Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (46 page)

Karan felt a twinge of alarm. 'I'll get you a drink.'
'The fever is gone,' said Maigraith. When Karan returned with a beaker of
water Maigraith was asleep.
Shortly she woke again, talking nostalgically about things they had done
together in the past. 'Remember how we went all the way to Fiz Gorgo
together?' she said. 'That was an adventure! Remember how we had to climb down
into the cistern and swim through that slimy tunnel? And remember - ' She
laughed shrilly, in a different world.
She's gone mad! Karan thought in sudden terror. She's like a child talking
about what she did on her holidays. 'It wasn't an adventure, it was a horrible
nightmare for us both,' she said as sharply as a slap.
Maigraith shuddered and her eyes refocussed visibly. She turned to Karan as if
seeing her for the first time. 'What am I talking about? I'm sorry for
bringing you into this, Karan.'
'So am I. I want to go home while I still have one!'
Later their talk drifted onto Shazmak, the journey there and what it was like
inside. Only after Maigraith had gone back to sleep did Karan realise how
subtly she had channelled the conversation, to learn as much as she could
about the Aachim city.
Karan became alarmed, for underlying Maigraith's casual questioning was a
wistful nostalgia for what might have been, and a fatalism that it was all
over. And before she slept Maigraith threw her arms about Karan and kissed
her, something she had never done before.
'Take care of yourself,' she whispered, 'and look after Shand for me.'
For the moment Maigraith was sleeping soundly. It would be dawn in a few
hours. Karan ran down the hall to report this vital news to Malien, who had
been furious with her for not knowing about Maigraith's breaking into the
workshop. Karan felt guilty about the flute too, sure that Tensor's rebellion
had to do with her revelation to Malien. At the same time, the duty to Malien
was also real. Both obligations added up to the same thing: if Maigraith went
to Shazmak she would have to follow her.
Malien was not in her room. Karan wandered outside to the bakehouse and saw
Tensor on the step, talking to one of his guards. She didn't know what to do.
Was he enemy or ally now? She felt loyalties to both sides. But only Tensor
could tell her what she needed to know. Taking him aside, she told him what
had happened at the meeting.
'Well,' he said, T see that I don't have a mortgage on folly. What a rabble
your friends are!' Presumably he referred to Mendark and Yggur. 'They've had a
dozen meets this winter, but what has come of them?'
'Faelamor is going to Shazmak,' she reminded him.
'Shazmak!' he said wistfully. 'It's as if a part of me has been amputated. If
only I could see it again.'
'Do you think she will ally with Rulke?'
'Ha! Which one will betray the other first?'
'But if they do put aside their differences, even for a day, think what they
could do to us!'
'No one can stop her,' Tensor said dismally. 'Nothing can be done.'
'Maigraith could.'
'Don't mention her name to me!'
'You're a stupid, bigoted old fool,' Karan yelled, shaking him by the shirt.
'You made a promise and you went back on it.'
'What?'
'You refused Maigraith her flute. Can anyone else stop Rulke and Faelamor?'
He was silent. 'Can anyone?' she screeched in his face.
'No!'
'Then help me to help her.'
'There's nothing I can do.'
'Maigraith's going to Shazmak, and I'm going with her.'
'She will betray you and return to her own!' he spat.
'I'm doing Malien's work!' Karan said furiously. 'Anyway, can Maigraith make

things any worse than they are now?'
'I suppose not,' he said grudgingly.
'Then honour your promise!'
'Very well,' Tensor said. 'I have not acted honourably to you or to her, and
it plagues me. What do you want?'
'Is there any way to get into Shazmak secretly?'
'There is a fifth way,' said Tensor, his voice a bare whisper. 'Known only to
me now. It has not been used in two thousand years. Two thousand years - we
were in our prime then. Nothing seemed beyond us.'
He rambled on, talking about events she knew intimately as if they had
happened in the distant past. 'Then they finally came in disguise, and it was
not until we saw them that we recognised them, for they go by a different name
now. They call themselves Whelm!'
'Tensor!' Karan cried, calling him back abruptly. 'It's urgent. Tell me the
way!'
'The fifth route! Perhaps it has fallen into ruin. It's fifty years since I
last checked it. We never thought to enter that way, only to depart. There are
traps you must master on the journey. I can barely remember them now. You
cannot go the fifth way by yourself.' He broke off, staring sightlessly at the
ceiling.
'Tell me, quickly!'
'Listen well,' he said, and described the way to her, explaining all the traps
and pitfalls in the path. He took a long, intricate key from a chain around
his neck. 'I can't
think why I still have it. I'll draw you a map too.' He made some cryptic
scrawls on a soiled scrap of paper. 'Study it well and destroy it afterwards.
No, what am I thinking? Shazmak is lost forever. If you go that way, take
someone you trust with you. Someone tall!'
Karan hurried back to her own rooms, where Llian was sleeping quietly. Oh,
Llian! she thought, how I wish that we could go together one last time. But
this is no journey for you. I would just be taking you to your death. Bending
over, she kissed him on the lips. He smiled and reached out to her with his
eyes closed.
She almost pulled away then, but the yearning was too strong. Putting her bag
on the floor she slipped into his arms. It was so warm there; so protected; so
lovely. She longed to stay, but if she did not get up now she would never be
able to. Karan kissed him again, on the tip of his nose, and slid out of the
bed. 'Goodbye, Llian,' she whispered.
Karan hurried back to Maigraith's room. She'd been longer than she had
planned. She pushed the door open quietly. Maigraith's bed was empty and her
clothes were gone.
Karan ran around in a panic, cursing herself for leaving Maigraith alone. She
forced herself to think calmly. Her own pack still contained her travelling
gear and winter garb from the trip to Saludith. It would do for the mountains
too. She raced up to her room for it, realising as she did that she had no
food. Too bad; she couldn't spare a second. How long had Maigraith been gone?
It could be as much as an hour. In her weakened state it might take her some
time to reach the rooftop, her favoured place for making gates, and make one
ready.
Karan's running footsteps echoed down the hall. She rounded the corner and
crashed into Shand, who had a sheet of paper in his hand.
'Maigraith's gone!' she gasped. 'The rooftop, I'd say. She's going to
Shazmak!' She took the steps three at a time.
Maigraith was surrounded by a network of light, but it was not the steady
pale-blue light that had seen them off to Saludith. This was a flickering
red-orange and scarlet corona, intensely bright, accompanied by a sizzling
sound. Karan did not even hesitate. She sprinted across the roof, shouting,
'Stop!' The bright light flared, began to die and Maigraith to fade.
Shand cried out from the top of the steps, 'Maigraith, wait! You must see this

-' Karan dived forward into the light. There was a terrific crackle, she was

flung up into the air, then the light disappeared and Karan was gone too.
Shand pounded up to the spot. Nothing remained but an acrid smell that soon
dispersed in the breeze. He looked down at the paper and cursed, long and
violently.
Carcharon
Maigraith woke soon after Karan went out. She felt much better than before,
though her shoulder throbbed. She had been wondering how to get away, and now
that opportunity presented itself she seized it at once. She dressed and ran
to the larders. There she used a trickle of power to break the lock, stuffed
her pack with food and headed for the roof.
She encountered no one during the trip to the stairs, which was just as well
for she was determined to let no one, friend or otherwise, stop her. Once on
the roof Maigraith prepared herself carefully. Yggur's warnings could not be
ignored. This would be the third gate in a day and a half, not to mention her
calamitous experience with the flute. She was taking a great risk, but she had
to get to Shazmak before Faelamor did.
On the rooftop Maigraith went through the gate-making procedure methodically.
There was no possibility of going direct to Shazmak because she had never been
there. But she knew Carcharon. She would make a gate there and walk the rest
of the way.
She conjured up memories of Carcharon. It was as clear in her mind as a
picture. That was a relief. It would be an easy jump.
Maigraith worked through her preparations again, seeing .
the destination and checking in case the construct had warped the place. She
could sense nothing untoward, but often dangerous places could not be sensed
until you got there. Well, she had done all she could. Time to go.
As soon as she made the gate Maigraith understood how weak she was. It was a
clumsy, ill sort of a portal, surrounded by a baleful cage of light. She felt
how erratic it was; how poorly tuned. Still, making the gate was not the part
that was so draining, or even seeing the destination. It was keeping it all
together at the same time as making the jump. She tried again, but the second
was worse. She was weaker and had even less control than before.
Maigraith sat down and went through her mental regimen to calm herself. 'I
will do it,' she told herself, working until her head throbbed. She started
again. The gate was a little better this time. Dare she risk it? She must.
Maigraith heard a cry from the top of the stair and knew that it was Karan.
She panicked. She had to go. Now!
It was a bad jump: off balance in spite of all the time she had spent
preparing. Then came the terrible realisation that Karan had somehow got into
the gate. Maigraith saw her flung up in the air and whirled about. There was
no chance of them coming through together; Karan might materialise anywhere!
Already she was disappearing, trailing off, and there was nothing to be done
about it.
Maigraith reached out but she was blind. All knowledge of the destination had
gone. She knew the name, but Carcharon as a place was just a distant memory.
Karan! she cried across the ether. I'm lost, I'm lost! She looked down into
boiling clouds of nothingness. Her control of the gate had gone. Maigraith
could not overcome her panic enough to find it again.
Suddenly she felt something - a questing out after her. Maigraith snatched at
the link. Where are you? she called across it.
I don't know, Karan sent back. Her voice was calm.
I'm lost! wept Maigraith. I've lost us both.
Karan poured encouragement back across the link, her triune senses allowing
her to duplicate what Rulke had done for her on the Way to Aachan. She was so
strong, so assured that Maigraith's panic ebbed a little.
Bring me to you, Karan called. You can do that!
Maigraith grasped that image and tried to draw it to her. Soon she made out
Karan's outline through the fog. Karan slowly drifted back to her and they
clung together, spiralling down and down and down.
Keep the link. Don't let go!

I won't let go, Karan whispered in her mind. What is the destination?
Carcharon, of course, she whispered back. But I can't see it any more.
Here it is, Karan sang across the link, and the way there was like a highway,
clearer than any path Maigraith had ever travelled. Carcharon loomed up before
her, not as an image in her mind but the real place. She reached for it and
abruptly they were snatched out of the cauldron into the ruined upper chamber
of the tower, in the dark.
For a second time they clung together, crying with relief. Maigraith lay on
the floor, her chest heaving. 'I am utterly exhausted,' she said. 'I have
never felt worse.' She was sick over the edge of the construct-shaped hollow
in the stone floor, then flopped down on her back.
'Then stop right now! You'll kill yourself.'
'I don't see what we have to congratulate ourselves about,' Karan said
shortly, while they were taking breakfast among the ruins. The sun was rising
and they were glad to see it, for Carcharon was weirder than ever now. The
walls angled strangely, the stone was as soft as cheese, the light vibrated
visibly. Even the air had a faint, pungent, sickly sweetness. 'The gate was
nothing, compared with what's ahead.' 'I'll worry about that when I come to
it.'
'You've certainly changed since Fiz Gorgo,' said Karan.
'We both have.'
'I desperately need to sleep,' said Karan. 'Just a few hours. Can I trust you
to not abandon me?'
'You can,' said Maigraith. 'To tell you the truth, I'm so exhausted that I
couldn't even walk down the steps.'
'Well, I don't trust you. What's more I don't believe you're telling the
truth. Sit down here, and I'll put my head in your lap, and if you try and
move I'll wake up at once.'
Maigraith did as she was told, though not without a secret smile. Karan lay
down and slept almost at once. Maigraith put her arms about her but did not
sleep.
She knows me too well, thought Maigraith. I will be off if I get the chance.
She sat that way for almost two hours, but finally was so cramped and cold
that she had to stretch her legs. Karan's eyes snapped open. She glared at
Maigraith, then smiled and patted her hand and went back to sleep.
They shared a frugal lunch, or second breakfast, and set off up the ridge to
meet the Shazmak path. Maigraith felt relaxed, at ease after the turmoils of
the past few days.
'Well, here we are on the road again, just the two of us. It's fitting that we
should be together at the end, as we were at the beginning.'
She was thinking back to their journey to Fiz Gorgo that had begun it all. How
tense she'd been; how miserable. But all that was gone now. She was a
different person and, even if she never returned, at least she was going with
a purpose and a knowledge of her worth. And yet, how sad it was to be leaving
Shand behind. She'd kept him at arm's length ever since Saludith. Had to.
And how changed you are, Maigraith thought. I remember how you looked that
night as we crept into Fiz Gorgo: your face so pale and your eyes round with
fear. But once you agreed, you did not shrink from it. Never have I seen you
do so. The last year has burned the laughing child from you.
Karan's face was leaner, and harder, and wiser and sadder now.
Maigraith was thinking about Yggur too. She owed him much, yet he was a part
of her past. A necessary part, and a good part in some respects, but a
lifetime away and ended now.
As they went up the steep ridge, Karan surreptitiously examined her friend.
They were friends now, in spite of the way their relationship had begun. No
longer did Maigraith bear that lost, unwanted look. She had found herself over
the past year. But she had found this great burden too, and taken it on
herself without complaint. She knew who she was and her place in the world.
But she knew what the consequences were likely to be too, and so she had put
the world away from her.