“You go ahead,” Meena croaked. “Get the door open.”
Tilja ran on. One-handed—the other was still tight round Axtrig—she found the key behind the tree where she had hidden it, opened the storehouse door and looked back. Against the lightning glare she saw Meena forcing her way through the invisible tempest. Behind her came the cat, pacing steadily along, occasionally turning its head to glance back.
At last Meena reached the door and hobbled through. As Tilja was about to follow, something brushed, purring, against her skirt. She looked down and saw the cat. She could guess now why it hadn’t let her stroke it.
“Thanks, puss,” she whispered, “for whatever it was you were doing.”
The cat purred again and stalked off along the walkway. Tilja closed and locked the door. Beside her Meena was gasping in the darkness.
“Are you all right?”
“Don’t talk. I’m just about holding on. I’d best go down on my arse. You first. Tell me what’s coming.”
Slowly they worked their way down, Tilja going backward on her knees, placing Meena’s feet on each step and waiting for her to ease her body down, and then repeating the action, all one-handed because of her desperate fear of letting go of Axtrig. When they were halfway to the ground Meena spoke again, her voice less strained.
“That’s a bit more like it. They’re giving up. My goodness, though . . . Remember that gale we had, two years back when the home byre blew down? It was like being out in something like that, all the magic blasting around. . . . What about you, girl? You don’t seem to have turned a hair.”
“No, I didn’t feel any of that. Only when they were looking for Axtrig and she started to sort of tingle. . . . Do you think I can let go of her now? If I put her right in under my blouse so she’s against my skin?”
“Maybe I can tell you . . . yes, that feels safe enough. Better get on now—the others’ll be wondering what’s up. They must’ve heard the racket going on. Stirred up a hornets’ nest, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Meena was right. When at last they had reached the ground and made their way out of the storehouse they found the whole great household in an uproar, with shouts and cries, and the neighing of panicking horses and barking of dogs, and people hurrying about or standing in groups talking in low voices and glancing up now and again at the moonlit sky. No one paid any attention to Meena and Tilja as they made their way back to their room. Despite what he had said, Ellion was already there.
It was well past midnight before they reached the little windowless chamber to which he now insisted on taking them. When he had locked the door the five of them settled onto coarse cushions round a single dim lamp in the middle of the floor. Meena gray with exhaustion and pain and snarling in her determination not to give in to them; Alnor very solemn and calm; Tahl fizzing with interest and excitement, wide awake despite the hour; Tilja almost too tired to make one word follow another, but still too shaken to think of sleep; and Ellion himself, keeping his voice steady and soft as always, but with his eyes twitching from one face to the next, and starting at every sound that reached them from the still disturbed household.
“This room is warded,” he explained. “Every great lord maintains at least one personal magician. Ours is my wife’s cousin, Zara, and they have been good friends. This is her chamber, and no doubt she will have arranged to hear what we say, but it is the best I can do. It is not only for myself. It is for my own household, and my lord and all who depend on him. You have come among us, into the heart of Talagh, and worked your strong unwarded magic. . . .”
“I’m very sorry, I’m sure,” snapped Meena. “You think I’d’ve risked it if I’d known?”
“I accept that you acted in ignorance,” said Ellion. “That would not save you from the Questioners, nor would it save me and mine, even if I were to hand you over to them. But as it is . . . I have always tried to know as little as possible about these matters, but now . . . First, tell me what happened on the wall, so that I may try to judge where any safety may lie.”
“Tilja’ll have to do that,” said Meena. “Soon as I’d said the name something hit me and I passed clean out.”
Somehow Tilja forced herself to concentrate and explain what had happened on the wall. When she had finished Meena spoke first.
“South? Axtrig was pointing south?”
“Yes. I felt the world change. I’m quite sure.”
“Then he is not in Talagh,” said Alnor.
“He could be in the outer city,” said Tahl. “That thing Tilja says came—the one that pulled the wall down—he could have sent—”
There was a soft scratching at the door. They all froze. Tilja saw Ellion’s face go white in the lamplight. The lock clicked as the key turned with no hand holding it. The door opened and a woman entered. She closed the door, turned the key in the normal way and came further into the room, then stood and looked at them one by one. Her smile meant nothing. It seemed to Tilja that she spent much longer on her than on the others. She was middle-aged, wearing a dark red robe that completely hid her figure. Despite her smile, her face had the same smooth stillness as that of the woman Tilja had seen on the wall. When she spoke her voice was slow and husky.
“My friend Ellion has guessed correctly,” she said. “I had of course arranged to hear your talk. You are in need of my advice, and you can tell me things it would be useful for me to know. I am called Zara. I am the Lord Kzuva’s magician. Sit down, and I will explain to you what the girl has seen. . . . Good. From your talk I gather that you are looking for a particular man and that you have brought with you some object that you think will enable you to find him. You name this thing Axtrig. Where is it now?”
They hesitated, waiting for each other. Though Tilja could see a family likeness to Lananeth, this woman seemed very different. Lananeth might have magical powers, but she was human. You could read her voice and feelings and make up your mind whether to trust her, even though Lananeth wasn’t her real name. With this woman—Zara, she said she was called, as if that wasn’t her real name either—with this woman there was no way of knowing.
“No, you must tell her,” said Ellion. “We are in her hands.”
“Axtrig is a carved wooden spoon,” said Alnor. “Tilja has her.”
“Here? In this room? I feel nothing.”
“No,” said Tilja. “I don’t understand, but she’s got to be touching my skin. I’ve had her strapped to my arm most of the journey. Even when I had her under my blouse, with just my shift in between, she started to tingle when that woman was looking for her. I think the woman could feel she was there until I grabbed her handle. Do you want me to show you?”
Zara shook her head.
“Give me your hand, child,” she said.
Tilja reached out and let Zara take her hand. She felt the numbness starting. Zara stiffened for a moment and let go.
“Remarkable,” she said. “Several others, each far more powerful than I, are searching for this thing. I dare not let you show it to me. The wards of this room are not strong enough to hold them off. And you do it, in pure ignorance. You have no need of wards. I think Silena’s beast, the creature you saw on the wall, could not have touched you. To hurt you she would have needed to cause the tower to fall on you, or some such thing.”
She laughed, pleasantly human for a moment.
“And this thing is a wooden spoon! I had imagined a sword, at least, or a jeweled rod. Well, then, I was asleep in my room, which is warded like this one, as it needs to be, or I would not dare sleep, ever. Through those wards came a burst, an explosion, of magical power, here in Talagh, in the warded heart of the Empire. The blast threw me from my bed, and I was stunned.”
“Me too,” said Meena. “It wasn’t like fainting, when you can feel yourself going. It was that sudden . . . I don’t know . . .”