He gestured again, and Bek felt a great weariness descend. “Remember my words when you wake,” the old man cautioned as he began to move away, the light wavering, back and forth, back and forth. “Remember.”
The night was suddenly as warm and comforting in its darkness and silence as his bedroom at home. There was so much more that Bek wanted to ask, so much he would have known. But he was lying on the ground, his eyes heavy and his thinking clouded. “Wait,” he managed to whisper.
But the King of the Silver River was fading away into the night, and Bek Rowe drifted off to sleep.
14
When Bek woke the next morning, he was back where he had started the night before, rolled into his blankets next to the defunct fire. It took him several minutes to shake off his confusion and decide that what he remembered about the King of the Silver River was real. It felt as if he had dreamed it, the events hazy and disjointed in his mind. But when he checked inside his tunic, there were the chain and phoenix stone, tucked safely away, just where he had put them before falling asleep.
He sleepwalked through breakfast and cleanup, thinking he should say something about the encounter to Quentin, but unable to bring himself to do so. It was a pattern he was developing with the events surrounding this journey, and it worried him. Normally, he shared everything with his cousin. They were close and trusted each other. But now he had kept from Quentin both his conversation with Coran and his midnight encounter with the being that claimed to be the King of the Silver River. Not to mention, he amended quickly, his possession of the phoenix stone. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing this, but it had something to do with wanting to come to terms with the information himself before he shared it with anyone else.
He supposed that he was being overly cautious and perhaps even selfish, but the greater truth was that he was feeling confused and somewhat unnerved by all of this happening at once. It was difficult enough coming to grips with the idea of making a journey that would take him halfway around the world. This was Quentin’s dream, not his. It was Quentin, with his sword of magic and his great courage, of whom the Druid Walker had need, and not Bek. Bek had agreed to go out of loyalty to his cousin and a rather fatalistic acceptance of the fact that if he stayed behind, he would be second-guessing himself forever. It was only in these recent developments with Coran and the King of the Silver River that he began to wonder if perhaps he had his own place on the expedition, a place he had never even imagined might exist.
So he kept what he knew to himself as they ate their food and packed their gear and set out once more, into a day that was bright and sunny. Loose and easy as always, Quentin joked and laughed and told stories as they rode, leaving Bek to play the role of the audience and to simmer in his own uncertainty. They rode upstream along the banks of the Silver River through a morning filled with spring smells and birdsong, through a backdrop of mingled green hues splashed with clusters of colorful wildflowers and the glint of sunlight off the river. They sighted fishermen seated on the banks of the river and anchored in skiffs just offshore in quiet coves, and they passed travelers on the road, mostly tradesmen and peddlers on their way between villages. The warm day seemed to infect everyone with a spirit of good humor, inviting smiles and waves and cheerful greetings from all.
By midday, the cousins had forded the Silver River just west of where it disappeared into the deep forests of the Anar and were traveling north along the treeline. It was a short journey from there to the Dwarf village of Depo Bent, a trading outpost nestled in the shadow of the Wolfsktaag, and the sun was still high when they arrived. Depo Bent was little more than a cluster of homes, warehouses, and shops sprung up around a clearing in the woods that opened up at the end of the sole road leading in or out from the plains. It was there that Bek and Quentin were to ask for Truls Rohk, although they had no idea of whom they were supposed to make inquiry.
They began their undertaking by leaving their horses at a stable where the owner promised a rubdown and feeding and watering. Bluff and to the point, in the way of Dwarves, he agreed for a small extra charge to store their gear. Freed of horses and equipment, the cousins walked to a tavern and enjoyed a hearty lunch of stew, bread, and ale. The tavern was visited mostly by the Dwarves of the village, but no one paid them any attention. Quentin was wearing the Sword of Leah strapped across his back in the fashion of Highlanders, and both wore Highlander clothing, but if the residents found it curious that the cousins were so far from home, they kept it to themselves.
“Truls Rohk must be a Dwarf,” Quentin ventured as they ate. “No one else would be living here. Maybe he’s a trapper of some sort.”
Bek nodded agreeably, but he couldn’t quite fathom why Walker would want a trapper on their journey.
After lunch, they began asking where they could find the man they were looking for and promptly discovered that no one knew. They started with the tavern’s barkeep and owner and worked their way up and down the street from shop to warehouse, and everyone looked at them blankly. No one knew a man named Truls Rohk. No one had ever heard the name.
“Guess maybe he doesn’t live here after all,” Quentin conceded after more than twenty unsuccessful inquiries.
“Guess maybe he’s not going to be as easy to find as Walker led us to believe,” Bek grumbled.
Nevertheless, they pressed on, continuing their search, moving from one building to the next, the afternoon slipping slowly away from them. Eventually they had worked their way back around to the stables where they had left their horses and supplies. The stableman was nowhere in sight, but a solid-looking Dwarf dressed in woodsman’s garb was sitting on a bench out front, whittling on a piece of wood. As the cousins approached, he glanced up, then set aside his knife and carving and rose.
“Quentin Leah?” he asked in a way that suggested he already knew the answer. Quentin nodded, and the Dwarf stuck out his gnarled hand. “I’m Panax. I’m your guide.”
“Our guide?” Quentin repeated, extending his own hand in response. He winced at the other’s grip. “You’re taking us to Truls Rohk?”
The Dwarf nodded. “After a fashion.”
“How did you know we were coming?” Bek asked in surprise.
“You must be Bek Rowe.” Panax extended his hand a second time, and Bek shook it firmly. “Our mutual friend sent word. Now and then I do favors for him. There’s a few of us he trusts enough to ask when he needs one.” He glanced around idly. “Let’s move somewhere less public while we talk this over.”
They followed him down the road to a patch of shade where a clutch of weathered benches was grouped around an old well that hadn’t seen much use lately. Panax gestured them to one bench while he took a second across from them. It was quiet and cool beneath the trees, and the traffic on the road and in the village suddenly seemed far away.
“Have you eaten?” he asked. He was a rough-featured, bearded man, no longer young. Deep lines furrowed his forehead, and his skin was browned and weathered from sun and wind. Whatever he did, he did it outdoors and had been at it for quite a while. “You look a little footsore,” he observed.
“That’s probably because we’ve tramped all over this village searching for Truls Rohk,” Bek said sourly.
The Dwarf nodded. “I doubt that anyone in Depo Bent even knows who he is. If they do, they don’t know him by his name.” His brown eyes had a distant look, as if they were seeing beyond what was immediately visible.
Bek glared openly. “You could have saved us a lot of trouble by finding us sooner.”
“I haven’t been here all that long myself.” Panax seemed unruffled. “I don’t live in the village, I live in the mountains. When I got word you were coming, I came down to find you.” He shrugged. “I knew you’d be back for your horses sooner or later, so I decided to wait for you at the stables.”