The Measure of the Magic (8 page)

He felt an odd calm settle over him; everything became slow and easy. Nothing was beyond him now.

Odd, he thought suddenly, that he had abandoned so readily his intention of killing Arik Siq to avenge Sider. Arik’s death had been the driving force behind his choosing to take the black staff, enraged and bitter beyond words. But now all that was gone, bled out of him during his pursuit, left behind in the wake of his determination that the man would not escape him and replaced by his need to save Prue. Sider would not mind, he thought. Sider would not only understand, but also approve. It was the right thing to do.

He studied the dead men where they lay before the defensive wall, the positioning of the single ladder that remained upright against the ramparts and the way the uneven terrain rolled and shifted beneath all of it. Finally, he walked over to where Trow Ravenlock lay sprawled in death, propped him upright so that he was facing back the way Arik Siq would come, calculated the way things would work when the Drouj made his cautious way toward freedom, and nodded in satisfaction when he was certain of what would happen.

Then he took up a position at the base of the wall, stretching out on the ground close by where he had left Trow, his body partially obscured by that of a dead Troll, and began his vigil.

It was a short wait. He had arrived ahead of Arik Siq by no more
than thirty minutes, the latter traveling almost as fast as he had in an attempt to get there ahead of any pursuit. He probably still worried it was Sider Ament who was coming after him, an inexorable force of nature somehow able to fight off the killing effects of the poison. That he was wrong made the moment that much sweeter. Pan saw his quarry out of the corner of one eye, watched him appear out of the trees, silhouetted against the horizon as he approached with slow, careful steps.

When he was perhaps twenty feet from Trow’s body, Arik Siq drew up short, troubled by the dead man’s strange position. After hesitating a moment, he came forward, dropping into a crouch, a long knife in one hand, his blowgun in the other. From his posture, it was clear he suspected a trap of some sort, which was exactly what Pan wanted. The Drouj stopped not six feet on the other side of the Troll corpse behind which Panterra lay, studied the dead leader of the Trackers, looked around for trip wires, and then started cautiously for the wall.

Pan came to his feet soundlessly, right behind the other, gripping his black staff in both hands. Arik Siq sensed something at the last minute, his own instincts sharp enough to warn him, and turned. But Pan was already swinging the staff with as much force as he could muster, striking the other on his raised forearms with numbing force. Both weapons went flying. The Drouj screamed in pain and stumbled backward, trying desperately to flee the unexpected attack. But he had no chance; Panterra was on top of him instantly. The black staff made a strange whistling noise as he swung it a second time, catching Arik Siq on the side of his head.

The Drouj dropped like a stone.

B
Y THE TIME
his prisoner began to stir, Panterra had built a fire, made himself a meal from food scrounged from the remains of the dead men’s supplies, and eaten and drunk his fill. He had dragged Arik Siq down the mountainside far enough that they were in the shelter of a clump of rocks surrounded by alpines and scrub, well away from the pass at Declan Reach and its dead.

Pan sat with his back against the flat side of a large boulder, facing
uphill toward the dark entrance to the pass so he could see if anyone appeared from that direction. At his feet, the fire had burned down to red embers and ash. Arik Siq was propped up across from him, slumped forward and leaning sideways against a stack of blankets Pan had retrieved.

The Drouj woke with a start, wincing at pain that Pan could only imagine, but in which he took quiet satisfaction. His prisoner tried to stretch and then paused as he discovered that his hands and upper arms were bound tightly with cord and his ankles chained to a heavy set of roots.

“Don’t bother trying to move,” Pan offered when the other looked over at him. “Just sit still.”

The Drouj lowered his eyes to his shackles and gave them a cursory appraisal. There was a deep bruise and some blood along the side of his head where he had been struck by the staff. He looked ragged and dirty, a fugitive not only from the people in the valley but from anything resembling soap and water. Yet his eyes were sharp and calculating, and there was no sign of defeat mirrored there.

“You should have let me go when you had the chance,” he said finally. He lifted his head, his blunt features wrinkling unpleasantly. “It was the only way you’d ever see your little friend alive again.”

Pan shook his head, giving the other a long, steady look that pinned him against the darkness. “You had better hope that’s not true. Getting her back is all that’s keeping you alive. Your life for hers—I think your father will be happy to make the trade.”

Arik Siq laughed. “My father won’t spare her for me. He will kill her outright the moment he knows the arrangement you made with him is a sham. You don’t know him. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

Pan ignored him and went back to working on a repair he was making to one boot. The binding had broken near the sole, and he was stringing new leather through the sole. He let the silence build.

“Where are you taking me?” His prisoner sounded bored, irritated. “Back to my father, so that you can make this exchange that won’t happen? Back to the Drouj so that you can be killed, too?”

Pan didn’t respond.

“To the Elves, then? They will want to see me dead, as well.”

Pan shrugged.

“The old man died, didn’t he? The poison was too much for him. He should have left me alone. Coming after me like he did was foolish. One man, bearer of a black staff or not, is no match for so many.” He leaned forward. “I knew he was coming, you know. I left someone on watch in the pass, just in case. The old man walked right into the trap I set for him.”

He stopped talking, looking down at his hands. “It was all for nothing. He died for nothing.”

Pan kept his gaze lowered. “He kept you from escaping, didn’t he?”

Arik Siq raised his hands to his face and wiped away a streak of dirt mixed with blood. “To what end? Another of the Drouj went on without me to give my report. My father already knows everything about the valley. He probably marches on the pass at Aphalion right now. Stopping me accomplished nothing. You are as stupid as you look.”

Pan finished tying off the leather binding and held it up for the Drouj to examine. “There you are. As good as new.” He pulled the boot back on, testing his weight on the sole, walking around a few paces before reseating himself. He gave Arik Siq a smile. “Your father doesn’t know anything. No one made it out to tell him. Your companions all died at the head of the pass. I saw it all; I was watching.”

The Troll went silent, looking off into the dark. “Others will come looking for me. You don’t have that old man to protect you now. How will you save yourself when they catch up to you?”

Pan studied him a moment, and then he reached down for the staff and held it up for the other to examine. “With this,” he said.

He caught a glimpse of surprise in the other’s yellow eyes, a surprise that was reflected in his blunt features, as well. It was only there for an instant, but Pan didn’t miss it.

“Those others you think might be coming to rescue you,” he said, “had better hope they don’t catch up to me.”

Arik Siq’s features hardened. “You’re a boy! How old are you? Fifteen, maybe? How well do you think you can control the magic of that staff? You don’t even know how to use it, do you? That old man didn’t teach you anything. You know just enough to get yourself killed. Which is what will happen, soon enough.”

Pan nodded. “Not soon enough to save you, however. Your father will come for you or come for whatever he thinks is inside this valley
or come because he can’t help himself. But we will be waiting for him. All of us who live in this valley—we will be waiting for him. We will trap him in the passes or on the open slopes or wherever we find him, and we will cut him and all those with him to pieces.”

He pointed at the Drouj with the tip of his staff. “And you’ll be right there to watch it all if anything happens to Prue.”

“Boy, I will skin you alive myself!” Arik Siq sneered. “You will beg for me to kill you before I am finished!”

Panterra Qu climbed to his feet, tossing aside the remains of his repair work. “Get up. We’re going for a long walk, so you better save your strength. You might be the one begging before we get to where we’re going.”

They set out for the valley floor, Panterra leading the Drouj by the length of chain, which he had removed from the other’s ankles and tightened in a rough slipknot about his neck. The boy walked just fast enough that his prisoner, encumbered by the chain and the ropes about his wrists and shoulders, had to struggle to keep up. Arik Siq trudged along with his head lowered and his eyes on the path, forced to keep close watch on where he put his feet so he wouldn’t trip. Dawn had not yet broken, and the land lay under a gloomy shroud of clouds and mist. Morning was only a thin silver line, jagged and washed out, behind the craggy summits of the mountain peaks east, and the air was thick with cold and damp. Panterra was used to it; his life as a Tracker had trained him to tolerate the cold. But his prisoner, for all that he had the armor of his bark-like skin to protect him, did not seem happy.

“Swing those arms while you walk,” Pan offered cheerfully. “It will help keep you warm.”

The other man did not reply, and the boy immediately regretted saying anything to him. Taunting him was not going to do anything to help the situation; there was more at stake here than taking pleasure from making the Drouj feel as miserable as possible. In the end, he might need Arik Siq’s help in making an exchange for Prue. He was already thinking ahead to how that might happen, but the details remained fuzzy and uncertain in his mind.

“If you set me free, I give you my word that the girl will be returned safely,” his prisoner said suddenly.

Pan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“How will you free her otherwise? You can’t simply walk out of the valley and ask my father to do it, can you? If you take me, he’ll just kill us both. You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s like. Remember that story I told you about the Karriak being my people? About how I was the son of their Maturen given in exchange for Taureq’s eldest? You know now that it was a lie, that I made it up to gain your trust. But this much isn’t a lie. The Karriak were all killed by my father, annihilated in retaliation for their refusal to accept him as their leader. Even their Maturen, who was his cousin.” He paused. “Just so you understand. He won’t bargain. He won’t even trouble himself to hear you out. He won’t waste the time. He’ll simply kill us both and be done with it.”

“He won’t kill you. It would be pointless.”

“Not to his way of thinking. He’ll kill me because I’ve failed him.”

They were silent for a time, walking ahead toward the dawn, watching the light in the east grow brighter and the shadows begin to fade. Ahead, the trees of the forest that filled the west end of the valley slowly took on definition through the gloom, strange sentries in the wash of the morning’s misty damp.

“How much of the rest of that story was true?” Pan asked finally.

For a moment, the other man didn’t say anything. “All of it. Except that it wasn’t about my people—it was about theirs, the Karriak. They were the descendants of the ones called Panther and Cat, the boy and girl who came east with the Hawk to escape the aftermath of the Great Wars. I heard the story from the Karriak when I was visiting with them. They were proud of it, of their heritage. Little good that it did them.”

Panterra thought about it, saying nothing. “What do you care?” Arik Siq asked. “Who your people were matters hardly at all. Who they are now is what matters. Who
you
are.”

“Your history is sometimes a way of understanding your present,” Pan replied. “You are your history.”

The other snorted. “No wonder I was able to trick you so easily. You don’t understand anything. The past is nothing. The past is a world that’s dead and gone. All those tales about the one called Hawk and his Ghosts, all that nonsense about the valley and the chosen—it doesn’t mean anything.” He stopped suddenly, causing Pan to turn. “Your people
will go the way of the Karriak. The Drouj will wipe you out. That is what the past has to teach you, boy. You aren’t strong enough to survive us. You don’t deserve to live.”

Panterra yanked on the chain in irritation. “You don’t get to make that decision. Not you or your father or any of the Drouj. Now shut your mouth and keep walking.”

Arik Siq lowered his head and went silent. For the remainder of the time left to them before reaching their destination, neither spoke again.