Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (67 page)

from constantly needing to attend her, he threw himself back into his work.
There had been a message from the College of the Histories. He was to tell the
tale at the Graduation Telling, only two
months away. Old Wistan had nominated it as a Great Tale, and all the master
chroniclers would be there to vote. There was an incredible amount to do if
the Tale of the Mirror was to be ready in time.
Llian allowed himself to dream about that. The first new Great Tale in
hundreds of years. His tale! Surely they would vote for it. And old Wistan was
well past his time. Last year he had talked about passing on - and the need
for the college to have a new, young master. And, with the tale to his name,
perhaps he, Llian, would be the one ...
Llian suddenly burst out laughing, at himself, and where his daydreams had led
him. I am truly incorrigible, he told himself. But, can I not dream?
There finally came a day when Karan was able to cast aside her sticks. Soon
she was walking and running everywhere, and taking such pleasure that she was
able to, though she knew she would never get back the fleetness and agility of
before. To the end of her days she walked with a slight limp, and in winter
especially her bones troubled her.
One evening Shand appeared at the front door of the keep. 'Shand, it's good to
see you,' Llian said merrily, for the old man had not been back since their
return from Shazmak. 'Come in!'
'I can't stay.' Shand looked uncomfortable. 'I've too much to do.' Thrusting a
small package into Llian's hands, he immediately headed back down the path.
Puzzled, Llian went back inside, unwrapping the package. Within a box of white
wood, nestled on a crumpled piece of midnight-blue velvet, was the silver
chain Shand had once pawned for Karan. It had been cleaned and looked as
beautiful as the day the master craftsman had made it.
Llian examined it carefully. Inside was the engraved 'shu' character,
Shuthdar's mark, and it was quite worn. A thrill went through Llian at the
sight of it - to think he held in his hands something made by a legend, four
thousand years ago. And there on the clasp, the letters widely spaced, in a
wavery hand
that was not worn at all, were the letters FIACHRA- the name of the crippled
girl whose mysterious death had started it all. Surely that proved it was
Shuthdar's gift to her.
'Karan!' he yelled. 'Look what Shand has brought back!'
Karan came running. 'Oh, Shand, thank you!' she cried. She held the silver
chain to her cheek. She looked around. 'Where is he?'
'He didn't stay.'
'Why not? Why has he gone? At this time of night?' She
ran out the door.
'I don't think he wanted to be asked questions,' Llian said.
Shortly she returned arm-in-arm with a notably incommunicative Shand. Karan
was practically floating in the air. Shand, however, would not even relate how
he had recovered the chain. He said little at dinner and retired straight
after.
Karan bathed and scooted up the stairs to her room, wrapped in a threadbare
towel. Llian was in bed already, apparently asleep. She brushed her hair, hung
the towel over a chair and slipped Fiachra's chain over her head. Karan slid
into the sheets and burrowed her way into Llian's warm spot. Rousing, he took
her in his arms. Soon they both slept.
Karan dreamed the Histories. She dreamed herself into Llian's Tale of the
Forbidding, the way he had told it right at the beginning. She could see him,
just as he had looked on stage that night of the Graduation Telling, two years
ago. Karan saw herself too, living the Great Tale and her heart going out to
the teller.
But with that strange self-awareness that comes in dreams, Karan realised that
she had dreamed right into Huling's Tower on the Long Lake. She could see
herself there, a ghostly image at the top of the stairs, looking over the
walls to the water on one side and the semicircle of burning forest on the

others. Shuthdar's enemies were coming and nothing would be allowed to stand
in their way.
Karan turned, dream-slow. Shuthdar, as gruesome a wreck
as could ever be imagined, was staring right through her. Poisoned by the
metals he had spent so long crafting, his very bones had been deformed. His
legs and arms were knots of wasted muscle that clothed bones as gnarled as
tree roots. His skin was eroded like a half-peeled potato, while his fingers
were twisted, arthritic claws.
But it was his face that was the ultimate horror. It was equally eroded,
equally deformed, while his shrunken lips gaped open to display the most
hideous travesty of his craftsmanship. His false teeth were iron that did not
fit the weeping cave of his mouth - rusty, misshapen things that stained lips,
beard and shirt blood-red.
Karan cried out in her sleep. Or was it Karan the ghost, for Shuthdar's gaze
fixed on her before slipping to one side? His eyes softened, his ghastly mouth
curved into a smile. Turning as well, Karan saw the crippled girl sitting on
the flat roof nearby. Her twisted legs were tucked up under a long skirt.
Fiachra was lovely, a small heart-shaped face framed by thick black hair.
There were pearls of perspiration on her brow from the magical dance Shuthdar
had given her.
The girl looked up at the monster with such adoration that Karan caught her
breath. Shuthdar spoke and Fiachra's face lit up, though his words were
inaudible. He pointed to the burning forest. She shook her head, and the look
that passed between them made Karan sing inside. Shuthdar took a chain from
around his neck - the chain that had carried Karan into the dream - and
scratched Fiachra's name on it. It was a protection against what was to come.
He slipped it over her head, touched her cheek with the back of his hand, then
scuttled up onto the wall, flute in hand.
Outlined against the ghastly moon, the dark side full and reflecting across
the lake, he brandished the flute at his enemies and blew a single blast.
Everything vanished in rainbow-coloured Shockwaves that thundered out in all
directions. The tower fractured. Waves burst over the ruins. Time slipped
sideways, and when it
resumed Shuthdar had disappeared and the top of the tower was rubble. Hidden
behind a wall of debris, a shimmering cylinder enclosed the sleeping girl.
As Karan's ghost reached out, the cylinder burst and Fiachra roused. She
scratched at the wall, crying out for Shuthdar, but he was dead. All that
remained was a slowly congealing puddle of gold, the remains of the flute. The
girl sank weeping behind the rubble.
Time shifted again. A tall spectre appeared on the stair. It fell on the gold
with a cry of exultation, using a great spell to mould it into three pieces of
jewelry. Karan saw smoke rise from the spectre's hands, proof that it was
flesh and blood. Finally the job was done, the jewelry quenched in a puddle.
The spectre looked up suddenly, realising that it was being watched. It sprang
up onto the wall. The crippled girl made a futile attempt to get away but the
spectre plunged a long pin into her back. Fiachra cried out, stiffened and did
not move again.
Karan groaned aloud. Though she knew she was dreaming, and knew that the
murder was more than three thousand years old, it was as shocking as if it had
been done in her own bedroom.
The spectre turned abruptly and for the first time Karan saw its face. It was
a woman, tall and broad of shoulder, with black hair, a long, beautiful face
and searing indigo eyes. Yalkara! It all fell into place!
The spectre lunged at Karan's ghost with bloodstained, blistered hands. Karan
screamed and woke in Llian's arms.
'So Yalkara killed her,' Llian said in the morning, as Karan and he were
taking breakfast with Shand. Karan had just finished telling them the
chain-inspired dream.
'I thought as much, as soon as I saw the drawings Faelamor stole from the
library,' Shand said sadly. He picked at his food. 'But the chain confirmed

it. Once I held it in my hand again I knew what had happened. The metal was
imprinted with the deeds done in the tower - the destruction of the
flute, the protection, the murder, the Forbidding! Oh, Yalkara! What an
ignoble deed, to kill a helpless girl.'
'I suppose she felt that she had no choice,' said Llian. "The gold was too
warped and deadly ever to be used again. No one could be trusted with it, so
no one must know that she had it. The crippled girl had to die.'
'And did she kill Kandor, too, when he found out about it long after?' asked
Karan.
'To kill one of her own, one of the Hundred, would have been a far, far
different thing,' said Shand.
'I don't understand why Yalkara didn't get rid of the gold,' said Karan. 'Why
didn't she grind it to dust and scatter it across the waters so that it could
never be recovered? Why leave it around to be found and used, if it was so
perilous?'
'I suppose she kept it in case her need was desperate,' said Shand. 'Remember
that Havissard was the safest place on San-thenar; it was impregnable.
Remember, too, that Aachan gold was incredibly precious. Then, when she had to
flee unexpectedly, she was too badly hurt to do anything with it, and she
could not take it with her.' He sighed. 'Ah, Yalkara, even knowing about this
crime, even after all this time I still ache for you.'
'So how did Kandor end up with the chain?' asked Karan.
'He was one of the thousands outside when the flute was destroyed,' Llian
replied. 'And later, knowing that the girl had been murdered, he took the
chain from her neck, thinking that the evidence might be read from it. Whoever
had the gold would hold the greatest power on Santhenar. He coveted that
power, for Kandor was always insecure. That's why he put everything into
making his empire. He had to display his strength and have other people envy
him for it. And fear him!'
Shand took up the story. 'But all the while he knew that he was second-rate.
He could not read the murderer's name from the chain. Worse, someone much
greater than him had the gold yet did nothing with it. And when the Sea of
Perion began to dry up Kandor realised that only one power could save him.
'Descending into paranoid madness he built the Great Tower of Katazza,
following the same pattern as the chain. The congruence between the two was a
form of sympathetic magic. But also a boast - "I know what you're up to, but
my Art is greater".
'The boast was empty. The sea went dry and Kandor's empire failed with it. Now
believing that Rulke had the gold, Kandor wrote those letters to bring him and
Yalkara together, hoping to expose Rulke and cause his downfall.
'But Yalkara refused to come, and Rulke, in a letter of his own, accused
Kandor of treachery. So Kandor betrayed Rulke to the Council, through the
woman he was betrothed to. And Mendark, knowing that Kandor could destroy his
reputation, had him killed.'
The Great Tale
In the last month of summer, Karan, Llian and Shand made the journey across
the mountains to Chanthed for the Graduation Telling. It was a painful trip
for Karan. Her bones hurt most of the time.
On arriving in Chanthed they found many friends there -Tallia, Jevi, now first
mate on The Waif, Lilis and Nadiril, Malien and Asper, and even Pender. The
other Aachim were fighting a colony of thranx on the other side of Lauralin.
Malien looked older, and her red hair was threaded with silver. She did not
say much. The fate of Aachan, and her inability to do anything about it, was a
constant preoccupation.
Tender!' Karan exclaimed, 'Just look at you! You are magnificent!'
Magnificent was perhaps overstating it, but all things are relative and Pender
had done his best. The stubble that habitually graced his jowls had been
carefully removed. He was dressed in clothes that were, if not the height of
fashion in the waterfront inns of Thurkad, at least clean and new. They had
even been pressed, though not very well, and the belly straining at his coat

buttons showed that he'd had a prosperous year. He was as round as a bottle.
Pender grinned and opened his arms. He'd never had much time for Llian, but
Karan was a great favourite. 'It's
been a good year for trade, eh! I am thinking that I might buy a new boat.'
'Oh, you're not going to sell The Waif, are you?' said Lilis. 'I would be very
sorry to see her go.' Lilis had also grown over the past months. She was still
small but not quite so skinny. She was rounder in the hips, fuller in the
chest -definitely a woman now.
'Well, Lilis, I can't sail two boats at once, can I? And I have to pay Tallia
back her share, eh!' He went on in a stage whisper. 'Now don't tell anyone,
but I might sell her to your father.'
Lilis's face blossomed like a flower opening in the sunshine. 'Jevi,' she
shrieked so that every head in the room turned. 'Jevi, Jevi! Pender is going
to sell The Waif to you!'
Jevi, who was just behind her, smiled and said, 'Yes, we've talked about it
already. Can you imagine me owning my own boat? I never dreamed of such a
thing. I am a new man, Lilis.'
Tallia came up and put her arms around him. 'I liked the old one well enough,
but I am happy for you.'
'So, what are your plans?' Pender wondered, turning back to Lilis.
'There's plenty to do. I have to finish copying Llian's tale for the Great
Library. And I'm not even halfway through my apprenticeship. Come over here,
Pender, say hello to Nadiril. You'll like him very much.'
Llian still had to resolve one final detail before he could tell his Tale of
the Mirror. 'Why did Yalkara engrave those glyphs around the Mirror?' he asked
the company, who were gathered by the fire in their inn. 'And why the moon
symbol? Do you know, Shand?'
'I believe so. We worked part of it out just before Mendark's fire, if you
recall. In their final battle, Faelamor had forced Yalkara to reveal that the
key to making gates lay within the Mirror. Yalkara was so afraid that she
changed the Mirror at once. She then engraved the script there, to be certain
Aeolior would still be able to use it. Apparently she taunted Faelamor
with the verses too, though she left out the third and fourth lines, which
were meant only for Aeolior. This is how it goes, and the emphases are
important:
'The Mirror is locked, but within lies the key Come, look inside; see what you
want to see Take hold of your birthright; you will see true Then the Glass
cannot lie to me or to you Tallallame, oh my Tallallame Your fate does rest on
the one which is three
'The message had several layers,' Shand explained. 'Once Yalkara let slip the
secret of gates, Faelamor saw the way home to Tallallame at last. At that
point she began her three-hundred-year-long plan.
'Yalkara's message was an enticement to Faelamor to look into the Mirror and,
combined with that ancient Faellem prophecy, one impossible for her to resist.
It was also a sneer - See what you want to see! - that Faelamor was not strong
enough to make the Twisted Mirror show true. And a prediction about the fate
of Tallallame that emphasised Faelamor's misunderstanding about the triune.'
'And the moon symbol?' asked Lilis, fascinated. 'Was that to Faelamor too?'
'Not at all!' Shand replied. 'It was for Aeolior alone, an illustration of
Yalkara's only hope, that the Charon blend with the other species. Look at
it!' Shand sketched it on a scrap of paper.
'The outer circle symbolises us old humans, the ancestral human species,
complete but insufficient (to her mind anyway); too primitive. The three
scarlet crescents depict the Faellem, Charon and Aachim - powerful but all, in
some ways, incomplete.'
'And the inner circle?' asked Karan.
'The three golden balls must represent the triune,' said Llian, 'set in a
completed circle which, I imagine, is meant to depict a new kind of human.'
Malien, who had sat quietly through the discourse, now finished it. 'That part
might also represent the cells of the human embryo. But the symbol was also a