He stared at her in silence, thinking that he wasn’t all that secure himself, that he felt lost, too. All this wandering about the larger world had a way of making you feel disconnected from everything, as if your life was something so elusive that you spent all the time allotted to you chasing after it and never quite catching up.
“Go away and leave me alone,” she said to him. “Fly this airship back to where we came from. Get us safely home. Then we can talk about this some more. Maybe by then we will understand each other better than we do now.”
He climbed back to his feet and stood watching her for a moment longer, thinking he should say something. But nothing he could think of seemed right.
Resigned to leaving well enough alone, to letting her do what she felt she must, he walked out of the room without a word.
Still sitting with Ahren by the aft railing, Bek Ohmsford glanced over as Redden Alt Mer emerged from the main hatchway and turned to look at him. What he saw in the Rover Captain’s face was a strange mix of frustration and wonderment, a reflection of thoughts that Bek could only begin to guess at. The look lasted only a second, and then Alt Mer had turned away, walking over to the pilot box and climbing up to stand beside Spanner Frew, his attention directed ahead into the shifting clouds.
“I heard that Panax stayed behind,” Ahren said, interrupting his thoughts.
Bek nodded absently. “He said he was tired of this journey, that he liked where he was and wanted to stay. He said with Walker and Truls Rohk both gone, there was nothing left to go home to. I guess I don’t blame him.”
“I can’t wait to get home. I don’t ever want to go away again, once I do.” The Elf’s face twisted in a grimace. “I hate what’s happened here, all of it.”
“It doesn’t seem to have counted for much, does it?”
“Walker said it did, but I don’t think I believe him.”
Bek let the matter slide, remembering that Walker had told him that his sister was the reason they had come to Parkasia and returning her safely home was the new purpose of their journey. He still didn’t understand why that was so. Forget that he wasn’t sure if they could do it or if she would ever come awake again if they did. The reality was that they had come here to retrieve the books of magic and failed to do so. They had destroyed Antrax, so there was some satisfaction in knowing that no one else would end up like Kael Elessedil, but it felt like a high price to pay for the losses they had suffered. Too high, given the broad scope of their expectations. Too high, for what they had been promised.
“Ryer said I was going to be King of the Elves,” Ahren said softly. He gave Bek a wry look. “I can’t imagine that happening. Even if I had the chance, I don’t think I would take it. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else but me after what’s happened here.”
“What will you do when you get home?” Bek asked him.
His friend shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it. Go away somewhere, I expect. Being home means being back in the Westland, nothing more. I don’t want to live in Arborlon. Not while my brother is King. I liked being with Ard Patrinell when he was teaching me. I’ll miss him more than anyone except Ryer. She was special.”
His lips compressed as tears came to his eyes, and he looked away self-consciously. “Maybe I won’t go home, after all.”
Bek thought about the dead, about those men and women who had come on this voyage with such determination and sense of purpose. Who would he miss most? He had known none of them when he started out and had become close to all at the end. The absence of Walker and Truls Rohk, because they had been his mentors and protectors, left the biggest void. But the others had been his friends, more so than the Druid and the shape-shifter. He couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without them or even what it would be like when he parted company with those who remained. Everything about his future seemed muddled and confused, and it felt to him as if nothing he did would be enough to clear away the debris of his past.