Faheel was up and sitting by the table, sipping the orange juice she had found in his store cupboard. He had peeled an apple and cut a slice of bread and was eating slowly.
“Yes, you are right,” he said when she asked him about the roc. “There are different kinds of magic. Almost all human magic is made magic, made like a clay pot or a wooden chair. The wood and the clay are not chair and pot until the carpenter and the potter make them so. The air is full of wild magic, gusting around, so that a magician can gather it into himself or herself and give it shape and purpose. That is made magic. Your power appears to be to unmake that making. It is as if you could put your hand on a chair and return it to the tree from which it was shaped. The roc is not of that kind. It is natural magic, magical of its own nature. If you put your hand on a tree it would not change. It is itself already.”
“You made the roc do what you wanted.”
“No, I asked it. It owed me a favor. Many great magicians would risk everything they have won to possess the egg of a roc, but as well as there being two kinds of magic there are two kinds of magician. Once, like all who have held the ring, I was of the first sort, using made magic. But the ring is of both sorts, magic both made and natural. That is why it is so powerful. From it I learned to be of the second sort, and thus made friends with the creatures of natural magic, and was given new powers by them. So it was safe for the roc to give her egg into my keeping until it was due to hatch.”
“Look, I’ve got two of its feathers.”
“Keep them well hidden, or they will betray you. Tie them to your arm, as you did with the spoon. They have power—and purpose, for all I know.”
“This island—what makes it so peaceful—is that natural magic? Is that why I could feel it?”
“Yes, it is inherent in the island. It was here before I came and will remain when I am gone. I could live here not because I have magical powers, but because I have the friendship of the island.”
“Are unicorns natural magic too?”
“Indeed, yes. That was what finally persuaded me that I must prevent your friend the Ropemaker from becoming a Watcher. To transform oneself into an animal is not very difficult, though it has its perils. But to transform oneself into a magical animal, and even more to return to one’s human form, requires immense power and is still very dangerous. Even when I had all my strength I would never have tried it except for the greatest cause. But he did. He cannot have understood what he was risking. That was why my hope was that his powers were both untaught and uncorrupted, and why part of my reason for going to Talagh was to give him the ring. I failed. So now I must ask you to take it to him. Will you do that?”
Tilja stared at him. The Ropemaker?
“I . . . I’m not sure he is my friend,” she whispered. “He . . . he almost killed my mother, if he was the unicorn.”
“Yes. I told you it was dangerous to transform oneself into a magical animal. That is the main danger. One may take on too much of the nature of that animal. A unicorn such as you saw would not have ordinary human sympathies. But remember, your mother went to sing to the cedars again, and he did not try to stop her.”
“I . . . I’ll have to talk to the others when they wake up,” she said.
He shook his head.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “If you do, the knowledge will be in their minds, unprotected. While the ring is in its box and the box is against your flesh, and you alone know that, not even the man we fear will find it. If your friends know, then he may well be able to use that knowledge. I think I know who this man is, Tilja. Like myself, long ago, he was one of those who tried to take possession of the ring while Asarta still held it. He was much older than I was, and I was certain that he was dead, but somehow he is not. Or perhaps he is, but . . . No, that does not bear thinking about. Tilja, I tell you, he must not have the ring. With it he could live forever. I dare not let you tell your companions.”
“But . . . but if I’ve got to go looking for the Ropemaker . . . I’ll have to tell them what’s been happening.”
“Yes, you can tell them that, apart from what has happened to the ring. I will give them reason for looking for the Ropemaker themselves, though I shall not tell them that is what they will be doing. No doubt he took the shape of a lion and fled from the palace because he recognized that our enemy was too powerful for him. He now knows of the ring’s existence, and of your connection with it. He tracked you on your journey south, so he will know which way you will return. All he need do is watch the road. He will choose a place you must pass and be waiting for you there. That is our best hope. It is not perfect—I had not planned for this, but I have neither power nor time to make other arrangements.”
“But suppose he doesn’t find us . . .”
Faheel felt in his pocket and fished out the little purse into which he had put the hair tie, took it and unwound the Ropemaker’s hair from it, and gave them both to Tilja.
“Then I’m afraid you must risk sending for him,” he said. “Wind the hair round the roc feathers before you fasten them to your arm. When the time comes, lay the hair down on a firm surface, take the ring out of its box and put it beside the hair. That is all, and it need only be for a moment. But wait until the last possible moment before you do this. The Ropemaker will be compelled to come. If our enemy is on the watch he will do so too, but until that moment, provided that no one but you knows that you have the ring, I think you have nothing to fear from him. He will not believe that I have not taken it with me.
“Now we must work, or we will not be gone by nightfall. First, will you go out into the garden and pick a bunch of grapes and bring it to me? You will find a sharp knife in one of the baskets by the door. If you want grapes for yourself, take them from another bunch. The small dark ones to the left of the central path are best at this season.”
Tilja went out into the garden in a daze, trying to understand what Faheel had told her. She ought to have been afraid—unable to think for fear—but she wasn’t. She guessed this was something to do with the island. Fear would come later, perhaps. But now— perhaps it was the island again that caused this, trying to help her—in her mind’s eye she saw a great brass balance, like the cunning wooden scales Ma used to measure ingredients when she was baking. There was a bowl at either end of a bar. The bar tilted at the center, one way or the other, depending on which bowl held more weight. But the bowls Tilja saw in her mind weren’t polished wood, like Ma’s. Each of them was half of the world. A small figure stood beside each bowl, waiting for the bar to tilt his way. One of them Tilja couldn’t see clearly. He was darkness in the shape of a man. The unknown magician, the enemy. His bowl was full of the same darkness. The other one was the Ropemaker, unmistakable, that gawky figure, topped by the monstrous headdress. There was nothing to tell her what was in the Ropemaker’s bowl, but whatever it was it had to be better than the darkness.
At the center of the bar was a small golden ant. The bar hid it from the two magicians. As she watched, the ant started to crawl along the beam toward the Ropemaker’s end, and she realized that when it reached the bowl its tiny weight would be just enough to tilt the balance that way—provided the other magician didn’t realize what was happening, and reach out with a magical hand, pick up the ant, and drop it into his own bowl. Then the darkness it held would spill out and smother everything.
The ant, she realized, was herself, Tilja.
When the vision cleared she found herself standing in front of the vines Faheel had told her to look for. She cut herself a small cluster to try. They had an intense, sweet, wild taste that seemed to linger in her mouth long after she’d swallowed. She chose the best bunch she could see and carried it back to the house. Faheel was just finishing his meal.