The Measure of the Magic (12 page)

He reached for her hand, which she gave to him willingly, and he led her away from where they had been talking and into the gardens. Once there, they strolled down pathways formed of flat stones here and crushed rock there, of mossy earth and deep grasses. Hedgerows
bracketed their passage at one point; vines grown thick on trelliswork shadowed their quiet walk at another. All around, the vast sweep of the flower beds formed blankets of color that radiated in a sudden wash of sunlight, their myriad scents filling the air.

“This must take an awful lot of work,” Prue said to him finally, unable to conceive of how he could manage.

“It takes everything I’ve got to offer, but not more than I wish to give.” He pointed. “See the rainbows formed by the sunlight reflecting off the moisture from the dew? There, where the scarlet and gold meet? I cannot imagine life without gardens. Can you?”

The way he said it told her he already knew the answer. There were flower beds and gardens in her world, but nothing like this. Mostly there were only the forests, meadows, and rocky heights of the mountain peaks, and for her people beauty such as she saw here was solely the province of the imagination.

“The legends say you were alive at the beginning of things when the old world was born,” she said. “That would make you very old. But you don’t look old.”

“I don’t always look the same. This is how I look to you, but to others I look different.”

She studied him a moment. “Am I safe here? Are you going to send me back?”

He seemed to consider. “You are safe for now, but I am going to have to send you back at some point. Although I won’t send you back to where I found you.”

“I’m not anywhere close to where I was, am I? Or even close to the same country?”

“You are nowhere anyone can reach you. The boy Hawk was here once, a long time ago. He walked these gardens, too. He talked with me as I am talking to you. He asked questions of me, and I gave him what answers I could.” He glanced over at her. “Just as I will give you what answers I can.”

They walked side by side for a few minutes, saying nothing, the man and the girl, surrounded by a profusion of colors and smells and a sense of peace. Birds flew past in bright bursts of color, and insects buzzed and hummed from within the cool, shadowed depths of the greenery.

“You saved me from that old man for a reason,” she said, making it a statement of fact.

“That old man is a demon come out of the ruins of the Great Wars, a creature of vast and terrible appetite, a beast with a singular vision. It lives for only one reason—to destroy all those who bear the black staff. It thought for many years that it had done so, that all of them were gone. It wandered the wastelands of the old world, seeking out any it might have missed, without success. There were none to be found. Then, one day, not so long ago, it had a dream of such a bearer—a dream that came to it unbidden and was fostered by its preternatural instincts. It sensed the presence of the Word’s magic and the nature of its source. A man who wielded such magic had ventured outside a valley that had once been hidden and no longer was. It caught a whiff of both, nothing more, but that was enough. The demon knew its hunt was not ended.”

The King of the Silver River gestured toward a stone bench that was settled in a small circular clearing in the middle of the pathway. They walked to the bench and sat down together.

“There were others of its kind once, hunters of Knights of the Word. This demon may be the last. Do you know of the man it hunts? Have you met him?”

She nodded. “His name is Sider Ament. He bears a staff that was carried into my valley homeland five centuries ago by one of two Knights of the Word who came there with my ancestors.”

“Do you know, as well, of your own heritage as a child of the Ghosts, one who was a companion of the boy Hawk and came with him into the valley?”

She shrugged. “It was a rumor in my family history, but I did not know for sure. So is it true? Am I a direct descendant, and has the magic come to me through the girl Candle?”

He spread his hands on his knees and studied her face. “All true. You have Candle’s magic in your blood, passed down to you through the generations. Some of your ancestors had use of it, some didn’t. You do. But it is a fragile gift, and it does not always serve its user successfully. It is quite unpredictable. You must have noticed.”

“It warns when danger threatens either me or those around me. It tells me when to be careful or turn back or do something to avoid what
might otherwise happen.” She paused. “But you’re right. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it fails to warn me of anything. Then I am at risk—as are those who depend on me. Was it like that for Candle, too?”

The King of the Silver River nodded. “It was. Too much so. It almost killed her. Not only her, but others, too. The boy Hawk almost lost his life because of her inability to control the magic. But that is its nature. Magic works differently for different people, and there is no way of knowing how it will respond. Even those who have used it repeatedly and come to rely on it have found that it can abandon them.”

She wrinkled her forehead in thought and brushed at her red hair. “Do you know why that happens?”

He shook his head. “Mostly, we have to accept it as it is.” He paused. “But there is something I can do about your specific problem.”

She looked at him hopefully. “Do you have that kind of power? Could you make it predictable? Could you make it do what it’s supposed to do and warn me when I’m in danger? Or if Pan is in danger when he’s with me? I can’t help him otherwise, and I have to help him. He needs me to help him.”

“Panterra Qu. Your best friend since you both were small. He’s very important to you, isn’t he?”

She nodded quickly. “More important than anything.”

“Did you know that he now carries the black staff? That he has become the bearer whom the demon hunts and seeks to destroy?”

She went pale. “Why would Pan be carrying the black staff? It belongs to Sider.”

“Sider Ament is dead, killed just outside the walls of your valley. He was hunting the Drouj who betrayed you, the one you believed was your friend.”

Quickly he told her the truth about Arik Siq and what he had been seeking to do when he left her imprisoned in the Drouj camp and accompanied Panterra Qu back into the valley.

“Sider found out the truth and tried to stop him from leaving the valley to impart what he knew to the Drouj. He was successful, but it cost him his life. As he was dying, he persuaded your friend to take the black staff and become its new bearer. Your friend did so out of a strong sense of responsibility for the people of your valley. But also out of a sense of responsibility for you. By accepting the staff, he believed
he might have a chance of freeing you from the Trolls who held you prisoner.”

“Not knowing that Deladion Inch had already freed me,” she added. “Oh, Pan.”

“He searches for you now.”

“And the demon searches for him.” She got to her feet quickly. “I have to warn him. I have to help him.”

The King of the Silver River did not move. He remained where he was, his face calm and his gaze steady upon her. “Do you really want to help him? Doing so may prove much more dangerous than you think. It might cost you something precious. It might take something away from you that you could never get back again. Would you still want to help him, knowing this?”

“Can you show me a way, if I say yes?”

He nodded, his eyes still fixed on her.

“I will do whatever it takes because he would do the same for me.”

“Let me explain something,” the other said quietly, his eyes shifting momentarily to his gardens before returning to meet hers. “You are a child of one of those who were called Ghosts. But so is Panterra Qu. Not a child of those who followed Hawk, but of the boy himself. He doesn’t know this; no one does except me. Family members knew it once, but over time the family grew large enough that the connection lost importance. None of Hawk’s descendants had the use of his magic, and none played a role in the events that followed. Eventually, the family died back again, and their memory of their lineage was lost to time and circumstance. But Panterra, while not the last of that family, is the one who matters.”

He leaned forward slightly, as if in confidence. “If I tell you why, you must not tell him. Not of that or of anything else I confide in you. You must promise me. It is important that you know but equally important that he does not. Do you understand?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure I do. But if that is what you require, I give you my word.”

The King of the Silver River nodded. “Very well. Panterra Qu has a destiny to fulfill that is not altogether dissimilar from the one given to the boy Hawk. But Panterra is not imbued with magic like his ancestor was. What he has is the ability to wield magic in a way no other has
since the Knights of the Word came into the valley to escape the Great Wars. What he also has is a task that would crush the soul and spirit of anyone who knew the truth of its demands. It is a task which he must assume nevertheless.”

He paused, and then unexpectedly he smiled. “He is to lead the people of the valley back into the larger world, where they and their descendants will settle and multiply and eventually become dominant once again.”

“Panterra?” she asked in disbelief.

He nodded. “Assuming the demon doesn’t find him and kill him first.”

“But I can prevent this from happening?”

“You can try. You are the only one who can. I cannot see the future, but I can sense its possibilities. I sense now that what I am telling you is the truth. But truth, like magic, can have different meanings. It is not an absolute. It does not always come about as we think it will. So I can tell you what I believe to be so, and you can act on that if you wish. But, as I said before, the price may be steep.”

She stood looking down at him, thinking it through. “Can we walk some more while we talk about this? It helps me to think when I walk.”

They set out once more through the gardens. Prue chose a grassy path that meandered through rows of clematis and broad stands of paintbrush and shooting stars. Such flowers should not have been able to grow together as they did, but somehow the King of the Silver River had found a way for them to do so. That he was a creature of magic—perhaps of very great magic—was undeniable. But could he do enough to help her accomplish what he was asking of her?

“What can you do to enable me to help Pan?” she asked him finally, looking over at him so that she could watch his face when he answered and perhaps judge the sincerity of his reply.

“I can restore your instincts so that they will never fail you again. I can give you back the power to know when danger threatens, from which direction it comes, and how it will manifest itself. I can restore your confidence in its reliability. When you stand beside Panterra Qu, you will always be able to tell what’s needed.”

She sensed there was a loophole of some sort in all this, but on the
surface of things it seemed she was being given what she needed. “Can you give me the use of magic that will let me protect him?”

The King of the Silver River laughed softly. “Such a brave girl, such a fighter! I admire your courage, Prue Liss. But no, I cannot give you more than I have offered. Panterra will have to defend himself, if the need arises. But know this. The dangers he is likely to face come not so much from what he can see as from what he can’t. Your instincts will warn him of what’s hidden. That is the best use to which you can be put.”

She mulled over his phrasing:
That is the best use to which you can be put
. As if she were a tool or a weapon. It suggested she was agreeing to serve as a pawn in the struggle ahead, and that she would become not so much Pan’s friend and companion as his guard dog.

“But there will be a price exacted for this?” she queried. “You said it might be more than I was prepared to pay?”

He stopped and turned to face her. “There is always a price for tinkering with magic, especially in the way I am suggesting I tinker with yours. It will require that you become fundamentally changed from the way you are. The magic must become stronger, more dominant. It must increase sufficiently that it will not fall victim to the failings you have experienced in the past. It must be able to withstand not only exterior pressure, such as the demon’s considerable magic, but your own interior obstructions, ones you might create without even realizing you are doing so.”

His smooth brow wrinkled as if he had tasted something bitter. “Changes of that sort result in unexpected consequences. Increasing strength in one place requires decreasing it in another. But where and how that happens isn’t something that can be foreseen and controlled. Its pathway cannot be chosen; the magic takes whatever route it chooses, and while the purpose can be determined, the overall results cannot.”

“Then I might not end up as I am now?” she pressed. “I might end up altered in some way?”

“You almost certainly will. But what I cannot tell you is the form your differentness will take. Nor can I tell you for certain if the changes are permanent or temporary. Nor can I tell you if there will be a further price exacted somewhere down the line or if you will think the cost worth the sacrifice.”

He paused, waiting on her. She shook her head. “But it will help Pan for me to do this?”

The King of the Silver River sighed. “Let me say it another way. The demon that hunts Panterra Qu will almost certainly find him. It might take a while for that to happen, but in the end it will. The demon is relentless and it is driven. Unless it is killed, it will not cease in its efforts to find any who are left of those who carry the black staff. Panterra might evade it, but he will not escape it. Not unless he has help. You might be able to give him that help with your ability to sense and avoid the danger that threatens him. Your help gives him a better chance at survival than if he is left on his own. He is young and new to the magic of the talisman he carries. He will need time to learn how to master that magic so that when he faces the demon—which I think he must—he will have a reasonable chance of defeating it.”