Ilse Witch (6 page)

Settling himself comfortably in place amid the trappings of his predecessors, Walker unfolded the map and began to study it.

He took a long time doing so, much longer than he had supposed would be necessary. What he found astonished him. The map was intriguing and rife with possibilities. Inarguably, it was valuable, but he could not make a firm determination of how valuable until after he had translated the writings in the margins, most of which were scripted in a language with which he was unfamiliar.

But he had books of translations of languages to which he could turn, and he did so finally, walking to the shelving that concealed the Histories and their secrets of power. He reached back behind a row of books and touched a series of iron studs in sequence. A catch released, and a section of the shelving swung outward. Walker slipped through the opening behind and stood in a room of granite walls, floor,
and ceiling, empty of everything but a long table and four chairs set against it. He lit the smokeless torches set in iron wall racks and pulled the shelving unit back into place behind him.

Then he placed his hand against a section of the granite wall, palm flat and fingers spread, and lowered his head in concentration. All the lore of all the Druids since the beginning of their order belonged now to him, given when he recovered lost Paranor and became a Druid himself those many years ago. He brought a small part of it to bear, recalling the Druid Histories from their concealment. Blue light emanated from his fingertips and spread through the stone beneath like veins through flesh.

A moment later, the wall disappeared, and the books of his order lay revealed, shelved in long rows and in numbered sequence, their covers bound in leather and etched in gold.

He spent a long time with the books that night, reading through many of them in his search for a key to the language on the map. When he found it, he was surprised and confounded. It was a derivation of a language spoken in the Old World, before the Great Wars, a language that had been dead for two thousand years. It was a language of symbols rather than of words. How, Walker wondered, would an Elf from his era have learned such a language? Why would he have used it to draw the map?

The answers to his questions, once he thought them through, were disturbing.

He worked on the translation almost until dawn, being careful not to misinterpret or assume. The more he deciphered, the more excited he became. The map was a key to a magic of such worth, of such power, that it left him breathless. He could barely manage to sit still as he imagined the possibilities. For the first time in years he saw a way in which he could secure what had been denied him for so long—a Druid Council, a body independent of all nations, working to unlock the secrets of life’s most difficult and challenging
problems and to improve the lives of all the peoples of the Four Lands.

That dream had eluded him for thirty years, ever since he had come awake from the Druid Sleep and gone out into the world to fulfill the promise he had made to himself when he had become what he was. What he had envisioned was a council of delegates from each of the lands and races, from each of the governments and provinces, all dedicated to study, learning, and discovery. But from the very beginning there had been resistance—not just from quarters where resistance might be expected, but from everywhere. Even from the Elves, and especially from Allardon Elessedil and his mother before him. No one wanted to give Walker the autonomy he believed necessary. No one wanted anyone else to gain an advantage. Everyone was cautious and suspicious and fearful of what a strong Druid Council might mean to an already precarious balance of power. No one wanted to take the kind of chance that the Druid was asking of them.

Walker sighed. Their demands were ridiculous and unacceptable. If the nations and the peoples were unwilling to let go of their delegates, to give up control over them so that they could dedicate themselves to the Druid life, the whole exercise was pointless. He had been unable to convince anyone that what he was doing would, given enough time, benefit them all. Druids, they believed, were not to be trusted. Druids, they believed, would visit problems on them they could do without. History demonstrated that Druids had been responsible for every war fought since the time of the First Council at Paranor. It was their own magic, the magic they had wielded in such secrecy, that had finally destroyed them. This was not an experience anyone wanted to repeat. The magic belonged to everyone now. It was a new age, with new rules. Control over the Druids, should they be permitted to re-form, was necessary. Nothing less would suffice.

In the end, the effort fell apart, and Walker was made outcast everywhere. Petty feuds, selfish interests, and
short-sighted personalities stymied him completely. He was left enraged and stunned. He had counted heavily on the Elves to lead the way, and the Elves had spurned him as surely as the others. After the death of Queen Aine, Allardon Elessedil had been his best hope, but the Elf King had announced he would follow his mother’s wishes. No Elves would be sent to study at Paranor. No new Druid Council would be approved. Walker must make his way alone.

But now, Walker thought with something bordering on euphoria, he had found a way to change everything. The map gave him the kind of leverage that nothing else could. This time, when he asked for help, he would not be refused.

If, of course, he cautioned himself quickly, he could find and retrieve the magic that had eluded the Elven expedition under Kael Elessedil. If he could recover it from the safehold that hid and protected it. If he could survive the long, dangerous journey such an effort would require.

He would need help.

He replaced the Druid Histories on their shelves, made a quick circular motion with his hand, and closed the wall away. When the room was restored to blank walls and snuffed torches, he went back out into the library and pushed the shelving unit securely into place again. He looked around momentarily to be certain that all was as it had been. Then, with the map tucked into his robes, he went up onto the battlements to watch the sunrise.

As he stood looking out over the treetops to the first faint silvery lightening of the eastern sky, Rumor padded up to join him. The big cat sat beside him, as if seeking his companionship. Walker smiled. Each was all the other could turn to for comfort, he mused. Ever since the shade of Allanon had appeared. Ever since they had been locked in limbo in lost Paranor. Ever since he had brought the Druid’s Keep back into the world of men by becoming the newest member of the order. Ever since Cogline had died.

All the rest were gone, too, from that earlier time—the
Ohmsfords, Morgan Leah, Wren Elessedil, Damson Rhee, all of them. Rumor and he alone survived. They were outcasts in more ways than one, solitary wanderers in a world that had changed considerably during the time of his sleep. But it wasn’t the changes in the Four Lands that worried him this morning. It was his sense that the events that would transpire because of his reading of the map and his search for the magic it detailed would require him to become what he had always worked so hard to avoid—a Druid in the old sense, a manipulator and schemer, a trader in information who would sacrifice who and what he must to get what he believed necessary. Allanon, of old. It was what he had always despised about the Druids. He knew he would despise it in himself when it surfaced.

And surface it would, perhaps changing him forever.

The sun crested the horizon in a splash of brilliant gold. The day would be clear and bright and warm. Walker felt the first rays of sunlight on his face. Such a small thing, but so welcome. His world had shrunk to almost nothing in the past few years. Now it was about to expand in ways he had barely imagined possible.

“Well,” he said softly, as if to put the matter to rest.

He knew what he must do. He must go to Arborlon and speak with Allardon Elessedil. He must convince the Elven King they could work together in an effort to discover the secret of the map. He must persuade him to mount an expedition to go in search of the magic of which the map spoke, with Walker in command. He must find a way to make the Elven King his ally without letting him see that it was the Druid’s idea.

He must reveal just enough of what he knew and not too much. He must be cautious.

He blinked away his weariness. He was Walker, the last of the Druids, the last hope for the higher ideals his order had espoused so strongly when it had been formed. If the Four Lands were to be united in peace, the magic must be
controlled by a Druid Council answerable to no single government or people, but to all. Only he could achieve that. Only he knew the way.

He bent to Rumor and placed his hand gently on the broad head. “You must stay here, old friend,” he whispered. “You must keep watch for me until I return.”

He rose and stretched. Hunter Predd slept in a darkened room and would not wake for a while yet. Time enough for Walker to catch an hour’s sleep before they departed. It would have to be enough.

With the moor cat trailing after him, fading and reappearing like a mirage in the new light, he abandoned his watch and descended the stairs into the Keep.

H
is worn black flight leathers creaking softly, Redden Alt Mer strode through the Federation war camp on his way to the airfield, and heads turned. For some it was the mane of red hair streaming down past his shoulders like fiery threads that drew attention. For some it was the way he carried himself, fluid, relaxed, and self-assured, a big man who exuded strength and quickness.

For most, it was the legend. Seventy-eight confirmed kills in 192 missions, all flown in the same airship, all completed without serious mishap.

It was good luck to fly with Redden Alt Mer, the old boots swore. In a place and time where an airman’s life expectancy was rated at about six months, Alt Mer had survived for three years with barely a scratch. He had the right ship, sure enough. But it took more than that to stay alive over the front. It took skill, courage, experience, and a whole basketful of that most precious of commodities, luck. The Captain had all of them. He was steeped in them. He’d lived almost his whole life in the air, a cabin boy at seven, a First Officer by fifteen, a Captain by twenty. When the winds of fortune shifted, the old boots said, Redden Alt Mer knew best how to ride them.

The Rover didn’t think about it. It was bad luck to think about good luck in a war. It was worse luck to think about why you were different from everyone else. Being an exception to the rule was all well and good, but you didn’t want to dwell on the reasons you were still alive when so many others
were dead. It wasn’t conducive to clear thinking. It wasn’t helpful in getting a good night’s sleep.

Walking through the camp, he joked and waved to those who acknowledged him, a light, easy banter that kept everyone relaxed. He knew what they thought of him, and he played off it the way an old friend might. What harm did it do? You could never have too many friends in a war.

He’d been three years now in this one, two of them stuck here on the broad expanse of the Prekkendorran Heights while Federation and Free-born ground forces hammered each other to bloody pulps day after day after day. A Rover out of the seaport of March Brume, west and south on the Blue Divide, he was a seasoned veteran of countless conflicts even before he signed on. It was no exaggeration to say that he had spent his whole life on warships. He’d almost been born at sea, but his father, a Captain himself, had managed to reach port with his mother just before she gave birth. But from the time he’d taken that first commission as a cabin boy, he’d lived in the air. He couldn’t explain why he loved it so; he just did. It felt right when he was flying, as if a net of invisible constraints and bonds had been slipped and he had been set free. When he was on the ground, he was always thinking about being in the air. When he was in the air, he was never thinking about anything else.

“Hey, Cap!” A foot soldier with his arm tied against his body and a bandage over one side of his face hobbled into view. “Blow me a little of your luck!”

Redden Alt Mer grinned and blew him a kiss. The soldier laughed and waved with his good arm. The Rover kept walking, smelling the air, tasting it, thinking as he did that he missed the sea. Most of his time in the air had been spent west, over the Blue Divide. He was a mercenary, as most Rovers were, taking jobs where the money was best, giving allegiance to those who paid for it. Right now, the Federation offered the best pay, so he fought for them. But he was growing restless for a change, for something new. The war with the
Free-born had been going on for more than ten years. It wasn’t his war to begin with, and it wasn’t a war that made much sense to him. Money could carry you only so far when your heart lay somewhere else.

Besides, no matter who you were, sooner or later your luck ran out. It was best to be somewhere else when it did.

He passed out of the sprawling clutter of tents and cooking fires onto the airfield. The warships were tethered in place by their stays, floating just off the ground, ambient-light sails tilted toward the sun off twin masts. Most were Federation built and showed it. Big, ugly, cumbersome brutes, sheathed in metal armor and painted with the insignia and colors of their regiments, in flight they lumbered about the skies like errant sloths. As troop transports and battering rams, they were a howling success. As fighting vessels that could tack smoothly and quickly, they left something to be desired. If they were ably commanded, which most weren’t, their life expectancy on the front was about the same as that of their Captains and crews.

He walked on, barely giving them a glance. The banter that had passed between himself and the foot soldiers was absent here. The officers and crews of the Federation airships despised him. Rovers were mercenaries, not career soldiers. Rovers fought only for money and left when they chose. Rovers cared nothing for the Federation cause or the lives of the men that had been expended on its behalf. But the worst of it was the knowledge that the Rover officers and crews were so much better than the Federation crews were. In the air, faith in a cause did little to keep you alive.