No!
Tilja unclenched her fist and dropped the ring into the box.
Everything stopped. The woman’s scream cut short. Her writhings froze. The darkness stayed as it was. And Faheel, who was already toppling away from the invisible blow, hung suspended in midfall, but when Tilja seized him by the hand he crumpled to the floor and she had to ease him down. He didn’t stir.
She couldn’t think what to do next. With a thundering heart she took the rings from his fingers and put them into the pouch at his belt. As she pulled the last one off he changed into an old man, lying half on his side, looking desperately frail and tired, and he still didn’t wake.
“If I should fail,” he’d said, “you must go by yourself.”
No, she told herself again, you’re not going to fail. And I am going to get back to Woodbourne.
How long had she left before time started again for everyone else, and the powers that had overwhelmed him came swarming down into this room? And the roc still had to fly them home. Faheel couldn’t weigh much, but he was far too heavy for her to carry or drag that distance. If she could find a horse or a donkey, or even a strong man. A strong man. One of the soldiers below? But how . . . ?
There was a gold coin on the floor beside Faheel’s left hand, the one that had fallen from the air and rolled across the floor when time had restarted. Tilja picked it up, found the purse itself and took it, then hurried down the stairs. It was very dark in the windowless room. The guards were as they’d left them, sprawled on the floor, held by the power of the ring and by Faheel’s enchanted sleep, and she wasn’t sure if her touch would overcome both forces. But at the moment when she’d dropped the ring back into the box, several other soldiers must have been running into the room to escape the magical encounter in the courtyard. She chose the one in front, took three gold coins from the purse and gripped the man’s hand. She had to hang on while he dragged her a couple of paces across the room, still in the frenzy of escape. He halted and stared around.
“Wha . . . What . . . Wha . . . ?” he gasped.
“It’s all right,” said Tilja. “Look.”
She held up the coins.
He stared at them, and at her. His mouth gaped soundlessly.
“Listen,” said Tilja. “This is magic. It’s done with a ring. I didn’t do it. Someone else did. But it means that everybody and everything is stuck fast, except me, and anyone whose hand I’m holding.”
He obviously didn’t understand, but continued to stare to and fro between her and the coins.
“Never mind,” she said. “I want you to help me. I’ll give you three gold coins if you’ll carry an old man out of Talagh. He doesn’t weigh much. Nobody’s going to know what you’ve done. The Emperor’s dead, and everything’s different. Here’s one coin to be going on with. All right?”
She put it into his palm and he stared at it, nodding dumbly. She left him in midnod and went and cleared the other soldiers out of the doorway by touching them briefly so that they ran another pace and then froze again. Despite the urgency, doing this, so easily, so confidently, brought back that extraordinary sense of pure, secret power. She could, if she had chosen, have gone upstairs again and stolen every fabulous jewel that those women were wearing, and no one would ever have known how it was done. The idea was thrilling. And dangerous—a danger that came not from outside herself, but from within. A Tilja who gave in to it would have become a different Tilja from the one who had flown to Talagh on the back of the roc. Now she could understand why it had mattered so much that the Ropemaker didn’t become one of the Watchers.
She went back to her helper and brought him into time. Dazed but unquestioning, he let her lead him up the stair. Here they found a problem. When the man bent to lift Faheel onto his back he couldn’t budge him. He couldn’t even lift a fold of his cloak. It was like iron, fastened in time. The effect that Tilja had on the soldier didn’t seem to reach any further out from his body than the clothes and armor he was wearing. So Tilja had to use her other hand to release Faheel while the soldier heaved him up. She was afraid she might have to go the whole way out of Talagh like that, which would have been extremely awkward, but she found she could walk along beside the man, with her right hand touching both of them where he gripped Faheel’s wrist to hold his body in place across his shoulders.
Slowly they made their way down the stairs and into the open. The further side of the courtyard was still in brilliant sunlight, but around the tower it was like late dusk. It wasn’t cloud that made this darkness by casting its shadow, it was more like a patch of night gathering there. Tilja had no idea what could have caused it. But whatever it was, however powerful, the ring now held it locked into the instant.
But for how long? Full of fresh urgency, Tilja hurried out of the palace and down the long avenue. All the way the soldier stared around, muttering his astonishment in half-heard curses. From time to time Tilja had to leave him frozen with his burden while she cleared a path for them through the crowds. She now found that the thrill of power was gone, and what was left was an unpleasant task, oddly shameful, because she was using people as if they were just things, to do what she wished with. When she snatched a couple of savory pies from a stall for herself and the soldier, she wasted a few seconds leaving money to pay for them.
Just beyond the gate, where Faheel had changed the rules to let Tilja take him through the crowded streets, they now changed back. Once again Tilja was moving at the center of a bubble of time, so that she could let go of the soldier, while anyone she passed close by woke for a moment into time and then fell still. The roc was where they had left it, but it must have used the period when Tilja had been holding the ring to start preening itself, and now was stuck with one vast wing half spread while it nibbled at an armpit. When Tilja came within a few paces it woke, saw her and closed the wing. Its eye had an odd look of affront, as if she’d invaded its privacy.
The soldier halted at the movement, cursing more loudly.
“It’s all right,” said Tilja. “It won’t hurt us. Will you put my friend in the litter? Then I’ll pay you the other two coins. The roc’s going to take us away, and then you’ll go to sleep for a bit, and when you wake up we won’t be here. But you’ll know it wasn’t a dream because you’ll have the money.”
He laid Faheel down and she covered the old man over and then paid the soldier and thanked him and wished him luck.
“And good luck to you, miss,” he said, gazing up at the roc. “Well, I never! Well, I never!”
Apart from curses, those were the only words she’d heard him speak.
She wedged the ring box safe and nestled herself in down beside Faheel, hoping to help keep him warm with the heat of her own body. The roc stood, stared at Talagh and crowed, a sound in Tilja’s ears like victory fanfare. It spread its wings and hauled them into the air. Before Talagh was out of sight behind them she was asleep.
13
The Common Way
Tilja woke in the same unchanging daylight, as the roc, with three last booming flaps, settled in front of Faheel’s house and folded its wings. Almost the whole way from Talagh she had slept too deep for dreams, the same ocean-deep sleep she had slept on the raft on the way to the island. Once again, without her realizing, her strength had been drained from her by her own power to channel and control magic, this time the enormous magic of the ring.
Her right arm was numb with Faheel’s weight. He was still asleep, but the movement of his breath seemed steadier and stronger. She hesitated whether to leave him. She felt it must be better for him to keep breathing the magical air of the island, but if she went more than a few paces from him his time would stop, and even his breath and his heartbeat would be stilled until she returned, or time resumed its course.