Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

“That’s us,” said Meena. “Fa . . . I think it’s all right to say his name now—anyway Lananeth knows it—Faheel gave us a bunch of grapes to eat to make us like this, so we could travel home with the other two and nobody’d ask any questions. And very nice too, it’s been.”

Exactly together, as if moving in time to unheard music, Zara and Lananeth stepped forward and each raised a hand and held it close beside Meena’s cheek, then Alnor’s, and after a moment or two, still exactly together, lowered their hands and backed away.

“We do not know how this is done,” said Zara. “You are in our warded room, where we are at our strongest, and still we cannot feel that you are not just what you seem.”

“We are, too,” said Meena. “Tilja touching us doesn’t make any difference, either.”

“He has changed time, not you. Somehow he has brought you out of your past and put you into this time.”

“Like Asarta undoing her years in the story, you mean?” said Tahl. “After she’d given the ring to Reyel and Dirna to take to Faheel?”

The magicians lost their smiles. Tilja gulped with sudden tension. She’d never imagined that the existence of the ring might slip into a conversation like this, and anyway she couldn’t have warned the others about it without telling them more than she dared. Tahl was staring at her, frowning. She shook her head in warning. He nodded and looked away.

“Ring?” said Zara softly. “Indeed, there was once a ring, but Asarta took it . . . or so it is said. Perhaps you should tell us the story. And your own.”

The four from the Valley looked at each other. Tilja could sense that the other three were feeling her unease by now. Alnor took charge.

“I think you’d better tell us something first,” he said aggressively. “How do we know you’re the people we met before? You’ve changed. You’re doing everything exactly together. Lananeth has not said a word. And you keep talking about ‘we’ as if Lananeth had not got a mind of her own. Is she in your power? Or are you both in someone else’s?”

The two smiles returned, but now Tilja was certain she didn’t believe them.

“We are one, joined,” said Zara. “It became necessary when His Lordship asked us to wake the forest. This was a very big undertaking, far too great for either one of us alone. Joined, it was just within our powers, but the effort itself changed us, wove us into each other’s mind, so now, though our bodies have separate existences, our thoughts are one thought.”

“And what’s happened to your feelings, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Meena. “Or haven’t you got any, anymore? All the thoughts you’ll ever think, they aren’t any good without feelings.”

Still with the same stony smiles the two women gently shook their heads. Tilja had been unhappily watching Lananeth while the magician spoke, looking for some hint of the strong and friendly human who had welcomed them to Ellion’s house. For a moment that Lananeth seemed to be there, a sad and desperate glimmer in the depths of the calm brown eyes. Yes, she was sure. Quite deliberately Tilja took a pace forward, put an arm round Lananeth’s shoulders and kissed her on the cheek.

The numbness exploded through her. Lananeth juddered and went rigid. Zara too, standing beside her. Zara became a sort of thick mist, which became taller and thinner, then solidified, and now where Zara had been, a man was standing, tall and skinny, dressed all in black. His eyes had no pupils. They were the color of ice. They blazed fury, but he too, for the moment, was locked rigid. Before he could break the spell Tilja reached out and took him by the wrist.

He was strong, far stronger than Dorn. Though she had taken him by surprise, he fought her with his fury, gathering it together, building it into a focused power.

She took Lananeth’s wrist in her other hand and with a huge effort closed her mind, shutting out the man, the fury, and searching into her own depths to find her central, secret lake among the mountains. Now the three of them stood on its shore. But its surface was torn by a mountain storm. Unheard winds shrieked between the snow peaks. The whole slope opposite was covered by the menacing dark shadow of the man, with Lananeth’s and Tilja’s shadows small beside it. The shadows were not thrown by any sun. There was none. Never again. No sun.

Still grasping both wrists, Tilja stepped into the raging water. There was no bottom. She sank, dragging the other two with her. Down they went, and down. The man melted into the water, dwindling away. She looked up and in the dim, watery light saw it was Zara and Lananeth she was dragging behind her. She could live in this water as long as she chose, but they would drown. She let go of their wrists, put an arm round each of them, and simply by choosing to do so rose to the surface, pulled them out and laid them on the grass. The storm was gone. Sunlight glittered off the glaciers, reflected in the barely rippled surface of the lake. Reluctantly she turned away and came back into the outer world.

She was in the warded room in Lord Kzuva’s castle, holding Lananeth and Zara by the wrists. A black-clad body lay at their feet. Tilja could see the back of the head, an old, bald cranium, yellow and blotched and shiny. When she let go of the two magicians they both crumpled to the floor.

All this in an instant. Meena, Tahl and Alnor were still picking themselves up after being buffeted aside, as if by an explosion in the middle of the room, when, from somewhere outside, came a tremendous series of crashes, dwindling away amid the yells of human voices.

Tilja barely heard them. Shuddering with exhaustion and relief, she too collapsed and buried her face in her hands, gasping for air.

When she straightened and looked around, Meena was kneeling beside her, holding her close, Alnor was crouching and feeling for Lananeth’s pulse, and Tahl was staring at the body on the floor. Outside the room the tone of the voices had changed from alarmed shouts to bellows of command.

“She’s alive, at least,” Alnor whispered. “Wait. She’s coming round.”

“Grab hold of Til in case she tries something,” said Tahl.

Huddling together, the four of them watched the magician slowly straighten her body and lie still for a little. She groaned and pushed herself up onto her elbow, shook her head slowly from side to side and gazed round the room.

Seeing Zara’s body, she jerked herself to her knees, crawled across and laid her hand against the ashen cheek. With a gasp Zara sat up, and they helped each other to their feet. They stood for some while face to face, holding hands and studying each other in silence, like old friends who haven’t met for many years. They were both very pale, but most of the stony look was gone.

At last Zara breathed a quivering sigh and smiled weakly.

“Are you much hurt, my dear?” she whispered.

“The worst pain I have ever known,” said Lananeth. “But it’s gone now. And you?”

“The same.”

They fell silent, still looking at each other with the same amazed relief.

“But what happened?” asked Tahl. “Who is this, anyway? One moment he wasn’t there, then he was, and then . . . Did Tilja do all that?”

“I do not know,” said Lananeth. “I remember nothing since I came into this room.”

“Nor I,” said Zara. “Only the pain. Did you do this, child? Did you have any idea what you were doing?”

Tilja pulled herself together.

“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I ought to have asked. I—I just couldn’t stand it like it was. It was all wrong.”

“Yes, it was wrong,” said Lananeth. “I fought against it still, but Varti was far too strong for me.”

She gestured toward the body on the floor.