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

By sundown, everyone was back aboard. The Wing Riders had located a water source, Spanner Frew had found a suitable tree and cut it down, and the thing that lived in the ruins had not appeared. The members of the company, save Quentin and Grianne, sat together on the aft deck and ate their dinner, watching the sunset wash lavender and gold across the dark battlements and towers of the castle, as if making a vain attempt to paint them in a better light. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, the color faded from the stones and night’s shadows closed about.

Alt Mer stood looking at the outline of the ruins after the others had dispersed. Kian was scheduled to stand guard, but he sent the Elven Hunter below, deciding to take his place, thinking that on this night he was unlikely to sleep anyway. Taking up a position at the Jerle Shannara’s stern, he left responsibility for keeping watch over the Blue Divide to Riat and gave his attention instead to the empty, featureless landscape of Mephitic.

His thoughts quickly drifted. He was troubled by what he perceived as his failure as Captain of his airship. Too many men and women had died while traveling with him, and their deaths did not rest easy with him. He might pretend that the responsibility lay elsewhere, but he was not the kind of man who looked for ways to shift blame to others. A Captain was responsible for his charges, no matter what the circumstances. There was nothing he could do for those who were dead, but he was afraid that perhaps there was nothing he could do for those who were still alive, either. His confidence had been eroding incrementally since the beginning of their time on Parkasia, a gradual wearing away of his certainty that nothing bad could happen to those who flew with him. His reputation had been built on that certainty. He had the luck, and luck was the most single important weapon of an airship Captain.

Luck, he whispered to himself. Ask Jahnon Pakabbon about his luck. Or Rucker Bont and Tian Cross. Or any of the Elves who had gone inland to the ruins of Castledown and never come back. Ask Jethen Amenades. What luck had Alt Mer given to them? It wasn’t that he believed he had done anything to cause their deaths. It was that he hadn’t found a way to prevent them. He hadn’t kept his people safe, and he was afraid he had lost the means for doing so.

Sooner or later, luck always ran out. He knew that. His seemed to have begun draining away when he had agreed to undertake this voyage, so self-confident, so determined everything would work out just as he wanted it to. But nothing had gone right, and now Walker was dead and Alt Mer was in command. What good was that going to do any of those who depended on him if the armor of his fabled luck was cracked and rusted?

Staring at the dark bulk of the ruins across the way, he could not help thinking that what he saw, broken and crumbled and abandoned, was a reflection of himself.

But his pride would not let him accept that he was powerless to do anything. Even if his luck was gone, even if he himself was doomed because of it, he would find a way to help the others. It was the charge he must give himself, that so long as he breathed, he must get those he captained, those eleven men and women who were left, safely home again. Saving just those few would give him some measure of peace. That one of them was his sister and another the boy she loved made his commitment even more necessary. That all of them were his friends and shipmates made it imperative.

He was still thinking about this when he sensed a presence at his elbow and glanced over to find Bek Ohmsford standing next to him. He was so surprised to see Bek, perhaps because he had just been thinking of him, that for a moment he didn’t speak.

“It won’t come out of there,” Bek said, nodding in the direction of the castle. His young face bore a serious cast, as if his thoughts were taking him to dark and complex places. “You don’t have to worry.”

Alt Mer followed his gaze to the ruins. “How do you know that?”

“Because it didn’t come after me when I stole the key the last time we were here. Not past the castle walls, not outside the ruins.” He paused. “I don’t think it can go outside. It can chase you that far, but no farther. It can’t reach beyond.”

The Rover Captain thought about it for a moment. “It didn’t bother us when we were searching the ruins, did it? It just used its magic to turn us down blind alleys and blank walls so that we couldn’t find anything.”

Bek nodded. “I don’t think it will bother us if we stay out here. Even if we go in, it probably won’t interfere if we don’t try to take anything.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder for a few moments, staring out into the darkness, listening to the silence. A dark, winged shape flew across the lighter indigo of the starlit sky, a hunting bird at work. They watched it bank left in a sweeping glide and disappear into the impenetrable black of the trees.

“What are you doing out here?” Alt Mer asked him. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

He almost asked why he wasn’t with Rue, but Bek hadn’t chosen to talk about it, and Alt Mer didn’t think it was up to him to broach the subject.