Free Tanequil by Terry Brooks Page A

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.”
    â€œIt 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.”
    â€œWe saw you lead it away,” Pen whispered. “We knew what you had done. So we came after you.”
    â€œIf 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’dhave 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.
    â€œTell 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 the
Skatelow.
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,