Ilse Witch

25

“You disobeyed me, Bek,” the Druid said quietly, his voice so chilly the boy could feel the ice in it. “You were told not to leave the ship at night, and you did so anyway.”

They were alone in Redden Alt Mer’s cabin, where as many as nine of the company had gathered comfortably on more than one occasion during their voyage, but where on this morning it felt as if the Druid was taking up all the space and Bek was in danger of being crushed.

“The order I gave extended to everyone, yourself included. It was very clear. No one was to leave the ship without my permission. And particularly not to go into the castle.”

Bek stood frozen in front of the Druid, his hand outstretched, the third key held forth. Of all the possible reactions he had anticipated, this was not among them. He had expected to be chastised for his impetuous behavior, certainly. He had expected to be lectured on the importance of following orders. But all of his imagined scenarios ended with Walker expressing his gratitude to the boy for having gained possession of the key. There would be no need for another day of scavenging through the ruins and risking the safety of the ship’s company. There would be no more delays. With the third key in hand, they could proceed to their final destination and the treasure that waited there.

Bek saw no hint of gratitude in the Druid’s eyes as he stood before him now.

It had not occurred to him until he was back aboard ship that his plan to hand the key over to Walker in front of the other members of the ship’s company so that he could bask in the glow of their praise and be recognized at last as an equal would not work. If he gave the key to Walker in public, he would have to explain how he obtained it. That meant telling everyone about Truls Rohk, which Walker would certainly not appreciate, or about his own magic, which the shape-shifter had warned him not to do. He would have to present the key to the Druid in private and be satisfied with knowing that at least the ship’s leader appreciated his value to the expedition.

But it didn’t look just now as if appreciation was high on Walker’s list of responses. He hadn’t even bothered to ask how Bek had obtained the key. The moment he saw it, held out to him just as it was now, he had gone black with anger.

He took the key from Bek’s hand, his dark eyes heavy on the boy, hard and piercing. Overhead, the members of the ship’s company were preparing for another day’s search, not yet advised that it would not be necessary to go ashore again. The sound of their movements across the decking rumbled through the cabin’s silence, another world away from what was happening here.

“I’m sorry,” Bek managed finally, his arm dropping back to his side. “I didn’t think that—”

“Truls Rohk put you up to this, didn’t he?” Walker interrupted, new fury clouding his angry features. Bek nodded. “Tell me about it, then. Tell me everything that happened.”

To his own astonishment, Bek did not do so. He told Walker almost everything. He told him how the shape-shifter had come to him and urged him to go with him into the castle ruins and bring out the key. He told him how Truls Rohk insisted they were alike and repeated the other’s strange story of his birth and parentage. He related their approach and entry into the castle, their discovery of the key, and their escape. But he left out everything about the magic the shape-shifter claimed Bek possessed. He made no mention of the way in which his voice seemed to generate this magic. He kept his discovery to himself, deciding almost without meaning to that this was not the time to broach the subject.

Walker seemed satisfied with his explanation, and some of the fire went out of his eyes and the ice out of his voice when he spoke again. “Truls Rohk knows better than to involve you in this. He knows better than to risk your life needlessly. He is impetuous and unpredictable, so his actions should not surprise me. But you have to use better judgment in these situations, Bek. You can’t let yourself be led around by the nose. What if something had happened to you?”

“What if it had?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He hadn’t intended to speak them, hadn’t planned to challenge the Druid in any way this morning, given his unexpected reaction to Bek’s recovery of the key. But the boy felt cheated of all recognition for his accomplishment and was angry now himself. After all, it wasn’t Truls Rohk who was leading him around by the nose so much as Walker.

“If I hadn’t come back,” he pressed, “what difference would it make?”

The Druid stared, a look of surprise in his dark eyes.

“Tell me the truth, Walker. I’m not here just because you needed another pair of eyes and ears. I’m not along just because I’m Quentin’s cousin.” He had gone too far to turn back, so he plowed ahead. “In fact, I’m not really his cousin at all, am I? Coran told me before I left that Holm Rowe didn’t bring me to him. You did. You told Coran his cousin gave me to you, but Truls Rohk said he pulled me from the ruins of my home and saved me from the dark fate of my family. His words. Who’s telling the truth about me, Walker?”

There was a long pause. “Everyone,” the Druid said finally. “To the extent they are able to do so.”

“But I’m not a Leah or a Rowe either, am I?”

The Druid shook his head. “No.”

“Then who am I?”

Walker shook his head anew. “I’m not ready to tell you that. You must wait a while, Bek.”

Bek kept his temper and frustration in check, knowing that if he gave vent to what he was feeling, the conversation would be over and his chance at discovering anything lost. Patience and perseverance would gain him more.

“It wasn’t by chance or coincidence that you contacted me on Shatterstone when the jungle had you trapped, was it?” he asked, taking a different approach. “You knew you could reach me with a mind-summons.”

“I knew,” the Druid acknowledged.

“How?”

Again, the Druid shook his head no.

“All right.” Bek forced himself to remain calm. “Let me tell you something I’ve been keeping from you. Something happened on the journey from Leah to Arborlon that I haven’t told anyone, not even Quentin. On our first night out, while we were camped along the Silver River, I had a nighttime visitor.”

Quickly, he related the events that surrounded the appearance of the King of the Silver River. He told him how the spirit creature had appeared as a young girl who looked vaguely familiar, then transformed into a reptilian monster, then into an old man. He repeated what he could remember of their conversation and ended by telling Walker of the phoenix stone. The Druid did not change expression even once during the tale, but his dark eyes revealed the mix of emotions he was feeling.

Bek finished and stood shifting his feet nervously in the silence that followed, half anticipating another attack on his lack of judgment. But Walker just stared at him, as if trying to figure him out, as if seeing him in an entirely new light.

“Was it really the King of the Silver River?” the boy asked finally.

The Druid nodded.

“Why did he come to me? What was his reason?”

Walker looked away for a moment, as if seeking his answers in the walls of the vessel. “The images of the young girl and the monster are meant to inform you, to help you make certain decisions. The phoenix stone is to protect you if those decisions prove dangerous.”

Now it was Bek’s turn to stare. “What sort of decisions?”

The Druid shook his head.

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

The Druid nodded.

“Are you mad at me for this, too?” Bek demanded in exasperation. “For not telling you sooner?”

“It might have been a good idea if you had.”

Bek threw up his hands. “I might have done so, Walker, if I hadn’t begun to wonder what I was really doing on this expedition! But once I knew you weren’t telling me everything, I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to tell you everything either!” He was shouting, but he couldn’t help himself. “I’m only telling you now because I don’t want to go another day without knowing the truth! I’m not asking that much!”

The Druid’s smile was ironic and chiding. “You are asking much more than you realize.”

The boy set his jaw. “Maybe so. But I’m asking anyway. I want to know the truth!”

The Druid was implacable. “It isn’t time yet. You will have to be patient.”

Bek felt himself flush dark crimson, his face turning hot and angry. All of his resolve to control himself vanished in a heartbeat. “That’s easy for someone to say who has all the answers. You wouldn’t like it so much if you were on the other end of this business. I can’t make you tell me what you know. But I can quit being your eyes and ears until you do! If you don’t trust me enough to share what you know, then I don’t see why I should do anything more to help you!”

Walker nodded, calm and unmoved. “That’s your choice, Bek. I will miss your help.”

Bek stared at him a moment longer, trying to think of what else to say, then gave it up and stalked from the room, slamming the cabin door behind him. There were tears in his eyes as he stomped back up on deck with the others.

Walker stayed where he was for a few moments, thinking through what had happened, trying to decide if he had made the right choice in not revealing what he knew. Eventually, he must. Everything depended on it. But if he told Bek too soon, if the boy was given too much time to dwell on it, he might be paralyzed by fear or doubt when it came time to act. It was better to keep the burden of it from him for as long as possible, even if it meant incurring his anger. It was better to leave him in ignorance awhile longer.

Yet he longed to reveal to Bek Rowe what he had known from the time of the boy’s birth and carried hidden inside all these years. He yearned to share what he had so carefully nurtured and protected so that it might find a purpose beyond his own selfish needs.

He looked down at the key in his hand, at the connecting ridges of metal and the flashing red light embedded in the power source. He had all of them now, all three keys, and there was nothing to stop him from gaining entrance to Castledown.

Nothing.

The word echoed in his mind, a bitter and terrifying lie. Of all the lies he fostered by concealing truths he alone understood, this was the most insidious. He closed his eyes. What could he possibly do to keep it from destroying them all?

He walked from the cabin up to the main decking and called everyone together. When they had gathered around him, he held up the third key and announced that with the invaluable aid of Bek Rowe he had recovered it during the night and brought it aboard. It was time to cast off and continue their journey to Ice Henge and the treasure.

Cheers rose from the company, and Bek was hoisted aloft on Furl Hawken’s burly shoulders and paraded around like a hero. The Elven Hunters saluted him with their swords, and Panax clapped him on the back so hard Bek was almost dislodged from his uncertain perch. Finally, Rue Meridian grabbed him by his shoulders and kissed him hard on the mouth. The boy grinned and waved in response, clearly pleased with the unexpected attention. Even so, he avoided looking at Walker.

Fair enough, the Druid thought. It’s them who will need you most and whose trust and respect you must earn.

Placing the third key inside his robes with the other two, he turned away.

The weather continued cold and brisk for almost a week as they traveled on toward Ice Henge, sailing crosswise against a north wind with the light sheaves reefed close and their course set to account for the push south and west. Coats and gloves cut the chill of the wind, but everyone felt it gnawing at their bones and thickening their blood, making them sluggish and ill-tempered. They ate and drank sparingly, conserving their supplies. No one knew how far this last leg of the trip would be, but the map indicated it was some distance and therefore would require a considerable amount of time.

After Mephitic, there were no further islands to be found, and the Rocs were forced to roost on makeshift wooden platforms that were constructed from spare lumber. The platforms were lashed to the Jerle Shannara’s pontoons by day and dropped into the sea and towed by night. Their progress slowed measurably as a result.

Bek continued his studies with Redden Alt Mer, feeling very much at home at the helm of the airship by now, able to navigate and steer without asking for help, comfortable that he knew what to do in most situations. When Quentin was training with the Elven Hunters, Bek spent his free time with Ahren Elessedil trading stories and life philosophies. All of them had changed in noticeable ways since they had set out, but no one more than Ahren Elessedil. It seemed to Bek that Ahren had grown physically, his body much tougher and stronger from his training, his fighting abilities now almost the equal of any man aboard. He had always seemed a quick learner, but Ard Patrinell had accomplished wonders with him nevertheless. He was still a boy like Bek, but newly confident in himself and less an outsider.

The same could not be said for Bek. Following his confrontation with Walker, he had retreated further inside himself, putting up walls and locking down hatches, persuaded that for the time being, the less accessible he was, the better. It was a decision fueled by his determination not to do anything to put himself back within Walker’s sphere of influence. He avoided the Druid very deliberately and kept to those few with whom he shared an established companionship—Quentin, Ahren, Panax, and Big and Little Red. He was friendly and outgoing still, but in a measured way, burdened with the secrets he was carrying and by the questions that haunted him. He thought on more than one occasion to share those secrets with someone, either Quentin or Ahren, but he could not make himself do so. What would it accomplish, after all? It would merely shift his burden to someone else without lightening his own load. No one could help him with what he needed to discover except the Druid. He knew he would simply have to wait Walker out, and it might take a very long time.

At the end of that first week out from Mephitic, the weather changed with the arrival of a warm front blown up from the south. The wind shifted, a wall of thick clouds rolled in, and the temperature rose. The clear, cold air disappeared before a wall of heavy mist and soft, damp wind, and all the colors of the world faded to gray. On the day of the front’s arrival, there were still sufficient gaps in the clouds to read the stars at night and set a course. By the second day, there were only glimpses of sky to be found. By the third day, the airship was enveloped completely. The sun was reduced to a bright spot in the sky overhead, then to a barely discernible hazy ball, and then to a faint wash that was everywhere and nowhere at once.

By the fourth day, only a brightening or darkening of the light measured the difference between day and night, and visibility was reduced to less than a dozen yards. Big Red had tried sailing out of this soup without success, and the Wing Riders had been forced to descend to the makeshift rafts to wait out the front’s passing. The Jerle Shannara was enveloped in swirling mist and impenetrable gloom.

Finally, Redden Alt Mer ordered the sails taken in completely and shut down the airship’s power. Unable to see anything, he was afraid that they might sail right into a cliff wall without realizing it was there. Better to wait this weather out, he declared, than to court disaster. Everyone accepted the news stoically and went about their business. There was no help for it, after all. It was unnerving, being unable to see anything—no sky, no sea, no colors of any sort. Not even the cries of seabirds or the splash of fish penetrated the blanket of gloom that enfolded them. It was as if they had been consigned to in-limbo existence. It was as if they were alone in the world. Men gathered at the railing and stared out at the gloom in silent groups, searching for something recognizable. Even the Rovers seemed disconcerted by the immensity of the fog. Off the coast of the Blue Divide and the Wing Hove, fog lasted only a day or two before the winds moved it along. Here, it seemed as if it might last forever.

The fourth day dragged into the fifth and sixth with no change. It had been almost a week since they had seen anything but the airship and each other. The silence was becoming unnerving. Efforts at livening things up with music and song seemed only to exacerbate the problem. As soon as the playing and singing stopped, the silence returned, thick and immutable. The Rover crew had nothing to do while the ship was at rest. Even the training sessions for the Elven Hunters had been shortened as everyone began to spend more and more time staring off into the void.

It was on the sixth night, while Bek and Quentin stood at the aft railing talking about the mist that periodically enveloped the Highlands of Leah, that the boy heard something unfamiliar break the silence. He stopped talking at once, motioning Quentin to be quiet. Together, they listened. The sound came again, a kind of creaking that reminded Bek of the ship’s rigging working against spars and cleats. But it did not come from the Jerle Shannara. It came from somewhere behind her, off in the mist. Baffled, the cousins stared at each other, then off into the gloom once more. Again they heard the noise, and now Bek turned to see if anyone else was aware of it. Spanner Frew was in the pilot box, his dark, burly form clearly visible as he stood looking over his shoulder at them. Redden Alt Mer had come on deck, as well, and was standing just below the shipwright, confusion mirrored on his strong face. A handful of others stood clustered about the railings on either side.

A long silence descended as everyone waited for some further sound to reach their ears.

Bek bent close to Quentin. “What do you think—?”

He gasped sharply and choked on the rest of what he was going to say. A huge black shape hove into view out of the mist, a massive shadow that materialized all at once and filled the whole of the horizon. It was right on top of them, so close that there was barely time to react. Bek stumbled back, dragging at Quentin’s arm as the black shape towered out of the gloom. Shouts of warning went up, and the shrill of a Roc rose above them. The cousins went backwards off the low rise of the aft deck and landed in a jarring heap below as the black shape struck the Jerle Shannara in a crash of metal and splintering of wood. The airship lurched and shuddered in response, and the air was filled with cries and curses.

Everything spiraled into instant chaos. Bek rolled to his feet to find the phantom shape locked against the Jerle Shannara’s aft battering rams and realized to his shock that he was looking at another airship. The impact of the collision had sent both ships spiraling in a slow, clockwise motion that made it difficult for Bek to keep his feet. One of the Rocs soared past him, lifting out of the gloom, a silent phantom that appeared and was gone again almost immediately.

Then something cloaked and hooded rose off the aft decking and lurched toward him. Bek stared at it in surprise, mesmerized by its unexpected appearance. He did not even have the presence of mind to reach for his weapons as it approached. He just stood there. The shape took form, and the dark opening of the hood lifted into the gray misted light to reveal a reptilian face dominated by lidless eyes and a twisted mouth. Clawed hands lifted toward him, gesturing.

“Little peopless,” the creature whispered.

Bek froze, terrified.

“Sstay sstill now,” it urged softly, hypnotically, and reached for him.

“No!” he cried out frantically.

He did so without thinking, solely in response to the danger. But he used his voice as he had that night on Mephitic when he had gone into the castle ruins with Truls Rohk, infusing it with the magic he had discovered there. He felt the force of his words strike at the creature, causing it to flinch with the impact.

Then Quentin was yanking him away and leaping into the creature’s path. The Sword of Leah cut through the darkness in a single, glittering stroke, severing the creature’s head from its body. The creature collapsed without a sound, and its blood sprayed everywhere.

Other creatures of the same look appeared at the railing of the phantom airship, crowding through the gloom and night to look down at them, the glint of their weapons visible. Shouts rose from the Rovers and Elves, and they surged out of the darkness behind the cousins, their own weapons drawn. A hail of missiles showered down off the other ship, and a few sent members of the Jerle Shannara to the deck, writhing in pain. Quentin pulled Bek behind a stack of boxes below the rise of the aft deck, yelling at him to stay down and cover himself up.

A moment later both airships lurched anew, and in a grinding of metal and a crunching of wood, unlocked and separated. Slowly, ponderously, the leviathans drifted apart, their occupants still gathered at the railings to stare silently across the void at each other, faceless shadows in the mist.

“Stations!” Redden Alt Mer roared from the pilot box.

Hands working furiously on the controls, he dropped the mainsail to gather what ambient light he could, unhooded the diapson crystals to give the airship power, and swung her about to face the gloom into which the other ship had disappeared. His Rover crew scattered across the decking to lock down the radian draws, and the Elven Hunters, weapons at the ready, dropped quickly into the fighting ports. Everyone was moving at once as Bek climbed back to his feet.

“What happened?” Bek tried to ask Quentin, but his cousin was gone as well.

With a quick glance at the fallen monster in front of him, Bek raced over to join Big Red. The Rover Captain was still shouting out instructions, windburned face grim with determination as he searched the gloom. Bek looked with him. For just an instant, the other ship reappeared, huge and spectral in the night, three masts cutting through the mist, pontoons and decking slicing across the haze. Then it was gone again.

“That’s Black Moclips!” Bek heard Redden Alt Mer gasp in disbelief.

They searched for the other airship a while longer, but it was nowhere to be found. Walker appeared and ordered Alt Mer to have his men stand down. “Just as well,” Big Red muttered, half to himself, still shaken by what he had seen. “Fighting an air battle in this mess is a fool’s errand.”

The Elven Hunters had gathered about the fallen attacker to examine him, and Bek heard the word Mwellret whispered. He didn’t know what a Mwellret was, but he knew the thing that lay dead on the deck looked an awful lot like the monster the King of the Silver River had transformed into at their meeting months earlier.

Joad Rish was on deck looking after the wounded. He advised Walker that no one was badly injured. The Druid asked Big Red for a damage report and suggested the watch be increased from two men to four. Bek was standing close to him while an accounting was made, but they didn’t speak. It wasn’t until everyone had moved away and Redden Alt Mer had given back the helm to Spanner Frew, that Walker bent down to the boy on passing and whispered that Truls Rohk was missing.