“Climb onto my back, put your arms about my neck, and hold on.”
Bek did so, feeling the ridged muscles beneath him, the ropes of sinew and gristle that crisscrossed the other’s shoulders and gave him the feel of an animal. The boy tried not to think of that. Clasping his right hand about his left wrist, he took firm hold.
Truls Rohk lunged up the rope and began climbing hand over hand as they swung out across the river. Skimming over the chill waters, they drew up their legs as they bottomed out at the nadir of their arc before rising again to the near shore where the river hooked left. Just above the bank, deep within the woods, Truls Rohk loosened his grip just enough to slide back to the ground. Still holding on to the ends of the rope, he waited for Bek to climb off his back, then ran the rope out through the eye until it dropped free of the hook, coiled it up once more, and tucked it away beneath his robes.
“That should give her something to puzzle out,” the shape-shifter growled softly. “If we’re lucky, she’ll think we went ashore on the far bank and track us that way.”
They moved inland again, away from the river and back toward the mountains, angling over rocky ground and dry creek beds, avoiding soft earth that would leave footprints, keeping clear of scrub where broken twigs would signal their passing. The sun was fully up, and it warmed their chilled bodies and dried their clothes. Truls Rohk slouched ahead like a great beast, all size and bulk, enigmatic and unknowable within his robes and hood. Bek, trailing after, found himself wondering if the shape-shifter ever exposed himself to the light. In the time they’d been together since meeting in the Wolfsktaag, he hadn’t done so once. That didn’t trouble Bek as it had at first, but he thought about what it would be like always to be wrapped up in cloth and never to be comfortable with showing anyone what you looked like. He wondered anew about the connection between them, a link strong enough to make the shape-shifter willing to accept his role as Bek’s protector, to come on the journey when he could just as well have refused.
They walked all day, moving out of the lowlands and into the mountains, climbing the lower slopes to a forested promontory where Bek could see the whole of the land stretching back to the river from which they had come. Truls Rohk stopped there, took a quick moment to look around, then guided Bek into the trees.
“It’s all well and good to choose a place where you can see anyone following,” he pointed out. “But if you can see them, they can probably see you, as well. Best not to chance it. There’s better ways. Once it’s dark, I’ll try one of them.”
They found a dry grassy space within a grouping of cedar and spruce and sat themselves down to eat and drink. They had water for several days more, and in the mountains replacing what they consumed would not be hard. But their food was almost gone. Tomorrow, they would have to forage. And the day after that. And so on, which made Bek wonder anew how much farther in they were going.
“We might find help in these mountains,” his companion ventured after a while, almost as if reading the boy’s mind. Bek looked at him. “Shape-shifters live in these hills. I sense their presence. They don’t know me or of my history. They might think differently about halflings than those in the Wolfsktaag. They might be willing to give us help.”
The words were soft and contemplative, almost a prayer. It surprised Bek. “How will you make contact with them?”
The other shrugged. “I won’t have to. They’ll come to us, if we continue on. We’re in their country now. They’ll know what I am and come to find out what I want.” He shook his head. “The trouble is, as a rule, shape-shifters won’t interfere in the lives of others, even their own kind, unless they have a reason to do so. We have to give them one if we want their help.”
Bek thought about it a moment. “Can I ask you something?”
The shadowed cowl shifted slightly to face him, the opening dark and empty-looking. “What would you ask of me, Bek Ohmsford, that you haven’t asked already?”
It was said almost in challenge. Bek adjusted the Sword of Shannara where it lay at his side on the grass, then pushed back his unruly mop of dark hair. “You said shape-shifters don’t interfere in the lives of others without a reason. If that’s so, why did you choose to become involved in mine?”
There was a long silence as the other studied him from out of the blackness of the cowl. Bek shifted uncomfortably. “I know you said you felt there was a link between us, through our magic—”
“You and I, we’re alike, boy,” Truls Rohk interrupted, ignoring the rest of what Bek was trying to say. “I see myself in you as a boy, struggling to come to terms with who I was, with finding out I was different from others.”
“But that’s not it, is it? That’s not the reason.”
Truls Rohk seemed to shimmer, his blackness turning liquid, as if he might simply fade away without answering anything, as if he might disappear and never come back. But the movement steadied, and the big man went still.
“I saved your life,” he said. “When you save another’s life, you become responsible for it. I learned that a long time ago. I believe it to be so.”
He made a quick, dismissive gesture. “But it’s much more complicated. Games-playing, of another sort. I have no one in my own life—no home, no people, no place that belongs to me. I have no real purpose. My future is a blank. It is a need for direction that draws me to the Druid. For a time, he gives me one. Each message he sends is an invitation to be a part of something. Each message gives me a chance to discover something about myself. I don’t do much of that in the Wolfsktaag. There’s not really much left of me to discover there.
“You, boy—you interest me because you offer answers to the questions I’ve asked myself. I learn from you. But I can teach you, as well—how to live as an outsider, how to survive who and what you are, how to endure the magic that will always be part of you. I’m curious to see how well you learn. Curiosity is all I have, and I try to satisfy it whenever I can.”
“You’ve taught me more than I could ever hope to teach you,” Bek ventured. “I don’t see that I can do much for you.”
For just an instant, the shape-shifter went absolutely still. Then he made a low growling sound. “Don’t be so sure of that. It’s early yet. If you live long enough, you might surprise yourself.”
Bek let that pass. Truls Rohk was giving him just enough to keep him happy, but not everything. There was something more that he wasn’t revealing, some important piece of information he was keeping to himself. It was probably true that he felt a connection to Bek, that he felt it in part because of the magic and in part because he had saved the boy’s life. It was also probably true that he had come on the voyage because it gave him purpose and insight and satisfied his need to be involved with something. Living alone in the Wolfsktaag might well be too confining, too restrictive. But that was still only part of what had brought him along, and the greater part, the larger truth, lay somewhere else in his bag of secrets.
“Why don’t you ever take off your cloak?” Bek asked suddenly, impulsively.
He did it without thinking, but knowing even so that it would generate a strong response. It did. He could feel a change in the other, instantly, a chilling withdrawal that whispered of anger and frustration and sadness, as well, but he did not back off.
“Why don’t you ever show me your face?” he pressed.
Truls Rohk was silent for a moment. Bek could hear him breathing, rough and agitated within his enveloping blackness. “You don’t want to see me the way I really am, boy. You don’t want to see me without this cloak.”
Bek shook his head. “Maybe I do. What’s wrong with seeing who you really are? If we’re connected as you say, linked by our sharing of magic, then you shouldn’t need to hide how you look.”