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. It
could cast light at a word of command, Palin recalled. According
to legend, however, no hand but his uncle's could touch the staff or
the light would extinguish.
"But my father held it," Palin said softly. "He used it-with my
dying uncles help-to close the Portal and prevent the Dark Queen
from entering the world. Then the light went out and nothing
anyone said could make it glow again."
But it was glowing now. . . .
His throat aching, his heart beating so it made him short of
breath, Palin reached out a trembling hand toward the staff. If the
light failed, he would be left alone, trapped, in the smothering
darkness.
His fingertips brushed the wood.
The light gleamed brightly.
Palin's cold fingers closed around the staff, grasping it firmly.
The crystal burned brighter still, shedding its pure radiance over
him, his white robes glowed molten silver. Lifting the staff from
its corner, Palin looked at it in rapture and saw, as he moved it,
that its beam grew concentrated, sending a shaft of light into a
distant corner of the laboratory-a corner that had previously
stood in deepest darkness.
Walking nearer, the young man saw the light illuminate a heavy
curtain of purple velvet hanging from the ceiling. The tears froze
on Palin's face, a chill shook his body. He had no need to pull the
golden, silken cord that hung beside the velvet, no need to draw
aside those curtains to know what lay behind
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