“I didn’t come this far to be left aboard ship while everyone else goes ashore,” Big Red snapped at the Druid.
“Nor I,” Rue Meridian agreed, flushed and angry. “We sailed a long way to find out what’s here. You ask too much of us, Walker.”
No one else spoke. They were pressed close about the Druid, gathered at the table that held the large-scale drawing of the castaway’s map, all but Ryer Ord Star, who remained in the background, a part of the shadows, watching silently. The warmth of their new environment not yet absorbed into the hull, the room smelled of damp and pitch and was still infused with the feel of the ice and cold they had left on the other side of the Squirm. Bek glanced at the faces about him, surprised by the mix of expectancy and tension he found mirrored there. It had taken them a long time to reach their destination, and much of what they had bottled up inside during their voyage was coming out.
Walker’s black eyes swept the room. He gestured at the map laid out before them. “How do you think the castaway who brought us the original of this map managed to get all the way from here to the coast of the Westland?”
He waited a moment, but no one answered. “It is a voyage of months, even by airship. How did the castaway manage it, already blind and voiceless and probably at least half-mad?”
“Someone helped him,” Bek offered, not wanting to listen any longer to the uncomfortable silence. “Maybe the same someone who helped him escape.”
The Druid nodded. “Where is that person?”
Again, silence. Bek shook his head, not eager to assume the role of designated speaker for the group.
“Dead, lost at sea during the escape, probably on the voyage back,” Rue Meridian said. “What are you getting at?”
“Let’s assume that is so,” Walker replied. “You have had a chance to study the map at length during this voyage. Most of the writings are done not with words, but with symbols. The writings aren’t of this age, but of an age thousands of years old, from a time before the Great Wars destroyed the Old World. How did our castaway learn that language?”
“Someone taught it to him,” Rue Meridian answered, a thoughtful, somewhat worried look on her sun-browned face. She tossed back her long red hair impatiently. “Why would they do that?”
“Why, indeed?” Walker paused. “Let’s assume that the Elven expedition that Kael Elessedil led thirty years ago reached its destination just as we have, and then something happened to it. They were all killed, all but one man, perhaps Kael Elessedil himself. Their ships were destroyed and all trace of their passage disappeared. How did they find their way here? Did they have a map, as we do? We must assume so, or how would the castaway know to draw one for us to follow? To make the copy we have, they must have followed the route we followed. They must have visited the islands of Flay Creech, Shatterstone, and Mephitic, and found the keys we found. If so, how did those keys get back to the islands from which they were taken?”
Another long silence filled the room. Booted feet shifted uncomfortably. “What are you saying, Walker?” Ard Patrinell asked.
“He’s saying we’ve sailed into a trap,” Redden Alt Mer answered softly.
Bek stared at the Rover Captain, repeating his words silently, trying to make sense of them.
“I have given this considerable thought,” Walker said, folding his arm into his robes, a pensive look on his dark face. “I thought it odd that an Elf should have possession of a map marked with symbols he couldn’t possibly know. I thought it convenient that the map spelled out so clearly what was needed for us to find our way here. The keys were not particularly well concealed. In fact, they were easily gained once the creatures and devices that warded them were bypassed. It struck me that whoever hid the keys was more interested in seeing if and how we managed to overcome the protectors than whether or not we found the keys. I was reminded of how hunters trap animals, laying out bait to lure them to the snare, the bait itself having no value. Hunters think of animals as cunning and wary, but not of intelligence equal to their own. Animals might mistrust a baited trap instinctively, but they would not be able to reason out its purpose. That sort of thinking seems to be at work here.”
He paused and looked at Big Red. “Yes, Captain, I think it is a trap.”
Redden Alt Mer nodded. “The keys are merely bait. Why?”
“Why not just provide us with a map and let us find our way here? Why bother with the keys at all?” Walker looked around the room, meeting each person’s eyes in turn. “To answer that, you have to go all the way back to the first expedition. A different technique was employed to lure the Elves to this place, but the purpose was probably the same. Whoever or whatever brought us here is interested in something we have. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I am now. It is our magic. Whatever hunts us wants our magic. It used the mystery of the first expedition’s disappearance to lure us here. It knows we possess magic because it has already encountered the power of the Elfstones that Kael Elessedil carried. So it expects us to have magic, as well. Requiring us to gain possession of the three keys gave it an opportunity to measure the nature and extent of that magic. The protectors of the keys were set in place to test us. If we could not overcome them, we had no business coming here.”
“If you suspected most of this before we set out, why didn’t you tell us then?” Redden Alt Mer snapped, angrier than ever now. “In fact, why did you bring us here at all?”
“Don’t give me too much credit for what I am presumed to have known,” Walker replied quietly. “I suspected more than I knew. I intuited the possibilities, but could not be certain of their accuracy without making the journey. How could I have explained all this and made sense if I had done so without your having experienced what you have? No, Captain, it was necessary to make the voyage first. Even so, I would not have changed my decision. Whatever destroyed Kael Elessedil and his Elven Hunters seeks to do the same to us. Nor will it stop there. It is a powerful and dangerous being, and it has to be destroyed. The Elves want their Elfstones back, and I want to free the magic our adversary hoards. There are good reasons for being here, in spite of what we know, in spite of the obvious dangers. Good enough that we must accept the risks they bear.”
“Easy enough for you to say, Walker,” Rue Meridian observed. “You have your magic and your Druid skills to protect you. We have only our blades. Except for Quentin Leah, who has his sword, who else has magic to protect us?”
Bek braced for the response he expected Walker to give, but the Druid surprised him. “Magic is not what will save us in this matter or even what will do us the most good. Think about it. If our adversary uses a language of symbols, a language that was devised before the Great Wars by a Mankind steeped in science, then in all likelihood, it has no magic itself. It brought us here because it covets our magic. It covets what we have and it does not. Why this is so is what we must determine. But our chances of overcoming our adversary are not necessarily reliant on the use of magic.”
“That is a large assumption, Druid,” Little Red declared bluntly. “What of the things that warded the keys on the islands we visited? The eels might have been real enough, but what of that living jungle and that castle? Wasn’t magic in play there?”
Walker nodded. “But not a magic of the sort that devised those keys. The keys are a technology from the past, one lost since the Great Wars or perhaps even before. The magic of the castle and the jungle are Faerie-induced and have been resident since the time of the Word. The eels probably mutated after the Great Wars. Our adversary did not create them, but only identified them. What’s interesting is not that these traps were baited to test the strength and nature of our magic but that it was done without having to overcome the things that warded those islands. How did our adversary do that? Why didn’t it try to steal their magic, as well? Why did it choose to go to so much trouble to summon us instead?”