Angel Isle

by Peter Dickinson

  “Brute,” muttered Saranja. “You too, Ribek, encouraging him. I hate men.”

  “Just backchat,” said Ribek, unabashed. “Bet you he’s as fond of his wife as the next man, and doesn’t do anything more than glance at the city wenches.”

  “Wenches,” snarled Saranja. “Oh, forget it. We’re not going to make it down to the city and back up with this pass-box thing and down again before the gate closes. Let’s think a bit. They don’t want magic stuff brought in. We can put Zald and Maja’s amulet and Jex, I suppose, in the pass-box—sounds as if she won’t need them again till we’re through. But that’s no help with Benayu and the horses. And you’d never get three horses across a desert—they need a lot of water. Unless Benayu can do something about that.”

  “I might be able to,” said Benayu. “Water’s tricky stuff—it’s a bit different—but if the desert people can find it I should be able to work it out. And I daresay I can undo whatever’s been done to Pogo and Levanter, so you could take them through the city. Then it’d be only me and Rocky to find our way round. That’s a lot of complicated stuff to screen, and I don’t know how much of it Jex is up to absorbing. Maja?”

  “I think he’ll say yes. He’s getting a lot stronger. But we’re going to have to spend the night out here anyway, aren’t we? Why don’t we wait and see if he says anything?”

  “Sounds like the best we can do,” said Ribek. “And I could go down and see if the river’s got anything to tell me, supposing it can, and get a bit of fresh food, and maybe I can hire a mule and bring out some fodder for the horses, and then we’ll all sleep on it and see what Jex says.”

  “Can I come too?” said Maja. “I like it the other side.”

  It was wonderfully enjoyable to walk down the long slope with the naked hillside on either side and the town below. The steady, quiet, unconscious sending from rock and plant and creature blended with more pungent and complex human magics to form a balanced and harmonious whole, like the glorious rich dumpling stews Maja’s aunt used to make for special occasions at Woodbourne, which even the permanent rancor and tension of those who ate the food could do nothing to spoil.

  The lower slopes were cultivated, with ripening crops. A few sheds and barns were the only buildings outside the walls. Otherwise the fields ran right up to the edge of the moat. The sun was already low before they reached it. Though they were going to need to hurry to buy what they wanted and make it back out of the city before the gate closed, Ribek halted on the bridge and leaned on the rail to listen to what the waters had to say. He had done this so regularly on their journey that Maja had learned, though not to hear and understand their speech the way he could, at least to sense the tone and seriousness of what they were saying. It was like hearing somebody call from another room. Though one can’t make out the individual words, one can hear the emotion that underlies them, anger or amusement or whatever. The moat was only a branch of the main current, but it seemed to be a deeply serious river. Maja leaned on the rail and waited. She was aware of the Eye on the gate. It had registered their presence but not reacted to them.

  “They’re still fighting round Tarshu, but it looks like they’re at a stalemate,” said Ribek.

  “How does it know? This water can’t ever have been near Tarshu.”

  “Clouds have come in over Tarshu and picked up what’s happening, in a vague, cloudy kind of way. They condense into rain over the mountains. You won’t get much sense out of an individual raindrop, but put a lot of them together into a stream and they begin to gather and shape themselves into patterns which they can put into words. It’s mostly just chatter and gossip, like in my millstream, but as the streams join up and become rivers they make more and more sense of the world, until they reach the sea. Coming from the Valley, we don’t hear much about the sea, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a sort of deep, general wisdom in it, too large for our small brains to…What’s up?”

  Maja gripped the rail, gasping and trembling. Two or three women were crossing the bridge behind her, laughing over some scandal. Their tone hadn’t changed, their step hadn’t faltered. No new ripple crossed the easy flow of the stream, though if it had felt what Maja had felt the foam would have been sluicing to the battlements of the walls. Something had struck the surrounding barrier a violent blow, close to where Saranja, Benayu and the horses were waiting. Her heart stopped. No, it can’t have been aimed at them. It had come from somewhere far to the south, a single, colossal convulsion, as if a root of the Tree of the World had been wrenched away.

  “Tarshu,” she muttered through her daze. “The Watchers have done something new. Huge. Bigger than that tempest.”

  Ribek was watching her, concerned. He looked up over her shoulder.

  “Stalemate over?” he said. “Watchers will…Hold it—this may be trouble.”

  She turned. Three men had emerged from a doorway under the arch of the gate and were coming toward them. They wore red hats like inverted flower-pots, and dark blue belted surcoats. Their leader carried a knobbed cane under his arm. Something else…

  “The Eye’s started watching us,” she whispered. “It knew we were there, before, but it didn’t pay any attention.”

  The men marched, rather than walked, straight up to Ribek. He faced them, apparently relaxed and untroubled.

  “What do you think you’re doing, then?” said the leader.

  “Resting, looking at the water. I like rivers and streams.”

  “More than looking. Doing something to it.”

  “Not unless you count listening. The river was doing something, mind you, but rivers do. They talk, only most people can’t hear what they say. I can. Fact, I can’t help it—it’s something I was born with. Runs in the family. I’m not a magician if that’s what you’re after. Nothing like that where I come from. We’ve picked up a few trinkets since we’ve been in the Empire, and we’re on our way to hire a pass-box so we can take them through the city.”

  “All that’s as may be, friend,” said the man. “Not up to me.”

  His voice became solemn and official.

  “By virtue of my office as Gate Sergeant,” he said, “I am taking you before the Court of Provosts under Standing Order Number Three-a.”

  “If you must,” said Ribek with a sigh. “You’d better go back and tell the others, Maja. I’ll join you when I can. With the pass-box, I hope.”

  “Kid’s coming too,” said the guard, back in his normal voice. “Maybe she’ll tell a bit more about you than you want to tell yourself. Come along then.”

  The two other men moved to take Ribek by the arms. He actually laughed, as if this were just the sort of ridiculous minor nuisance travelers have to get used to. Maja guessed he was weighing up whether he could take all three guards on with his kick-fighting. They were large men, but they didn’t look particularly tough. Two perhaps, but not three, she thought. She hoped he wasn’t going to try it. Anyway, even if he got away with it, it wouldn’t help much in getting them all through the city.

  He made one more attempt.

  “How much to let my sister go back to the rest of our party?”

  It was the Gate Sergeant’s turn to laugh.

  “More than you could pay, my friend,” he said, gripping Maja by the shoulder. “Come along, then.”

  The street beyond the gate was cheerfully busy, with the working day beginning to ease toward the pleasures of the evening. Still half dazed from the shock that had struck her on the bridge, Maja barely noticed the way people stopped what they were doing to stare questioningly at them as they were led past, as if this was something they weren’t used to seeing.

  They reached a large cobbled square, with a fountain in the middle and statues dotted here and there. Part of it was used as a market, its stalls still busy. Three sides were occupied by tall but narrow buildings that seemed to have been built in competition with each other over which could carry the most elaborate ornamentation crammed into its restricted façade. Along the fourth
side ran the river, as wide as two market squares and busy with boats and barges.

  The building at the center of the side opposite the river was taller and wider than the others, and even more richly curlicued. They climbed the steps. The double doors stood open, but the Gate Sergeant rapped his knob loudly on the right-hand leaf as he went through. The large entrance hall was fully as ornate as the façade, and lavishly gilded. Everything about it spoke of the self-contented wealth accumulated through long, untroubled years. Officials and citizens bustled across it. A functionary moved to confront them, his uniform magnificently swagged and braided. He carried a gold-knobbed staff of office. The Gate Sergeant drew himself up, matching him in self-importance.

  “One for the Provosts’ Court,” he said. “Standing Order Number Three-a.”

  The functionary’s eyebrows rose.

  “Three-a?” he said.

  The Gate Sergeant relaxed, clearly having won the contest. He let go of Maja’s shoulder, drew a small leather-bound book from his breast pocket, found a page, and pointed, forcing the functionary to move round and crane to read, reciting the words as he did so.

  “‘Apparent magical practices on bridge relating to movement of moat-water. Perpetrator or perpetrators to be taken before the Provosts’ Court. If not sitting, court to be immediately summoned.’ Twelve years, morning after morning, I’ve been reading out Orders soon as I come on duty. Given up wondering what that one’s about. Never been invoked before, far as I know.”

  The speech had given the functionary time to recover his self-esteem. He swung away, marched to a side apse, raised his staff and struck it against the bell that hung from the archway. The bell clanged and the bustle in the hall fell to a hush so deep that Maja could hear the last whimper of the vibrations as they died away.

  “Standing Order Number Three-a,” intoned the functionary. “The Provosts’ Court is summoned into immediate session.”

  The bustle restarted, but was changed. Several lesser functionaries spilled from a doorway and raced off, while many of those who a moment before had been hurrying somewhere now waited in muttering groups to see what happened. A rather more plainly clad official, obviously senior enough not to need a fancy uniform, came up and spoke briefly to the first functionary, who raised his staff in salute and went back to the main door.

  The official spoke in a low voice to the Gate Sergeant, who showed him the passage in the leather-bound book but this time allowed him to read it for himself. The official stared at Ribek for several seconds, glanced at Maja, nodded and gestured that they were all five to follow him. He led them across the crowded hall to a wicket set into a large double door.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said. “Your men can go, but you will be needed as a witness.”

  He led the way through the door into a much smaller, but no less ornate chamber, with a double row of portraits of severe-looking men running round the walls.

  “You two sit there,” he said, gesturing toward a carved bench between two windows in the right-hand wall. “Keep an eye on them, Sergeant. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “There won’t be any,” said Ribek, amiably. “We are guests in your city, so of course we’ll behave ourselves.”

  The official stared at him icily.

  “Let me advise you, sir,” he said, “that you have caused the Provosts of the City of Larg to be summoned from their evening leisure and convene in emergency session. They will not take kindly to any display of frivolity. Ah…”

  Before Ribek could answer he turned away to greet a plump, bald man who had come hurrying in, panting slightly, and with sweat streaming down his flushed cheeks. The first official beckoned to the Gate Sergeant, and the three of them talked together in low voices.

  A younger man came in, placed a ledger on the reading desk by the door and handed a large book bound in black leather to the plump man, who opened it on a table at the center of the room and started to leaf through it. The pages were thick and yellow, and creaked faintly as he turned them. He found what he wanted and started to read.

  A gong sounded in the entrance hall and the big double doors were thrown open by two more uniformed men, who then crossed the room and opened another pair of doors in the wall opposite where Ribek and Maja were sitting. Two older men, wearing golden velvet gowns, despite the heat, and strange, floppy black velvet caps with a jeweled brooch at the center, walked through. The man at the desk entered their names in his ledger. The plump man bowed to them as they passed. They nodded to him, and he picked up the book and followed them.

  “Proctors,” muttered Ribek, and gestured toward the double line of portraits. “Same outfit all the way along, apart from those fellows in armor over in the corner. Look at the dates on ’em, too. Bottom row’s three-hundred–odd years later than the top row. Fat fellow will be Clerk of the Court—something like that.”

  More Proctors followed, in twos and threes. Maja picked up their feelings as they passed—irritation or anxiety or excitement, but from all of them a sort of bewildered surprise. The last one hurried in and through, followed by the man with the ledger. Two men with short pikes came in from the entrance hall and stood guard, the outer doors closed, then the inner ones.

  More waiting. The Gate Sergeant now was too nervous to stand still, and paced to and fro until one of the inner doors opened and an arm beckoned to him from beyond. He made an effort, squared both jaw and shoulders and marched through, every inch the steadfast man-at-arms. The doors were too thick for voices to carry, but his inner nerves and fright were signals strong enough for Maja to follow as he marched to the center of the room and halted smartly in front of a long, weighty table—ancient oak, she could tell—and saluted. Someone asked a question. He answered stolidly, telling his story.

  More talk, some argument, a decision, and an order. The inner doors opened, and a guard gestured to Ribek to come through. Maja followed him.

  The room was much as she had pictured it, in the same grand style as the anteroom but six times the size. Tall windows overlooked the square, and yet more portraits of past Proctors lined the remaining walls. Yes, the Proctors sat in a row of throne-like chairs behind the table, with the Clerk of the Court at one end with his assistant beside him. The black book and the ledger lay open in front of them.

  The guard who had brought them led Ribek and Maja to face the Proctors at the center of the table and withdrew. The Proctor at the center of the line tinkled a little bell and turned to the Clerk.

  “Please proceed, Master Tongal,” he said.

  “Very good, Master President,” said the Clerk. He looked at Ribek.

  “Your name, please?”

  “Ribek Ortahlson, and this is my half-sister Maja.”

  “And the purpose of your journey?”

  “I and my sister had been traveling south with our half-sister and brother to negotiate future marriages for them among a branch of our people who live beyond Tarshu. We were halted by the fighting there and decided to return north. But we learned that men and boys using the Imperial Highways were being rounded up at way stations and being impressed into the army. To avoid this we chose to use byroads, and so came to your city. We wanted no more than to pass through it, but we were stopped by the barrier because we were carrying a few magical objects.

  “We were advised by a passing merchant that our best course was to hire a pass-box at the gate, to enable us to carry them through the city. We were resting on the bridge—we’ve come a long way, and were tired—when the Gate Sergeant arrested me for carrying out magical procedures and brought me here. May I explain what I was doing?”

  “Please.”

  With the same quiet reasonableness Ribek told the court what he had told the Gate Sergeant.

  “It’s a bit like hearing a bat squeak,” he added. “Most people can’t, because the pitch is too high for them, but I know two or three people who can. There’s nothing magical about that. The same about hearing moving water—it just runs in my family. A big
river like yours can be really interesting.”

  A Proctor near the other end of the line rapped his knuckles on the table twice. The rest turned to look at him.

  “This is a crucial point,” he said. “If the procedures were not after all magical, then there is no need to wake the Sleeper. The Clerk of the Court tells us that he can find no precedent for the use of this clause in the Standing Orders, so we have no guidance. All we can be sure of is that to wake the Sleeper may have the most momentous results, affecting the whole city, our whole way of life. Perhaps the barrier will be removed. Do we really want the dangerous magics of the Empire to come flooding into our pleasant city? Do we want to be drawn into the so-called Watchers’ war against the Pirates?”

  A second double rap broke into the mutters of agreement. Heads turned toward the sound.

  “A further point,” said the rapper. “If we believe the witness that he can hear the speech of the river—and there is nothing to show that he is not one of the common enough type of lunatic who fancies that he can hear voices—why should we not also believe him that the practice is not magical, or at least not magical in the sense of pertaining to the type of magic against which our city is so fortunately guarded?”

  Another rap.

  “I wholly agree,” said the new speaker. “Furthermore, if it were magical in that kind of way, surely it would have been stopped at the barrier.”

  Rap after rap, with the Clerk’s assistant desperately trying to get it all written down.

  “Now look. This won’t do. The instructions are absolutely clear. You’re just trying—”

  “Nonsense. We’ve got to do what’s in the best interests of Larg. Are we going to upset everything for the sake of one madman?”

  Maja stopped listening. Something was happening. Not here, but soon. Coming. Distracted by the surface events, Maja had paid no attention to what was happening outside the Council Chamber. It was all there, of course, at the back of her consciousness—behind her the almost empty anteroom, to her left the bustling entrance hall with the river flowing majestically beyond it, opposite and to her right smaller rooms, offices and such, perhaps, but over in the far right corner, though the walls there seemed to be no different from the rest of the room, just paneling and portraits, a small blank patch where everything seemed to stop at the surface of the wall.