The Ropemaker

by Peter Dickinson

  “Wha . . . What . . . Wha . . . ?” he gasped.

  “It’s all right,” said Tilja. “Look.”

  She held up the coins.

  He stared at them, and at her. His mouth gaped soundlessly.

  “Listen,” said Tilja. “This is magic. It’s done with a ring. I didn’t do it. Someone else did. But it means that everybody and everything is stuck fast, except me, and anyone whose hand I’m holding.”

  He obviously didn’t understand, but continued to stare to and fro between her and the coins.

  “Never mind,” she said. “I want you to help me. I’ll give you three gold coins if you’ll carry an old man out of Talagh. He doesn’t weigh much. Nobody’s going to know what you’ve done. The Emperor’s dead, and everything’s different. Here’s one coin to be going on with. All right?”

  She put it into his palm and he stared at it, nodding dumbly. She left him in midnod and went and cleared the other soldiers out of the doorway by touching them briefly so that they ran another pace and then froze again. Despite the urgency, doing this, so easily, so confidently, brought back that extraordinary sense of pure, secret power. She could, if she had chosen, have gone upstairs again and stolen every fabulous jewel that those women were wearing, and no one would ever have known how it was done. The idea was thrilling. And dangerous—a danger that came not from outside herself, but from within. A Tilja who gave in to it would have become a different Tilja from the one who had flown to Talagh on the back of the roc. Now she could understand why it had mattered so much that the Ropemaker didn’t become one of the Watchers.

  She went back to her helper and brought him into time. Dazed but unquestioning, he let her lead him up the stair. Here they found a problem. When the man bent to lift Faheel onto his back he couldn’t budge him. He couldn’t even lift a fold of his cloak. It was like iron, fastened in time. The effect that Tilja had on the soldier didn’t seem to reach any further out from his body than the clothes and armor he was wearing. So Tilja had to use her other hand to release Faheel while the soldier heaved him up. She was afraid she might have to go the whole way out of Talagh like that, which would have been extremely awkward, but she found she could walk along beside the man, with her right hand touching both of them where he gripped Faheel’s wrist to hold his body in place across his shoulders.

  Slowly they made their way down the stairs and into the open. The further side of the courtyard was still in brilliant sunlight, but around the tower it was like late dusk. It wasn’t cloud that made this darkness by casting its shadow, it was more like a patch of night gathering there. Tilja had no idea what could have caused it. But whatever it was, however powerful, the ring now held it locked into the instant.

  But for how long? Full of fresh urgency, Tilja hurried out of the palace and down the long avenue. All the way the soldier stared around, muttering his astonishment in half-heard curses. From time to time Tilja had to leave him frozen with his burden while she cleared a path for them through the crowds. She now found that the thrill of power was gone, and what was left was an unpleasant task, oddly shameful, because she was using people as if they were just things, to do what she wished with. When she snatched a couple of savory pies from a stall for herself and the soldier, she wasted a few seconds leaving money to pay for them.

  Just beyond the gate, where Faheel had changed the rules to let Tilja take him through the crowded streets, they now changed back. Once again Tilja was moving at the center of a bubble of time, so that she could let go of the soldier, while anyone she passed close by woke for a moment into time and then fell still. The roc was where they had left it, but it must have used the period when Tilja had been holding the ring to start preening itself, and now was stuck with one vast wing half spread while it nibbled at an armpit. When Tilja came within a few paces it woke, saw her and closed the wing. Its eye had an odd look of affront, as if she’d invaded its privacy.

  The soldier halted at the movement, cursing more loudly.

  “It’s all right,” said Tilja. “It won’t hurt us. Will you put my friend in the litter? Then I’ll pay you the other two coins. The roc’s going to take us away, and then you’ll go to sleep for a bit, and when you wake up we won’t be here. But you’ll know it wasn’t a dream because you’ll have the money.”

  He laid Faheel down and she covered the old man over and then paid the soldier and thanked him and wished him luck.

  “And good luck to you, miss,” he said, gazing up at the roc. “Well, I never! Well, I never!”

  Apart from curses, those were the only words she’d heard him speak.

  She wedged the ring box safe and nestled herself in down beside Faheel, hoping to help keep him warm with the heat of her own body. The roc stood, stared at Talagh and crowed, a sound in Tilja’s ears like victory fanfare. It spread its wings and hauled them into the air. Before Talagh was out of sight behind them she was asleep.

  13

  The Common Way

  Tilja woke in the same unchanging daylight, as the roc, with three last booming flaps, settled in front of Faheel’s house and folded its wings. Almost the whole way from Talagh she had slept too deep for dreams, the same ocean-deep sleep she had slept on the raft on the way to the island. Once again, without her realizing, her strength had been drained from her by her own power to channel and control magic, this time the enormous magic of the ring.

  Her right arm was numb with Faheel’s weight. He was still asleep, but the movement of his breath seemed steadier and stronger. She hesitated whether to leave him. She felt it must be better for him to keep breathing the magical air of the island, but if she went more than a few paces from him his time would stop, and even his breath and his heartbeat would be stilled until she returned, or time resumed its course.

  When? A day and a night, he had said. And then . . .

  The power of the Watchers was broken, but there was still an enemy, whoever or whatever it was that had sent the darkness to the tower. Had one or more of the Watchers, instead of fleeing into hiding, returned and taken Faheel by surprise, and almost destroyed him in the moment of his triumph? Or was it someone or something else? Tilja had no idea, but she was sure of one thing—such an enemy would not give up. As soon as the ring withdrew its influence, he, or it, would come to the island.

  A day and a night. How long had their two flights taken, to Talagh and back, since the ring had cast its spell? She had slept both ways and could only guess. It was a long way. The roc was a magical creature, but it had flown in real time, pounding the real air with its huge wings. There couldn’t be much of that day and night remaining before the sun started to move again.

  The roc by now was standing beside the litter, preening the thick-laid golden feathers just above its scaly leg, but as soon as Tilja started to ease free of Faheel and straightened the rugs over him it looked up, with an eager gleam in its eye.

  “I don’t know if it will work for me,” she said, and using the ends of her scarf as gloves, pulled out Faheel’s pouch. It felt completely empty, but when, awkwardly, she managed to undo the tie and tilted it toward her other palm, out fell a handful of jewels. They were a wonderful deep wine red, more beautiful than any that the women had worn in the tower from which she and Faheel had watched the parade. She tipped half of them back into the purse and offered the rest to the roc, which pecked them delicately off the scarf, swallowed them one by one, and then stared pointedly at the purse.

  “In a minute,” she said. “When you’ve carried the litter to the door, please.”

  The roc tilted its head, puzzled. Tilja reached up and grasped the loop of the carrying harness, which was dangling over the edge of the canopy. When she held it out the roc took it obediently in its beak and straightened up, so that the litter rose clear of the grass. Steadying it with one hand, she led the way to the door of the house and swung it round so that the end was in the doorway, where the roc lowered it to the ground. The roc must have been a lot brighter than it looked, because when Ti
lja released the catches that fastened the canopy poles and started trying to haul the litter into the house it bowed its head and carefully butted it in through the door.

  “Good bird,” said Tilja, as if she’d been talking to a dog. She gave the roc the rest of the rubies and it turned and settled down, blocking the doorway. But instead of going to sleep it just sat there gazing fixedly north toward the Empire.

  Comforted by that powerful presence she moved further into the room and found Meena, Alnor and Tahl sleeping as she had left them. Then, realizing how hungry she was, she got out a meal for herself and for Faheel when he woke. Everything in the storage bins seemed fresh, and the bread still smelled of the oven. From time to time she glanced out of the window at a swirl of gulls that had been frozen into stillness by the power of the ring, but she was washing her plate and mug when she heard their first cries, startlingly loud and sudden in the enormous silence. So the day and the night were over.

  The sound seemed to wake Faheel. He stirred and opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them. His old face seemed more peaceful even than it had looked in sleep.

  “Tilja?” he whispered.

  “I’m here. I got a soldier to carry you out of the city and the roc brought us home. I’ve still got your ring.”

  “Well done.”

  He spoke the words so quietly that Tilja could barely hear them. She thought he had gone back to sleep but then he whispered again. A question. She didn’t catch the words but guessed his meaning.

  “The roc’s guarding the door,” she said. “But . . . whatever it was happened at the end . . . that darkness . . .”

  He didn’t answer for a while, but then spoke more firmly.

  “I will tell you what happened. You remember, before we went to Talagh, I told you that you had brought me both good news and bad?”

  “Yes, but you didn’t have time to tell me that bad news.”

  “It lay in your description of the contest on the walls after your grandmother had spoken my name and the spoon had moved. The magician who came from the outer city . . .”

  “Zara told us he was very powerful—she’s the Lord Kzuva’s magician. She said that in the end it took four Watchers to drive him off. And then they were all trying to find him.”

  “They did not succeed. He was there, in that darkness. He came for the ring, and now that he has woken he will try to come again. If he did so, not even the roc could hold him back. Nor could I, as I am now. You yourself might withstand him—I do not know. But I have even more powerful friends, who will protect us until I have said my farewells to them, and for a little while longer. By nightfall I shall be gone, and so will you and your friends. I will rest now, and then eat. And then we must work. I will tell you more later.”

  “Can we wake my friends up?”

  “Not yet. But before we go. Now, while I rest, go to the upstairs room, put the box with the ring back on the shelf from which I took it and open the silver box beside it. Take out the jewel it contains and give that to the roc, with my blessing and my thanks.”

  Tilja did as she was told. The room at the top of the ladder was as she had first seen it. She could tell exactly where the ring box belonged by the circular patch in the dust on the shelf. The jewel in the silver box was an egg-shaped ruby as big as her two clenched fists. It was warm to the touch, and there was something inside it that seemed to be moving in sudden little spasms that changed the way the light shone into it. As she carried it down the ladder she could sense, faintly against her palm, the same tiny movements. She had felt something like that so often at Woodbourne that she understood at once what the jewel must be. She forgot all about the enemy who might come, all about Faheel, all about Meena and Alnor and Tahl and her own adventures. For the moment this mattered more than anything else in the world.

  She edged out past the roc, laid the jewel between the immense yellow, black-taloned feet, and stood back and waited. The ruby doubled in size, and doubled again, and again. With a bubbling, crooning sound far down its throat, the roc bowed its head and pecked at the glowing surface, precisely but firmly, studying the movements inside the jewel each time before it pecked again. At the seventh peck the jewel cracked. The thing inside gave a convulsive heave, the ruby fell apart and the fledgling roc struggled to its feet with shreds of crimson yolk sac patterning its fluffy golden feathers. It cheeped, just like any new-hatched chick at Woodbourne.

  The roc crooned over it, delicately picked the yolk sac away, and then lifted the chick, twisted its own head round and settled it into the hollow between its shoulders. It turned back and stared at Tilja. There was a question in its eyes.

  “Faheel sends you his blessing and his thanks, and says you can go,” she said. “And I’d like to say thank you too.”

  Perhaps it understood her tone, for it bent its huge head and nibbled gently at her ear, and in unthinking response she reached up and teased her fingers among the soft plumage beneath its neck.

  Her hand froze. This great magical animal, and she, Tilja . . .

  But no, nothing had happened, no flow or pulse of power out of that fullness into her emptiness. The roc was different. Its magic was of another kind. She must ask Faheel.

  It raised its head and she stood aside to let it pass. It walked a few paces, glanced back at her, then hurled itself into the air. Two small golden feathers came floating down as the wings pounded out their rhythm and it sped away. Tilja picked them up and went back indoors.

  Faheel was up and sitting by the table, sipping the orange juice she had found in his store cupboard. He had peeled an apple and cut a slice of bread and was eating slowly.

  “Yes, you are right,” he said when she asked him about the roc. “There are different kinds of magic. Almost all human magic is made magic, made like a clay pot or a wooden chair. The wood and the clay are not chair and pot until the carpenter and the potter make them so. The air is full of wild magic, gusting around, so that a magician can gather it into himself or herself and give it shape and purpose. That is made magic. Your power appears to be to unmake that making. It is as if you could put your hand on a chair and return it to the tree from which it was shaped. The roc is not of that kind. It is natural magic, magical of its own nature. If you put your hand on a tree it would not change. It is itself already.”

  “You made the roc do what you wanted.”

  “No, I asked it. It owed me a favor. Many great magicians would risk everything they have won to possess the egg of a roc, but as well as there being two kinds of magic there are two kinds of magician. Once, like all who have held the ring, I was of the first sort, using made magic. But the ring is of both sorts, magic both made and natural. That is why it is so powerful. From it I learned to be of the second sort, and thus made friends with the creatures of natural magic, and was given new powers by them. So it was safe for the roc to give her egg into my keeping until it was due to hatch.”

  “Look, I’ve got two of its feathers.”

  “Keep them well hidden, or they will betray you. Tie them to your arm, as you did with the spoon. They have power—and purpose, for all I know.”

  “This island—what makes it so peaceful—is that natural magic? Is that why I could feel it?”

  “Yes, it is inherent in the island. It was here before I came and will remain when I am gone. I could live here not because I have magical powers, but because I have the friendship of the island.”

  “Are unicorns natural magic too?”

  “Indeed, yes. That was what finally persuaded me that I must prevent your friend the Ropemaker from becoming a Watcher. To transform oneself into an animal is not very difficult, though it has its perils. But to transform oneself into a magical animal, and even more to return to one’s human form, requires immense power and is still very dangerous. Even when I had all my strength I would never have tried it except for the greatest cause. But he did. He cannot have understood what he was risking. That was why my hope was that his powers were both untaught and unc
orrupted, and why part of my reason for going to Talagh was to give him the ring. I failed. So now I must ask you to take it to him. Will you do that?”

  Tilja stared at him. The Ropemaker?

  “I . . . I’m not sure he is my friend,” she whispered. “He . . . he almost killed my mother, if he was the unicorn.”

  “Yes. I told you it was dangerous to transform oneself into a magical animal. That is the main danger. One may take on too much of the nature of that animal. A unicorn such as you saw would not have ordinary human sympathies. But remember, your mother went to sing to the cedars again, and he did not try to stop her.”

  “I . . . I’ll have to talk to the others when they wake up,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “If you do, the knowledge will be in their minds, unprotected. While the ring is in its box and the box is against your flesh, and you alone know that, not even the man we fear will find it. If your friends know, then he may well be able to use that knowledge. I think I know who this man is, Tilja. Like myself, long ago, he was one of those who tried to take possession of the ring while Asarta still held it. He was much older than I was, and I was certain that he was dead, but somehow he is not. Or perhaps he is, but . . . No, that does not bear thinking about. Tilja, I tell you, he must not have the ring. With it he could live forever. I dare not let you tell your companions.”