Tanequil by Terry Brooks Page B

lead her to a command of real power.
    Maybe she could use the Elfstones. Maybe the thing was possessed of magic, after all. They had been referring to it as
creature
rather than
human being
all along. It certainly looked to be so from the brief glimpses they had caught of it in Anatcherae. So maybe the Stones would work against it.
    Or she could try summoning the wind that she had used to sweep it off the deck of the
Skatelow.
The wind had worked once. There wasn’t any reason it shouldn’t work again. That was a magic she could safely command. That was a weapon she could put to use.
    She waited some more. The minutes dragged by. The creature did not appear.
    Something was wrong. It had been too long. It should have been here by now, if it was coming. She hated that she couldn’t see what was happening beyond the clearing. It left her blind and helpless to do anything but stand there and hope they had guessed right about what the creature would do. But what if they hadn’t?
    Her eyes scanned the clearing, probing the passage opening at the far side. Still nothing moved.
    Then a soft scrape sounded right above her hiding place, and a small shower of dust descended in a tiny cloud.
    Her breath caught in her throat. It was right above her.
    She froze, caught off guard completely.
Right above me.
Did it know she was there? She waited, trying to regain control of her muscles, listening to the silence, anticipating so many bad possibilities that she wanted to scream to relieve the tension.
    Then she saw it, creeping along the rim of the rocks to her right, circling the clearing like a big spider, cloaked and hooded, as silent as the dark into which it had blended so easily. She realized at once the mistake they had made. They had assumed it would come at them on the ground because that’s what they would have done in its place. But the thing wasn’t like them. In Anatcherae, it had used the rooftops. Aboard the
Skatelow,
it had hung from the rigging. It liked the advantage of height. It had used it here, coming into the maze not through the twisting passageways, but over the tops of the boulders, leaping and crawling like the insect it resembled.
    Do something!
    It was still moving, slowly and just a few yards at a time, studying the fire and the bundled forms. It might have sensed something was wrong or it might simply have been making sure it wasn’t missing anything. Whatever the case, if she was going to use the tar, she had to do it while the thing was still within striking distance. It would see her the moment she moved, of course. She would have to step out from her hiding place, and it would see her.
    She realized suddenly that this wasn’t going to work. She wouldn’t be fast or accurate enough. It could drop down in those rocks much faster than she could move. It was looking for a trap, and it would spot her the moment she left the shadows.
    What else can I do?
    The question echoed in her mind in a hopeless wail of despair.
    Then all at once the creature wheeled about, looking off to the south, toward the trees below the meadow, toward the path that Pen and Tagwen were already surely taking to reach the
Skatelow.
It froze in place, tensed and staring. A second later it was gone, bounding over the rocks and out of view, moving so swiftly that it seemed simply to disappear.
    She stood staring after it for a second, realizing what it intended, immobilized by her sense of failure and helplessness to prevent it from succeeding. She was too far away to reach them, too far away to get back to where they were.
    There was only one chance. Breaking from her hiding place in a rush, she raced across the clearing and through the passageway that led out to the meadow and the airship.
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    After Khyber Elessedil disappeared into the rocks, Pen sat with Tagwen and watched as the
Skatelow
moved steadily closer to their hiding place and then finally started to descend toward the meadow. Even with