The Measure of the Magic (47 page)

But then she wiped the tears away, took a deep breath, and moved to one corner. The boards that hid the concealing compartment Sider
had built with his own hands were still in place. She found the cleverly designed fingerholds, released the small wooden slide latches, and lifted the boards away.

Beneath she found what she was looking for, a bundle fully six feet long wrapped in canvas and lashed with leather ties, right where Sider had left it all those years ago. She removed it from its hiding place, laid it on the floor, and loosened the ties.

She caught her breath. They were still there.

Before her lay an ash bow and a quiver of steel-tipped arrows. Sider had made them himself, choosing the woods, carving the bow and each shaft, weaving the heavy string, forging the metal tips at the village smithy, sewing the quiver and sheath. He had done it not long after he met her and had taught her how to use it. He was good with the bow, but she was better.
One day
, he had told her,
after we are married, these will belong to you. They will be a wedding present
.

He had tried to give them to her anyway, when it was clear there would be no marriage, but she had refused. Even so, she had never forgotten them. She knew where he hid them, how he had fashioned this hiding place to keep them safe. She hadn’t been sure she would find them here, but she knew he had never carried any other weapon after he had received the black staff.

As she knelt on the cottage floor looking down at the bow and arrows, memories she had thought forgotten flooding through her, she wondered what had made her come here. If she had wanted a weapon to protect herself, she could have made other choices.

Why had she made this one?

With so much lost, with so much stolen away, perhaps she had wanted to take something back. Sider, Pogue, Brickey, her friends, her home, and her place in the world were all gone. Everything she had been able to count on over the years—vanished. She sensed that she would never get any of it back, that she must start over again and find a new life.

But the bow and arrows were something she could take with her. They would give her a sense of security if the demon came after her. They were Sider’s, and she believed now that he would always be with her.

Exhausted, she took the bow and arrows and moved back out into
the front room of the ruins. Except for the bowstring, which was in shreds, the weapon was still in perfect shape. She would find a replacement for the string from one of the surrounding farms or hunting shacks in the morning. If needed, she would weave one herself. For now, she had to rest. She propped herself up in one corner where she was hidden from view but could peer out through cracks in the boards at the countryside leading up from the valley. If the demon still pursued her, she could see it coming.

She knew it was wishful thinking to suppose that she could stop the demon if it found her. She knew, as well, that escape was unlikely. But her belief was all she had, and so she clung to it.

Outside her little shelter, dawn was breaking.

She fell asleep watching it unfold.

“C
ITIZENS OF GLENSK WOOD!
Pay close heed to me!”

The demon that appeared to be Skeal Eile scanned the anxious faces of the crowd. The sun had risen, a blood-red sphere in the eastern sky, a promise of something unspoken.

“A new day begins, a day that shall see us all on our journey to join hearts and minds and hands with the one who brought us here so many years ago and has now come to gather us up again, sheep into the fold!”

The demon stood on the steps of the council hall building facing the multitudes he had called together, the men and women of the village still flush with the wildness and fever of the previous night, remembering what had been promised them, hungry to witness its coming. He held them all spellbound, captivated by the dark magic of his voice as it layered the air infusing their senses, drawing them in when reason—had there been even a shred of it left—would have warned them to back away.

“You were promised that this day would come. From the time of your ancestors, you were assured of it. The Hawk brought you safely into this valley and gave you this home. But one day, you were told, the protective wall of magic that he had created would fall away, and he would return for you. You were told this, and you believed. Now is
that day. The wall is down, the magic is gone, and the old world crouches like a beast on your doorstep. But you are not forsaken. You are not abandoned. The Hawk has come to lead you to safety.”

There were scattered shouts and cheers, and even in the eyes of those who said nothing, but only listened, trust and blind faith were reflected, conjured by the demon’s magic. There was no hint of doubt, and no one questioned the words of the speaker.

This was so easy, the demon thought as he lifted his arms in an embracing gesture, drawing them further in. They were sheep then—they were sheep now. Pitifully willing to believe the wildest, most improbable of myths—myths they themselves had created and nurtured as they would the flowers of a garden, fragile and beautiful and ephemeral. They wanted so badly for someone to assure them that the bright and shiny promise was faithful to the dreams they so readily embraced. Make us safe. Keep us well. Take us to where nothing threatens, to where all is peaceful and can be kept so.

Such sheep.

If not for Aislinne Kray, he could be truly content. But after tracking her to the deep woods he had lost her, and that was troubling. It was impossible that such a thing could happen once he had gotten the smell of his quarry, but in this case it had. It bothered him even now, hours later, after he had returned empty-handed. Still, it was not important in the larger scheme of things, he reasoned. She was nothing to him but an irritant, and she played no role in his plans for the bearer of the staff and the staff’s magic. He would have both, and he would have them soon.

“We must trust in the promise that the place we seek awaits us and the Hawk will lead us there. I have seen him. I have spoken with him. He will take us one village at a time to where no dangers will ever reach us again. He begins with us, with this village, with the people of Glensk Wood, because we stand nearest the danger and require the quickest response. Others will see him, as well, when he returns for them, but we are the first.”

He paused meaningfully. “But only if you believe! Only if you act on your faith! Only if you are true to your commitment to his teachings and to your sect and to your Seraphic!”

He had made himself larger and more dramatic in appearance than
the real Seraphic had looked when he was alive. He had changed his features and his voice, and the overall impression he had created was one of power and majesty. Those assembled saw him as enhanced by the power invested in him as their spiritual leader; they had witnessed firsthand how easily he could dispose of those who challenged his authority. Though the body had been removed during the night, no one had forgotten the fate of Pogue Kray. Such power commanded respect and discouraged doubts. It was so now as the Seraphic revealed what was required of them.

“Do you believe?” Skeal Eile demanded suddenly, his voice booming out across the square and down the paths and roads that were crammed with the people of the village. “Do you believe enough to come with me? Do you believe enough to do whatever is needed to find your way? Do you commit to what your faith asks of you? Will you put aside your doubts and fears and march boldly out of this valley to your new home? Who among you is with me?”

The roar of commitment was vast and deafening. Voices rose as a single bellow of affirmation and trust.

“Let me hear you!” the demon shouted over the roar. “Let the whole world hear your song of faith!”

The crowd had gone wild, arms raised and fists clenched in gestures that matched the cacophony of their voices. They were his now, committed to his cause—a cause as thin and transparent as the air they breathed and every bit as necessary to their desperation. They would go with him, and they would find what he had promised.

But they would not find it in the way they believed. They would find that even a new world was full of surprises.

“Gather your children and old people together! Take up your weapons and collect food and water! We leave at once!”

He watched them scatter to their homes to do as he had commanded of them, and he felt a great sense of satisfaction. His power over them was complete, the dark magic he wielded irresistible. With no one to stand against him, with no voice to be raised in protest, there was nothing to sway them from the course he had set. They gave no thought to what would be demanded of them. They would follow him to wherever he led them, no matter the destination, no matter the cost.

They would follow him, and they would pay the price for doing so.

I
T WAS NEARING MIDDAY
when Prue Liss reached the slopes of the valley leading down into Glensk Wood. She had been following the scarlet dove all night and throughout the morning without stopping for more than a few minutes at a time to rest, calling on reserves of strength she hadn’t known she possessed. She was driven in large part by her need to find Pan, to reach his side before anything worse could happen. She had no idea if this was possible. Even now, the path she followed was seemingly taking her back to the village of Glensk Wood where she was certain he would not go. She struggled with her doubts as she traveled, more than once thinking to turn aside in favor of a more likely destination. Yet the dove drew her now as it had when it had brought her to Pan the first time, and she could not make herself forsake it.

But with the sunrise her strength had begun to fail, and now she wondered if she would be worth anything even when she found him.

Ahead stood the ruins of a house sitting silent and deserted amid fields freshly plowed and awaiting spring plantings. The dove had flown toward it and now sat upon its blackened eaves, awaiting her. She trudged ahead to catch up, the muscles of her legs operating on memory and not much else. She had to sleep soon, she knew. Even if the dove went on, she could not. She was too tired to keep going. She had to rest.

She had almost reached the ruins when she heard a stirring inside the broken walls and saw a shadow of movement pass across the timbers of the far wall.

“Hello?” she called out.

When Aislinne Kray—dirty and bedraggled and grim—came around the corner of the doorway with a steel-tipped arrow and unstrung longbow gripped in one hand, she was shocked into complete silence.

“Prue?” the other asked in disbelief. “Is it you?”

They rushed to each other in mutual relief and hugged long and hard. “I didn’t know what had become of you after the Trolls took you,” Aislinne said. “How did you get free? What brought you here? Where is Pan?”

She backed away from Prue and gasped. “Your eyes! You’re blind!”

“Not so blind that I can’t see you!” Prue laughed. “Mostly, I just can’t see colors now. I can still see everything else. I’ll explain. But what are you doing so far from home? You don’t look as if you’ve eaten or drunk anything in days, and your clothes … Aislinne, what’s happened?”

They sat down together at the edge of the fields and began to trade stories, a process that took them much time. They had not seen each other since Aislinne had been imprisoned and Prue had escaped the Drouj and encountered the King of the Silver River. When they had caught each other up on everything that had transpired and what it was that had brought them to this time and place, they stopped talking altogether for long moments, locked in an awkward silence that discouraged either from saying anything more.

“What will you do now?” Prue asked the other finally. “Where will you go, if you can’t go back to Glensk Wood? Is there family that will take you in?”

Aislinne shook her head. “Distant family, people I know about who live in other villages but that I haven’t seen in years. Or in some cases, ever. There is no one else. Not even Brickey now. Not you or Pan, either, it seems. I came here because I could think of nowhere else and because I felt Sider calling me here. It’s silly, I know. Irrational. But I thought I saw him when I was fleeing, and I was so afraid of that creature—”