The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

“Then go. Your debt is absolved.”

  She did not move. “You can’t absolve it! I gave you my promise in exchange for Llian’s freedom. Even if I could go back on my word, I must expect you to do the same.”

  Rulke smiled, but she sensed relief as well.

  “You knew that all along, didn’t you!” she snapped, feeling that she had been cleverly manipulated.

  “I know your character. But, on the other hand, you have free will. I didn’t know what you would do. Shall we begin?”

  “Let’s get it over with.”

  “Link with me.”

  She allowed him to touch that small, cut-off portion of her mind that had not been used since Name, more than a year ago. Then she shied away instinctively, like an unbroken filly, expecting to feel some horror or loathing. There was nothing like that. The touch of his mind was quite gentle, even a little tentative.

  It surprised her. He was too clever for her, this Great Betrayer. She allowed him to continue, and through the contact she sensed many things. An overwhelming purpose; an urge to dominate and possess; to crush his enemies; never to yield. The Charon were rulers of Aachan but prisoners there, unable to increase, surrounded by the legions of the Aachim, the threat of extinction hanging over them. But what she most feared—the depravity and corruption of Emmant, a mind so diseased that the touch of it had been like that rodent she had pulled out of the water barrel in the wharf city of Thurkad, rotted into jelly and matted fur—there was not the least trace of that here.

  I might be committing a terrible, wicked crime, she thought, one that no one can ever forgive me for. But at least I’m working with a man who is not totally evil. Not for anything could she have collaborated with Emmant.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  Rulke got busy with the construct. Karan felt a sick dizziness, then encouragement poured across the link, steadying her.

  “Now comes the most delicate stage of all—finding the right way to penetrate the Forbidding. It must be done delicately, so as not to alert the creatures that dwell in the void.”

  “Are you going to take the construct to Aachan?”

  “If only I could!” he sighed. “But everything’s different now. The best I can do is find the Way there, with your help, and using your senses linked to me, try to speak to my people.”

  Karan wriggled under her blanket. She was cold. She stretched, rubbed her chilly fingers together, waited. Nothing happened for some time and her mind drifted away onto familiar paths, familiar longings that were stronger than ever, now that it seemed they would never be fulfilled.

  She longed to be back in Gothryme, her shabby little manor that had been damaged in the war. It would probably never be repaired, for war and drought had cost her everything she had, and Yggur’s tax collector was due in the spring, only months away. And when she could not pay him, surely Gothryme would be stripped from her. That would not have happened in the old days, but Bannador was a free nation no longer. It lay under the yoke of Yggur, and she knew how ruthless he could be.

  She longed for her own people, especially faithful old Rachis, her steward for nearly twenty years, the mainstay of Gothryme. He had always been steadfast. He should be enjoying his rocking chair by the hearth now, not working day and night to keep Gothryme from falling apart.

  She longed for her gardens that she had just begun to lay out, and for the feel of the poor soil of Gothryme in her fingers. But most of all she ached for Llian, for the comfort of his arms around her, for his jokes and tales, and his love-making too. Not much of that lately. Rulke had come between them on the way back from Katazza, and dear mistaken Shand had poisoned her mind against Llian, raising the worm of treachery that had made the past few months such a misery for them both.

  And that woke another yearning that was still a little thing but growing—an heir for Gothryme. She did not feel ready for that, but the women of her family were not fertile for long, and Karan knew her time was running out. If she did not produce an heir, one day her beloved home would fall into the hands of a stranger, some distant cousin who might care nothing for its Histories or its people.

  Suddenly the nets of light sprang into place again and the networks smeared out to make the Wall of the Forbidding. All at once her world—the tower walls, the window—faded, and she saw that she was outside (or perhaps inside) a translucent surface that seemed to curve away in many dimensions, further than she could sense it. It was a little akin to the stuff of which the Nightland had been made, faintly shimmering on its folds, curves and convolutions. The Wall was in constant motion, sometimes billowing, sometimes shivering but never in the same place twice. Sometimes it went in many directions at once, a thing that her mind could not accommodate. Carcharon was a very strange place, and here the Secret Art behaved in unpredictable ways.

  She closed her eyes to try to escape from the dizziness, but that made no difference. At times a wave would pass across the Wall from one direction or another, or it would ripple like a stone thrown into a pond. At other times it rang silently, like a gigantic gong, or shook violently as if rattled from the other side.

  Mostly the Wall was milkily translucent, but there were occasions when rainbows shimmered across it in muted, pastel colors, and other times when parts of it would darken to opacity or burst with brief bright radiance. Nothing was visible on the other side, if there could be said to be another side to something like an ultra-dimensional Möbius plane.

  She was growing used to it now. Though it was endlessly variable, endlessly fascinating, she had work to do. The sound of the construct moved up to a higher pitch. Waves of color pulsed across the translucency like a frightened cuttlefish. The nature of reality changed again; the walls of Carcharon began to warp around and away from the construct. Karan could not see this, but she could feel it. The floor felt as if it had sagged down. She had to brace herself to avoid sliding toward the construct.

  The sound rose to a whine and the Wall became solid with moving color. Now it was like lying beneath the surface of a pool, watching drops fall from above. The drops were invisible, but each made a nipple sticking out at her, and a series of concentric ripples spread out from it like a corrugated breast. The drops began to fall faster and harder, the ripples chasing each other continuously. Now they rebounded and reformed, and sometimes a tiny globe would break off and drift away, or fall back and be slowly resorbed. Once one of these came drifting toward her nose and she half-expected it to burst the way a soap bubble might, but it just rebounded with no sensation at all.

  Sometimes bubbles seemed to be forming on the other side too. Perhaps that was what Rulke was trying to achieve. “It thins!” he sang out. “Can you feel it?”

  The whine rose in pitch. The whole Forbidding reverberated like a gong. The colors and motions made her feel bilious, then suddenly a corona of bubbles soared past and right in front of her was a tiny perforation in the Wall.

  Rulke was quietly triumphant. “There it is! Now it’s your turn, Karan. Find the Way between the Worlds.”

  She hesitated, wondering what would happen if the hole snapped shut while her sensing was beyond. He must have known what she was thinking, for he said quietly, “Courage! I won’t fail you. But you must do it quickly. This takes a toll of my strength.”

  Great Betrayer! But, strangely, she felt safe. At least, as safe as he was. “I’m ready.”

  “I’ll put you in a trance, else your eyes and ears will distract you.”

  She submitted, and he did that. Her body sat motionless in Carcharon but now her eyes saw nothing. Karan sought out through the Wall as he had instructed her, her mind totally blank, only her senses live. All around her stretched the void. She had thought it to be just emptiness, but in this state she saw that it was a maze of spaces, ever changing, like the Forbidding itself only extending in many dimensions. The structure of the void was impossible to comprehend, but there was a Way through it; perhaps many Ways.

  She fl
oated past a murky clot that suddenly sprang against the layer between her and it. It clung there like a black spider, bristly limbs rasping against the barrier, trying to get at her. Karan was shocked out of her drifting complacency. The void swarmed with violent life; she could sense it all around. She knew that it sensed her too. Her disembodied spirit might not be in danger, but those creatures would soon realize that there was a break in the Forbidding. Freedom! A way out of the void! They would find it easily enough, for the Ways between the Worlds were their garden paths. And her body lay helpless before the portal in Carcharon, an invitation to a feast.

  For a moment she lost concentration, but Rulke was there, steadying her across the link. I am very afraid, she sent to him.

  And you should be. There are things here that will rend us in an instant, if I fail. But I’m protecting you.

  The pressure of their violent urges hurt her, almost physically. How easy it would be to go mad in this task. Rulke helped her to get control of herself again. She kept on and at last found a track and knew that it was the Way to Aachan. I’ve found it! she sang out across the link.

  Back in Carcharon Rulke shouted with delight. He took his seat upon the construct, his will locked totally to the task, trusting her as he must. The Way, tenuous and ever-changing, skidded from her questing senses. The very act of seeking and finding it, the seeing of it in her mind seemed to change it, so that she must not only see what it is now, and how it will be then, but must also know the unknowable—in what way it would shy away from her mind—and put all these together into a path that Rulke could follow.

  She slid her triune senses, that she barely knew how to use, along the Way, preparing it as he had taught her to. The strain of holding it was terrible. She could feel his struggle too.

  It hurts! he cried.

  Again Karan sensed an alien presence scratching at the boundaries of the Way, sniffing it out even as she did. Then another! They began to move past, first a trickle, then a flood of them, but though she cringed they passed by without sensing her life force.

  This Way was almost mapped now. Ahead Karan sensed the cold dark globe that was Aachan. Behind her, through the link with Rulke, she felt the creatures clustered about the pore through the Wall. How they clawed at it, trying to get into Carcharon.

  Karan felt a shock behind her as the first void-creature came up against Rulke’s will. Across the link she sensed his unguarded thoughts.

  It’s strong. Far stronger than I expected! We’ve been out of the void too long. I’d forgotten how desperate they are. Unknowingly, his guard over the pore through the Wall began to slip.

  She continued mapping the Way, though now she could sense his whole body shuddering with the strain, his knuckles white on the levers of the construct, his eyes staring but seeing nothing. I can’t keep it up! She felt the burning pain in his limbs as if he was being torn between two straining horses. Aaaaah! he screamed aloud, and did not realize it. I can’t! I can’t do it! Then nothing.

  Karan stopped at once, shocked at how quickly he had been overcome. What was she to do? She hesitated, then the link was back. Rulke was back.

  She felt the ache as he took control again. It’s not far now. Once I get there, they can’t touch me. She’s done a better job than I dared hope. Karan, where are you?

  Here I am. Karan remained where she was, afraid to map the Way any further, afraid of the creatures in the void, afraid that Rulke would fail again.

  Aachan! he exulted. I know the way from here!

  Rulke put his body into a trance and sent his senses through the pore, tracking her link, following the Way she had mapped. Consumed by his triumph he raced past Karan, leaving her to follow as she might. But who was guarding their bodies now? This thought distracted Karan so badly that she lost touch with her own job. She forgot the Way.

  Karan could hear Rulke calling the Charon with all his might, trying to reach those to whom he had not spoken in thousands of years. Yalkara! Vance! Grendor! We have a chance now, to survive on another world.

  Lost somewhere in his turbulent wake, Karan sensed that they answered cautiously. But so quickly had he disappeared, leaving such chaos behind him, disrupting her seeing, that she could not follow. It was like being lost in a gate, unable to remember the destination. Then the voices were abruptly cut off. She had lost Rulke, lost the link, everything. Her physical body in Carcharon was unprotected.

  The little intangible part of her that had sensed out the Way now drifted in the limitless void, lonely and terrified. She was so alone, while around her everything was black, menacing and alien.

  In the distance a fast-moving spark lit up the void, a comet that left a luminous trail. A few lines of verse popped into Karan’s mind as she floated there.

  A restless zephyr ruffles my soul,

  Sculpting chunks of darkness into form,

  While from the emptiness around,

  Twin vortices of piercing sound,

  Whisper to each other.

  Where had that come from? Her father? The scribblings of mad old Basunez? Wherever, it summed up the void at this moment.

  Just then the invisible cord that led back to her helpless body twanged as if something had plucked it. Karan couldn’t sense what it was. Rulke had gone where she could not follow. Her increasingly panicked sendings raised no response. He had abandoned her—he didn’t need her any more.

  There came an unpleasant sucking sound. Her disembodied senses sought around in the void. The cord vibrated again and she realized what it was. Something had begun to haul itself toward the hole in the Wall. Her senses struggled desperately to find the way home, but whatever the thing was, it blocked her path. She sang out across the Way, imagining her body about to be devoured. Would she even know, or would she just fade out to nothing? Using one of her triune talents that Rulke had developed, by supreme efforts Karan roused her flesh and bones from the trance, just enough so that she could see what was happening in Carcharon.

  The Wall had grown transparent around the hole, so that she could just make out something approaching. It settled over the pore with a splatting sound. It had the shape of a blob of stuff with tentacles, though its form was in flux. It glistened wetly like a slug.

  Rulke had said she was safe, that nothing could get past his protection through the Wall. Clearly the slug-thing did not know that, for it extruded a shiny pseudopod like a needle and slid it right through the pore. It lengthened until it extended halfway across the room, while the body on the other side grew smaller and smaller, and eventually the last of it popped through. The creature resumed its former blobby shape.

  Karan tried to mobilize her limbs, jerking this way and that like a beetle trapped in a spider’s web, but could not come any further out of her trance. She could not get away from the creature either, for it was attached like a limpet to her life-cord. Now the void-leech, or whatever it was, glided up to her, its mucus-covered foot squelching across the floor.

  Karan screamed as it put out a slug foot at her face, slug tentacles questing this way and that. She tossed her head but another pseudopod thrust at her from the other side. It slurped across her cheek. Karan felt a pain in one ear as it tried to drill into her head. She was almost insane with disgust and horror.

  4

  Frozen FOOD

  Karan felt horribly betrayed. Rulke’s promises of protection had come to nothing. He had abandoned her. And if those promises were lies, so was everything else.

  The void-leech extended its pulpy pseudopods around her head, trying to envelop her face with its grainy matter so as to drill through her ears and eyes and suck out her brain. But Karan was a prisoner of the trance. She could barely move a finger.

  The pain grew in her ear. She lost sight as the blob settled on her face. A rude probe began to insinuate its way up her nose, questing for a way into her skull. Another pressed against the jelly of her eyeball, a disgusting sensation. Initially soft, it began to harden so as to spear right through.

&nb
sp; Karan directed a furious sending of rage, hate and rapacious hunger at the void-leech, trying to make herself seem like a rat or a hyena, something that might prey on such creatures. It shot away a span or two, its transparent mantle fluttering in what could have been agitation. Taking the opportunity, she screamed, broadcasting her horror and betrayal right across the void. Instantly Carcharon and her body vanished. She was a disconnected consciousness in the void again. Now Rulke’s path shimmered in front of her. She flashed across the Way, following his trail to Aachan and into the Council chamber of the Charon.

  Who summons the Summoner? she heard someone roar in a voice of thunder.

  It is I—

  Karan spat her fury at them, broadcasting the horrible image of the void-leech into all their minds. Betrayer! she screamed. Look how he keeps his promises. He will betray you too!

  She sensed the Charon shrink back as if they had embraced a viper.

  Who are you? they cried. What do you want of us?

  Unable to see her or Rulke, they must have feared that it was the first skirmish of a war. Karan hurled the image of the void-leech, now pulsating as it began to settle on her head again, right into their minds. Back in Carcharon she was screeching out her terror. She flung that at them too.

  Karan! Rulke exclaimed. She sensed his mortification, that he had failed to protect her, though that was swiftly overlaid by regret at having to abandon Aachan.

  You deserted me! she sent to him, then blocked out the link and fled into the folds and corrugations of the void.

  You fool! he shouted. Let me help you. I can’t find the Way back by myself. We’ll both die!

  In that schizophrenic nightmare, her body in Carcharon, her conscious self lost in the void, Karan felt the disgusting probe in her nose again. Whatever Rulke had in mind could be no worse than that. She allowed him to find her and all at once the Way back to Santhenar was clear. They hurtled back through the mazes and corridors, and every passage they took, every wrong turn, she was aware of the current of creatures surging toward the hole—their way out of the void.