Peter Dickinson - Angel Isle

“That’s right. I was told it was looted from the hoard of some warlord way out beyond the Great Desert.”

“Mind if I just run my crystal over them? There’ll have been power stones in something like that, like as not. They could have picked a bit of magic up, in which case I’d need to think again.”

“Go ahead,” said Ribek easily, Benayu having already dealt with the problem. “And then perhaps you’d care to join me for a glass of wine while we settle a price…”

“Thought so,” whispered Benayu. “She’s not going to let pleasure interfere with business. She’ll take him to an eating house and point him out to a couple of thugs she knows. They’re going to waylay him on his way back to the inn and take the money off him. I’ll let him know, but the way things are going they may be doing a bit more than having a glass of wine together tonight, and we’re going to need to leave early. Idiot! Who can you trust?”

“She’s wearing a love charm, isn’t she?” said Maja defensively. She had no idea how she knew that was what it was. It just had to be.

“He’s still an idiot. I’d better hang around here for a bit and keep an eye on him. I’ll tell him what’s up and hope he comes to his senses.”

“He isn’t going to.”

“In that case I’ll find a quiet place where we can meet in the morning and tell him where it is in case he doesn’t get back to the inn tonight. You’d better go back yourself now and have a bit of a rest. Even with Jex’s help you’re going to find picking up all this stray magic all the time pretty tiring at first. Do you want me to show you the way?”

“I think I can find it.”

He was right about both things. Already half dazed by the ceaseless petty bombardment from every corner of Mord, she got lost almost at once. In the end by pure luck she came to the inn from the wrong direction.

Sponge welcomed her back to their room with a thump of his tail on the floorboards. Saranja still slept unstirring, so she curled up in one of the other beds and almost immediately herself fell into deep and dreamless sleep. At some unknown nowhere in that peaceful oblivion, a voice of stone spoke faintly in her head.

“Maja.”

“Jex! Are you all right? I can only just hear you. How can we get you back? Can we help? Do you know what’s been happening?”

“No, you must tell me. Normally I exist simultaneously in two separate worlds. When your companion spoke a certain name, the shock of her utterance was such that I was forced to withdraw from your world, leaving behind only an extension of myself, which is now in the shape of the stone pendant you carry. Being stone, it can neither see nor hear, and exists only to absorb some of the magic around you, without which I cannot live.

“Communication between my separate worlds is difficult when I do not exist fully in one of them. We are now in the nowhere between the worlds. I am speaking to you and not to Benayu because the pendant is under your pillow, and yours is the younger and more flexible mind. Even so, it is accessible to me only with considerable effort and only when you are asleep. So tell me now all that has happened since your companion spoke that name on the mountainside.”

It took some time, only there seemed to be no such thing as time in this dream between the worlds.

“You have done well,” said Jex when she had finished. “I grieve for Fodaro, a good man, and brave, and wise. Yes, you can help me, and, since you cannot succeed in your quest without me, you will need to do so.

“First we must restore me to my true balance. Saranja could do this anywhere and at any time, simply by holding the roc feathers in one hand, bound by the strand of the Ropemaker’s hair, and the pendant that you have under your pillow in the other, and then speaking his name. This will set off a major magical spasm similar in kind to the one which originally created the imbalance, and provided that I am ready for the event I will be able to exploit this to restore myself to my natural condition. But the process would send out an extremely powerful signal, more than Benayu can ward or screen, and I will not be there to absorb any part of it. It is certain to attract the attention of the Watchers. They will be already on the alert after the spasms back at the pasture, and the destruction of two of their number who came to investigate the first of them.

“Our best chance is to attempt to conceal the event among a complex of other equally powerful events, if we can. There are some of my kind who exist in the same mode as me. I cannot communicate with them in my present imbalance, but I can listen to what they tell each other. They have some knowledge of the Watchers’ doings. They say that something of the sort that we are looking for appears likely to happen near the eastern port of Tarshu. The Watchers have somehow learned that the Pirates are preparing for a major raid and are gathering to repel it. I suggest that you take me to Tarshu and we will make the attempt. It is some distance, and you dare not travel by magical means, so you must leave Mord as soon as you can.

“Farewell, Maja. I shall not be able to speak to you for a while, other than in an emergency.”

“Good-bye, Jex. And good luck. And thanks. I’ll tell them.”

She was not surprised by his last sentence. Even in her sleep she had been straining to hear. No, it had not been a dream. That was real.

She was woken by the triple thwack of Sponge’s tail at the sound of his master’s returning footsteps. Saranja must have woken to the sound too, and was starting to sit up as Benayu came into the room, slamming the door brutally behind him.

“Where is this?” she said, dazed with her long sleep. “Why’s it so dark? What’s up? You look—”

“We’re in an inn at Mord,” he said harshly. “You’ve been asleep for three days. You ought to be dead, if you want to know. There’s a stone in Zald-im-Zald that was making you tireless, but you pay for it after. Two days ought to have killed you, and you’d been wearing it for ten. I suppose the roc feathers must have kept you alive somehow.”

“Where’s Ribek?”

“Ribek?” he snarled, and told her.

“He swears he can handle these two thugs,” he added. “The woman told them she’d be keeping him with her till dawn, but I took the money off him to be on the safe side.”

“Men!” growled Saranja. “They’ve got just one idea in their heads!”

“It wasn’t his fault really,” said Maja. “She was wearing a love charm.”

“I still hate men. And what if he isn’t as good as he thinks he is and these fellows are too much for him? Where does that leave us? Is there anywhere I can watch from and not be seen, just in case?”

“There’s an archway a little way down across the street. Room for all three of us, as well as Rocky. Then if we’ve got everything packed up we can be on our way as soon as the gates open.”

“That’ll have to do. Where’s the latrines? I’m bursting.”

“I’ll show you—I’ve got to take Sponge out,” said Benayu.

“I’ve got a message for us from Jex,” said Maja. “He talked to me in a dream, only it wasn’t a dream. He says we can’t find the Ropemaker without him, and he told me how we can get him unstuck in a way the Watchers won’t notice. It’s rather complicated. And it’s really scary.”

“Tell us when I get back,” said Benayu more calmly. “We won’t be more than a couple of minutes. I’ll order some food on the way up. Come on, boy.”

Usually when Maja tried to tell someone about what had seemed a vivid dream, all its sharp certainties seemed to go vague and unreal as she spoke. This wasn’t like that. The single stony voice seemed to be still in her mind, putting the exact words into her mouth as she needed them, though in places she wasn’t sure she really understood them. It didn’t take long. Saranja and Benayu listened without interruption. Their meal arrived as she was finishing. By the time they settled down to it the night outside was fully dark.