The Measure of the Magic (13 page)

“There will be a fight between them? You are certain of this?”

“Unless fate intervenes and one or the other is killed, yes.”

Prue nodded without speaking, thinking it through. Panterra was a skilled Tracker, but that might not be enough against the old man. She could still remember how he had looked at her, how trapped and helpless he had made her feel. Pan was stronger than she was physically, but this demon had killed other bearers of the black staff, ones infinitely better equipped to defend themselves than he was, and it knew how to break down their defenses. It wasn’t human; it probably wasn’t even sane.

She looked down at her feet, watching their steady progression along the pathway as she walked. There was no one she was closer to than Pan, not even her parents. He was the big brother she didn’t have. He was her mentor and best friend, the one she relied on to see her through the toughest of times, the one she turned to first when she was in need of advice or reassurance. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t tell him—hadn’t told him, in point of fact. They were so close they were almost one person.

If something happened to him, it would be the same as if it had happened to her. Given that, was there anything that she wouldn’t do for him? Was any sacrifice too great?

She stopped where she was and looked over at the King of the Silver River. “I want you to do it. I want you to make it possible for me to help Pan. I want my instincts back and I want them dependable. I’m willing to take my chances with what that means.”

He studied her for a moment, as if to make sure that she meant what she was saying, and then he nodded. “We will walk a little more. It’s a beautiful day and the gardens are especially lovely in the sunlight. Let’s enjoy them while we can.”

She didn’t know what he meant exactly, but she was willing to spend more time in the gardens, so she did as he asked. They walked for a long time, much longer than she thought they would or even than she thought she’d feel comfortable with, given how anxious she was to find Pan. At the end of their walk, when they were back where they had started, she felt unexpectedly fresh and rested, even though she knew she should feel exactly the opposite.

“Look!” he said suddenly.

She turned to where he was pointing and saw what she had never seen—a dove that was all red, flying across the gardens, a brilliant flash of color against the brightness of the sun.

“Oh!” she gasped, and it was all she could manage as she watched it disappear into the distance.

When she turned back, the King of the Silver River had become an old, old man with white hair and beard, his face deeply lined and his eyes a pale blue set deep within the folds of skin surrounding them.

“Even for me, use of the magic diminishes who I am. Good-bye, Prue Liss. I wish you well.”

Then she felt herself slipping toward the ground, suddenly too weak to stand. She collapsed gently, as if hands held and lowered her so that she would not be harmed. She had a moment of lucidity in which she saw an image of the scarlet dove flash before her eyes, flying swiftly away, but clearly visible to her.

Then she was asleep.

I
N THE AFTERMATH
of the girl’s collapse back into slumber, the King of the Silver River knelt next to her, studying her young face. “Sleep, child,” he whispered. “Dream of better days.”

It broke his heart that so much sacrifice was needed to keep the magic in balance, to keep the war between the Word and Void from tilting the wrong way. He had great power at his disposal, power second
only to the Word’s, but he felt so helpless. To give her what she asked for, to give her what she needed, came at such a high price.

He had told her he didn’t know what she would lose by helping Panterra Qu, but that was not entirely true. He knew more than he was telling her, but less than he would like. So he had told her just enough and let fate and circumstance take matters where they would.

After all, it was like that for all living things—they could never know everything they wished to know. That would never change.

He reached down, took her head in his hands, and placed his fingers on her temples. He closed his eyes and disappeared inside himself. With his eyes still closed, he moved his fingers and thumbs here and there about her face, touching this and that, giving and taking what was required, seeking the sources for her magic’s wellspring. He found them easily, and he gave them bits and pieces of his own strength, his own deep insights, his own vast instincts. Then he took his hands away and rose.

He had given her what help he could. He had taken from her what was necessary. The future would reveal if the exchange had been worth it—a future that was only a droplet of water to him, but would seem like an ocean to her. She would wake and discover what had happened, and when she did her journey would truly begin.

He hoped she would be strong and brave enough to survive it.

With a wave of one hand, he sent her back into her own world to find out if she was.

W
HEN PRUE LISS AWOKE, THE LIGHT WAS SO
gray that it seemed as if all the color had been drained from the world. She blinked uncertainly as she emerged from a deep sleep that had left her lethargic and weak. She was lying on a grassy patch of ground somewhere in a forest where the trees canopied overhead and the air smelled of damp and rot. She could not tell the time or even if it was day or night. Everything had a twilight cast to it, as if the sun were down and night coming on.

She lay where she was for a time, waiting for her strength to return. Her meeting with the King of the Silver River was still fresh in her mind, although it seemed more a dream than real. She could see his face and hear his voice, but she lacked any sense of time and place. How long had she been with him, and where had their meeting occurred? None of it was clear, and there was no way of finding out now.

What she did know was that he had done something to her, just as she had asked him to, just as he had promised. To regain use of her instincts in a way that would allow her to trust them again, she had been irrevocably changed.

She took some deep, slow breaths—inhaling, exhaling—the simple act of breathing a reassurance that she was still alive and functioning. She looked down at herself to see if she was still all there, and she found to her relief that she was. Arms, legs, feet, and hands—all of her was of a piece and recognizable.

Yet something was different. She could feel the change, even without being able to discern its source.

When she felt strong enough to do so, she sat up and looked around. She was sitting in woods, the trees alive and well, their canopy thick and leafy and their limbs dark arms linked in the gray light. She could see birds darting here and there, as gray and colorless as the landscape itself. She caught glimpses of tiny creatures moving through the foliage and flitting through the trees. Sounds rose in tiny bursts, calls and cries that signaled hidden presences. In the distance, just barely visible through the screen of the forest, a wall of dark and craggy mountain peaks rose.

Where was she?

There was only one way to find out. She climbed to her feet, waited a few moments to see if there was any dizziness or weakness, and found none. She brushed pine needles and bits of grass and dirt from her pants, and looked around some more, trying to decide which way she should go. She was a skilled Tracker, and she could find her way even in darkness. But she could not do so now. Everything looked strange to her. Different. The shadings of shadows and light didn’t look right; the casting of light and dark was skewed in some way.

Then suddenly a flash of bright scarlet appeared through the branches of the trees, skimming close to the ground, soaring to gain the open spaces between the dark trunks. It was the first bit of color she had seen, and it was so unexpected that for a moment she just stood there and watched it as it flew.

It was a bird of some sort.

It was a scarlet dove
.

But there were no scarlet doves in her world, only in the world of the King of the Silver River. Why was she seeing one here? Unless she was still in the Faerie creature’s world and hadn’t returned to her own after all. But how could that be, when the whole reason for her agreeing to chance an infusion of deep magic was to come back and help Pan?

Then she realized something else, something so astonishing that it froze her in place. Forgetting for a moment the question of which world she was in or what she was supposed to be doing—why could she see the bright scarlet of the dove but not see colors anywhere else?

She blinked rapidly, closed her eyes tightly, and opened them again. The world around her was still washed of any color but gray and black, light and dark. Nothing else. She searched the landscape, trying to find something that would yield even a small dab of color.

Nothing. Anywhere.

The dove reappeared, streaking past, its sleek form revealed in bright scarlet hues, its feathers lustrous, its color so unimaginably vivid, so incomprehensibly intense, that it left her breathless. She peered around wildly, searching anew for something that would explain what was happening. But no matter where she looked or how long she spent searching, there was no other color to be found.

Frantic now, suddenly frightened of what was happening, she bolted away into the trees, running hard in the direction the dove had taken. It wasn’t difficult to find, its scarlet body standing out clearly, and it did not seem to be trying to escape her. Rather, it flew away and then came back to her, repeating this act over and over until finally she realized it was beckoning her to follow. Why it was doing this and where it was leading her, she couldn’t say. But the dove was a lifeline to the explanation she desperately needed, and so she followed it.

Finally it swooped down and perched on a low-hanging branch above a tiny pool of water, a pond that was little more than a depression in the earth through which a small stream meandered like a lost child. She walked over to the pool and knelt, looking down into its clear depths. There she was, Prue Liss, looking back, her image rippling slightly with the sluggish movement of the stream as it passed through, her features bending …

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.