to this dilemma, I will be happy to hear all about it on my return.»
He gave them a perfunctory bow, one stiff with impatience and dismay, and walked away.
They watched him go in silence, and it wasn't until he was well out of sight and hearing that Khyber said, «He may be looking at this with clearer eyes than we are.»
Pen bristled instantly. «I suppose you think we should give up, too? Just leave her to that monster and go on our way?»
The Elven girl shook her head. «I don't think that at all. When I told you I would help, I meant it. But I'm beginning to wonder what sort of help we can provide. Maybe we would be smarter to continue on to Taupo Rough and ask help from Kermadec and his Trolls. Whatever this thing is, the Rock Trolls are likely a better match for it than we are.»
«You might be right,' Pen agreed. «But in order to find out, we have to go all the way to Taupo Rough, then persuade Kermadec to help, then come back this way again and find theSkatelow, which is flying while we're on the ground. I don't much care for our chances there, either. If we don't do something right now, it will probably be too late. This creature won't bother keeping Cinnaminson around if it's not to its own advantage.»
He was remembering how Cinnaminson, blind but privy to a sort of inner mind–vision that sighted people did not possess, had deliberately led her captor away from the spot where Pen and his companions were hiding in the rocks. He could not be certain that she had known he was there, but Pen felt in his heart that she had. Her courage astonished him, and he was terrified that it might have cost her life.
«All right.» Khyber straightened and leaned forward. «Let's try it again. We know what we need to do. We need to get this thing off theSkatelow and away from Cinnaminson. We need to keep it off long enough to take over the airship, get airborne, and escape. How much time would that take if you were piloting?»
Pen thought, running his hand through his red hair. «A few minutes, no more, if the power lines haven't been disconnected. Even then, not long. A reconnect from any draw to any parse tube would be enough to get off the ground. Cut the ropes, engage the thrusters, open the draws, and you're away. We wouldn't have to worry about Cinnaminson until after we were airborne.»
«All we need to figure out, then, is what it will take to get our cloaked friend off the ship.» She considered. «Besides you.»
«But 1 am exactly what itwill take, Khyber,' he said quietly. «You know that. I'm what it's after. We know that much from Anatcherae. We don't know the reason, but we know I'm what it's come for.» He took a deep breath. «Don't look at me that way. I know what I told Tagwen.»
«Good. That means you know as well that you are talking nonsense. Tagwen was right to warn you against latching on to any plan that exposed you to risk. That isn't why you came on this journey, Pen. You are the reason for everything that's happened, and you don't have the right to put yourself in a position where you could be killed.»
«That isn't what I'm suggesting!» He couldn't keep the irritation from his voice. «The trick is to make sure that by becoming bait, I can still get away when I need to. The trick is in getting the monster off the
Skatelow and me on, all at the same time. But I don't see any other way of making that happen if we can't deceive this thing into thinking it has a chance to get its hands on me.»
Khyber sighed. «You assume that getting its hands on you is its goal. What if it simply wants to kill you? It came close to doing that in Anatcherae.»
Pen looked down and rubbed his eyes. «I've been thinking about that. I don't think itwas trying to kill me. I think it was trying to scare me. I think it was hoping I would freeze in place and it would be on me before anyone could help. It wants me for its prisoner, to take me to whoever sent it.»
He saw the look of doubt that crossed her face and went on hurriedly. «All right, maybe it was trying to injure me or slow me down. It's possible.»
She shook her head. «What's possible is that you are no longer in touch with reality. Your feelings for this girl have muddled your thinking. You're starting to invent possibilities that have no basis in fact or common sense. You have to stop this, Pen.»
He suppressed the sharp reply that struggled to break free and looked off across the mountainside. They were wasting time, going nowhere, and it was his fault. What they were supposed to be doing was traveling to Taupo Rough to find Kermadec, so that he could reach the ruins of Stridegate and the island of the tanequil, gain possession of a limb from the tree, fashion it into a darkwand, return to Paranor, get through the Forbidding, and somehow rescue his aunt, Grianne Ohmsford, the Ard Rhys! Even without speaking the words aloud, he was left breathless—and left with a feeling of urgency for getting on with what he was supposed to do.
Yet here he was, doing none of it. Instead, he was insisting on rescuing Cinnaminson, and it was admittedly for selfish reasons. He looked up at the clear blue sky, then down at the foothills that banked and leveled to the shores of the Rabb. He felt a momentary stab of panic as he realized that Khyber was right in her analysis: hewas grasping at straws.
But he couldn't bear to think of leaving Cinnaminson in the hands of that spidery creature, not feeling as he did about her.
There has to be a way.
Why couldn't he think of what it was?
Why couldn't he think ofsomething?
Shouldn't his magic be able to help him? He had been chosen for this journey expressly because his magic would give him a way to communicate with the tanequil. If it would allow him to do that, shouldn't he be able to find a way to use it here? It had possibilities he had never dreamed of;the King of the Silver River had revealed as much. One of those possibilities ought to be available for use here. If he could think of it. If he could get past the feeling that his magic was small and insignificant, no matter what anyone said—spirit creature or human. If he could persuade himself that it was good for something more than drawing the interest of moor cats like Bandit and reading the danger signs in the flight of cliff birds. If he could just do that, he ought to be able to use it to help Cinnaminson.
He was looking for a place to restart the conversation with Khyber when Tagwen walked back out of the rocks, brushing off his hands and looking less owlish than earlier.
«You can't imagine what I just found,' he said. Pen and Khyber exchanged a quizzical glance. «Broad–leaf rampion. Hardly ever find it in low country. Prefers higher elevations, cooler climates. No snow, mind you, but a hint of frost seems to favor it.»
Both the boy and the Elf girl stared at him. He looked quickly from one to the other. «Never heard of it? It's a plant. Not very big, but fibrous. It secretes a sticky resin from splits in its skin. You break off stalks, crush them up, fire the whole mess to release the resin, separate it from the plant material, mix it with wort moss and albus root, cook it all until it thickens, and you know what you get?»
He grinned through his beard with such glee that it was almost frightening. «Tar, my young friends. Very sticky tar.»
Do now they had a means, of sorts, of gaining an advantage over their enemy. If they could manage to lure it into a patch of that tar, everything it touched would stick to it, including the ground itself, and it would quickly become so bogged down with debris that it would have great difficulty functioning. Better still, if they could find a way to bring it into contact with something as immovable as a tree, it wouldn't be able to function at all.
They spent the remainder of the morning distilling resin from the plant and turning it into a small batch of tar. They were able to find the albus root and wort moss needed to make the mix, and they cooked it over a smokeless fire using an indented stone for a bowl. When it was ready, they formed it into a ball, allowed it to cool, and wrapped it in young broad leaves tied together with strips of leather. The tar smelled awful, and they had to consider the problem of disguising its presence as well as tricking the creature on theSkatelow into stepping into it.
«This won't work,' Khyber declared, wrinkling her nose against the stench as the three of them stared down at the steaming pouch. 'The creature will spot this in a heartbeat and go right around it.»
Pen was inclined to agree, but he didn't say so. At least the leaf–wrap was holding together, although it didn't look any too secure.
«If it's distracted, it might not notice the smell,' he said.
«There's not very much of it to work with, either,' the Elven girl continued doubtfully. «Not enough to cover more than maybe two square feet, and that's stretching it. How are we going to get it to step into a space that
