“Not like that. They’d a spy at the way station—spotted you for fourteenth graders—going to cut you out anyway—not difficult, convoy all strung out, but one of you might’ve got hurt. Better arrange for it myself. Worked out all right, didn’t it?”
“You mean we wouldn’t have got to Goloroth without you?” said Tilja. “You were the dog that woke Tahl and Alnor up when we landed from the raft, and the cat on the walls of Talagh, and the donkey in the way station when Silena came, and then the lion at Goloroth.”
He nodded as she named each creature.
“Ah,” he said. “Suppose this Faheel told you, so you spotted me for the mouse. Told you my name, too, did he? Been wondering about that.”
“Yes, and I saw you change into the lion when Faheel was fighting the Watchers at Talagh.”
Again he stared at her in astonishment, then shook his head and dragged on his chin, grinning ruefully.
“Lot I don’t know,” he said. “Look, I’ll finish off, then you tell me your side. Keep things straight that way. Right?”
Yes, he said, he’d been able to follow Tilja all the way because she’d been wearing his hair tie. He’d been the cat on the walls of Talagh and done what he could to stop Silena finding them in the tower, but he wouldn’t have been a match for her and she’d have broken through his screen if Dorn hadn’t arrived. And yes, he’d been the donkey at the way station, and though Tilja had done most of the work, when Silena had lost her powers they had somehow settled into him. He hadn’t been expecting that at all, but the same thing had happened when he and Tilja, between them, had destroyed Dorn. He had come out of the barn at Goloroth far stronger than he had gone in.
Then, knowing he couldn’t follow Tilja and the others to Faheel’s island, he had returned to Talagh, with the idea that he might be taken on as a Watcher in Dorn’s place, now that he possessed Dorn’s powers, and so watch for the travelers’ return. He’d been accepted for the post, but realized almost at once that it was a mistake. This wasn’t what he wanted, at all. Quite the opposite.
“That was why Faheel came—to stop you becoming a Watcher,” said Tilja. “He said you’d be lost if that happened, and he wanted you to have the ring.”
“Got to ask you about that,” he said. “Better finish first.”
He hadn’t dared try to back out. The Watchers now knew of his existence, and if he refused to join them they would destroy him, sooner than let someone with his powers loose in the Empire. So he’d decided to go through with the installation ceremony and then leave when he got the chance. The chance had come sooner than he’d expected, at the ceremony itself, but then he’d been too fascinated by what was happening to leave at once. Only when the darkness had started to gather behind the tower from which Faheel was working did he recognize the peril and make a bolt for it. Since then he’d been in hiding, knowing that a very powerful magician was roaming the Empire systematically destroying all possible rivals.
“Thought it was the same fellow that had done for the Watchers,” he said. “Couple of things didn’t fit, mind, but that was the best I could make of it. But if it was your friend Faheel did for the Watchers, and then this other fellow—Moonfist—sneaked in and did for him . . . yes . . .”
“He knew about the ring,” said Tilja. “In the story we tell in the Valley, Faheel himself knew about it while Asarta still had it. He’d been trying to take it from her for three hundred years. So when Asarta used people from the Valley to take it to Faheel he decided to seal their knowledge of the ring inside the Valley. He told me that himself.
“But Moonfist knew already. He’d been trying to get hold of it too, and he thought Asarta should have given it to him. He’s been waiting all these years for when Faheel had to pass it on to someone else. He must have recognized the power in Axtrig and attacked the walls to try and get hold of her, but then he lost her again because I was holding her, and the same with the ring on the way back, right up until Tahl guessed I’d got it. Moonfist felt that—Faheel said he might—and came.”
The Ropemaker sat nodding slowly, thinking about it.
“Right,” he said at last. “Now one more thing. Why me? Ignorant fisherboy—clutching at straws, eh?”
“No. It was realizing you’d managed to turn yourself into a unicorn that decided him. But really he was interested the moment I told him you were a Ropemaker. . . . He said time was a great rope.”
“That’s right,” said Tahl excitedly. “I’ve often thought of that. Millions of twisting threads, all holding each other in place. You can see back along it, not forward. There must be a sort of mist. But it goes on beyond. Forever.”
“That’s about it,” said the Ropemaker.
“If you could change one thread, you’d change everything,” said Tahl.
“Right,” said the Ropemaker. “Went back last night, for instance, two, three minutes only, fiddled with a thread, let me pull you three clear of the fire, that’s all. But more than I could chew, almost. Out beyond where I could see, felt the whole rope bucking and heaving around, all of time to come weaving itself fresh. Had to hang on, all my strength, to what I’d got fixed this side, stop it being messed up by stuff happening beyond, till it went and calmed down. Only just made it. Rocked me, that did, badly. Lucky to get back out.”
He shook his head again, remembering the struggle. No wonder he was so exhausted last night, Tilja thought. Both of us. Only just made it. But given those two or three changed minutes, Alnor and Meena were alive instead of dead, and could go back to the Valley and remake the old magic, and all time to come would be different, utterly different.
“Your turn now,” he said. “Anything you know—any of you. Going to need it.”
It took them until well into the afternoon to finish, breaking off at midday to rest and eat. The Ropemaker turned some of the breakfast scraps into a succulent meal, and a twist of dried grass into a pile of juicy hay for Calico, who munched it as if it had been only her due, which perhaps it was. Tilja ate what was left of the scraps. She barely noticed.
She was thinking about the story. Inevitably she had done most of the talking. She had a strange feeling that it was all there coiled inside her—every minute of every day, every word spoken, every breath breathed, almost—ready and waiting for her to reel it out. She wondered if perhaps this was something else Faheel had arranged. There had been this great strange beast called the Empire. Now it was mad and sick and dying. Only the Ropemaker had the power to heal it, which was why he had to have the ring. But as well as the ring he needed to understand the causes of the sickness. That was what the story was for.
Tahl butted in from time to time, but Alnor didn’t try to take over, and Meena too said less than she might have. Neither of them, Tilja guessed, much enjoyed staying longer than they had to in their memory-rooms, reminding themselves of what they had once been, and soon would be again. Only when they reached the point at which the two of them had become their young selves did all four really share the telling round. Even then, somehow, the story held to its shape and purpose.
The Ropemaker interrupted very little, sitting with his head bowed, his long, bony fingers absentmindedly spinning wisps of grass into a fine silk tassel. Once or twice he asked a question about one of the other magicians they had met, but that was all. When it was over he tied a twig to the knot of the tassel and it became a short ivory rod. He rose and stretched, blowing out a long breath.
“Been a near thing,” he said. “Lot of luck around. Worked out all right in the end. Now what? Got an empire to put to rights, you tell me. Get you home first, though. Still have that bread and water?”
Meena undid her pack and fished out the barley roll she had baked all those months ago. It was battered and shrunken with age, but the moment the Ropemaker’s long fingers touched it it seemed to swell, and the air was filled with the aroma of fresh baking. He broke off a corner and munched with gusto, then took the flask that Alnor handed him and drank from it before passing both o
fferings back, smiling and shaking his head.
“They’ll do,” he said. “Given them a bit of a stir-up. Not what matters. Give me your hand, Meena. You too, Alnor. Take each other’s. Right.”
Tahl shifted aside so that Alnor could move to complete the triangle. They sat in silence for a short while and then, without a word, let go.
“Yes, I see,” said Alnor solemnly. “Asarta’s magic isn’t really in the bread and the water, not any longer. They’re just tools we use, so to speak. But the true magic is in ourselves, in our blood, renewing and renewing itself through the generations. Twenty generations after Asarta, and twenty more after Faheel, and now another twenty to come.”
“Can’t say that yet,” said the Ropemaker. “You’ve still got to make it happen, you two, Meena in the forest, Alnor in the mountains.”
“First we have to get me there,” said Alnor.
The Ropemaker nodded and fell silent, stroking his long chin.
“Problem,” he said. “Can’t get you through the forest without messing up what Meena’s got to do. Not sure I could, anyway— still got a lot to learn. So . . .”
He stared out over the trees, frowning with concentration. The whole landscape seemed to fall still, sucked into the intensity of his thought. His raucous laugh split the silence.
“No way through,” he said with a naughty-boy grin. “Not that I know. Different sort of magic. But . . . roc feathers, right? Let’s have ’em.”
A little reluctantly Tilja took the feathers out of her pocket and gave them to him. He ran them gently between his fingers as if he were stroking a small creature, and they sparkled with the true fiery look of the living roc.
“Nice,” he whispered, and pursed his lips into a silent whistle. Tilja heard a rustle and caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked, and saw Calico’s tether undoing itself, and then Calico came nosing over, looking for once interested in what was happening around her. The Ropemaker plucked a grass stem and rubbed a few seeds out of it into his palm. He closed his hand and opened it, and the seeds were a fistful of wheat. When he poured them onto the ground they became a small pile, which didn’t seem to grow any less as Calico lowered her head and munched away.
“Going to need the muscle,” he said, as if he were explaining something.
He took the roc feathers and gently slid the quills into Calico’s hide, just behind the shoulders on either side, with the plumes lying along her back. He stroked them again, and Calico shrugged herself and switched her tail as though a fly were bothering her. The feathers began to grow. Smaller ones sprouted on either side, and became fledgling wings, which, without her apparently noticing what was happening to her, she twitched and spread and shook into place as they grew and grew. Her sagging spine straightened to a shallow curve, muscles swelled and twitched beneath a suddenly glossy hide. When she raised her head there was a proud arc to her neck and a light in her eye. She whinnied with what sounded like excitement.
“That’s more like it,” said the Ropemaker, punching her on the shoulder. “No, you don’t!” (as Calico twisted to snatch at his arm). “Born cussed, die cussed, eh?”
He slapped her back and there was a saddle there, with a flap behind for a second rider.
“All set,” he said. “Up you get, then, young fellows. Wings out of the way, old lady.”
Calico snarled, but raised her great pinions clear of her flanks, moving them easily, as though she’d had them since she was a foal. But she had grown by a couple of hands or more, and Alnor was too proud to be helped into the saddle. Meena didn’t help by crowing with laughter as he hopped around trying to heave himself up, until something invisible seemed to give him a boost and he could sit and stare arrogantly ahead of him, the young warrior prince ignoring the jeers of the rabble. Tahl, sensibly, let the Ropemaker lift him into place. When Calico laid her wings flat they covered the riders’ legs. The Ropemaker handed Tahl the tasseled rod.
“Bit of trouble back home, you told me,” he said. “May need this. Time comes, give it a shake. Right, then, off you go, old lady.”
He slapped Calico on the rump. She sat back on her haunches, spread her wings and sprang into the air, with Alnor clinging inelegantly to her mane and Tahl’s arms round his waist. Calico seemed to know exactly what to do. They watched her pounding upward until she found a thermal and could soar, circling round and round until she looked like no more than an unusually large bird spiraling in the evening sunlight.
“That tassel,” murmured the Ropemaker, still staring upward. “Bit of stuff I picked up from Dorn when he went. Keep an eye on the lad, Tilja. Can’t tell what it might do to him.”
At last Calico broke from the spiral and arrowed north.
19
The Lake
Men get to ride, women have to walk, then?” said Meena, pretending to sulk about it. “Looks like it,” said the Ropemaker. “Start in the morning, sleep in a tree, home for supper tomorrow. Get yourselves an appetite for it.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Tilja.
“Have to think. Don’t like the look of any of this. Not my sort of thing. Stuck with it, though. This woman you told me about— said she’d help . . .”
“That’s right, Aileth,” said Meena.
“Have a word with her, for a start. Going to take a while . . .”
He fell silent, gloomily rubbing his long chin.
“Suppose I came back one day—” Tilja began, hesitantly.
“You want to?” he interrupted.
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. I want to go and stay with Meena for a bit, but . . .”
“Go on—say it,” said Meena brutally. “I’m not going to last forever in that old carcass.”
She managed somehow to speak in the exact fierce tone she might have used before she had eaten Faheel’s grapes. It sounded appalling coming from those young lips. Tilja put her arm round her and hugged her and held her close, more for her own comfort than for Meena’s. She could hardly speak.
“I’m going to stay with you, I promise,” she croaked.
“No, you’re not—not if you’re needed here, soon as you’re old enough. I’ve been watching you changing, Til, more than you realize, I daresay. It’s like he was saying about his magic when he started—it was what he was for. It’ll be a waste of you, having something like what you’ve got in the Valley, where there’s nothing for you to do with it. It’ll eat into your heart, knowing what you could be doing. Right, aren’t I—like it would be for you, mister, not being able to do your magic?”
Through her tears Tilja could see the lean face of the Ropemaker watching her. He nodded slowly.
“And you’d like her back, wouldn’t you?” Meena insisted. “She’d be a bit of use to you?”
He nodded again.
“Mind you, if you could do something about this leg of mine I’m going to have when I get home,” she suggested. “And if Alnor could see right . . .”
Oh, yes! Tilja thought. Why hadn’t she . . . but the Ropemaker was shaking his head sadly.
“Not up to it,” he said. “Like to help, but . . . mean messing around with time again. Don’t know enough, not yet. You two, you’re young now—don’t know how he did that—tweaked something, somehow, way beyond me. Be in the rope somewhere— daren’t touch it, not till it’s finished. Tricky, don’t you see?”
“I suppose so,” said Meena with a sigh. “Well, we’ll just have to make the most of what we’ve got, as usual. You’re leaving us, then.”
“Better. Stuff happening in the Pirrim Hills. Pines aren’t holding it—not since what you did at Lord Kzuva’s palace. Gets through, those three ladies are going to have their work cut out. Give ’em a hand, maybe. Got to start somewhere, eh? This bit’s under control—try and keep it that way, then move on. Just do a spot of hunting for you first, right. Back soon.”
With a twist of his wrist he unloosed his turban. His amazing hair shot out round him in a swirling cloud
that shrank, thickened, became beast-shaped and solidified into a gaunt angular creature, somewhere between a fox and a wolf, but with a fiery orange hide. It grinned at them, its long tongue lolling from between savage jaws, and loped into the dusk.
While they waited they fetched water from the old cistern and rebuilt the fire. By the time it was truly blazing the creature was back, dragging the body of a small deer over its shoulder. It laid it down, shook itself like a dog shaking water out of itself, but instead of a spatter of droplets it shook out the same swirling cloud as before, which then gathered itself back into the shape of the Ropemaker. He took out a hunting knife and deftly gutted, skinned and jointed his prey, then sliced the liver for Meena and Tilja to roast on pointed sticks while he lashed a spit together so that they could turn the larger pieces over the heat.
When they had eaten, the Ropemaker rose, belched and stood looking down at them. The firelight flickered off his bony features. For once he looked like what he really was, a man with immense, strange powers.
“Needn’t keep watch,” he said. “Put a fence round you. Don’t you touch it, Tilja—won’t stand that. Sleep well. Good luck.”
He vanished.
“And the same to you,” said Meena to the space where he had been.
They woke at first light. Meena rose and groped her way blearily toward the nearest bushes, but stopped in midstride. Tilja saw her push with her hands against empty space.
“Wait a moment,” Tilja said, and walked up beside her, and on, feeling only the slight, indescribable flicker of a piece of structured magic falling apart. Meena, still pressing against the unseen obstacle, almost fell over.
“Might’ve warned me,” she grumbled, and stumbled on. In the early mornings she was always most like old Meena, sulky and hazed with sleep.
The sun had barely risen when they made their way into the forest by the same route as before, and then walked and scrambled and walked all morning. At first it was worryingly slow going. Though Meena could sense the general direction, she didn’t of course know any exact route, in the way that she had known the route from Woodbourne to the lake. Sometimes they could walk side by side over almost level ground, between majestic old trees that soared up, branchless for thirty feet or more, with a leaf canopy above dense enough to inhibit undergrowth. Here they could talk, or sing for the pleasure of it. But then they would reach a place where a patch of even older trees had been struck down by some winter gale, knocking their neighbors over in their fall, leaving an impenetrable barrier of tangled trunks and branches. Or else the ground would become more broken and they would find themselves trapped at the bottom of a narrowing valley ending in crags too steep to climb, and they would have to turn back and look for another route.
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