CHAPTER
11
Emissaries from Larg had come up the North Highway and were waiting for them at the way station with more provisions. They’d also brought fresh ponies, but Saranja insisted that the horses needed a rest. This allowed Benayu to sleep most of the day, so that by nightfall he was sitting up and talking cheerfully, and helping himself generously to the good Larg food. To Ribek and Saranja he must have seemed almost himself again, but to Maja he was deeply changed.
Before Larg, even when he wasn’t using them, to Maja’s extra sense he had tingled all the time with his magical powers. Now she was barely aware of them. But if she concentrated she could feel them, still there, deep down inside himself.
And alongside them, something else, very old, very powerful, much more than a great tool, a marvelous machine, for him to use when he had learned how. Something that seemed almost alive in its own right. She remembered Benayu explaining that for a magician to make the change from the third to the fourth level was like learning to breathe water. It was as if this thing, this power had come the other way. It couldn’t breathe our air on its own. It could only exist inside a magician, breathing with human lungs, seeing with human eyes. It had lived inside Zara for most of her long life, but during that night when Benayu had lain on the hill above Larg it had left her and come to him. Zara must have known that this would happen, but for the sake of Larg she had let the power go. Now Benayu must learn to live with it, and it with him.
The Imperial Highway stretched before them. Even on the cooler coastal plain it was still roastingly hot at noon, but the mornings and evenings were bearable enough to let them travel by day. They would set out at sunrise with the astonishing fields of flowers around them, sparkling with the morning dew. Well before noon that freshness would be gone, sucked away by the overbearing sun, and by midafternoon the desert would be desert as far as the eye could see. But as the air began to cool another batch of flowers would be opening and by sunset competing with the golds and crimsons of the western sky. To Maja’s extra sense their magic was like a song of exultation in their short, glorious moment of existence, and at night as she lay in the way station under the amazing desert stars she could sense the soft moths gliding over the fields of flowers, and settling to suck their nectar and at the same time smear themselves with the pollen that would produce fresh seeds to lie another year in the parched earth until next year’s rains woke them for another burst of glory.
On such a night as this Maja woke, vaguely ill at ease. She had been hoping that Jex would at last speak to her in her dreams again, but he hadn’t come, though she could tell from the greater sureness of his protection that he was already stronger. Something was amiss in the magical world, surely…but no, it wasn’t anything to do with Jex. There was something sickening about it, a bit like the nausea she felt coming from the Watchers, but otherwise different from anything else she’d come across, as different as a plant is from a stone, or a fish from a hammer—a kind of dull, throbbing beat, not a noise, but a feeling, like a pulsing sick headache. It came from somewhere up north, a little east of the Highway, more than a day’s journey away still, she decided. She fell asleep, but it persisted through her dreams and was still there when she woke.
It was there all day. Usually, when she chose, she could now ignore whole swaths of the myriad magics that continually assailed her, in order to concentrate on particular ones, but with this she couldn’t. Unconsciously she had begun walking to the rhythm of its beat. By noon it was impossible to think about anything else. It seemed to be nothing that Jex could use or shield her from. She called to him in her mind but he did not answer. Not even thinking about it she groped for her amulet and shoved it right down to her wrist.
Astonishingly, something happened. The appalling thud dwindled to a dull throb in the background. She could look around. She could think. She stared at the amulet, and saw that the strange black bead had changed. There was depth in its blackness, like that in the pupil of an eye. It was active. Doing something. Shielding her enough from the drumbeat for her to be able to think about something else. But not enough to let her break step unless she willed herself to do so.
She stared around. Saranja and Benayu were walking a few paces ahead. No, not walking, marching. Marching in step, like her. Why wasn’t Benayu riding Pogo? A few days ago they had sent the ponies back to Larg with a merchant from the city whom they’d met at a way station, as Benayu was now physically recovered enough to ride a horse, though not yet to dismount and walk when the other three did. But he was on foot now, marching in step with Saranja, in time to that dull, implacable beat. So, she realized, was Ribek. With an effort she lengthened and slowed her stride, but he kept on as before, and as soon as she stopped concentrating on it she fell back into the same rhythm.
But they couldn’t be hearing the beat. There wasn’t anything to hear. It came to Maja solely through her extra sense, the awful monotonous magical thump. The horses seemed a lot more restive than usual, but their twelve hooves clopped on the paving to no rhythm she could make out.
Why were they walking at all? It was far too hot. They should all be…
Hadn’t they passed a way station some while back? Why hadn’t they stopped to water the horses and rest out the heat of the day, as usual?
And there was nobody else to be seen from horizon to horizon. The Highway hadn’t been busy since they’d joined it, and as most of the people going north went at much the same walking pace they seldom overtook anyone, or were overtaken, but there’d always been dribs and drabs of travelers coming in the other direction. There were none now. Not one.
She couldn’t remember if they’d breakfasted at all.
She had to say something. Nobody had spoken a word since they’d left last night’s way station. Only now did this seem strange. It seemed a huge effort to break the long silence. Her voice was a croak.
“Why are you taking those silly little steps? Ribek! Listen to me! Why are you taking those silly little steps?”
He answered as if from a dream.
“Comfortable.”
The silence closed round them again.
“Jex! Jex! What’s happening?”
No answer.
At last, another way station. It was deserted. The food stalls were set up but unattended. The horses recognized it for what it was, or perhaps they could smell water, and tried to stop, but Saranja and Benayu strode on unnoticing.
“Ribek! The horses! They must be dying of thirst! Ribek! Saranja!”
“Let them go,” muttered Ribek. “Can’t stop.”
With an even greater effort Maja forced herself to a halt, but her feet continued to stamp up and down to the implacable drumbeat. It was a heavy, continuous effort to prevent them from moving forward, so she let them go, lengthened her stride as far as she could and caught up, first with Ribek and then with the horses. She slowed enough to take one of the big water flasks from Levanter’s saddlebag, and then caught up with Rocky. Still marching, though now with the shortest paces the drumbeat would allow, she snatched his bridle and tried to heave him round.
He halted and half turned. She slapped his rump as the rhythm swept her past. He hesitated. But Pogo had no doubts, and was already trotting back the way they’d come. She willed herself to stop, slapped him again and told him to go, and with a whicker of distress he gave in and led Levanter after Pogo. She let the rhythm sweep her away again and fell in beside Ribek and, still marching, managed to drink a few mouthfuls, slopping most of it down her front. The other three did the same, muttering their thanks. Nobody said anything else. The drumbeat was all there was.