“Maybe. I wish I were sure. I was so eager to get away, to get off that ship, I didn’t even think to try. I just let her tell me what to do.”
Bek scuffed his boot against the deck. “Well, you don’t know. She might have gotten away. She might have done what she said she was going to do. The Wing Riders are out looking for her. Don’t give up yet.”
Ahren stared off into space, his eyes haunted. “They won’t find her, Bek. She’s dead. I knew it last night. I woke up for no reason, and I knew it. I think she realized what was going to happen when she sent me away, but she wouldn’t tell me because she knew that if she did, I wouldn’t go. She had promised Walker she would stay, and she refused to break her word, even at the cost of her life.”
He sounded bitter and confused, as if his realization of that premonition defied logical explanation.
“I hope you’re wrong,” Bek told him, not knowing what else to say.
Ahren kept his gaze directed out toward the misty horizon, above the sweep of the airship’s curved rams, and did not reply.
Redden Alt Mer walked down the main passageway belowdecks to the Captain’s quarters—his quarters, once upon a time—searching for his sister. He was pretty sure by now, having walked the upper decks without success, that she had retired once more to the temporary shelter assigned to the wounded Quentin Leah and the unresponsive Grianne Ohmsford. It was the witch Little Red would go to see, to look at and study, to contemplate in a way that bothered him more than he cared to admit. He was feeling better about himself since braving the horrors of the Crake to recover the lost diapson crystals, especially after hearing from Bek how the witch had wakened from her dead-eyed sleep long enough to do the unexpected and use her magic to help heal the Highlander. Big Red was feeling better, but not entirely well. His brush with death in the rain forest had left him hollowed out, and he wasn’t sure yet what it would take to fill him up again. Recovering the crystals was a start, but he was still entirely too conscious of his own mortality, and given the nature of his life, that wasn’t healthy.
But for the moment his concern was for his sister. Rue had always been more tightly wound than he was, the cautious one, the captain of her life, determined that she would decide what was best for those she felt responsible for, no matter the obstacles she faced. But, of late, she had begun to show signs of vacillation that had never been apparent before. It wasn’t that she seemed any less determined, but that she seemed uncertain what it was she should be determined about.
Her attitude toward the Ilse Witch was such a case. In the beginning, there had been no question in his mind that as soon as she could find a way to do so, Rue would dispose of her. She would do so in a way that would remove all suspicion from herself, especially because of how she felt about Bek, but do it she would. Hawk’s death demanded it. Yet something had happened to change her mind, something he had missed entirely, and it was impacting her in a way that suggested a major shift in her thinking.
He shook his head, wishing he understood what that something was. Since yesterday, when she had returned from the Crake with Bek after completing a mission he would have put a stop to in a minute had he known about it, she had come down here at every opportunity. She had taken up watch over the witch, as if to see what would happen when she woke, as if trying to ascertain what manner of creature she really was. At first, he had thought she was waiting for an opportunity to finish her off. But as time passed and opportunities came and went, he had begun to wonder. This wasn’t about revenge for Hawk and the others; this was about something else. Whatever it was, he was baffled.
He pushed open the door to his cabin, and there she was, sitting next to Bek’s sister, holding her hand and staring into her vacant eyes. It was such a strange scene that for a moment he simply stood there, speechless.
“Close the door,” she said quietly, not bothering to look over.
He did so, then moved to where she could see him, and knelt at Quentin Leah’s bedside for a moment, placing his fingers on the Highlander’s wrist to read his pulse.
“Strong and steady,” Little Red said. “Bek was right. She saved Quentin’s life, whether she intended to or not.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked, standing up again, giving the Highlander a final glance. “Trying to decide if it was an accident or not?”
“No,” she said.
“What, then?”
“I’m trying to find out where she is. I’m trying to figure out how to reach her.”
He stared at her, not quite believing what he was hearing. She was leaning forward as she sat in front of the witch, her face only inches away. There was no fear in her green eyes, no suggestion that she felt at risk. She held Grianne’s hands loosely in her own, and she was moving her fingers over their smooth, pale backs in small circles.
“Bek said she was hiding from the truth about herself, that when the magic of the Sword of Shannara showed her that truth, it was too much for her, so she fled from it. Walker told him that she would come back when she found a way to forgive herself for the worst of her sins. A tall order, even to sort them all out, I’d think.” She paused. “I’m trying to see if a woman can reach her when a man can’t.”
He nodded. “I guess it’s possible it might happen that way.”
“But you don’t know why I have to be the one to find out.”
“I guess I don’t.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, sitting silent and unmoving before Grianne Ohmsford, staring into her strange blue eyes. The Ilse Witch was little more than a child, Alt Mer realized. She was so young that any attempt to define her in terms of the acts she was said to have committed was impossible. In her comatose state, blank-faced and unseeing, she bore a look of complete innocence, as if incapable of evil or wrongdoing or any form of madness. Somehow, they had got it all wrong, and it needed only for her to come awake again to put it right.
It was a dangerous way to feel, he thought.
She looked over at him. ‘I’m doing it for Bek,” she said, as if to explain, then quickly turned her attention back to Grianne. “Maybe because of Bek.”
Alt Mer moved to where she could no longer see him, doubt clouding his sunburned features. “Bek doesn’t expect this of you. His sister isn’t your responsibility. Why are you making her so?”
“You don’t understand,” she said.
He waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t. He cleared his throat. “What don’t I understand, Rue?”
She let him wait a long time before she answered, and he realized afterwards that she was trying to decide whether to tell him the truth, that the choice was more difficult for her than she had anticipated. “I’m in love with him,” she said finally.
He wasn’t expecting that, hadn’t considered the possibility for a moment, although on hearing it, it made perfect sense. He remembered her reaction to his decision to take Bek with him into the Crake while leaving her behind. He remembered how she had cared for the boy when Hunter Predd had flown him in from the mountain wilderness, as if she alone could make him well.
Except that Bek wasn’t a boy, as he had already noted days earlier. He was a man, grown up on this journey, changed so completely that he might be someone else altogether.
Even so, he could not quite believe what he was hearing. “When did this happen?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re sure?”
She didn’t bother to answer, but he saw her shoulders lift slightly as if to shrug the question away.
“You don’t seem suited to each other,” he continued, and knew at once that he had made a mistake. Her gaze shifted instantly, her eyes boring into him with unmistakable antagonism. “Don’t get mad at me,” he said quickly. “I’m just telling you what I see.”
“You don’t know who’s suited to me, big brother,” she said quietly, her gaze shifting back to the witch. “You never have.”
He nodded, accepting the rebuke.
He sat down now, needing to talk about this, thinking it might take a while, and having no idea what he was going to say. Or should. “I thought what Hawk thought—that you were never going to settle on anyone, that you couldn’t stand it.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“It just seems that your lives are so different. If you hadn’t been thrown together on this voyage, your paths would never have crossed. Have you thought about what’s going to happen when you get home?”
“If I get home.”
“You will. Then Bek will go back to the Highlands and you’ll go back to being a Rover.”
She exhaled sharply, let go of Grianne Ohmsford’s hands, and turned to face him. “We’d better get past this right now. I told you how I feel about Bek. This is new to me, so I’m still finding out what it means. I’m trying not to think too far ahead. But here is what I do know. I’m sick of my life. I’ve been sick of it for a long time. I didn’t like it on the Prekkendorran, and I haven’t cared much for it since. I thought that coming on this voyage, getting far away from everything I knew, would change things. It hasn’t. I feel like I’ve been wandering around all these years and not getting anywhere. I want something different. I’m willing to take a look at Bek to see if he can give it to me.”
Redden Alt Mer held her gaze. “You’re putting a lot on him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not putting anything on him. I’m carrying this burden all by myself. He loves me, too, Redden. He loves me in a way no one ever has. Not for how I look or what I can do or what he imagines me to be. It goes deeper than that. It touches on connections that words can’t express and don’t have to. It makes a difference when someone loves you like that. I like it enough that I don’t want to throw it away without taking time to see where it leads.”
She eased herself into a different position, her physical discomfort apparent, still sore from her wounds, still nursing her injuries. “I wanted to kill the Ilse Witch,” she said. “I had every intention of doing so the moment I got the chance. I thought I owed that much to Hawk. But I can’t do it now. Not while Bek believes she might wake up and be his sister again. Not after all he has done to protect her and care for her and give her a chance at being well. I don’t have that right, not even to make myself feel good again about losing Hawk.
“So I’ve decided to try to do what Bek can’t. I’ve decided to try to reach her, to see where she is and what she hides from, to try to understand what she’s feeling. I’ve decided to let her know someone else cares what happens to her. Maybe I can. But even if I can’t, I have to try. Because that’s what loving someone requires of you—giving yourself to something they believe in, even when you don’t. That’s what I want to do for Bek. That’s how I feel about him.”
She turned back to Grianne Ohmsford, lifted the girl’s hands in her own, and held them anew. “I keep thinking that if I can help her, maybe I can help myself. I’m as lost as she is. If I can find her, maybe I can find myself. Through Bek. Through feeling something for him.” She leaned forward again, her face so close to Grianne’s that she might have been thinking of kissing her. “I keep thinking that it’s possible.”
He stared at her in silence, thinking that he wasn’t all that secure himself, that he felt lost, too. All this wandering about the larger world had a way of making you feel disconnected from everything, as if your life was something so elusive that you spent all the time allotted to you chasing after it and never quite catching up.
“Go away and leave me alone,” she said to him. “Fly this airship back to where we came from. Get us safely home. Then we can talk about this some more. Maybe by then we will understand each other better than we do now.”
He climbed back to his feet and stood watching her for a moment longer, thinking he should say something. But nothing he could think of seemed right.
Resigned to leaving well enough alone, to letting her do what she felt she must, he walked out of the room without a word.
Still sitting with Ahren by the aft railing, Bek Ohmsford glanced over as Redden Alt Mer emerged from the main hatchway and turned to look at him. What he saw in the Rover Captain’s face was a strange mix of frustration and wonderment, a reflection of thoughts that Bek could only begin to guess at. The look lasted only a second, and then Alt Mer had turned away, walking over to the pilot box and climbing up to stand beside Spanner Frew, his attention directed ahead into the shifting clouds.
“I heard that Panax stayed behind,” Ahren said, interrupting his thoughts.
Bek nodded absently. “He said he was tired of this journey, that he liked where he was and wanted to stay. He said with Walker and Truls Rohk both gone, there was nothing left to go home to. I guess I don’t blame him.”
“I can’t wait to get home. I don’t ever want to go away again, once I do.” The Elf’s face twisted in a grimace. “I hate what’s happened here, all of it.”
“It doesn’t seem to have counted for much, does it?”
“Walker said it did, but I don’t think I believe him.”
Bek let the matter slide, remembering that Walker had told him that his sister was the reason they had come to Parkasia and returning her safely home was the new purpose of their journey. He still didn’t understand why that was so. Forget that he wasn’t sure if they could do it or if she would ever come awake again if they did. The reality was that they had come here to retrieve the books of magic and failed to do so. They had destroyed Antrax, so there was some satisfaction in knowing that no one else would end up like Kael Elessedil, but it felt like a high price to pay for the losses they had suffered. Too high, given the broad scope of their expectations. Too high, for what they had been promised.
“Ryer said I was going to be King of the Elves,” Ahren said softly. He gave Bek a wry look. “I can’t imagine that happening. Even if I had the chance, I don’t think I would take it. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else but me after what’s happened here.”
“What will you do when you get home?” Bek asked him.
His friend shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it. Go away somewhere, I expect. Being home means being back in the Westland, nothing more. I don’t want to live in Arborlon. Not while my brother is King. I liked being with Ard Patrinell when he was teaching me. I’ll miss him more than anyone except Ryer. She was special.”
His lips compressed as tears came to his eyes, and he looked away self-consciously. “Maybe I won’t go home, after all.”
Bek thought about the dead, about those men and women who had come on this voyage with such determination and sense of purpose. Who would he miss most? He had known none of them when he started out and had become close to all at the end. The absence of Walker and Truls Rohk, because they had been his mentors and protectors, left the biggest void. But the others had been his friends, more so than the Druid and the shape-shifter. He couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without them or even what it would be like when he parted company with those who remained. Everything about his future seemed muddled and confused, and it felt to him as if nothing he did would be enough to clear away the debris of his past.
His gaze drifted along the length of the ship’s deck, searching for Rue Meridian. She was the future, or at least as much of it as he could imagine. He hadn’t seen much of her since their return from the Crake Rain Forest. There hadn’t been time for visiting while they readied the Jerle Shannara for flight, their sense of urgency at the approach of the Morgawr consuming all of their time and energy. But even after setting out, she had kept to herself. He knew she spent much of her time looking in on his sister, and at first he had worried about her intentions. But it seemed wrong of him to mistrust her when she felt about him as she did. It felt small-minded and petty. He thought that she was reconciled to her anger and disappointment at Grianne’s presence and no longer thought it necessary to act on them. He thought that because she loved him she would want to help his sister.
So he left her alone, thinking that when sh
e was ready to come to him again, she would do so. He didn’t feel any less close to her because she chose to be alone. He didn’t think she cared any less for him for doing so. They had always shared a strong sense of each other’s feelings, even in the days when they were first becoming friends on the voyage out. There had never been a need for reassurances. Nothing had changed. Friendship required space and tolerance. Love required no less.
Still, he missed being with her. He knew he could seek her out in Big Red’s quarters and she would not be angry with him. But it might be better to let her find her own way with Grianne.
“Maybe I’ll go home, too,” he whispered to himself.
But he wasn’t as sure about it anymore.
It was late afternoon when the Wing Riders reappeared, illumined by the red glare of the fading sun. The Jerle Shannara was less than an hour from the coast, and there had been no sign of the Morgawr’s airships. With the return of the Wing Riders, Redden Alt Mer intended to turn his vessel south and begin working along the cliffs that warded the south end of the peninsula to where he could set out across the Blue Divide.
Hunter Predd brought Obsidian beneath the airship, released his safety harness, caught hold of the lowered rope ladder, and climbed to the aft railing. Alt Mer extended his hand, and the Wing Rider took hold of it and pulled himself aboard. His lean face was ridged with dirt and bathed in sweat. His eyes were hard, flat mirrors that reflected the sunset’s bloodred light. He looked around the airship without saying anything, his callused hands flexing within their leather gloves, his arms stretching over his windswept head.
“We’re maybe a day ahead of them,” he said finally, keeping his voice low enough that no one else could hear. “They’re north of us, strung out along the edge of the mountains and flying inland. They must think we’re still there, from the look of things.”