Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

“Been a near thing,” he said. “Lot of luck around. Worked out all right in the end. Now what? Got an empire to put to rights, you tell me. Get you home first, though. Still have that bread and water?”

Meena undid her pack and fished out the barley roll she had baked all those months ago. It was battered and shrunken with age, but the moment the Ropemaker’s long fingers touched it it seemed to swell, and the air was filled with the aroma of fresh baking. He broke off a corner and munched with gusto, then took the flask that Alnor handed him and drank from it before passing both offerings back, smiling and shaking his head.

“They’ll do,” he said. “Given them a bit of a stir-up. Not what matters. Give me your hand, Meena. You too, Alnor. Take each other’s. Right.”

Tahl shifted aside so that Alnor could move to complete the triangle. They sat in silence for a short while and then, without a word, let go.

“Yes, I see,” said Alnor solemnly. “Asarta’s magic isn’t really in the bread and the water, not any longer. They’re just tools we use, so to speak. But the true magic is in ourselves, in our blood, renewing and renewing itself through the generations. Twenty generations after Asarta, and twenty more after Faheel, and now another twenty to come.”

“Can’t say that yet,” said the Ropemaker. “You’ve still got to make it happen, you two, Meena in the forest, Alnor in the mountains.”

“First we have to get me there,” said Alnor.

The Ropemaker nodded and fell silent, stroking his long chin.

“Problem,” he said. “Can’t get you through the forest without messing up what Meena’s got to do. Not sure I could, anyway— still got a lot to learn. So . . .”

He stared out over the trees, frowning with concentration. The whole landscape seemed to fall still, sucked into the intensity of his thought. His raucous laugh split the silence.

“No way through,” he said with a naughty-boy grin. “Not that I know. Different sort of magic. But . . . roc feathers, right? Let’s have ’em.”

A little reluctantly Tilja took the feathers out of her pocket and gave them to him. He ran them gently between his fingers as if he were stroking a small creature, and they sparkled with the true fiery look of the living roc.

“Nice,” he whispered, and pursed his lips into a silent whistle. Tilja heard a rustle and caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked, and saw Calico’s tether undoing itself, and then Calico came nosing over, looking for once interested in what was happening around her. The Ropemaker plucked a grass stem and rubbed a few seeds out of it into his palm. He closed his hand and opened it, and the seeds were a fistful of wheat. When he poured them onto the ground they became a small pile, which didn’t seem to grow any less as Calico lowered her head and munched away.

“Going to need the muscle,” he said, as if he were explaining something.

He took the roc feathers and gently slid the quills into Calico’s hide, just behind the shoulders on either side, with the plumes lying along her back. He stroked them again, and Calico shrugged herself and switched her tail as though a fly were bothering her. The feathers began to grow. Smaller ones sprouted on either side, and became fledgling wings, which, without her apparently noticing what was happening to her, she twitched and spread and shook into place as they grew and grew. Her sagging spine straightened to a shallow curve, muscles swelled and twitched beneath a suddenly glossy hide. When she raised her head there was a proud arc to her neck and a light in her eye. She whinnied with what sounded like excitement.

“That’s more like it,” said the Ropemaker, punching her on the shoulder. “No, you don’t!” (as Calico twisted to snatch at his arm). “Born cussed, die cussed, eh?”

He slapped her back and there was a saddle there, with a flap behind for a second rider.

“All set,” he said. “Up you get, then, young fellows. Wings out of the way, old lady.”

Calico snarled, but raised her great pinions clear of her flanks, moving them easily, as though she’d had them since she was a foal. But she had grown by a couple of hands or more, and Alnor was too proud to be helped into the saddle. Meena didn’t help by crowing with laughter as he hopped around trying to heave himself up, until something invisible seemed to give him a boost and he could sit and stare arrogantly ahead of him, the young warrior prince ignoring the jeers of the rabble. Tahl, sensibly, let the Ropemaker lift him into place. When Calico laid her wings flat they covered the riders’ legs. The Ropemaker handed Tahl the tasseled rod.

“Bit of trouble back home, you told me,” he said. “May need this. Time comes, give it a shake. Right, then, off you go, old lady.”

He slapped Calico on the rump. She sat back on her haunches, spread her wings and sprang into the air, with Alnor clinging inelegantly to her mane and Tahl’s arms round his waist. Calico seemed to know exactly what to do. They watched her pounding upward until she found a thermal and could soar, circling round and round until she looked like no more than an unusually large bird spiraling in the evening sunlight.

“That tassel,” murmured the Ropemaker, still staring upward. “Bit of stuff I picked up from Dorn when he went. Keep an eye on the lad, Tilja. Can’t tell what it might do to him.”

At last Calico broke from the spiral and arrowed north.

19

The Lake

Men get to ride, women have to walk, then?” said Meena, pretending to sulk about it. “Looks like it,” said the Ropemaker. “Start in the morning, sleep in a tree, home for supper tomorrow. Get yourselves an appetite for it.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Tilja.

“Have to think. Don’t like the look of any of this. Not my sort of thing. Stuck with it, though. This woman you told me about— said she’d help . . .”

“That’s right, Aileth,” said Meena.

“Have a word with her, for a start. Going to take a while . . .”

He fell silent, gloomily rubbing his long chin.

“Suppose I came back one day—” Tilja began, hesitantly.

“You want to?” he interrupted.

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. I want to go and stay with Meena for a bit, but . . .”

“Go on—say it,” said Meena brutally. “I’m not going to last forever in that old carcass.”

She managed somehow to speak in the exact fierce tone she might have used before she had eaten Faheel’s grapes. It sounded appalling coming from those young lips. Tilja put her arm round her and hugged her and held her close, more for her own comfort than for Meena’s. She could hardly speak.

“I’m going to stay with you, I promise,” she croaked.

“No, you’re not—not if you’re needed here, soon as you’re old enough. I’ve been watching you changing, Til, more than you realize, I daresay. It’s like he was saying about his magic when he started—it was what he was for. It’ll be a waste of you, having something like what you’ve got in the Valley, where there’s nothing for you to do with it. It’ll eat into your heart, knowing what you could be doing. Right, aren’t I—like it would be for you, mister, not being able to do your magic?”

Through her tears Tilja could see the lean face of the Ropemaker watching her. He nodded slowly.

“And you’d like her back, wouldn’t you?” Meena insisted. “She’d be a bit of use to you?”

He nodded again.

“Mind you, if you could do something about this leg of mine I’m going to have when I get home,” she suggested. “And if Alnor could see right . . .”

Oh, yes! Tilja thought. Why hadn’t she . . . but the Ropemaker was shaking his head sadly.