The Forest Edge
- The group heads home as fast as they can, arriving soon at Salata's house (to Sal's confusion, since she expected a really old Meena) (17.1). They meet Gahan, her husband who deserted the army after the post-Faheel Imperial chaos messed up the military structure (17.2). He's going to take them as far north (toward the Valley) as he can. Salata says that a new magician has gotten to Ellion's house already, so Lananeth is safe (17.3)—Meena muses that everything seems to happen at the right time, that nothing is coincidental in this journey (17.6). She's not sure why things happen the way they do, but they're falling into some sort of pattern.
- Salata asks to see Axtrig and the other spoons again (17.7). Meena isn't happy about this—possibly because the memory of them is stuck in her old-person "memory-room," and possibly because Axtrig doesn't have the same magical powers anymore (17.8). Salata's youngest daughter begs though, so Meena agrees (17.8).
- Meena can see just a little bit of a pattern when she rubs oil into Axtrig, but the future isn't nearly as clear as before (17.13). It looks like somebody's coming… and there are people waiting for him. Tilja realizes that she's talking about the Ropemaker, and that she and her friends are still counting on the gawky guy to help them out (17.14). At least Moonfist hasn't found him yet, she thinks (17.15). Til's friends look at her expectantly, eager to learn more about who they're waiting for, but no go—she can't say anything yet (17.16-17).
- Early the next morning the group heads off with Gahan in the lead (17.19). The roads are clear, at least, thanks to the Emperor having cleared them a few years back (17.20) when he wanted to recapture the Valley. On the second afternoon, they can see "the snowy peaks of the northern mountains," and Tilja feels a strong tug toward Woodbourne (17.21). Meena and Tilja decide to go into the forest to chat with the cedars, but Tilja is excited for the journey to almost be over so she can finally spill the beans about Asarta/Faheel's ring (17.26-27).
- The group tries to figure out where they're going to crash for the night (17.31). Meena notices a strange little circular hut (with some magical slab in it) where some funky business might've been going on a while back (17.36). Til and Meena go into the forest while the boys do their kick-fighting, but when they reach the woods, the old road's entrance into the forest is wide open because the Emperor's engineers had tried to hack a road through the woods (17.37). Meena's disappointed—there aren't enough trees to talk to that are old enough to know what's going on (17.38). She notices that the trunks of many nearby huge trees have been snapped, but the damage stops suddenly… it's got to be magic (17.39-40).
- Meena asks Til to back off while she searches for the forest's lake (the one where the unicorns hang out) in her mind (17.44). Tilja didn't used to have an effect on Meena, but Tilja's changed; she's found her magical powers (17.47). Meena finally finds one cedar she can talk to, but the tree tells her that the forest's magic is dying (17.49-50).
- When the girls head back to camp, they realize that the forest sickness is affecting the boys already (17.52)—their sickness is magnified by the unicorns in the forest being really scared (17.53). Meena says that the unicorns' fear fills the forest with the sickness, and if the magic completely leaves the forest, the unicorns are gonna high-tail it out of there—and then anyone can come through the forest to take over the Valley (17.55). Meena prods Tilja to tell them how to fix it, and Til finally agrees that she needs to call the Ropemaker (17.61).
- Tilja settles in the circular hut near the slab (17.69). She's going to do this fast—ten seconds. She rolls up her sleeve and takes out the roc feathers and the Ropemaker's hair from where they are lashed to her arm (17.71). Putting the feathers in her blouse and the hair on the slab, Tilja opens the box and puts the ring next to the hair; she counts to three, and the hair tie bursts into flame. The fire threatens the forest, but it's made magic and can't hurt Til; when she reaches out to the box, the fire goes out. The hair tie's gone and she puts the ring away (17.72).
- Calico was freaked out by the fire and got herself tangled up in her hobble, so Tilja helps her out (17.73). Then Til goes to wait for whomever's coming—Ropey, or Moonfist, or whomever. Nobody comes until Meena, Alnor, and Tahl head over the hill; Tilja says that someone should come to help, but she doesn't know if they'll show (17.77). The group roasts chestnuts for food, but no one talks about what Tilja did—it's totally the elephant in the room (17.80). Tilja worries that the Ropemaker won't come, that Moonfist destroyed him instead Moonfist himself will come… she's really skittish.
- Finally she sees something, "a little mouselike creature" (17.81). Meena puts out a chestnut for it, and Tilja notices that "there was something odd about its movement, a kind of gawky deftness" like the Ropemaker. The mouse-thing runs away again (17.84). Tilja thinks no one noticed the mouse-thing, so why is everyone really stiff (17.85)? Oh—because Moonfist is on the other side of the fire (17.86). He is about her dad's age, and carrying a staff with a leather bag on top of it. Nothing about him looks so scary by itself, but "Fear seemed to beam out of him," paralyzing everyone around him—except Tilja.
- Moonfist glances at Alnor, causing the guy to walk toward him stiffly (17.87). Moonfist touches Alnor's shoulder, shrinking Alnor down to a mannikin a few inches tall. Moony puts Alnor in the leather bag on top of his staff, and then does the same thing to Meena. When he sees Tahl, Moony says, '"Too clever,'" taps Tahl on the shoulder, and plops the boy in the bag (17.88-89). Calmly he tells Tilja that she has his ring (17.90). She insists it doesn't belong to him, but he says that Faheel should never have had it (17.92). After Varti's death, Moonfist now controls all the power in the Empire, he boasts, but he won't destroy Tilja because she could be useful to him; if she hands over the ring, he'll let her and her friends go unscathed (17.94). She refuses (17.95).
- Moonfist looks at the leather bag, which turns into "a transparent globe, lit from within" (17.97). The mannikins wake up, terrified, and Moonfist stares at the fire, causing a flame to shoot up. He swings the globe toward the flame, threatening to burn Tilja's friends if she doesn't give up the ring. She takes out the ring box and the actual magical piece itself, holding it out to him in both hands (17.98). At the last possible second, Tilja takes away her left hand and tosses the ring into the darkness—toward the Ropemaker/mouse-thing—while shouting "Ramdatta!" and holding onto Moonfist's finger (17.99). Something moves… and then everything goes dark (17.100).
- Tilja seeks out the lake in her mind (17.101). Moonfist is with her at the lake—she can't let go of him, even if she wanted to. If he's not near the fire (and her friends), then that buys the Ropemaker some time to find the ring. Moonfist stretches out an arm and calls "four heavy syllables" that cause avalanches and the lake to drain (17.103).
- Til feels Moonfist absorbing everything that makes Tilja herself—her hopes, her dreams—and she refuses to succumb to it (17.104-105). She grabs on to the memory of Faheel's island, when his friends took back their magic, as the moment "she had discovered who and what she was, the innermost Tilja, her true self" (17.106). She holds onto that defining moment, and everything changes—she has defeated Moonfist (17.108). You go, girl. The water stops draining out of the lake, and Tilja finds herself back by the hut.
- The Ropemaker grabs her shoulders and helps her sit down. The two of them collaborated to defeat Moonfist, leaving just Moony's body behind (17.110)—but Moonfist's staff is in the fire, and the bag with Meena, Tahl, and Alnor is burnt to a crisp (17.112).
- Tilja starts crying hysterically, but the Ropemaker tells her to stay put (17.113). She's grief-stricken—her friends and family, the ones she loved more than almost anything, are gone. She feels the world change suddenly; the hut is floating in grayness, and five shadows appear (17.114). One shadow taps others and shrinks them.
- Tilja realizes she's looking back into the past at Moonfist and their subsequent confrontation—and as the time she's watching catches up to the current moment, the figures become clearer (17.115). When she sees herself cry "Ramdatta!" again, Tilja cries out internallyto the Ropemaker to stop Moonfist's staff from falling into the fire (17.116-117). The Ropemaker bursts out when Tilja calls his name and saves the staff from the fire (17.117)—he also puts on Faheel's ring. Suddenly he doesn't look gawky anymore; he's now "commanding, magnificent" instead (17.119).
- He magically beats up Moonfist, then turns to Tilja-in-the-past (17.120). In order to line up the revised past and the present, Tilja realizes what she has to do. She assumes the same crumpled-up position as the girl, and, at exactly the right second, the Ropemaker lowers her past self into her present self (17.121).
- She gets up and looks at the staff, which isn't burnt up (17.122). Tilja gives the Ropemaker the ring box; he removes the ring and puts it away (17.123), shrinking back to the weird figure he usually makes (17.124). Ropey's too tired to rescue the others again (17.126), so Tilja picks up the globe and touches the mannikins, which makes them full-size again (17.126-127).