The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  “Why do you care?” asked Maigraith.

  “Rulke ordered us to treat you with courtesy,” said Quissan.

  In an hour or so the swelling began to go down, though the burning sensation persisted. They fed her and questioned her into the night, particularly about Faelamor, her plans and whereabouts. Maigraith answered their questions truthfully, for the most part, for lying was not one of her skills. Besides, she knew little about what Faelamor was up to and what she did know could make no difference. One thing she did conceal,—that Faelamor had made a gate, and that she, Maigraith, had also mastered that art. They would certainly want to know that.

  Maigraith lay under a rude shelter—a piece of canvas stretched between four stakes—listening to the mutter of talk over by the fire. The Ghâshâd had been afraid of her and could not believe their good fortune to have caught her so easily.

  She could not believe her stupidity. She imagined explaining this disaster to Faelamor—the humiliation, the contempt in Faelamor’s eyes. I’ve not gone far with my new life, she thought, if just the idea of her fury can so intimidate me.

  Maigraith would do anything to avoid that degrading experience. How, though? Rebban the albino was squatting just outside the shelter and his pink eyes had not once left her face. He seemed to be a rare kind of sensitive, set to watch for any trick or attempt at escape.

  This was a problem as difficult as any of Calliat’s Chrighms that she had solved previously. What weaknesses did they have that she could work on, in her condition? The Ghâshâd were sensitive when they linked minds in the square. In that state their minds were very powerful, though their bodies were correspondingly weakened. Perhaps that was the way to attack them.

  First, make them so afraid that they would go into formation to defend themselves. They must! To lose her would be a humiliating defeat. Second, to strike before they were ready. Their principal weakness, as far as she knew, was a sensitivity to bright sunlight. It hurt their eyes and burned their delicate skin, for they were creatures of the far south, of cold and ice.

  Maigraith felt helpless. Her wrists were bound and the pain in her hands and chest persisted, taking the edge off her thinking. How could she use their weakness to overcome them?

  The fire was well stacked with wood, lighting up the whole area. Fire and light! Could she make something of that? Maigraith thought herself into the heart of the blaze, into the greedy, inanimate creature that fire was. Consume! Consume! That was all it wanted, to leap from stick to stick, drive out the volatile gases then devour them in blue and yellow flames above the pyre. But what it had could never be enough. It always wanted more—more fuel, more air.

  Air was not difficult to move with the Secret Art. It was hard to control though. Maigraith stared at the stacked wood, concentrating on the air around it which was slowly being drawn into the base of the fire. She sought out the motions of the air. It had the beginnings of a pattern, curving across the ground into the fire, then up. She tried to order that structure, to amplify the little tendril currents and feed the pattern back on itself. Whirl, wind! Imperceptibly the air began to organize itself into currents and lazily to coil inward. It was hard work. Stronger! Faster! It began to form solid streams that riffled the dead grass around the fire.

  Her head began to ache, and as she continued a blaze grew behind her forehead. The air kept wanting to resume its turbulent and random motions. She forced the particles back into the flow.

  The fire blazed higher, drawing the air in. Whirl, faster! Now the current was hissing through the grass, spiraling in, being drawn up through the network of logs and, heated to burning, rushing out the top. The flames leapt high and bright. Faster! Burn harder and hotter!

  Now it was going of its own accord. One of the Ghâshâd jumped up, shielding his eyes. Burn! Burn everything to ashes! The wind became a whirlwind, a mini-tornado that roared into the pyre. The flames grew so bright that they hurt Maigraith’s eyes.

  “What is she doing?” the man cried. He was reeling about, shielding his skin from the glare, and his eyes were watering to flood his cheeks.

  “The square, quickly!” screamed Quissan.

  “Burn them all to bones!” Maigraith shrieked, rising and throwing out her bound hands. The fire lit up like a bolt of lightning, shrivelling the high leaves of an overhanging tree.

  The Ghâshâd shrieked and covered their eyes as they scrambled into position around her. Quissan passed something around, they swallowed and all linked hands. Maigraith felt the power of the square growing. She abandoned the fire, which was now roaring its fuel into oblivion. It needed her Art no longer, for the whirlwind was sucking leaves, bark and twigs into it from right across the clearing. She made ready a link, to strike at them before they could overpower her. To attack them in their weakness—a mental blast as bright as the fire.

  The square was formed. They moved in on her from all directions, their bony hands reaching out. They were too strong for her. Maigraith felt a spasm of nausea and her concentration weakened. With a roar that turned into a yelp she sent her mental flare over the link. It was not strong enough. They pushed against her, six pairs of hands surrounding her skull, taking control of her and sensing what she tried to conceal.

  “What are you really doing here?” cried a fanatical-looking young woman whose bony head was shaven to a day-old stubble. “What is Faelamor up to?”

  Maigraith struggled. “Hold her, Culiss!” yelled Quissan, the old woman who had treated her.

  The pressure was unbearable. The square was much too strong for her. The gate popped into her mind. Maigraith pushed it away again. The square, sensing victory, forced harder. Maigraith shrieked and folded up on the ground. As she did so, the aura of the gate leaked out, and the image of the cave nearby. Maigraith closed it off again but not quickly enough. The faces of the Ghâshâd were lit up in exultation. She rolled across the ground, trying to get away. Her brain hurt, but the knowledge of her blunder was worse.

  She rolled onto the discarded shirt and a plan to recover from the disaster flashed into her mind. She rubbed the sapstained cloth over her wrists and arms, then allowed the Ghâshâd to catch her.

  They collected together, talking excitedly about the gate and the honor that would await them when they carried Maigraith and the secret back to Rulke. Maigraith suddenly began to scream and tear at her wrists. She wasn’t pretending—the second dose of sap was agony. She came to her knees, holding her arms out.

  Seeing the bloody blisters rising up on her hands and arms, someone untied her bonds while two others held her secure. Maigraith released another mental blast. It wasn’t enough to harm anyone, but it shocked them enough for her to wriggle free. She ran upriver, toward her gate-stones.

  They called back and forth to one another, their harsh cries ringing off the cliffs. Maigraith had to force herself to stay calm, not to fear them.

  She was staggering as she turned away from the river toward the gate-stones and the cave. Let them think she was trying to flee through the gate. Her hands and arms burned unbearably. A faint path led to the cave, enough for them to follow. As she dragged herself up the hill Maigraith fumbled the four-piece stone egg out of her pocket. It was the key to the gate. She warmed it in her hands.

  They approached, two by two by two. When they were near, Maigraith slipped between the two standing spires of ironstone, swung her egg between the stones and called out for her gate. Suddenly it came alive. Not yet! she thought. Seeing the destination was her problem, but one place in the world was burned into her mind forever. She called up that basement room in Fiz Gorgo where Vartila had tormented her after Karan escaped with the Mirror.

  The room flashed into her inner eye. Maigraith ducked out the other side of the spires, making sure that they saw her heading up to her cave. Then, as the Ghâshâd bunched up to pass between the stones, she fixed the image and flung open the gate. There came a roar, a tornado of dust and they vanished—one, two, three, four, five. Where was the sixth? A litt
le way behind. Culiss, the stubble-headed young woman, was staring at the space, suspicious of the gate.

  Culiss went forward tentatively, then stopped just before the two pillars. Her long neck darted this way and that. She wasn’t going to go in. It would all be for nothing if she didn’t. Her heart hammering, Maigraith crept around the other side of the stone. The gate was thinning. She ran up behind the woman and thrust her in the back. Culiss propped, whirled and caught Maigraith by the hair.

  Maigraith struggled desperately. Behind Culiss she could see faces in the gate—Rebban and Quissan, trying to get back out. Culiss dragged Maigraith to her—she was far stronger. At the last instant, Maigraith flung her head up under the woman’s jaw.

  Culiss’s head snapped backward and Maigraith pushed her in the chest with all her strength. The woman toppled into Rebban and Quissan. Maigraith slammed the gate closed.

  She fell down between the stones, gasping. A very near thing, but she’d done it. Fiz Gorgo was two months away at this time of year. Enough, surely! But as she trudged down to the river to bathe her throbbing arms, she couldn’t help but wonder why Rulke wanted her. Her heart raced at the thought of seeing him again, but it must be on her own terms.

  12

  The Faellem

  A few days later Maigraith was sitting beside the river, mending a basket, enjoying the rare winter sunshine on her back and the music of the river over the stones, when she became aware of a presence behind her. Turning slowly, because she felt in no danger, she saw three people standing beside the camp. They were two women and a man, neither young nor old.

  The women were smaller than her, the man barely her own height. Their posture told of their anxiety. They were various in build, hair color and appearance, but all were Faellem. Each had the glowing, rosewood skin and the old eyes. Besides, she knew the women.

  Maigraith came to her feet abruptly. It had been decades since she had seen any of them, save Faelamor, and she felt as much in awe of them as she had as a child. But she would not let them see that.

  The Faellem seemed disconcerted at this confident young woman striding toward them, her glossy chestnut hair streaming out behind her, where they had expected Faelamor. They knew her, but she was not the timid, downcast child they had known.

  As a rule it was not their custom to shake hands, but now the first woman put out her hand. “Greetings, Maigraith. I am Ellami. You know my sister Hallal, and cousin Gethren.”

  Maigraith took the offered hand, then embraced each in the proper Faellem way, her arms enclosing their shoulders, her cheek laid to each of their cheeks. She took their packs and offered fermented nectar in wooden mugs. They saluted her with the brew, and praised it, observing all the formalities. Only then did Hallal, the taller of the two women, speak the words Maigraith had been expecting.

  “Where is Faelamor?” The question came out like groundup ice. “We ordered her to remain here.” Hallal’s tight mouth opened, then closed again. She shot a furious glance to the other two.

  “She went to Carcharon to spy on Rulke,” said Maigraith. Months had passed since they’d communicated with Faelamor via the link; since Faelamor had told them about her gateborne visit to Havissard, the dreadful book she’d found there, and how she had lost it to Mendark. In spite of herself, Maigraith trembled.

  “Why?” choked Hallal, almost incoherent in her fury. “Why has she disobeyed the Faellem?”

  “Rulke is in Carcharon. She was afraid what he was up to. And she was desperate to recover a book—”

  “Enough of that!” snapped Gethren. Then, more kindly, “You may tell us the story later—the full story, in the correct order. But first we must eat.”

  “Are more of you coming?”

  The three exchanged troubled glances. “Near half of our number—some hundreds. They are well behind. We came in haste to make a place ready. We have marched from Mirrilladell, the best part of three hundred leagues, without a day’s rest.”

  Mirrilladell was a vast land partly embraced by the southward sweep of the Great Mountains that extended across half of the continent of Lauralin, and partly enclosed by the northward barrier of the inland seas of Milmillamel and Tallallamel. Mirrilladell was a land of endless forests, of countless lakes and bogs, of rocky hills bare of soil. It was punishingly cold in the winter, hot and sticky and riddled with every kind of crawling and biting insect on Santhenar in summer. The Faellem had dwelt there since the time of the Forbidding, and having lived there as a child Maigraith had few pleasant memories of the place. To the east Mirrilladell merged into Tarralladell, indistinguishable except that it was even bleaker.

  Hallal looked exhausted. She rubbed her hand across her face (she had small hands with plump fingers, and her wrists were tiny), brushing the dark hair out of her eyes. She looked across at her sister, Ellami. Ellami shook her head.

  Maigraith wondered at the lack of likeness between them. Ellami was the younger, but her hair was colorless, quite transparent, her eyes were gray instead of brown and though small she was solidly built. Her face at rest had a kind of impish quality, whereas Hallal just looked weary and worried. They both signaled with their eyes to the man. Gethren was different again, his hair a glossy brown, and he had striking dark eyebrows, long lashes and deep golden eyes, but his forehead was lined.

  Gethren answered their unspoken question. His voice was melodic and very soft. “We don’t know anything! Let us hear her story first.”

  Maigraith felt intimidated. Faelamor often seemed unbalanced, pursuing her objective blindly whatever the consequences. These folk were not. They were the best of an old wise race, and they would not do anything without weighing every option. They had a natural arrogance too. They were used to commanding and being obeyed. She tried to put the moment off.

  “Would you care to wash, or rest, while I prepare food for you?” she said.

  Hallal flicked her fingers, meaning “No!” “To be here is rest enough. Sit down. We will prepare dinner.”

  By this simple reversal Maigraith was stripped of authority. She sat awkwardly, feeling like a guest in her own camp, while the Faellem unpacked their goods out of remarkably capacious packs. In a short time she was eating their delicious food that she had not tasted in many years.

  Their cuisine was largely vegetarian. Not that they did not eat meat or fish or fowl: they relished meats of every kind, but only in tiny portions, as flavorings. Normally they ate the freshest of vegetables, beautifully presented and subtly flavored, but more often than not raw or only seared on the outside. On the road, however, they had to eat preserved food, unlike their usual fare.

  Their cookery was flavored with any of hundreds, if not thousands, of herbs, spices and essences, most unknown to any other people. They spiced their dishes with a hundred kinds of wood, as splinters thrust into a vegetable or shavings tossed into a braise, as wood dust sprinkled on the plate before serving or raspings steeped in vinegar or oil. The flavors were extraordinary. The food would have delighted Maigraith had it not brought up childhood memories that she would rather had stayed forgotten. But in the end she was glad, for what she had to offer them, gathered and preserved by her own labor, seemed very pallid stuff.

  They spoke only of trivial things while they ate—the beauty of this spot that Faelamor had chosen, the hard march of the last few days over the mountain spur, the quality of the light here—and as they drank small cups of a straw-colored vintage which they flavored with chips of rosemary wood, they remarked on the color, bouquet and palate of the wine. The wine was not their own, of course. They had purchased it only last week, but it was better than any Maigraith had tasted since Thurkad.

  The wine was put away, the cups and plates washed, and a bowl of yelt placed steaming before each of them. Faelamor had no taste for yelt, indeed she took little pleasure in food or drink, happy to have the same stuff month after month. Accordingly, Maigraith had long ago adapted her own tastes to monotony. She remembered yelt, though seemingly from another wor
ld, another life. She licked her lips. It was as much a dessert as a beverage: thick, rich and sweet, with a flavor like a creamy, custardy chocolate mousse but with a subtle coffee-bitterness.

  She sipped her yelt. It was everything she remembered. She looked up at Gethren. His old eyes were on her—all their eyes were. She shivered. They noticed that, but did not look away.

  “Now you will tell us Faelamor’s story,” said Gethren in that melodic voice.

  Maigraith was in a bind. “I owe a d-duty to Faelamor,” she stammered. “My whole life is duty—the first lesson she taught me, and the one most often beaten into me. She bade me say no more than I have done already.”

  “Faelamor owes a duty to the Faellem that is binding, for she fought for the honor to lead us and she swore to uphold the duty. Whereas you owe her no duty at all, and cannot! You are not one of us. Your very existence is a great sin!”

  “What are you saying?” Maigraith whispered. From these people the simple statements, that would have been obvious to anyone but Maigraith, cleaved through her conditioning like a thunderbolt.

  “You are not born to duty, as our species is. You owe Faelamor only what is due for your education and your upbringing, and that was paid back long ago. Neither have you sworn to us of your own will. Faelamor indoctrinated and compelled you, and that is no true duty.”

  Maigraith looked from one to the other, confused.

  Ellami grimaced. Her face showed more than the other two. “Duty cannot be owed in isolation,” she said. “You do not owe her duty merely because she says it.” Her voice was harsh, after Gethren’s. “It is Faelamor who fails in her duty—to the Faellem. Duty to be one among the Faellem. She was always arrogant. She has done a great wrong, to you not least of all. Tell us your story. Omit no part of it.”

  “She said that the Faellem are like a hive: she is the queen bee and you are the workers, carrying out her will with none of your own.”

  Ellami smote her bowl of yelt right off the table. “Faelamor is proud and must be brought low.” Her eyes pierced Maigraith’s like needles. “What does she think we have been doing in the hundreds of years since we expelled her for her villainy?”