Ilse Witch (52 page)

Before anyone could offer comment or complaint about his decision, he summoned his council of eight to a meeting in Redden Alt Mer’s cabin and walked from the deck.

Quentin sidled up to Bek. “Something is up, I’ll wager. Do you think the seer’s had another vision?”

Bek shook his head. The only thing he knew for certain was that Redden Alt Mer, dark-browed and stiff-necked as he came down off the pilot box, was not happy.

When the eight who composed Walker’s inner council were gathered belowdecks in the Rover Captain’s cabin, the boy found out what it was.

“I didn’t come this far to be left aboard ship while everyone else goes ashore,” Big Red snapped at the Druid.

“Nor I,” Rue Meridian agreed, flushed and angry. “We sailed a long way to find out what’s here. You ask too much of us, Walker.”

No one else spoke. They were pressed close about the Druid, gathered at the table that held the large-scale drawing of the castaway’s map, all but Ryer Ord Star, who remained in the background, a part of the shadows, watching silently. The warmth of their new environment not yet absorbed into the hull, the room smelled of damp and pitch and was still infused with the feel of the ice and cold they had left on the other side of the Squirm. Bek glanced at the faces about him,
surprised by the mix of expectancy and tension he found mirrored there. It had taken them a long time to reach their destination, and much of what they had bottled up inside during their voyage was coming out.

Walker’s black eyes swept the room. He gestured at the map laid out before them. “How do you think the castaway who brought us the original of this map managed to get all the way from here to the coast of the Westland?”

He waited a moment, but no one answered. “It is a voyage of months, even by airship. How did the castaway manage it, already blind and voiceless and probably at least half-mad?”

“Someone helped him,” Bek offered, not wanting to listen any longer to the uncomfortable silence. “Maybe the same someone who helped him escape.”

The Druid nodded. “Where is that person?”

Again, silence. Bek shook his head, not eager to assume the role of designated speaker for the group.

“Dead, lost at sea during the escape, probably on the voyage back,” Rue Meridian said. “What are you getting at?”

“Let’s assume that is so,” Walker replied. “You have had a chance to study the map at length during this voyage. Most of the writings are done not with words, but with symbols. The writings aren’t of this age, but of an age thousands of years old, from a time before the Great Wars destroyed the Old World. How did our castaway learn that language?”

“Someone taught it to him,” Rue Meridian answered, a thoughtful, somewhat worried look on her sun-browned face. She tossed back her long red hair impatiently. “Why would they do that?”

“Why, indeed?” Walker paused. “Let’s assume that the Elven expedition that Kael Elessedil led thirty years ago reached its destination just as we have, and then something happened to it. They were all killed, all but one man, perhaps Kael Elessedil himself. Their ships were destroyed and all trace of their passage disappeared. How did they find their
way here? Did they have a map, as we do? We must assume so, or how would the castaway know to draw one for us to follow? To make the copy we have, they must have followed the route we followed. They must have visited the islands of Flay Creech, Shatterstone, and Mephitic, and found the keys we found. If so, how did those keys get back to the islands from which they were taken?”

Another long silence filled the room. Booted feet shifted uncomfortably. “What are you saying, Walker?” Ard Patrinell asked.

“He’s saying we’ve sailed into a trap,” Redden Alt Mer answered softly.

Bek stared at the Rover Captain, repeating his words silently, trying to make sense of them.

“I have given this considerable thought,” Walker said, folding his arm into his robes, a pensive look on his dark face. “I thought it odd that an Elf should have possession of a map marked with symbols he couldn’t possibly know. I thought it convenient that the map spelled out so clearly what was needed for us to find our way here. The keys were not particularly well concealed. In fact, they were easily gained once the creatures and devices that warded them were bypassed. It struck me that whoever hid the keys was more interested in seeing if and how we managed to overcome the protectors than whether or not we found the keys. I was reminded of how hunters trap animals, laying out bait to lure them to the snare, the bait itself having no value. Hunters think of animals as cunning and wary, but not of intelligence equal to their own. Animals might mistrust a baited trap instinctively, but they would not be able to reason out its purpose. That sort of thinking seems to be at work here.”

He paused and looked at Big Red. “Yes, Captain, I think it is a trap.”

Redden Alt Mer nodded. “The keys are merely bait. Why?”

“Why not just provide us with a map and let us find our way here? Why bother with the keys at all?” Walker looked around the room, meeting each person’s eyes in turn. “To answer that, you have to go all the way back to the first expedition. A different technique was employed to lure the Elves to this place, but the purpose was probably the same. Whoever or whatever brought us here is interested in something we have. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I am now. It is our magic. Whatever hunts us wants our magic. It used the mystery of the first expedition’s disappearance to lure us here. It knows we possess magic because it has already encountered the power of the Elfstones that Kael Elessedil carried. So it expects us to have magic, as well. Requiring us to gain possession of the three keys gave it an opportunity to measure the nature and extent of that magic. The protectors of the keys were set in place to test us. If we could not overcome them, we had no business coming here.”

“If you suspected most of this before we set out, why didn’t you tell us then?” Redden Alt Mer snapped, angrier than ever now. “In fact, why did you bring us here at all?”

“Don’t give me too much credit for what I am presumed to have known,” Walker replied quietly. “I suspected more than I knew. I intuited the possibilities, but could not be certain of their accuracy without making the journey. How could I have explained all this and made sense if I had done so without your having experienced what you have? No, Captain, it was necessary to make the voyage first. Even so, I would not have changed my decision. Whatever destroyed Kael Elessedil and his Elven Hunters seeks to do the same to us. Nor will it stop there. It is a powerful and dangerous being, and it has to be destroyed. The Elves want their Elfstones back, and I want to free the magic our adversary hoards. There are good reasons for being here, in spite of what we know, in spite of the obvious dangers. Good enough that we must accept the risks they bear.”

“Easy enough for you to say, Walker,” Rue Meridian observed. “You have your magic and your Druid skills to protect you. We have only our blades. Except for Quentin Leah, who has his sword, who else has magic to protect us?”

Bek braced for the response he expected Walker to give, but the Druid surprised him. “Magic is not what will save us in this matter or even what will do us the most good. Think about it. If our adversary uses a language of symbols, a language that was devised before the Great Wars by a Mankind steeped in science, then in all likelihood, it has no magic itself. It brought us here because it covets our magic. It covets what we have and it does not. Why this is so is what we must determine. But our chances of overcoming our adversary are not necessarily reliant on the use of magic.”

“That is a large assumption, Druid,” Little Red declared bluntly. “What of the things that warded the keys on the islands we visited? The eels might have been real enough, but what of that living jungle and that castle? Wasn’t magic in play there?”

Walker nodded. “But not a magic of the sort that devised those keys. The keys are a technology from the past, one lost since the Great Wars or perhaps even before. The magic of the castle and the jungle are Faerie-induced and have been resident since the time of the Word. The eels probably mutated after the Great Wars. Our adversary did not create them, but only identified them. What’s interesting is not that these traps were baited to test the strength and nature of our magic but that it was done without having to overcome the things that warded those islands. How did our adversary do that? Why didn’t it try to steal their magic, as well? Why did it choose to go to so much trouble to summon us instead?”

He nodded toward Big Red. “The reason I am leaving the Rovers aboard ship instead of taking them inland with the Elven Hunters is that I think our adversary might well try to steal our ship. It knows we are here, I expect, and how we arrived. It will know as well that if it steals the
Jerle Shannara
,
we will be marooned and helpless. We can’t afford to let that happen. Who better to protect and defend our airship than the people who sailed and built her?”

Redden Alt Mer nodded slowly. “All right. Your argument is sound, Walker. But how will we fight this thing off if it comes after the ship? We won’t have any magic to use against it, only our blades. If it’s as powerful as you suggest—”

“After we go ashore tomorrow,” Walker interrupted quickly, holding up his hand to silence the other, “you will take the
Jerle Shannara
out of this bay and back down the channel toward the Squirm. Then take a bearing and fly back out over the peninsula to the coast and find the Wing Riders. When you’ve done so, bring them back to a safe haven downriver. Map your route going out so you can find your way coming back. Have the Wing Riders fly inland over this bay and the surrounding forests every day until we signal you to take us out. If you aren’t where you can be easily found, you’ll be safe enough.”

Big Red looked at his sister. Rue Meridian shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of splitting up,” he said. “I understand the reason for it, but it puts you and those with you at great risk if something goes wrong. You will be marooned if we can’t find you.”

Walker nodded. “Then we’ll have to make sure you can.”

“Or if we can’t find the Wing Riders,” Little Red added.

“The Wing Riders will find you. They will be looking for you, for the airship. Just be certain you map your route out and back carefully.”

“I’ll see that I do.” Rue Meridian held his gaze.

Bek glanced from Quentin to Ahren Elessedil to Ard Patrinell and finally to the wan, youthful face of Ryer Ord Star. There was determination and acceptance on each, but the seer’s face showed apprehension and conflict, as well. She knew something she was not telling them. Bek sensed it instinctively, as if he still held the Sword of Shannara and had
brought its magic to bear, seeking out the truth, drawing back the veil of concealment the young woman held in place.

What was it she was hiding? Something of their fate? Something of what waited inland? Bek studied her surreptitiously. Had she told Walker everything? Or was she holding something back? He didn’t have any reason to ask himself that question, no cause to believe that she would conceal anything from the Druid.

But there was something in the way she distanced herself from him, from everyone …

“Let’s finish our preparations and have something to eat,” Walker said, breaking into his thoughts. “Tomorrow we set out at sunrise.”

“Good luck to you, Walker,” Rue Meridian said.

He gave her a wry smile. “Good luck to us all, Little Red.”

Then he gathered in his black robes and walked from the room.

A
nchored well offshore and forty feet above the water, the company of the
Jerle Shannara
spent the night in the tree-sheltered bay. Taking no chances, Walker set a full watch—one man forward, one aft, and one in the pilot box—using Rovers so that the Elven Hunters could get a full night’s sleep and be fresh for the morning’s search. Even so, the Druid suspected that sleep was an elusive quantity that night. He slept little himself, and while pacing the corridors and decks he encountered, at one time or another, almost everyone else doing the same. Anticipation kept them all on edge and restless, and even the absence of wind and surf did nothing to ease their discomfort.

Dawn arrived in a flare of golden light that burst through the trees and across the horizon, brightening a clear blue sky and heralding a weather-perfect day. The members of the company were up and moving about almost instantly, grateful for any excuse to quit pretending that sleep might somehow come. Breakfast was consumed and weapons and provisions were gathered up. The search party gathered on deck in the early light, grim-faced and resolved, no one saying much, everyone waiting for the order to depart. Walker did not give it at once. He spent a long time conversing with Redden Alt Mer and Rue Meridian, then with Spanner Frew. They walked the length and breadth of the airship while they spoke, one or the other gesturing now and then at the ship or the surrounding forest. Bek watched them
from where he sat cross-legged against the port railing, running through a list of what he carried, checking it off mentally against the list he had prepared last night. He bore virtually no weapons—a dagger and a sling—and he was less than comfortable with having only those for protection. But Walker had insisted they were all he would need or could carry, and no amount of protesting on his part had changed the Druid’s mind.

“This would be a good day for hunting,” Quentin, who was seated beside him, his gear at his feet, observed.

Bek nodded. Quentin carried a short sword at his belt, a bow and arrows over his shoulder, and the Sword of Leah strapped across his back in the Highland style. Bek supposed that if they encountered anything really dangerous, he could rely on his cousin to come to his aid.

“Do you suppose they have boar here?”

“What difference does it make?” Bek found the small talk irritating and unnecessary.

“I was just wondering.” Quentin seemed unperturbed. “It just feels a little like home to me.”