“Saw you, but wasn’t interested. Only interested in the unicorns. Then Meena there started her singing. Wasn’t singing to me, of course, just to the little white fellows on the far side of the canyon, telling ’em what you were up to, going out into the Empire to find this man who’d make their forest right for ’em again. But it did the trick, reminded me what I was there for, just enough to get myself clear of the forest and stop being a unicorn—and was that a palaver!
“Followed you down, of course. Meena’s song had told me you knew some of the stuff I was after. So I was hanging outside Lananeth’s window, just clear of her wards, minding my own business, being a bat and listening to what you were saying, when Meena there pops out with some fellow’s name—Faheel, right? Never heard of him before, but bang, I’d lost my shape and fallen into a rosebush. Cut me to ribbons—never noticed. Got to know about that, I was thinking.”
His braying laugh shattered the morning silence.
“So you followed us to Talagh,” said Alnor. “And on the way you arranged for the bandits to kidnap us in the Pirrim Hills, so that you could make our acquaintance.”
“Not like that. They’d a spy at the way station—spotted you for fourteenth graders—going to cut you out anyway—not difficult, convoy all strung out, but one of you might’ve got hurt. Better arrange for it myself. Worked out all right, didn’t it?”
“You mean we wouldn’t have got to Goloroth without you?” said Tilja. “You were the dog that woke Tahl and Alnor up when we landed from the raft, and the cat on the walls of Talagh, and the donkey in the way station when Silena came, and then the lion at Goloroth.”
He nodded as she named each creature.
“Ah,” he said. “Suppose this Faheel told you, so you spotted me for the mouse. Told you my name, too, did he? Been wondering about that.”
“Yes, and I saw you change into the lion when Faheel was fighting the Watchers at Talagh.”
Again he stared at her in astonishment, then shook his head and dragged on his chin, grinning ruefully.
“Lot I don’t know,” he said. “Look, I’ll finish off, then you tell me your side. Keep things straight that way. Right?”
Yes, he said, he’d been able to follow Tilja all the way because she’d been wearing his hair tie. He’d been the cat on the walls of Talagh and done what he could to stop Silena finding them in the tower, but he wouldn’t have been a match for her and she’d have broken through his screen if Dorn hadn’t arrived. And yes, he’d been the donkey at the way station, and though Tilja had done most of the work, when Silena had lost her powers they had somehow settled into him. He hadn’t been expecting that at all, but the same thing had happened when he and Tilja, between them, had destroyed Dorn. He had come out of the barn at Goloroth far stronger than he had gone in.
Then, knowing he couldn’t follow Tilja and the others to Faheel’s island, he had returned to Talagh, with the idea that he might be taken on as a Watcher in Dorn’s place, now that he possessed Dorn’s powers, and so watch for the travelers’ return. He’d been accepted for the post, but realized almost at once that it was a mistake. This wasn’t what he wanted, at all. Quite the opposite.
“That was why Faheel came—to stop you becoming a Watcher,” said Tilja. “He said you’d be lost if that happened, and he wanted you to have the ring.”
“Got to ask you about that,” he said. “Better finish first.”
He hadn’t dared try to back out. The Watchers now knew of his existence, and if he refused to join them they would destroy him, sooner than let someone with his powers loose in the Empire. So he’d decided to go through with the installation ceremony and then leave when he got the chance. The chance had come sooner than he’d expected, at the ceremony itself, but then he’d been too fascinated by what was happening to leave at once. Only when the darkness had started to gather behind the tower from which Faheel was working did he recognize the peril and make a bolt for it. Since then he’d been in hiding, knowing that a very powerful magician was roaming the Empire systematically destroying all possible rivals.
“Thought it was the same fellow that had done for the Watchers,” he said. “Couple of things didn’t fit, mind, but that was the best I could make of it. But if it was your friend Faheel did for the Watchers, and then this other fellow—Moonfist—sneaked in and did for him . . . yes . . .”
“He knew about the ring,” said Tilja. “In the story we tell in the Valley, Faheel himself knew about it while Asarta still had it. He’d been trying to take it from her for three hundred years. So when Asarta used people from the Valley to take it to Faheel he decided to seal their knowledge of the ring inside the Valley. He told me that himself.
“But Moonfist knew already. He’d been trying to get hold of it too, and he thought Asarta should have given it to him. He’s been waiting all these years for when Faheel had to pass it on to someone else. He must have recognized the power in Axtrig and attacked the walls to try and get hold of her, but then he lost her again because I was holding her, and the same with the ring on the way back, right up until Tahl guessed I’d got it. Moonfist felt that—Faheel said he might—and came.”
The Ropemaker sat nodding slowly, thinking about it.
“Right,” he said at last. “Now one more thing. Why me? Ignorant fisherboy—clutching at straws, eh?”
“No. It was realizing you’d managed to turn yourself into a unicorn that decided him. But really he was interested the moment I told him you were a Ropemaker. . . . He said time was a great rope.”
“That’s right,” said Tahl excitedly. “I’ve often thought of that. Millions of twisting threads, all holding each other in place. You can see back along it, not forward. There must be a sort of mist. But it goes on beyond. Forever.”
“That’s about it,” said the Ropemaker.
“If you could change one thread, you’d change everything,” said Tahl.
“Right,” said the Ropemaker. “Went back last night, for instance, two, three minutes only, fiddled with a thread, let me pull you three clear of the fire, that’s all. But more than I could chew, almost. Out beyond where I could see, felt the whole rope bucking and heaving around, all of time to come weaving itself fresh. Had to hang on, all my strength, to what I’d got fixed this side, stop it being messed up by stuff happening beyond, till it went and calmed down. Only just made it. Rocked me, that did, badly. Lucky to get back out.”
He shook his head again, remembering the struggle. No wonder he was so exhausted last night, Tilja thought. Both of us. Only just made it. But given those two or three changed minutes, Alnor and Meena were alive instead of dead, and could go back to the Valley and remake the old magic, and all time to come would be different, utterly different.
“Your turn now,” he said. “Anything you know—any of you. Going to need it.”
It took them until well into the afternoon to finish, breaking off at midday to rest and eat. The Ropemaker turned some of the breakfast scraps into a succulent meal, and a twist of dried grass into a pile of juicy hay for Calico, who munched it as if it had been only her due, which perhaps it was. Tilja ate what was left of the scraps. She barely noticed.
She was thinking about the story. Inevitably she had done most of the talking. She had a strange feeling that it was all there coiled inside her—every minute of every day, every word spoken, every breath breathed, almost—ready and waiting for her to reel it out. She wondered if perhaps this was something else Faheel had arranged. There had been this great strange beast called the Empire. Now it was mad and sick and dying. Only the Ropemaker had the power to heal it, which was why he had to have the ring. But as well as the ring he needed to understand the causes of the sickness. That was what the story was for.