The Measure of the Magic Read online

  She peered closer. Something was wrong. She tightened her focus, trying to make certain.

  Her eyes. There was something wrong with her eyes!

  She bent closer still, almost to a point where she was touching the water with her face, almost to where she was kissing it with her lips, and she saw that her eyes no longer had definition. They didn’t look like her eyes—or the eyes of anyone who could see. They looked like the eyes of a blind person.

  Clouded and empty.

  She jerked back in shock. What was going on? Her eyes made her look as if she were blind, but she could see! She looked around quickly, making sure. Yes, she could see. There was no mistaking it. What did it mean that her eyes were those of a blind person, but she could still see the world around her, even if it was all gray and colorless …?

  Oh, no! Oh, no! She screamed the words in the silence of her mind, unable to trust herself to speak them.

  She could see the bright scarlet of the dove, but no other color anywhere. She could see a bird that didn’t exist in her world, but was flying about in it anyway. She was in her world, she decided. Her instincts and her senses told her so. This wasn’t the world of the King of the Silver River. The two were different enough that she would have known if that wasn’t so. She was in her own world, and there was no color.

  Except there was. She just couldn’t see it. That was the point of the dove—a sign from the King of the Silver River to tell her what the use of his magic had cost, an indicator of what had been extracted from her in payment. She could still see, but only in black and white, in gray tones and shadows. All of the colors were gone.

  She rocked back on her heels and tried not to cry. Her red hair—she would never see its brightness again. The green of the trees, the sky’s assorted blues, Pan’s hazel eyes, his sun-browned face—nothing, nothing, nothing of their color anywhere! She was crying now, realizing what that meant, grasping right away how much she would miss it, how terrible it would be to live in a world where all the colors were gone.

  Forever.

  But it was to help Pan that she had sacrificed herself, and she refused to regret it. The cost was clearly defined. She had given up seeing the world’s brightness so that she could see what was hiding in its darkness—all the dangers that threatened the unwary, all the predators that would steal something infinitely more precious than color. Panterra needed her to save him so that he could do what the King of the Silver River had said he was fated to do—to save their people, to lead them out of the valley and into a new world.

  Oh, but to a world in which there would be no color! Not for her. Not ever again! She could hardly bear it, and she started crying all over again, weeping into her sleeve, her small body shaking, her sobs audible in the stillness of the forest. She was only fifteen, she told herself, and she would never see color again!

  It took her a long time to regain control of herself, much longer than she had expected. But when she had cried herself out and silently voiced all her bitter thoughts, she climbed back to her feet and stood staring off into the grayness that was now the measure of her future. She had to let go of what had been and embrace what would be. She had to accept the consequences of her decision to help Panterra Qu and remember that something good would come of this.

  If she could manage to protect him. If she could stand with him for as long as he needed her.

  When the scarlet dove reappeared, slipping like quicksilver through the branches of the trees, she took a deep, steadying breath and began to track its flight.

  NOW SHE STOOD in the doorway of Pan’s home, watching as he took in the damage she had suffered, gave an audible gasp, and moved quickly to embrace her.

  “Your eyes!” he whispered into her hair, rocking her gently.

  It seemed that he was the one who needed steadying, and so she managed to not give way to the tears that threatened to come. Instead, she breathed in his scent and hugged herself against his solid warmth.

  “It’s all right, Pan. It isn’t as bad as it seems.”

  She could feel him shaking his head in denial. “But you’re blind!”

  It was so good to be held by him. It was the first time she had felt as if she were really home safe, and she didn’t want the feeling to end too quickly. She had walked for two days to get here, coming up out of the wasteland beyond the valley and through Declan Reach where the bodies of the dead still lay uncovered, the scavengers beginning to feed by now. She had crossed the divide and descended the inner slopes through familiar forests until she had reached Glensk Wood and this moment. She had avoided being seen except at a distance and reached Pan’s home without a direct encounter with anyone. She had traveled a landscape rendered gray and colorless by her change in vision, a condition that by now she realized would forever give rise to aching memories and dark emotions.

  All the way here she had been thinking about what she was going to do. In the beginning of her journey, when she was still in the forest and confused about her direction, she had thought she might not be able to find her way back at all. But the scarlet dove had saved her. It was more than an indicator of her condition and a reminder of what was lost; it was also her personal guide, designed to bring her back to where she needed to be. She followed it out of the wastelands to the exterior slopes of the mountains that surrounded her valley and from there upward to Declan Reach. Then, quite suddenly, it had disappeared. She assumed it had done what it had been sent to do, and so it was gone for good. She didn’t see it again, in any case. Once through the pass and inside the valley, she was on her own. Even though she looked for the dove repeatedly during the remainder of her trek, there was no sign of it. She would have welcomed even a momentary glimpse, would have treasured even a brief reminder of the brightness of its scarlet hue, but it did not return.

  Already, she realized, she was forgetting the color of things. Already, her memories were fading, the colors she remembered washing out, their glow fading away.

  “Pan,” she said, forcing herself away from him, holding him at arm’s length as she stared up at him with her cloudy eyes. “I can see, Pan. I’m not blind, even though I look as if I am. But there is a reason for this. I have to explain so you can understand.”

  “I don’t need to understand,” he replied quickly. “I’m just glad to have you back safe. I thought I might have lost you.”

  Then she really was crying, and they hugged each other anew, arms wrapped about each other, so grateful for the moment they couldn’t speak.

  Again, she pushed him away. “Pan, you have to listen to me. Come over here and sit down. Close the door.”

  He did so, and they sat together in front of the cold ashes of the fireplace. Panterra brought out blankets in which they wrapped themselves in order to fight off the night’s chill. It was somewhere in the hours before sunrise by now—Prue couldn’t be sure exactly when. She’d been walking a long time in the darkness, so she knew it was after midnight. She thought momentarily about eating because she was very hungry, but she decided it would have to wait.

  Slowly, meticulously, she told him everything that had happened to her after he had gone off with Arik Siq, leaving her a captive of the Drouj. It took her a long time, and she stopped and started again repeatedly, choosing her words, not wanting to leave anything out or diminish its importance. She replayed the events of the ill-fated rescue attempt by Deladion Inch and of her efforts to hide in and ultimately escape from his fortress lair. She skimmed over the parts that were too scary to dwell on, especially those in which she had faced the demon that had pursued her. But she stressed the parts that involved the danger to him. She didn’t want him to underestimate that old man. She didn’t want him to think this was a hunt that he might escape if he were in the least way careless. The demon wanted his life and it wanted the black staff. If he valued both, he must begin to think now on what he was going to do.

  She would help him, of course. That was why she had come back. That was the bargain she had made with the
King of the Silver River, and the loss of her ability to see colors was the price she had paid. She didn’t try to downplay how important that was, but she did insist that it was worth the trade to get the use of her instincts back again in a way she could depend upon. The King of the Silver River had been emphatic that if she did not come back to help Pan, the demon would find a way to kill him.

  “You should have told him the price was too steep,” Pan insisted, looking down at the floor between them. “You should have refused.”

  “Refused?” She almost laughed. “It was my idea, Pan! I insisted he help me. Neither of us knew what it would cost me. We only knew that I would be changed. But I would have given up more than I did if it meant helping you.” She reached out for his chin and jerked his head up. “Look at me! What would you not do for me? If it were turned around, would you try to bargain down the price? I did what was necessary, and it’s behind me. What we have to do now is find a way to help you.”

  She did not tell him all of it. She kept to herself that the price she had paid for that help might be steeper than he knew. She kept secret that the King of the Silver River had warned of the possibility that she might suffer further damage, something of a much more serious nature. She saw no reason to cause him additional worry.

  Nor did she break her word to the King by telling Pan anything about either his heritage or his destiny. Telling him that he was a direct descendant of the boy Hawk would do nothing to help him in his efforts to stay alive. It would not aid him in his struggle to master the magic of the black staff. It was hard enough carrying the burden that Sider Ament had bequeathed him—to be the staff’s bearer, to wield it in defense of the valley’s inhabitants, to become the successor that the Gray Man had envisioned. For the same reasons, she said nothing of the future that the King of the Silver River had foreseen wherein he would lead the people of the valley into the larger world. It wasn’t what he needed to think about now. She could not imagine how this exodus would come about in any case, but if it were indeed his destiny, it would have to find him without her help.

  “I didn’t think there were any demons left in the world,” he said at one point. “I thought they were all destroyed in the cataclysm our ancestors escaped when they followed Hawk to this valley. I half thought they were a myth—that they weren’t demons, but something else that the word demons fit and so that’s what they were called.”

  Prue shook her head. “We heard stories about them often enough when we were children. Doesn’t matter that no one has seen a demon since the valley was sealed up; there could still be others out there, some that escaped what happened to almost everything else.”

  “It’s said they can shape-shift and make themselves look like someone else. That they are enormously strong and use magic we can’t even begin to understand. Remember what Aislinne told us?” Pan said. “That they were the leaders of the once-men, humans who had been subverted and turned to predators? Almost nothing could kill them—although Elven magic was said to have destroyed the one that tracked the Hawk. Still, thinking that a demon is out there, hunting us … that he’s real …”

  “Oh, he’s real enough. You can take my word for it. You should have seen his eyes. He made me feel helpless just by looking at me. If he had been a little quicker, I would be dead.”

  She trailed off, realizing she wasn’t helping things. “Tell me what’s happened in my absence, Pan. I know Sider is dead. I know Arik Siq lied. Is there more?”

  There was, of course. Pan detailed the preparations that both the Elves and humans had begun to make to defend the valley from the Drouj. He related the events that had taken Sider and himself south in search of allies and eventually brought him back to Declan Reach to witness the Gray Man’s death. He told her how he had tracked down Arik Siq, captured him, and brought him here to Glensk Wood to be held as a prisoner until it could be determined if he were useful in bargaining with the Drouj. It had been his plan to go after her, to find and rescue her, until her unexpected reappearance.

  “Oparion Amarantyne was killed several days ago,” he added. “They have fixed the blame for this on Phryne. She is imprisoned and will likely be put on trial for her father’s murder. I don’t know all the details, but I know she couldn’t have done it. Someone else must be responsible. Perhaps the Queen, according to Aislinne.”

  Prue nodded. “We should go to her. Phryne would never do anything to hurt her father.”

  “That was my intention, but not until I’d found you.” He smiled. “I’m so happy you’re here. I was so worried that I wouldn’t see you again.”

  Prue reached out and again took his hands in hers. “Let’s make a promise to each other, Pan. No matter what happens, we will not be separated again. Not for any reason. If I am to help you, as I was told by the King of the Silver River I should, we must stay close.”

  “We must,” he agreed. “We shouldn’t be apart. We are partners, you and me. As Trackers, friends, and family. We belong together.”

  “Do you give me your word we won’t become separated? No matter what?”

  He squeezed her hands. “No matter what.”

  She released his hands again and smiled. “That makes me feel much better. But we have to leave here. It’s too dangerous to stay. The demon will be tracking you, and you can’t wait around for it to find you. Besides, we have to discover if there is any way we can help Phryne. Do you have an idea how we might do that?”

  “I don’t. I just know we have to try. Pogue Kray wanted me to search for Hadrian Esselline to make sure he helps us defend Declan Reach, but Aislinne told me she would send Brickey instead. She said nothing I say or do will persuade somebody like Esselline to honor a promise to a dead man, but Brickey is from that country and might have better luck. I think what you and I should do is go to the Elves and speak before the High Council about what’s happened with Phryne.”

  “Better start by speaking with the Orullians,” she said. “They might be able to give us a better idea of what we’re walking into. Even if we can’t do anything about Phryne right away, we need to make sure the Queen listens to what we have to say about the Drouj. She won’t ignore the threat of an invasion, no matter the extent of her complicity in the killing of the King. She’s in as much danger as everyone else.”

  Pan nodded, rising. “Let’s pack and leave.”

  They set about the task of preparing for their departure, stuffing their backpacks with clothes, tying on rolled-up blankets, and adding medicines and weapons from Panterra’s locker. Preferring not to return to her own house, Prue selected clothes from the extras she always kept at Pan’s cottage. Her parents might have returned from their travels by now, but as yet they knew nothing about what had happened to her. If they saw her eyes, their reaction would be much worse than Pan’s. They would pull her from the Tracker ranks in a millisecond, no matter how hard she tried to explain things. Better that they remain ignorant of everything for a little while longer.

  “I don’t like doing this,” Pan said at one point. “Deceiving your parents feels wrong.” He paused. “Of course, telling them the truth doesn’t feel like the right thing, either.”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked him in the eye. “I’ve been a Tracker long enough that I have the right to make that decision. So let’s not talk about it.”

  They continued with their preparations in silence. Prue was glad for the excuse to keep busy, not wanting to think too hard about what lay ahead, still uncertain in her own mind that they were doing the right thing. Going to the Elves might create fresh complications since it meant getting involved with Phryne again. But abandoning her wasn’t something that she was prepared to do, either. Even knowing that things were likely to be much more difficult than they expected, she was in agreement with Pan that they had to do something.

  She worked quietly in her world of grays and shadows, trying not to think about how dreary it all was. She imagined the colors she wasn’t seeing, tried to remember the intensity o
f hues when she began selecting from her clothes and pleased with herself when she could do so and irritated when she couldn’t. She pictured the colors of the furniture and wood moldings, of walls, floors, and ceiling, of the rendition of the little painting of a woman at a well that Pan’s mother had loved so much and that he kept on the wall even after she was gone. She tried to guess the color of his clothes, then of curtains and his old comforter.

  Stop it! she admonished herself finally. Let it alone!

  She caught herself crying again and brushed the tears away roughly. This was not the time or place. She’d had her cry. She was bigger than this, stronger. Pan shouldn’t have to see her cry anymore.

  When they were finished and had shouldered their packs, they took a moment to look around the cottage, ostensibly to determine if they had missed anything, but on a deeper level to consider the possibility that it might be the last time they would ever be here.

  “Don’t worry,” Pan told her, as if needing to voice a response to what they were both thinking. “Now that we’re back together again, we can handle anything that comes our way.”

  Prue nodded, smiled encouragingly. It was the right thing to say and the right attitude to take. “Anything,” she echoed.

  Moments later, they were out the door and walking through the predawn darkness.

  HIDDEN DEEP within the trees where there was virtually no chance of being discovered, Bonnasaint watched them depart the cottage. They did not turn south toward Hold-Fast-Crossing and Hadrian Esselline, as Skeal Eile had insisted they would, but north toward Arborlon. Bonnasaint smiled. This was why you never put your trust in others, not even someone who normally could be depended upon, but only in yourself. If he had listened to the Seraphic, he would already be miles away from where he should be if he was to carry out his assignment, wasting his time looking for someone who was never coming.

  The Seraphic hadn’t been right about the boy being alone and the girl being gone, either. It made him wonder what he had been right about, but he left that question alone. What he had been right or wrong about wouldn’t affect how successful Bonnasaint would be with the task he had been given.