said good-bye to her.

"I wish it could be different," he tells her, a trite and inadequate attempt at demonstrating regret he cannot begin to express.

"It could be different, Sider," she responds. "You need only make it so. No one has a claim on your life. No one but yourself. This is your decision, and it has not been forced on you. But once you make it, do so without regret or apology. Do so with commitment and determination."

"I love you," he manages, the words like sand in his mouth.

She smiles sadly, leans in and kisses him. She touches his cheek. She says nothing. Then she turns and walks away and does not look back.

He has not seen her since. Sometimes he thinks he will never see her again.

His studies provide succor, an escape from his emotions and his memories. The old man is a good teacher, giving him chances to discover what it is that the black staff can do and what it cannot. It is magic so powerful that he wonders how anyone, let alone himself, can manage to control it. Even so, he discovers, there are limits to what it can do. It is also unpredictable. Trial and error teaches him some of this. Mistakes teach him even more. The magic, he discovers, can protect him. But there is a price for using it, a depletion of the body and soul, a leaching away of life that accelerates aging. It happens in increments and it happens slowly, but it happens. Choices are necessary because sometimes using the magic exacts too heavy a toll to make the usage practical. An understanding of why this is so comes early in the course of his mentor's instructions when the old man explains it to him in what the boy has come to recognize as a familiar approach.

"Suppose you are attacked by something monstrous, a creature of enormous size and strength. Do you use the magic of the staff to defend yourself?" the old man asks him.

"Of course," he answers confidently.

"Then suppose you are attacked by a dozen men, all armed and ready to see you torn apart. Do you use the magic to defend yourself here, too?"

He nods again.

"Do you defend yourself at the cost of your attacker's life in each case? Or do you simply try to disable your attacker?"

"That would depend."

"What would it depend upon?"

"On how threatened I felt. On whether I believed my life was in such danger that only my attacker's death would save me."

"Is the price for both usages the same?"

He hesitates.

"Does the price differ depending on the attacker?"

"I think it might."

"What would determine the cost of using the magic in each case?"

Again, he hesitates.

The old man nods his approval. "Your hesitation is warranted. The answer is uncertain. The answer can only be discovered by use of the magic, and sometimes that is not a good thing. Understanding that there is a difference is important. Causing injury or death to monsters is different than it is to humans. It differs with species, as well. The emotional drain it exacts determines that cost. Each time you use the magic to harm or kill, you take away something from yourself. The ways in which you are connected to whom or what you attack determine how much is lost. Is this attack personal? Do you know anything about the attacker's circ.u.mstances and background? Do you have a history with the attacker? Is the attack quick and clean or drawn-out and messy? Have you reacted too quickly or too severely? Have you acted out of need or reacted out of fear and doubt? It all matters, young one. It all tallies in determining the cost, in exacting the price."

He understands, but at the same time he doesn't. He has no personal experience with what he is being taught. He is never given the staff to use in combat; he is not allowed to test its power against anything living. Everything is explained, but little experienced. He tries to extrapolate, but there is no subst.i.tute for the real thing. He chafes under the restraints placed upon his education. He listens and learns, but he continues to wonder what it will feel like when the staff and its magic belong to him.

Sometimes he thinks that the talisman will never be his, that the old man is simply keeping him on as a companion. He is aged and worn, but steady in his life. Nothing seems to threaten, nothing surfaces that would cause either of them to believe that a need to gift the black staff will ever be more than a distant possibility against which they both guard. It distresses the boy to think that he gave up his dream of a life with the girl he loved so much for a promise that may never be fulfilled. It eats at him like a cancer that he may have sold himself so cheaply.

Then one day, three years into his apprenticeship, the old man takes him aside from their daily routine and walks him down the hillside to a stream running below the cabin that serves as their present home. For the past six months, they have lived up along the ridgeline fronting the western peaks, occupying a campsite that has been used for years by trappers. It is an idyllic, pristine setting, carpeted with meadows grown thick with wildflowers in spring and covered deep with unblemished acres of snow in winter. The sun shines often here, as it does not in other parts of the valley where the mists hang in thick draperies and the clouds brush the peaks. Sider likes this place and wishes they could stay here longer, even knowing from experience that they will soon be leaving.

But today the old man does not speak to him of his lessons and their choice of camps.

"There is something we haven't talked about before," he tells the boy. "Something that we have to talk about now. There is another besides myself who bears the black staff. Another who is descended from the old Knights of the Word."

He has the boy's full attention as he pauses to gather his thoughts.

"An Elf," he says finally. He looks off across the countryside, as if across the span of his years. "There were two who came into the valley, who survived the Great Wars, carrying their staffs. Both were of the Race of Man, but one married an Elf girl; their descendants stayed with the Elven people and continued to intermarry so that eventually they were blooded Elves. Their staffs stayed with them, both Man and Elf, but because the protective mists shut out the threat of the old world there was no reason for the staffs or purpose for those who bore them. Their presence became marginalized, and they drifted into lives like my own. They were wanderers, objects of speculation and curiosity and sometimes mistrust. No one was sure what the black staffs were for or why anyone still carried them."

"You were sentries against the dangers that would arise when the mists faded and the world changed back to what it had been," the boy says. "Did no one remember?"

The old man shrugs. "A few. But most thought the world was fixed and would not change. They still think so, mostly. Or they believe in the teachings of the Children of the Hawk and wait to be saved. It is in the nature of things to want to believe that what's familiar and comfortable will last forever." He looks down at his hands. "In any case, there are two of us still, and the other is an Elf, and the Elf has grown dangerous. He was never as stable as he needed to be; he was a poor choice in the first place. But the choice was not mine to make, and I suppose it seemed a good one at the time."

"Why is he dangerous?"

"He lacks judgment and reason. He is seduced by the possibilities of extending the staff's magic to increase his own value and position. He has forgotten what it is he committed to. Because the Word no longer speaks to us, because we serve an ambiguous cause, we are more vulnerable to choosing paths we might otherwise avoid. The Elf has steadily lost his way, and now a kind of madness has surfaced and taken hold of him. I am afraid of what he might do, and I have to go to him and see if I can help him."

The boy shakes his head. "But what can you do?"

The old man smiles. "That is what I have to discover."

"Isn't this dangerous?"

The old man nods. "But there is no one else who can reach him, and if no one tries, the danger that he will do something harmful grows stronger."

The boy is quiet for a time. He thinks the matter through, aware that the old man is watching him. "I will go with you," he says finally.

But the old man shakes his head. "No, you will wait here for me. I will have a better chance of reasoning with him if I go alone. If he sees more than one of us, he will feel threatened. He lives in fear of betrayal. He trusts no one. He has no apprentice to serve as his companion and successor and no desire to find one. He sees himself as invulnerable, his life as infinite. He is seduced by the power of the magic and will not give it up. He thinks that others wish to take it from him. Perhaps there are some who do. But he will not fear that from me because I already have power of my own and do not need to acquire his."

"When will you return?" the boy asks.

The old man studies him and does not answer for a very long time. "When I can," he says finally.

They sit together in silence then, looking at each other and then at the countryside. The boy does not like what this last answer suggests. He does not like what he is feeling. But the decision is made, and he must accept it.

Even though it leaves him cold and empty.

The old man departs with the sunrise, bearing his black staff. The boy will only see him once more before the talisman, heavy with the weight of its responsibilities, pa.s.ses to him.

THE MEMORY CAME AND WENT, a reflection of his thoughts of the future he would one day face. He might have carried on to the end of things, calling up the last of those memories of the old man, but Panterra Qu was speaking to him, whispering as they neared the village of Glensk Wood.

"What will you say to her?"

He was suddenly exasperated with the boy. Always wanting answers to his questions, even when they should have been obvious. But he supposed that he was like that once, young and uncertain, his fate in the hands of a man who was essentially a stranger to him yet would influence his future in ways he could only begin to imagine. He had wanted answers, too. He had been impatient for things to be revealed that were kept secret, that he was expected to simply accept. He had not been as aggressive about it as Panterra was, but then he had been given considerable time to adapt to his role as student.

And he had known from the beginning what was expected of him, which Panterra did not.

The nature of their relationship was at the crux of his exasperation, he supposed. For he had come to a slow and painstaking conclusion since meeting this boy that he was the one who should bear the staff after him. He had the necessary skills, required temperament, and sense of responsibility. He had something indefinable, too-something that set him apart, that marked him. Sider could not have explained how he knew this; he just did. Panterra Qu was the one he had been looking for. It had taken him a while to come to terms with this, but now it felt like a foregone conclusion.

The difficulty, of course, lay in explaining it to the boy and in persuading him that he should make the choice Sider had made all those years ago-to abandon his plans for his old life and form fresh ones for his new.

"We will ask her for her help," he answered the boy, keeping it short and vague. He wasn't sure himself, after all. But he would know when they found her.

"But what can she do? You've already seen how they have put her aside even as a member of the village council. If not for her marriage to Pogue Kray, she would have been banished or worse a long time ago. If she helps us now, Skeal Eile will look for a way to correct his earlier mistake."