The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  He spoke other words, and combinations of words; sentences and songs and exotic verbal symbols. New scenes appeared. Some showed people that he knew. Here was Tensor, futilely trying to direct his gate with the Twisted Mirror. Here Faelamor, staring desperately into it in Katazza, with the inside of the platinum dome reflected in the background. There the image of Karan, wild-eyed and hair matted, a big streak of mud on her face, looking down. Her head jerked up, then the Mirror went dark.

  “Don’t tell me the little scrag has seen more than I can!” Mendark swore, slapping the table with his open palm.

  Llian was so overcome at the sight of Karan that he did not even hear the insult, but Shand did. His tanned fingers gripped Mendark’s thin wrist and he squeezed so hard that the Mirror clattered to the table. Mendark lifted his other hand; his eyes met Shand’s. They sat like that for half a minute, then Mendark said, “I’m sorry,” and Shand released him.

  “That must be just before I caught them in Fiz Gorgo,” Yggur said. “Let’s see if there is more.”

  Mendark took up the Mirror again but it now remained stubbornly blank. He could not even recover what had been there before.

  “What a capricious thing it is!” he said in vexation. “I’ll have to work on it overnight.”

  “It stays here!” said Shand vehemently.

  “You’re too anxious, Mendark,” said Yggur. “Too angry. Let someone else try.” Plucking the Mirror out of Mendark’s hand, he passed it to Llian.

  “I can’t,” Llian said. “I’ve looked before.” Nonetheless he tried, repeating various phrases that he had read in his books. Nothing appeared.

  “If Tallia were here…” began Yggur.

  Mendark broke in angrily, “Well she isn’t! This is what you wanted all along, so stop your posturing and use it.”

  Yggur shot him a dark glance from those cavernous eyes. “The mistake we all made was in thinking the Mirror to be a formed, unchangeable thing. But it isn’t. It’s dynamic, and every use alters it, makes it more complex, more difficult. More dangerous! Perhaps it has transformed beyond anything we can do to recover…”

  “Get on with it!” Mendark screamed. He felt that Yggur was taunting him.

  Yggur took the Mirror from Llian, touched the symbol in a certain way and immediately images appeared, flashing quickly from one to another in much the same way as when Faelamor had used it in Katazza. Scenes of Tensor’s gate; his wracked face; incoherence, mist and jumbled faces and places.

  Yggur put it down again. “That’s all I can find,” he said, “and I know it well.”

  “You didn’t even try,” Mendark accused, furious that Yggur had found more in it than he had, and now laid it aside so casually. “You’ve some secret plan of your own!”

  “Indeed I have not,” said Yggur. “But I will not chant meaningless words at the Mirror like some village shaman, hoping that something will fit the lock. I do not have the key, and I know it. I had it for twenty years, remember. Let it go back to its guardian.”

  He handed it to Shand with a bow. Shand took it, feeling guiltily pleased that none of them could work it, but before he could return it to its case Llian said suddenly, “You try it, Shand!”

  “No! I was just the custodian. I’ve never used it, and I will not!”

  Yggur looked thoughtful. “Llian is right. Time for you to take off the mask, Shand. Perhaps something was left there for the custodian.”

  Shand looked sick. “No,” he whispered. “It was not meant for me. I vowed…”

  “Time to stop hiding behind that vow. Look on the Mirror, Shand. If it shows nothing, you are no worse off.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Shand, staring down at the cold, still surface. “You can never understand…”

  19

  The Ring

  Mendark jerked upright in his chair. “Wait!” he cried. “I’ve just remembered something!” He hurried out, shortly to return with a package and a rolled-up piece of heavy writing paper clasped with a silver ring.

  “I found these in Havissard,” said Mendark, putting them on the table. Unwrapping a kid-skin wrapper he withdrew a small book bound in leather. “Also this. Faelamor dropped it on the floor of the library. I told you about it just after I returned from the east, remember?”

  He handed the book to Llian. “See if you can decipher it, some time when you’ve got nothing to do. Try and work out why Faelamor wanted it.”

  Mendark looked up at Shand. “I also came across this,” he said, handing him the rolled-up paper and the ring. “At the time I thought that it was only of interest to a chronicler. Now I’m wondering if the custodian of the Mirror might not know something about it. What do you make of it, Shand?”

  Shand took it, looking puzzled. “The workmanship is familiar,” he said examining the ring. He put it down on the table, unrolled the paper and smoothed it down.

  “My dearest Gyllias…” he read, then cried out, gazing at the leaf as if it had burned him. Cold shivers ran down Llian’s back.

  Shand stared at the letter without seeing it, lost somewhere in his past. Looking over his shoulder, Llian read the letter aloud:

  My dearest Gyllias,

  Would that I could tell you face to face, but you are still not back and I can wait no longer. Faelamor attacked me again and this time she was very strong. She dealt me a wound which may well prove mortal. My only chance is to flee back through the gate to Aachan. Beware Faelamor!

  Alas, my work is not done! I fear that it will never be completed now. But I beg you, take the Mirror and guard it well, against the possibility that someone will come to restore the balance that Rulke broke with the flute. I have locked the Mirror. Its secrets are hidden to all save the One who has the key.

  Take this ring, which I made with my own hands, of ore that I mined and purified here at Havissard, gold and silver and platinum all. It is the key to Havissard, and a form of protection against my enemy, and a token to give you heart in the darkness, to remind you of my undying love.

  It grieves me to go this way, but go I must.

  Farewell forever.

  Yalkara

  Shand held the Mirror in his other hand, absently stroking the engraved symbol with his fingertip, a soft, caressing touch. The Mirror suddenly exploded with light that showed every wrinkle of his craggy old face, every hair of his beard. He dropped it as if it was red hot. It fell flat on the table. They all saw the image there.

  It was a woman with a striking long face, long dark hair touched with silver, and indigo eyes. She looked up, seemed to gaze at Shand, and smiled wistfully. It was the face Karan had seen on the Mirror in Yggur’s library at Fiz Gorgo.

  “Maigraith!” cried Yggur. “Maigraith, what has happened to you? You have aged so!” Then he looked puzzled. “Maigraith?”

  “No,” said Shand quietly. “It is Yalkara! Oh, Yalkara, my beloved, how I yearn for you.”

  The two men stared at each other.

  “It is Yalkara,” Shand said, looking down at the Mirror again. His old eyes were bright with tears. “We were lovers for an age of the world. This is how I last saw her—how she was when she left me.”

  “I don’t think you can hide your secret any longer, Shand,” said Yggur with surprising gentleness.

  “I can’t,” he agreed. “Doing so has become worse than bringing it out into the light.” He wiped away a tear. “I am—at least I was—Gyllias. I will tell you my tale.”

  Mendark stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. “You were the great Gyllias?”

  Shand gave no acknowledgment. “Over the ages Yalkara and Faelamor fought many times, but they were well matched and neither could vanquish the other. Then, not much more than three hundred years ago, Yalkara found a warp in the Forbidding, a way to escape Santhenar. It was a secret that Faelamor was desperate to have. Their last battle began in the ruins of Tar Gaarn, near Yalkara’s mighty stronghold of Havissard. For her it was a most unwelcome struggle for many reasons, not least th
at she was with child, near her term. It was a terrible battle, hurting her more than she dared show. No one knew that she was pregnant, least of all Faelamor. That news would surely have fired her up. Not even I knew, for I was across the world. Half a year I had been away.

  “Yalkara overcame Faelamor but was cruelly hurt inside, terribly damaged protecting her secret. She called me and I set off in haste from far away. Unfortunately the baby came early. Yalkara gave birth alone in her chamber, to a beautiful girl child. She wept for it and for us, knowing that she could neither remain on Santh nor carry it safely through the gate. It took her days to make all the preparations, always hoping that I would return in time, for I was weeks overdue.

  “When I arrived she was already waiting by the gate. I ran to embrace her but she said, ‘I’m sorry, Gyllias.’”

  “‘What’s the matter?’ I cried.”

  “‘I am sorely wounded and no one on this world can help me. If I stay I will be dead within weeks. I love you dearly but I love my own species more. I cannot bear to die here so far from my own kind, and I cannot carry you to Aachan with me. Alas, we must part forever. But I have for you a gift. The greatest gift that any woman can give.’”

  “Her whole body was wracked by spasms. She doubled over, covering her face with her hands. When she stood up again she looked tormented. From a basket she lifted a small bundle wrapped in furs, and held it out to me. I was so shocked that I just stood there, staring at her. Finally I pulled back the covers. A child lay within, a tiny baby. A beautiful little thing, with her mother’s eyes—the only child I ever had.

  “‘She is our daughter,’ Yalkara said. ‘Her name is Aeolior. Take care of her and guard her always, and when she is old enough, give her the Mirror and instruct her in its use. I have left a message for her to find there. It will comfort and guide her, for she has a destiny if a certain foretelling comes to pass. And take this gift for her, my gold. I have always worn it. Give it to her when she comes of age and bid her wear it.’”

  “So saying, she took off the necklace of red gold, and her bracelet and torc, and put them in my other hand. ‘I will also give you a measure of my strength and my life. I hope that you don’t find it too heavy a burden in the ages that lie ahead.’

  “She took my forehead between her hands (they were cool and strong, her hands; but terribly scarred). She trembled, and something passed from her to me, and then she kissed me, a delicate kiss on either cheek, and a third on my forehead. ‘Do not forget. Guard Aeolior always, and when she is old enough, give her the birthright. But until then, stay here in Havissard. I have set it to protect you both. And I have a little gift for you, a ring that will permit you to come and go. Where did I put it?’ She looked around for the gift—this ring, Mendark, and the letter—but could not recall where she’d left it. In the turmoil I thought no more about it.

  “I swore that I would guard and protect Aeolior, looking down in wonderment at the tiny creature cradled in my arms.

  “I never saw Yalkara cry before in all the time we had been together, but now the tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked. She took me in her arms, touched my face with her fingers, and I felt her shivery trembling. Only then did I realize how weak she was, how close to death. She kissed Aeolior, smiled at me and stepped back into the portal. How the wind howled through the gate that took her from me! She cried out a rhyme that I did not catch, and was gone from my life.

  “I stared into the gate long after it had closed, until Aeolior cried and woke me. I had a new art to learn.”

  “That evening we went out of lonely, empty Havissard, for I wanted to show my daughter the sunset over Tar Gaarn, the Aachim city that even in its ruin was the most beautiful thing ever made on Santhenar. I gave her that, but when we tried to get back in, Havissard was closed. I had gone out without Yalkara’s gift—this ring—and the protection came down and has never lifted to this day.

  “That was my first failing. Aeolior and I were alone in the great world. But it did not bother me at the time. I was powerful. No one could harm me!

  “So we lived and traveled together, Aeolior and I, and I guarded her like the precious jewel she was, and the joy I found in her was some compensation for my loss. But that was in a time when I still accounted myself important, a mover and a shaper of Santhenar. Oft-times I had to go to places where it was not safe or wise to take her. I left her in the care of friends whom I trusted utterly, with so many injunctions to guard and take care of her that it must have been quite a trial to them.” His mouth curved down as he tasted the bile of self-loathing. “But one time, when I returned from my posturing and spruiking, full of pride and self-importance, I found my friends dead and Aeolior gone!

  “I’m sorry, Llian,” he said, giving him a cool stare. “I’ve always blamed the Zain. There was clear evidence of them at the scene, and they had strong motives. In those days I was one of their greatest enemies. Twice I exposed them to the world in their long wandering, causing them to be driven into exile yet again. Because of me, your people are persecuted to this day.

  “Aeolior was still a child when I lost her. The children of the Charon grow only slowly to adulthood, and she could have passed for a girl of twelve, an old human child that is, though she was much older in years. Whatever, she was not yet a woman. She was the very image of Yalkara, even then. I came back from doing my business and she was gone. She had been well guarded, but not as well as I would have done. Not well enough!

  “A long, long time I sought her: months; years! I could feel her, sense her sometimes, and it was as if she was in a long dreaming. Once or twice I almost reached her in my dreams, but always something forced me away. Decades I sought her, then one night I heard her cry out for me, her screams ringing in my nightmares. Her terror, her agony, was awful. Awful! Then she was gone forever.

  “Guard your children with your life,” he said, looking at Llian and each of them with vacant grief.

  Llian looked away, busying himself with his notes for the tale. Shand continued in a bitter voice.

  “I had sworn to protect Aeolior and to safeguard the Mirror for her, but a moment of carelessness undid all that. I failed her and blamed myself, so I gave away that life forever. I hid the Mirror and everything that was hers. I renounced the Secret Art, the way of the powers, and wandered in grief and abandonment.”

  He sank his head in his hands and his voice came back muffled. “My grief was greater than if Yalkara had left me nothing. And I was reduced to nothing, for eventually even the Mirror was sought out and taken. You ended up with it, Yggur. I don’t blame you, though the foretelling about Rulke has come to pass. Aeolior is not here to use her birthright as Yalkara hoped. She is gone and I am left with nothing. Yalkara gave me part of her life and I’m now older than ever I wished to be. My strength has faded, my wits with it. I long for death but life continues to torment me.”

  He said no more; he looked utterly broken. No one else spoke either; there seemed nothing anyone could say.

  Shand suddenly jerked upright. “Yggur, you called her Maigraith. Why? Who is Maigraith, this disciple of Faelamor that we hear so much of?”

  “No, it’s not Maigraith,” said Yggur, examining the image on the Mirror. “I see that now, though the resemblance is extraordinary! Nonetheless, I believe I can tell you the rest of the tale, old man,” he went on gently. “It’s a sorry business. You’ll get little joy from hearing it, except perhaps at the end. I came by the first fragment when I was looking for the Mirror, and found another with it, twenty years ago. After meeting Maigraith I had my spies seek out the rest. Though only now, after hearing your story, am I able to put it all together.

  “You were wrong to blame the Zain, Shand. They had nothing to do with it, though the evidence was cleverly slanted that way. Faelamor took Aeolior from you.”

  “Faelamor?” Shand whispered. “Are you sure?” He stared at Llian in mortification. “Tell me, quickly!”

  “There’s no doubt whatsoever. After her l
ast battle with Yalkara, Faelamor lay on her sick-bed for months. She was full of hatred and bitterness for the age-long defeats of the Faellem, and especially at Yalkara, whom she blamed for everything. Somehow Faelamor found out about Aeolior, and conceived a twisted plan that would revenge her on Yalkara and with luck further her own goal. As you know, Faelamor was desperate to take her people back to Tallallame, the world they were cut off from long ago. No longer would she seek some warp in the Forbidding through which the Faellem could make their escape. She would shatter the Forbidding and curse the consequences! An old Faellem foretelling had shown her the way:

  “Tallallame, Tallallame,

  Your fate rests on the one which is three.

  “To break the Forbidding required a special kind of device empowered by the Secret Art, like the golden flute or Rulke’s construct, but the Faellem were forbidden to use such things. Faelamor’s way around the prohibition was to make a human device, a triune—the one which is three. But triunes were extremely rare, often mad, and almost impossible to control. The only solution was to make her own and train it from birth. How could she do that? Then she learned about Aeolior. I don’t know how. She knew that Aeolior was a blending, a child of Aachan and Santhenar. From her she could make the triune and be revenged on Yalkara too.

  “Faelamor took Aeolior, and, it grieves me to tell you, Shand, treated her barbarously. When Aeolior was old enough Faelamor mated her, unwilling, to a Faellem male. Such matings seldom give rise to children but Faelamor found a way to make it so, and continued the sad business until it did. Eventually a child was born. Aeolior named her Maigraith, and, my spy told me, even found joy in her. But Faelamor could not allow the child to bond with the mother or she would never be able to control it. She tore Maigraith away from her mother’s breast, and in her grief and shame Aeolior killed her Faellem mate as he huddled beside her, his debasement even greater than hers, then took her own life.”