The Grand Trunk Road
- The Valley foursome heads south.
- On the fifth day on this journey, Meena decides to check that Faheel is still in the direction they're heading (9.5). She takes out one of Axtrig's non-magical spoon siblings and says Faheel's name, and Tilja's body is flooded with numbness, but Meena feels nothing (9.8); moreover, the spoon didn't move.
- Tilja claims that Axtrig wanted to answer Meena, but the spoon couldn't because Tilja was touching Axtrig, dampening her magic (9.10).
- When Meena calls on Faheel and uses Axtrig, the ants crawling on the spoon freeze into stillness and the world doesn't move—but the spoon twitches; when Tilja touches Axtrig, the world around resumes its activity (9.16).
- Once again Meena is affected by Faheel's name mixed up with Axtrig, but Tilja doesn't seem to be (9.18).
- The group heads on to Goloroth, the City of the Dead, and no one bothers them (9.22). Once they get to Goloroth, officials will fill out death certificates for Alnor and Meena (as Qualif and Qualifa) for Tahl and Tilja to take home as proof that their grandparents ended up in Goloroth (9.22).
- The group expects, however, that they won't make it that far, hoping that Axtrig will point them in another direction before they get to Goloroth.
- They notice that there are a lot of people heading south to Goloroth, but only the young return (9.23). Some people going to die are sad, but most are happy (9.26). Those that died on the way, though, were carted off to Goloroth (9.28).
- Every day Meena and Tilja ask Axtrig where Faheel is, and she (the spoon) always points south (9.29); Tilja's starting to like the power she has over Axtrig (9.33).
- One night at a way station, Tilja wakes up suddenly; no one near her is breathing as they normally would (9.35-36).
- Something has changed in their camp—there's a moving light and something dark appears, as well (9.39). The light is "systematically searching the area for something" (9.40)—and that something is Axtrig; Tilja's arm again goes numb.
- It's Silena and her giant dog servant, but the beast can't seem to find Axtrig (9.41). It does get really close though, so Tilja tries to shove it away (9.43)—and when she does, "everything changed" (9.43). Her body fills with numbness, but she knows what to do, how to handle her magic and beat Silena. When she sits up, the animal is only a small dog (9.44)—she's not vulnerable to Silena's beast (9.44). Silena asks Tilja to give up Axtrig, but she says no then walks toward her to distract Silena from her friends (9.47).
- Silena admits that she has two options: be destroyed by Tilja or destroy Tilja (9.52). She tries to do the latter, and Tilja feels like she's being torn apart, but combats Silena by finding an inner stillness that she patterns after Woodbourne (9.53).
- Suddenly a donkey, like the one at Woodbourne, brays, surprising Silena, who thought she had put a spell over everyone there, and throwing her off balance (9.54). Silena can't get to Tilja, who defeats her. When she does, the magician's face is revealed to be old and ordinary (9.56).
- Silena is destroyed and can't be a Watcher anymore, so Tilja lets her go (9.59). Silena tells Tilja that she was the Watcher searching along the Great Trunk Road and she was hunting for Axtrig (9.62), but other Watchers might be after Tilja soon.
- Once Silena leaves, everybody else wakes up from the spell she put them under (9.71).
- Tilja credits the donkey for upsetting Silena's magic (9.76)—she knows she was the one to defeat Silena, but doesn't know how she did what she did (or even what that action was) (9.79).
- At the same time, she's excited that she's developed her own powers by herself (9.80).
- Tilja remains happy until she sleeps at night and wakes up with nightmares (9.81).
- As they go on in their journey, Tilja realizes that her own magic is affecting Axtrig—burying the spoon's own powers deeper into the wood of the magical utensil (9.86).
- Eventually the group reaches Ramram—the last city with living people in it (9.89)—and there's a market fair. Only a few young people are there—it's mostly people going south to die (9.90). Axtrig's still pointing south, so they think that Faheel must be in that direction, in Goloroth (9.95).
- At night the travelers sing songs of grief and farewell, as the elders will go to Goloroth and never return (9.100).