Angel Isle

CHAPTER

25

The citizens of Larg had been watching from their walls in awe and fear as the Pirate fleet closed in on them, regardless of wind or tide—fear that changed to amazement as the ships and airboats were blotted out by a brief but intense blizzard in the midst of the calm and sunlit bay, and then changed again to delighted relief when the blizzard cleared, revealing the impossible island of ice, with the ships stranded and helpless on it and the snow-burdened airboats drifting down to join them.

They saw three winged horses emerge from the largest of the airboats and some keen-eyed watchers recognized Saranja’s streaming mane. So it was that when Saranja and Striclan, the only two of the travelers able to cross Zara’s still functioning ward, headed down the hill to tell the Proctors what was afoot, and what would now be needed, they found a welcoming party climbing to meet them.

Maja fell asleep under the stars once more, well fed and on comfortable bedding ferried up from the city. The needs of her Lady Kzuva self woke her in the small hours, and on her return she paused and stared out to sea. There, plain to her long-sightedness, stood the flame-crested pillar that imprisoned Azarod, black against the moonlit glitter of the island, both astonishing in themselves but still only rock and flame and ice, things of this world. The scene twitched, and now she was seeing them as they might have been seen in the worlds where they belonged, the raging demon and the immense unknowable dragon. She couldn’t remember going back to her mattress, apart from a vague sense of having floated there, with all the quiet magic of the sleeping world now vivid to her extra sense. She was too dazed to register the strangeness of the change.

Nor could she remember waking and eating, though she must have done, because now she was standing leaning on her cane, fully dressed, with the taste of food in her mouth, while Chanad, Ribek and Saranja talked urgently together, and Benayu and Striclan stood and listened. Striclan had his arm round Benayu, supporting him. Benayu was looking really ill.

In that moment Maja understood what was happening to her.

“Listen,” she said urgently. “Sometimes I don’t know what Lady Kzuva’s saying and doing. She’s not protecting me from magic, either. I think I’m coming apart.”

“Indeed you are,” said Chanad. “Benayu is exhausted. He cannot keep Lady Kzuva here much longer. I could do it, but it would take all my attention, and that is needed for the conference. If we don’t send her back where she belongs in the next two hours we shall lose you both. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Even when we’re together I—we—feel very odd. Dazed, dizzy. I don’t think she knows what I’m saying now.”

“But we need Lady K for the conference,” said Saranja. “She represents the Landholders, who’ve got a lot of say-so on the Empire, so she’s got to set her seal on the final document.”

“Couldn’t you send her home now, and just make me look like her? I think I could do that, now that I’ve been her for a bit. Act like her and talk like her, I mean, provided I don’t have to say too much. I could tell them I’m tired after all that magic yesterday. I’m out of practice.”

“That is what we were talking about,” said Chanad. “A mugal—a simulacrum controlled by a living spirit within it. Quiriul and her two colleagues could do it, I think. I’ve already arranged for them to transport themselves to us and tell us what has been happening aboard the All-Conqueror. I will ask them to come as soon as they can.”

“How long will the mugal thing take?” said Ribek. “Will they be able to do it before the delegation gets here? The airboat will be ready to leave as soon as they’ve cleared the snow off its gas bag, and they’re halfway through that already. It’d be nice to have Lady K in there to—”

Sudden and close, a jolt of magic. A glimpse of three figures just beyond Chanad’s shoulder. Maja was back in her daze.

A hand gripping her elbow, shaking her arm. Ribek’s urgent mutter in her ear.

“Wake up, Maja! Wake up if you can! We need you!”

With a willed effort she hauled her two halves into oneness and held them steady. She was standing beside him on the crown of the headland. All around them a gaudy encampment had arisen, pavilions, rest tents and awnings, flags and pennons, and side by side in pride of place the green banner of Larg and blue-and-white one of the Pirate fleet.

They were waiting on a level patch of turf that had been left clear beside the largest pavilion. The dignitaries of Larg were lined up to one side, with their President Proctor and the fake Imperial delegation in front of them. What seemed like half the citizens of Larg watched from the perimeter. In perfect silence the airboat descended into the center. The gondola touched soundlessly onto the turf. Pumps pulsed briefly, then silence again, with the gas bag swaying in the light breeze. A section of the hull hinged downward and became a ramp and General Pashgahr appeared in the opening with a pale-faced dumpy woman beside him. Maja recognized her as the Syndic she’d particularly noticed yesterday.

They paused while a dozen trumpets sounded an elaborate fanfare. The President Proctor, with Chanad at his side, moved forward to meet them as they came down the ramp. The pealing of the bells of Larg sounded musically in the distance. Speeches began, but she barely heard them as the daze returned.

Another jolt of magic, this time as deliberate as Ribek’s shaking her arm had been to force her to wakefulness. She was standing in one of the smaller tents, with both hands clutching the central pole. Just the other side of the pole stood a woman Maja had never seen before, with both arms outstretched, holding hands with two people out of sight behind Maja. She could sense that all three were magicians, and that she was standing near the apex of a triangle formed by their arms. Benayu was watching from behind the woman’s shoulder. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. He was nibbling at his thumb knuckle like a child, feverish with anxiety.

“I am Quiriul,” said the woman. “We prefer our former employers not to recognize us. Now, if I may, my lady…”

She placed her own hands over Maja’s.

“Brod is going to construct the simulacrum while Turbax prepares your shielding within it,” she said. “Meanwhile I will separate your consciousness from that of Lady Kzuva and control your transference to the simulacrum. I have to warn you that you won’t be shielded at all while that is happening, so you will have to prepare yourself for a brief period of considerable stress. And once the process has started it cannot be stopped without fatal results to at least one of you.”

Unwilled, a dreamy whisper issued from Maja’s lips.

“Let it be me who dies, should that happen,” said Lady Kzuva. “Maja has many more years to live.”

Quiriul hesitated, clearly taken aback. She sighed and shook her head.

“I can’t choose,” she said. “This is difficult enough as it is. We must simply not let it happen. When the transfer is complete Brod will see Lady Kzuva safely back to her own place while Turbax and I coordinate the speech and movement of the simulacrum with Maja’s intentions. Now, will you stand as still as you can and look into my eyes.”

Maja couldn’t see them clearly without her spectacles, but they seemed to be just a pair of normal green eyes. Little happened for what seemed a long while. She could sense both Turbax and Brod busy behind her, sense too, beside the magic they were preparing, something amiss between them, Turbax’s mild contempt for Brod, who was older but less accomplished, and Brod’s resentment of it. She must warn Chanad about that, she thought…

“Now,” whispered Quiriul. “Look, Lady Kzuva. Look, Maja.”

Maja concentrated. Quiriul’s eyes were now clear to her. Green, yes, but flecked with brown. They grew larger, like two pools welling up in their hollows, joining together, covering lashes and lids, brows, nose and cheeks, the whole face. And at the same time the sphere of Maja’s vision seemed to narrow until the pool was all that she could see, with the two black irises pulsing gently side by side while the brown flecks, glowing now with a smoky light, moved hypnotically around and between them. The pool floated toward her, filled her vision, absorbed her. She felt dizzy, drugged, only vaguely aware of her own body. Whose body? Hers? Lady Kzuva’s?—she didn’t know. Time passed, unmeasurable. All that changed was a faint, vague pressure against her shoulder blades, insubstantial as mist, but slowly becoming firmer.

Without warning the tent pole faded from her grasp. She heard Benayu’s urgent mutter close in her ear. The shreds of her shielding vanished and she was naked to the triple whirlpool of magic swirling though the little tent. There was someone there with her, being whirled in the same tempest, inert, helpless—Benayu. Desperately, twisting to and fro, she flung her arm round him, clutched him against her, and with her other arm clung to the rock of her own selfhood, Maja, Maja, Maja…and then she was left gasping in a different kind of shelter, improvised and patchy, like a drafty shed that is still better than nothing in the blast of winter.

Shuddering with relief she looked around her. She was still in the tent, but with the entrance now in front of her. Her back was against the tent pole with some kind of sash holding her firmly in place there. She seemed to have no sense of balance and would have fallen without it. That must be Turbax to her left, but Brod was gone from her other side. Where was Benayu? She tried to turn her head. Pain lanced up her spine.

“Wait,” said Quiriul’s voice behind her. “You are not yet ready to move.”

Maja forced the unfamiliar mouth to cooperate.

“Benayu? What?” she croaked.

“I almost lost you. He came to help. It overstretched him. He is here, but unconscious. Wait. We must finish our work, or we will lose you again. Breathe deeply in, and out again.”

Maja realized now that she hadn’t been breathing at all. For a moment nothing happened. Then, with a rush, the air came. With a willed effort she forced it back out.

“Good,” said Quiriul. “And again. And again.”

Maja obeyed. Her breath steadied and continued of its own accord. With a painful convulsion her heart began to beat. Saliva flowed, but she needed her conscious mind to decide to swallow it. Sometimes on her own, sometimes on Quiriul’s instructions, she worked her way round all the normally unnoticed functions of her body. As each piece fitted itself into place others joined themselves to the growing wholeness. Her sense of balance returned unnoticed.

“Well done,” said Quiriul. “Now we will coordinate your movements….”

But turning her head Maja had seen from the corner of her eyes a green and gold hummock sprawled against the side of the tent.

“May I speak?”

“Try.”

Maja steadied herself, summoned the authority she had learned as the real Lady Kzuva.

“Bennay. Benayu,” she said. “He’s more important than any of us. We can’t just let him lie there. He came to the edge to find me and brought me back. We’ve got to do something.”

“I daren’t interfere magically,” said Quiriul. “He is far out of my reach. There is nothing any of us can do directly, apart from rest and quiet and peace of mind. He was desperately anxious for you. He knew we would be working at the limit of our powers. That was why he insisted on being present. So now the best we can do for him is to finish our work. Even as he is he may be aware that you are out of danger.”

“All right.”

“Nod then…Exercise your neck…Now your right arm, starting at the shoulder, and down to the individual fingers…”

They worked systematically on. Impatiently Maja took her first pace.

“That will have to do,” she said, practicing her Lady Kzuva manner. “Thank you for your help. I know you are tired, but would you be kind enough to wait with my boy, Madam Quiriul, until I can send somebody to see him well looked after. And you, sir, you must be Master Turbax.”

He was the one who’d had the tiger’s head. She could tell from the yellowish glow in his eyes.

“At your service, my lady,” he said smoothly, and managed a smile. But it was a smile that said, Why should I bother? You’re only a child pretending to be a great lady. And who cares about Benayu? He’s washed up, done for. Better carry through with the charade. Important to ingratiate myself with the President-designate.

Too late, Master Turbax, Maja thought. I’m going to warn her. You aren’t as clever as you think you are.

“And you are responsible for my shielding,” she said. “I am most grateful. Now if you would be so kind as to see me to the conference tent.”

Several of the functionaries of the Provost’s Court were waiting beside the entrance. Maja spotted the one who had come up from Larg with the old groom on the morning after the defeat of Azarod, to bring their breakfast and tell them to get ready for the visit from the Proctors themselves. She caught his eye and beckoned him over.

“My lady?” he said.

“My boy has been taken seriously ill. He is in that small tent with the yellow pennant. Please arrange to have him carried somewhere where he can rest and not be disturbed. The woman now with him will tell you what else is needed.”

“I will see to it myself,” said the functionary, as obsequious now as he had been haughty when Maja had first met him.

She thanked Turbax again for his help at the entrance to the tent and went on in alone. Striclan was speaking. He paused for the translation. By the time Maja was settled into her chair he was speaking again, about arranging for any citizens of the Empire aboard the fleet to be allowed to return home if they wished. Maja and Ribek muttered to each other during pauses for translation.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“Tired, but I’ll manage. Provided I don’t have to talk much. What’s happening? Where’s General Olbog?”

“Under arrest. He wanted to load the airboat with armed men and make a surprise attack on Larg. The Syndics overruled him. Pashgahr supported them…. Olbog must have guessed this would happen, and had given secret orders for his people to take over the command deck…. The magicians were keeping an eye on things—Chanad had asked them to—and they told Syndic…. I still can’t pronounce her name—begins with B—that one there…”

“Syndic Blrundahlrgh,” said Maja. The name seemed to be on her tongue. Syndic Blrundahlrgh was the dumpy woman who’d come down the ramp beside General Olbog. She was important because she represented the Homemakers’ Interest.

“I can remember last night, not this morning,” she said as soon as the translator began again. “Striclan coached us how to say it, didn’t he?”

“She’s on our side against the Olbog lot. When she heard about the mutiny she left the command deck and faced the mutineers down. Talk to her if you can. It shouldn’t be that difficult. You’ll have time to think what to say next while the last bit’s being translated. Tell her you’re not yourself. It’ll be truer than she thinks.”

“All right. What’s going on now?”

“We’ve almost finished. Pashgahr’s desperate to get back to the fleet before Olbog’s lot try anything. All we can do is agree to a one-month cease-fire. Nobody’s got any real authority for more…. We release their fleet. They withdraw to Tarshu. Hostilities round Tarshu cease. Any troops still on shore reembark in six days and withdraw to an offshore island called Anyan…. There’s just this last haggle and then we’ll have a break for refreshments while the clerks draw up a document in both languages for us to sign and seal.”

It seemed to take for ever. Maja barely listened, and spent the time rehearsing things to say to Syndic Blrundahlrgh. At last the President Proctor declared the proceedings closed and everybody rose, but Maja settled back into her chair and waited for the crowd at the entrance to clear. Quiriul appeared at her shoulder.

“Is Benayu all right?” said Maja.

“He is conscious, and whole, he says, but very feeble. He is being well looked after. He asked me to give you this. Lady Kzuva couldn’t take anything home that hadn’t come with her. You are wearing its simulacrum.”

It was a brooch. Very simple, just a silver bar patterned with ivy leaves with a single tree at one end. It had been prettier with the horses.

Maja put it away in her reticule, making a mental note to take it out before the reticule disappeared along with the rest of the simulacrum.

“Thank you very much,” she told Quiriul. “I’ll come and see Benayu as soon as I can. I’ve got to talk to Syndic Blrundahlrgh first. You’ve been wonderful. I’ll tell Chanad.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Maja watched her leave, but stand aside to let Syndic Blrundahlrgh pass between her and the table, coming in the opposite direction, followed by the young woman who was one of the Pirate translators.

Maja rose stiffly and switched her attention to the Syndic. Yesterday she had spoken little but watched even the most spectacular manifestations of magic with a sort of detached interest, but had otherwise seemed just a quiet, ordinary woman; and the same when she’d come down the ramp with General Pashgahr. It was hard to imagine her quelling an armed mutiny by sheer personal authority.

She blurred, of course, as she approached, and Maja raised her spectacles to her eyes.

“Syndic Blrundahlrgh,” she said.

“Lady Kzhuvargh,” answered the Syndic, and they both smiled, sharing their pleasure in the other’s having made the attempt to pronouce each other’s name and their consciousness of their own failure. The Syndic, still smiling, spoke briefly.

“The Syndic says that we are all children at heart,” said the translator.

Maja blinked inwardly. Did she know? Surely not. She rescued herself with one of her rehearsed remarks.

“Forgive me,” she said, gesturing with her spectacles. “I do not see very well close to.”

The Syndic waited for the translation, nodded, and stood calmly while Maja looked her over. The impression she gave of being something of a dough-faced nonentity turned out to be entirely superficial, worn almost like a mask. The pale gray-blue eyes were bright with intelligence. The jowled chin merely distracted from the firm set of the mouth. The skin was smooth and clear, its pallor natural to it. She could once have been a plumply pretty young woman, Maja decided. The Syndic studied Maja in return and nodded again.

“Shall we sit,” she said, drawing out the chair beside Maja’s, at the same time making a brief remark to the translator, who almost scurried to help Maja into her chair and then took up a post behind and between the two of them.

“I am sorry you are not well,” said the Syndic, as if deliberately giving Maja the cue for another rehearsed remark.

“Indeed I am not myself today,” she said. “I am not precisely ill, but it is many years since I needed to exert my powers to the extent that I did yesterday, and today I am paying the penalty. I shall be better as soon as I am free to return to my own place.”

“I’m hoping that one result of our work today is that one day I’ll get the chance to visit the Empire in a spirit of friendship.”

(Not one of Maja’s cues, but she mustn’t hesitate. What would Lady Kzuva have said?)

“It is not all wonders and marvels, you know.”

(That was a start, but…oh, of course! She readied the phrases while the Syndic was speaking and waited for the translation.)

“I’m glad to hear it,” said the Syndic. “Yesterday was enough to last me a lifetime. But even without that the Empire is so different from my own country. I would very much like to return in more peaceful times. I am sure our best hope for a lasting peace is to know each other better.”

“Indeed, yes. I live a long way north. But should your journeyings carry you that far, I should be glad to welcome you under my roof.”

A safe offer, surely. There was precious little chance of the Empire letting her in, even if she wanted to come. Anyway, she wouldn’t take it up, surely. She must be a busy woman. But no.

“I shall make a point of seeing that they do. Tell me, my lady, how much do you know of the politics of my country? Our translator, incidentally, is my cousin’s daughter-in-law and can be trusted.”

“I know a certain amount about your country,” Maja said, taking the chance to answer slowly, thoughtfully, as she tried to remember and repeat all the stuff that Striclan had told them.

“But the invasion has turned out much more difficult than your pro-war party expected,” she concluded, “and so opinion is swinging against them. We saw something of this aboard the All-Conqueror yesterday. I believe you yourself had a hand in suppressing an armed group of soldiers who wanted to reject our terms.”

The Syndic didn’t actually blink, but paused and stared at her before she answered.

“You are very well informed, my lady,” she said.

“This is the Empire, Syndic. It is very hard to keep a secret without some form of magical protection.”

“Of course,” said the Syndic. “Bluntly, I am asking for your help. General Pashgahr is a sensible man….”

Maja, tiring rapidly now, forced herself to listen as the Syndic explained how important it was to give General Pashgahr something worthwhile to take home, instead of an outright defeat of the invasion. Otherwise General Olbog, who still had plenty of allies there, would be able to present himself as the hero who had been betrayed by weak-kneed underlings. Maja decided what to say as she waited for her to finish.

“I don’t think we can alter the document at this stage, Syndic,” she said.

“No, of course not. I think the most I can ask for is this. At present the Empire’s borders are closed to all outsiders. If you were now to invite a delegation of politicians and businesspeople, completely unmilitary in nature, to visit the country and explore the possibilities for mutually beneficial trade, this would be attractive to the business community, and help to get them on our side. I would hope to be one of the delegates, and that we would then be able to renew our acquaintance.”

“For myself I should welcome that, but I shall need to talk to my colleagues.”

“Of course. And there is a similar matter I’d like you to put to them. The Ice-dragon, or dragons—I understand there are two.”

“I know little more than you do about them. You will have to talk—”

“To Mr. Ortahlson. Eventually. But this is urgent, and I have you alone, so I’m asking you to talk to him. This may surprise you, but I want you to persuade him not to insist too strongly on the physical reality of the creatures.”

Maja’s turn not to blink. She tried to gather her wits, but the Syndic raised a hand to stop her before she could speak.

“I know my countrymen. I know the military mind, as perhaps you do not. Confronted with an overwhelming physical threat such as a real Ice-dragon would present—a threat that is not confined, as your magical powers are, within the borders of the Empire, but is potentially global in its effect—they will be determined either to take possession of it and control it, or to destroy it. They would be able to carry many of my countrymen with them in this.”

“That…That would be very foolish. An absolute disaster.”

“Exactly. But the Ice-dragon is not needed to justify our withdrawal. The stranding of the whole fleet on an island of ice magically appearing in a warm sea is more than enough, and that was manifestly not a hallucination. Put simply, my argument against the war party will be that we cannot attack the Empire because of its magical defenses. Therefore we must make peace with it.

“I must repeat that the matter is urgent. Mr. Ortahlson may already be responding to questions about the Ice-dragon. I’m not asking him suddenly to deny the creature’s existence. Only to leave room for doubt.”

“Very well. Perhaps your translator will be kind enough to lend me an arm.”

She found Ribek, Saranja and Striclan at a table in the refreshment pavilion. The men rose smiling as she approached. Ribek offered her a chair and they all sat.

“We weren’t talking about anything serious,” he said. “Just chitchat. Staving off the inquisitors.”

He nodded toward a group of the Pirate delegates hovering nearby, translator at the ready, waiting to pounce. How much could they hear?

“This is serious,” Maja said clearly. “I have word from Talagh….”

She lowered her voice.

“I’ve been talking to Syndic Blrundahlrgh,” she said, and told them about it.

“Well, Striclan?” said Ribek, when she’d finished.

“They’re both very good points. In fact I’d been thinking about them myself.”

“We haven’t got the authority to commit the Empire to anything.”

“We’ll have to talk to Chanad,” said Saranja.

“At least I can go and start doing something about the Ice-dragon,” said Ribek. “Odd that that’s the only thing about yesterday’s performance that wasn’t hocus-pocus, and now you’re asking me to say that it was.”

He rose and moved away, as if just easing his limbs. The inquisitors pounced. Maja watched him as he answered their questions. His body language was easy, nonchalant, almost amused. He was actually enjoying himself, she realized. Saranja was right. Impossible man!

“You know,” said Saranja, “we’re going to have to visit Lady Kzuva on the way home, and tell her.”

“Oh, can we? Please!” said Maja.

That was the last vivid moment. Darkness swallowed her. The magical turmoil of becoming a mugal had already been almost too much for her, without the strain of trying to think and act and speak like Lady Kzuva. Yesterday she’d been able to let Lady Kzuva do it herself, while Maja had watched what happened from inside her, almost like a bystander.

She drifted up into consciousness. Where…? What…? She seemed to be lying on something soft, like a pile of cushions. Mutters from around and above her, anxious, vaguely impatient. Her whole body was full of aches and pains, but why didn’t they really hurt any more?

“I think she’s coming round. Lady Kzuva…”

Striclan. Oh yes, of course. The mugal. The conference. The refreshment tent.

“I’m all right,” she whispered. “Help me up. I must set my seal…. Where’s my cane?”

“Easy, easy…” Striclan again. “Everything’s ready. There’s no hurry.”

They must have carried her into the conference tent. She could remember the sharp smell of the burning wax, watching the purple drops dribble onto the parchment, somebody holding her quivering hand steady and helping it press the seal ring firmly down into the glistening pool. Then darkness again.

She had woken in the evening—the next evening, Saranja told her later—in her own body, lying in a warm and comfortable bed. Her hand was clutching something under the pillow. She pulled it out, forced her eyes open and looked at it blearily. It was the brooch with the single tree.