Terry Brooks - Antrax

He closed his eyes momentarily. He had to get out of there. He had to do so before his courage broke. But how was he going to do that? How could he possibly escape?

Momentary despair welled up inside him. He had thought himself safe with Truls Rohk. He had not believed anyone was strong or clever enough to best the shape-shifter. But he had been wrong, and now Truls was dead. She had left the caull to finish him, and if the caull had failed and died instead, she would have known. She had created it, after all. She was linked to it. The caull was alive. That meant Truls Rohk was not.

Bek had no real hope of being rescued by anyone else. In all likelihood, his companions were dead. Even Walker. It was too long for them to still be alive and not have shown themselves. He felt numb inside thinking about it. Even if they weren’t all dead, those still alive were helpless against his sister. Grianne was too powerful for anyone. She had rendered the entire Rover crew, Redden Alt Mer and Rue Meridian included, unconscious with her magic. She had taken over the Jerle Shannara and cut off any possibility of escape. She had told Bek all of that in a matter-of-fact way, very much as if reciting what the weather would be like in the days ahead. She had done so to emphasize his helplessness, to convince him that his best hope lay through her, and he would do well to stop defying her. Only by cooperating, by revealing the truth about himself, could he hope to come out of this situation alive and well. Any other course of action would result in unpleasant consequences. He was supposed to think about that while she was gone.

He guessed he was doing so.

He guessed he was doing not much of anything else.

He tested again the bonds on his wrists. There was some give, but not enough for him to pull his hands free. The rope was dry and raw, and his sweat did not provide sufficient lubrication. Not that it mattered. Even if he could free himself from the rope, there was still the chain. He supposed his jailer had the key tucked away somewhere in his clothing, but he had no way of knowing for sure. He imagined himself loose from both rope and chain, racing through the corridors of the ship, gaining the upper deck, diving over the side, and swimming to shore. He could imagine it, but he might as well imagine he could fly.

He had only himself to rely on. Maybe he could still convince Grianne of the truth, but he was beginning to accept that it was unlikely. She just wasn’t ready to hear it. She did not want to believe that he was her brother or that the Morgawr had tricked her. She had built her entire life around her belief that Walker was the enemy, that the Druid had destroyed her home and killed her family. She had made herself over so that she could not only match his power, but also exceed his perceived ruthlessness. She had done things that she could probably never live with if she were to discover how completely she had been manipulated. She was so deeply entrenched in her persona as the Ilse Witch that she could think of herself in no other way.

He considered for a moment the possibility that it was too late to save her, that she had gone too far to be redeemed, that she had committed too many atrocities to be forgiven. It was possible. Perhaps he had reached her too late.

He found himself thinking back to that night in the Highlands when he had encountered Walker for the first time. He had been reluctant to accept the Druid’s offer to go on this journey. He had known somehow that if he did, nothing in his life would ever be the same. The reality was much grimmer than he could have imagined. It made him feel shriveled up and useless, torn apart by feelings that he had never hoped to experience. He wanted things to go back to the way they had been. He wanted to go home. He wanted Quentin and his friends to be safe and well. He wanted to be who he had always thought himself to be and not someone he knew nothing about. He wanted the nightmare to end.

The latch on the storeroom door grated loudly and the door opened. Three Mwellrets appeared, slouching into the room in cloaked and hooded anonymity, shades come out of the night. None of them said a word. The last to come inside closed the door and stood with his back placed firmly against it. The one directly ahead of him joined the guard in the shadows across the room. The leader came right up to Bek and pulled back his hood to reveal his reptilian face. It was Cree Bega, the Mwellret to whom his sister had entrusted his safety.

Cree Bega regarded the boy without speaking, his gimlet eyes hard and unpleasant. Bek tried to hold his own gaze steady, but the Mwellret’s eyes made him queasy and weak. Finally, ashamed at his failure, he looked away.

Cree Bega reached with clawed fingers and removed the gag from Bek’s mouth. He dropped the piece of cloth on the floor and stepped back. Bek took his first unobstructed breath of air in hours, but he could smell the Mwellrets in doing so, their raw, fecal odor rough and overpowering.

“Who are you, boy?” Cree Bega asked softly.

He spoke in a distant, almost distracted way, as if he didn’t really expect an answer, but was asking only to voice the question to himself. His voice made Bek shiver. Fearing that what was going to happen next was not what his sister had planned, Bek worked his hands against the ropes once more.

Catching sight of the surreptitious movement, Cree Bega stepped forward and cuffed him sideways onto the floor. Then he reached down, hauled the boy back into a sitting position, and slammed him against the wall.

“There iss no esscape for little peopless,” he whispered, “no esscape from uss!”

Bek tasted blood in his mouth and he swallowed it, his eyes locked on the Mwellret. Cree Bega knelt slowly so that his gaze was level with the boy’s when he spoke.

“Thinkss perhapss sshe will come back to ssave you? Ilsse Witch, sso powerful, sso sstrong, fearss nothing? Hssst! Foolissh little peopless are nothing to her. Sshe forgetss you already.”

He leaned forward. “Retss are your only friendss, little peopless. Only oness who can ssave you.” His cold eyes glittered. “Thinkss me wrong, foolissh like you? Sshe wantss what’ss up here.” He tapped Bek’s head slowly. “Wantss nothing elsse but what sshe can usse againsst the Druid.”

His eyes dead, his strange face empty of expression, he studied the boy’s face for a long moment. “But if little peopless do ass I assk, I will sset you free.”

Bek tried to speak and could not. He tried to move and could not. He was voiceless and paralyzed, locked in place by the other’s gaze and the effects of the Ilse Witch’s magic. Fear and despair flooded through him, and he fought to keep them from showing in his eyes. He did not succeed.

Cree Bega rose and walked away as if he were finished with Bek. He strode to the other side of the room, looked out of the open portal at the night sky, and then moved over to the two Mwellrets who stood waiting in the shadows against the wall. Bek watched him the way a ground bird would watch a hungry snake. He could do nothing to save himself. He could only listen and wait and hope.

One of the Mwellrets emerged from the darkness and knelt beside Bek. Slowly and deliberately, he unfolded a leather apron to reveal a series of glittering knives and razor-sharp probes. He never looked at Bek, never paid him any attention at all. He simply laid out the pouch with its cutting implements, rose again, and walked away.

Everything inside Bek knotted and twisted. He wanted to scream for help, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He strained anew against the bonds that secured his wrists, but they were as tight as before. His choices were narrowing and his time was running out. Just moments earlier he might have believed that he had a chance still to escape harm; he no longer believed that was so.