“He can hear what we’re saying. He’ll probably tell me tonight. But last time it laid him out for weeks, though he’s a lot stronger now than he was then.”
“And if we’re on the right track that’s only going to be the beginning. There’s going to be another great burst when we find this thing, whatever it is, about as much as happened when we got Jex back, at a guess, and we went all the way down to Tarshu just to hide our doing that. There isn’t going to be anything to hide us this time. And then we’ve got to use it somehow. That’s three huge explosions of magic. Tarshu’s going to be small stuff beside it. And you’re going to have to stand it all.”
“I’ll manage. Don’t worry about me. The Watchers are going to be on to us almost at once, aren’t they? There’s no way Jex can screen all that.”
“I am worried about you. We all are. We worry about you every time we look at you. You’re skin and bone, almost, in spite of what Jex is doing to shield you, and your eyes are pits and you’re sleeping fifteen hours a day. The only good thing is that you eat like a lumberjack, but you’re still burning yourself up.”
“I’m all right. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“I know you are, and I’m happy for you. But listen. Yes, you’re right about the Watchers. Anything we do has all got to happen extremely quickly, so that we can be away and out of this universe, whatever that means, before they catch up with us. We can’t take Striclan without him finding out all about other universes and so on, and we can’t just leave him behind at Barda because then the Watchers are going to get hold of him and squeeze everything they can out of him. He’s a tough little guy, but that’s not going to do him much good. Or us.
“I like Striclan. It isn’t only for Saranja’s sake that I don’t want anything like that to happen to him. But we’re talking about you, Maja. I don’t believe that even if Jex were fully fit, he’d be up to protecting you against this sort of magical cataclysm. It may very well knock us all out. I know I was pretty shaken by Tarshu, and again by what happened at the sheep-fold, and I know what that did to you. So if we can persuade Striclan to leave us I’d like you to go with him.”
“I can’t. You won’t find the Ropemaker without me.”
“You can’t be certain of something like that.”
“Yes I can. I just know. It’s what I’m here for.”
And if you’re going to be there, so am I.
Ribek started to say something and stopped. He sighed heavily, gazing down at his hands. It was strange to see him looking so unsure of himself.
“Let’s see what the others say,” she said.
“I doubt if Benayu will even hear me asking. He’s been in a complete dream these last few days, in another universe, almost. I suppose that might even be true.”
“He’s doing a lot of stuff inside himself. Getting ready for Barda, I think. Let’s see what Saranja says about Striclan.”
What Saranja said was, “I’ve already told him he can’t come. He wants to talk to you about it.”
“After supper tonight?”
“I’ll tell him.”
What Striclan said was, “Miss Saranja tells me that I cannot come to Barda with you. I have pleaded with her before now, but she has just told me that it is also your joint decision, made independently from her, and coincides with her wishes. So I am forced to accept it. But I have a favor to ask, nevertheless.
“She has told me nothing about your reasons for going to Barda, but I have deduced that what you are proposing to do there is extremely dangerous, probably involving a direct confrontation with the authorities in Talagh, whom you call the Watchers. I am of course well aware of their power and their ruthlessness. I believe you must have some hope of success, some factor they have not taken into account, but however good a hope that is, you think it very likely that you will all perish in the attempt, and you accept the risk.
“That is your right. But I think I also have acquired some minor rights from our association. I assume that you are aware that Miss Saranja and I have become emotionally involved with each other. Since my mother died, there has hitherto been no one in my life about whom I have cared deeply. I have met and liked many people, but there has been no one, until these last few weeks, whom I have loved. If she is now to be taken from me, am I to live out the rest of my life ignorant of why this was necessary?”
What a strange man, Maja thought for the umpteenth time. Here he was, desperately in love with Saranja, worried to bits about the unseen dangers ahead of her, yet talking about it like a fussy schoolmaster teaching bored kids about something that had been over and done with years ago.
“We can’t tell you much, I’m afraid,” said Ribek. “It isn’t that we don’t trust you. We didn’t, at first, of course, but we do now. It’s just that some of what we’re trying to do means that we know stuff it’s extremely dangerous for anyone to know—dangerous in the end for everyone in the Empire, not just themselves. I’ll give you an example. We’d barely started on our journey, in fact we’d only just met Benayu, when we did something that happened to attract the Watchers’ attention. It was no use running away. They had the power to trace us wherever we went. A very dear friend of Benayu’s, a sort of middle-range magician, stayed to confront them, deliberately destroying himself in the process. He did this partly to make it seem that he alone had been responsible for the magical activity they’d noticed, so that we could escape, but partly also because he knew a lot of the stuff I was talking about, and he was determined not to let the Watchers get hold of it.
“So I think the best I can offer is that you tell us what you know or have guessed—I bet it’s a lot more than you’ve let on—and then we’ll decide what else we can tell you.”
“Very well. I have already told you that I believe you are expecting some kind of confrontation with the Watchers at Barda, but I will start at the beginning. We have been maintaining the fiction that the four of you are close kin, but for some time I have not believed this to be the case, though I detect some family likeness between Maja and Miss Saranja, and you have just now told me that you met Benayu after your journey started. There is a further anomaly about your party, in that Rocky could well be a horse from a prince’s stables, and it is unlikely that a group of your apparent social standing should possess such an animal. This leads me to suspect that he has magical qualities that have not manifested themselves in my presence.
“Ribek has some kind of minor magical affinity with water, but not much else, I believe. Miss Saranja, of course, has her ability to destroy demons, but I think that is not a direct attribute of hers, but is associated with the object she normally wears beneath her blouse. There is something mysterious about Maja but I have had no indication of what it might be. Sometimes she seems to be listening to voices no one else can hear. Once or twice I have noticed one of you glance enquiringly at her, and her reply with a slight nod or headshake. This may be connected with her lizard pendant. I suspect that there is more to that than meets the eye.
“Benayu, on the other hand, already has considerable powers, and when he is older will be a remarkable magician, even by the standards of the Empire. This raises the question of why he has not used those powers to facilitate your journey. No doubt he could have transported you all to Barda almost instantaneously. I presume he chose not to do this because magical activity at that level would have been certain to attract the attention of the authorities. But I have been wondering why, apart from the minor change in my mule, he has done nothing that I can perceive to hasten your daily progress beyond what is natural. It is true that you have made rapid marches, and yet, except for our three encounters with groups of brigands, as far as I have been able to perceive he has not exercised his powers at all.
“The only explanation I can think of is that you fear you are already being watched, or watched for. For some days after the first episode with the brigands you were extremely apprehensive, and Maja almost exhausted herself with constant listeni
ng for hidden voices. If this is the case, I have something to contribute. I am a fully trained agent, and almost the first thing we were taught is to act on the assumption that one is being constantly sought for. The fact that one has not been apprehended does not mean that one has not been observed, because one’s opponents will prefer to delay until they can strike with maximum advantage.
“In your case, this would be not until you have reached Barda and found the object or person you seek, but before you can make use of that against the Watchers. You should therefore act on the assumption that this is going to happen, and that they will give you very little time in which to act. If that is impossible for you, then your only hope is somehow to elude their watch, or mislead them into believing that you have not yet found what you are looking for. Failing that, you must try to prepare defenses that will protect you long enough for you to put your plan into action.
“If I thought that I could help with any of this I should insist on coming with you, but if my guesses are anywhere near the truth I would be no more than a distraction and encumbrance. But can you wonder that I am extremely anxious, not only for Miss Saranja, but for all of you?”
They sat in silence. If Striclan knew so much, thought Maja, how could the Watchers not know it also? And of course they’d wait until they knew where the Ropemaker was. Why hadn’t she thought about that before? There simply wasn’t going to be time. They’d pounce at once. It was all, suddenly, hopeless.
“At least I can tell you you’re a very good spy,” said Ribek after a while. “If their other spies are that good, your Sheep-faces must know practically everything there is to be known about the Empire.”
“Alas, no,” said Striclan. “Information from agents on the ground often appears contradictory, and the tendency of the authorities is always to believe what they want to believe, even when the weight of the evidence is against it.
“Well, I will do what you ask me and leave you. I shall set out early in the morning, and get as far away from you as I can before you reach Barda. And I must thank you yet again for your companionship and wish you a successful outcome to your perilous undertaking, and so bid you farewell.”
He rose and helped Saranja to her feet. She didn’t let go of his hand. Ribek also rose and Maja scrambled up, but Benayu stayed where he was, dazed with his long dream, looking as if he hadn’t heard a word.
“Good luck to you too,” said Ribek. “I really hope we’ll see you again.”
“I’ve given him one of the finder stones,” said Saranja. “When all this is over he’s coming back to live in the Valley. And thank you for not asking any questions till now.”
Still holding hands they walked away and vanished among the shadows of the way station. There was no more nonsense that night about Striclan taking Maja with him when he left.
CHAPTER
15
Coming to Barda was very different from coming to Mord, or Tarshu, or Larg, or anywhere else they’d been. For two whole days the road crossed an utterly flat landscape, drearier even than desert, scraggy little fields with reedbeds here and there, sighing in the steady wind from the ever-nearing ocean. Bank after bank of low clouds rolled in on it, endlessly threatening rain, but not a drop fell. No houses, only a few tumbledown sheds and sties, built where they were for no purpose Maja could imagine, and apparently abandoned years ago.
Once, on the first morning, they passed a sad old yellow horse in a small paddock that it had grazed almost bare. Pogo, prepared to flirt or gossip with anything vaguely horse-shaped, whinnied a greeting, but it didn’t even raise its head. Seabirds glided on the wind, hawks hovered, and there were waterfowl on the innumerable sluggish rivers and streams, all flowing from the west, that the road had begun to cross. Otherwise the landscape seemed almost completely lifeless.
But not the road. This was busier than they’d seen it at any time since they’d left Larg, apart from the two narrow strips down the center that had been set aside for nobles and other grandees, which had very few users. On the other hand there were two extra lanes in either direction for slow-moving ox-wagons and the only slightly faster horse-drawn carts, and by the time three major Highways had joined the one they were on—two on the first day and one on the second—these were pretty well nose to tail with traffic. The frequent bridges boomed and thundered to the steady drub of wheels.
Ribek no longer bothered to stop and listen to every bit of water they crossed.
“It won’t have anything new to say,” he explained. “It’s just an arm of a delta—all the same river. It’s brought down a tremendous load of silt, which has spread further and further out into the sea, with the river breaking up into different channels to find a way through it.”
“So the actual village where the Ropemaker was born won’t be on the coast any longer?”
“I suppose not. Even since he disappeared the coastline will have shifted further out. Come to think of it, that may have made things more awkward. Well, we can only see when we get there. What’s up?”
Maja had clutched him to stop herself from falling from Levanter’s back. For a moment she was back at the sheep-fold north of Tarshu, almost drowning in darkness as she clung with her mind to the fiery streak of the Ropemaker’s hair. It was a smell, a reek, that had carried her there, salty, fishy, weedy, stronger than any mere sea smell.
She shook herself back into the here and now and stared around. The reek was still in her nostrils, beginning to fade.
“What’s that smell?” she said.
“Came from one of the wagons on the other side. Oysters, I should think. Remember that fellow at Larg said Barda was famous for them?”
“It’s what I smelled when I used the hair.”
“Are you sure?”
“Almost.”
“Interesting.”
Now that Striclan had left them, Jex had returned to his natural form whenever he could. That evening, as they sat round the fire, he spoke in their heads. Benayu woke from his long half trance to listen.
“I do not know, any more than you do, what will happen at Barda, other than if we find the form into which the Ropemaker has put his physical self it will involve an explosion of magic far more powerful than any you and I have so far endured. I must return to an inert form before that happens, or I shall not survive. But we cannot find what we are looking for without Maja’s help, so she must stay in her own form until that is done, and I will protect her as best I can. Benayu must then immediately endow her with an inert form in which she no longer needs protection.”
“Any ideas, Maja?” said Benayu.
Maja hesitated. It was difficult to think. To leave her own body, which had always seemed to be so much of her, who she was, all that made her Maja, always there, ready and waiting when she woke from dreams…
How could she do that and still be the same person, Maja?
If she must, she must. She mastered her reluctance.
“Will I be able to see and hear?”
“If your inert form has got eyes and ears.”
“Whatever’s easiest, then. Something Ribek can carry on a loop round his neck.”
“I’ll think about it. Go on, Jex.”
“That done both Maja and I will for the time being be helpless, but we must all instantly escape to Angel Isle and into my alternate universe, where the Watchers cannot follow.”
“I’ve been bothered about that,” said Benayu. “I could take us there, of course, but it’s a risk. It doesn’t get us there all in a moment, quite, and if the Watchers show up in time I won’t be able to stop them grabbing us back. They’ve got the power. The sea won’t make any difference. They can do it from dry land.”
“Fortunately we have other means of escape at hand. A roc is a creature from my other universe, and therefore an impossible creature in this universe, where it can survive only as a magical animal. Similarly, a horse is a creature of this universe and cannot survive except as a magical animal in the other. It follows that a hor
se with the wings of a roc is an impossible creature in both universes and can survive as a magical animal in both. So, immediately before we attempt to locate what we are looking for, you must screen us while Saranja restores Rocky’s wings. Using him as a basis, you will be able to create the means to give the other two horses and the dog the power of flight, so that when the time comes they will be able to carry us to Angel Isle and through the touching point.”
“Won’t the Watchers be able to interfere with that too?” said Saranja.
“I should be able to think of ways to fight them off for a bit,” said Benayu. “I can’t if I’m busy transporting us all.”
“You will need to prepare your defenses in advance, before your powers are weakened over the sea. The Watchers will face the same difficulty, but they will have come in haste, without time to prepare specific weaponry to use in such circumstances. They will certainly deploy thunderbolts, and send a dragon in pursuit. Probably no more than one, since they have lost several over Tarshu, but they may well produce simulacra.”
“You might think about trying to hide us and laying a false trail. Like we did when we left Tarshu,” said Ribek.
“And finally there is the problem of how we can survive as four-dimensional creatures in a seven-dimensional universe,” said Jex.
“I’ve been working on that. I can do it all right, in theory. I’ll get some of it ready tonight, but I can’t finish it off till we get there. I’m bothered about this business of being weaker over the sea.”
“Angel Isle itself is different. It is a major touching point, a source of great power.”
Maja was woken in the dawn by a stir of magic and found Saranja and Ribek still asleep, but Benayu already sitting up, staring at a pattern of what looked like colored rice-grains he had laid out on the tiled floor of their sleeping booth. Every now and then he would point at it and more grains would appear under his fingertip, forming another swirl in the pattern. He had screened himself closely round, so that Maja could feel no more than a whisper of something immensely powerful and complex being brought out of nowhere and woven into the fabric of reality.
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