Ilse Witch

Once, Hunter Predd came aboard for a hard-edged, whispered confrontation with Walker that seemed to satisfy neither and left the Wing Rider angry when it was finished.

They had been gone for almost four months, and the voyage was beginning to wear on them. Days would pass with no land sighted, and sometimes those days would stretch into weeks. The number of islands they passed diminished, and it became necessary to ration their stores and water more strictly. Fresh fruit was seldom available, and rainwater was caught in tarps stretched over the decking to supplement what was foraged. Routines grew boring and change more difficult to invent. The course of their lives settled into a numbing sameness that left everyone disgruntled.

There was no help for it, Rue Meridian explained to Bek one day as they sat talking. Life aboard ship did that to you, and long voyages were the worst. Some of it had to do with the fact that explorers and adventurers detested confinement. Even the members of the Rover crew liked to move around more than was permitted here. None of them had ever sailed on a voyage of such length, and they were discovering feelings and reactions they hadn’t even known were there. It would all change when they reached their destination, but until then they simply had to live with their discomfort.

“There’s a lot of luck involved in being a sailor, Bek,” she told him. “Flying airships is tricky business, even with a Captain as experienced as Big Red. His crews like him more for his luck than his skill. Rovers are a superstitious bunch, and they’re constantly looking for favorable signs. They don’t feel good about new experiences and unknown places if they come at the price of their shipmates’ lives. They’re drawn to the unknown, but they take comfort in what’s familiar and reassuring. Sort of a contradiction, isn’t it?”

“I thought Rovers might be more adaptable,” he replied.

She shrugged. “Rovers are a paradox. They like movement and new places. They don’t like the unknown. They don’t trust magic. They believe in fate and omens. My mother read bones to determine her children’s future. My father read the stars. It doesn’t always make sense, but what does? Is it better to be a Dwarf or a Rover? Is it better to have your life fixed and settled or to have it change with every shift in the wind? It depends on your point of view, doesn’t it? The demands of this particular voyage are a new experience for everyone, and each of us has to find a way to deal with them.”

Bek didn’t mind doing that. He was by nature an accepting sort, and he had learned a long time ago to live with whatever conditions and circumstances he was provided. Maybe this came from being an orphan delivered into the hands of a stranger’s family and being brought up with someone else’s history. Maybe it came from an approach to life that questioned everything as a matter of course, so that the uncertainties of their expedition didn’t wear at him so cruelly. After all, he hadn’t gone into this with the same high spirits as many of the others, and his emotional equilibrium was more easily balanced.

To a measurable extent, he found he was a calming influence on the other members of the company. When they were around him, they seemed more at ease and less irritable. He didn’t know why that was, but he was pleased to be able to offer something of tangible value and did his best to soothe ruffled feathers when he encountered them. Quentin w1as of some use in this regard, as well. Nothing ever seemed to change Bek’s cousin. He continued as eager and bright-eyed and hopeful as ever, the only member of the company who genuinely enjoyed each day and looked forward to the next. It was the nature of his personality, of course, but it provided a needed measure of inspiration to those who possessed a less generous attitude.

Shortly after their encounter with the Shrikes, the airship assumed a more northerly heading in accordance with the dictates of the map. As the days passed, the weather turned colder. Autumn had arrived at home, and a fresh chill was apparent in the sea air as well. The sky took on an iron-gray cast much of the time, and on the colder mornings a thin layer of ice formed on the railings of the ship. Furl Hawken broke out heavy coats, gloves, and boots for the company, and warming fires were lit on deck at night for the watch. The days grew shorter and the nights longer, and the sun rose farther south in the eastern sky with each new dawn.

Snow flurries appeared for the first time only two nights before the Jerle Shannara arrived at the island of Mephitic.