“Oh, Jex, that’s impossible! I won’t talk about you to anyone or say anything about other universes and all that. I think Chanad will understand. But you saved my life several times over….”
“As you did mine, Maja.”
“I can’t forget you! I’ll remember you as long as I live.”
“And I you, Maja. Farewell.”
“Good-bye, Jex. Good-bye.”
She wept in her dream, but woke to find her cheeks dry. The shadows of the circling boulders were long across the grass. There was a patch of yellow and blue lichen on the boulder beside her. She stroked it gently but it didn’t respond.
The others were awake, still discussing how to deal with the Pirates once they were aboard the airboat. Benayu was back from wherever he’d been. They seemed to have pretty well worked out most of their plans. Maja sat up and nudged Ribek’s side.
“Is Benayu going to make me older?” she whispered. “I won’t have to say a lot, will I?”
“You’ll be a grown woman, representing agricultural interests in the Empire. I don’t think the military will be very interested in that. The Syndics might be, as the Empire’s economy is mainly agricultural. Benayu says…it’s too complicated to explain, but you’ll be all right. He’s going to do a much trickier version of what we did with the jewel seller at Mord. They’ll have translators aboard, so Striclan’s not going to let on he speaks their language. If he wants you to say anything important, Benayu can tell you in your mind. He says the magicians they’ve hired are fairly good but nothing special. Normally one of them would spot what we’re up to, but he’ll put them out of action. What do you want to look like?”
“I don’t mind. Only not too young and pretty. And not like I’m going to look when I’m forty.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I just don’t want to know,” she said. (Him knowing was what mattered, of course. No. She’d got to stop thinking like that.) “But can I have white hair?” she added hurriedly.
“Tell Benayu.”
He turned back to the others. Striclan was explaining something about how two of the Syndics were enemies in public but were actually both in the pay of the same big mining company, which wanted to start mining in the Empire. Maja’s attention drifted. She was sitting companionably with Ribek, but being careful not to touch him. Perhaps too careful, she thought. She oughtn’t to need to be careful about it.
In that other existence she’d been planning to go back and live at the mill with him. Now she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be better to go back to Woodbourne. It depended on what Saranja, and Striclan of course, decided to do, whether they simply rebuilt the farm and lived together there. They weren’t making much attempt to conceal their delight in being back in each other’s company, but it was difficult to imagine them both settling down to the steady, repetitive annual round of life on a farm in the Valley. They were born to be adventurers, both of them. There weren’t any adventures in the Valley.
That made her wonder about her dream again. It had been such a strong vision. Pogo without his wonderful wings, just an ordinary sad white horse. Not magical at all, never any more. And then stepping into the picture, and becoming a unicorn. Unicorns are as magical as they come, but this was only a unicorn in a crumbling picture. Half his horn was already gone. The rest of it, the rest of him, the rest of the whole magical world, would soon be a drift of colored flakes on the cobblestones, until a breeze blew up and wafted it away.
If it hadn’t been for Ribek, would she even have wanted to go back to the Valley, once Benayu had sealed it off as Faheel and the Ropemaker had done? Supposing he did. After what the Ropemaker had been saying she wasn’t even sure about that now. Anyway, there’d still have to be a way of stopping the horsemen coming through the passes. So Ribek would have to go back to his mill. He’d want to, anyway. It was where he belonged. Where she would belong, if all went well. One day.
She thought of all the wonders she’d seen on her journey. Even more she thought of the wonders she’d felt with her strange extra sense. Not the terrible, battering, almost obliterating explosions of pure power, but the little everyday magics inherent in people and creatures and plants and everything in the whole material world. To lose that now, having only just found it—it would be like losing…no, not her eyesight or her hearing, but at least her sense of smell. Think, the smell of an early morning after longed-for rain has fallen on parched fields—never to have that again in your nostrils!
Of course, even if Benayu renewed the magical sickness that had for generations kept the armies of the Empire out of the Valley, that wouldn’t affect her, being female, and she’d be able to come and go through the forest and revisit the world of magic when she wanted, but it wouldn’t be the same as living among its day-to-day wonders. And she would never finish learning how to cope with major magic, not just to endure it, but to explore it and understand it, perhaps even to relish its strange and dangerous energies.
Her rough cousins had loved climbing the largest trees on the edge of the forest, whose branches hung low enough to reach, and where they were not affected by the magic sickness. They would dare each other higher and higher, further and further out along the swaying boughs, and descend gleeful and triumphant. Maja could never have done that, but with Jex’s help she’d been beginning to do something of the same kind with serious magic until Benayu and the Ropemaker had needed to shield her completely from the huge forces unleashed in all that had happened from the oyster-beds of Barda to the destruction of the Watchers.
Suppose she went back to live in the Valley. Sealed again into its seclusion, she would never make that wonderful journey. Was that what her dream had been telling her? All she would have was her memory, a flaking picture on a crumbling wall. Suppose, suppose…
She must have sighed at the thought.
“What was that about?” said Ribek. “You can’t be that bored with adventures.”
She told him.
“Well, it’s worth thinking about,” he said, to her surprise. “I’ve been wondering myself, after what the Ropemaker told us. Watchers are gone. Who knows what’s happened to the Emperor? Chanad’s got the ring the Ropemaker used to summon the Twenty-four, but there isn’t a Twenty-four to summon. Not even a One. All we know is things are going to change. It could be wonderful. It could be hideous. And we won’t know. Frustrating, very, as our friend would have said.”
“Benayu says he doesn’t want to do big stuff, anyway for a while. Suppose he didn’t seal us off in the Valley, then we’d still have the horse people to deal with.”
“Well, maybe. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
“What’s that got to do with the horse people?”
“You haven’t been listening?”
“I told you. I was asleep. I had that dream.”
He grinned at her, but didn’t say anything.
Frustrating, very.
Chanad was coming across toward them. She was obviously still very tired and shaken, but apart from that everything about her, the look on her face, the way she moved and held herself, was quietly solemn. She wasn’t making a parade of it. It was how she felt. They all rose and waited for her to speak.
“They’re ready to begin,” she said. “They would like us all to watch, but not to come too near. It will be clear to you how close we may safely get. They will need help to stand at first. I will steady Zara….”
“I’ll do the Ropemaker,” said Saranja firmly.
“Good. I will give you bread soaked in wine. Put it to his lips before you try to lift him. He will nibble a morsel off and that will give him the strength to stand and move. Then follow me and Zara and we will position them either side of the tablet. When I give you the signal—it’ll be when the sun’s rim is about to touch the horizon—put the bread to his lips again. As soon as both are ready, we can move away. We will stand and witness their going.”