Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (37 page)

place by treachery. They slaughtered most of the blendings in their sleep and
burned the rest alive. The entire line of Charon blendings was eliminated. No
wonder - ' Again he stopped.
'What is it, Shand?'
'I begin to understand why Rulke was so obsessed with survival. The Aachim
tried to wipe out all his kind. After that he developed the Gift of Rulke, to
protect himself against them.'
'It seems to me,' said Maigraith after a long pause, 'that the Great Betrayer
has been as much betrayed against.'
"That may be so,' said Shand. 'I can see both sides. Let's get the campfire
going.'
They were back on the steps, washing down their dinner with bowls of yellow
mil that reeked of cloves. 'We dwelt together here for years, your mother and

I. These lands were uninhabited then as they are now. Aeolior used to play all
around this area. See that ancient hulme tree, with the spreading branches?
She loved to climb in it, and swing on the swing I made her. Even then it was
an old tree.'
Shand got up abruptly, not bothering to wipe his eyes, and led her to a place
to one side of a rocky ledge. After measuring the spaces by eye, he took a
spade from his pack, cut down a sapling to make a handle and began to dig. The
ground was hard but he worked steadily, and though several times he was
obliged to rest he would not allow her to take a turn. 'It was my task to give
it,' he said.
When the hole was nearly waist-deep the spade struck something hard. Shand
carved the dirt and corrosion away to reveal a golden streak of metal - a
brass box. It was not locked. The hinges were corroded yet it opened easily
when he levered with a point of the spade. He pulled out a heavy bag whose
oiled cloth was still good. When he opened the
mouth of the bag, metal gleamed in the nebula's light. A thick chain, a
bracelet and a torc, all of red gold. Shand presented Aeolior's birthright to
her daughter - sadly, ceremoniously.
'Enough for a flute, I think. If that is how you choose.' Maigraith's hands
shook as she accepted the birthright. The jewelry matched piece for piece that
which Faelamor had taken from Havissard. This gold was worn silky smooth,
however, while the other had been rough, as if it had never been worn. She put
the gold carefully back in the pouch and returned to the step, wondering,
while Shand went down to a creek for water.
Two sets of golden jewelry, almost identical. One Yalkara had brought from
Aachan long, long ago. Where had the other come from? How was she to read this
situation? For Yalkara to have taken such trouble, that gold must have held a
special promise. Or a special threat!
They headed back to Thurkad the way they had come. Only once, when they were
sailing back up the lake, did Shand raise the matter of the gold.
'I simply don't know what to do,' she said. 'To remake the flute is such a
huge decision. I don't know if Yalkara would have wanted that or not. I just
don't understand her design.'
'Why don't you go back to the Mirror then? But when you do, know that she
would not have wanted to make your decisions for you. She understood that the
past cannot shackle the future.'
'I'll wait for some more tangible sign,' said Maigraith, and said no more
about it. She trailed her hand in the water. 'Tell me about this place.'
They were now halfway back to the northern end of Warde Yallock, where they
would return the hired boat. 'As it happens, we're quite close to one of the
most famous places in all the Histories,' said Shand. 'Huling's Tower!'
'That's where the golden flute was destroyed and the Forbidding formed.'
'And where that poor crippled girl was murdered, who aroused Llian's curiosity
about the whole business. I wonder where we'd be if that hadn't happened?'
She turned to face the shore. It was partly shrouded in mist, though not
enough to conceal rusty cliffs rising vertically out of the water. It did not
look a pleasant spot. 'I'd like to go there, if it's possible.' Maigraith was

thinking that if it was her task to unmake the Forbidding and restore the
balance between the worlds, she'd better see the place where it all began.
They continued for half an hour and more. The wind had come up and the lake
was growing choppy. It was now bitterly cold on the water. Maigraith was glad
when Shand, peering through the haze, grunted 'There it is!' and turned the
boat toward the shore.
'See it?' He pointed to the top of the rather ominous-looking cliff in front
of them.
All Maigraith could see was a ragged mound the same colour as the rock.
However, as they sailed toward the cliff a gap opened up, a cleft-shaped inlet
that ran inland for a few dozen boat lengths.
The keel scraped on rock at the end of the cove. Maigraith stepped over the
bow, pulled the boat up and tied the rope to a wiry bush growing out of a
crack. She looked around, wondering how they were going to get up, for the
untamed cliffs surrounded them.
'There are steps cut in the rock,' said Shand. 'It's a bit of a scramble.'
'They must have been cut a long while ago,' she panted, following him up a
zig-zagging path that was barely distinguishable from the rest of the cliff.
The rock was like coarse sandpaper, coloured pink or rusty orange, and the
steps were crumbling to sand.
'More than three thousand years!' he grunted.
After a number of scares due to the treads crumbling underfoot they reached a
plateau as flat as a table, covered in heath that tossed in the wind. In the
distance a wall of forest curved around the place from cliff top to cliff top.
Below, waves crashed sullenly at the rocks.
'That's Huling's Tower,' said Shand. 'All that remains of it.'
Ahead a little way, on the edge of the cliff, was a mess of crumbling stone
surrounded by bare land where nothing grew but lichen. Between ripples of
blown sand the ground was glassy smooth.
A patch of grey-leaved bushes grew at the top of the path, sparsely covered in
black berries. Maigraith reached out to pick one. Shand caught her hand.
'Are they not edible?' she asked.
'The bush is called Assassin's Spurge,' said Shand. 'With good reason.'
'After the death of Shuthdar the tower was taken apart, stone by stone, in the
search for the golden flute. It wasn't found, of course, and afterwards the
tyrant who held sway over this province (Daguar the Third, her name was)
ordered that the tower be rebuilt as a perpetual monument, and a warning not
to meddle with the unknown. It was put back together in exactly the state of
ruin it had been in after the flute was destroyed.'
They went in through an arch which was still complete, though much of the wall
further on had collapsed. Ahead was a stone stair, jumbled with broken blocks
of rusty sandstone. The downstairs rooms were in ruins. Maigraith scrambled up
the stair. This stone was not so crumbly, the grains being fused together like
sugar, while some surfaces had been melted to glass.
At the top she came out onto a flat roof with a high wall around it, though
much of the wall was broken and in one place fallen stone lay in a curving
heap high enough to hide behind. A wide crack ran across the roof from one
side to the other, where the tower had been split open. The
stone up here was also fused and glassy, except for a perfect circle on one
side which was not marked at all.
Maigraith could feel worms creeping through her grave. The place was steeped
in pain and horror.
Shand had clambered up on top of a piece of surviving wall. With one foot he
indicated the crumbled stone in front of him. 'This is the very place where
Shuthdar was standing when he destroyed the flute.' His foot slipped. Shand
threw out his arms for balance.
'Careful!' she cried out.
'Come on up. There's a wonderful view from here.'
She scrambled up beside him, as much to make sure he did not fall off as to
see the view. It was magnificent, though bleak - the grey, churning lake, the

dark, wet rocks below, the gloomy forest hanging back from the tower.
Shand pointed straight down. That's where Shuthdar fell, and where he died.'
Maigraith imagined herself plunging at the rocks, and turned away. 'I don't
like this place.'
'Nor I, but I can't stop coming back to see it. What happened here has shaped
the Histories for the past three thousand years.'
'And is still shaping them,' said Maigraith, climbing down. 'Will it ever end?
I'd like to finish it.'
'Maybe you will. Who knows?'
Maigraith was halfway across to the stair when abruptly she screamed and leapt
backwards as if something had sunk fangs into her foot.
'What's the matter?' cried Shand.
Maigraith's hands were shaking so hard that she could not hold them still. She
was deathly pale. 'It felt as if I'd trod on something horrible; evil.' The
glassy stone underfoot glittered with tiny golden specks.
'Shuthdar was evil, no doubt of that.' He helped her to a block of stone and
sat her down. 'Try this!' Shand held out his flask.
She gulped the fiery liquor down like water, then gave him a weak smile. 'It
was an awful, prickling sensation. All my nerves feel on fire.'
Shand went to the place where she had been standing. 'I can't feel anything,
but the tower is steeped in the terrible deeds done in this place. You must be
tuned into it, while I am not.'
Maigraith clutched the gold around her throat and felt better. 'Space and time
are very thin here,' she murmured. 'I can feel the Wall of the Forbidding all
around, as if it's radiating out in every direction. And something else. It's
like a gate, waiting to be opened into the void.' She felt panicky. There were
forces here that she could never match. She understood nothing.
'We won't be going that road!' said Shand, helping her to her feet. 'Have you
seen enough?'
'To last me all my days.'
Maigraith went back down the cliff very slowly and carefully, though her mind
did not register a single crumbling step. What she'd felt up there had
terrified her. The whole world was in peril if the balance was not restored.
Suddenly Maigraith's purpose in life seemed much more urgent, though still she
had no idea how to begin it.
They returned to Thurkad, having been away for three weeks and more, to learn
about the hasty attack on Elludore and the dismal result. Karan was sunk deep
into a depression that no one could raise her from. Mendark was beside himself
with his own folly, he who in the past had done nothing without planning it in
the minutest detail and allowing for everything that could possibly go wrong.
Yggur, withdrawn and bitter against Karan and Mendark, had been brought so low
that it seemed impossible he would ever rise again. The morale of his armies
had been shockingly undermined. They would be easy prey for the subversion of
the Ghashad this time.
Only one good thing had come out of the whole miserable affair. Jevi had lived
in terror the whole time Tallia had been away, and the news of the disaster
had broken one of the barriers inside him. Tallia and Jevi were friends again.
For all her fears, Maigraith was pleased that they had failed to get
Faelamor's gold. They would be corrupted by it just as she had been. But it
did not solve her problem.
Later there was much talk, especially from Mendark, about 'pooling their
resources' and 'pulling together', but all Maigraith could see was that she
had the Mirror and he wanted it. She felt resentful. She had not freed herself
from one tyrant only to accept the yoke of another. She said nothing about
finding the birthright, and kept the gold well hidden.
The Assassin
Two nights later a shadowy figure slipped into the citadel and made her way
down to the office where Llian worked. Ellami knew where it was, for she had
already spied it out. The door was locked but it was no special lock and she
had it open in a minute.

She closed the door behind her, conjured ghost light from her fingers and
searched the room for Yalkara's book. She found it almost immediately - it was
sitting on a shelf in full view. It was just as Faelamor had described it, the
strange, half-familiar, hateful glyphs almost fighting themselves to get off
the page at her.
Ellami closed it with a snap, tucked it into her bag and went out. One-third
of her work was done - the easy third. With luck she would complete it tonight
and be out of this stinking cesspool of a city before dawn. She did not want
to do it. Indeed, what she had to do was a horrifying betrayal of Maigraith,
but for the survival of her people there was no choice. She aimed to cut
Karan's throat in her bed, then do the same for Maigraith.
Ellami got into Karan and Llian's rooms in the fortress without any trouble at
all, for the Whelm guard had been withdrawn some time ago and the door was not
even locked. She crept through the sitting room with her knife out, then
froze. There was a light on in the bedroom. Edging her head around the door,
she saw Llian sitting up in bed, reading. Where was Karan? In the bathroom? It
was unlit but she checked anyway. The room was empty. After a while Llian blew
out the candle and settled down on his pillow, alone.
Karan was not here. Ellami cursed. She would not be able to complete her work
tonight. She crept out again and headed for Maigraith's room.
Maigraith stirred in her sleep, if what she was enduring could be called
sleep, for her nights had been so restless since her return with the gold that
most mornings she scarcely felt she'd slept at all. Her dilemma was
impossible. She wanted to help the company with their quest. Much more than
that, she wanted to open a gate to Aachan and bring Shand and Yalkara
together. Every time he got that sad, yearning look in his eyes she longed to
do that for him.
What else could her duty be but to remake the golden flute? Especially since
that seemed the best way to achieve her own goal, to unstitch the Forbidding
and restore the balance between the worlds. But if she did that, she would
inevitably be opposing Rulke and her Charon heritage. She still felt troubling
yearnings whenever she thought about Rulke. There seemed no solution to the
puzzle.
Maigraith turned over on her side, facing the window, presenting a perfect
target to Ellami as she edged in through the open door. Ellami had used no
illusion of any kind -Maigraith might have detected that. She stood absolutely
still, watching her quarry for any sign that she was awake. There was none -
Maigraith lay still, breathing slowly. Ellami drew her long blade and tested
it with a fingertip. It was wickedly sharp.
She crept forward, holding the knife hooked so as to slip it to the tender
tissues of the throat and carve them open in one movement. She had never
killed anyone before, nor
even thought about doing so, but this seemed the best way. Maigraith would not
be able to cry out; the blood would spray away from Ellami. Four steps to go;
three; two.
Maigraith rolled back onto her other side, facing the door and pillowing her
head on her hand. Now she made a more difficult target in the gloom, as the
left arm half-covered her throat. Ellami recalculated. A slash across the side
of the neck? A stab between the ribs, or round into her back? She decided that
the neck was best from here, otherwise in the dark she might hit a rib. She
dared not give Maigraith any chance.
Maigraith gave a little sigh and snuggled down against her hand. That gave
Ellami pause - it was a childlike sigh and it reminded her what had been done
to Maigraith as a child. It made her question what she was doing. The woman on
the bed was someone she knew and liked. The murder grew harder every second.
Just do it! she told herself. The future of Tallallame is at stake. Don't
think about it. Get on with it and get away. She took another step, shaking in
her nervousness, and kicked over a cup that Maigraith had left beside the bed.
Maigraith shot up in bed. Ellami flung herself forward, stabbing down. She was
not quick enough. Maigraith rolled off the other side of the bed, hurled the