Bearers of the Black Staff - Terry Brooks [156]
“What about the young man from Glensk Wood that you seem so fond of?” her grandmother suggested suddenly.
Phryne hesitated. “I don’t know. That feels like spying.”
“It might help alleviate your concerns for him. Of course, you could seek out the girl instead.”
“No!” Phryne said quickly. She did not care to know about Prue Liss just yet. “I’ll look for Panterra.”
She stretched out her hand, fingers closing about the Elfstones, arm directed southward, in the direction Pan had gone. She closed her eyes to help with focusing her thoughts, picturing the boy in her mind, seeing his face clearly. She willed the Elfstones to show him to her, to reveal his location. She did not press herself, deciding that if the magic was meant to work, it should come easily. She still did not trust what the magic would do. She still was uncertain about its effects. Her grandmother had said nothing that suggested she was in any danger, but Mistral Belloruus had a habit of keeping things to herself.
“Relax, Phryne,” her grandmother whispered to her.
She did so, loosening her muscles and going inward to where Panterra’s face wafted in the darkness of her thoughts. She floated close to the image, searching for the real thing.
Abruptly, she felt the Elfstones warm within her hand, causing her to open her eyes in surprise and look down. Brilliant blue light seeped from between her fingers, flashing outward in slender streamers that were as blinding as new sunlight. She kept her thoughts on Panterra, watching the light coalesce and then lance outward through the trees and into the distance. She saw it pierce time and space and substance in a tunnel of light that reached for miles beyond where she stood to find the boy from Glensk Wood.
All of a sudden there he was. Panterra Qu. He stood within the high rock walls of a pass in the midst of other workers, all of them engaged in the building of defensive bulwarks meant to span the opening and provide protection against invaders. He was at Declan Reach, she realized, high up in the pass, gone to help with the fortifications.
He was there just long enough for her to be certain of where he was and what he was doing, and then the light from the Elfstones vanished, the image disappeared, and she was back beside her grandmother, standing in the trees beyond her gardens.
She opened her fingers and peered down into her palm where the Elfstones lay twinkling. There was no damage to her skin. There was no pain. She checked herself carefully, wanting to be certain. She had not been harmed.
But something had been done. A rush of exhilaration was flooding through her body, sweeping from head to foot and back again, a sense of warmth and excitement mingling with something she could not define. A satisfaction, perhaps. A glory. It roiled within her like an adrenaline infusion, yet it was unlike anything she had experienced before. She closed her fingers over the Elfstones once more and looked down at her hands as she tucked them close against her body, not wanting her grandmother to see what was happening. But it was useless, she knew. Mistral Belloruus would have tested the Elfstones herself. She would already have tasted what her granddaughter was experiencing.
She looked up again quickly and saw the knowledge reflected in her grandmother’s eyes. “Now you know,” the old lady whispered.
Phryne handed the Elfstones back, quickly pressing them into her grandmother’s hands. “I know. But it doesn’t change my mind. The magic belongs to my father. He is capable of handling it much better than I am.”
“You are wrong about that, child,” the old woman answered.
“You can’t know that if you haven’t given him a chance to discover it for himself. You owe him that. You did this for me; now you have to do it for him. Then you can make a decision.”
“Would you accept such a decision, once made?” Her grandmother waited for her to answer, and when she didn’t, said, “I thought not. So what is the point of doing what you ask?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you think you mean.