“Where is he?” Bek demanded.
Walker shook his head. “I expect he’s on the other ship.”
With the Ilse Witch, Bek thought, but couldn’t bring himself to say so. “Why would he do that?”
“It’s difficult to say. With Truls, most things are done instinctively. Perhaps he wanted to see what he could find out over there. Perhaps he has a plan he hasn’t shared with us.”
“But if the Ilse Witch finds him …”
Walker shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do about it, Bek. He made the choice to go.” He paused. “I saw what you did to that Mwellret before Quentin stepped in. With your voice. Were you aware of what you were doing?”
The boy hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
“How long have you known you had use of this magic?”
“Not long. Since Mephitic.”
Walker frowned. “Truls Rohk, again. He showed you it was there, didn’t he? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bek stared at him defiantly, refusing to answer. The Druid nodded slowly. “That’s right. I wasn’t confiding much in you at the time either, was I?” He studied the boy carefully. “Maybe it’s time to change all that.”
Bek felt a twinge of expectation. “Are you going to tell me who I am?”
Walker looked off into the mist-shrouded night, and there was a sense of time and place slipping away in his dark eyes. “Yes,” he said.
Bek waited for him to say something more, but Walker remained silent, lost in thought, gone somewhere else, perhaps into his memories. Behind them, the Rover crew worked to repair the damage to the aft part of the vessel, where the horns of the battering rams had absorbed most of the shock of their collision with the other airship, but portions of the deck and railing had buckled from the impact. The crew labored alone in the near dark. Almost everyone else, save the watch, had gone back to bed. Even Quentin had disappeared.
In the pilot box, Spanner Frew’s fierce dark face stared out over the controls as if daring something else to go wrong.
“I would have told you most of what I know sooner if I hadn’t thought it better to wait,” Walker said quietly. “I haven’t been any happier keeping it from you than you’ve been not knowing what it was. I wanted to be closer to our final destination, to Ice Henge and Castledown, before speaking with you. Even after the events on Mephitic and the suspicions aroused by Truls Rohk, I believed it was best.
“But now you know you have command of a magic, and it is dangerous for you not to know its source and uses. This magic is of a very powerful nature, Bek. You’ve only scratched the surface of its potential, and I don’t want to risk the possibility that you might choose to use it again before you are prepared to deal with it. If you understand how it works and what it can do, you can control it. Otherwise, you are in grave danger. This means I have to tell you what I know about your origins so you can arm yourself. It isn’t going to be easy to hear this. Worse, it isn’t going to be easy to live with it afterwards.”
Bek stood beside him quietly, listening to him speak. Outwardly, the boy was calm, but inside he was tight and edgy. He was aware of the Druid looking at him, waiting for his response, for permission to continue. Bek met his gaze squarely and nodded that he was ready.
“You are not a Leah or a Rowe or even a member of their families,” Walker said. “Your name is Ohmsford.”
It took a moment for the boy to recognize the name, to remember its origins. All the stories he had heard about the Leahs and the Druids came back to him. There had been Ohmsfords in those stories, as well, as recently as 130 years ago when Quentin’s great-great-grandfather, Morgan Leah, had battled the Shadowen. Before that, Shea and Flick Ohmsford had fought with Allanon against the Warlock Lord, Wil Ohmsford had stood with Eventine Elessedil and the Elves against the Demon hordes, and Brin and Jair Ohmsford had gone in search of the Ildatch in the dark reaches of the Eastland.
But they had all been dead for many years, and the rest of the Ohmsford family had died out. Coran had told him so.
“Your magic is the legacy of your family, Bek.” The Druid looked back over the railing into the gloom. “It was absorbed by Wil Ohmsford into his body hundreds of years ago when he used the Elfstones to save the lives of two women, one who became the Ellcrys, one who became his wife. His Elven blood was too thin to permit him to do so safely, and he was altered irrevocably. It didn’t manifest itself in him so much as in his children, Brin and Jair, who were born with the use of magic in their voices, just as you were. It was strong in both, but particularly in the girl. Brin had the power to transform living things by singing. She could heal them or destroy them. Her power was called the wishsong.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Bek was watching him closely now. “The magic surfaced in other generations, but only sporadically. It was five hundred years before it returned in a meaningful way. This time, it appeared in the brothers Par and Coll Ohmsford, who fought with me and with the Elf Queen Wren Elessedil against the Shadowen. The magic was strong in Par Ohmsford, very powerful. He was your great-great-grandfather, Bek.”
He shifted away from the railing and faced the boy anew. “I’m related to you, as well, though I wouldn’t care to try to trace the lineage. We are both scions of Brin Ohmsford. But whereas you inherited her use of the wishsong, I inherited the blood trust bestowed on her by Allanon as he lay dying, the trust that foretold that one of her descendants would be the first of the new Druids. I was that descendant, though I didn’t want to believe it when it was revealed to me, didn’t want to accept it afterwards for a long time. I came to the Druid order reluctantly and served with constant misgiving.”
His sigh was soft and wistful. “There. It’s said. We are family, Bek, you and I—joined by blood as well as by magic’s use.” His smile was bitter. “The combination allowed me to summon you on Shatterstone when we were under attack, to connect with you through your thoughts when I could not do so with the others. It wasn’t a coincidence that I called to you.”
“I don’t get it,” Bek blurted out in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why did you keep it a secret? It doesn’t seem so bad. I’m not afraid of my magic. I can learn to use it. It can help us, can’t it? Isn’t that why I was asked to come? Because I have the magic? Because I’m an Ohmsford?”
The Druid shook his head. “It isn’t so simple. In the first place, use of the magic carries a terrible responsibility and a very real threat to the bearer. The magic is powerful and sometimes unpredictable. Using it can be tricky. It can even be harmful, not just to others but to you, as well. Magic often reacts as it chooses and not as you intend; your attempts to control it can fail. It isn’t necessarily good that you know you have it and can call it forth. Once you have unearthed its existence, it becomes a burden you cannot put down. Ever.”
“But it’s there nevertheless,” Bek pointed out. “It isn’t as if I had a choice about adopting it. Besides, you brought me on this journey to use my magic, didn’t you?”
The Druid nodded. “Yes, Bek. But there is more to it than that. I brought you for the use of your magic, but I brought you for another reason, as well—a more compelling one. Your parents and your sister were the last of the Ohmsfords. There were others, distant cousins and so forth, but your father was the last direct descendant of Par Ohmsford. He married your mother and they lived in the hamlet of Jentsen Close not far from the northeast edge of the Rainbow Lake, in a part of the farming community off the Rabb Plains. They had two children, your sister and you. Your sister’s name was Grianne. She was three years older than you, and signs of the wishsong’s magic appeared in her very early. Your father recognized those signs and sent for me. He knew of the connection between us. I visited you when you were still a baby and your sister only four years of age. Because of my Druid experience, I was able to recognize the magic not only in your sister, but in you as well.”