Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (61 page)

Everything was different now. The whole Wall became transparent, allowing him
to see what waited on the other side. The shapes and spaces of beyond
shivered. A shadow appeared in the mazy void, then another. The flute had
called a hundred creatures, a thousand. A veritable army was gathering on the
other side of the Wall.
An approaching army of thranx and lorrsk, and a hundred other creatures that
looked just as bloody. In the infinite history of the void there had never
been such an alliance, but the ripe plum of Santhenar was worth putting aside
old feuds for. Mendark slowly rose to his feet, staring at the nightmare. The
hand holding the flute fell to his side. There were hundreds upon uncounted
hundreds of them. Then, as his focus moved progressively out from the Wall,
the hundreds became thousands and the thousands millions, marching in ranks,
in planes and layers, in three-dimensional arrays from every direction.
Marching to war against Santhenar. The world that he loved more than life was
doomed. And he had doomed it.
Mendark lifted the flute then lowered it again. He dared
not tamper with the Forbidding now. Was there another way?
As he pondered, something stirred among the dead on
the floor. It was the second thranx, still stuck with spears. From the shadows
it hurled a broken spear at Mendark, smashing the golden flute out of his
hand. The instrument rang out on the floor, a single pure note that sent a
shimmering along the transparent layers of the Forbidding. The thranx crawled
towards the flute.
Mendark cursed and shook his throbbing hand. Then, suddenly understanding what
the problem had been, he laughed for joy. The two devices had been interfering
with each other. He banged the levers over and the construct moved. 'Keep it!'
he roared. 'This is what I came for.'
He swung the construct around smoothly. The remnant of the company were all in
its path. The Wall first, or his enemies? Yggur's fingers were working,
preparing to blast him. Several of the Aachim raised their bows. And, he saw
with dismay, even faithful Tallia was speaking urgently to Shand, surely
plotting his ruin. They all wanted the construct for themselves. But none of
them could save the world. Only he could do that. He directed the construct
toward his enemies.
'No, Mendark!' wept Tallia. 'Is this how you would have posterity remember
you?' She held out her hands to him.
Not even Tallia could be allowed to stand in his way. He prepared to blast her
down. But as they faced each other, something stung his eyes. Dear Tallia,
they'd shared such times together. It was harder than he'd imagined. But I
will do it! Mendark thought. Before he could wrench the control rod the thranx
forced itself to its feet. The spears quivered like the quills of a spiny
anteater. It put the flute to its lips and blew. The construct bucked, turned
over and Mendark was flung off. He landed on his feet, running forward to stop
himself from falling, but he ran one step too far.
The thranx swung its powerful arm and claws like daggers ripped through
Mendark's middle, sending him tumbling through the air. He began to drag
himself back to the construct, leaving a trail of blood. The thranx began a
different melody.
In the background, the vanguard reached the Wall and pressed against it. The
Wall moulded itself to their shapes like a rubber sheet.
'What's it doing?' Lilis whispered.
'It's calling its own,' said Malien.
'Mendark!' screamed Tallia. 'Stop them!'
Mendark tried to climb the construct but slipped in his blood and fell down
again. He looked up at the wondrous machine and wept.
'Mendark!' Tallia shrieked. 'Stop it, quickly!'
She tried to run to him but Jevi and Lilis held her back. Mendark forced
himself to his knees, moved his hands in a spell and the flute glowed red-hot.
The thranx screeched and dropped it. Mendark stood upright but his entrails
began to spill out of his belly. He looked down at the fatal wound, pressed

the innards back in and duck-walked to the flute. As he raised it, white smoke
came from his fingers and his mouth. He blew a plangent series of notes.
A cyst grew around Mendark. It swelled with every note and rushed outward to
envelop everyone in the room. The thranx was tumbled backwards until it came
between the cyst and a side wall, where it was squashed to a smear.
'Is it all over now?' Lilis asked, staring at the ranks of creatures that
stretched to infinity across the void.
The cyst continued to grow until it touched the Wall. It bonded to it,
plugging the tiny vent and clouding over the Wall. But they all knew that what
waited on the other side was only a blink away.
Jevi brushed Lilis's shining hair off her face. 'No, Lilis, it's not over yet.
Not near!'
The strain began to tell on Mendark. Would he fail before the work was
complete? The cyst stopped growing. He weakened, fell to his knees, clutched
at his belly, played on. Then all at once the air rushed out of his lungs. A
bloody bubble grew out the end of the flute to burst in a discord. The note
failed, the flute fell and Mendark lay dead.
Tallia ran to the man she had served so faithfully for so long, to perform her
last service. Stooping over the body, she smoothed his hair, closed his eyes
and arranged his robes so that they covered the horrible wound. Then she
carried him slowly across to the others. He looked quite small in her arms.
There she sat, looking down at him, her beautiful face cold.
'I will see that this deed is recorded for the future,' she said, 'though I
doubt that it will balance the others. My oath is undone, my service ended.'
Going Home
Maigraith, pacing back and forth in a daze of grief, saw Faelamor appear near
the bottom of the central stair. Shand, Yggur and Malien came the other way,
preparing for the greatest battle of their lives.
Maigraith held up one hand. 'Stay back! This is between her and me.'
Faelamor positioned herself at the point where the cyst curved away from the
Wall. 'This is the weak point,' she said to Hallal. 'We will open it here.'
'You'll destroy the world!' said Shand. 'I can control it,' she replied
coldly. Faelamor reached out. The Wall was now so thin that it parted in front
of her. Through a crack she peered beyond, searching for the path to
Tallallame. She needed no one to find that track for her. 'I have it,' she
said, and opened her Way.
'You see,' whispered Karan, 'I never did harm you. How could I have? I never
understood why you feared me so.'
Faelamor looked across at Karan, lying between the bodies of Tensor and Rulke.
'It was not the triune endangered us after all! It was the forbidden device,
the-three-and-the-one. Why couldn't I see it?'
The Way became a shining funnel. All around it the alien armies swarmed. When
the Wall finally fell apart only
Faelamor would be able to stem their flood, but Faelamor was going home.
Maigraith paced up to Faelamor, whose face showed anguish; guilt too. 'Now is
the moment I trained you for, Maigraith. Why did you abandon me?'
'You sent Ellami to kill me!' Maigraith whispered, still finding it impossible
to comprehend.
'Not I,' said Faelamor. 'I could never harm you. The Faellem voted that you
die.'
'Voted?' shrieked Maigraith. 'So my life is no more than an election that you
couldn't be bothered to rig!'
'I tried. They won the vote! It was the worst day of my existence. I could not
stop them.'
Catching sight of Rulke's sword lying on the floor, Maigraith snatched it up.
'I'll show you how!' she screamed.
Faelamor put her hand out. 'You can't!' she said. 'I made you so you could
never turn on me.'
All Maigraith could see were those golden flecks in her eyes. She felt torn
apart between her hatred of Faelamor and the chains of the compulsion. 'I will

not . . .' she began, but Faelamor screwed her control tighter.
Maigraith was helpless, as she had always been. Then, thinking about all she
had done the past year, she knew that only fear of Faelamor held her back. She
had grown beyond her.
Could she overcome that fear and strike Faelamor down? Maigraith thought of
her dead lover and that fear was gone forever. With a shrill laugh she raised
the sword. 'I've broken your compulsion and your conditioning. Are you ready
to die, Faelamor?'
The answer was in Faelamor's eyes - the sudden terror, the realisation that,
after all, Maigraith had beaten her. 'Go on then,' said Faelamor. 'Have your
revenge. Let it be all the sweeter for the knowledge that I die having gone so
close to my duty, and failed.' There were tears in her eyes.
Maigraith held the sword high, taking pleasure from her
opponent's pain. Remembering Rulke's last bloody moments she wanted, more than
anything, to see Faelamor suffer the same way.
'Do it quickly!' said Faelamor in a cracked voice.
The Faellem stared at the frozen tableau. None stirred to Faelamor's aid. Did
they not dare, or did they not care? The minutes passed.
Abruptly Maigraith lowered the sword, slapping Faelamor on one cheek with the
side of the blade. 'Go home!' she said harshly.
A shiver passed over Faelamor's face. She looked frail now. 'Happy are the
Faellem,' she murmured, 'to put all their burdens on their leader. Have I the
strength for the last act?'
The Wall rippled. Something hideous and unbearably potent reached in beside
the funnel and gripped her by the calf. It pulled, trying to draw her in. She
dashed it away like a fly. Blood ran down her leg from three claw marks.
'You won't stop me?' she said to Maigraith.
'No,' said Maigraith, numb in her agony.
Suddenly Faelamor seemed lost. 'Was it worth it, for this? Does this justify
the ruin I heaped upon the world, and on the child who would have been greater
than me?'
Bowing her head, Faelamor took Maigraith's slender hand in her own small one,
and a single golden tear fell on Maigraith's wrist. Maigraith wrenched away.
'It was not worth it,' Faelamor whispered. 'I must atone. I take this duty on
myself, in penance for my crimes.'
Faelamor stood up straight and the years dropped from her. She looked as she
must have done all those countless centuries ago, when she first led the
Faellem to Santhenar.
'I am the Faellem!' Faelamor cried in her glory and her grandeur, holding open
the Way between the Worlds by will alone. 'Come, my people! Now is the time.
We are going home!'
The first approached and pressed his lips to Faelamor's
hand. He hesitated. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she gave a gentle push.
He leapt, the Way snatched him and he disappeared. The second came forward, a
little old woman with silver hair like Faelamor's, and did the same. Then
another man, similar in size and features to the woman. Faelamor counted them
past.
Without warning the glowing funnel shuddered as it was struck a massive blow.
A crack gaped between the Way and the Wall. A man-shaped creature squeezed in
through the space and like a balloon pumping up it expanded to its full size,
asbig as Rulke. It was a lorrsk-like thing with massive arms and legs, an
enormous chest and a head that came out of its shoulders without recourse to a
neck. Claws scraped on the floor as it leapt and struck at Faelamor. The
sleeve of her shirt was torn off. Two bloody gouges opened up from shoulder to
elbow.
Faelamor shuddered. 'Sixty-one, sixty-two - ' Her voice, counting her people
past, cracked. She moved her free hand in the air and the lumpen creature
doubled up. But the diversion had allowed another in, and a third. They
attacked her all at once, clawing at her back and her legs, trying to
hamstring her. Despite the power of her glamours, fading but still strong,

they landed a blow here and there. She writhed under their strokes but her
will held her firm. Nothing could stay Faelamor's iron command, at this moment
she had waited for so long.
The Faellem were passing her quickly now, just a tap on the shoulder for each,
then through the gate and gone. Suddenly Faelamor went down under the weight
of her attackers. They were all about her: snapping, rending. The gate
quivered, the Way shook again. 'Two hundred and fifty-six, two hundred and
fifty-seven - ' She pulled herself to her feet and swept her bloody arm in a
circle, scattering her assailants. The creatures hurled themselves away from
her as if they had been stung. The last of the Faellem passed through. The
funnel of the Way narrowed. Faelamor staggered and fell to her knees.
'My duty is done at last!' she gasped. 'I can scarcely believe
it.' Sitting down on the floor, she wept for the centuries of trial and
torment that were finally over. Wiping her face clean, she stood up. 'I had
one last task for you, Maigraith, if ever I got this far. To hold open the Way
for me so I could be the last to go.'
'Go!' spat Maigraith, 'I will hold it! It will be worth it to see you gone
forever.'
Faelamor did not move. 'Now that my duty is done I must tie up all the ends.
It doesn't matter whether I get home or not.' She bent down over Karan. Karan
trembled.
'You once did me service at great cost to yourself,' Faelamor said. 'You
carried the Mirror faithfully all the way from Fiz Gorgo to Thurkad, in
fulfilment of Maigraith's obligation to me. You have never been paid for that
service.' 'It doesn't matter,' whispered Karan. 'I'm dying.' 'Perhaps you
are,' said Faelamor, touching Karan's forehead. The pain suddenly lifted from
her. 'I cannot see the future. But I must pay my debts, every last one. What
goods that I and the Faellem have, I leave to you and your estate, to do with
as you will. These things may be found in the cave in Elludore where Gyllias .
. . found Maigraith.' She slipped an ebony bracelet off her wrist onto
Karan's. 'They are protected by a perpetual illusion, but this will dispel
it.' 'Go!' Maigraith shrieked. 'It's too late to atone now, and too little. If
you spent a thousand years on your knees you could not make up for what you
have done.'
'You're right,' Faelamor said. Her face was frozen solid. 'To think that I so
abused my own child. I can't imagine why, anymore. I was obsessed.'
Maigraith's legs collapsed beneath her. 'No, No!' she screamed. 'You are not
my mother. Aeolior was my mother.' Squatting down, Faelamor took Maigraith by
the shoulders, desperate to embrace her but unable to. 'Maigraith, here is the
truth you have been searching for all your life. I am your other grandmother.
It was my own son Galgilliel, poor frail emotional boy, whom I forced to mate
with Aeolior until the
evil business was done. I destroyed him too.'
Maigraith's went hysterical, beating Faelamor about the face with her hands.
'No! I refuse to believe your wicked lies! How could you do this to me? You
are a monster!'
Faelamor did not defend herself. 'I am, but will you give me your hand anyway?
Will you forgive me before I go, granddaughter?'
Maigraith swung her fists like wheels. 'Never! I spit in your face.'
Faelamor made no attempt to defend herself. 'I deserve no better. I acted that
my own species may survive, ignoring all other considerations. Move clear,
granddaughter. I will go through the Way by myself. My people have gone home.
My duty is done. My fate doesn't matter.
'I am the Faellem,' she whispered, saluting Karan, saluting Maigraith,
saluting them all.'I am Tallallame!' That cry echoed in the room.
The Way narrowed again. 'Fare well, my granddaughter. Forgive me.'
Faelamor leapt through the gate. It held for a moment then snapped tight like
a steel stocking. They saw her face wracked by an excruciation. An explosive
flare of blue and white light obliterated the gate, the funnel of the Way and
all the creatures lurking nearby. The hole in the Wall fused over. The Faellem