Angel Isle (4 page)

Ribek unpacked one of the saddlebags and produced fresh brown bread from the mill, and butter churned from the rich milk of mountain pasturage. Maja ate purring inwardly, like the old farm cat over its bowl of scraps. She’d never in her life felt so happy. Perhaps she never would again. She’d like to have stayed here for ever. But of course she couldn’t. The other two weren’t just escaping. They were going to look for the Ropemaker. They wouldn’t want her with them for that, she’d only be in the way, no help at all. They’d find someone to leave her with on the journey. And then it would all be over, probably.

“How far is it still?” she said.

“Where to this time?” said Ribek.

“To find the Ropemaker. You were getting ready to go and do that when the Sheep-faces came and we had to run away, weren’t you?”

“Not really,” said Saranja. “We were being got ready for this, I suppose you could say. All my life I was being got ready, I’m beginning to think. All my life I’ve been fighting against it, without realizing, and in the end I ran away from it, but it brought me back when the time came, or that’s how it feels. I still don’t like it. I still don’t want to believe it. Why me? It makes me mad. But I’ve got to start believing it now. I’m stuck with it.

“The snows failed last winter so the glaciers melted and that let the horsemen through from the northern plains. I don’t love the Valley the way everyone else seems to, but I’m not going to stand for Valley people being raped and murdered year after year by those savages. Somebody’s got to go and look for a magician to renew the magic, so that Ribek can sing to the snows and bring the Ice-dragon back to block the passes; and so that someone from Woodbourne who can listen to the cedars can feed the unicorns in the forest so they’ll keep the sickness there and stop the Emperor’s armies coming through and taxing everyone of all they’ve got. The Ropemaker’s the obvious person. He put the magic there in the first place, so I suppose we’re starting with him.”

“That reminds me,” said Ribek. “What about the forest? Did your aunt say anything, Maja?”

“Who to? She didn’t tell anyone anything, except when they’d done wrong. Um, I suppose she’d been in a bad temper all the time, not just some of the time, like she used to be.”

“You can’t know everything,” said Ribek. “We’ll just have to assume it’s happening. And I’m no keener than Saranja is on the idea of coming haring off to look for the Ropemaker. I’ve got work to do.”

“You should have seen him last night,” said Saranja. “He’s wonderfully proud of that mill of his, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’ve never asked for anything better,” said Ribek. “It’s a good life. If a farmer wants to send his prettiest daughter up with his grain, because he thinks I’ll give him a better deal, why should I discourage him?”

“Only you always knew this might happen, because you believed the stupid story,” said Saranja. “I didn’t. And you didn’t either, Maja, because there’s no one like you in the story.”

“Me!” said Maja.

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” said Saranja. “I don’t believe you would be if you weren’t wanted. Same with Rocky. He looked like a completely useless old nag when he started tagging along after me. Nobody could possibly have wanted him for anything. But there had to be a horse for me to put the wings onto, so there he was, and here we are, the four of us, setting out together at the start of another stupid story. We’re going to find the Ropemaker, wherever he is, so that he can seal the Valley off for another twenty generations, and I expect there’ll be all sorts of adventures on the way for you to enjoy.”

“I…I don’t think I’ll be very good at that sort of thing.”

Ribek laughed aloud.

“Do you imagine I do? Or Rocky? I don’t know about Saranja—she’s obviously made for it. You know the story, don’t you? Do you imagine Tilja thought she’d be good at that sort of thing when she set out with the others to find Faheel? But in the end they couldn’t have done it without her. No, kid, you’d better face it. You’re going to have to dare and adventure with the rest of us, and Rocky’s going to take us wherever we’re supposed to be, and that’s all any of us knows, and Rocky doesn’t even know that. He’ll just find himself doing it.”

“Oh.”

CHAPTER
2

A
t the top of a long mountain meadow, with the morning sun full in their faces, sat a man and a boy. Between them on a boulder crouched a squat blue and yellow lizard about the size of the man’s shoe. A huge old cedar rose close behind them, and below, scattered across the bright upland turf, a small flock of sheep grazed, watched by a neat black-and-white sheepdog.

The man was talking to the lizard.

“I think we may have made a breakthrough—or rather Benayu may have.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” said the boy. “I just thought I’d give it a go, running my spell backward through the screen—not exactly backward, more inside out, if you see what I mean.”

“What he did, in effect, was to set up an exact counter-resonance to the active resonances of the spell so that on reaching the screen they canceled each other out. He was lucky, of course, in that the spell was ideally suited to the treatment, but all the same it was a whole level more powerful than anything we’ve managed to screen before.”

The lizard’s voice answered in both their minds. If granite could speak it would do so in such a voice.

“Yes, it will not always be so easy. Each screen must be custom-made to what it screens. But the principle…Wait. A thing of power is coming. You may have brought it here. Hide yourselves.”

Man and boy rose and stood for a moment, staring north, and saw a dark fleck in the pale blue sky above a massive snow-streaked ridge. Tension swept up the hillside. It was as if the placid turf had been the nape of a giant neck, every grass-blade prickling with sudden apprehension. Quietly they walked toward the cedar, laid a hand on its bark and disappeared.

By now the stone where the lizard had been was mottled with blue and yellow lichen, and the place was empty apart from the sheep and the dog, and the small creatures that clicked and chirruped in the sun-warmed turf. The tension remained, electric.

Rocky circled down toward the mountain meadow, apparently empty apart from a flock of sheep and a sheepdog.

“I think this may be where we’re going,” called Saranja over her shoulder. “To start with, anyway. I didn’t ask him to land, and he can’t be hungry yet. There’s got to be a shepherd somewhere around. Perhaps he’ll tell us what happens next.”

The dog below yapped a warning. The sheep started to scatter and the dog raced to round them up as Rocky swung in a full circle and glided in toward the slope, closer and closer, and with a sudden bell-like booming of wings landed some twenty paces below the cedar.

All three riders climbed stiffly down. Rocky folded his wings and started to nose discontentedly at the sheep-nibbled turf, too short to be much use to him. The dog streaked toward them, snarling, only to halt almost as suddenly, but with hackles still bristling.

Maja stared around. Something was wrong. Apart from the spectacular view she couldn’t see anything different from any of the half-dozen lonely and peaceful places where they’d stopped to rest, but the feel of this place was like the twanging stillness before the thunder breaks.

“If there’s a shepherd he’s probably hiding in the wood,” said Ribek, apparently untroubled. “That’s where I’d be, seeing something like us show up. Unless that dog’s magical.”

“No,” said Maja. “But the place…”

“What about the place?”

“It’s…
worried
.”

They looked at her. Saranja shrugged.

“Rocky chose it,” she said. “We may as well stay here for a bit, anyway. There
must
be some better herbs in this lot of woods. I didn’t like the look of that leg of yours at all this morning. How’s it feeling?”

“Not too good,” said Ribek. “It’s been throbbing a while. But it’ll do a bit longer. I’ll just see if that stream’s got anything to say.”

Maja helped him limp across the slope. He paused at an odd little pool, an exact circle of still clear water cut into the grass.

“Nothing there for me,” he said. “Somebody made that.”

“By magic,” she whispered, afraid of her own voice.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, and limped on.

For a while he stood by the stream with his head cocked, apparently listening to the ripple of the water over the boulders. Maja had a strange notion while she waited for him that she could actually
feel
whatever he was listening to. Not hear it, the way he seemed to, but feel it as a sort of soft rippling tickle somewhere at the back of her mind. Momentarily it soothed the throb of tension.

“Well?” muttered Saranja sarcastically, when Maja had helped him back. “What’s the news from nowhere?”

“That tree’s watching us,” said Maja.

Ribek turned and looked.

“Isn’t that a cedar, Saranja?” he asked gently.

Saranja too turned.

“Oh, gods!” she yelled as she strode toward the tree and thumped her clenched fists against the bark. “I never asked for any of this! I tell you I don’t want any of this!”

A breeze woke in the stillness of the afternoon and whispered among the needles of the tree. Just as with the stream, Maja imagined she could somehow feel its mutterings in her mind. Saranja listened to them, frowning and biting her lip, and strode back unappeased.

“All right,” she said. “So this is the place, and we’ve got to wait. Same from the stream, I suppose. And I’m starving, and there’s almost nothing in the saddlebags.”

“There’s mutton,” said Ribek with a jerk of his head toward the flock. “Only I don’t like the look of that dog.”

Maja jumped with sudden shock. A moment later, with a faint sound of air abruptly displaced, a basket landed on the turf beside them. The smell of fresh bread added itself to the mountain odors.

“And you don’t want any of that either?” said Ribek. “What do you think, Maja? You’re jumpy about something?”

“I think it’s all right,” muttered Maja. “It was just the way it came. And this place.”

“Still worried? Any idea what about?”

Maja concentrated. The worry-feeling was like an itchy patch of skin round an insect bite that causes it, sometimes almost too small to see, but…yes…there.

“Rocky,” she said.

“What are you two talking about?” said Saranja, still sounding inwardly furious.

“Maja seems to be extra sensitive to magic,” said Ribek. “That’s why things like putting Rocky’s wings on shake her so badly. That must be really big magic. I bet that cedar is watching us, too. You’re not going to trust her about the food?”

“I’m not that pig-headed,” said Saranja.

They settled either side of the basket and checked through the contents. Ribek took out a mutton chop, shrugged, bit and chewed.

“Tastes fine,” he said. “But I suppose it would. Help yourself, Maja.”

She took one too. No thrill of magic came from it, though it tasted still warm from the grill.

“Well, you haven’t grown donkey’s ears,” said Saranja sourly, and started to eat. She continued to brood as she munched.

“What now?” she said. “Just sit here and wait for the Ropemaker?—Is there any reason, by the way, why we can’t just call him Ramdatta?”

The whole landscape answered her. The three syllables throbbed through Maja as if she’d been a hard-struck bell. Rocky lifted his head and neighed, a sound that seemed to shake the hillside. Birds exploded from the wood and wheeled clamoring above it. Something thumped onto the turf behind them. They turned and saw two figures sprawled on the ground beneath the downsweeping branches of the cedar. These now rose groggily to their feet, shaking their heads as if to clear them.

All three travelers stood to face them. They saw a man in early middle age, stocky, muscular, with close-cut curly brown hair, a smooth, unreadable face, clean-shaven but with remarkably hairy legs revealed by the odd leather kilt he was wearing. His skin was golden brown tinged with olive. Next to him stood a gawky boy with a strong family likeness despite the difference in build.

“One moment,” said the man, and strode past them with the boy beside him, then stood staring out southward across the immense landscape. They could feel the tension too. Maja could see it in their poses, and feel it humming from them. They relaxed at last, and the man shrugged his shoulders and sighed as they turned to face the newcomers.

“That name,” he said. “Don’t say it again, please. Your horse is more than signal enough of your presence here. Can anything be done to mitigate that?”

Maja could hear the strain in the quiet, slow-spoken words.

“I can take his wings off,” said Saranja. “Maja says he doesn’t feel at all magical without them.”

The man glanced at Maja, frowning.

“Maja seems able to feel magic,” said Ribek. “She knew you were in the cedar.”

Saranja picked an apple out of the basket, cut it in quarters with the knife from her belt, walked down to Rocky and offered him a piece of it, which he took neatly from her open palm. She waited while he munched, gave him another piece, teased at his mane and moved to his shoulder, and gave him the rest of the apple. She reached for the wing-roots and stroked her hands gently up the massive bones.

“Hold me,” said Maja, and braced herself against Ribek’s side.

This time she was ready and could pay attention to the actual event. For a few moments the fierce electric tingle seemed to vibrate through the whole mountain on which they stood, and through her too, as if she’d been a boulder on that mountain. She watched the wings shrink into themselves, dwindling to a pair of golden plumes which Saranja could ease free, and Rocky became his other self, no more than an unremarkably handsome golden chestnut. He followed Saranja up the slope, clearly hoping for another apple, and not thinking anything at all strange had happened to him, but was distracted by a pile of fresh clover that had appeared on the turf beside him. When it was over Maja realized that the mountain pasture was almost at ease, though deep beneath the turf something remained. Something extremely strange.

“I hope that’s better,” said Saranja, turning toward where the man had been. But by now he was crouching beside a large blue and yellow lizard that had appeared on the rock close to where they had been sitting. It seemed to be having some kind of fit. Spasms of shuddering overcame it and its eyes kept closing to vertical slits and opening again.

“Much better,” he said over his shoulder. “Thank you, and let us hope it is not too late.”

“We would have known by now, wouldn’t we?” said the boy, obviously as anxious as the man.

“Probably,” said the man with a sigh, and rose to his feet.

“I must apologize for the informality of your reception,” he said, pulling himself together. “I am Fodaro, and this is my nephew Benayu. That’s his dog, Sponge. And this on the rock here is Jex. The name you spoke must have affected him even more powerfully than it did us, but he seems to have done his best to protect us before that happened. Evidently he has not yet recovered from the effort. The food is to your taste?”

Maja stared at the lizard, bewildered. She’d assumed it must be some kind of pet, but it didn’t sound like that. She couldn’t feel anything like the magical vibrations coming from it that she’d felt from Rocky when he had his wings on, though there was a sort of silent humming from both the man and the boy. They were still really scared of something too—something, she guessed, that might have noticed the explosion of magic when Saranja had spoken the Ropemaker’s name, and Jex had been trying to protect them from that happening. Yes, and they’d have known by now if it had done so….

Ribek glanced down at her. His face seemed unusually drawn. She realized that his leg must be hurting more than he let on, but he caught her expression, laughed, shrugged and spread his hands. He was as bewildered as she was.

“The food?” he said, turning back to Fodaro. “Just what we needed. Thank you very much. I’m Ribek Ortahlson, and my friends are Saranja and Maja Urlasdaughter. They’re cousins, but I’m not related to them. In fact we barely know each other.”

“Those are your true names?”

“What on earth is the point of a false name?” said Saranja. “That’s who I am.”

“Hm. And you appear not to be yourselves magicians?”

“Not as far as we know,” said Ribek. “There’s very little magic where we come from.”

“But the horse…?”

“Rocky’s different,” said Saranja. “He doesn’t belong there. At least his wings don’t. I put them on for him, but I’m not a magician. The feathers told me what to do. It’s a long story. Thank you for the fodder, by the way.”

“My pleasure,” said the boy.

She turned and stared at him.

“You too?” she said, as if this were the last straw.

“The talent runs in the family,” said Fodaro, “though his is in some ways different from mine. He takes more after his father, my brother-in-law.”

“And, um, Jex?” said Ribek.

“Jex is something else,” said Fodaro.

Ribek waited for him to explain, but he changed the subject.

“May we please look at your feathers?”

Without hesitation Saranja drew them out of her belt-pouch and offered them to him, but he held up both hands in a gesture of refusal and simply studied them as she held them, his nephew coming to his side to do so too. Their breathing slowed as they stared, while Saranja twisted them to and fro to let them see every aspect.