Ilse Witch - Terry Brooks [148]
Another approach was needed. Something new must be tried. Perhaps someone should go into the castle at night. Perhaps the darkness would change the way things looked.
It was time to call on Truls Rohk.
Far astern of the Jerle Shannara, south and east of the island and well out of sight below the horizon, Black Moclips hung silently above the water, anchored in place for the night. Mwellret sentries prowled across her sleek, armored decking, their spidery forms hooded and cloaked as they drifted through the shadows. The Federation crew was belowdecks in the sleeping quarters, all save for the helmsman, a whip-thin veteran corded with muscle and wrapped in his disdain and repulsion for the lizardlike creatures his ship was forced to carry.
The Ilse Witch shared his feelings. The Mwellrets were loathsome and dangerous, but there was nothing she could do about them. The presence of the Morgawr’s minions was the price she had been forced to pay in order to pursue her search for the map’s promised magic. Had she been free to do so, she would have turned them all to chum and fed them to the big fish.
Not that she was much better regarded than they were by Commander Aden Kett and his crew. The Federation soldiers disliked her almost as much, — she was a shadowy presence who stayed aloof from them, who gave them no reasons for what she did, and who had on the very first day made a small example of one of their number who had disobeyed her. That she was apparently human was her only saving grace. That she commanded power beyond their understanding and had little regard for them beyond what they could do for her made her someone they went out of their way to avoid.
Which was as it should be, of course. Which was as it had always been.
Wrapped in her gray robes, she stood before the foremast and looked off into the night. She had been shadowing the Jerle Shannara and her company ever since the departure from Arborlon. Black Moclips was a formidable and efficient craft, and her Federation crew was as well trained and experienced as Sen Dunsidan had promised. Both had done what was needed to track the Elven airship. Not that there was ever any real danger they might lose contact with her. The Ilse Witch had seen to that.
But what was happening here? What was keeping the other ship at anchor for so long? For six days and nights she had waited for the Druid to secure the final key. Why had he failed to do so? Apparently the puzzle offered by this island was proving more difficult to solve than that of the previous two. Was this where Walker would fail? Was this as far as he would get without her help?
She sniffed in disdain at the thought. No, not him. Even crippled, he would not be so easily defeated. She might hate and despise him, but she knew him to be formidable and clever. He would solve the puzzle and continue on to the safehold they both journeyed to find. It would be settled between them there, and a lifetime of anger and hatred would be put to rest at last. It would happen as she had foreseen. He would not disappoint her.
Yet her uncertainty persisted, nagging and insidious. Perhaps she gave him too much credit. Did he realize yet the ways in which he was being manipulated in his quest? Had he reasoned out, as she had, the hidden purpose of the castaway and the map?
Her brow furrowed. She must assume so. She could not afford to assume otherwise. But it would be interesting to know. Her spy could tell her, perhaps. But the risk of compromise was too great to attempt any contact.
She walked forward to the ship’s bow and stood looking off into the dark for a time, then produced a small milky glass sphere from within