Maja glanced round. Benayu was standing, looking smug, in a pile of banbane up to his knees. It was as if he’d decided he’d fulfilled his vow and destroyed the Watchers and could now keep his promise to himself and revert to the boy he had been not all that long ago, playing with his powers among the sheep pastures.
“Here and there,” he said airily. “Hope it’s enough to keep you busy. Now I’ll see if I can bring the other three back. I’m going to have to take it slowly, as I don’t know what sort of state they’ll be in. They took the full shock of it. I was just lucky I happened to be holding the staff.”
“You’re sure Ribek’s going to be all right?”
“Pretty sure. He’s not been as near the edge as you were. Just let him rest, while you and Saranja do what you can for Jex’s friends.”
It didn’t take as long as she’d feared, anything like. It turned out that when the Jexes had decided to help distract the demon, they’d agreed among themselves that some of them should remain hidden. These now emerged and thronged round Maja and Saranja as they broke off bits of banbane for them to carry to their stricken comrades.
When the first flurry of distribution was over Maja fetched Ribek’s bedding roll and made him more comfortable. His pulse seemed stronger and steadier and there was a little bit of color in his cheeks. Striclan was looking a lot better, very pale still, but no longer that ghastly yellow, and holding himself as if he wasn’t about to collapse any moment. Between breaths at the banbane he was talking in a low urgent voice to Saranja, and she was trying to calm him down.
Now he fell silent and they both sat watching what Benayu was up to, so Maja turned to do the same. He had moved over to the other side of the arena, and somehow cleared a circular patch among the mass of Jexes. He was leaning on his staff in the middle of it. He had changed again. He wasn’t the shepherd boy now, but ageless, human still, but also something other than human, the look that the Ropemaker had worn when he had summoned the Council.
He did nothing for a while, then whispered a few slow syllables. A ripple swept across the Jexes like the ripple of a breeze over ripe wheat. He positioned the staff upright at the center of the circle, let go and watched it sink for a third of its length into the ground. He grasped its top in both hands, bent and blew gently down it as if he were blowing into a reed pipe.
A bulge formed immediately below his hands, moved slowly down the staff and disappeared into the ground. As soon as it was gone he blew again, and another bulge formed and was gone. And again, and again, for some while. At length he stopped blowing, stood upright, took a fresh grasp on the staff and firmly but without obvious effort drove it right down into the turf. Then, as the Jexes made room for him, he stood back outside the circle.
While he waited, the other-than-human look faded away until he seemed to be just another spectator, waiting to see what would happen. Maja assumed that one of the now familiar eggs would appear, and if all was well the three magicians would be alive inside it. Instead, the turf inside the circle shimmered over and a pool of tangled light formed from which a flock of white gulls emerged, screaming, and fled away.
The surface of the pool stirred and something began to rise from it. Chanad’s head, her shoulders, her body down to the waist. Benayu reached out, took her hand and helped her up onto the turf. She turned and waited beside him.
The surface of the pool stirred, but nothing happened. Benayu shrugged and knelt. Chanad knelt beside him. Together they reached down with both hands into the pool, adjusted their grip and with some difficulty lifted out the inert body of Zara and laid her on the turf. The Ropemaker followed, climbing out without help. He was wearing his turban and looked much more like himself than he had after the Watchers had so nearly destroyed him. Immediately he knelt beside Zara, put an arm under her body and cradled her against his chest. Chanad knelt on the other side, took her hands and began to whisper quietly. They were doing some kind of healing, Maja guessed.
Benayu stood watching for a moment, then turned and gave a brief whistle. Sponge went bounding toward him, put his front paws on his chest and reached up to lick his face. Benayu pushed him away, laughing, and walked over.
“That’s your fault, Maja,” he said. “He thinks it’s allowed now.”
“Could you come, Benayu?” said Saranja. “Striclan’s got something important to tell us. It’s a bit complicated.”
“Can it wait a moment? I’m hungry. It seems a long time since breakfast. What do you want?”
“Whatever’s quick and easy. Some of Maja’s broth for Striclan, if that’s not a nuisance.”
“And for Ribek too,” said Maja. “I think he’s waking up, and it’s my turn to be tough with him.”
“And if you could do something about the weather,” said Saranja.
By the time the meal arrived the sky was already clearing and the wind abating as it swung round to the south. The smell of food brought the Ropemaker over. He had changed, still friendly and interested, but less eager and inquisitive, and moving more slowly and with the beginnings of a stoop. He seemed to be aging even as Maja looked at him. It was as though the minutes were weeks and the hours were years. Chanad had stayed nursing Zara, so he carried a bowl of soup over to her, with a chunk of bread and an apricot, and returned. He was frowning, puzzled by something.
“Where’s the old ring, then?” he said. “Can’t feel it. Gave it to you, didn’t I? Memory’s going, along of the rest. Got rid of it already?”
“I think so,” said Benayu. “You’d set it up to destroy itself, and Jex told us the only safe place for that to happen was in the sort of non-space between the universes—what he called ultraspace. I think it’s the same thing as the negative zero in Fodaro’s equations. Neither of them makes any sense to me, but they do it in the same kind of way. Anyway the demon was consuming anything with any kind of magic in it, so I used the equations to fetch a sphere of ultraspace into our universe and keep it there—that was the tricky bit—and put the ring in the middle of it as bait. Then I let the demon have it, but as soon as I released it the sphere had to return to ultraspace. The demon kept right on swallowing so it had to go with it. And then, if I got it right, the ring destroyed the demon along with itself.”
“Tidy,” said the Ropemaker.
“How’s Zara?” said Saranja. “Striclan says the Pirates are all set to attack Larg, so…”
“Too late for her. Can’t do anything. Ready to go. Me too. Time to undo our days. Didn’t want to do it on an empty stomach.”
“Oh, but Larg!” Maja blurted out. “Couldn’t you stay long enough…?”
He shook his head and finished his mouthful.
“Nothing to give,” he said through the crumbs of it. “Taking all the magic I’ve got keeping my teeth in place. Who told you? This chap?”
“He’s called Striclan,” said Saranja. “He was a Pirate spy when we met him, but he’s on our side now. He was poisoned by a demon on his way to tell us.”
“Sure about him?”
“Absolutely.”
“Take your word for it. When’s this going to happen, then? Soon, you say?”
Striclan tottered to his feet and Saranja rose to steady him.
“The day after tomorrow, I believe, sir,” he said in a barely audible whisper, but speaking as formally as ever. “The battle fleet is already on its way.”
“They need a battle fleet to attack Larg?” said Saranja. “There isn’t any magic in Larg. They could take the town with a couple of barges.”
“That is the point. A delegation of the Syndicary—”
“No time for that,” interrupted the Ropemaker. “When I’ve gone. Know who’s running the show? Be with the fleet?”