“How did Walker meet him?” Quentin asked.
“Heard about him, I believe, rumors mostly, then tracked him down. He’s the only man I know who could do that.” Panax smiled. “I’m not sure he really did track Tails, only that he got close enough to attract his attention. There might not be anyone alive who can track Tails Rohk. But Walker found him somehow and talked him into coming with him on a journey. I’m not sure where they went that first time, but they formed some kind of a bond. Afterwards, Tails was more than willing to go with the Druid.”
He shook his head. “Still, you never know. No one really has his ear. He likes me, trusts me, as much as he likes or trusts anyone, but he doesn’t let me get too close.”
“He’s scary,” Bek offered quietly. “It’s more than how he hides himself or appears like a ghost out of nowhere or shapeshifts. It’s more than knowing what’s happened to him, too. It’s how he looks right through you and makes you feel like he sees things you don’t.”
“He was right about me and the sword,” Quentin agreed. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just fighting to keep the magic under control, to keep those wolves at bay. If he hadn’t come along, they probably would have had us.”
Tails Rohk had seen or recognized something about Bek, as well, but had chosen to keep it to himself. Bek wasn’t able to stop thinking about it. Trust no one, the shapeshifter had said, until you learn to see things better. It was an admonition that revealed Tails Rohk had gained an insight into him that he himself had not yet experienced. All the way down from the Wolfsktaag and on the journey across the Borderlands to Arborlon, he found himself remembering how it had been to have the shapeshifter looking at him, studying him, penetrating beyond what he could see. It was an old Druid trait, Bek knew. Allanon had been famous for the way his eyes looked right through you. There was something of that in Walker, as well. Tails Rohk was not a Druid, but when he looked at you, you felt as if you were being flayed alive.
The discussion of the shapeshifter pretty much died away after the first night, since Panax seemed to have exhausted his store of knowledge and Quentin and Bek chose to keep their thoughts to themselves. Conversation turned to other matters, particularly the journey ahead, of which the Dwarf was now part but knew little. He had been drafted into the cause because Walker had insisted he join them if Tails Rohk agreed to come. So Bek and Quentin filled Panax in on what little they knew, and the three spent much of their time tossing back and forth their ideas about exactly where they might be going and what they might be looking for.
The Dwarf was blunt in his assessment. “There is no treasure big or rich enough to interest a Druid. A Druid cares only for magic. Walker seeks a talisman or spell or some such. He goes in search of something so powerful that to let it fall into the hands of the Ilse Witch or anyone else would be suicide.”
It was a compelling and believable assessment, but no one could think of anything that dangerous. There had been magic in the world since the new races had been born out of the Great Wars, reinvented by the need to survive. Much of it had been potent, and all of it had either been tamed or banished by the Druids. That there might be a new magic, undiscovered all these years and now released solely by chance, felt wrong. Magic didn’t exist in a vacuum. It wouldn’t just appear. Someone had conjured it, perfected it, and set it loose.
“Which is why Walker is taking people like you, Highlander, with your magic sword, and Tails Rohk,” Panax insisted bluntly. “Magic to counter magic, linked to men who can wield it successfully.”
This did nothing to explain why Bek was going, or Panax either, for that matter, but at least Panax was a seasoned hunter and skilled tracker; Bek was untrained at anything. Now and again, his hand would stray to the smooth hard surface of the phoenix stone, and he would remember his encounter with the King of the Silver River. Now and again, he would remember that perhaps he was not his father’s son. Each time, of course, he would question everything he thought he knew and understood. Each time, he would feel Tails Rohk’s eyes looking at him in the Eastland night.