“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.
Maja slid down, staggered to Ribek’s side, crouched and put her arm round his shoulders, for her comfort as much as his, then looked again out to sea.
The moving light had almost reached the headland. Azarod’s whip lashed toward it, and the lightning, almost continuous now, danced around it. The light didn’t falter. The roar of thunder seemed to shake the whole hill.
No, the hill had indeed shaken, but not because of the thunder, for that ceased as the lightning died, but another colossal bass roaring was still there, not blast upon blast like the thunder but steady and continuous. The whole hill shuddered to its sound. And by the next flurry of lightning they saw that a full half of the massive headland had fallen away, and the rocks it had been made of, millions of tons of them, weren’t simply lying out of sight at the foot of the new line of cliffs, but were shooting out like water sluicing across a tiled floor, forming a kind of causeway through the waves toward the place from which the demon Azarod arose.
Now the pale light came into view, speeding along the causeway toward the demon. Uselessly Azarod lashed with his whip. He turned away, but the rocks closed round his base before he could flee. They surged upward, building themselves into a rugged wall, into a vast rock pillar, encasing him, covering him over. The last howl of his tempest snapped short and he was gone.
The pale light faded. The wind eased and died. The clouds drifted apart, thinned, became silvery with moonlight, cleared away. Four people were left standing on a hillside, another inert on the ground at their feet, horses greeting each other with whickers in the stillness.
“What…what happened?” whispered Maja. “To Benayu, I mean? And Ribek?”
“I don’t know what happened,” said Saranja irritably. “Nobody’s told me what’s going on. I’ll tell you what I saw. I was sitting with Benayu worrying where you’d got to when Ribek came pounding up the hill. I’ve never seen a man so shattered with running. He pretty well fell flat in front of Benayu, but managed to crawl forward and hold out his fist in front of Benayu’s face. I thought he was going to punch him. ‘Breathe this. Can’t explain,’ he said. He only just managed to get the words out. He opened his hand, Benayu took a sniff and Ribek collapsed. Benayu looked baffled for a moment, and then he seemed to be listening to someone. Then he thought for a bit and nodded. ‘Very well, I agree,’ he said, and lay down like he is now.
“Then there was light all around us, and this woman standing beside him. I think it was a woman, but there was some kind of veil over her head and her robe covered the rest of her. I couldn’t see her feet, but I thought she was floating a little above the ground. She didn’t say anything, but she turned and looked out at that monster that seemed to be making the storm. She stood like that for quite a long while and…”
She broke off, staring over Maja’s shoulder. Maja turned and saw the pale light floating toward them. She helped Ribek to his feet and they stood and waited
“Well, at least she’s coming back,” said Saranja. “Perhaps she’ll do something about Benayu. He’s still alive, but I don’t like his pulse. It’s incredibly slow.”
The light reached them and stopped. The tall, veiled figure within it, neither man nor woman as far as Maja could see or sense, turned, raised an arm and pointed toward the pillar that imprisoned the demon. A light flared from its summit, and continued to burn as the figure turned again and stood beside Benayu. It seemed to shrink a little, and was now clearly a woman. She lifted her veil aside to reveal a calm, pale face, looking as if it had been carved from marble and polished to that unnatural smoothness. Or perhaps that was the effect of the moonlight.
The groom snatched off his hat and fell on his knees, covering his face with his hands.
“Stand, my friend,” said the woman. “You have done well. While my powers are on me I would like to reward you. I could take twenty years off your age if you choose.”
“More than’s right, m’lady. I’ll be happy to go in my natural time, but a good, healthy life for me and the missus till then…”
His voice tailed off, as if he felt ashamed to ask even for that.
“Good,” she said. “My blessing is on you.”
“What about Benayu?” said Saranja, firmly refusing to be awestruck.
“He must sleep a long while. What lies there is only his physical body, with barely enough of his inward self left to keep it breathing. All of the rest he passed into this form, as I had done out of my own body that still lies sleeping down in Larg, and with our joint powers we mastered the demon. I could not have done it without him. But now, if all that he had lent me, and besides that all that he has acquired by sharing this form with me, were to return in one rush where it belongs, it would destroy his physical body. He must sleep for all this night, and tomorrow, and another night, summoning it power by power in due order. Then, that next dawn, he can safely wake.
“But even then he must rest. Though he is naturally extremely gifted, he is very young, both for the work we did tonight and for the powers he now possesses. He will need to sleep long hours, and to do no magic at all until he knows himself to be fully ready. And you must care for him in every way you can. He is the Empire’s best hope for generations to come.”
She turned to the groom.
“You, my friend, may return to the city and tell the Proctors what you have seen and heard. You others can wait here, and in the morning the Proctors will decide how they can reward you all for what you have done. That will be their choice, not mine. Farewell.”
She was gone, and they were left on the hillside listening to the rejoicing bells of the city and gazing out at Larg’s new seamark summoning ships to harbor from league on league of moonlit ocean.