Терри Брукс - Tanequil

She shook her head, brushing away strands of her dark hair. «I should stay right where I am.»

«I don't hear anything. Do you?»

She shook her head a second time. «Nothing.»

They were silent again for a moment, then Tagwen said, «Did you see what happened back there in the meadow?»

She nodded. «I saw. I don't understand it, though. That cat must have tracked us all the way out of the Slags. Why would it do that? Moor cats don't like high country like this. They don't ever come up here. But that one did. Because of Pen, I think. Because of the way he spoke to it back there, or how he connected to it, or something.»

Tagwen snorted. «That's not the strangest part. It's what happened afterwards, when it attacked that creature. It gave up its life to save the boy. To save all of us. Why would it do that?»

She touched the controls lightly, fingering without adjusting, needing to make contact with the metal. «I don't know.» She glanced over at him. «Maybe Pen's magic does more than he realizes. If it moved that cat the way it seems to have, it isn't just a way of communicating or of reading behavior.»

«Doesn't seem so.»

Again they fell silent. Ahead, stars filled the horizon with dia–mondlike brilliance, myriads spread across the dark firmament, numbers beyond imagining.

«I don't think we killed it," she said finally.

Tagwen nodded slowly. «I don't think so, either.»

«It will come after us. It won't give up.»

«I don't suppose it will.»

She looked out into the night. «It's probably already tracking us.»

Tagwen snorted and rubbed at his beard irritably. «I hope it has a long walk ahead of it.»

Pen could feel Cinnaminson trembling as she told him the story. «They caught us coming back across the Slags. They were in a Druid ship, theGalaphile, and they snared us with grappling hooks and came aboard. One of them was a Dwarf! 1 could tell by his voice and movements. He wanted to know where you were, what we had done with you. Papa was terrified. I could feel it. I knew from what had happened in the swamp how frightened he was of them. He didn't even try to lie. He told them he had abandoned you after finding out who you really were. He gave them your descriptions and identities. I couldn't do anything about it.»

She took a deep breath and pressed him closer. «I couldn't do anything about any of it!» she whispered and began to cry again.

He had freed her hands and feet, and he was sitting with her on the bed, holding her, stroking her hair, waiting for her to stop shaking. He let her cry now, knowing she needed the release, that it would help to calm her. She seemed to be all right physically, but emotionally she was close to collapse.

«They left as soon as they got directions from my father on where to find you. The other one must have come aboard while this was happening. We never saw it until they left, and then all of a sudden it was there. It didn't say anything and we couldn't see who it was, wrapped in that cloak and hood. It didn't look or move like a human, but I think it is. It spoke to me a few times, a strange voice, hoarse and rough, like someone talking through heavy cloth. I don't know its name, it never gave it.»

He touched her face. «We dropped whoever it was over the side of theSkatelow as she was rising. We tricked it off, and it was trying to get back aboard, but we managed to cut the ladder loose as it was climbing up. I think it might be dead.»

She shook her head at once, her face rigid with terror. «It isn't dead. It isn't. I would know. I would feel it! You haven't spent three days with it like I did, Penderrin. You haven't felt it touch you. You haven't heard that voice. You haven't been through what I've been through. You don't know!»

He pressed her close again. «Tell me, then. Tell me everything.»

«It made us prisoners. I don't know how it managed, but I never heard anything. No one even had a chance to struggle. I was locked away below, but I heard everything. It tortured Papa and the others and then it killed them. It took a long time. I could hear them screaming, could hear the sounds of—"

She broke off, gasping. «I'll never forget. Never. I can still hear it.» Her fingers were digging into Pen's arms. She took a deep breath. «When it was over, the … thing came for me. I thought I was next. But it knew about my sight, about how I could see things in my mind. That was what it wanted. It told me to find you. I was so afraid that I did what I was told because I didn't want to die. I did everything right up until I found you, and then I turned us another way. I don't know why. I don't know how I found the courage. I thought I was dead, then.»

«We saw you lead it away," Pen whispered. «We knew what you had done. So we came after you.»

«If you hadn't…»

She shuddered once and began to cry again. «I can't believe Papa is gone.»

Pen thought of Gar Hatch and his cousins hanging from the rigging like scarecrows, food for scavengers. He'd have to cut them down and dispose of them before she was allowed on deck. Maybe she couldn't see with her eyes, but she could see in other ways. He didn't want that to happen.

«Tell me what this is all about," she whispered. «Please, Pen. I need to know why Papa's gone.»

Pen told her, starting at the beginning with the disappearance of the Ard Rhys, detailing his own flight west to find Ahren Elessedil and their journey before they had found Gar Hatch and theSkatelow. He told her how he had come to be in this situation, what he was expected to do and why, and where they were heading now. He confided his doubts and fears to her, admitted his sense of inadequacy, and revealed his reasons for continuing on nevertheless. As he spoke, she stopped shaking and grew quiet in his arms. Her horror of what had happened seemed to drain away, and the calmness he had been awaiting settled over her.

When he was finished, she lifted her head from his shoulder.

«You are much braver than I am," she said. «I am ashamed of myself.»

He didn't know what to say. «I think we take our courage from each other.»

She nodded and closed her eyes. «I want to sleep awhile, Pen. I haven't slept in three days. Would it be all right if I did?»

He covered her with blankets, kissed her on the forehead, and waited for her to fall asleep. It only took a few minutes. He stood looking down at her afterwards, thinking that finding her alive was the most precious gift he had ever received and he must find a way to protect it. He had lost her once, — he would not do so again.

His resolve on that point would be tested at some time, he knew. What would he do when that happened? Would he give up his life for her as Bandit had for him? Did he love her enough to do that? There was no way to know until he was faced with the choice. He could tell himself anything, make any promise he wished, but promises were only words until more than words were required.

He paused at the doorway and stared into space. He knew how much she would depend on him. She would need him to be there for her. But that worked both ways. Because of how he felt about her, he depended on her to be there for him, too. He might be only a boy and she even younger than Khyber, but that didn't change the truth of things.

They would need to be strong for each other if they were to keep each other safe.

He closed the door softly behind him as he went out.

The day's heat still clung to the foothills below the Raven–shorn, sultry and thick in the waning of the afternoon light, when Rue Meridian said in a surprised voice, «That looks like an airship coming toward us.»

Bek Ohmsford turned and caught sight of the black dot out on the western horizon, backlit by the deep glow of the setting sun. Even though he wasn't sure what he was looking at, he took her at her word. Her eyes had always been better than his.