“So the covenant remained in being, and their natural urge for power was constrained into a joint urge of ever-increasing force, until the time came when they put their individual selves aside and became what they are now, a single entity, a single shared nature and thought system. What one knows, they all know. What one desires, all desire. Their joint mind creates a single purpose. They cannot be destroyed one by one. They replace a missing member with a fresh recruit who cannot help but join them and then becomes identical with all the others. And thus conjoined they are far more powerful than the Ropemaker, or even Faheel, or any of the other master magicians in their prime. The Emperor and his officials function as they have always done, only where Watchers allow them to do so.
“Elsewhere they ruthlessly adapt the system to their own needs. It is still the case, as it was in the time of your story, that nobody can die within the Empire without a license to do so, in order that the Empire should not be flooded with the natural magic released into the world at every human death. Those who could not afford the license and the cost of the rituals to control that magic had to travel to Goloroth, the City of Death, in the far south, where they boarded rafts which were floated out on the Great River and were carried out into the ocean. There they died and their magic was harmlessly released. The first part of this system remains as it was, but now when they pass through the inner gate of Goloroth their lives are simply taken from them, and their personal magic is funneled back to feed the power of the Watchers in Talagh while their lifeless bodies walk on into the Great River and are carried away.”
“That’s the nastiest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Saranja. “I’ve always thought the system in our story was bad enough, but that’s obscene!”
“I suppose they say they haven’t broken the covenant,” said Ribek, “because they exist for the good of the peoples of the Empire, so the greater their power the greater the good?”
“Exactly,” said Chanad. “But it is the general good, remember. They will ruthlessly sacrifice any number of individual citizens of the Empire, just as an individual Watcher will sacrifice himself or herself, in order to achieve it.
“They are like the demons of old. Demons are, as it were, embodied lusts, rage, greed, cruelty, spite, brains without minds, terrible. The Watchers are an embodied lust for domination. Limitless domination, first of the Empire, then of the other nations of this world, then of worlds elsewhere in this universe and universes beyond it, if any there be. Somewhere along that course they will meet their match and destroy themselves, and the Empire, and perhaps the whole world with them. They must be stopped. You set out to find the Ropemaker, three of you for the sake of your Valley, and Benayu to take his revenge for the death of Fodaro, but you are here for greater purposes than that. Even the Ropemaker cannot stop the Watchers on his own, but somehow, between us, we will achieve it.”
Maja looked at her friends, appalled. She had simply not thought about it like that. At the start she had just been running away, as she had done all her life in her dreams. Only by accident had she found that she was now looking for the Ropemaker, and then by further accident that she was going to help Benayu destroy the Watchers. Even at their most frightening their adventures hadn’t mattered much to anyone except themselves. Who else cared all that much about what happened to a miller and a farmer’s daughter and two children?
But now there was a world to save. Finding the Ropemaker would be only the start.
Ribek must have had the same thought. For several moments he looked unusually serious, then shook his head in disbelief.
“It’s a bit more than we bargained for,” he said, smiling slightly, as if at the absurdity of the enterprise.
Saranja flushed and tilted her head defiantly.
“Well, if it’s what we’re here for we might as well get on with it,” she said.
“I’m going to destroy the Watchers,” said Benayu firmly. “When I’ve done that I’m going to go back to shepherding, and a bit of hedge magic. Anything that happens after that—someone else can deal with it.”
“I wish you well, Benayu,” said Chanad. “But you will find that you are unable to do as you wish. Your own powers will either compel you or destroy you. But first, as I say, you must find the Ropemaker. Where do you propose to start? You have some kind of plan, or clue?”
They looked at each other, uncertain.
“We have a plan of a kind and a clue of a kind, but I’m afraid we’ve been told not to tell anyone what they are,” said Ribek. “Not even someone like you. All I can say is that we need to get to Tarshu.”
Chanad actually laughed.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Benayu has some major magic to perform, connected with your search, and instead of attempting to hide it from the Watchers in some remote province you are taking the risk of disguising it as part of the explosion of magic that will erupt when the Watchers try to repel the coming Pirate invasion. I agree with you. It is much your best chance. But you will need to hurry. Tarshu is almost a month’s journey from here.
“It is no use my coming with you. My presence would betray you almost at once. I dare not even watch your progress for fear of leaving a trace. The best I can do for you is to open a road for you to leave here, and to give the two horses you bought greater speed and strength, and fetch you way-leaves to allow you to use the Imperial Highway to Tarshu. You will need a story to account for your journey. Suppose you older two are brother and sister, taking your half-sister and her brother to her betrothal in Tarshu. This is a common practice among the great trading clans. It is a way of keeping the bloodlines pure when the clan is scattered throughout the Empire.
“I’ll also prepare an amulet to shield Maja from the effects of magic. What she has faced so far is already wearing her out, and she certainly won’t survive the storm of battle magic you’re going to find around Tarshu, not to mention whatever Benayu will be up to. Even my amulet may not be proof against such shocks, but it will be a lot better than nothing.
“Now, out of curiosity, I would like to know how Saranja and Maja came so easily through my barrier of fear. You were holding hands, and I think you were carrying some kind of magical object between you. Is that right?”
Saranja took the fear stone out of her pouch and laid it on the table.
“I’ve got a sort of all-purpose amulet,” she said. “It’s called Zald-im-Zald—”
“Zald-im-Zald!” whispered Chanad, shaken for the moment out of her composure. “How on earth…? That I have heard of. It is said that Asarta made it when she first came into her powers, but it has been lost for centuries. May I please see it?”
Saranja drew Zald out and laid it in front of her. Like Benayu, Chanad didn’t immediately pick it up, but sat in silence, simply studying it as if it had been a book, while Saranja told her how she had come by it.
“Benayu must put the fear stone back,” she said at last. “There is an intricate balance of the constituent parts, which it is dangerous to disturb. It is an extremely useful object, and you should know as much about it as possible. Benayu can tell me what he has found out and I will see if there’s anything I can add. While we are doing that perhaps you others will take the used dishes back into the kitchen.”
They did as she asked, and Maja was amused to see that Ribek was very pernickety about getting things clean, while Saranja was the slapdash one. They came back to find half a dozen books piled on the table. Chanad had two open before her and kept referring back and forth, reading from one and then leafing to and fro through the other. Benayu was looking listlessly at a third one, obviously passing the time while he waited for her. They settled down and waited too, until Chanad sighed and looked up.