The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s breakfast time.”

  He ate without noticing what he’d been given, and then Jevi began unwrapping the bandages. His hands were more articulate than he was, for they were careful and very gentle. Llian held his breath, expecting that putrid smell again. Jevi and Malien bent over the wound.

  “How is it?” Llian demanded.

  Malien shook her head. “I wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “What?”

  “The gangrene’s gone, every bit.”

  Jevi held up one of the maggots, grinning broadly. “Fat little buggers, aren’t they?”

  Llian muttered something under his breath.

  “What’s that?” asked Malien. “Are you all right, Llian?”

  Llian burst out laughing. He was dreadfully hung-over and didn’t care. What a wonderful day it was. “I thought I might compose—decompose, ha!—an Ode to Maggots on the way to Thurkad. Let’s go!”

  17

  The Apprentice Scribe

  On the night of Llian’s return to Thurkad a meeting was held in Nadiril’s house, a splendid old villa set in its own grounds not far from the citadel. The journey had been exhausting for the old man and his chest still plagued him, while the thranx had cast a shadow over them all.

  Mendark, Yggur, Malien and Lilis were also there. Yggur was clean-shaven and dressed in new blue robes, instead of his habitual black. He seemed keen to begin a new life as soon as possible. He held a mug of hot lasee, a weak yellow drink brewed from the sweet sap of the swamp sard tree. Steam curled up from the mug. He looked relaxed, and more confident than Mendark had ever seen him. The victory over the thranx had restored him to the noble Yggur he’d been before war and adversity had undermined him. The transformation was astounding, though Mendark wondered how long it would last this time.

  Mendark stood beside the fireplace, sipping from a tiny bowl of gellenia, a very sweet, aromatic liquor that Shand distilled from fermented, over-ripe gellon. Stooping, he put the bowl down on the hob to warm. Its luscious peach-mango aroma filled the room.

  Malien had a small glass bowl but she was not drinking. She sat back, admiring the colors in the glass, the golden liquor made red, orange and even purple by the firelight.

  “How little there is between us and the void,” said Nadiril, pushing himself up in bed. His pillows tumbled down. Lilis hurried to pack them in behind him.

  “Thank you, child.” He lifted a bloodless hand and let it fall on the covers. It made a gray blotchy lump against the snowy linen. “How easily we could be overrun.”

  “I want to talk about Llian,” said Malien.

  “Colorless Malien comes out of her shell at last,” Mendark said irritably.

  “Tensor taught me the failure of leadership, and you two the leadership of failures! Llian has been grossly mistreated.”

  “Is this guilt talking?” said Mendark.

  “I do feel guilty,” she replied. “Llian may be a great chronicler, but he’s helpless out in the real world. I let him down at Carcharon.”

  “Bah!” said Mendark. “He wasn’t so helpless when he led Karan up there to betray us.”

  “I know Llian, Mendark. I’ve looked into his heart, and he’s innocent.”

  “If you’d seen him in Gothryme you might think differently,” snapped Mendark. He felt that the whole room was against him.

  “I’m no longer convinced either!” said Yggur. “You’ve been twisting the truth so long you don’t know what it is any more.”

  “I stand on my reputation!” Mendark said furiously.

  “Of course you do—you wrote it! You’re a manufactured man, Mendark.”

  “And you’re a miserable failure, Yggur!”

  “The thranx would tell a different story,” interjected Nadiril. “Look, Mendark, we see Llian differently now.”

  “I’ll hear Karan’s evidence before I agree,” Mendark said. “Why would she give herself up to Rulke?”

  “Because that’s the way she is! I have to say, knowing Karan… well, she’s not easily led.” Malien sipped her drink.

  “We’re agreed then,” said Nadiril. “This trial is over and Llian is to be freed.”

  “Very well,” said Mendark. “Have your way, but he must be kept under house arrest until Karan returns, or otherwise!”

  “I’ll set some of my remaining Whelm to watch over him,” said Yggur. “Vartila will supervise. Be assured that no harm will come to him, Malien.”

  Mendark forced himself to smile. The focus of power had shifted again. He felt insecure, while Yggur was resurgent. Since Havissard everything had gone wrong and he knew not how to make it right.

  “Let’s get to the real issue,” said Yggur. “Rulke!”

  “This construct freezes my blood,” said Mendark, perched on his chair like a vulture on a fence. His shoulders and the fabric of the chair were covered in flakes of skin. “Rulke will annihilate us. We have no weapon to use against him. No defense!”

  “Then let’s get to work and find one!” said Yggur. Standing tall by the fire he looked twice the man Mendark was. His black hair swept his shoulders as he spoke. “He suffered a blow in Carcharon. Maybe he’s not as great as he would have us think. It gives me new hope.”

  “What about Shand’s plan,” Malien reminded them, “to make the golden flute anew?”

  “If we had a flute,” said Mendark, “we could take him by surprise. Risk all to gain all—the construct!”

  “The flute is not the equal of his construct,” said Yggur. “All it can do is open gates from one place to another. The construct is a weapon and a defense as well. Besides, to make the flute we need Aachan red gold, and we don’t have enough.”

  “Faelamor has plenty!” Mendark said, still bitter at the memory.

  “Go play with your fantasies, Mendark!” Yggur scoffed as he strode to the door. There was no sign of his limp today. “In the real world I’ve an empire to manage and rebellions to put down, not to mention the thranx. It’s been seen not far away, in Faidon Forest. I’m going after it in the morning.”

  Mendark, back in his room, knew he was right. The flute had to be remade. There was no other way.

  But there’s no gold! It positively screamed at him.

  Even lying on his back, his joints burned. The last month felt to have aged him decades. The ride back to Thurkad had been torment. He limped into the bathroom to brush his teeth and caught sight of his face in the mirror. The sight was repulsive. He wanted to smash his fist through the glass. His life was running out rapidly and there was still so much to do! At the rate he was failing, he could be bedridden in months, dead within a year.

  He wanted to lock the door and never come out again. The despair was not at his imminent death—he was looking forward to that, after the centuries he had lived. Death would be the ultimate experience, once his life’s goals had been achieved.

  But the greatest goal of all remained. Mendark loved his city and his world with a passion, and could not die with the threat of Rulke hanging over it. Once that menace was finished forever, and Faelamor too, he would laugh in his grave.

  He rang the bell and, when the servant came, called for his healers and spellbinders. While they labored, easing the knotted muscles and taut sinews, working their magic on his brittle bones and sandpaper joints, a plan began to come to life. Faelamor had the Aachan gold that should have been his. She was the key. But she was a mighty opponent. He’d need a lot of support and only one person could provide it.

  Yggur had the people, the spies and the troops. He must manipulate him to find out where Faelamor’s hideout was, then launch a raid on it with overwhelming strength and seize the gold. With that he would have the golden flute remade. And finally, the most daring stroke of all, he would make a gate to Shazmak and take the construct. That quest would probably fail, but if it succeeded it would establish his reputation for all time. And if by chance he did succeed, with the construct he could rid the wo
rld of the menace of Rulke and Faelamor forever. And Yggur, too, if he dared to stand in his way.

  “Enough!” Mendark shouted, and silently everyone filed out again. They knew his needs and his moods by now. He paid enough to demand instant obedience. His body, when he slid off the table, felt better than it had in months. It wouldn’t last, of course, but while it did he had plenty to do.

  Encouraged that he finally had a workable plan, Mendark unlocked a small cupboard, inside which were a dozen flutes. Not magical devices—these were just musical instruments, though beautiful ones. Some were carved out of the rarest timbers the world could offer, others forged of precious metals. He selected one made of simple silver, a favorite, sat down in an armchair with a glass of brandy at his elbow and began to play.

  Within minutes his swollen fingers were aching. Once he had been a master flautist, but Mendark had not played at all this last century. Two renewals ago. How the decades fleeted by!

  He laid the instrument aside. His fingers had forgotten everything. The renewals must have erased the movements from his nerves. It sharpened his unhappy mood. Life and the world seemed to be slipping out of his control. All the more reason to secure his reputation while he still could. All the more reason to continue with his plan.

  Mendark lay awake all night, brooding about his grievances and the lack of recognition for them. He had done great deeds for Santhenar, but his greatness, his service had not been acknowledged, and never would be. It was a festering sore. To be a part of the Histories, to have one’s own strivings woven into that great tapestry, was the greatest honor anyone on Santhenar could wish for. Mendark was no more immune to that longing than any other.

  Once the merest mention in a minor document had been enough to make him glow with pride. But as he grew older and more powerful, such mentions were an everyday occurrence that meant nothing. In fact they were worse than nothing, for they represented an accumulation of evidence that no doubt would be used to rewrite history one day, to show him for a fool or a scoundrel. He had to be recognized at a higher level.

  Mendark had worked and schemed to have his role acknowledged in one of the great Texts of the Histories that every school student learned by heart. Eventually he achieved that goal too. But finally even that could not appease him, not even when he had his own chapter. Most important of all were the Great Tales. Then, long after Rulke was imprisoned in the Nightland, the tale of The Taking of Rulke was made, and at last Mendark had climbed the highest mountain of all. He was recorded in a Great Tale. His name and his deeds would be remembered whilever the Histories were kept.

  But what had been, at the time, the pinnacle of his life’s achievements had long since ceased to satisfy him. Like any other addiction he wanted more and more. He knew that he deserved more. The chroniclers had been ungenerous with their praise. The honor that should have been his had been spread over a dozen lesser folk, playing down his heroic deeds as they exaggerated everyone else’s.

  How could this be remedied? It would take no less than his own Great Tale to set out all his deeds, but the chroniclers were an unbiddable lot who allowed no interference in their affairs. Only they could agree that a tale was worthy of being called a Great Tale, and it was hundreds of years since they’d last done so. Like sainthood, to be immortalized in one’s own Great Tale was something that happened only after death. Mendark did not mind that—it was posterity he was concerned with—but history tended to be rewritten. Unless he made sure of it, his tale might never be written, or written in an unfavorable light.

  Well, not to be recognized is the fate of reformers. I can bear that. But when I’m dead, I can’t bear to think that others will steal the credit for all I’ve done, and leave my name burdened with the failures and follies of the Council.

  I will have my own Great Tale! No one deserves it more than I do. And I have the instrument right here under my thumb—Llian! He owes me for the years I supported him at the college. It won’t be easy—the chroniclers are jealous of their independence—but it can be done. It must! The tale we’re in now will be a Great Tale, not the Tale of the Mirror but Mendark’s Tale! With these mostly comforting thoughts he slipped into sleep.

  Llian was held in a ground-floor room in the citadel. It was small but clean and even had a barred window. Outside was a walled yard with a single leafless tree, an ancient thing with a warty trunk and knobbly twigs like rheumatic fingers.

  At first light, Mendark appeared at Llian’s door. “Your time has come, chronicler!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Llian carefully.

  “I want my tale told. The future must know how I’ve sacrificed myself for the world.”

  The very idea! “I’m busy with the Tale of the Mirror at the moment,” said Llian.

  “Good. You can change the name to Mendark’s Tale, since at the heart it’s the tale of my life.”

  Llian was thunderstruck at his arrogance. “The college would never allow it. I suggest that you employ a commercial teller.”

  “You ungrateful wretch! It’s my tale, and you owe me fifteen years’ service!” Mendark roared.

  Llian felt like punching the Magister in the mouth. Instead he limped to the window, looking out as he tried to control his fury. The guards outside could not save him if Mendark really wanted him harmed. Then it occurred to him that this might be the way to find out what had really happened at the time of the Forbidding, and at Rulke’s imprisonment too. Maybe he could play on Mendark’s weakness to get documents that no one else had ever seen. But he would have to be careful.

  “I’m well aware of my debt,” said Llian. “Send down your records and I’ll consider it. But, even should I agree, you know what the master chroniclers are like. Every fact must be proven—they will check the evidence themselves. You must give me every document I ask for, and nothing will be changed save what can be proven to be wrong. Without these conditions, even if it turns out to be the greatest tale of all, it will never become a Great Tale.”

  Mendark looked furious, but before he could speak Yggur appeared at the door. “Of course!” said Mendark rather too quickly. He gave an insincere smile.

  “This is incredible!” snapped Yggur. “The world is falling to pieces around us and all you can think of is your reputation. What will Rulke be doing while you two make your fairy tales together?” Spitting on the floor by Mendark’s boot, he went out again.

  The next day, Llian was sitting at his table by the window. He had made a start on sorting the first crate of Mendark’s papers, but his heart was not in it. He could not concentrate for thinking about Karan. There came a tentative rap on the door.

  “Come in!” he shouted, not getting up. His healing legs were extremely painful, every step pulling at the scoured and sunken flesh.

  Lilis put her head in. “Can I sit here with you, Llian?”

  “Of course. How is Nadiril this morning?”

  “He is sleeping.”

  “And your father?” He already knew the answer to that question, for Jevi had been avoiding him ever since their conversation on the cart.

  “Gone with Pender down the sea to Ganport.”

  “Leaving you all alone.”

  “He has to do his work,” she said stoutly.

  “Even with those broken bones?”

  “There’s plenty he can do.”

  “And you have nothing to do, eh?”

  “No! I’m lonely. I miss Jevi, and my friend Tallia.”

  That was a detail Llian was curious to tease out. “Tell me, Lilis, what does Jevi think of Tallia?”

  Her face was a mixture of emotions. “He thinks she is the most wonderful woman in the world.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I love Tallia with all my heart.”

  “So, what is Jevi going to do?”

  “He’s afraid to do anything. Oh, Llian, it’s a fairy tale. He thinks that a poor sailor can never…”

  “I don’t think that would matter to Tallia,” said
Llian.

  “Of course it would not matter to my Tallia,” Lilis said scornfully. “But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t understand women at all.”

  “Maybe he needs your help,” said Llian.

  “He does! Oh, Llian, this is too hard!” She changed the subject. “I wish I was back in the Great Library; it’s lovely there.” Her thin little face was quite animated for a moment.

  “Well!” Llian sat back with a smile. “Here’s a good idea. Why don’t you help me with my work?”

  “Oh!” said Lilis, looking as if she had just been offered the moon. “But you’re so clever. How can I possibly help you?”

  “Most of my work is quite ordinary, actually—checking papers, putting things in order, finding books in the archives, copying. It’s only when it’s all put together that it seems clever. Look at this!” He indicated the waist-high pile of documents Mendark had given him. “It’s all got to be sorted and catalogued.”

  “Please say I can do these things for you. There’s so much to learn, but since we left the library we—” she broke off, feeling disloyal. “Nadiril has been busy with important work, and now he’s ill.”

  “Not everything you need to know can be found in books,” said Llian. It was a lesson he had been slow to learn. “Of course you can work with me. Actually, I need your help rather badly. Come, I’ll show you what to do.”

  The next few days passed very pleasantly, with Lilis’s bright presence there every day, and the documents were soon arranged in such order that he only had to think of something and it was in her hand. Sometimes too soon, for after a while he found her constant hovering to be distracting.

  “Lilis,” he said.

  She was at his elbow in an instant. “Lilis, I’m sorry, but I just can’t concentrate with you watching me all the time.”

  Her face dropped halfway to her ankles. “You want me to go? Of course I will,” she said, trying to look dignified and totally failing.

  “Of course I don’t want you to go. But this isn’t good for you, or for me. What can I get you to do?”

  Lilis froze with her hand on the knob. “I will do whatever you require of me,” she said, still looking hurt.