Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara (23 page)

He dropped slowly into a crouch, steeling himself, trying to decide what to do.

Then a huge shadow fell over him, crashing down on him like a great weight and collapsing his world, and it was too late.

H
E 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.

S
IDER 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.