She put her hands inside of Bek’s clothing and touched his skin. She placed her fingers over his heart. Counting the beats in her head, she closed her eyes and dozed.
When she woke again, he was still sleeping. Overhead, the sky was lightening with the approach of dawn.
“It’s almost daylight,” she whispered in his ear, waking him.
He nodded into her shoulder. He was silent for a moment, shaking off the last of his sleep. She could feel his breath on her neck and the strength in his arms.
“When we get back to the Four Lands,” he began, and stopped. “When this is all over, and we have to decide where we—”
“Bek, no,” she said gently, but firmly. “Don’t talk about what’s going to happen later. Don’t worry about it. We’re too far away for it to matter yet. Leave it alone.”
He went silent again, pressed against her. She brushed back her hair where it had fallen into her face. His eyes followed the movement with interest, and he reached out to help. “I have to go down into the Crake,” he said. “I have to get Quentin’s sword back. I want it to be there for him when he wakes up.”
She nodded. “All right.”
“Will you look after Grianne for me while I’m gone?”
She smiled and kissed him on the lips. “I can’t, Bek.” She touched the tip of his nose. “I’m going with you.”
When she said it, Bek panicked. He kept the panic in check on the surface, but inside, where his emotions could pretty much do whatever they wanted to, he was a mess. All he could think about was how afraid he was for her, how frightened that something bad would happen. It had already happened to Quentin, and his cousin had at least had the protection of the Sword of Leah. Rue wore a splint on one arm and had no magic at all. If he agreed to let her come, he would be taking on the responsibility for both of them. He was not sure he wanted to do that right after failing Quentin so miserably.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” he told her, not sure what else to say that wouldn’t make her furious and even more determined.
She seemed to consider the merits of his objection, then smiled. “Do you know what I like most about you, Bek? Not how you look or think, not your laugh or the way you see the world, although I like those things, too. What I really like about you is that you don’t ever act as if I’m not just as good as everyone else. You take it for granted that I am, and you treat me with respect. I don’t have to fight you for that. I can expect it as a matter of course. I am your equal; I might even be a little better in some ways.” She paused. “I wouldn’t want to lose that.”
There was not much he could say to her after that. So he simply nodded and smiled back, and she kissed him hard to show that she appreciated his understanding. He liked having her kiss him, but it didn’t make him feel any better about taking her along.
But the issue was decided, so they slipped over the side of the ship and walked to the edge of the bluff, followed the precipice to the trailhead, and started down. It was light enough now that they could make out the shapes of the trees and the soft movement of leaves and branches in the slow morning wind. Bek cast about with his magic as they descended, taking no chances on being caught off guard, even if what he was doing somehow alerted the dead Graak’s mate. If the mate was anywhere close, he had already decided they would turn right around. Even Little Red couldn’t argue with that.
But fortune smiled on them, and they slipped into the Crake as invisible as wraiths. Bek used the magic of the wishsong to cloak them in the look and feel of the rain forest, choosing images and smells that would not attract a carnivore. Draped in trailers of mist and cooled by the morning wind, they slid through the trees with the ease and freedom of shadows, untroubled by the dangers that on this occasion were elsewhere. They found Quentin’s sword muddied but still in one piece beside the body of the dead Graak, retrieved it, and made their way back again. The sun was cresting the jagged line of mountains east when they began their climb back up the trail.
That was so easy, Bek thought in surprise as they regained the bluff. Why couldn’t it have been like that for Quentin? But then, of course, there would have been no reason for Grianne to come awake, and he would not have seen for himself that her responses to pain and suffering were no longer those of the Ilse Witch, but of his sister. He would not have discovered that maybe she could return to him after all when she was ready.
Rue Meridian turned to him, a mix of mischievousness and satisfaction mirrored in her green eyes. “Admit it. That wasn’t so bad.”
He shook his head and sighed. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Remember that the next time you think about doing something dangerous without me.” She reached out and took hold of the back of his neck with both hands and pulled him close to her. “If you love me, if I love you, there shouldn’t be any question of that ever happening. Otherwise, what we feel for each other isn’t real. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He shook his head. “Yes, it does. It means everything.”
She grinned, brushing loose strands of her long hair from her face. “I know. So don’t forget it.”
She picked up the pace and moved ahead of him. He stared after her, barely able to contain himself. In her words and smile, in everything she said and did, he saw a future that would transcend all his expectations of what he had ever imagined possible. It was only a dream, but wasn’t reality conceived in dreams?
His euphoria peaked and faded in a wash of doubt. It was foolish, he thought, to let himself think like this, to allow his emotions to cloud his reason. Look at where he was. Look at what had befallen him. Where, in all of this, did dreams like his belong? He watched Rue Meridian’s stride lengthen and as he did so, felt those dreams slip away, too frail to hold, too insubstantial to grasp. He was drawing pictures in the sand, and the tide was coming in.
When they reached the trailhead and walked back toward the Jerle Shannara, they found Redden Alt Mer and his Rovers gathered at the edge of the bluff, looking east. The Wing Riders were flying in from the coast, and they had someone with them.
When the Morgawr found that Ahren Elessedil was gone, he had Ryer Ord Star brought before him. She denied knowing anything about it, but she knew he could read the lie in her eyes and smell it on her breath. Already suspicious of their failure to find any trace of the Jerle Shannara and her crew or of the Ilse Witch and her brother, he wasted no time in deciding that the seer had helped the Elven Prince escape. Whatever usefulness she might have had, she had outlived it.
He gave her to Cree Bega and his Mwellrets, who stripped her naked and beat her savagely. They broke all her fingers and slashed the soles of her feet. They defiled her until she fainted. When she woke again, they hung her by her wrists from one of the yardarms, lashed her with a rawhide whip, and left her to bake in the midday sun. They gave her no water or clothing and did not treat her wounds. She hung ignored in a haze of pain and thirst that left her ravaged and delirious.
Only once did the Morgawr speak to her again. “Use your gift, little seer,” he advised, standing just below her, touching the wounds on her body with interest. “Find those I have asked you to find, and I will let you die quickly. Otherwise, I will make sure your agony endures until I find them myself. There are other things I can have done to you, things that will hurt much more than those you have already experienced.”
She was barely conscious when he spoke the words, but her reason was not yet gone. She knew that if she gave him what he wanted, if she told him where to find her friends, he would not kill her quickly as he had said, but would do to her what he had done to Aden Kett. He would want that experience, to feed on her mind, a seer’s mind, to see what that would feel like. The only reason he had not done so yet was because he was still hoping she would lead him to those he hunted. Damaging her so significantly would prevent her from giving him any further help. His hunger for her could wait a few days. He was patient that way.
The day drifted toward nightfall. The ropes that
held her suspended had cut her wrists almost to the bone. Blood streaked her arms and shoulders. She could no longer feel her hands. Her unprotected body was burned and raw from exposure to wind and sun and throbbed with unrelenting pain.
Her suffering triggered visions, some recognizable, some not. She saw her companions, both living and dead, but could not seem to differentiate between them. They floated in and out of her consciousness, there long enough for her to identify and then gone. Sometimes they spoke, but she rarely understood the words. She felt her mind going as her life drained out of her body, sliding steadily into an abyss of dark, merciful forgetfulness.
Walker, she called out in her mind, begging him to come to her.
Night descended, and the Mwellrets went to sleep, all save the watch and helmsman. No one came to her. No one spoke to her. She hung from the yardarm as she had all day, broken and dying. She no longer felt the pain. It was there, but it was so much a part of her that she no longer recognized it as being out of the ordinary. She licked her cracked lips to keep her mouth from sealing over and breathed the cool night air with relief. Tomorrow would bring a return of the burning sun and harsh wind, but she thought that perhaps by then she would be gone.
She hoped that Ahren was far away. The Morgawr and his airships had been searching for him all day without success, so there was reason to think that the Elven Prince had escaped. He would be wondering when she would join him, if she would come soon. But she had never intended to leave Black Moclips. Her visions had told her of her fate, of her death aboard this vessel, and she was not foolish enough to believe she could avoid it. Just as Walker had seen his fate in her visions long ago, so she had seen hers. A seer’s visions came unbidden and showed what they chose. Like those she advised, Ryer Ord Star could only accept what was revealed and never change it.
But what she had told the Elven Prince about himself and his own future was the truth, as well, a more promising fate than her own. His future awaited him in the Four Lands, long after she was gone, long after this voyage was a distant memory.
He would wonder what had become of her, of course. Or perhaps he would know when enough time had passed and she hadn’t appeared. He would never know how she had hidden the Elfstones from the Morgawr and the Mwellrets. That secret would remain hers. And Walker’s. She had been quick to take them from Ahren when he was felled in the attack, feigning concern for his injury, bending down to shield her movements. She had known she would be searched, and she had slipped the Stones into a crevice in the wall while the Mwellrets were still concentrating on Ahren. A simple ruse, but an effective one. Search her once, and the matter was settled. After that, she had needed only to get aboard Black Moclips before finding a new place of concealment. She had left the Stones hidden until it was time for Ahren to leave.
She would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she had thought of giving him the Stones earlier so that he could use them on his captors. But Ahren was new to the magic, and the Morgawr was old, too powerful to be overcome by any save an experienced hand. Only Walker would have stood a chance, and while she wanted to live as much as the next person, she was not prepared to risk Ahren’s life and fate on a gamble that would almost surely fail. She had sworn an oath to protect him, to do what she could to redeem herself for the harm she had caused while in the service of the Ilse Witch. No halfway measures were allowed in fulfilling that oath. She had much to atone for, and her death was small payment for her sins.
She lifted her head out of the tangle of her hair and tasted the night air on her lips. She wanted to die, but could not seem to. She wanted release from her pain, from her helplessness, but could not find it alone. She needed Walker to help her. She needed him to come.
She drifted in and out of half sleep, always aware that no true sleep would come, that only death would give her rest. She cried for herself and her failures, and she wished she could have grown to be a woman of some worth. In another time and place, in another life, perhaps that would happen.
It was during the deep sleep hours of early morning, the sky clear indigo and the stars a wash of brightness across the firmament, that he appeared at last, lifting out of the ether in a soft radiant light that bathed her in hope.
Walker, she whispered.
–I am here–
Ahren Elessedil flew north through the night after escaping Black Moclips, his only plan to get as far from the Morgawr as he could manage. He had no clear idea of where he was or where he should be trying to go. He knew he should be looking for a rain forest somewhere in the mountains, but there was no hope of doing that until it got light. He had the stars to guide him, although the stars were aligned differently in this part of the world and partially blocked by the spread of the single wing, so it was difficult to use his navigational knowledge.
Not that he was deterred by this. He was so grateful to be free that his euphoria made every potential problem save being captured again seem solvable. The single wing sped on without difficulty on the back of steady breezes off the Blue Divide. He had worried at first that he might have trouble keeping his carrier aloft, but it proved to be relatively easy to fly. The wing straps allowed him to bank to either side and change direction, and the bar that ran the length of the framework opened and closed vents in the canvas so that he could gain altitude or descend. So long as the winds blew and he stayed away from downdrafts and bad storms, he thought he would be all right.
He had time to think on his journey, and his thoughts were mostly of Ryer Ord Star. The more he mulled over her situation, the less happy he was. She was playing a dangerous game, and she had no way to protect herself if she was found out. Once the Mwellrets discovered he was missing, she would be the first person they would suspect. Nor was he convinced that she had a way to get off the ship if that happened. Was there a second single wing hidden somewhere aboard the airship? She had told him that she would follow later, but he wasn’t sure it was the truth.
He wished now that he hadn’t been so quick to accommodate her. He wished he had forced her to come with him, no matter what she thought Walker wanted from her. He had been so eager to get away that he hadn’t pressed the matter. He didn’t like what he remembered about the way she had looked at him at the end. It felt final—as if she already knew she wasn’t going to see him again.
She was a seer, after all, and it was possible that in one of her visions she had seen her own fate. But if she knew what was going to happen, couldn’t she act to prevent it? He didn’t know, and after a while he quit thinking about it. It was impossible for him to do anything to help until he found the others, and then maybe they could go back for her.
But in his heart, where such truths have a way of surfacing, he knew it was already too late.
The sun rose, and he flew on. New light etched the details of the land below, and he began to look for something he recognized. It quickly became apparent to him that his task was impossible. Everything looked the same from up there, and he didn’t remember enough about the geography from flying along the coast aboard the Jerle Shannara to know what to look for. He knew he should turn inland toward the mountains, but how far north should he fly before he did that? Ryer Ord Star had told him she was misdirecting the Morgawr at Walker’s request, so the coast was the wrong place for him to be. He should be searching for a rain forest. But where? He could see neither the beginning nor the end of the mountains that ran down the spine of the peninsula. Clouds blanketed the peaks and screened away the horizon, giving the impression that the world dropped away five miles in. He couldn’t tell how far anything went. He couldn’t even be sure of his direction without a compass.
He could try using the Elfstones. They were seeking stones, and they could find anything that was hidden from the naked eye. But using them would alert the Morgawr, and he had seen enough of the warlock’s abilities to know that he could follow magic as a hunter did tracks. Using the Elfstones might bring the warlock down on his friends, as well, should he manage to find th
em. He didn’t think he wanted to bear the responsibility for that, no matter how desperate his own situation.
The sun brightened, and the last of night’s shadows began to fade from the landscape. The air warmed, but was still cold enough that he wished he was wearing something warmer. He hunched his shoulders and turned the single wing farther inland, away from the chilly coastal breezes. Maybe he would spy the rain forest and his friends if he just gave himself a little more time.
He gave himself the entire day, spiraling inland in ever widening sweeps, searching the sky and ground until his head ached. He found nothing—no sign of the Jerle Shannara or his friends or a rain forest. He saw barely anything moving, and then only a few hawks and gulls, and once a herd of deer. As the day lengthened and the sun began to slip west, his confidence started to fail. He swept further into the mountains, but the deeper in he went the more confusing things became. He had been flying for eighteen hours with nothing to eat or drink, and he was beginning to feel light-headed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. If he didn’t find something soon, he would have to land. Once he did that, he wasn’t sure he could get airborne again.
He stayed in the air, flying into the approaching darkness, stubbornly refusing to give up. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to see at all. If he didn’t land, he would have to fly all night because it was too cloudy for the moon and stars to provide enough light for him to try to set down. Soon, he would have to use the Elfstones. He would have no choice.
He rolled his shoulders and arched his back to relieve the strain of holding the same position for so long. Dusk settled over the land in deepening layers, and still he flew on.
He had almost decided to give it up when the Shrikes found him. He was far enough inland that he wasn’t expecting them, thinking himself safely away from the danger of coastal birds. But there was no mistaking what they were or that they were coming for him. Hunting him, he thought with a chill. Sent by the Morgawr to track him down and destroy him. He knew it instinctively. They sailed toward him in the silvery glow of the failing sunset, seven of them, long wings and necks extended, hooked beaks lifted like blades.