by Ian Irvine
The next day passed the same way. Again her search found no food. She used up all the stone, managing to block the gap sufficiently to keep the fire alight, though it gave no warmth unless she squatted right in front of it.
By the following day the need for food was becoming desperate. None of the trees nearby was of a kind that bore nuts, and she saw not a single animal track in the snow. The land here seemed to have been sterilized of anything edible, but she was afraid to go too far from the hut. Every footprint in the snow was a signpost to her enemies.
Her nights were troubled by dreams of Rulke—lingering effects of hrux, no doubt—where he appeared, always good-humored, and called her back to him. And despite her resistance she always went.
Her options were running out as rapidly as her food. She was not so pleased with the mouse these days, for it had eaten the remaining piece of her eel. Karan was constantly hungry now. Tomorrow she’d have to leave, no matter who was looking for her. There was nowhere to go but to Gothryme. She was aching for home but dreading it, too, with this burden of guilt hanging over her.
She went out the back for firewood, savagely attacking a small dead tree. It was hard work, because her hatchet was blunt and she had no sharpening stone. She gave a last hack and the tree fell, to splinter on the ground. The trunk split open. There was not much firewood in it, for inside it turned out to be full of fat white grubs nesting in digested wood.
You can eat wood grubs, if you’re hungry enough. Her father’s voice was in her head, from one of their camping trips in the mountains. He had always been pointing out such things—where to find water, or honey, or bird nests, what could be eaten and what must be left alone.
She eyed the grubs. Each was as big as her thumb, with a swollen body that was purple on the end, tiny brown stubs of legs and brown mouth parts at the front of its blind head. Somehow she couldn’t imagine eating it. But surely grub was better than starving.
Gathering the grubs into her jacket, Karan hurried back to the hut. There she spilled her catch onto the bench and stared at the creatures.
Some of them started to wriggle, a blind questing about, as if reluctantly woken from hibernation. She picked one up, brought it to her mouth and put it down again. She arranged the grubs in rows. She changed the rows into a circle, then into lines that spelled out her name, then Llian’s.
Her stomach hurt. Got to have something to eat! She closed her eyes, brought the grub to her lips again and her eyes came open involuntarily. The swollen white and purple body twitched disgustingly. Closing her eyes again she forced it into her mouth. It lay on her tongue while she tried not to vomit. Suddenly Karan felt a sharp pain. The wretched creature had bitten her. She tried to spit it out but it would not let go, even when she accidentally crushed it between her teeth.
The grub burst like a grape, flooding her mouth with what felt like thick, bitter jelly. It was disgusting! Gagging, she spat it into the fire, ripped the mouth parts off her tongue and washed her mouth out with cold chard.
She was about to fling the grubs out the door when it occurred to her that she should have cooked them. She dried her chard pot, threw the grubs in and put them on the edge of the fire to bake. It did not take very long. Picking one out, she found it withered, brown and reduced to a third of its former size. It smelled like food.
She was salivating. Karan popped the grub into her mouth, crunched it up and found that it now had a rather pleasant, sweet nutty flavor, though it felt rather scratchy as it went down. The legs, she supposed. She had just put a handful in her mouth when out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a tall figure going past the window hole. She snatched up a half-rotten piece of wood, her only weapon. How had this intruder come so close without her talent warning her?
The door was thrust open with a creaky groan. She raised her stick.
“Karan, is it you?”
“Glmph!” she said with her mouth full. She swallowed furiously. “Tallia!”
Dropping her weapon, Karan embraced Tallia like a lost sister. “How did you find me?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Hiding! The Ghâshâd are after me.” Karan moved the pot so Tallia could not see the contents.
“I think they’ve given up. I haven’t seen any sign of them for a couple of days.”
“You mean I can go home?”
“First thing in the morning!” Tallia said cheerfully.
“Well, come have some chard and tell… Is Llian all right?”
“Yes, though Carcharon was a disaster we haven’t recovered from.”
And I caused it, Karan thought, sobering up rapidly. “What happened?”
“It was a rout!” said Tallia.
“Oh!” Karan said.
“Why did you go to Carcharon, Karan?”
“Surely Llian told you?”
“He did, but I’d like to hear your version.”
Karan had an inkling that things had not gone as well as she’d expected for Llian. “To bargain with Rulke for him. It was the only way to free Llian. And the strange thing was, Rulke never really wanted him at all. You were all wrong about that. It was me he was after, all along.”
“What for, Karan? Why did he want you so badly?”
Karan did not want to talk about it, but Tallia’s eyes burned into her, and Karan knew she could keep the secret no longer. “I’m triune!” she whispered, expecting Tallia to shrink from her in horror or disgust. “I also have a Faellem ancestor.”
Tallia could not contain her astonishment. “Triune!” She began to pace up and down, darting Karan sideways glances. “That explains… a lot. Mendark and I often wondered about you. And then what happened?”
“Once Llian was free I had to do my part of the bargain. I found the Way between the Worlds for Rulke, but everything went wrong.”
“So Llian talked you into going to Carcharon?”
“Don’t be stupid! It was my idea! I was sneaking out when he caught me and refused to let me go by myself. Llian was magnificent!” Karan’s eyes shone. “You should have seen him! It was the bravest deed I’ve ever seen, the way he faced Rulke like that. Of course in the end it came to nothing. Where is Llian now? Is he safe?”
“He was when I left him in Gothryme,” said Tallia carefully. She sat down at the bench.
Remembering the grubs, Karan grabbed the pot. “Tea?” she asked casually.
“What are you eating?” said Tallia. “Can I have some?”
“Haven’t you got any food?” Karan held the pot well away, mortified at nearly being caught.
“Plenty!” said Tallia. “I just wondered…”
Karan casually emptied the grubs into the back of the fire, washed the pot out and filled it with water. They drank their chard from a pair of wooden mugs, rudely carved by some previous inhabitant. “How did you find me, Tallia?”
Tallia explained what she was doing up here. “I’ve been enjoying my freedom, to be perfectly honest.”
“Carcharon has been abandoned, you say?”
“It was when Shand and I came up. That was on the fourth day after hythe, three days ago. Anyway, this morning, as I wandered near the edge of the escarpment about a league from here, I chanced across a small footprint in the snow. It was quite fresh; who else could it have been but you?” “It wasn’t me,” said Karan. “I came though the forest. And it’s snowed since then.”
“That’s curious.” Tallia sipped her tea. “I had no idea where to look so I just continued along the edge of the cliff. Even then I only discovered the hut by accident.”
“A small footprint?” Karan exclaimed. “That rules out Rulke or any of the Ghâshâd. There’s no one missing from Gothryme? No child or girl?”
“Not when I left. Everyone was keeping close to the manor, with the thranx about. I’m hungry. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
There was plenty: an uncut loaf, still wrapped in waxed cloth and relatively fresh; a small wheel of hard cheese, very pungent; dried meat, two k
inds—one plain, the other pickled in hot spices. Tallia had the northerner’s taste for spicy foods. She also had some salt fish, as well as a whole side of smoked fish.
“Smoked fish!” said Karan. “I stole some smoked eel from Carcharon and I can still taste the wretched stuff.”
“You should have known better than snaffle the food that they eat, but don’t dismiss mine so lightly. Bamundi is the best of all fishes, and this is the best smoked bamundi. The food of princesses.”
“Smoked bamundi?” said Karan. “I don’t know…”
Tallia pretended regret. “Suit yourself. I’m a glutton when it comes to the stuff. You know, I can’t help thinking that Shand must have sneaked it out of Mendark’s supplies.”
“Mendark’s bamundi! That’s entirely different. I think I will try some.”
Tallia smiled and continued pulling things out of her pack: a box of pastries filled with nutmeal and honey and flavored with blossom water. Karan was especially fond of sweet things. A bag held various spices wrapped in twists of paper. Other packets contained dried fruits and vegetables.
“In fact there seems to be everything we need for a feast, except only onions. It’s quite impossible to eat smoked bamundi, especially that finest of all fish, stolen from the Magister’s own larder, without onion.”
Karan, who, despite her delight about the feast spread out in front of her, had been feeling more and more delinquent about her hostly duty to provide, looked up with a grin.
“I have two onions,” she said cheerfully. “One each.”
“Excellent! Now look what I found in Carcharon.” Tallia handed Karan her knife. Karan felt quite sentimental and embraced her once more.
“Dear Malien gave that to me. I was lost without it. Do you have any more surprises?” she asked in a voice muffled by the front of Tallia’s coat.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it a surprise, but it will finish the feast off perfectly.” Tallia reached into the bottom of her pack to retrieve a metal flask that Karan recognized.
“Yes, it’s Shand’s. The amount he drank while we were at Carcharon, I didn’t think he’d begrudge me the rest.”
Privately Karan thought that was a bit mean, but it wasn’t going to stop her enjoying it when the time came.
Karan sipped her coffee, nibbled at a pastry and had a tiny sip of Shand’s magical liquor. She tossed scraps to the short-tailed mouse, which had become friendly. Karan was glad to share her dinner with it now, and with the tiny heads sticking out of the crevice beside the fire. She did not know where to begin, just knew that she felt terribly guilty.
Suddenly she stretched out her arms across the table. “I know I’ve done wrong, Tallia. Take me—I won’t resist.”
Tallia pushed her hands away. “It’s not my place to judge. Just tell me what you did.”
“Llian matters more to me than anything. But now I’m afraid. How many people have died because of the thranx? How many more before it’s put down? How will the world be changed?”
Tallia reached across and put her finger across Karan’s lips. “What happened?”
Karan took another big sip of her coffee and a small sip of the liquor and began her story. It turned into a very long tale, for though it began in Carcharon it reached back a lot further, and out in all directions—back to her childhood, to her half-Aachim father Galliad, to Tensor and the Aachim. It touched on the Nightland, and on what Tensor had revealed to her that night in the Dry Sea, and on her poor sad mad mother too. But especially on Llian and her love for him that was stronger than the earth.
Llian’s every seeming act of duplicity was turned over and examined—in the Nightland, the night in Tullin, even the incident in Shazmak where he had searched her room for the Mirror. All were brought out into the light, examined, left on the table, and finally dismissed. All his splendid deeds were reviewed too: burning down the house in Narne, at the top of the tower at Katazza, his torments in Gothryme. Last and greatest of all, his magnificence in Carcharon. Her eyes were shining when she described Llian’s telling.
“After all that, how could I do less for him?”
“I see you have glossed over Mendark’s role in this,” Tallia observed. “Please don’t omit that part.”
Karan sighed. “You are his deputy.”
“I prefer the blunt Karan. Be honest with me.”
“From the moment I met Mendark I mistrusted him, as he hated me. Now I despise him!”
“He doesn’t hate you, Karan. It’s just that you won’t do what he wants. He has to command; to dominate and be known for his power.”
Karan made fresh chard and passed Shand’s flask to Tallia. They each took a generous swig.
“Had we succeeded,” said Karan, “it would have been one of those deeds that are sung about in the sagas. But we didn’t.”
“It will be sung about nonetheless,” said Tallia.
“Probably. The Aachim have a great admiration for the noble failure, more than for the all-conquering hero. Maybe that’s why I still feel a trace of respect for Tensor, in spite of all his follies. Anyway, it’s over now, and so is my part in the whole affair. I’m going home, and then I’m going to shut my door and have nothing more to do with the world. All I want is to look after my land and my garden, and begin to repair the damage of the war. And most of all—”
“You can’t,” Tallia interrupted. “You are one of the great now. The world won’t let you shut it out.”
Karan laughed nervously. “Nonsense. I’m just a poor farmer who can’t pay her taxes. And I—”
“The great are made by their deeds! People look up to you, and I’m one of them. You have a duty to aid your country and your world. I’m sorry? What were you going to say?”
Karan was very still. “It hardly matters,” she whispered. “All this turmoil and trouble, and it’s not finished yet. It’s the wrong time! What will become of Gothryme after I die? I desperately want to have a child.”
Tallia spoke without thinking. “But triunes are sterile!”
Karan went as still as a statue, and the blood slowly drained from her face until she resembled a marble mask. “You have just taken away my future.”
Tallia could have bitten her tongue out at the root. She sprang up but Karan stopped her with her hand. They remained in their respective positions for ages, then Karan gave a great shuddering sigh and wiped the tears away.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said in a tiny voice. Now she understood Rulke’s reaction when she had told him.
Tallia said no more. They were each silent, sipping their liquor and staring into the flames. Outside, the wind had come up and began to rattle the door. Karan put a block of wood against it, threw more wood on the fire, took another of the honey pastries and sat down again.
“How is Llian?” She made an effort to keep emotion out of her voice.
“Well enough, considering.”
Another long pause. “And there were no… problems after he… came back without me?”
“It looked bad when he returned and you did not.” Tallia did not go on.
Karan paced the room. She squatted down abruptly in front of Tallia. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Was he treated well? Mendark found him, you say?”
Tallia looked embarrassed and ashamed. “When the thranx burst out he was left behind. He nearly froze to death, and his legs were badly injured from the shackles.”
“He was abandoned, in chains, on that terrible night?” Karan whispered. “Oh, Tallia, did no one care what happened to him?” She buried her face in her hands, living what Llian must have gone through as only a sensitive could.
“I make no excuses. It was chaos when the thranx came.”
“Go on!”
“The lorrsk attacked us. Karan, it would take half the night to tell you all that happened before we got back to Gothryme. But Llian was recovering well when we left.”
“You left him in Yggur’s and Mendark’s care? His enemies?”
“Many things have changed.”
“Not enough!” said Karan coldly. “Be warned, Tallia, anyone who has harmed Llian is my enemy. I’m going at dawn, whatever the weather. You can please yourself.”
15
Reality and Illusion
Karan had withdrawn into herself, brooding on Llian’s sufferings. She responded to Tallia with just grunts or nods. After a while Tallia gave up and they walked along in a difficult silence for hours.
It was a miserable day. The sun had come out briefly at dawn but then the wind turned back to the west, spilling down the mountain and spitting sleet at them, hard little pellets like grains of rice. Even had they been of a mind to talk it would have been difficult, the way the wind howled in the treetops.
It had snowed heavily during the night and the forest was knee-deep in new snow, a fluffy carpet that concealed humps and hollows, fallen trees and ankle-twisting gullies. At midmorning they passed into a stand of elderly conifers, strange trees whose blade-like needles sprouted in semicircles like dancers’ fans, directly from the black branches. As the pair trudged along, the day grew more gloomy. No matter how they hurried they did not seem to be getting anywhere. Every direction looked the same.
“We’re lost,” said Karan, coming out of her introversion. She leaned against a sapling, which dropped a clot of snow onto her shoulders. They hadn’t gone much further, floundering in soft snow, before Tallia tripped over a rock, barking her shin.
“Ow!” she yelped, pulling up her trouser leg to reveal a straight cut that oozed a few drops of blood.
“Funny-shaped rock!” She brushed the snow off to reveal a hexagon of stone.
They cleared the snow away from the sides. It was a pillar like a flat-topped obelisk with writing down each side, names and dates in angry letters.
Clearing the snow out of the rudely formed characters. Karan read them aloud. “Here fell Tartim and Tartam, Hulia and Dalan, Mellusinthe and Byrn. Cursed be the name of Basunez and his workings until the seventh eternity.”