Bearers of the Black Staff - Terry Brooks [109]
And right away, Panterra knew that something was amiss. For the Seraphic to be this calm suggested he was not altogether surprised to find them there, and that was troubling. No one should have known they were coming. No one should have been prepared for this.
But maybe it was simply the Seraphic’s discipline and training that allowed him to give this impression, and he was simply disguising his real feelings beneath a façade of apparent calm.
In any case, there was no time to find out. An argument between Aislinne and Pogue Kray was pushing everything else aside.
“I don’t like being deceived!” Pogue Kray snapped, his eyes flicking dark with anger. “Especially not by my wife! I expect better than that from her!”
“Any deception in this business exists only in your mind!” Aislinne replied quietly.
“Tricking me into this meeting does not count as deception?”
Sider Ament suddenly stepped between them. “Instead of attacking Aislinne, perhaps you would do better to listen to what I have to say.”
“Keep your opinions to yourself, Gray Man!” the other snapped, coming forward to meet him. “You and your black staff, thinking you can do whatever you wish. Think again! I don’t need to listen to anything you have to say, not now and not—”
“Perhaps it would suit you better if I simply left and you found out on your own that the protective wall you all believe in so strongly is broken and an army of thousands waits just on the other side of the pass at Declan Reach. Perhaps you would prefer to tell what’s left of your people after that army destroys the village, kills the men, and makes slaves of the women and children that this was all Aislinne’s fault. Perhaps they will understand your refusal to speak with me about it now. Perhaps. I won’t be there to find out, however. Come, Panterra.”
He pushed past Pogue Kray and moved toward the door. After a moment’s hesitation, a stunned Panterra followed in his wake.
“Sider, wait!” Trow Ravenlock moved to block his way. Smaller than the other, he stood defiantly in place before him. “Don’t go. Tell him to stay, Pogue.”
The big man stood frozen in place, silent.
“Tell him,” Skeal Eile advised quietly. He gathered his white robes closer about him and lifted his head slightly to emphasize his insistence. “This is no time for soothing your injured pride by acting the part of the child. We need to know what he’s talking about.”
Again, the voice of reason, and again Panterra felt the wrongness of it. But he avoided looking at the other, keeping his eyes averted.
Aislinne walked up to her husband, stood directly in front of him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I did what I thought needed doing to get all of you in this room. Now, please. Listen to Sider.”
Pogue Kray took a deep breath. “All right, Aislinne.” He turned about to find Sider facing him. “Speak, then. We will hear whatever you have to say on this.”
It cost him something to do that, and Panterra thought he paid it mostly because of what he felt for Aislinne. It might have cost Sider Ament something, as well, and it was Aislinne who had exacted the price from him, too.
“Here is what the boy and I know,” Sider began without preliminaries, still standing by the door, facing them. “We have been through the passes at Declan Reach and Aphalion and seen for ourselves that the protective walls are down. A handful of Elves went with us, and they know this, too. The outside world is open to us, and we are open to it. There are dangerous things out there, and some of them have already come into the valley, as the boy has told you. More of them are coming.”
Then he told them of the Troll army under Taureq Siq and of Panterra’s encounter of several days earlier, leaving out only the part about Prue’s capture. He simply told them that the boy, once it was discovered who he was and where he was from, was released to come back and ask for a meeting between the Maturen and the leaders of those