He felt a chill creep up his spine as he waited, trying to decide what he should do. His instincts told him that he was in danger, but they did not yet tell him what that danger was. If he moved, he might give himself away. If he stayed where he was, he might be found out anyway.
Finally, unable to think of anything else to do, he started forward, very slowly, a few steps at a time. Then he stopped and waited again, listening. Nothing. He took a deep breath and exhaled silently. If something was there, it was probably deeper in. His better choice was to skirt the rim of the island, above the ravine, until he reached the bridge and could then cross.
It occurred to him suddenly that he might be sensing someone from his own party, Khyber perhaps, grown impatient with his delay. But he didn't think Khyber would elicit the sort of response he was having, — he wouldn't be made so uneasy by her presence. His reaction was surprising in any case, given the nature of his magic. Usually, he required contact with animals or birds or plants for such sensations to happen. Yet his response hadn't been triggered by any of those. It was coming from somewhere else entirely.
Move, he told himself silently, mouthing the word.
He started ahead, angling back toward the ravine. He could just make it out through the screen of the trees, the earth split wide and deep, a maw as black as night. An image formed, unbidden. Cinnaminson. He cast the troubling image aside angrily. Move!
To his left, farther into the trees and away from the ravine, something shifted. He saw it out of the corner of his eye and froze instantly. Leaves and grasses shivered, and the air stilled. Twilight had fallen in a gray mantle that blended shadows into strange patterns that gave everything the look of being alive.
He was aware suddenly that he was silhouetted against the horizon, easily identifiable by any eye. He thought to drop flat, but movement of that sort would give him away instantly. He stayed where he was, a statue, waiting.
In the trees, there was fresh movement. He saw it clearly this time, shadows separating and taking shape, the outline of a cloaked figure revealing itself. The figure crept through the maze of dark trunks and layered shadows like an animal, crouched down and moving on all fours.
Spiderlike.
He recognized it from their previous encounters. It was the thing that had chased him when he fled the seaport of Anatcherae to cross the Lazareen. It was the monster that had killed Gar Hatch and his crew and taken Cinnaminson.
It had tracked him all the way.
His heart sank. It was moving away from him, which meant it did not yet know exactly where he was. But it would find him soon enough, and when it did, he would have to face it. He wasn't going to have any choice. He knew it with a certainty that defied argument. He might try to run, to reach the bridge and cross to where his companions waited, but he would never make it. Flight wasn't going to save him. Not from this.
His fingers tightened on the darkwand, and he wondered again if it might possess a magic that could save him.
Then he wondered if anything could.
Khyber Elessedil had walked for the better part of two hours, following the dark line of the ravine through the trees, searching without success for a way across. At times, the gap narrowed, but never enough to suggest that trying to jump it or bridge it with a tree was going to work. Unchanging in its look as it twisted and turned and disappeared into the horizon, it angled on ahead of her as she stopped to consider whether to continue.
She glanced west, where the sun was dropping toward the jagged peaks of the Klu. No more than an hour or two of daylight remained. She sighed in exasperation. She did not want to give up, but she did not want to get caught out there alone in the dark, either. She looked ahead once more, then reluctantly turned around and started back. There was no help for it. Tomorrow, if Pen and Cinnaminson hadn't reappeared, she would consider going the other way, following the ravine north.
Or perhaps she would simply cross the bridge and find them, her promise to wait notwithstanding.
Perhaps enough was enough.
She trooped back through the trees and grasses, muttering to herself and thinking that they had all been ill served in the venture, starting with the questionable decision by the King of the Silver River to entrust the rescue of the Ard Rhys to Pen. Not that she doubted Pen's courage, but he was only a boy, much younger even than she and totally lacking in skills or magic. That he was still alive at all after what had happened to them was something of a miracle. Look how many of their company had died instead, including the most talented and experienced of them all.
But it didn't do her any good to think that way—to suggest that in some way Ahren Elessedil had died without reason—and she put the matter aside. Her doubts and fears could not be placed at the feet of others. If she was worried or afraid, she would have to find another way of dealing with it.
She thought it odd how things had changed since she had left Emberen. There, her chief concern had been in determining how and when to reveal to Ahren her theft of the Elfstones so that he wouldn't take them back until she had learned to use them. Now that the Elfstones were hers to keep for as long as she chose, she wanted nothing more than to be able to give them back.
Thinking she might as well wish she could fly for all the good it would do her, she kicked at the earth as she walked. She was in until the end, which meant at least until Pen had returned to Paranor and gone into the Forbidding to find his aunt. Even then, she would not be free to go home again until Pen reappeared safely. Probably, she should go with him. After all, they only had the word of the King of the Silver River that she couldn't, and there was good reason to question anything the Faerie creature had told them.
The sun slid down into the peaks, coloring the horizon in the wake of its passing, leaving the depthless bowl of the sky dark with night's approach. She cast wary glances left and right as she walked, using her Druid skills to make certain she was not being tracked by anything unfriendly. The Urdas might have chosen to come around the walls at the front of the ruins in an effort to get at them from the sides.
It was because her senses were pricked and her magic deployed that she found Pen. It happened unexpectedly, when she was nearing the bridge, her attention focused mostly on her return to her companions. She caught a whiff of his presence and slowed at once, casting all about. He wasn't immediately visible, but she could tell that he was still on the far side of the ravine, back in the trees. He was moving slowly and cautiously, as if wary of something.
When he appeared at the ravine's edge, her impression was confirmed. He was advancing in a crouch through a thin screen of trees, stopping frequently to look back into the deeper part of the forest. Each time he did so, he cocked his head as if listening for something. Or to something. She couldn't tell.
She thought to call out to him, but she was afraid that if she did so, she would give him away to whatever he was trying to avoid. So she waited, tracking his movements. She noticed a dark staff he was carrying, something new. Was it the darkwand? A rush of expectation surged through her. It must be. He had found what he had come for and was heading back.
She wondered suddenly what had become of Cinnaminson. Pen would never leave her behind, at least not without good reason. Perhaps he was trying to lead whatever pursued him away from the Rover girl. That sounded right.
As he edged ahead, she went with him, keeping low in the scrub and grasses, aware that the darkness was deepening and her ability to see lessening. There was no sign of the moon, and there were few stars in a clouded sky. Soon she wouldn't be able to see him at all.
Then a black shape appeared out of the trees behind the boy, a cloaked and hooded form that she knew immediately. It was the monster from Anatcherae. It had tracked them all that way, and now it was over there with Pen and had him alone. Her scalp crawled, and she felt a moment of panic. All she wanted to do was to rush to his rescue.
But she couldn't reach him. No one could.
Her fingers fumbled wildly for the Elfstones, but even as they closed about the talismans, she hesitated. There was no reason to think their magic would work against the creature. And there was no time to test it. She needed something else, something more reliable.
Her mind raced in search of a solution as the black thing crept closer to her friend.
Pen was still trying to decide what to do, still frozen by fear and indecision, when he heard the voices. At first he was certain that his hearing was playing tricks on him, that he was imagining things, that the loss of
