The Ropemaker Page 20

  “I don’t know. When I carried her into Talagh . . . you couldn’t have done it then. I only just managed it. But she’s different now. She’s asleep—like she used to be in the Valley. And you got her in past Lananeth’s wards. She didn’t really wake up till you said the name.”

  “Well, I’ll still be needing her, risk or no risk. Leave it till last thing, and you put her into my bag, and we’ll just have to hope. . . . Ah, don’t you take it so hard, girl. I’m not like these others, come to the end and ready to go. I’ve had a good life, and I’m thankful for it, but I tell you it’s nothing like over, not yet. Come along then, cheer yourself up and say good-bye like we’d be seeing each other again tomorrow, which very likely we will.”

  Uncomforted, Tilja fought with her tears until they reached the front of the line. There she watched Alnor and Meena take their turn at the tables, barely noticing the astonishing fact that there wasn’t anything to pay, no fee, no bribe, no extra, not one drin.

  They moved aside to say good-bye, and the way Meena returned Tilja’s parting hug told her that inwardly her grandmother was feeling the same sense of grief and loss. Last thing of all she unstrapped Axtrig from her arm; Meena drew the leather bag out from under her skirt and Tilja slid the old spoon in with the other two. She managed to hold herself together while she said good-bye to Alnor also, and then watched tensely while the two of them helped each other through the gate. As they disappeared a blast of loose magic hurtled by, scattering the waiting lines, but nothing else happened. She led Calico back beside the way the way they had come, suddenly blind with tears.

  Someone was speaking to her. A man’s voice.

  “Thinking of selling that beast, missie? You’re from the north, by the look of you, so you’ve a long way to go, and she’s nothing like worth her feed all that time. Much better sell her now. I’ll give you a price you won’t be sorry for.”

  Tilja could only shake her head, but Tahl butted in, asking questions as usual.

  “What do you do with them when you’ve bought them?”

  “Wait till I’ve got a string together, then take them up to the market at Ramram.”

  “We don’t want to sell her, but how much to look after her for two or three days?”

  “Well, now . . . what’s in your mind?”

  “We want to see if we can get into the city and be with our grandparents until they actually have to go.”

  The horse dealer laughed aloud.

  “Some people!” he exclaimed. “No accounting . . . I’d have run a mile to get away from my own grandma. Look, sonny, there’s a lot of rules in the Empire you can get round, one way or another. But there’s one about Goloroth you can’t. Man or beast, once you’re into Goloroth you don’t come out alive, not until you go south yourself on the Great River. . . .”

  “That can’t be right,” said Tahl. “I mean, what about that man there? He’s just helped someone in, and now he’s come out again. They’ve got to have someone besides the old people going south, to clean the streets and cook the food and run things. It wouldn’t work, else.”

  “That fellow’s not coming out,” said the horse dealer. “No more than just beyond the gates. None of ’em are, who you’re asking about, not until they go south on the rafts themselves. What do you think would’ve happened to you two, supposing your old folk had gone and died on the way here?”

  “We’d’ve been sold into slavery,” said Tahl.

  “Right—but not until Goloroth had taken its pick of you. It’s in all the dealers’ licenses, they’ve got to send us a quota of the kids they pick up from the way stations. And the reason you haven’t seen gangs of kids on the road alongside of you is that them that run it don’t want it getting about that’s what happens, so they move ’em at night, and ship ’em in this last bit by the river. Hang around down there till after dark, and you’ll see— only I wouldn’t try it. You don’t want to get taken inside yourselves, now, not after what I’ve just told you.”

  He bellowed with laughter at the notion. Tahl caught Tilja’s eye and raised his eyebrows. Without thought, she nodded. Anything to be with Meena again, right to whatever end was waiting for them.

  “How many days’ feed do you think our horse is worth, supposing we ask you to take care of her for a bit?” asked Tahl.

  “Seven, and that’s being generous,” said the horse dealer instantly. “It’s only because I like your faces.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Tahl. “She’s got years of work in her.”

  “And a mean eye with it,” said the horse dealer. “Look, three days, and I’ll be on my way to Ramram. You pick her up before I go and you can pay me for what she’s had. Otherwise I’ll take her when I go and when she’s had her seven days I’ll sell her for what I can get. Same with your bedding and stuff if you like.”

  Tahl looked at Tilja again, and again she nodded, more soberly now, understanding the danger but at the same time sure in her heart that this was not how the adventure was meant to end.

  “All right,” said Tahl. “It’s a deal.”

  “You thinking of doing what it sounds like?” said the man.

  “Don’t ask,” said Tahl.

  “Crazy,” said the horse dealer as he took Calico’s reins, but this time he didn’t laugh.

  For days Calico had plodded sullenly south, disgusted with the journey, with the heat, with the food, with everything around her, and clearly blaming it all on Tilja. But now, as soon as she realized what was happening, she gave a wild and piteous whinny and tried to wrench herself away. But the horse dealer was used to difficult animals, and cursed and wrestled her into obedience and led her off, still forlornly whinnying. The sound pierced Tilja through and through. She had never imagined that she actually loved Calico. There couldn’t, she’d felt, have been many less lovable horses in the world. But Calico was her last link with Woodbourne, and she was gone.

  Goloroth was built of the mud on which it stood, on a headland at the main mouth of the Great River, whose broad, smooth flood swept out beside it. From a spit of shingle Tilja and Tahl watched huge rafts being floated down on the current. Each of these was actually made of a hundred or more small rafts lashed together. Just below the spit they were poled ashore and untied, and the individual rafts were then floated on down a separate channel into the city.

  Much further along Tilja could see a jetty with a line of people waiting, tiny with distance. One after another the small rafts were brought to the landing stage, two or three people were helped to board, and men on the jetty then poled the raft along and shoved it into the main current, which swept it swiftly off so that those on it could die outside the limits of the Empire. Beyond the end of the jetty Tilja could see a never-ending line of rafts dwindling away to the southern horizon.

  No one paid any attention to her and Tahl. There were a couple of dozen other children watching from the spit, as if in the hope of one last glimpse of the old person they had brought so far. Indeed, it was such a natural thing to do that there was actually a small food stall on the spit, in case those who were waiting had a few spare drin to spend.

  “Goloroth’s tiny,” said Tahl. “They can’t keep them here long, or it would be bursting.”

  “A day and a night and then they’re off,” said the woman who ran the food stall. “When did yours go through the gate, then?”

  “About an hour ago,” said Tahl.

  “They’ll be going south about that time tomorrow, then,” said the woman. “Maybe a bit earlier. It’s not been that busy. You’ll need to sleep out, mind, if you’re staying to watch them go, and the bugs’ll eat you alive, so I’ll sell you a salve. Five drin.”

  Tahl haggled and got the little phial for four.

  “Where will our grandparents be sleeping?” he asked.

  “In one of the sheds, great big barns, more like, couple of hundred places in each. They don’t treat ’em too bad, if you’re worrying. They get supper tonight, and breakfast tomorrow with a bit of po
ppy juice in the water, so by the time they’re floating away they’ve not got that much idea what’s happening to them.”

  Tilja had been listening with growing anxiety. Now, for a moment, her heart seemed to stop. Meena and Alnor were in Goloroth to find Faheel, who would then, somehow, get them out again. They had no intention of going south on one of the rafts. But what if they were too woozy with poppy juice to realize what was happening to them? She caught Tahl’s eye. Blank faced, he gave her the slightest of nods. No need to talk about it. They had to get into Goloroth. Tonight.

  But all he said was, “We’d better have some food too,” and with a lot of haggling he bought enough for several meals.

  The night was heavy and sticky, and barely cooler than the day, but at least it was dark enough, though there would be a moon later. Tilja and Tahl, smeared with the sharp-smelling oil the woman had sold them, lay in shadows a little below the spit from which they had watched earlier. They were as near as they could safely come to the separate channel down which the rafts were floated.

  At dusk there had been a lull, but in an hour or two rafts and barges started to arrive again from the north. The work went on by the light of smoky orange torches. As before, the main rafts were broken up into separate smaller ones, but now these were loaded with goods from the barges, sacks and bales and crates, or else the reeking coffins of those who had died on the journey. From the movement of torches along the jetty it seemed that these were sent out on the current by night, so that at least the still living didn’t have to make their last journey in such company.

  Then, at last, a raft docked from which thirty or forty children were herded up onto the broad wall that ran between the main river and the channel into the city. They waited in silent apathy until a man holding one of the torches started numbering them off, six at a time, onto the line of smaller rafts in the channel. There wasn’t an exact number of children, so only three were sent to the final raft. The man on the wall called out, and another man emerged from the darkness at the head of the line, loosing the hawsers as he came. One by one the rafts floated away. The man on the wall didn’t stay to watch, but moved off, taking his torch with him.

  “Now,” whispered Tahl, but Tilja was already moving. Together they scuttled across the narrow strip of shore and leaped for the last raft. It rocked violently as they landed but they hung on and then crawled forward and sat behind the other three. One of these had cried out at their impact, but now they just turned their heads for a moment and stared back through the darkness.

  “It’s all right,” Tilja whispered. “We were just a bit late, that’s all.”

  The three didn’t answer, but turned and sat, slumped and un-caring, as they had done before. Ahead, the lights of torches came nearer and nearer, reflected from the water under the archway that led into the City of Death.

  There was no magic in Goloroth, none at all. Tahl had felt the change the moment the raft slid through the arch, he said later, but it took Tilja a while to notice, because it was a difference in something she didn’t feel with any of her bodily senses, nor in any way she could put words to. But all the time she had been in the Empire, since they had first come through the forest, whatever it was in her that so stubbornly resisted the pervading magic had been at work, and now it could relax.

  By the time the revelation came to her, she and Tahl were last in the line of children who had arrived on the rafts, and were being led along a pitch-dark street between the blank walls of two long buildings. There was a man carrying a torch at the front to show them the way, and another bringing up the rear. She was so astonished by the revelation that she relaxed her guard and spoke aloud.

  “You were right, Tahl! There isn’t any magic here!”

  He glanced toward her with a sharp, warning frown, but the man immediately behind them had already heard.

  “That’s right, lassie,” he said affably. “Second-best-warded place in the Empire, Goloroth.”

  “And you don’t mind talking about it?” asked Tahl, instantly.

  “What’s the harm? The bastards can’t get at us here. Death has its compensations, eh? No magic, no Watchers, none of that nonsense. Haven’t you got it? You’re outside the Empire now. You can die here, and no one has to pay a drin.”

  “And it’s warded like that to keep it out of the Empire?” said Tahl. “I don’t see . . .”

  “Why should you,” said the man, who clearly liked to talk, “seeing the trouble they’ve gone to keep everyone from getting the idea? You’re a thinking lad, by the sound of you. You must’ve wondered, coming south, about how much all this is costing, the guides, the free stops at the way stations, and now you’re here the rafts—couple of thousand a day and working all night when we’re busy—and the food and stores, and everything, and the Emperor not getting a drin back out of it by way of taxes. Doesn’t make sense once you’ve thought about it, eh?”

  “No,” said Tahl. “It’s been bothering me pretty well since we started. People don’t spend money like that unless they’ve got to.”

  “Said you were a thinking lad,” said the man. “Well, they’ve got to, and here’s for why. While you’ve been wondering about things, has it ever crossed your mind to wonder where all the magic is coming from? It comes out of us, that’s where. We’ve all got a bit of it, right? All our lives it kind of settles into us, like dust, and then it comes out again when we die. Some of us find how to take it and use it, and they’re the ones who become magicians, but most of us don’t even notice it’s there. Me, I’ve not got that much, because I’ve lived all my life since I was a kid here in Goloroth, where there isn’t any magic. But these old folk who come down here to die, they’ve been living years and years out in the Empire, and they’re full of the stuff. Notice how it was blowing around outside the walls?”

  “We certainly did,” said Tahl. “It was knocking us all over the place.”

  “That’s because the old folk are starting to lose it, soon as they get here. Mostly it blows out to sea—the Watchers back in Talagh look after that. But it’s nothing to what they let go of when they actually come to dying. You just think what it would be like if you had that happening all over the Empire all the time.

  “And another thing. Suppose I was starting out to become a big magician—where’s the easiest place for me to pick up a bit more magic than I’ve got on my own? There’s some of it floating around loose in the air, but it’s too much like hard work gathering all that in and making something of it, and I want quick results, so I’ll do much better taking it away from somebody else, and the easiest time for that is just when that somebody else is dying and giving up his magic. Right?

  “Now, suppose I’m not a magician, I’m the Emperor, and I want to stop this kind of thing happening and a lot of magicians getting more power than I’ve got myself, what do I do? I make laws against magic, of course, and I hire Watchers who’re magicians themselves to keep an eye on things, but most of all I try to see to it that people don’t go dying promiscuous all over my Empire, not unless they can prove to me they’ve got the money to have their deathbeds properly warded, and if they have, no harm in them paying a bit of tax on top of it for all the trouble I’m taking, right? But for everyone else I set up a place they can get to before they die, and then get taken away outside my Empire. That’s Goloroth here, and old Fugon the Fifth must’ve been more than pleased with himself when he thought of it. . . .”

  Tilja had been doing her best to listen. What the man was telling them was useful and important, though at the same time almost too horrible to think about, but her mind kept straying. Where were Meena and Alnor? Where was Faheel? What would happen when, in the heart of this warded city, Meena tried to use Axtrig to find him?

  “. . . only one snag,” the man was saying. “Get a lot of old people passing through a place like this all the time, and some of them are going to start dying before they’re on the water. And since there weren’t that many dying anywhere else, not unwarded at leas
t, you got a lot of magicians hanging around down here hoping for pickings. Started happening pretty well the moment the place was built, which is why after a bit old Fugon decided to have the place warded like it is. And he built way stations everyone’s got to sleep at, warded too, in case they go dying on the way. Once you know that, everything else kind of falls into place, you’ll find. But the Emperors never wanted it to get about that’s how it is, because the only way they can run things is if everybody more or less believes the Emperor’s all-powerful, whereas fact is he’s only just about in control of it all.”

  “I see,” said Tahl in a tone of delighted wonder. “And—”

  “That’s enough, sonny,” said the man. “We’re where we’ve been going, so there’s not time. But just keep your ears open and you’ll learn a lot here. You’ve got the rest of your life for that.”

  They had come out of the area of large blank sheds and reached a courtyard surrounded by low buildings. Here several women were waiting, and the man at the head of the column halted and called the children round him. Listlessly they gathered.

  “Well, my young friends, you’ve arrived at last,” he said, sounding just as friendly as the one who’d been talking to Tahl. “You’ve had a rough time, but remember that everyone you meet here has been through all that themselves. We know what it’s like, and we’re out to make it as easy for you as we can. Now the women here are going to show you somewhere to sleep and see you’re comfortable, and in the morning they’ll—”

  He stopped dead. His head began to turn. Every torch in the courtyard went out. Tilja was knocked sideways by Tahl being flung violently against her. She grabbed him and managed to prevent them both from falling. There were shouts and yells nearby, heavy crashes from further away, more cries and screams floating in from further yet, but only for three or four seconds, and then complete darkness and silence, until Tahl groaned and shuddered in her arms.

  She reached for his hand and held it tight, and now she felt the same sense of something being sucked or pushed to and fro that she had felt when her fingers had locked into the fur of Silena’s beast, and knew that in spite of what they had been told only a few minutes before, the wards of Goloroth had been broken and magic was flooding into the city.