Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

“This was Varti,” said Zara. “He was North, most powerful of all the Watchers. My Lord Kzuva asked Lananeth to try to close the hills against all comers, which was beyond her powers, so she came to me for help. It was still too much for us, far too much. Then Varti came. He told us that if we all three joined our powers then we could do as My Lord asked. He had good reason, he said. There was a powerful, unknown magician at work in the Empire. This man had first destroyed the towers of the Watchers, and half the Watchers with them, and was now hunting down the rest. Varti hoped to close the hills against this enemy. So we agreed and between us we closed the hills, but Varti then possessed us, as you saw, until Tilja set us free. . . .What is happening?”

Tilja realized that the sounds from the antechamber, and beyond, had quietened. Now they broke out again in a wailing cry that rose and fell in slow pulses. Somewhere a deep gong began to sound, keeping time with the wailing. Lananeth had her hand to her mouth and a look of horror on her face. Zara was standing rigid. Her eyes were dull as pebbles. Then the light came back into them and she bowed her head.

“My Lord was building a tower for Varti, thinking it was for us,” she said somberly. “It has fallen. My Lord was beneath it.”

They stared at each other in dismay.

“We shall be blamed,” whispered Lananeth. “Who else is there, if it was magic that destroyed the tower?”

Zara nodded somberly.

“We must go at once,” she said. “You four also. Come.”

She led the way out by a small door behind the hangings through which she and Lananeth had entered.

By the time they reached the bottom of the narrow stair that led down from the warded room, both magicians looked like menials of some sort, with different faces and wearing coarse clothing. Zara led them out through back passages. None of the frightened servants hurrying by questioned or even noticed them. They found the stables by the squeals of panicking horses. Some of them had broken loose from their stalls and were cantering wildly round the stable courtyard. Zara quietened them with a gesture, allowing Tilja to enter the stables, find Calico and lead her out. Tilja returned to the courtyard to find that the two magicians had each chosen one of the loose horses, which was now standing placidly beside her, unharnessed and unbridled. When Zara led the way on they followed as if on invisible halters.

As they crossed the bridge Tilja halted to fiddle with her shoe, sure that Tahl would stay with her.

“Whatever you’ve guessed, don’t tell the other two,” she whispered. “I think Lananeth and Zara have forgotten. Try not to think about it. It’s dangerous, anyone knowing, even you.”

He stared for a moment, then nodded. They hurried to catch up.

At the bend in the road from which they had first seen Lord Kzuva’s palace they turned and looked back. The gaping hole into which the unfinished tower had fallen was invisible from where they stood, so the wonderful building seemed almost unchanged, apart from some tangles of smashed scaffolding in among the turrets and spires. The slow throb of the gong reverberated along the valley.

“He will never now set foot upon the Opal Stair,” said Zara, as if speaking to herself.

“He wanted to do that too?” asked Tahl.

“Too? You have met with another?”

“There was a magician we hired for our convoy,” said Tahl. “I think she knew you. She said that’s what had happened to her Landholder.”

Zara nodded.

“Every Landholder in the Empire has the same dream,” she said. “Only some go about it with more patience than others. Yes, Aileth was my friend. Where did you meet her?”

“Our convoy captain hired her on the road five days south of Talagh,” said Alnor. “She was going on north with the others when we turned off to come here.”

“She has twice my powers, and she has come to that,” said Zara, and sighed and shook her head. “Well, my friends, now we must leave you. You already have a warding round you, so that you are not noticed unless you choose to be, and I do not think you will be closely sought. But it is otherwise with us. Lord Kzuva’s heirs will want vengeance for his death.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” said Meena. “It was Varti’s.”

“Yes,” said Lananeth, “but who will believe that? My life, and my husband’s, and all his household are forfeit, so we must go to him, and go quickly. There are no other magicians of any power this side of the Pirrim Hills, so between us Zara and I can perhaps defend us all. And I would like to defend our people still against what is loose in the Empire, just as we did with Varti, though he was doing it for his own purposes.”

“I doubt we will be strong enough for that on our own,” said Zara.

“What about the magician we met on the road?” said Tahl. “Aileth, didn’t you say her name was? She told Tilja that if there was work to be done, she would help.”

“I will send to her,” said Zara, “but now . . .”

“One moment,” said Alnor. “We’ve been hoping to meet a magician somewhere on the road who’d help us to close our Valley off again, as it used to be. We were told whoever it is would find us on the road, but they haven’t so far. Is it either of you?”

“It is neither of us,” said Zara. “We do not have that kind of power. I do not know about Aileth.”

Alnor turned to Tilja, an unspoken question in his eyes. And in Meena’s too, now. Tahl was deliberately not looking at her, but she knew the same thought was in his mind.

“No,” she said sadly. “It’s supposed to be a man. Faheel talked about ‘he.’ ”

“Well, good-bye, my dears,” said Lananeth. “What has happened is no more your fault than it is ours, and if ever you return you will be welcome under my roof, if it still stands. But you must not come there now. Go straight to Salata. Her husband, Gahan, has returned. He knows the hills to the north, and will guide you as far as the old road to the forest.”

They all said their farewells and then Zara and Lananeth moved a little way up the road, followed by the two horses. They turned and faced the animals head-on. The horses bowed their heads. The two magicians, Lananeth glancing from time to time at Zara, like an apprentice following a master through some unfamiliar task, placed their hands on either side of the long skulls and lowered their own heads until the brows, horse and human, touched. Tilja felt nothing, but Meena and the boys reeled with the rush of magic as the human shapes shimmered, faded and vanished. The horses swung round, switched their tails and raced away up the road while Calico whinnied with distress at their going.

17

The Forest Edge

In their haste to be home they made long marches, and in no more time than the shorter outward journey from El-lion’s house had taken them they reached Salata’s encampment. She and her daughters ran to meet them, full of welcome, and then of confusion when Salata found not the Meena she knew and longed to thank, but a lively girl less than half her own age, so her thanks were confused and doubtful.

Her husband, Gahan, was a square, sturdy man who had been with his regiment in some western province at the time of the Emperor’s death. Like most of his comrades he had taken advantage of the confusion to desert, and had made his way home through the turmoil that followed the fall of the Watchers, and come through the Pirrim Hills before the waking of the pines. On the way he had seen enough horrors and marvels to be able to accept anything, so he could thank Meena more simply. He said he would be glad to take them as far as the old road that the Emperors had built before the sickness in the forest had closed the way north.