Tanequil

Twenty–nine

Pen Ohmsford's ascent from the ravine was an endless slog. Burdened with self–recrimination and despair, it was all he could do to place one foot in front of the other. He kept thinking he should go back, should attempt one final time to free Cinnaminson, make one more plea or take one last stand. But he knew it was pointless even to think about doing so. Nothing would change until he had some better means of succeeding. Yet he couldn't stop thinking about it. He couldn't stop himself from feeling that he should have done more.

Lead–footed, he climbed through the hazy darkness, working his way up the narrow switchback trail, ducking under vines and brushing past brambles and scrub, leaning on his staff for support, his thoughts scattered all over the place. His grip about the rune–carved handle of the darkwand helped to center him, a reassurance that he had accomplished something in the midst of all the failures. Lives had been lost and hopes blown away like dried leaves in a strong wind, and he blamed himself for most of it. He should have done better, he kept telling himself, even though he could not think what more he might have done or exactly what he might have changed. Hindsight suggested possibilities, but hindsight was deceptive, sifted through a filter of distance and reason. Things were never so easy as they seemed later. They were mostly wild and confused and emotionally charged. Hindsight pretended otherwise.

But knowing so didn't make him feel any better. Knowing so only made him work harder to find a reason to believe he had failed.

He took some comfort in the fact that he had gotten to Stride–gate at all, that he had confronted the tanequil and found a way to communicate with it, that he had secured the limb he needed and shaped it into the darkwand. He had gotten much farther with his quest than he had ever believed he would. He had never spoken of it, but he had always thought in the back of his mind that what the King of the Silver River had sent him to do was impossible. He had always thought that he was the wrong choice, a boy with little experience and few skills, a boy asked to do something that most grown men would not even attempt. He did not know what had persuaded him to try. He guessed it was the expectations of those who had accompanied him. He guessed it was his own need to prove himself.

These and other equally troubling thoughts roiled through his brain as he climbed, working along the tunnels of his conscience like worms, probing and sifting for explanations that would satisfy them. He tried to lay them to rest, but he only managed to settle with a few. The rest continued on, digging away, finding fresh food in his doubts and fears and frustrations, growing and fattening and taking up all the space his emotional well–being would allow.

He rested at one point, dropping down on his haunches with his back against the wall of the ravine, feeling the cold and damp of the earth seep through his clothing and enter his body, too tired to care. He leaned on the darkwand for support as he lowered his head and cried soundlessly, unable to help himself. He was not the hero and adventurer he had envisioned himself to be. He was just a boy who wanted to go home.

But he knew that wasn't something that was going to happen anytime soon, and it wasn't helping him to think that it might, so he quit crying, stood up, and began climbing once more. Overhead, the daylight was beginning to fail, a graying of the sky that signaled the onset of twilight. He needed to reach the top of the ravine so that he could cross the bridge before it was dark. It never occurred to him that he would have any trouble doing so, — the tanequil would let him pass unmolested. It had taken from him already what it wanted.

The slope broadened and the trail cut away from the bridge into a thicket of scrub and grasses that quickly melded into the beginnings of the island forest. The way forward grew more difficult and the light continued to dim steadily. He continued on, eyes forward as he resisted the urge to look back, knowing he would see nothing if he did, that she was too far away from him now. His memories of her were firmly etched in his mind, and that was as much as he could hope for.

He was thirsty and wished he had something to drink, but that would have to wait. He was hungry, too. He hadn't eaten anything since … He tried to remember and couldn't. More than a day, he thought. Much more. His stomach rumbled and his head felt light from the ascent, but there was no help for it.

He rested again, pausing in the dark concealment of a stand of saplings to let the dizziness pass, and it was then that he realized he wasn't alone. It happened all at once. A mix of things warned him of his danger—things not so much external as internal, a sensing through his magic that the world about him wasn't quite right. He stood listening to the silence, took notice of the way the light shifted with the passing of clouds west across the sunset, caught the feel of the wind through the trees. His awareness was born of those mundane, ordinary observations, though he couldn't explain why. Something was there that hadn't been there earlier. Something he knew.

Or someone.

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 Cinnaminson had affected his mind. He cocked his head in response, trying to understand why the wind would sound as it did and why it would do so now.

— Follow

The chorus whispered softly to him from out of the twilight before dancing away in a fading echo. The aeriads, and no mistake about it. Not Cinnaminson alone, but the entire chorus, a blend of identical voices as they called to him.

He stared into space, hesitant and confused.

-Follow. It comes

He understood. They were speaking of the black thing back in the trees, the creature that was hunting him. They were trying to help him get away from it.

He began moving, obedient to the voices, thinking that in some way Cinnaminson was reaching out to him from her prison, giving him one more gift. He slipped silently through the trees and grasses, casting quick glances toward where he had last seen his pursuer. He could feel its presence. He could sense it as it tracked him. It had found his trail and was following him, but it did not yet realize how close Pen was. Once it cut across his most recent tracks, the ones leading out of the ravine, it would be on him in seconds.

How far, he wondered suddenly, was he from the bridge?

He looked for it in the fading light, but could not find it. He was right at the edge of the ravine then, skirting its rim as the voices beckoned him on. He peered down into its darkness, but nothing could be seen. He glanced across its span, as well, but there was nothing to see there, either. The voices whispered more urgently, redirecting his concentration. They were humming now, but he could detect in the rise and fall of their music the need they were trying to communicate to him. Don't slow down, they were saying. Don't hesitate.

He gripped the darkwand in both hands, moving ahead in a crouch, the twilight deepening swiftly toward nightfall. If he failed to reach the bridge quickly, he would be left in darkness. What chance would he have against his pursuer then?

He felt a sudden rush of panic, sweat forming on his brow and trickling down his spine, soaking through his tunic.

-Follow—

He did so, focusing his attention on the sound of the voices, the direction of their humming becoming his compass. He must trust in them. He must believe that it was Cinnaminson who guided him, the controlling voice among the many, no different now than before, when she had led him down into the ravine to find Mother Tanequil. She was watching out for him still. She was protecting him.

Behind him, he heard movement, a sudden rustling, and he turned to look. A shadow moved slowly through the trees, bent low, scrabbling on all fours, head close to the ground. An animal, tracking. It was moving slantwise to where he crouched at the edge of the ravine, not yet seeing him, but sensing his presence, realizing he was close. He froze, watching it creep through the grasses, appearing and disappearing. He felt his throat tighten and his mouth go dry. He had never been so afraid.

-Follow–Mechanically, he started moving ahead again, his thoughts scattered, his mind on the consequences he would face if his pursuer caught up to him. He saw Bandit stretched lifeless on the grassy flats near Taupo Rough. He saw the desiccated bodies of Gar Hatch and his crew hanging from the spars of the Skatelow. He felt Cinnaminson shiver against him as she told him some of what she had endured as a captive. He felt his skin crawl as he imagined what it would be like for him if he were caught.

-Quickly

No longer pretending that there was any time left, that he could afford to rely on stealth and caution to see him through, he began to run in a low crouch. His only chance was to reach the bridge and his companions. Surely Kermadec was a match for that monster. Surely Khyber could call on the Elfstones to stop it.

Please, please, someone must be able to help!

Then he heard the sudden, explosive sound of his pursuer coming fast, tearing through the trees, heedless of caution. He wheeled back to see the shadowy form bounding toward him, the glint of its strange weapon flashing in the darkness in small bursts of silver fire.

Pen backed toward the ravine's edge, lifting the darkwand to defend himself, a pitiful weapon employed in a hopeless effort. — Stop. Do not move. Trust us

What choice did he have? There was nowhere left to go. He waited helplessly, staff lifted, body tensed, not knowing what he was going to do, no longer able to think clearly, watching as his pursuer drew closer, grew larger, turned darker than the night about him. He could see its cloak and hood. He could see that they were shredded and blackened with blood, the result of its encounter with the moor cat days earlier. It looked ragged and wild, something left over from the netherworld. It came at him in a frenzy, screaming, the sound so chilling that the boy very nearly broke and ran in spite of the admonition of his protectors. — Stand. Be strong–Helpme, he thought. Then the monster was on top of him.

On the far side of the ravine, Khyber Elessedil watched Pen stop suddenly and turn back toward his pursuer, as if realizing that he had been discovered. Then the black–cloaked hunter leapt from cover and closed on the boy in a reckless, maddened rush. She was shocked by its ragged look, its clothing torn and crusted with muck, pieces of its cloak trailing behind it in long black streamers. It had clearly gone through some bad times to get there, but now, having arrived, its course of action was settled. Even from as far away as she was, she could see the flash of its knife as it attacked.

She had only a moment and only one thing she could think of to do. She threw up her hands, the Druid magic gathering in a sudden rush at her fingertips.I know so little, she was thinking. She needed more time, she needed better preparation, she needed Ahren to act for her, she needed so much and she wasn't going to be given any of it. She wasn't even going to be given a second chance if she failed with the first.

She braced herself against the earth, legs spread for balance, arms extended.

It felt to Pen as if a giant's hand had struck him, the force of the blow knocking him completely off his feet as his attacker leapt at him, knife sweeping through the space he had just vacated. But the back side of the giant's hand caught the attacker as well, flinging him away in an audible rush of wind that scattered dust and debris in all directions and ripped up clots of scrub and grass. Out flew the black–cloaked form toward the dark drop of the ravine, arms and legs flailing wildly. The hood fell away, and Pen saw his pursuer's face for the first time—a blasted, torn visage that was only barely human and reflected an unfathomable madness.

A fresh shriek ripped from its twisted mouth, one born not of fear or anguish, but of fury and a promise of terrible retribution. Still trying to escape, Pen scrambled backwards on all fours. His attacker's abnormally long limbs grappled for the roots that grew along the edge of the ravine, fingers catching hold, toes digging in. It caught itself and hung there, scrambling to find purchase, to get back atop the slope, its crazed eyes fixed on Pen.

Then a dirt–encrusted root snaked out of the ravine like a sea leviathan's tentacle and wrapped about the leg of the dangling creature, fastening tight. The black–cloaked form twisted and struggled as its grip was loosened. Another yank, and Pen's attacker was falling into the abyss, down into the blackness. It struck with an audible thud, and then the roots of Mother Tanequil were moving, sliding against each other in rough scrapings. Pen heard the sounds of flesh tearing, bones breaking, and blood exploding out of ruptured limbs.

A final shriek rose out of the ravine's depths.

And then there was only silence.