But when he rose and went to her and stood looking down, he imagined what that confession would feel like. He could see her face as she listened to his words, changing little by little, reflecting her loss of pride and trust in him, revealing her distaste for his actions. He could see the way her eyes would darken and veil, hiding feelings she had never before experienced, changing everything between them. Rue, the little sister who had always looked up to him.
He couldn’t bear it. He stood there in the shadows without moving, studying her face, letting the moment pass, and then he left.
Back on deck, well away from where the watch stood at the airship’s bow looking out toward the dark bowl of the valley, he leaned against the masthead and stared up at the hazy night sky. Glimpses of a half-moon and clusters of stars were visible through breaks in the clouds. He watched the way they came and went, thinking of his feckless courage and uncertain resolve.
After a time, he slid down to a sitting position, his back against the roughened timber, and lay his head back. As still as the mast itself, he lost himself in the fury of his bitter self-condemnation, and morning still hours away and redemption still further off, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
13
Imprisoned in the bowels of the Morgawr’s flagship, Ahren Elessedil rode out the storm that had brought down the Jerle Shannara. He was not chained to the wall as Bek had been when held prisoner on Black Moclips a day earlier, but left free to wander about the locked room. The storm had caught up to them as they flew north into the interior of the peninsula, snatching at the airship like a giant’s hand, tossing it about, and finally tiring of the game, casting it away. With the room’s solitary window battened down and the door secured, he could see nothing beyond the walls of his prison, but Ahren could feel the storm’s wrath. He could feel how it attacked and played with the airship, how it threatened to reduce her to a shattered heap of wooden splinters and iron fragments. If it did, his troubles would be over.
In his darker moments, he thought that perhaps this would be best.
An unwilling accomplice in the warlock’s search for the Ilse Witch, he had been brought aboard by the Morgawr and his Mwellrets after leaving Castledown’s ruins and taken directly to his present confinement. A guard had been posted outside, but had disappeared shortly after the storm had begun and not returned. Just before that, they had brought him some food and water, a small measure of both and only enough to keep him from losing strength entirely. No effort was made to communicate with him. From the way the Morgawr had left things, it was clear that he would be brought out only when it was felt he could be useful in some way.
Or when it was finally time to dispose of him. He held no illusions about that. Sooner or later, promises notwithstanding, that time would come.
Ryer Ord Star had disappeared with the warlock, and the Elven Prince still had no clear idea why she had turned against him. He had not stopped pondering the matter, not even during the storm, while he sat braced in a corner of the storeroom, pressed up against a wall between two heavy trusses to keep from being knocked around. She had been the willing tool of the Ilse Witch, and it did not require a great leap of faith to accept that she would take that same path with the Morgawr if she thought it meant the difference between living and dying. Walker was gone, and Walker had provided her with both strength and direction. Without him, she seemed frailer, smaller, more vulnerable—a wisp of life that a strong wind could blow away.
Even so, Ahren had thought she was his friend, that she had come to terms with what she had done and closed that door behind her. To have her betray him now, to reveal his identity and suggest a use for him to his enemy, was too much to bear. Like it or not, he was left with the unpleasant possibility that she had been lying to him all along.
Yet she had clearly mouthed the words trust me to him after they had been made prisoners. Why would she do that if she was not trying to let him know she was still his friend?
What sort of deception was she working?
He thought some more about the Elfstones, as well. He simply could not understand what had happened to them. They had most certainly been in his possession in Castledown. He remembered quite clearly tucking them away in his tunic. He did not think he had lost them since, did not see how that was possible, so someone must have taken them after he had been rendered unconscious. But who? Ryer Ord Star was the logical suspect, but Cree Bega had searched her. Besides, how could she have taken them after the Mwellrets took them prisoner? That left Cree Bega or another of the Mwellrets as suspects, but it would take an act of either supreme courage or foolishness to try to conceal the stones from the Morgawr. Ahren did not think that the Mwellrets would chance it.
He was still wrestling with his confusion when the storm abated and the ship settled back into a smooth and easy glide through the clearing skies. He could tell the sun had reappeared from the sudden brightening that shone through the chinks in his window shutters, and he could smell the sharp, clean air that always followed a heavy storm. He was standing with his face pushed up against the rough battens, trying to see something besides the brightness, when the lock on his door released with a snap. He turned. A Mwellret entered, mute and expressionless, carrying a tray of food and water. The Mwellret glanced about to make certain that nothing was amiss, then placed the tray on the floor by the entry, backed out, closed the door, and locked it anew.
Ahren ate and drank, hungrier and thirstier than he had imagined, and listened to renewed activity on the decks above, the sudden movement of booted feet amid a flurry of shouts and gruff exclamations. The airship tacked several times, swinging about, maneuvering in a series of fits and starts. The ones who sailed her were inexperienced or stiff-handed. Other than to note that they were Southlanders—Federation conscripts and sailors like the ones who fought on the Prekkendorran—he had paid no attention to the sailors on being brought aboard earlier. Mostly he had spent his time studying the layout of the decks and corridors he was moved along, thinking that at some point he might have a chance to escape and would need to know his way.
He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. That hope seemed impossibly naive just now.
A sudden jolt threw him backwards and knocked the tray aside, spilling its contents. A slow grinding of wooden timbers and a screech of metal suggested that they were rubbing up against something big. He sprawled on the floor, as the ship lurched to a stop. He heard more activity overhead. For a moment he thought they were engaged in combat, but then the sounds died away. Yet the movement of the ship had changed, the earlier smooth, easy glide gone, replaced by a stiffer sway, as if the ship was resting against something solid.
Then the door to his prison opened again, and Cree Bega stepped through, followed by two more Mwellrets. The latter crossed to where he sat, hauled him roughly to his feet, and propelled him toward the open door.
“Comess with uss, little Elvess,” Cree Bega ordered.
They took him back up on deck. The sunlight was so bright that at first he was blinded by it. He stood in the grip of the Mwellrets, squinting through the glare at a cluster of figures gathered forward. Most were Mwellrets, but there were Federation sailors, as well. The sailors were slack-jawed, their faces empty of expression. They stood as if in a daze, staring at nothing. Ahren realized that they were still airborne, riding several hundred feet above a canopy of brilliant green forest with the peaks of a mountain range visible off their bow, a rippling stone spine that disappeared into a hazy distance.