Panax seated himself cross-legged in a corner of the room, a block of wood in one hand, his whittling knife in the other. He worked slowly, carefully in the silence, wood shavings curling and falling to the stone, shaggy head bent to his task.
"Sorry you came on this journey, Highlander?" he asked without looking up.
Leaving the Elven Hunters to keep watch, Quentin sat down next to him. "No." He considered momentarily. "I wish I hadn't been so eager to have Bek come along, though. I won't forgive myself if anything happens to him."
Panax grunted. "I wouldn't worry about Bek if I were you. You heard Tamis. I'd guess he's better off than we are. There's something about that boy. It's more than the magic Tamis saw him use. Walker's marked him for something special. It's why he sent you both to Tails Rohk-why Truls was persuaded to come with us. He saw it, too. He recognized it. He won't have forgotten it either. You might want to bear that in mind. The shape-shifter's out there somewhere, Highlander-mark my words. I won't tell you I can sense it. That would be silly. But I know him, and he's there. Maybe with Bek."
Quentin considered the possibility. The fact that no one had seen Truls Rohk-at least, no one he knew of-didn't mean he wasn't there. It was possible he was shadowing Bek. That made perfect sense if Walker had brought him along to keep Bek safe. He thought again about his cousin's mysterious past and his new-found use of magic that he'd never known he had. Maybe Bek really was better off than the rest of them.
"What about you, Panax?" he asked the Dwarf.
The whittling knife continued to move in smooth, effortless strokes. "What about me?"
"Are you sorry you came?"
The Dwarf laughed. "If I were, I'd have to be sorry about the larger part of my life!" He shook his head in amusement. "I've been living like this, Highlander, drifting from one mishap to the next, one expedition to another, for as long as I can remember. For all that I'm up in those mountains living alone much of the time, I've been more places and risked my life more often than I care to think about." He shrugged. "Well, there you are. If you live your life in the Wolfsktaag, you pretty much live on the edge all the time anyway."
"So Walker knew what he was doing when he sent us to find you? He knew you'd be coming, too."
"I'd say so." The Dwarf's dark eyes lifted a moment, then refocused on his work. "He wanted Truls and me both. Same as you and Bek. He likes companions, friends, and people who've known each other a long time and trust each other's judgment. He knows what sorts of risks you take on a voyage like the one we've made. Strangers bond, but not fast and hard enough as a rule. Friends and family are a better match in the long run. Besides, if he can get two magic wielders for the price of one, why not do so?"
Quentin refitted the headband around his long hair. "Always thinking ahead, the way Druids do."
The Dwarf grunted. "Farther ahead than you and I and most others could manage. That's why I think he's still alive." He stopped whittling and looked up. "That's why I think that sooner or later we'll find him."
Quentin wasn't so sure, but he kept that to himself, as well. His attitude about things in general was less positive than when he had started the journey. Bek would be surprised at the change in him.
Not ten minutes later, Tamis reappeared. They didn't see her until she was almost on top of them and she was not trying to hide her coming. She loped up through the rubble and into their shelter, her face damp with sweat, her short dark hair tousled, and her clothing disheveled. Quentin saw by the look on her face that all was not well.
"I followed the Mwellrets almost all the way back through the ruins." She spoke quickly, wiping at her face with her tunic sleeve as she crouched before them. She was breathing hard. "I caught up with one of them. He was injured and lagging behind the rest so I took a chance. I knocked him down, put a knife to his throat, and asked him what had happened. It was pretty much what you would guess, the same thing that happened to us. He told me they were tracking the seer, but they never found her."
"What about Bek?" Quentin asked at once.
She shook her head. "They don't know anything about him. When they reached that clearing, only the seer and the Ilse Witch were there. The witch told them to hunt us down and make us prisoners and then went off to hunt someone or something by herself." She paused. "It could have been Bek."
The Highlander frowned. "Why would she waste time hunting Bek? That doesn't make any sense."
"It does if she knows about his magic," Panax pointed out.
Quentin shook his head stubbornly. "She's after the treasure in Castledown. Maybe the Mwellret was lying to you."
"I don't think so," Tamis replied. "Bek was there when I left to find you and gone when the Mwellrets showed up. Something happened to him between times, and it probably involved the Ilse Witch. If we could find the seer, we might find out the truth. She must have seen something."