The Mwellret bowed in obsequious acknowledgment of his trespass. “Apologiess, Misstress. But we wasste our time and opportunitiess. Let uss kill them and be done with it!”
She hated Cree Bega. The Mwellret leader knew she would not harm him, the Morgawr had given him a personal guarantee of protection against her. She had been forced to swear to it in his presence. The memory made her want to retch. He was not afraid of her in any case. Although not completely immune, Mwellrets were resistant to the controlling powers of her magic, and Cree Bega more so than most. The combination of all this added to his insufferable arrogance toward and open disdain for her and made their alliance all but intolerable.
But she was the Ilse Witch, and she showed him nothing of her irritation. No one could penetrate her defenses unless she allowed it.
“They do our work for us, ret. We will let them continue until they are finished. Then you can kill as many as you like. Save one.”
“Knowss your claim upon the Druid, misstress,” he purred. “Givess the resst to me and mine. We will be ssatissfied. Little peopless, Elvess, belongss to uss.”
She passed her hand across the sphere. The image of the Jerle Shannara disappeared and the sphere went white again. She tucked it back inside her robes, all without glancing once at the creature hovering next to her. “Nothing belongs to you that I do not choose to give you. Remember that. Now get out of my sight.”
“Yess, Misstress,” he replied tonelessly, without a scintilla of respect or fear, and slid away into the shadows like oil over black metal.
She did not look to see that he had gone. She did not trouble herself. She was thinking that it did not matter what she had promised the Morgawr. When this matter was finished, so were these treacherous toads. All of them, her promise to the Morgawr notwithstanding. And Cree Bega would be the first.
The night was silent and windless, and she cradled the Jerle Shannara like a slumbering child rocked gently in her arms. Bek Rowe sat up suddenly, staring into the darkness of his sleeping room, listening to the snores and breathing of Quentin and Panax and the others. Someone had called his name, whispered it in his mind, in a voice he did not recognize, in words that were lost instantly on waking. Had he imagined it?
He rose, pulled on his boots and cloak, and climbed topside to the decking. He stood without moving at the top of the stairs and looked about as if he might find the answer in the darkness. He had heard his name clearly. Someone had spoken it. He brushed back his curly hair and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The moon and stars were brilliant white beacons in a velvet black sky. The lines and features of the airship and the island were distinct and clear. Everything was still, as if frozen in ice.
He walked to the forward mast, just ahead of the mysterious object Walker kept so carefully warded. He stared about once more, searching now as much inside himself as without for what had drawn him here.
“Looking for something, boy?” a familiar voice hissed softly at his elbow.
Truls Rohk. He jumped in spite of himself. The shapeshifter crouched somewhere in the shadows of the casing, so close Bek imagined he could reach out and touch him. “Was it you who called me?” he breathed.
“It is a good night for discovering truths,” the other whispered in that rough, notquitehuman voice. “Care to try?”
“What are you talking about?” Bek struggled to keep his voice steady and calm.
“Hum for me. Just a little, soft as a kitten’s purr. Hum as if you were trying to move me back with just your voice. Do you understand?”
Bek nodded, wondering what in the world Truls Rohk was trying to prove. Hum? Move him back with his voice?
“Do it then. Don’t question me. Think about what you want to do and then do it. Concentrate.”
Bek did as he was asked. He imagined the shapeshifter standing beside him, visualized him there in the darkness, and hummed as if the sound, the vibration alone, might move him away. The sound was barely audible, unremarkable, and so far as Bek could determine, pointless.