THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA : Morgawr (BOOK THREE)

Redden Alt Mer held her gaze. “You’re putting a lot on him, aren’t you?”


“I’m not putting anything on him. I’m carrying this burden all by myself. He loves me, too, Redden. He loves me in a way no one ever has. Not for how I look or what I can do or what he imagines me to be. It goes deeper than that. It touches on connections that words can’t express and don’t have to. It makes a difference when someone loves you like that. I like it enough that I don’t want to throw it away without taking time to see where it leads.”

She eased herself into a different position, her physical discomfort apparent, still sore from her wounds, still nursing her injuries. “I wanted to kill the Ilse Witch,” she said. “I had every intention of doing so the moment I got the chance. I thought I owed that much to Hawk. But I can’t do it now. Not while Bek believes she might wake up and be his sister again. Not after all he has done to protect her and care for her and give her a chance at being well. I don’t have that right, not even to make myself feel good again about losing Hawk.

“So I’ve decided to try to do what Bek can’t. I’ve decided to try to reach her, to see where she is and what she hides from, to try to understand what she’s feeling. I’ve decided to let her know someone else cares what happens to her. Maybe I can. But even if I can’t, I have to try. Because that’s what loving someone requires of you—giving yourself to something they believe in, even when you don’t. That’s what I want to do for Bek. That’s how I feel about him.”

She turned back to Grianne Ohmsford, lifted the girl’s hands in her own, and held them anew. “I keep thinking that if I can help her, maybe I can help myself. I’m as lost as she is. If I can find her, maybe I can find myself. Through Bek. Through feeling something for him.” She leaned forward again, her face so close to Grianne’s that she might have been thinking of kissing her. “I keep thinking that it’s possible.”

He stared at her in silence, thinking that he wasn’t all that secure himself, that he felt lost, too. All this wandering about the larger world had a way of making you feel disconnected from everything, as if your life was something so elusive that you spent all the time allotted to you chasing after it and never quite catching up.

“Go away and leave me alone,” she said to him. “Fly this airship back to where we came from. Get us safely home. Then we can talk about this some more. Maybe by then we will understand each other better than we do now.”

He climbed back to his feet and stood watching her for a moment longer, thinking he should say something. But nothing he could think of seemed right.

Resigned to leaving well enough alone, to letting her do what she felt she must, he walked out of the room without a word.





Still sitting with Ahren by the aft railing, Bek Ohmsford glanced over as Redden Alt Mer emerged from the main hatchway and turned to look at him. What he saw in the Rover Captain’s face was a strange mix of frustration and wonderment, a reflection of thoughts that Bek could only begin to guess at. The look lasted only a second, and then Alt Mer had turned away, walking over to the pilot box and climbing up to stand beside Spanner Frew, his attention directed ahead into the shifting clouds.

“I heard that Panax stayed behind,” Ahren said, interrupting his thoughts.

Bek nodded absently. “He said he was tired of this journey, that he liked where he was and wanted to stay. He said with Walker and Truls Rohk both gone, there was nothing left to go home to. I guess I don’t blame him.”

“I can’t wait to get home. I don’t ever want to go away again, once I do.” The Elf’s face twisted in a grimace. “I hate what’s happened here, all of it.”

“It doesn’t seem to have counted for much, does it?”

“Walker said it did, but I don’t think I believe him.”

Bek let the matter slide, remembering that Walker had told him that his sister was the reason they had come to Parkasia and returning her safely home was the new purpose of their journey. He still didn’t understand why that was so. Forget that he wasn’t sure if they could do it or if she would ever come awake again if they did. The reality was that they had come here to retrieve the books of magic and failed to do so. They had destroyed Antrax, so there was some satisfaction in knowing that no one else would end up like Kael Elessedil, but it felt like a high price to pay for the losses they had suffered. Too high, given the broad scope of their expectations. Too high, for what they had been promised.

“Ryer said I was going to be King of the Elves,” Ahren said softly. He gave Bek a wry look. “I can’t imagine that happening. Even if I had the chance, I don’t think I would take it. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else but me after what’s happened here.”