Ilse Witch - Terry Brooks [181]
Before anyone could offer comment or complaint about his decision, he summoned his council of eight to a meeting in Redden Alt Mer’s cabin and walked from the deck.
Quentin sidled up to Bek. “Something is up, I’ll wager. Do you think the seer’s had another vision?”
Bek shook his head. The only thing he knew for certain was that Redden Alt Mer, dark-browed and stiff-necked as he came down off the pilot box, was not happy.
When the eight who composed Walker’s inner council were gathered belowdecks in the Rover Captain’s cabin, the boy found out what it was.
“I didn’t come this far to be left aboard ship while everyone else goes ashore,” Big Red snapped at the Druid.
“Nor I,” Rue Meridian agreed, flushed and angry. “We sailed a long way to find out what’s here. You ask too much of us, Walker.”
No one else spoke. They were pressed close about the Druid, gathered at the table that held the large-scale drawing of the castaway’s map, all but Ryer Ord Star, who remained in the background, a part of the shadows, watching silently. The warmth of their new environment not yet absorbed into the hull, the room smelled of damp and pitch and was still infused with the feel of the ice and cold they had left on the other side of the Squirm. Bek glanced at the faces about him, surprised by the mix of expectancy and tension he found mirrored there. It had taken them a long time to reach their destination, and much of what they had bottled up inside during their voyage was coming out.
Walker’s black eyes swept the room. He gestured at the map laid out before them. “How do you think the castaway who brought us the original of this map managed to get all the way from here to the coast of the Westland?”
He waited a moment, but no one answered. “It is a voyage of months, even by airship. How did the castaway manage it, already blind and voiceless and probably at least half-mad?”
“Someone helped him,” Bek offered, not wanting to listen any longer to the uncomfortable silence. “Maybe the same someone who helped him escape.”
The Druid nodded. “Where is that person?”
Again, silence. Bek shook his head, not eager to assume the role of designated speaker for the group.
“Dead, lost at sea during the escape, probably on the voyage back,” Rue Meridian said. “What are you getting at?”
“Let’s assume that is so,” Walker replied. “You have had a chance to study the map at length during this voyage. Most of the writings are done not with words, but with symbols. The writings aren’t of this age, but of an age thousands of years old, from a time before the Great Wars destroyed the Old World. How did our castaway learn that language?”
“Someone taught it to him,” Rue Meridian answered, a thoughtful, somewhat worried look on her sun-browned face. She tossed back her long red hair impatiently. “Why would they do that?”
“Why, indeed?” Walker paused. “Let’s assume that the Elven expedition that Kael Elessedil led thirty years ago reached its destination just as we have, and then something happened to it. They were all killed, all but one man, perhaps Kael Elessedil himself. Their ships were destroyed and all trace of their passage disappeared. How did they find their way here? Did they have a map, as we do?
We must assume so, or how would the castaway know to draw one for us to follow? To make the copy we have, they must have followed the route we followed. They must have visited the islands of Flay Creech, Shatterstone, and Mephitic, and found the keys we found. If so, how did those keys get back to the islands from which they were taken?“
Another long silence filled the room. Booted feet shifted uncomfortably. “What are you saying, Walker?” Ard Patrinell asked.
“He’s saying we’ve sailed into a trap,” Redden Alt Mer answered softly.
Bek stared