by Ian Irvine
Tallia watched Poniard plunge toward them; she was powerless to move. It ran straight into the jetty, shearing a section of the decking right off and hurling all but Pender, who was well behind, into the water. Tallia landed flat on her back in the shallow water on the other side. A dozen chacalots slid off the mudbank. Poniard, sadly crushed about the bows, was pushed off and limped out into the bay. The phantom boat was gone—Tallia wasn’t sure whether it had been her illusion or not.
Tallia thrashed through sticky mud toward the fallen deck. One end was embedded in the mire while the other stuck up in the air, resting precariously against one of the jetty piles. The chacalot swerved toward her. A pathetic cry signaled the end of one of the slaves. Tallia was braver than most, but seeing such a death staring her in the face she was hard pressed not to scream. Pender hung above her, caught by the back of his jacket. Plump arms and legs thrashed uselessly.
“Keep still!” she screeched, momentarily diverted from her own troubles, “unless you want to end up down here.”
“Tallia, here!” It was Jevander, clinging one-handed to one of the piles. “Onto the deck.”
Her eyes followed his pointing arm and she realized that the fallen deck made a ramp that extended under the water. She flailed toward it, feeling like a turtle pursued by a leopard. Something caught at her boot. She gasped, but it was just a twisted mangrove root.
Jevander sprang down the ramp, stretching out his arm, but she could not quite reach it. Over her shoulder Tallia saw the leading chacalot, a big one. She was not going to make it! The beast lunged.
Her boots struck something solid—the deck! She clawed herself up it, gasping, slipping, skidding. The chacalot was close enough to have her, and Jevander too. Its jaws snapped on her boot. The reptile tossed its head, tearing boot and sock right off. Tallia felt a terrible pain in her ankle. She tried to clamber up the boards but her ankle would not support her. The chacalot lunged again.
Jevander wrenched off a loose plank, slipped on the greasy boards then fell toward the beast. Tallia screamed, but he found his balance and rammed the board into the creature’s maw, trying to force it down the throat. The chacalot bellowed, snapped its jaws and sheared the plank in two.
Tallia’s outstretched hand touched Jevander’s callused hand. They clasped and, showing astonishing strength for a small man, he jerked her up out of the water so hard that it almost dislocated her shoulder. The chacalot’s jaws slammed shut just where she had been, tearing a chunk out of a pile and breaking teeth on the iron reinforcing bands. It rolled back into the water, then prepared to lunge again. Tallia thumped into Jevander, almost knocking him down to where grinning jaws waited on the other side.
“Up!” he shouted, springing onto the undamaged part of the jetty and hauling a shocked Tallia up after him, one bare foot bloody and dangling.
“Where the hell’s Osseion?” she gasped as a brace of chacalot advanced down the jetty toward them. They were defenseless; her illusions would not work on these creatures. Pender was precariously suspended from the pile, only the collar of his coat holding him up. The chacalot clustered underneath, waiting.
Jevi lifted Tallia onto the top of a pile and climbed up after. She leaned on his shoulder, almost fainting from the pain in her ankle. He put his arms around her again. It felt wonderful. All around them the creatures snapped. The remaining slave squatted on the top of his pile like a gargoyle. The fog thickened.
“Hoy! Hoy!” someone shouted from the water, a hollow cry twisted by the fog.
“It’s bel Gorst!” cried Jevi, shaking with emotion. “I’ll not be taken by him again. I’ll go down among the chacalot first.”
Tallia took his hand. “Don’t do anything rash. Think of Lilis.”
Timbers creaked in the fog. “It’s The Waif!” Pender yelled. “I know it. Hoy, Osseion, over here. Hoy! Hoy!”
“Hoy!” came the cry again, from the fog. The chacalots snapped their jaws, in time.
“Over here!”
A few seconds later, the most glorious sight of their lives, The Waif drifted up to the wharf, handled by Rustible as lightly as thistledown on the breeze. A rather shame-faced Osseion plucked Tallia to safety over the rail. The slave sprang off his post onto the deck. Jevander leapt in. They cut Pender down and headed back to the wharves of Roros.
“Damn fine plan that was, Osseion!” she said, shaking. “You might have given me some warning! I was that close to being in the belly of a chacalot.” She measured a tiny space between finger and thumb.
“It was worth it though,” said Pender. “Look who we’ve found.”
Osseion stared at the small man; then, overcome with emotion, he embraced him. Jevander sat down, shaking his head, tears running down his face.
“Pity about Poniard getting away,” Tallia said through clenched teeth.
Rustible pointed through the fog. “The villain didn’t get far. I thought we had him the first time.”
“So that was you?” said Tallia. “I didn’t think my illusion had worked.”
“We ran him aground, though it was a dicey business for a while. I thought he was going to have our bottom out on a reef.” The fog parted enough for them to see the beautiful boat stuck fast on a mudbank, surrounded by dozens of chacalots. “There he’ll stay, for he has no dinghy. Osseion cut it loose in the fog. About the only smart thing he’s done all day.” Osseion smiled sheepishly. “The tide is running out and won’t be this high again for a fortnight.”
“A good morning’s work,” said Tallia. “Let’s get to customs and swear our complaint.”
“He has their protection,” grunted Pender.
“My aunt is the Deputy Governor, remember. He won’t buy his way out of this. Ah, my ankle!”
Osseion took her foot in his hand. “You won’t be walking on this for a while,” he said. “It’s broken.”
Tallia spent a fortnight with her family, but by the end she was becoming increasingly worried about Mendark. He had asked them to be ready in fifty days, but forced into inaction by her ankle she could no longer restrain her curiosity at his secrecy.
“I have to find Mendark,” she said.
There had been a reward from the merchants of Roros for ridding them of bel Gorst. Though not enough to make up for the lost cargo, it at least rescued Pender from immediate ruin. He was very quiet, not even mentioning the profits that would be lost, so a day later they headed north to Strinklet again, on the great estuary of the Wu Karu. Despite the fact that her ankle was still in plaster and abominably uncomfortable in the heat, Tallia hired horses and set out for Tar Gaarn with Osseion and Jevander.
31
* * *
FAELAMOR’S GATE
Faelamor led Maigraith north-east out of Bannador. They trekked through Faidon Forest, where loggers were stripping out the last of the great ironwoods to build the wharf city of Thurkad ever higher above the mud. Fording the Saboth River at Gance, they found its vast gravel banks exposed because of the drought, while a solitary prospector panned the riffles for platinum. Continuing north, Faelamor then turned west toward Dunnet, buried in the heart of the great forest of Elludore. Dunnet was an isolated land hemmed in by mountains on its western side, the rugged lands of Bannador to the south and a chain of barren hills to the north. The journey took about a fortnight, and though they passed through war, blockade and devastation, they were not hindered.
Several times on their wandering journey they heard tales of Yggur’s return and the fate of the Second Army. “Just as I told you,” said Faelamor. “What do you think of this lover of yours now?”
Maigraith felt the last bond to Yggur fall away. The man was a monster; he meant nothing to her anymore. But with that decision made, what choice did she have now but to serve Faelamor again, the woman who had dominated her for the whole of her life, the one to whom she owed a burden of duty that could never be repaid?
“I am over him,” Maigraith said tersely.
From that point on, with every
step Maigraith’s newfound assuredness was stripped from her, and the misery, despair and nothingness of her previous existence were renewed. All of her confidence and self-worth faded into a memory of another life, and each step woke the nightmare of that life. By the time they reached the refuge that Faelamor sought, deep in the forest-clad lower slopes of Dunnet, the new self that Maigraith had constructed so painfully was gone. Faelamor had taken back her life, commanded everything she did, and though her orders were now clothed in a veneer of courtesy, the bones underneath were as obdurate as ever.
“Here we are at last,” said Faelamor, sinking down on a mosscovered stone with a sigh that had the weight of centuries of frustration behind it. “Of all places in Santhenar, this could almost be Tallallame. I can do it, here.”
Her refuge was a deep valley whose upper end ran right up against the mountains, terminating in a precipice that reared very high and inhospitable. The ridges on either side were sheer and sharp, hazardous for climbing, a defensive wall. The entrance to the valley was a slot cut by the river through limestone, once a cave whose roof had fallen, and the river rushed deep and fast and cold where the cave had been. The way in was a narrow ledge beside the river. Not impregnable, but difficult of approach and easy to defend. Upstream of the slot the valley belled out, dark beneath giant trees, moist and misty at the upper end where stairstep waterfalls tinkled down a cliff three hundred spans in height. Vines trailed from the trees; ferns carpeted the ground. It was a place much to the liking of the Faellem, a shadow of their own world. Faelamor had discovered it many years ago and remembered it, thinking of such a need as this.
“It is very beautiful,” said Maigraith, gazing around her.
Faelamor sprang up again. “Not just beautiful, but right! Whatever I do will work better here because of it, and we have much to do. How I need my people now.”
“They are still in Mirrilladell, are they not?”
“Most are, three hundred leagues away.” Mirrilladell was a land of lakes, swamps and vast cold forests on the southern side of the Great Mountains. “But however far, I must bring them here. This will be the first of your great tasks.”
Maigraith held her breath. This was what she had been waiting for all her life. Prepared for, at least. She wasn’t sure she wanted it.
“First I will try to link to the Faellem. You will support me! Sit here.”
“You can link?” cried Maigraith, astonished. “I thought…”
“That talent comes from the Faellem, though even among us it is rare. I did not teach you that?”
“Then why didn’t you go with me to Fiz Gorgo, to steal the Mirror?”
“I wish I had,” Faelamor said grimly.
The initial link was made, a smooth, sensuous coupling of their minds, as voluptuous as custard. Maigraith liked it no more than Karan had when they had first linked outside Fiz Gorgo last autumn. It was an invasion of her most personal spaces, the only parts kept completely to herself in all the years that she had endured Faelamor’s domination. Her mind rebelled and flung off the link; she hurled herself backwards across the grass.
“Keep your distance!” Maigraith choked. “You link with me on my terms, or not at all. Keep out of my mind.”
Faelamor rose slowly to her feet, flexing her fingers. Maigraith tensed, wanting to run. Then, whatever Faelamor had been about to do, she thought better of it and sat down again. “As you wish. Only the link matters now. We’ll try again, if you are ready.”
Maigraith was amazed. Perhaps she had some power over Faelamor after all.
After several more tries Faelamor managed to forge a link that was bearable to Maigraith, one that kept well away from any conscious part of her mind.
Ellami, Ellami, Faelamor called.
The world silence, vast and empty, saturated Maigraith’s mind.
“So far away,” said Faelamor. “So hard.” Ellami; Hallal; Gethren.
“They do not reply,” Faelamor said somewhat later.
She called and called and called again. Still there was no answer! Faelamor looked haggard. “Why do they not respond?” she gasped, gripping the log with both hands to save herself from toppling off. “I feel very weak. Give me a little of your strength.”
Maigraith felt a sensation as if her lifeblood was pumping out her throat across the link to Faelamor. Suddenly dizzy, she had to prop herself up with her arms. The flow increased to a flood. Beads of cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
Faelamor kept on until tears squeezed out of her eyes. Maigraith felt as flabby as a week-old balloon. She almost fainted and had to lie down on the grass.
At last an answer came, though it was very faint.
Who calls? came a wispy little straw voice. Is that you, Faelamor?
It is I, she replied. It is time. Come to me in Elludore, northwest of the ancient city of Thurkad, on the island of Meldorin. I have made a refuge in the lower mountains, a land called Dunnet. She did not need to say forest—where else would the Faellem hide if they had the choice?
Maigraith could sense anger, resistance to Faelamor’s call.
Why did you not call us before? Where have you been all this time?
No time! Faelamor gasped. Come! Come! Come quickly and secretly.
There was no response. Are you coming? cried Faelamor. The link began to thin. Are you coming? Again no answer. Faelamor was frantic. Please, Ellami! I’m begging you! You must come.
Faelamor sank to the ground and buried her face in the grass. Call me! Call me tomorrow!
The link faded like the sky after sunset. “They’re coming!” Faelamor sighed, sinking to the ground in exhaustion. “They will come. They must!”
Maigraith said nothing. Why must they come? They had exiled Faelamor when Maigraith was but a child. She did not know why, but the mystery of her life and her parents’ deaths was at the heart of it.
Faelamor woke next morning in a state of high anxiety.
“What’s the matter?” asked Maigraith, watching her pace back and forth.
“The Faellem should have called.” Faelamor turned away abruptly.
By the end of the day she was practically beside herself. Normally so controlled, she had even resorted to biting her nails. The call never came.
“Why don’t you call them again?” Maigraith said as she prepared dinner.
“I can’t!” Faelamor screeched. ‘To link over such distances can’t be done again so soon.”
“I thought…” began Maigraith.
“To send a link one league is hard. Two leagues, four times as hard. Three leagues, nine times. But to link to someone 300 leagues away—work it out for yourself!” Faelamor was not good at mental arithmetic.
“Ninety thousand times as hard,” Maigraith murmured.
“Just so! It has probably never been done in the history of the Three Worlds. I might try a dozen times without succeeding, so weak is the signal. But there are hundreds, thousands of Faellem. If they all link together they can overcome the tyranny of distance.”
“If they choose to,” murmured Maigraith, to bait her.
A few days later they made a second attempt, but though they forced till Faelamor could not hold her head up, they heard nothing.
“Perhaps they’re hiding from you,” said Maigraith, half-expecting Faelamor to lash out at her.
Scrunching up her eyes to prevent the tears from welling out, Faelamor whispered, “They are; they’ve put up a barrier against me! Me, who led them here to Santhenar, and ever after. They leave me no choice but to do what is forbidden.”
She did not rise from her couch of boughs and ferns for days. Whenever Maigraith went to check on her, she snapped, “Go away! I’m thinking!” Then one evening, after they had been there for more than a week, Faelamor broke her selfinduced silence.
“I was right,” she said soberly.
Maigraith prodded the fire, which she kept alight because it helped to keep the mosquitoes off. She did not feel any curiosity, but Faelamor needed to
talk and therefore Maigraith must listen.
“I was right, when I embarked upon this great gamble three centuries ago. All that time I have been plagued by self-doubt, by the thought that I had cast aside my honor for a shadow. That I had done this great evil for something that could never be.”
Maigraith sat up. What was she talking about? She felt a sudden chill, an urgent need for warmth. She held out her hands to the fire. The air sighed in the treetops. The faintest chuckle came from the river, thirty paces away. It seemed amused by their petty dealings.
Faelamor stared at the coals, speaking in a monotone. “Even before my enemy Yalkara found a flaw in the Forbidding and fled, I suspected that there might be a way. I fought her for it and I was defeated. She had learned too many secrets with the cursed Glass.” There was nothing in Faelamor’s voice. She might have been describing preparations for their dinner.
“But before Gethren dragged me to safety I had a glimpse in that Glass and I saw a possibility! I collapsed and knew nothing for weeks. But later, as I lay brooding, full of hate and self-loathing, I learned that Yalkara’s success was not as great as I’d thought. Her injuries were so grave that she had to flee unready. I learned that she had left something behind to finish her job. Then, as I lay in my bed of pain and misery, bitterness and despair, I conceived a plan. I saw how, by corrupting that gift, I might make of it a tool that I could twist to my own purpose, and smash the Forbidding!”
Maigraith was so shocked that she almost leapt up and ran. There had been talk of breaking the Forbidding at the Conclave, but it had never been more than talk. Since then she had sometimes thought about that, and what the consequences might be.
“I was never sure though,” Faelamor went on. “It was not until I used the Mirror in Katazza that I knew I was right” Something old and frightening showed in her eyes, then she looked away as though uncomfortable with what she had revealed, or whom she had revealed it to.
So Faelamor did plan to break the Forbidding. What would that do to Santhenar? Was it right to help her? The brief taste of power had opened Maigraith’s eyes to the world and her place in it. There had to be a role for someone like her, who wanted neither power nor wealth, but only what was right.