Bearers Of The Black Staff Part 20

"Grandmother?" she called out.

"Bedroom!" her grandmother's voice came back, much too strong and abrupt for anyone thinking about dying.

Phryne walked down the hallway and past several rooms to the very back of the house and the chamber in which her grandmother slept. She remembered everything about the house, even though she had not visited for so long, the details familiar enough that she might have left only a day or so earlier. Ancient tapestries and paintings hung from the walls, much of it her grandmother's work. Furniture gleamed with fresh polish, and colorful throws were draped over chair backs and arms. Crystal glittered from a cabinet here; china plates and saucers with intricate patterns rested upright in small grooves notched in the shelves of a hutch there.

A cat wandered by. Crazy Orange, her grandmother called it, a tiger with white feet and a white blaze on its forehead. It never looked at her, on its way to finding better things to do, Phryne supposed.

She found her grandmother propped up in bed, dressed in her good clothes, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her gray hair was pinned up, the wrinkles in her skin powdered over, and her lips painted. She looked younger than her years. Except for lacking a smile, she would have been almost pretty.

"You look very nice, girl," she declared. "I think the colors suit you. Sit over there." She motioned to a chair next to the bed.

Phryne sat. "Are you well, Grandmother?"

"As opposed to what? I am ninety-five years old, well into middle age and looking at the downside of my life. But yes. I am well enough. And you? How are you? Other than lacking a certain respect for your elderly grandmother, a failing that apparently requires no visible remorse for your failure to visit me, how are you?"

Phryne flushed. "I deserve that. I apologize. I should have come before, but I always seem to become distracted when thinking to do so. It is not an attractive habit."

"No, it certainly isn't. But then you make up for it in other ways, so why don't we let all that go. The past is the past, over and done with. Most of it, anyway. How is your father?"

"Well." She hesitated. "He is preoccupied at present with matters of court."

Mistral Belloruus laughed. "Is that how you would put it? 'Preoccupied with matters of court'? You need to work on your language skills, Phryne. Your father is facing the most dangerous moment of the past five hundred years. The valley's protective walls have collapsed, the pa.s.ses are open, monsters of a sort we haven't seen since we came here have appeared from the outside world, and a Troll army threatens. I should hope he is-if nothing better-preoccupied!"

Phryne stared. "How do you know all this? It hasn't been told to anyone. Not even the Elven Hunters who travel north to Aphalion Pa.s.s to build the barricades know as much. Only Father and the High Council know. How is it that you've found out?"

Her grandmother smiled and shook her head in what Phryne took to be an expression of disbelief. "You know so little about me, girl. After all these years, still so little. I have eyes and ears everywhere; that's how I know. An old woman doesn't learn much without them. Mine are among the sharpest and most dependable. Remember that when you think of misbehaving again. Some tea, perhaps, before we speak further? Farsimmon! Bring tea, if you please. Even if you don't please, bring it anyway."

Nothing more was said until the old man from the front porch appeared bearing a silver tray with tea service. Solemnly, he poured cups for each of them, bowed to each, and departed.

"A sweet man," Mistral offered when he was out of hearing. "Enamored of me from the moment he laid eyes on me. He never got over the fact that I chose another over him. But now here he is, all these years later."

Phryne took the flowers from the basket she had carried in and handed them to her grandmother, who beamed with obvious pleasure as she cradled them in her arms. Beautiful, she p.r.o.nounced them. Phryne found a vase, helped her grandmother arrange the flowers, added water from a pitcher, and set the vase on a bedside table.

She reseated herself. "You should be sitting outside, Grandmother. The air is warm and sweet. It's a nice day to be in the sun."

"I imagine it is. But it's better that we keep this conversation to ourselves." The old woman set down her teacup and looked at Phryne. "I mentioned your misbehavior a moment ago, and you didn't blink an eye. Did you hear me?"

Phryne nodded. "I heard."

"You set out with the Orullian brothers and two outlanders from a village south of Aphalion Pa.s.s, ostensibly on a tracking exercise, but actually to discover if what you had been told by Sider Ament about the collapse of the protective wall was true. While there, you encouraged your companions to leave the protection of the pa.s.s to go out into the world beyond, then encouraged the boy and the girl who were guests to investigate a campsite, which in turn got them captured by Lizards. Excuse me, Trolls-not Lizards. You got the boy back-or rather, he got himself back-but the girl is still a prisoner. That is why your father is barely speaking to you and you are confined to the city. Does that sum things up?"

Phryne started to offer an explanation, but thought better of it and simply nodded.

Her grandmother shook her head and folded her hands in her lap. "I expect better things of you than this, Phryne. Using your status as an Elven Princess, your father's only child, to gain traction over others, especially guests, is unacceptable. Yours must always be the voice of reason and propriety, not the voice of impetuous and foolish impulse. You are a girl becoming a woman, but you are not there yet. You will get there more quickly and smoothly if you question your choices before acting on them."

"Grandmother ..."

"Please don't try to contradict me or offer excuses. That would make me very sad. You've made a mistake; learn from it. Your father needs you to do that. He relies on you to be his daughter, not some wild child. Your mother would have taught you better and done so earlier, but we've lost her. You may have noticed that I have taken it upon myself to fill her considerable shoes. Your father does much less than he needs to when it comes to your upbringing. He does little enough about many things, as it happens. So I am telling you now. Pay attention to yourself. It is important. These are dangerous times, and they may well become much more dangerous before things settle down again. You must act accordingly."

Phryne took a deep breath, fighting down her embarra.s.sment and irritation at being lectured. "I understand, Grandmother."

"What you mostly understand is how angry you feel when I talk to you like this. But there is no one else who will do so, and I think that someone must." A tight smile flitted across her thin lips. "Enough of this. Let's leave things where they lie for now. Tell me about your work with the healers. Was this your father's idea?"

Phryne nodded. "He says I must work there until he decides he is through being angry with me. I think maybe he put me there so that Isoeld can keep an eye on me. She seems uneasy enough about my being there."

"You don't like her much, do you?"

"Not much." Phryne hesitated. "But maybe I'm not being fair. She spoke to me the other day-confronted me, is more like it. She said I was being unfair and should think better of her. She said all the rumors were lies and she loves my father." She shook her head doubtfully. "I think maybe I am being unfair."

"Do you?" her grandmother asked, c.o.c.king an eyebrow. "Poor little Isoeld, the dutiful wife and caregiver, so misunderstood, so slandered. I never liked that woman, and I never will. Would you like to know why, Phryne? You won't like what I have to tell you, but at least you will know the truth of things."

"I don't already know the truth?"

"Not enough of it. I've waited too long as it is to speak to you of this, but I kept thinking you would come to see me on your own. Besides, it didn't matter, so long as you were unaffected. I think that might be about to change. So I called you here to set you straight. Doing so may point out, as well, why you need to be more steady in your behavior."

Phryne nodded. "All right. Tell me, then."

Her grandmother took a moment to measure her, looking for something that would reveal her. Not finding it, she shrugged and said, "You should trust your instincts more and your heart less. You might want to think better of your father's new wife, but you would be making a mistake by doing so. She is everything the rumors suggest and worse. She has taken the first minister as a lover, and there were others before him. She connives against and manipulates your father, and she has done so from the moment she met him and saw that he was smitten with her. She might be a simple baker's daughter from a tiny village, but her ambitions are in no way limited by the circ.u.mstances of her birth."

Phryne exhaled sharply, shocked and appalled, but also oddly satisfied to discover that she had been right all along. All those pretty words and protestations of innocence-nothing but lies. "But how do you know this, Grandmother?"

"My spies tell me. Old people can go anywhere and be barely noticed. It is both a curse and an advantage. The gentlemen who wait upon me have given me an all-too-thorough report of your stepmother's activities. They are many and various and most do nothing to honor her marriage vows or support your father. You mentioned that she seemed uncomfortable in your presence at work? That has nothing to do with spying on you for your father. It has everything to do with the inconvenience you cause her. By being so near and so attentive, you prevent her from slipping away to her secret meetings with Teonette. You hinder her efforts to be with him, girl. The sooner you are gone back to your old life, forgiven by your father, the sooner she can resume her cheating. Won't you both be happy then!"

Phryne felt her face darken. "If this is true ..."

She trailed off as her grandmother raised one aged hand. "When you leave, drop by the first minister's chambers on some pretext or other. See what happens."

"Because I am gone to visit you, she goes to visit him?"

"Just do as I say. Reach your own conclusions afterward." She lowered her hand and closed her eyes. "I have to rest now. So you can do what I suggest without further delay. But listen. We are not finished, Phryne. There is something more. Something rather important. I will need to see you again. Can you come back for another visit? Without telling anyone, even your father. I wouldn't tell him about your visit today, either. If you were thinking of doing so, which I expect you were. What you choose to say to your stepmother is your own choice. But leave your father out of it."

Phryne stood up, walked over to her grandmother, bent down and kissed one cool cheek. "I should have come sooner. I am sorry about that. I didn't like hearing all the things you told me, but I guess I needed to. I promise to think about everything you said. I do."

Mistral Belloruus took Phryne's hands in her own. "You are your mother's daughter and my granddaughter, and you are everything we could have asked for. Maturity will come. Wisdom will be gained. You are a special child, and I love you."

When Phryne pa.s.sed back through the doorway leading out of the cottage and went down the porch steps, she kept her head lowered so that the old man sitting in the chair, rocking slowly, would not see her tears.

PHRYNE WASTED NO TIME after leaving her grandmother, making her way back through the woods and along the paths and roadways toward the Council hall and the chambers of the ministers. She could not stop thinking about what her grandmother had told her of Isoeld. All the anger and disdain she had felt earlier for her stepmother, all that she had thought she might be able to let go of, surfaced anew, white-hot and razor-sharp. She had not wanted to believe any of the rumors; she had wanted to dismiss them as lies. When Isoeld had confronted her, she had felt shame and embarra.s.sment at her suspicious behavior. She had wanted to be wrong.

Now what she wanted was something else entirely.

She detoured to the healing center long enough to confirm what she already suspected was true. Isoeld was not there. She had gone home early, fatigued and not feeling well. She worked so hard and cared so much for the sick and injured, the healer to whom Phryne spoke said in quiet praise. It was just too much for her. You can tell she is fragile.

Phryne kept her thoughts to herself and her mouth shut.

She entered the Council chambers and made her way down the hall past closed doorways to the offices of the first minister. When she arrived, she found those doors closed as well, but she put her ear to the door, listened to the silence, and then knocked anyway. Nothing. She waited a moment and knocked again, louder and more insistent. Again, nothing. She stood there, undecided for a few minutes longer, and then turned away. She felt an odd mix of disappointment and relief. Maybe her grandmother was wrong after all.

She left the Council hall and walked back across the grounds of the palace toward her home, pondering. She was almost there, approaching through the gardens, when she saw the door to the toolshed open and Isoeld appear. Carefully, Phryne took one step back behind the screen of a clematis trellis, where she stood perfectly still. Her stepmother glanced about, not seeing Phryne as she did so, and then closed the shed door and walked toward the house in a relaxed but purposeful fashion, brushing back her long blond hair.

Phryne waited where she was, unmoving.

Several minutes pa.s.sed. Nothing happened. She waited some more. Then the door to the shed opened a second time, and the first minister stepped through. Phryne experienced a sudden, almost uncontrollable urge to scream out, to rid herself of the sudden rush of feelings. She wanted to fling herself on Teonette and choke the life out of him. She wanted to hurt him so badly he would beg for forgiveness.

But instead, she kept silent and waited until he was walking away, moving back toward the Council hall and the trellis behind which she hid, and when he was almost on top of her, she stepped in front of him.

"Good day, First Minister," she greeted him brightly.

Teonette, tall and handsome in a sharp sort of way, was visibly startled. His dark eyes fixed on her with mingled disbelief and shock. "Princess, ah ... good day to you, as well." He took a steadying breath. "Have you been working in the garden?"

Trying to find out what she had seen. She gave him a smile. "No, I was just returning from a visit and stopped to admire the clematis. And you, First Minister? Admiring the flowers in our gardens?"

The tall man's smile was rigid and uncomfortable. "No, just picking up something from the house for your father. Some papers."

He did not offer to show them, and she did not ask to see them. What was the point? Instead, she nodded as if this were all perfectly understandable and started to turn away.

"Oh," she said suddenly, turning back. "You have something at the corner of your mouth. A smear of color. Are you bleeding?"

Teonette's hand flew to his mouth, rubbing quickly. But when he looked at his fingers, there was nothing there. Phryne smiled brightly when he looked back her. "I think you got it, First Minister. Good day to you."

And she sauntered away, humming to herself.

TWENTY-THREE.

WHEN THE OLD MAN RETURNS, ONLY A WEEK has pa.s.sed, and yet to the boy it looks as if his mentor has aged a lifetime. He is grayer than before, weary around the eyes, and sad to the bone. The boy doesn't need to ask if the old man's visit was successful. He can tell at once that it was not.

"He would not heed me," the old man tells him. "He barely listened to my advice and did not give even the smallest indication that what I said mattered. He smiled and changed the subject and without saying so dismissed me as surely as if I were no longer relevant."

The old man shakes his head. "He has gone too far inward in his mind. He no longer sees the world as it is or even himself as he has become. He no longer understands what it means to carry the staff. He has forgotten the oath he took and the cause he embraced. He does not say so; he gives no hint of this. But it is there in his distancing, in the small span of his attention, and in his look. I cannot reach him."

"What will happen now?" the boy asks.

The old man pauses, looking down at his hands and at the black staff he carries. "Nothing we can prevent," he answers finally.

He says nothing more after that. The boy thinks to ask him of the details of what happened, but he knows the old man does not wish to speak of it. They go back to things the way they were before the old man left. The old man returns to teaching and mentoring, and the boy returns to his studies. The days pa.s.s as they once did, and life settles back to what it was.

Until, on a day so bright and clear it suggests that the boundaries of the valley no longer exist and the layers of mist and clouds and rain have dissipated forever, the bearer of the other black staff, the one who would not listen, comes to find them.

The boy and the old man are sitting on a hillside looking out over the valley, talking anew of the way that the power of the staff can alter the bearer's thinking, a subject that seems to be ever present in the thoughts of the boy's mentor these days. Power corrupts, and if not watched carefully, if not kept under control, it will come to dominate the user. This is the risk of wielding it; it is always a danger to the bearer. Caution is necessary, even in the smallest usages, because the power of the staff's magic is an elixir that will build within the body and break down all resistance. Tolerance is possible, but a ready welcoming of the feeling it generates is anathema. It may not seem that there is any danger, especially in times like these, when use of the power is so seldom required. But an understanding of what it means to invoke the staff's power will help keep the bearer safe and alive.

The old man finishes, looks off into the distance toward a forest down the hillside from where they have climbed, and gets to his feet.

"He is here," he says.

At first, the boy does not know who he means. But seconds later a figure emerges from the trees, a gaunt specter bearing a black staff, and there is no longer any question. The Elf has the look of a man returned from the dead, clothes ragged and dirty, features scratched and bruised, shoulders bent as if he bears the weight of his own tomb. The boy stares in disbelief for a moment, not quite able to grasp yet what this unexpected appearance means. But his mentor already knows, and he is advancing to meet the other man, his own staff held at port arms before him.

"Greetings, brother!" shouts the tattered Elf, his voice as ragged and worn as the rest of him. He seems casual and relaxed, an old friend come to visit. But the boy senses instinctively that this isn't so.

"I am not your brother," his mentor replies. "Don't call me that. Why are you here?"

"Because I've done what I said I would do? Surely you didn't think I was lying!"

The old man shakes his head slowly. "No, I never thought that. I hoped you might instead come to your senses. I even warned the King, as I told you I would. It wasn't enough, apparently. Why don't you stop where you are?"

He makes it a command, and the Elf stops. "Nothing you could have done would have been enough, brother. Warning the King only made it harder than it might have been otherwise. But this was a test I sought. I needed to see if I was strong enough, to discover if my power was great enough. I was, and it was. Dozens of dead Elves would attest to this if they could speak from whatever resting place they've found. They came at me in waves once their King was dead. They came at me with everything they had, but it wasn't enough to stop me. So here I am."

"Do you believe yourself strong enough to kill me, as well?"

"I've come to find out."

The boy goes cold at these words and immediately searches for a weapon. But he carries none. There is no need when he is with his mentor, who is a match for anything. Except, perhaps, this time. The boy rises, prepared to do whatever he can to help.

"Your pup would defend you, brother," the Elf says lightly, happily. He almost laughs. "I think I must kill him, as well. I wouldn't want him to come looking for me later, should he be rash enough to do so after I've finished with you. Revenge is such a tiresome business."

"If revenge is so tiresome, you must be weary, indeed," the old man says, shifting the black staff in his hands. "Why come searching for me, seeking my death, if revenge is all you expect to find?"

The Elf c.o.c.ks his head and thinks on it a moment. "Revenge is not what I seek by killing you, brother. Peace of mind is what I seek. If you are gone and I alone remain, who is left to challenge me? I can be whatever I wish once you are dead. I can be leader of all the Races and reshape the world in whatever ways I see fit."

"You lie even to yourself." The old man's words are so soft they are almost inaudible. "You care nothing for peace of mind. You are here because I would not join you. You seek to make me suffer for refusing your offer. I would not partner with you in your cause, and so now you would make me pay the price for my temerity."

The Elf's features tighten and his face undergoes a sudden transformation, changing from calm to tense, mirroring rage and frustration and despair all at once, emotions he has kept bottled up inside but now break free. He shifts the black staff in the same way the old man did only moments earlier.

"Shall we find out who shall be judged right and who wrong?" he asks. "Shall we settle this?"

The old man does not reply. "Stay where you are," he says over his shoulder to the boy, his voice soft enough that his enemy cannot hear his words. "Don't try to help me. Don't interfere."

The boy has been taught to obey the old man and not question his directives. But this time he does not think he can do so. He cannot sit by and let his mentor be killed if he can do anything to stop it. He does not like what he sees and hears in the voice of the Elf. He thinks that the old man is in danger. How can he ignore this?

The old man has turned back to face the Elf, who is advancing on him once more. "Do not do this," he says. "We are the last of our kind, the last who bear the staff. Think what-"

But the runes carved into the dark length of the other's weapon are already flaring to life with the power of the Word's magic, and abruptly white fire lances out at the old man. He blocks the strike with magic of his own, but the force of the attack knocks him back two steps. The Elf's laughter is high and shrill as he comes on, the magic preceding him in a steady stream, as if water jetting from a pump. There seems to be no end to it, its power undiminished by loss of either strength or determination in the bearer. The old man has taught the boy that usage of the magic in any single situation is finite, that the supply is not inexhaustible, that it must be expended judiciously. The strength and longevity of the Elf's attack seem to suggest otherwise.

The Elf screams suddenly, an explosion of sustained madness released in primal form, and the magic of his staff grows brighter and its force stronger. The old man is down on one knee, fighting to keep his balance while he fends off the killing attack. The boy, watching, begins to search the empty ground for anything at all that might help, any weapon that he can use.

His eyes settle on a rock that will just fit within the palm of his hand. He picks it up and starts forward.

"You are finished, brother!" the Elf shouts wildly as he sees the old man falter. "Your life is mine to take!"

The fire breaks through and begins to burn the old man. But the boy's mentor continues to fight back, and suddenly the killing fire falters-just a little, but enough that the boy notices. The old man struggles back to his feet, his staff erupting with white fire of its own, fire discharged in fits and starts that hammers into the Elf over and over. The Elf does not bother with defenses, his own attack commanding the whole of his attention. The fire from the old man's staff engulfs him. He screams in pain, but instead of falling under the withering a.s.sault, he rushes forward as the magic of his own staff reignites, slamming into the old man with crushing force.

The two stand within six feet of each other, the killing fires of each threatening to destroy the other.