Ilse Witch - Terry Brooks [109]
It was after midnight when Quentin shook Bek awake from the sleep that had claimed him an hour before. With no further word from Walker on the fate of the expedition and its members, they had retired from the palace gardens and been shown to their sleeping quarters by another of the silent Home Guard. Panax was snoring in another room. Ard Patrinell and Hunter Predd had disappeared.
“Bek, wake up!” Quentin urged, pulling on his shoulder.
Bek, still catching up on sleep lost during their journey west out of the Wolfsktaag, dragged himself out of his cottony slumber and opened his eyes. “What’s the matter?”
“Hunter Predd just returned from the palace, where he’s spoken with Walker.” Quentin’s eyes were bright and his voice excited. “I heard him come in and went to see what he’d learned. He said to tell you good-bye for now. He’s been sent to the coast to recruit two more Wing Riders from the Hove. The decision’s been made. We leave in two days!”
“Two days,” Bek repeated, not yet fully awake.
“Yes, cousin, but you didn’t hear me clearly. I said we are going, you and II” Quentin laughed gleefully. “Walker kept us both! He’s leaving behind three of the Home Guard and taking only a single Healer. I don’t know, maybe there was someone else left off the list, as well. But he kept us! That’s what matters! We’re going, Bek!”
Afterwards, Quentin fell into bed and off to sleep so quickly that Bek, now awake, was unable to measure the time lapse between the two. It seemed somehow inevitable that he should be going. Even when Hunter Predd had warned that there were too many chosen for the voyage and some would be left behind, it had never occurred to him that he would be one of them. It was logical that he would be, of course. He was the youngest and the least skilled. On the face of things, he was the most expendable. But something in the Druid’s insistence that he come, coupled with his encounters with the King of the Silver River and Truls Rohk, had convinced him that his selection was no afterthought and was tied inextricably to secrets of the past and to resolution of events yet to be determined. Bek was there because it was necessary for him to be so, and his life was about to change forever.
It was what Quentin had wanted for them both. But Bek Rowe was inclined to wonder if one day soon they would have cause to remember the danger of getting what you wish for.
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Bek Rowe woke the following morning to sunshine and blue skies and no sign of Quentin Leah. He took a moment to orient himself, decided he was still in Arborlon, and jumped out of bed to dress. When he checked the adjoining bedrooms, he found that Panax was missing as well. A quick glance out the window revealed the sun at midmorning height, a clear indicator of how late he had slept. There was grain cereal, cheese, and milk on the table in the anteroom, and he wolfed them down hungrily before charging out the door in search of his friends.
He was running so fast and so hard he ran right into the black-cloaked figure coming in.
“Walker!” he gasped in shock and embarrassment, and jumped back quickly.
“Good morning, Bek Rowe,” the Druid said formally. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Did you sleep well?”
“Too well,” Bek answered, chagrined. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a layabout—”
“Please, young traveler, don’t be so anxious to apologize.” Walker was chuckling softly now. He put his big hand on Bek’s shoulder. “You haven’t missed anything. Nor have you neglected any obligations. You were right to sleep. That was a long journey up to Depo Bent and then west to here. I would rather have you rested when we set out from here.”
Bek sighed. “I guess I just assumed that since Quentin and Panax are already up and gone I was lagging in some way.”
Walker shook his head.