How could he bring about the necessary epiphany without losing his life? How could he make her believe?
The answer did not come to him, and he grew tired thinking on it. He lay down to sleep. He drifted off quickly, but he did not dream. He slept and woke in fits and starts, troubled in a way he could not identify, unable to rest for more than a few minutes at a time. He thought it was because he was waiting for Truls Rohk to return, but maybe it was just that he couldn’t stop thinking about his part in the journey to Castledown. He wished he knew everything that Walker did, all the secrets he was still keeping to himself about Bek, about his purpose on the voyage, about the reasons for his presence. It did not stop with his usage of the Sword of Shannara at the Squirm. It did not end with his heritage of magic or his relationship to Grianne. It went beyond all that. But how far did it go?
When he woke the last time that night, he was still caught up in stray thoughts of his sister and their tangled relationship, discomforted enough that he felt as if he had not slept at all. Hearing a soft murmur of voices, he sat up with a start and stared into the surrounding darkness.
There were faces all around him. None of them belonged to Truls Rohk. None of them was attached to a body.
Like the faces of wraiths risen from the netherworld, they floated in the air, and in their empty eyes, Bek Ohmsford saw the reflection of his soul.
TWELVE
Bek fought down the rush of fear that threatened to overwhelm him as he felt himself stripped bare and laid open by the faces that floated before him. Their features were flat and empty of life, drained of all expression, sketched on air with chalk so that they did not seem fully formed, but in need of completion, a child’s rendering. They were shades, he believed, the dead come back to haunt, compelled to seek out the living by urges and needs only they could know. Their wide, empty eyes fastened on him without seeing, but he could feel them looking anyway, inside, where he hid everything he wanted to keep secret. Who are you?
The voice was thin and whispery. He couldn’t tell which of the shades was speaking. He couldn’t see movement of mouth or lips. The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, resonating inside his head.
“I’m Bek Ohmsford,” he replied, frozen in his sitting position, struggling not to scream. Where have you come from?
His voice shook. “From the Highlands of Leah, across the sea, in another land.”
Far away?
“Yes.”
Have you come alone?
He hesitated. “No. I came with others.”
Where are they?
He shook his head, eyes shifting from one dead face to the next, from one set of blank features to another. “I don’t know.”
Would you dare to lie to us?
He exhaled sharply. “I don’t think so.”
The heads shifted slightly, moving in a clockwise motion, as if stirred by a passing wind. Eyes and mouths gaped open, the eyes and mouths of corpses. They did not seem to threaten in any way, but they were all around him, and Bek could not escape the feeling that there was more to them than what he was seeing. He kept himself as calm and still as he could manage, the last traces of his restless sleep gone now, his mind and body tingling and taut with his terror.
The shades went still again.
Why have you come here?
How should he answer that one? His mind raced. “I was running away from someone who wants to hurt me.”
Where are you running to?
“I don’t know. I’m just running.”
Where is your companion?
So they knew about Truls Rohk, as well. What did they want with him? “He went back to see if our pursuer is still following us.”
Who is your pursuer? Do not lie to us.
He wouldn’t dream of lying at this point. Seeing no reason not to do so, he told the shades about Grianne and their history. He did not dissemble or try to hide anything. It might have been that he thought it pointless or perhaps was too weary to pick and choose between what to tell and what to keep secret. There were no interruptions as he spoke. The heads of the dead hung suspended before him, and the night about was empty and still.