“Greetings, Maja. We are here to help you destroy the Watchers before they themselves destroy both your universe and ours.”
We…? Yes, there was another one, a little further along. And another and another. All round the arena they were flickering into existence. Scores of them now. Hundreds. Crouching there, waiting.
Waiting for what? For the Watchers to arrive. Whatever powers they poured out against the Ropemaker, the massed Jexes would simply absorb and channel away, while he, thus shielded, destroyed them. And she and Ribek and Saranja, Benayu and the Ropemaker, were waiting for them too, not running away any more, not hiding any more, but waiting to destroy them, here, on Angel Isle. Soon.
Saranja’s voice broke through.
“Wait! Something’s happening to Striclan….”
She pulled Zald out from under her blouse.
“I told him how to call for help,” she said. “He wouldn’t do that, unless…I could take Rocky. Do you need me here?”
“Know where he is?” said the Ropemaker.
“Zald will find him.”
“Let’s have a look….”
He craned over Zald.
“Hm. Fair distance. Demon stuff. You’d better deal with it. Nothing much you can do here. Going to have to hurry. Can’t come myself. Lot of stuff to get ready here. Tell you what. No, keep it out. Hold it steady. Right.”
Maja saw him draw the black box he’d been playing with earlier from under his robe, open the lid and hold the box cupped in his right hand. He laid the forefinger of his other hand on one of the stones in Zald and curled the middle finger of his right hand over to touch whatever was inside the box. It was only for a moment, and then he closed the box, put it away and laughed.
“Even that simple, still makes me sweat a bit,” he said.
“What did you do?” said Saranja.
“Held time still where your fellow is till you show up. Get there, touch the stone, whisper my name, start time again.”
“Shall I bring him back here?”
Maja didn’t hear his answer, because Ribek had muttered a grunt of discomfort in his sleep and shifted his position as if to ease an aching hip. By the time she’d worked the bedrolls round him to cushion him as much as possible, and adjusted herself to the new position, Saranja was mounted and ready to leave. She was making no attempt to hide her eagerness and excitement, and Rocky seemed to share her mood. In the strange light of Angel Isle horse and rider glowed like a cloud at sunset.
She gave the reins a shake. Rocky settled back onto his hindquarters, spread his wings ready for the first driving downbeat, sprang into the air, and they were away, dwindling fast beneath the stormy sky.
“Amusing collection of stuff, Zald,” said the Ropemaker casually, as if this were any ordinary day and there was time for chat. “Tricky locks. Take a bit of thinking about to get at the amber.”
“Do you know what it’s for?” said Benayu. “Someone told us it’s for summoning some kind of major power.”
“Not to say know. Have a guess. Amber’s from the north, right? Cold there. Ice and snow all year. Would’ve saved me a deal of trouble, Maja’s time.”
“Oh yes, of course. That’s what…You don’t think we could’ve used it now?”
“Too much to handle, everything else going on. All set then?”
“I still need the staff. Shall we do that now?”
“See how it goes,” said the Ropemaker.
He turned to face Benayu, who nodded to show he was ready. They crouched side on to Maja and facing each other, and placed their right hands together, palm to palm, close above the turf, then moved them steadily back and forth as if they were rolling a cylindrical object between the two palms. A swirl of light, bright in the cloud-gloom, appeared above the two hands. The Ropemaker grasped it with his left hand and fed it in between their palms, apparently twisting it between his thumb and the side of his forefinger like a housewife feeding wool onto the spindle of her spinning.
At the same time Benayu was doing something very similar from below, close against the turf, seeming to draw his material directly out of Angel Isle itself. Shielded though she was, Maja felt the steadily growing pulse of powerful magic—two separate magics, utterly different from each other yet steadily weaving themselves together, like two different tunes being played at the same time and somehow weaving themselves together into a single piece of music.
Slowly the four hands rose upward, and now Maja could see the second swirl, not of light as she knew it, but of something else that Benayu was feeding into the process in the same manner, non-light, light from another universe, drawn somehow through the sealed touching point below them and into this one.
It continued to stream upward as the hands rose further, difficult to see, never what or where it had seemed to be only a moment before. But through its vagueness she thought she could sometimes discern some kind of central shaft, extending and extending from the steadily rising hands down to the ground.
When the two magicians were standing erect with their hands level with Benayu’s shoulder, the two swirls, light from above and non-light from below, dwindled and vanished in between the moving palms, allowing Maja to see the staff they had created between them. She recognized the pearly, half-luminous glimmer of the substance it was made of, grayer than gray, the light of two utterly incompatible universes so entangled together as to compose a single solid object—an egg, a staff—that could survive in either set of dimensions.
Benayu and the Ropemaker were fully upright and the staff rose vertically from the turf between them, but its vertical was visibly not the same as theirs. It obeyed some other set of physical laws.
Benayu grasped the top of the staff with his right hand. The Ropemaker clasped it in both of his and Benayu laid his left hand over them. They closed their eyes and stood for a while, Benayu pale with concentration, the Ropemaker’s restless energies stilled to a single focus. Then they let go, leaving the staff erect. It struck Maja that the turf of Angel Isle was far too thin to hold it steady. It must penetrate well into the underlying rock.
“Should do,” said the Ropemaker. “Couldn’t have managed it on my own.”
“Nor me,” said Benayu. “And anyway, it was Fodaro, really. And Jex, of course.”
“Right. All set, then? Ready, Maja? No telling how this’ll turn out. Surprise ’em a bit, maybe, but they’ll have stuff to spring on us too. Better have the horses over with you. Sponge too.”
Maja started to scramble to her feet, but as if led by invisible grooms Levanter and Pogo came ambling over and lined themselves up beside Ribek. Sponge trotted across and settled at her feet. Disturbed by the sudden bustle Ribek grunted, opened his eyes and peered blearily at the scene in front of him. It seemed to take him a moment or two to remember where he was.
“What’s up?” he mumbled.
“I think the Watchers are going to arrive soon.”
“Right. He told us while you were asleep. He’s going to summon the Council and tell them he’s back so they aren’t bound to cooperate any more and they can have their animas back; Zara’s brought them. In that urn. Bargaining counter if worse comes to worst. He doesn’t think they’re going to accept it.”
“And then what?”
“He didn’t say. It’ll come to some kind of pitched battle, I should think. Close call. He’s stronger than any one of them—any three or four, I daresay. But all twenty-four, even with Zara and Benayu to help…”
“And the Jexes.”
“Jexes?”
“Look.”
She pointed. He peered frowning. It was as bad a moment as any she’d experienced since she’d first woken to find him so changed. That those keen and cheerful eyes should have so blurred! But before she could begin to explain the Ropemaker nodded to her, turned, moved a couple of paces away from Benayu, squared his shoulders and with a series of sweeping and deliberate gestures transferred one of the several rings on his left hand to the center finger of his right.