But they weren’t certain how far Faheel’s magic protected them from the other magical powers that were now loose in the Empire, especially at night, so for safety they continued to sleep at well-warded way stations, slipping wearily in in the dusk, and away again as the sun rose, unquestioned by anyone.
Opposite Talagh they left the river and turned northwest. Resting on the first foothills they looked back over the plain. There lay the great city, the wounded heart of the Empire. Even at such a distance they could see how it was changed, with the spindling towers from which the Watchers had controlled the great tide of magic now mere stubs, or fallen completely.
Tilja and the others had joined a group of travelers, resting under some shade trees. As they gazed out at this symbol of the enormous change, they were talking in hushed and apprehensive voices about what else might now happen, and swapping stories of the dangers and marvels they had seen.
As it turned out, little of that kind awaited the four on the road to the Pirrim Hills. Nor did the Ropemaker, though this was where Tilja had been expecting at last to meet him. He will choose a place you must pass, Faheel had said, and be waiting for you there. Not the Grand Trunk Road—that was far too thronged— but now that they had turned off toward home, and there were fewer people on the road . . . Indeed, the way stations became less and less busy as travelers reached the turnings to their own destinations. Still the Ropemaker was not among them.
The way station beside the last town before the hills was completely deserted, apart from one lame old man and the chickens he had started to rear in the empty booths.
“No point your going on,” he told Meena.
“You’re telling me there are robbers in the hills?” she asked.
“Nah. They’ll have gone south. Richer pickings for them there. But the Lord Kzuva—he’s Landholder up the other side of the hills—he’s shut off the whole of the North West Plain. He’s not letting anyone in, barring those as belong there or as got business with him. Doesn’t want a lot of strangers crowding in because they’ve heard things are quieter there.”
“We’re on our way back from Goloroth,” said Meena. “We live there.”
“You’ll be all right then,” said the old man. “With Lord Kzuva, anyway . . .”
He hesitated and went on in a lower voice.
“Better warn you. My wife’s sister—she’s got . . . gifts. She says there’s some weird stuff moved into Pirrim Forest these last few weeks.”
Tilja slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke. Each time she opened her eyes she expected to see the gangling figure with the enormous headdress looming above her, outlined against the stars. It didn’t happen. In the Pirrim Hills, where we first met, she told herself. There, at last, surely.
In view of the old man’s warning they did a short stage next day rather than face the pine forest in the dark, and camped at the deserted way station immediately below the hills, taking turns to keep watch while the other three slept close together, within easy reach of Tilja. Next morning they started at dawn, for three long hours toiled up the steeply winding road, and around midmorning reached the pass. As soon as they were in among the pines Calico shied and bolted.
Tilja wasn’t ready. For the last few days Calico had been unusually biddable. In her stupid horse mind she might even have realized that at last they were on their way home. Now, instantly, she was crazed, wrenching her lead rope from Tilja’s grasp, squealing and rearing like a stallion. She whirled round. Her hindquarters slammed into Tilja, stunning her briefly as she grabbed at Alnor for support.
Tilja came to with something pressing on her chest—Alnor’s arm clasping her tight against his body. Meena and Tahl were holding her hands. Calico, at full gallop, was disappearing round the corner ahead. She realized that the other three were standing very still and all breathing in slow, gulping lungfuls. She could feel the thud of Alnor’s heart against her shoulder blade.
“Wh-what happened?” she stammered.
“Don’t let go!” Meena gasped. “Can’t move unless you’re holding us! The forest’s come alive!”
Another terrified squeal rang out, and again, and again. Awkwardly, holding hands, the four of them stumbled forward and round the corner. Calico was lying on her side in the middle of the path, while a sort of gray net that seemed to be growing out of the ground was wrapping itself around her in billowing folds.
“I need that hand!” Tilja yelled. “Hold somewhere else, Tahl!”
With the other three trailing she flung herself forward and grabbed at the gray stuff. It stopped growing, but didn’t otherwise change or loose its hold on Calico. There was a slow, strange pulse in the numbness of her arm, a sense of some vague, large thing resisting her power. She concentrated, forced her willed attention onto it. Now, instead of rushing on through her and away, the thing withdrew. The net shriveled in her grasp, became powder and fell away. Calico started to kick herself to her feet, still squealing, but unbalanced as Tilja grabbed her by the bridle, forced her head down and sat on it, then laid her free hand against her neck and worked her fingers down against the skin. Shuddering, Calico quietened, and as soon as Tilja let her got shakily to her feet. A heavy, earthy reek filled the air.
“What was that?” said Tahl.
“Bull’s-ears, by the smell of it,” said Meena.
This was a poisonous toadstool that grew out of rotting stumps in the forest near Woodbourne. All summer these stumps would become covered in a fine gray mesh, dewy with little droplets that stank of moist mold. Then, later, as all the leaves changed color, brown and white fungi would emerge, looking exactly like the ears of cattle.
“It’s not just the bull’s-ears,” said Meena in a low voice. “It’s the whole dratted forest—it’s come alive. I can feel it. Watching us, somehow. It wasn’t like this when we were going the other way.”
“We must be through here by nightfall,” said Alnor. “Suppose Tilja rides, with Meena behind. Then Tahl and I can walk either side of her with our hands on her ankles. It’s either that or go back.”
“We’ve got to give it a go,” said Meena. “Should be all right if we all hang on to Til.”
At first this seemed to work well enough. Calico wanted nothing more than to be out of the forest, and seemed to have realized that she was safe nowhere except under Tilja’s protection, so she plodded steadily on.
But Tilja was deeply troubled. There had been something wrong about what had happened when she had shriveled the fungus in which Calico was trapped. She felt it shouldn’t have worked, because the magic of the forest was surely natural magic, against which she had no power. And at first the fungus indeed had seemed to resist her, in a way that not even Dorn had done. That was the forest magic, surely, holding her back. But then, when she had concentrated, the fungus had shriveled. So, somehow, the fungus must have been made magic. She didn’t understand it at all.
And now, after a while, she realized that something like that was happening again. The silence of the forest was more than an absence of sound. It was a thing in its own right, dense and oppressive. Tilja saw Tahl holding his hand to his mouth, rather than break it with a cough. A dense fog was closing down. Tilja could feel the thing that caused the silence all around them, filling the long valley up to the invisible tree lines on either side. It was far more than just a huge number of trees. It was the living forest, a great, strange power. A natural magic.