The Walls of the City
- Finally everyone arrives in Talagh. Tahl makes friends with a boy his own age named Cinoquo, who is from a family of nomadic cattle herders (8.3).
- Everybody's trudging along the Grand Northwest Road, which at this point is pretty wide—regular traffic goes on the outer edges, while the important folks run faster through the middle (8.5).
- When Tilja finally spots the city, it looks like "a smudge in the clear spring air [...] a smudge on the patient earth from centuries of such lives [...]" (8.8). It's been there for so long, and like the people she saw in the fields, the folks there have been doing the same stuff there forever.
- The group overnights right outside the city, from which they can see the twenty towers of the Watchers (8.9).
- The next morning, as they approach Talagh the gates loom above them ominously. They're able to beat some of the lines because Alnor is wearing the uniform of a fourteenth grader, and they pay the appropriate bribes to get in (8.12).
- Suddenly Tilja's left arm goes numb; when she tries to move it, it doesn't seem like she's the one doing the moving (8.13). Some sort of power spreads through her, but Tilja's afraid it will take over; she balances it out by imagining herself as she knows her to be—Tilja Urlasdaughter of Woodbourne (8.14-15). She realizes that the magical wards on the city were trying to stop her bringing Axtrig in, but Tilja was able to resist them with her own mysterious defenses (8.16).
- Tilja observes the size and chaos of Talagh (8.22).
- They arrive at the Lord Kzuva's household, where Ellion welcomes Alnor and Meena as Qualif and Qualifa, and Tilja and Tahl as their grandchildren (8.31). Once they're alone, Ellion asks them who they really are, and Alnor tells them (8.38). But on their way into Talagh, the Valley folks gave their names (as Qualif and Qualifa) at the gate, so now those two people are officially registered as being alive (and thereby avoiding the problem of the original Qualif and Qualifa dying without the Emperor's permission) (8.48). Now they have to have their names recorded when they leave, too.
- The permit that Alnor, Meena, Tahl, and Tilja get to stay in Talagh will last them five days (8.52). In that time, they have to find Faheel and get him to help them.
- Later that night Ellion tells Tilja and Meena how to get to the city walls in the dark (8.64). Meena will take Axtrig and say Faheel's name, which will cause the spoon to point in the direction the group can find him in; this should pass unnoticed by the Watchers (8.64). Even though they're scared, the girls go up top the city walls and are about to lay out Axtrig when Tilja spots a cat (8.82). It's an odd-looking creature (8.85), "neither starved for cared for," but Tilja still takes out Axtrig and puts it down.
- When Meena says Faheel's name, chaos ensues—"the world changed" (8.88). Lights flash, the cat runs away, and Meena passes out. Nothing happens to Tilja, though—she picks up the spoon and drags Meena off, away from any possible Watchers (8.90).
- It turns out Axtrig is pointing south, away from Talagh (8.95).
- Tilja doesn't have much time to contemplate this puzzle though, because two figures appear. The woman looks human, but it's hard to tell because she's wrapped up in a large cloak, and the other figure is a giant dog that's twice as big as any canine Tilja's seen before (8.96).
- The cat comes out of the shadows and sits with Tilja (8.97). As the woman—whose face is as blank as a statue's—starts to practice magic on a spot the dog points out to her, Tilja's chest tingles where Axtrig lies against her body (8.99-100). Tilja feels numbness again once she grasps the spoon in her hand.
- Tilja realizes she stopped the magic in the act: "The magic, instead of reaching out to answer the woman's summons, had flowed into Tilja's arm and away" (8.100).
- The female magician tries to figure out what went wrong (8.101). A shirtless man with a fancy whip approaches her and they chat (8.102-103). The man holds up his whip—he's another magician looking for Axtrig, but Tilja stops him too (8.105).
- Something appears to the south of Talagh—and the thing howls and fights the man and woman (8.106). A giant hand "the color of moonlight" reaches up and grasps at the magic in the air, pulling it together, and the fist absorbs the power (8.107).
- The towers around Tilja begin to fall away, and Meena wakes up. Meena and Tilja flee back to the panicked city (8.126).
- Back in the Lord Kzuva's house, Meena, Tahl, Tilja, Alnor, and Ellion settle in together (8.127). The Lord Kzuva's magician, Zara, has lent them her warded magical room; Zara is also Lananeth's cousin (8.128).
- Meena doesn't remember what happened, but Tilja does, and she tells them at that Axtrig was pointing south (8.133).
- Zara tells her that very powerful magicians, two of the Watchers (all of whom compete for power) named Silena and Dorn, are searching for the magical spoon. There were two other magicians—who Zara doesn't know—out there too (8.167).
- Somehow Tilja has managed to avoid them, "in pure ignorance" of her powers (8.147). She's got big magic—but doesn't even know it, really. Everyone else was thrown to the ground when that explosion happened.
- Zara says that the two magicians fighting Dorn and Silena were super powerful (8.162). The Valley group should leave Talagh to go south and find Faheel, she says, and also to avoid the Watchers (8.164).
- They'll be safe in the meantime—the mysterious magician who attacked the walls and precipitated a battle with Silena and Dorn will be assumed to have the powers the Watchers wanted—but they should go, just in case.
- Besides, the group has to go south so Qualif and Qualifa can be recorded as leaving the city—on their way south to die (8.165). Ellion can make up their official death-certificates from there to take home with him.