Angel Isle (21 page)

“I chose another course from Lananeth. To preserve what was left of my inward self I came to Larg. Over three years I built a barrier of wards around the city almost as strong as those around the walls of Talagh. That done, I laid my powers aside and surrounded myself with ordinariness, as devoid of magic as I could make it. I healed, and taught others to heal, by ordinary natural means. My old colleagues remained in Talagh, increasing their powers. We waited for the Ropemaker’s return.”

The whisper had slowed, become syllable after dragging syllable. It paused, gathered strength and went on.

“He did not return. The Watchers’ power grew. Before they could complete the change and become the Watchers, as they are now, they had a need that only I could fulfill, so we bound ourselves under the covenant, in terms that neither they nor I could afford to break, that I should fulfill that need and that they should have no power or jurisdiction over my city of Larg.

“Again we waited. I grew older. I could have renewed my powers and prolonged my life, but at great cost to my true self. In the end I could do no more than cast myself into sleep and await the next event. It has now come, twice over. You have appeared at the gates of Larg, and in the very day and hour of your coming to Larg the covenant was broken with a force that battered against my wards around the city, and woke me from my sleep. The Watchers will say that what they have done is still within the terms of the covenant, and for that reason I dare not break the pact between us. I know who you are, and what you are trying to do. But still for the sake of this city I dare not help your search. I can give you my blessing, and that is all.”

She paused again. At length, Ribek broke the silence, whispering too in that presence.

“You…you can’t tell us where this gateway is, the one to the other universe?”

“I dare not meddle. I must recall what is left of my powers, and I do not know if they are enough, and I am old and tired. What the Watchers have done is to wake a great sea demon to use him against the fleets of their enemies. In so doing they have woken others, including the storm demon Azarod, whom long ago I bound and cast into the pit. Before anything else he will come to Larg to take vengeance on me and mine. My barrier is weaker over the sea and it will not hold him of its own. Now you must go, while I prepare to do what I can to protect my city. The Proctors will decide whether to give you passage. My blessing is on you. You may tell them that.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Ribek, low-voiced, and moved toward the door. Maja tugged at his sleeve.

“Perhaps Benayu could help her,” she whispered. “Tell her about the dragon. And there’s a demon-binder on Zald.”

He hesitated, then turned back to the bed.

“I…I don’t know if it’s any use, ma’am,” he said. “One of our friends outside the barrier—she isn’t a magician, but she’s got a demon-binder on a jewel called Zald-im-Zald, if that’s any use. And we’ve got someone with us. He had to stay up on the hill outside your wards, because he’s a magician. He knows about storms. We were at Tarshu, on a hill above the town, when the Watchers summoned a tremendous tempest from out at sea to attack an enemy airboat.”

“I saw that tempest in my dream. Someone had spoken the Ropemaker’s true name, and the shock of it almost woke me. I saw the airboat’s fall. I saw a hunting dragon tossed aside like a leaf on the lashing tail of the wind.”

“Benayu did that. The dragon was hunting us, and it was just going to get us when he used a bit of the storm to blow it clean away and kill it. It took a lot out of him, but he did it. If it’s storms you’re planning to deal with…”

“Perhaps. Zald-im-Zald will work only for its owner, and I cannot work with her if she is not a magician. But your other friend…Hold your left hand over my face so that I can breathe into your palm…. Now close it, and keep it closed till you see your friend. Tell him what has happened, and if he agrees let him breathe the breath that I have given you. He will then know my need and purpose and be free to refuse.

“Now go. Tell the Proctors to prepare for a mighty storm. Say that with your friend’s help I will try to protect the city. In that way, if all goes well, they will have cause to assist you as I cannot myself do. Farewell.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Ribek, and turned to the door once more. Before they reached it, the whisper came again.

“The man you are looking for…he was born in Barda.”

CHAPTER
9

A
s they crossed the threshold into the Council Chamber the cocoon around Maja vanished. Instantly a jolt of pure magic from Zara’s chamber overwhelmed her. Utter darkness. No sight, sound, smell, touch, only that blast of power. And beyond it, something else, something that was there and wasn’t. Was there and wasn’t in a way she knew…

And then she was standing, dazed, in the Council Chamber, with Ribek’s steadying arm around her. There was blank wall where the door had been.

“I’m all right,” she muttered, but he kept hold of her arm as he led her toward the center of the table where the Proctors were seated.

Everyone in the room seemed to be staring at them, as before, but the whole atmosphere had changed. There were doubt, anxiety, interest still, but instead of irritation with these two troublesome intruders, there was now something like awe in their faces. Ribek and she had spoken with the Sleeper of Larg, which no one before had done for who knew how long.

Ribek halted confidently in front of the long table and the President nodded to him to speak.

“Well, we’ve seen the Sleeper,” he said quietly. “I can’t tell you about most of what she said, except that you’ve got to make up your own minds what to do about us. But she gave us a message for you to prepare for a storm. It’s not going to be an ordinary bad storm, but a real monster. The Watchers at Tarshu have raised a great sea demon to destroy the Pirates’ fleet, and that’s woken other demons. One of them’s about to attack Larg. She’ll do her best to protect the city, and we’ve got a friend up on the hill outside the barrier who’ll try to help her, but she’s very old and tired and she thinks that it may be too much for her, even with the help of our friend. So if you’ll let us go back and tell him…”

The President glanced right and left. Everyone nodded. All stood. The Clerk rifled urgently through his folders and passed him a large card, from which he started to read in a carrying voice.

“The Court is adjourned. A State of Emergency is declared. Preparations for a major storm, Category Five, to begin immediately. All shipping to be double-moored. All citizens not engaged in official storm preparations to go to their homes. Curfew imposed. Volunteer Watch and fire crews to report immediately for duty. Watch authorized to arrest persons breaking the curfew on suspicion of looting. Automatic triple penalties imposed on those detected in actual looting…”

Everyone seemed to know the drill. Junior officials were already scampering out of the room, others hurrying in for orders. The President finished reading and put the card down.

“Gate Sergeant,” he called. “Ah, there you are. We’ll forget about your little outburst just now. Will you take our visitors back to the gate, provide them with a pass-box, free of charge in the circumstances, and give them every help you can to get them back to their friends the other side of the barrier before the storm breaks.”

“Horses, sir?”

“If we can find them in time. See to it, Guard Captain. Two steady horses to the South Gate, an experienced horseman to ride with the girl and bring the horses back, expense to be defrayed from the City Purse…”

As soon as Maja stepped out into the open she was aware of the coming storm. There was a sudden chill in the air and fine spray in the freshening wind, which came and went in sudden violent gusts. The bells of twenty towers were jangling at random. A line of uniformed men carrying staves were chivvying the last few loiterers off the square. And out to sea—the great ward was weaker there, Zara had said—something vaguely felt but huge and malevolent was moving toward the city.

They hurried back through almost empty streets the way they had come. It was late evening by the time they reached the gate. The Gate Sergeant left them under the arch while he went into the guardroom for the pass-box. By now Maja felt deathly tired from the magical batterings in the Council Chamber on top of the long day on the road. She hoped the horses would come. She doubted if she could make it up the hill on her own feet.

They waited. The howl of the wind strengthened, for Azarod himself now rode in it. She could feel Zara’s great ward vibrate to his violence. The Gate Sergeant seemed to be taking a long time. A thought struck her.

“Can you ride with only one hand, Ribek?” she said.

“Walk if I have to. Where’ve they all got to?”

Almost as he spoke the horses arrived, a wizened old groom riding one and leading the other. He was wearing a heavy oiled cloak and a wide-brimmed hat tied under the chin. His vast white moustache was pretty well all she could see of his face.

“Right you are, sir,” he said. “Wild weather already, and it’ll be worse up the hill. Hoist the little lady up behind me and we’ll be off.”

“There’s a problem,” said Ribek, holding his arm across his body as if he’d hurt it. “I’m not much of a horseman, and I’ve only got one hand I can use.”

“That’s all right, sir. I’ll take the reins and you can hang on to her mane. There’s a mounting block over there.”

Before they could move the Gate Sergeant returned with the pass-box and a couple more oiled cloaks like the groom’s. Maja’s was hugely too large for her, of course.

“Smallest I could find in the store,” he said, as he parceled her up in it and belted it round her. “It’s going to be wet up there on that hill.”

He lifted her up and she put her arms round the old groom. He smelled of stables. It was strange not to be riding with Ribek, but it wouldn’t have made sense. They moved to the block to let Ribek mount, and then on toward the outer archway.

“Good luck,” said the Gate Sergeant. “See you in the morning, supposing any of us are alive still.”

“Good luck to you, and thank you,” said Ribek.

The gale seemed to be blowing from the north, so for a little while they were still in the lee of the city wall, but the moment they were off the bridge it slammed into their backs, hissing and shrieking. Even a winter storm at Woodbourne had been nothing like this. If it had been from any other direction it would have blasted them off the road or forced them back. As it was, it seemed to be driving them on up the hill.

Despite that, the horses at once half shied. The groom cursed them and wrenched at the reins and drove them on. The riders bent themselves low over their necks to lessen the pressure on both themselves and the horses. Maja laid her right cheek against the groom’s greasy cloak and peered out to sea.

Night was coming early under the heavy clouds, but there was no need of moon or stars. Bolt after bolt of lightning slammed down into the waves, adding their thunder to the roar of the wind. Their glare marked the center of the storm, whirling the gale around it as it marched toward the land. It wasn’t as large as she’d have expected for so huge a storm, but a concentrated swirl of utter blackness in the mottled dark of the hurling clouds. The lightning dazzled down from its fringes. Its come-and-go brilliance blinded her vision and made the dark yet darker until it flashed again, but behind and beyond that center there seemed to be a different kind of darkness, a huge, squat column rising from the sea. She couldn’t be sure.

Rain came, sudden and dense, driven horizontal on the wind, rattling against their cloaks, sending the horses skittering sideways with the shock of it. Again the groom mastered them, coaxing and cursing. They started to climb.
Now we’re for it,
thought Maja.

But no. If anything the wind seemed to ease slightly. It was coming more from the left, too, or perhaps the road had turned that way, making it seem so. They plodded on, and yes, though the road began to twist to and fro to lessen the incline as the hill became steeper, checking her bearings with what she could see of the city below, and the sea and headland on her left, she thought she was right. Of course. The wind was only part of the colossal swirl that circled that dark center out to sea, and the line of the road was taking them more and more across the curve of it.

It was still a mighty gale, wherever it blew, but its power continued to lessen, and she felt that they were climbing not only out across it but also up out of it. And now when she looked out to sea, she was seeing slantwise to its course, so that the dark column she thought she had glimpsed was no longer directly behind the storm center and its blinding lightning, but a little to one side.

Yes, there was something there, something solid, not a plain column but a vast, vaguely human shape with a great, snouted, neckless head and something like arms. Between its hands, or paws, it held a long black rod which it brandished toward the storm. A lash of lightning sprang from its tip, shot out above the surface of the sea, curled around the storm center and whipped it round, as a child might do with a whipping-top, faster yet and faster, and at the same time drove it toward Larg.

The churning waves around the center began to shape themselves into a line of swirling waterspouts, taller than the tallest trees, which separated from the steady, implacable march of the main storm and charged toward the shore, all seeming to aim for the point where the two banks of the debouching river funneled in and became the outer harbor.

They never reached it. Through the weakened ward she sensed an invisible wave of a different order of magic sweep out from the city to meet the waterspouts near the center of their line and break it apart, and send the ones on either side crashing into their neighbors, and those into the ones beyond, and so on all the way down the line, until they had all collapsed into a tremendous flurry of foam, a white wave which spread outside sideways, lost direction and spent itself uselessly against headland and marsh.

Maja heard Ribek’s shout behind her.

“Holding her own against the little ’uns. Big one’s something else. We’re not going to make it. Horses go any faster?”

“Doing their best already, sir.”

“Let me down.”

Maja twisted her head to see him slip neatly from his saddle, wriggle out of his waterproof and start to run up the hill, awkwardly, with his arm clenched to his midriff and leaning sideways into the buffeting gale.

He vanished into the darkness ahead. The horses plodded on. The storm marched forward, seemed to falter, gathered itself, and came on. Faltered, and came on. Faltered longer, but still came on. It was now desperately near.

“Something happening up ahead,” yelled the groom. “That where we’re heading for, missy?”

She had already sensed the change, urgent and powerful, despite the barrier. With an effort she leaned sideways to peer past him. A pale light glowed up ahead, but everything round it was darkness. A blink of lightning showed her a twisted tree by the roadside. That was where Ribek had turned back, testing what happened to him beyond the barrier. The appalling pressure increased…the cactus…Jex and her amulet…they couldn’t be far…

“Let me down! Let me down!” she yelled.

Without waiting for him to stop she flung herself off the horse’s back, sprawled, scrambled up, gathered the heavy folds of her waterproof up around her and staggered on up the road, driving her feeble legs on and up…another step…another…A hand gripped her arm, helping her on.

“Almost there, missy,” grunted the groom. “Look at that, now!”

The light was moving. Against its glow the cactus stood for a moment, a black, gesturing shape which vanished as the light passed on.

“There!” she gasped. The groom hauled her forward. As they passed through the barrier she was almost overwhelmed by the other tempest that it had been holding back, the buffeting to-and-fro of Azarod’s demonic power and the counter-power of the mysterious moving light. She could no longer hear or see or feel, only sense a small, quiet focus of peace and rest somewhere in that turmoil. She wrapped the end of her head-scarf round her hand to pick Jex out from among the prickles. The amulet was easier to find, with firelight glinting off its bead. Odd…Not now. She looped the cord around her neck, dropped the pendant inside her blouse and slid the amulet onto her wrist.

The world returned.

Gasping, she stared around. The pale light was moving toward the headland at astonishing speed, as if its own separate gale were blowing it into the storm wind. There was a figure at its center, robed and still, the folds of its cloak unruffled by the tearing wind. Up the hill, where the light had been, only the reddish glimmer of embers—Saranja could get a fire going anywhere. Now in the lightning flashes, shapes around the fire: the horses, Saranja kneeling, bending over someone lying on the ground—two people lying on the ground…Ribek!

She tried to run, tripped on the folds of her cloak, fell, struggled up, wallowing in the wind-driven folds of waterproof…

“Easy now, missy, easy,” grunted the groom, as if speaking to one of his horses. “Where you trying to get to now, then?”

“Up there!”

“Get you there the sensible way, shall we? What else is horses for, if you don’t ride ’em?”

She let him lift her up into the saddle, and clung to the horse’s mane, peering into the dark, waiting for another lightning flash…

It came, and Ribek was sitting up, head bowed, his arms clasped round his knees. More lightning, and she saw the heave of his shoulders as his lungs gulped air. Benayu was lying on his back, as if fast asleep, Saranja beside him feeling for his pulse. Sponge lay with his head on his master’s chest, tense and watchful, ready to take on all the demons in the world.