“You must have asked Quentin’s father and mother. Didn’t they tell you anything?”
“I asked them only a little. Growing up, I felt it didn’t matter. My life was with them and with Quentin. They were my family and that was my history. But now I want to know more. Maybe I’m just beginning to realize that it’s important to me, but now that I find it so, I want to know the truth.” He shrugged. “Silly to wonder about it, out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Ahren smiled. “Out in the middle of nowhere is exactly the right place to wonder who you are.”
Every day at high noon, usually while Bek was eating lunch with the Rovers or steering the airship from the pilot box or perhaps languishing in the narrow shade of the foremast with Panax, Ahren Elessedil stood out in the midday sun with Ard Patrinell and for the better part of two hours honed his skills with Elven weapons. Sometimes it was with swords and knives. Sometimes it was with bow and arrow, axes, or slings. At times the two simply sat and talked, and Bek would watch as hand gestures and sketches were exchanged. The former Captain of the Home Guard worked his young charge hard. It was the hottest time of the day and the training rendered was the most exhaustive. It was the only time Bek ever saw the two together, and finally he asked Ahren about it.
“He was your teacher once,” Bek pointed out. “He was your friend. Why don’t you spend any time with him aside from when you train?”
Ahren sighed. “It isn’t my idea. It’s his. He was dismissed from his position because my father’s life was his responsibility. The Elven Hunters he commands accept his leadership because the King, my brother, ordered it and because they value his experience and skill. But they do not accept his friendship with me. That ended with my father’s death. He may continue to train me, because my father ordered it. Anything more would be unacceptable.”
“But we are in the middle of the ocean.” Bek was perplexed. “What difference does any of that make here?”
Ahren shrugged. “Ard must know that his men will do what he orders of them without question or hesitation. He must have their respect. What if they believe he curries favor with me in an effort to get back what he has lost, perhaps with my help? What if they believe he serves more than one master? That is why he trains me at midday, in the heat. That is why he trains me harder than he does them. That is why he ignores me otherwise. He shows me no favoritism. He gives them no reason to doubt him. Do you see?”
Bek didn’t see, not entirely, but he told Ahren he did anyway.
“Besides,” Ahren added, “I’m the second son of a dead King, and second sons of dead Kings have to learn how to be tough and independent enough to survive on their own.”
Panax, gruff and irascible as always, told Ahren that if Elves spent less time worrying about stepping on each other’s toes and more time trusting their instincts, they would better off. It used to be like that, he declared bluntly. Things had changed since this current crop of Elessedils had taken office. How he arrived at this conclusion, living in the backwoods beyond Depo Bent, was beyond Bek. But for all that he lived an isolated and solitary existence, the Dwarf seemed to have his finger firmly on the pulse of what was happening in the Four Lands.
“You take this ridiculous war between the Free-born and the Federation,” he muttered at one point, while they sat watching Patrinell and Ahren duel with staves. “What is the point? They’ve been fighting over the same piece of ground for fifty years and over control of the Borderlands for more than five hundred. Back and forth it goes; nothing ever changes, nothing ever gets resolved. Wouldn’t you think after all this time, someone would have found a way to get them all to sit down and work it out? How complicated can it be? On the surface, it’s an issue of sovereignty and territorial influence, but at heart it’s about trade and economics. Find a way to stop them from posturing about whose birthright it is to govern and get them to talk about trade alliances and dividing the wealth those alliances would generate, and the war will be over in two days.”
“But the Federation is determined to rule the Borderlands,” Bek pointed out. “They want the Borderlands to be part of their Southland empire. What about that?”
The Dwarf spat. “The Borderlands will never be part of any one land because it’s been part of all four lands for as long as anyone can remember. The average Southlander doesn’t give a rat’s behind if the people in the Borderlands are a part of the Federation. What the average Southlander cares about is whether those ash bows that are so good for hunting and those silk scarves the women love and those great cheeses and ales that come out of Varfleet and those healing plants grown on the Streleheim can find their way south to them! The only ones who care about annexing the Borderlands are the members of the Coalition Council. Send them to the Prekkendorran for a week, and then see how they feel about things!”
There were small adventures to be enjoyed during those eight-odd weeks of travel between islands, as well. One day, a huge pod of whales came into view below the airship, traveling west in pursuit of the setting sun. They breached and sounded with spouts of water and slaps of tails and fins, great sea vessels riding the waves with joy and abandon, complete within themselves. The Highlander and the Elf peered down at them, tracking their progress, reminded of the smallness of their own world, envious of the freedom these giants enjoyed. On another day, hundreds of dolphins appeared, leaping and diving in rhythmic cadence, small glimmers of brightness in the deep blue sea. There were migrating schools of billfish at times, some with sails, some brightly colored, all sleek and swift. There were giant squids with thirty-foot tentacles, as well, who swam like feathered arrows, and dangerous-looking predators with fins that cut the water like knives.
Now and again something aboard ship would break down, and what was required to complete repairs could not be found. Sometimes supplies ran low. In both instances, the Wing Riders were pressed into service. While the third rider remained with the airship, the other two would explore the surrounding islands to forage for what was needed. Twice, Bek was allowed to accompany them, both times when they went in search of fresh water, fruit, and vegetables to supplement the ship’s dietary staples. Once he rode with Hunter Predd aboard his Roc, Obsidian, and once with a rider named Gill aboard Tashin. Each time, the experience was exhilarating. There was a freedom to flying the Rocs that was absent even on an airship. The great birds were much quicker and smoother, their responses swifter, and the feeling of riding something alive and warm far different from riding something built of wood and metal.
The Wing Riders were a fiercely independent bunch and kept apart from everyone. When Bek screwed up his courage to ask the taciturn Hunter Predd about it, the Wing Rider explained patiently that life as a Wing Rider necessitated believing you were different. It had to do with the time you spent flying and the freedom you embraced when you gave up the safeties and securities others relied upon living on the ground. Wing Riders needed to view themselves as independent in order to function. They needed to be unfettered and unencumbered by connections of any kind, save to their Rocs and to their own people.
Bek wasn’t sure that much of it wasn’t just a superior attitude fostered by the freedom that flying the Rocs engendered in Wing Riders. But he liked Hunter Predd and Gill, and he didn’t see that there was anything to be gained by questioning their thinking. If he were a Wing Rider, he told himself, he would probably think the same way.
When Bek told Ahren of his conversation with Hunter Predd, the Elf Prince laughed. “Everyone aboard this ship thinks their way of life is best, but most keep their opinions to themselves. The reason the Wing Riders are so free with theirs is that they can always jump on their Rocs and fly off if they don’t like what they hear back!”