«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.
Five
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.
He glanced at her admiringly. He couldn't help himself. He still loved her as much now as he had when he had met her some twenty years earlier. He had been just an impressionable boy back then, and she, older by several years and a good deal of life experience, a woman. Circumstances and events had contrived to make falling in love the inevitable result of their meeting, and all these years later that surprised him still.
She remained strong and beautiful, undiminished in any way by time's passing, a rare and impossibly wondrous treasure. Blessed with dark red hair and bright green eyes, a tall rangy body, and a personality that was famously mercurial, she constantly surprised him with her contradictions. Born a Rover girl, she had flown airships with her brother, fought on the Prekkendorran, journeyed to the then unknown continent of Parkasia, and returned to marry and stay with a man whose world was so different from hers that he could not begin to measure the gap between them. She might have chosen another way, something closer to the life she had abandoned for him, but she had not done so, nor voiced a moment's regret. As wild and free as her life had been, it seemed impossible to him that she had given it up, but she had done so in a heartbeat.
Together, they had settled in Patch Run and started their airship exploration business. They had wanted a son, and one had been born to them within the first year. Penderrin to her, Pen to him, Little Red to his footloose Rover uncle, Redden Alt Mer, he was everything they had hoped for. Having Pen in her life changed Rue noticeably, and all for the good. She became more grounded and settled. She found greater pleasure in her home and its comforts. Always ready to sail away, she nevertheless wanted time with her baby, her son, to prepare him to face the larger world. She taught him, played with him, and loved him better than anyone or anything but Bek. As a consequence, Bek loved her better, as well.
She caught him looking at her and smiled. «I love you, too,' she said.
Bound to each other initially by the experiences they had shared during their journey aboard theJerk Shannara, they discovered that they also shared an important similarity in their otherwise disparate backgrounds: Both had lost their parents young. Bek had been raised by Goran and Liria Leah, Quentin's parents, and Rue by her brother. It was their mutual decision that Pen would know his parents better than they had known theirs. From the
