[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"You think they live here?"
Barney shrugged. "I don't know."
Carol said, "Ask them. And if they do, see if we can sleep in die house. I'm
tired-"
The monsters didn't scare Bamey, and neither did the house but there was
something about both of them together he found very frightening. He stood,
thinking.
"Monsters, do you live in the house?" he asked them. They didn't know or
understand "Can we go in?" he asked. Again, he could only feel confusion from
them.
He walked to the house and up the stairs and opened the door. Finally, he felt
something from them. They were happy he was going in. They didn't seem to want
to go in themselves.
"I guess it's okay if we go in," he told Jamie and Carol.
They like it."
Page 126
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The children found a bed already made and climbed in.
None of them talked about the house or asked each other any questions. Bamey
felt something terribly sad about the place.
lying between his brother and sister after both of them fell asleep, he
thought about being mean to them. It was fun to make them do what he wanted,
and fun to scare them
but he thought maybe he wouldn't do it anymore. At least not for a while. The
sadness of the house made him glad he wasn't alone. He snuggled deeper under
the covers, and finally fell asleep.
CHAPTER 9
Minerva pulled the cloak dosed in the front and shifted the weight of the
duffel bag so it rested higher against her hip. Murp trotted along at her
side, yowling and hitching as he usually did when forced to exert himself.
She'd carried him for a while, but fifteen pounds of cat certainly a lot of
cat was just too much to carry.
She was glad he didn't show any inclination to wander off.
The forest seemed to close in as she walked. Dark shapes loomed in front of
her, then melted away as she moved nearer. She'd found a two-track path
leading from Talleos'
house. She had, of course, kept as far away from the path that she could. She
expected pursuit. No sense, though, making her pursuer's job easy.
°I wish forests weren't such ominous places at night," she told Murp at one
point. He chirped neither agreement nor disagreement, simply acknowledgement
that she was there and speaking to him. Minerva imagined that forests didn't
worry Murp much and unlike her, he could see well in tile
dark.
She had no idea how long they'd been walking. However long it had been, she
couldn't tell any difference in the ter-
rain. It was all trees covering gently rolling hills with enough roots to trip
her, enough holes in the ground left from rotted stumps for her to fall in,
enough creaks and
161
162 Holly Lisle
squawks and wavering, tenuous howls to scare the bejeezus out of her.
At her side, Murp hissed suddenly, then growled low in his throat. Minerva
froze. She could hear, over the rustling of leaves and the steady scraping
music of night insects, a ponderous, leathery flapping. It came from somewhere
behind her and off to her left. A triad of slow wmgbeats, a near-silent glide,
another triad, another short glide moving closer.
Murp flattened himself on a log, ears plastered against his skull, hackles
raised. Minerva shivered, an atavistic fear of being prey fresh and new in her
belly.
Flap . . . flap . . . flap . . . hiss-s-s-s-s-s.
Whatever it was, it was flying nearer, low. Just over the treetops. It sounded
so so huge. Minerva wanted to run
Page 127
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
though surely she didn't need to run. Surely whatever the thing was, it wasn't
after her.
Or had Tatleos already discovered her missing? Had the
dragon Birkwelch decided to fly after her? The thing that flapped nearer
sounded big enough to be a dragon.
Bun, panic urged. Stay, some primitive instinct demanded. Instinct overruled.
She stood unmoving even unbreathing beneath the arching branches of a giant
tree, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the litde silver knife.
The creature flapped directly overhead, occluding much of the sky, looking big
as a jumbo jet. Then it soared on past, and Minerva thought, Oh, good. Jt
wasn't looking for me after all.
But it turned. Angled back around. She could see the emerald glow of its eyes
far overhead. She'd never seen eyes that truly glowed before. She heard the
.steady flap of its wings heard its softly muttered curse, heard it say,
"She's here I can feel her," in a voice that chilled Minerva to the bone. It
was nothing she had seen before, no mostly-friendly dragon come to drag her
back to Talleos' home, as she had thought.
No. In this world, where even her allies were against her,
this thing was hunting tor her and it was truly her enemy
She could not doubt that.
MINERVA WAKES
163
Flap . . . flap . . . flap . . . hiss-s-s-s-s-s.
It flew past her, a bit to one side, canting into the breeze.
She could see it as a darker shape against the night sky. It would come around
again, Minerva knew. It would narrow its field of search, and it would find
her. She did not want to know what it would do when it caught her.
She could not run away. The thing flew it would out-
strip whatever pace she set, and cut her off. And if she ran, she would betray
her position. It would catch her all the faster.
At that moment, a gust of chill breeze blew past and rat-
tled the leaves and threw the flying monster off course.
Minerva saw that giant, terrifying form slip sideways, lose altitude, and
fight to regain it.
I need more wind. A hard wind Maybe a tornado or a hurricane. M very least, a
fyle. She wished she knew how well the monster saw in the dark. She was going
to have to by for her paper and pencils
She waited until it came around again until she knew it was behind her and
hoped the tree blocked her from its line of sight. Then she made a fast grab
for the art supplies.
She waited motionless, with dry mouth and weak legs as it flapped right
overhead.
While she shivered there, she tried to think of a drawing that would convey
wind, but only where she wanted it. And she tried to figure out how she could
draw with any accuracy in die dark. She decided to sketch a cloud with a face, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]