“Tell me what Ahren Elessedil had to say to you today,” Walker instructed softly, looking out into the night.
Bek did so, surprised the Druid had even noticed his conversation with the Elf. When he was finished, Walker did not speak again right away, continuing to stare off into the darkness, lost in thought. Bek waited, thinking that nothing he had repeated would be news to the Druid.
“Ahren Elessedil is made of tougher material than his brother knows,” was all the other said of the matter, when he finally spoke. Then his eyes shifted to find Bek’s. “Will you be his friend on this voyage?”
Bek considered the question, then nodded. “I will.”
Walker nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Keep your eyes and ears open, Bek. You will come to know things that I will not, and it will be important that you remember to tell me of them. It might not happen for a time, but eventually it will. One of those things might save my life.”
Bek blinked in surprise.
“Our young seer has already forecast that at some point I will be betrayed. She doesn’t know when or by whom. But she has seen that someone will try to kill me and someone else will try to lead me astray. Maybe they are the same person. Maybe it will be purposeful or maybe an accident. I have no way of knowing.”
Bek shook his head. “No one I’ve met aboard this ship seems disposed to wish you harm, Walker.”
The Druid nodded. “It may not be anyone aboard ship. It may be the enemy who tracks us, or it may be someone we will meet along the way. My point is that four eyes and ears are better than two. You still suspect you have no real function on this journey, Bek. I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice. But your importance to me—to all of us—is greater than you think. Believe in that. One day, when the time is right, I will explain it fully to you. For now, keep faith in my word and watch my back.”
He glided silently into the darkness, leaving Bek staring after him in confusion. The boy wanted to believe what the Druid had told him, but that he might have any real importance on their journey was inconceivable. He considered the matter in silence, unable to come to terms with the idea. He would watch Walker’s back because he believed it was right to do so. How successful he would be was another matter, one he did not care to look at too closely.
Then, suddenly, he was aware of being watched. The feeling came over him swiftly and unexpectedly, attacking, not stealing. The force of it stunned him. He scanned quickly across the empty decking from bow to stern, where at each end an Elven Hunter as still and dark as fixed shadow kept watch. Amidships, the burly figure of Furl Hawken steered the airship from the pilot box. None of them looked at him, and there was no one else to be seen.
Still, Bek could feel hidden eyes settled on him, their weight palpable.
Then, as suddenly as the feeling had swept over him, it disappeared. All about, the star-filled night was wrapped in deepest silence. He stood at the railing a few moments longer, regaining his equilibrium and screwing his courage back into place, then hurried quickly below.
20
Early the following afternoon, the Jerle Shannara arrived on the coast and swung out over the vast expanse of the Blue Divide into the unknown. Within moments Hunter Predd and two other Wing Riders soared skyward from the cliffs below the Irrybis to meet them. Hunter Predd glided close to the airship to offer greetings, then angled away to take up a flanking position. For the remainder of that day and for most of the days that followed, the Wing Riders flew in formation off the bow and stern of the ship, two forward and one aft, a silent and reassuring presence.
When Bek asked Walker at one point what happened to them at night, the Druid told him it varied. Sometimes they flew right on through until daybreak, matching the slower pace that the airship set in darkness. Rocs were enormously strong and resilient, and they could fly without stopping for up to three days. Most of the time, however, the Wing Riders would take their Rocs ahead to an island or atoll and land long enough to feed, water, and rest the birds and their riders before continuing on. They worked mostly in shifts, with one Wing Rider always warding the ship, even at night, as a protective measure. With the Rocs on watch, nothing could approach without being detected.
They traveled without incident for ten days, the time sliding away for Bek Rowe in a slow, unchanging daily routine. Each morning he would rise and eat his breakfast with the Rovers, then follow Redden Alt Mer as he completed a thorough inspection of the airship and its crew. After that, he would stand with the Rover Captain in the pilot box, sometimes just the two of them, sometimes with another Rover at the controls, and Bek would first recite what he knew about a particular function of the ship’s operating system and then be instructed in some further area or nuance. Later, he would operate the controls and rudders, drawing down power from the light sheaths or unhooding the crystals or tightening the radian draws.
Sometimes, when Big Red was busy elsewhere, Bek would be placed in the care of Little Red or Furl Hawken or even the burly Spanner Frew. The shipbuilder mostly yelled at him, driving him from pillar to post with his sharp tongue and acid criticism, forcing him to think harder and act faster than normal. It helped steady him, in an odd sort of way. After an hour or two of surviving Spanner Frew, he felt he was ready for anything.
Between sessions with the Rovers, he would perform a cabin boy’s chores, which included running messages from Captain to crew and back again, cleaning the Captain’s and his sister’s quarters, inventorying supplies every third day, and helping serve the meals and clear the dishes. Most of it wasn’t very pleasant or exciting, but it did put him in close proximity to almost everyone several times a day and gave him a chance to listen in on conversations and observe behavior. Nothing of what he saw seemed of much use, but he did as Walker had asked and kept his eyes and ears open.
He saw little of Quentin during the day, for the Highlander was constantly training with the Elven Hunters and learning combat skills and technique from Ard Patrinell. He saw more of Ahren Elessedil, who never trained with the others and was often at loose ends. Bek took it upon himself to include the young Elf in most of what he did, teaching him what little he knew of airships and how they flew and sharing confidences and stories. He did not tell Ahren any more than he told Quentin, but he told him almost as much. As they spent more time together, he began to see what Walker had meant about Kylen Elessedil misjudging his brother. Ahren was young, but he had grown up in a family and political situation that did not foster or tolerate naïveté or weakness. Ahren was strong in ways that weren’t immediately apparent, and Bek gained a new measure of respect for him almost daily.
Now and again he visited with Panax and even Hunter Predd, when the Wing Rider came aboard to speak with Walker or Redden Alt Mer. Bek knew most of the Rovers by name, and they had accepted him into their group in a loose and easy sort of way that offered companionship if not necessarily trust. The Elves had little to do with him, mostly because they were always somewhere else. He did speak with the Healer, Joad Rish, a tall, stooped man with a kind face and reassuring manner. The Healer, like Bek, was not certain of his usefulness and felt more than a little out of place. But he was a good conversationalist, and he liked talking with the boy about cures and healings that transcended the standard forms of care and were the peculiar province of Elven Healers.
Bek even talked once or twice with the wistful seer, Ryer Ord Star, but she was so reclusive and shy that she avoided everyone except Walker, whom she followed everywhere. As if in thrall to the Druid, she was his shadow on the airship, trailing after him like a small child, hanging on his every word and watching his every move. Her fixation was a steady topic of conversation for everyone, but never within Walker’s hearing. No one cared to broach the strangeness of the young woman’s attachment directly to the Druid when it was apparent it did not matter to him.