Ilse Witch (33 page)

She chatted with them for a few minutes more, then left to oversee the loading of the vessel. Her departure left a void in Bek that was tangible and startling.

With Redden Alt Mer leading, they continued to walk the airship end to end, the Rover explaining what everything was as they went. Each time he finished an explanation, he made Bek repeat it back to him. Each time, he seemed satisfied with the answer he received. He explained the pilot box and the connectors that ran to the parse tubes, hoods, rudders, and main draws. For the most part, the crew raised and lowered the sheaths and set the draws, but in an emergency, everything could be controlled from the pilot box. There were anchors and stays for landing. There were weapons of all sorts, some handheld, some attached to the decking of the ship. The Rover took Bek into the sleeping quarters and supply bins. He took the boy all the way up the pegged climbing steps of the masts to see how the sheaths were attached to the draws, then down to the parse tubes to see how the draws were attached to the diapson crystals. He was quick with his explanations, but thorough. He seemed intent on the boy’s learning, and Bek was eager to comply.

There was only one component of the airship that the Rover avoided assiduously, a large rectangular box set upright against the foremast in front of the pilot box. It was covered with black canvas and lashed to the mast and decking with a strange type of metal-sheathed cable. They walked
right by it repeatedly, and after they had done so for about the third or fourth time, Bek could contain himself no longer.

“Captain, what’s under the canvas?” he asked, pointing at the box.

The Rover scratched his head. “I don’t know. It belongs to the Druid. He had it brought aboard in the dead of night without my knowing two days ago, and when I found it there, he told me it was necessary that we take it with us, but he couldn’t tell me what it was.”

Bek stared at it. “Has anyone tried to get a look under the canvas?”

The Rover laughed. “A lad after my own heart! Shades, Bek Rowe, but you are a wonder! Of course, we tried! Several of us!” He paused dramatically. “Want to know what happened?”

Bek nodded.

“Try looking for yourself and see.”

Bek hesitated, no longer so eager.

“Go on,” the other urged, gesturing, “it won’t hurt you.”

So Bek reached for the canvas, and when his hand got to within a foot of it, lines of thin green fire began to dance all over the cables that lashed the box in place, jumping from cable to cable, a nest of writhing snakes. Bek jerked his hand back quickly.

Redden Alt Mer chuckled. “That was our decision, as well. A Druid’s magic is nothing to trifle with.”

His instruction of Bek continued as if nothing had happened. After Bek had been aboard for a time and his initial excitement had died down, he became aware of a movement to the airship that had not been apparent before, a gentle swaying, a tugging against the anchoring lines. There was no apparent wind, the day calm and still, and there was no movement from the other ships that might account for the motion. When Bek finally asked about it, Redden Alt Mer told him it was the natural response of the ship to the absorption of light into their sheaths. The converted energy kept her aloft, and it
was only the anchor cables that kept her from floating away completely, because her natural inclination was to take flight. The Rover admitted that he had been flying for so long that he didn’t notice the motion himself anymore.

Bek thought it gave the airship the feel of being alive, of having an existence independent of the men and women who rode her. It was a strange sensation, but the longer he stayed aboard, the more he felt it. The ship moved like a great cat stirring out of sleep, lazy and unhurried, coming slowly awake. The motion radiated through the decking and into his body, so that he soon became a part of it, and it had something of the feel of floating in water that was still and untroubled.

Redden Alt Mer finished with him at midday and sent him off to help inventory supplies and equipment with a bluff, burly fellow Rover called Furl Hawken. The Rover everyone called Hawk barely gave him a second glance, but was friendly enough and pleased at his quickness in picking up the instructions he was given. Once or twice, Rue Meridian came by, and every time Bek was mesmerized.

“She affects everyone that way,” Furl Hawken observed with a grin, catching the look on his face. “Little Red will break your heart just by looking at you. Too bad it’s wasted effort.”

Bek wanted to ask what he meant but was too embarrassed to pursue the matter, so he let it drop.

By the end of the day, Bek had learned most of what there was to know about the operation of their airship, the components that drove her, and the nature of the supplies and equipment she would be carrying. He had met most of the crew as well, including the ship’s builder, a truly frightening Rover named Spanner Frew, who yelled and cursed at everyone in general and looked ready to knock down anyone who dared question him. He acknowledged Bek with a grunt and afterwards ignored him completely. Bek was just as happy.

He was on his way back across the airfield with the sun at his back when Quentin caught up with him.

“Did you go aboard the ship?” he asked eagerly, falling into step with his cousin. He was sweating through his rumpled, stained clothes. His long hair was matted, and the skin of his hands and forearms was cut and bruised.

“I’ve hardly been
off
the ship,” Bek said. He gave the other a smirk. “What have you been doing, wrestling bears?”

Quentin laughed. “No, Walker ordered me to train with the Elven Hunters. Ard Patrinell worked with me all day. He knocked me down so many times and skinned me up so many different ways that all I can think about is how little I know.” He reached back for his sword. “This thing’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Bek.”

Bek grinned mischievously. “Well, it’s probably only as good as its bearer, Quentin. Anyway, count your blessings. I spent all day learning how much I don’t know about airships and flying. I’d be willing to bet that there’s a lot more I don’t know about flying than you don’t know about fighting.”

Quentin laughed and shoved him playfully, and they joked and teased each other all the way back to the palace compound as the last of the sunlight disappeared below the horizon and the twilight began to shadow the land. With the setting of the sun, a stillness enveloped the city as her people drifted homeward and the bustle and clamor of traffic faded away. In the woods through which the cousins passed close by the palace grounds and parks, the only sounds were of voices, indistinct and distant, carried in the silence from other places.

They were approaching the pathway that led to their sleeping quarters when Bek said quietly, “Quentin? What do you think we’re really doing here?”

They stopped, and his cousin looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Bek put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Think about it. Why are we here? Why us, with all these others that Walker’s chosen?”

“Because Walker thinks we—”

“I know what Walker told us.” Bek cut him short impatiently. “He told us he wanted two young, clever fellows to share his thoughts. He told us he wanted you for your magic sword and me for my keen eyes and ears or some such thing. I know what he said, and I’ve been trying to make myself believe it since we set out. But I don’t. I don’t believe it at all.”

Quentin nodded matter-of-factly, unperturbed. Sometimes Bek just wanted to throttle him. “Are you listening to me?” he snapped.

His cousin nodded. “Sure. You don’t believe Walker. Why not?”

“Because, Quentin, it just doesn’t feel right.” Bek emphasized his words with chopping gestures. “Everyone selected for this expedition has years of experience exploring and fighting. They’ve been all over the Four Lands, and they know how to deal with all sorts of trouble. What do we know? Nothing. Why take two inexperienced nobodies like us?”

“He’s taking Ahren Elessedil,” Quentin offered. “And what about the seer? Ryer Ord Star? She doesn’t look very strong.”

Bek nodded impatiently. “I’m not talking about strength alone. I’m talking about skill and experience and talent. I’m talking about purpose! What’s ours? We’ve just spent the entire day training, for goodness’ sake! Did you see anyone else training for this trip? Are you really the only one Walker could turn to who could back him up with magic? In all the Four Lands, the only one? Given what happened in the Wolfsktaag, how much use do you think you would be to him at this point? Be honest!”

Quentin was quiet a moment. “Not much,” he admitted grudgingly, and for the first time a hint of doubt crept into his voice.

“What about me?” Bek pursued his argument with a vengeance. “Am I the only clever pair of eyes and ears he can call on? Am I really that useful to him that he would drop several Elven Hunters with years of experience and training
behind them and a skilled Healer, as well? Are you and I all that wondrous that he just can’t afford to leave us behind, even though we know he’s pressed for space?”

They stared at each other in the growing dark without speaking, eyes locked. Somewhere in the compound ahead, a door slammed and a voice called out a name.

Quentin shook his head. “What are you saying, Bek?” he asked softly. “That we shouldn’t go? That we should give this whole business up?”

Oddly enough, that wasn’t his intent. It might have been a logical suggestion, given his arguments and conclusions. It might have been what another man would have done under the circumstances, but Bek Rowe had decided he would make the voyage. He was committed. He was as determined to go as Quentin was. Maybe it had something to do with the secrets he had discovered since Walker had appeared to them in the Highlands—of his father’s identity and his own origins, of the King of the Silver River and the phoenix stone, of Truls Rohk and his cryptic warning not to trust anyone. Maybe it was just that he was too stubborn to quit when so many would know and judge him accordingly. Maybe it was his belief that he was meant to make the journey, whatever his fears or doubts, because going would determine in some important and immutable way the course of his life.

A small voice of reason still whispered that he should tell Quentin,
Yes, we should give this business up and go home
. He squelched that voice with barely a second’s thought.

“What I’m saying,” he replied instead, “is that we should be careful about what we accept at face value. Druids keep secrets and play games with ordinary men like you and me. That’s their history and tradition. They manipulate and deceive. They are tricksters, Quentin. I don’t know about Walker. I don’t know much of anything about what he really intends for us. I just think we ought to be very careful. I think we …”

He ran out of words and stood there, looking at his cousin helplessly.

“You think we ought to look out for each other,” Quentin finished, nodding slowly. “We always have, haven’t we?”

Bek sighed. “But maybe we need to do more of it here. And when something doesn’t sit right, like this business, I think we have to tell each other so. If we don’t, Quentin, who will?”

“Maybe no one.”

“Maybe not.”

Quentin studied him in silence once more, then smiled suddenly. “You know what, Bek? If you hadn’t agreed to come on this journey, I wouldn’t have come either.”

Bek stared at him in surprise. “Really?”

Quentin nodded. “Because of what you’ve just said. There isn’t anyone else I would trust to watch my back or tell me the truth about things. Only you. You think I look at you like a bothersome younger brother that I let tag along because I have to. I don’t. I want you with me. I’m bigger and stronger, sure. And I’m better at some things than you. But you have a gift for figuring things out that I don’t. You get at the truth in a way I can’t. You see things I don’t even notice.”

He paused. “What I’m trying to say is that I think of us as equals as well as brothers. I pay pretty close attention to how you feel about things, whether you realize it or not. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it will be here. I won’t accept anything I’m told without talking it over with you. You don’t have to ask me to do that. I’d do it anyway.”

Bek felt awkward and foolish. “I guess I just needed to say what I was thinking out loud.”

Quentin grinned. “Well, who knows? Maybe I needed to hear you say it, too. Now it’s done. Let’s go eat.”

They went inside then, and for the rest of the night until he fell asleep Bek found himself thinking how close he was to Quentin—as a brother, a friend, and a confidant—closer than he was to anyone in the world. They had shared everything
growing up, and he could not imagine it being any other way. He made a promise to himself then, the sort of promise he hadn’t made since he was a small boy filled with the sort of resolve that age tempered and time wore down. He did not know where they were going or what they would encounter in the days ahead, Quentin and he, but whatever happened he would find a way to keep his brother safe.

D
awn broke in a bright golden blaze at the line between sky and earth on the eastern horizon, and the airfield south of Arborlon began to fill with Elves come to watch the launch of the expedition. Thousands approached, crowding down the roads and walks, slipping along the narrow forest trails and pathways, filling the spaces at the edges of the field until their eager, excited faces ringed the bluff. Organized by unit and company, a sizable contingent from the Elven army was already in place, drawn up in formation at both ends of the field, Elven Hunters in their soft green and taupe dress uniforms, Home Guard in emerald trimmed with crimson, and Black Watch standing tall and dark and forbidding like winter trees. Overhead, Elven airships that had already lifted off circled like silent phantoms, sailing on the back of a slow, soft morning wind.

At the center of the airfield, solitary and proud, the sleek, dark airship that was the object of everyone’s attention hung just off the ground in the new light, her sails unfurled and her lines taut, straining to be free.