Forest Mage. Робин Хобб
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don’t think so,’ I replied. I took a deep steadying breath and became aware of a voice lecturing. It was coming closer. I was dizzy and I did not want to turn my head, but I did. The guide advanced slowly up the steps. He had donned a straw hat that gave him a comical dignity. Behind him came a gaggle of sightseers, the hardy ones who had made the climb. One woman held her parasol overhead. Two others fanned themselves against the day’s warmth. There were only two men in the party, and they seemed to be escorting the young ladies rather than here by their own inclination. A dozen boys and girls traipsed along behind the adults. The girls were trying to imitate the ladies but the lads were exhibiting the universal signs of bored boys, nudging one another, scuffling to be first onto the platform, and parodying the guide’s posture and remarks behind his back.
‘I beg of you all to be most careful and to stay well away from the edge. The wall is not sound. And, to answer your question, miss, the spire has four hundred and thirty-two steps. Now, please lift your eyes to the Spindle itself. Here you will experience the clearest view of it. You can now see that the illusion of motion is created by the use of the striated rock. At this distance, of course, the illusion ceases and one can see that the Spindle is fixed in place.’
Without standing up, I turned my eyes to the Spindle again. ‘It spins,’ I said quietly, and heard, aghast, the distance in my own voice. ‘For me, it spins.’ Despite my effort to clear my voice, I sounded like Epiny, when she spoke through her medium’s trance. That other self inside me struggled for ascendance. I suppressed him with difficulty.
‘You are not well, sir.’ The plainswoman stated this with emphasis. I sensed that she spoke to inform the others of my situation. ‘You should leave here.’
I stared at her. I had expected her to urge me to rest or offer me water. Instead, her grey gaze was narrow with distrust. I closed my eyes for a moment.
‘I don’t know if I can,’ I said. I had been about to do something, something of vast importance. I could not get my bearings. My pulse beat in my ears. I staggered to my feet and then blinked at the scene around me. Only a moment had seemed to pass for me, but the tourists were not as I had last glimpsed them. The guide had concluded his lecture and was pointing out over the valley, answering questions for an earnest young man. The other sightseers likewise stood beside him looking out across the wide vista. Two of the women had opened sketchbooks. The parasol woman was working from an easel her male companion had carried for her, her watercolour already sketched and half-painted. He stood behind her shoulder, admiring her skill. An older woman had gathered the girls round her and was repeating the key points of their tour. One dutiful boy held a sheet of paper against a block of stone as a stout older woman made a charcoal rubbing of the bas-relief etched there. The guide turned away from his party and started towards me.
The plainswoman had remained beside me. ‘What’s happening to me?’ I asked her. She knit her brows and shrugged at me. She stood by me, almost as if I were in her custody.
The guide approached me with a sanctimonious smile. ‘Well? And have you satisfied your curiosity, sir? I am sure you must be very impressed with the winds that managed to sculpt these wondrous carvings.’
His sarcasm was justified. Possibly that was why it angered me. ‘I’m leaving,’ I announced. I heaved myself to my feet. I was turning away when I felt a sudden wave of queasiness. The earth seemed to rock under my feet. ‘Is it an earthquake?’ I asked frantically, although I suspected that the unrest was within my own body. I lifted my hands to my temples and stared bleakly at the guide and the plainswoman. They regarded me with alarm.
A terrible whine like an ungreased axle shrieked through my ears. I turned my head in search of the source of it. To my horror, three of the boys had gathered at the centre of the platform. Two acted as support to hold a third aloft. Thus lifted, the middle boy could reach the stone of the Spindle. He had taken out a sheath knife and set the blade to the stone. As I watched, he tried to scratch a line into the ancient monument. The self that the Tree Woman had tutored stabbed me with fear. There was danger, vast danger, in suddenly loosing that magic.
‘Stop!’ I shouted the warning. Against all common sense, I expected to see the young fool snatched up and away by the momentum of the Spindle. ‘Don’t do that! Stop that immediately!’ The iron was tearing the magic free of the Spindle in wild, flapping sheets. It could go anywhere, do anything. I was deafened and dizzied by its buffeting but the others apparently felt nothing.
The boy stopped, glared at me and said scornfully, ‘You’re not my father. Mind your own business.’
The moment he had lifted his knife from the stone, the screeching had stopped. Now as he deliberately set his blade to the monument again, it began again. As he bore down on the iron blade, the sound soared in volume and pitch. I clapped my hands over my ears against the harsh shriek. A ghostly smoke rose from the point at which blade met stone. He seemed oblivious to all of it.
‘Stop!’ I roared at him. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, you idiot!’
Now every member of the touring party had turned to stare at me. For myself, I did not know how they could be immune to the shrieking of the Spindle as the cold iron bore into it. Wave after wave of vertigo washed through me. The humming of the Spindle, a constant that had been so uniform I had scarcely been aware of it, now warbled as the blade’s contact slowed its turning. ‘Make him stop!’ I shouted at them. ‘Can’t you see what he’s doing? Can’t you sense what he’s destroying?’ My hidden self warned me of magic unravelling around me. I felt the tattered threads of it score my skin as it dispersed into the empty air. It felt like tiny swift cuts with a razor-sharp knife. It threatened me; it threatened to strip from me all the magic I had so painstakingly stored away.
‘Stop him, or I shall!’ I made the threat, but the wavering of the magic unbalanced me. It wasn’t just the air; it was the reality around me that seemed uneven and fickle. I didn’t think I had the strength to swat a fly. Nonetheless, I moved to stop the boy.
I must have looked a madman as I lurched and staggered towards the young fool who was whetting his blade on ancient magic. The women had lifted their hands, covering their mouths in horror. The two boys supporting the vandal staggered back, one dropping the leg he had held. One young man stepped forward as if he would protect the boy from me. Only one matron, the one making the rubbing, added her voice to my protest. ‘Stop that, you young hooligan! I brought you here to teach you about primitive culture, not to have you ruin it! Stop defacing these ancient works! Your father will hear of this!’ She dropped her charcoal and advanced on the lad. Behind her, her assistant rolled his eyes wearily.
With a surly snarl, the boy flung the knife down so hard it bounced. ‘I wasn’t doing anything! Just making my initials to show I’d been here, that was all! What a fuss about a stupid striped rock! What’s it going to do, make it fall down?’ He turned to glare at me. ‘Are you happy, fat man? You’ve got your way! I never even asked to come on this stupid outing to look at a stupid rock!’
‘Jard? Where are your manners?’ the matron snapped. ‘Regardless of the man’s mental condition, he is your elder. You should speak to him with respect. And I have warned you before about your endless carving on things. It’s disrespectful. If you cannot behave any better than that, and if Ret and Breg have nothing better to do than assist you in being a fool, then I think it is high time we all left! Boys and girls. Gather your things and follow me. This has not been the outing that I had expected it to be. Perhaps all of you prefer to sit in the classroom and study from a book rather than see the real world. I shall remember that the next time I think of taking you out.’
There was a chorus of whines and dismayed denial from her students, but she was adamant. The guide shot me a vicious look. Plainly I had ruined his trade for the day. The other tourists were folding sketchbooks and taking down the easel. I caught sideways, uneasy looks from them. They seemed to think I was mad, and the guide apparently shared their opinion. I did not care. The boy stooped to snatch up his knife, and then made a rude hand gesture at me before he followed the others to the top of the winding stair. As before the guide went with them, offering them many warnings about going carefully and staying close