The magician was staring at her. She was saying something.
“. . . why Faheel never chose his successor . . . Do not tell me, child, that you are his chosen successor.”
“Oh, no! Of course not . . . but . . . I think it may be all right.” Again, for an even longer while, the magician stood deep in thought.
“You do well to be careful,” she said. “Well, I have a message for you to pass on, perhaps. If there is work to be done, I am willing to help. So, now, I wish you well.”
She smiled an unmeaning, purse-lipped housewife’s smile, nodded and turned away. She’s frightened too, Tilja thought. She isn’t just hiring her magic along the road to earn a living. She’s hiding from Moonfist.
“Chosen successor?” murmured Tahl, as soon as the magician was out of earshot.
Tilja shook her head unhappily. She could almost hear the fizz of Tahl’s brain as he tried to piece what the magician had told them into what they already knew.
“I want to get home,” she said, desperate to distract him. “If things are as dangerous as she says . . . we aren’t going fast enough.”
The next day was miserable for Tilja. In the middle of the night a hideous thought had come to her. She had woken with her own words buzzing in her mind, like a bee she had once seen buzzing against one of Aunt Grayne’s glass windows, trying to find its way through. We aren’t going fast enough. She had spoken the words almost at random, but knew in her heart they were true. And now, waking, she knew why.
Somewhere along the road, Faheel had said, the Ropemaker would be waiting for them. But now Tilja had learned that Moonfist was systematically seeking out and destroying other magicians. He already knew of the Ropemaker’s existence—he had seen him change himself into a giant lion in the palace courtyard. He would be looking for him, surely. So every day she and the others spent on the journey put the Ropemaker in greater danger. The sooner they reached the place where he was waiting for them, the sooner she gave him the ring, the better.
She spent the rest of the night wondering how she could persuade the others of the need to hurry. All she could think of to tell them was that she’d had bad dreams about what was happening in the Valley.
They didn’t agree.
That wasn’t enough. Alnor in particular was adamant.
“Not worth the risk,” he said. “The road gets more dangerous every day. We’ve had the luck to pick up a good convoy. The guards are honest, and this new magician knows her business. We’ll be home before winter with time to spare, and that’s all that matters. There’s nothing I can do before the first snow falls, and Meena won’t be sowing her barley until next spring. I’m sorry, Til. You’ll need to produce a stronger reason than just a vague feeling.”
“He’s right, Til,” said Meena. “So let’s enjoy the journey while we can, eh?”
She didn’t glance at Alnor as she spoke, but there were layers of meaning in her smile. She was quite open about her love for him, and her determination to make the most of it for the few weeks she had left to her in this young body. Even Alnor had mostly given up trying to pretend he didn’t feel the same.
And Tahl was relishing the journey for different reasons. He liked traveling in company, making friends, giving a helping hand here and there, asking questions all the time, so easily and unashamedly that people told him the answers, laughing as they did so. If a newcomer joined the convoy one morning, by nightfall he’d know all about them. At one point he even persuaded a glassblower to set up his kiln and show him how it was done, and thus became the proud owner of a small misshapen flask that he had blown himself.
And against these powerful arguments all Tilja had to offer was some dreams she hadn’t really dreamed, and a real, strong reason that she wasn’t allowed to tell them. She tried several times during the day’s march. Soon Alnor refused to listen, and in the end Meena lost her temper, and in a brief flare of the old anger that reduced Tilja to tears told her she was as tiresome as Calico and it was time to stop being a stupid baby wanting its own way and blubbering because she couldn’t have it.
From then on Tilja walked in silent unhappiness, vainly trying to think of some new reason the others might listen to. Tahl walked beside her, for once not chatting but keeping her company, seeming to understand that it was no use trying to cheer her up. In the end he broke the silence.
“You know something you can’t tell us, don’t you, Til?”
She shook her head, not looking at him, but knowing the intelligent, questioning glance that would have gone with the words.
“And there’s a good reason, of course,” he said, just as though she’d told him he was right. “Difficult for you.”
She couldn’t pretend any longer.
“Try not to think about it,” she muttered.
He laughed, and she knew why, and managed to laugh with him. Tahl, of all people, not thinking about something that was puzzling him.
“All right,” he said. “I’ve thought of something else just worth trying.”
The convoy halted well before nightfall and settled into a busy way station. It was still too soon for supper when the boys had finished their kick-fighting.
“Why don’t we go and see if the river’s got anything to tell us?” said Tahl. “There’s just a chance we might pick something up from the Valley, and set Til’s mind at rest.”
“With a hundred other rivers talking away?” said Alnor.
“Oh, go on,” said Meena. “You’re dying to, really. It’s ages since you had a good chat with one of your wet friends.”
Alnor grunted agreement and rose to his feet. They walked down to the river, a good half mile wide at this point, a great smooth expanse of water moving southward under the darkening sky. The first stars were out. One or two lights glimmered along the further shore. A little below the way station a sandspit ran out from the bank.
“That’ll do,” said Alnor. “You two wait here.”
So the two girls settled down at the edge of the water and watched the boys moving out along the sandspit and wading into the shallows where it ended until they were almost waist deep and needing to steady themselves against the press of the current. It was dusk, with the Herald rising bright in the east, and a few other stars faintly showing. The boys stood awhile with bowed heads, motionless dark shapes against the moving flood, then turned and came slowly back along the sandspit and up the bank, deep in serious talk.
“Well,” said Meena. “How are things back home, then?”
“The voice of our river was there indeed,” said Alnor, speaking as he’d used to when he’d been an old man. “It was loud, because the glacier is melting fast, and our river is in spate. There has been fighting beside it. It has carried the bodies of slain men.”
“That means the pass is open,” said Tahl.
The four of them stood in silence. The boys’ drenched clothes dripped steadily onto the ground.
16
Lord Kzuva’s Tower
From then on they traveled alone, making the best speed they could, but limited always by Calico’s needs and their own endurance. Nobody noticed them unless they chose to be noticed, though the further north they traveled the busier the great highway became. Every scrap of possible forage by the roadside was already grazed bare, but there were plenty of well-stocked forage stalls along the way, where they could buy enough for Calico to eat while they took their midday rest. Such was their apparent invisibility that they sometimes wondered whether they could simply have taken what they wanted, unobserved.