The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  “I knew something terrible had happened, when I dreamed her crying out for me,” Shand wept. “Aeolior, Aeolior.”

  Yggur left him to his grief, speaking quietly to one of the guards. Shortly servants appeared with mugs of lasee.

  Shand drank his in a single gulp, then said to Yggur, “What did Faelamor do to my grand-daughter?”

  Yggur continued. “Faelamor took charge of Maigraith and schooled her for the great purpose. But the Faellem were dishonored. They drew away from Faelamor, shunning Maigraith as well. Maigraith lived a long life with Faelamor, and a lonely one, growing slowly into womanhood. She knew none of her own kind or even who she was, and though she was far cleverer than anyone around her, and stronger too, she was afraid to use her strength or her will. When she did, it was always too much, and drew attention to her. So maybe Faelamor’s deeds will prove her undoing,” Yggur said. “Maigraith has the talents and the strength for her purpose, but perhaps not the will.

  “The first great task Faelamor set Maigraith was the taking of the Mirror, for on it, she was sure, the secret of Yalkara’s flight could be found. It was in Fiz Gorgo, when I held her prisoner, that I first guessed Maigraith’s origins. The eyes of the Charon give them away, for they are a most marvelous color, indigo and carmine together, though such a hue can never be described. Faelamor had given Maigraith a potion, the drug kalash, to conceal the color, but my Whelm took it from her and while I held her the color changed back. I then knew that she was a child of the Charon, but whose? There had been quite a few Charon blendings around at one stage, though in the early days, and again in the Clysm, they were hunted almost to extinction. She might have been hidden away, barely aging for centuries, until brought out for this task.”

  “She must have been,” said Shand. “It is 309 years since Yalkara went through the gate.”

  “I didn’t know Yalkara ever had a consort,” Mendark said irritably.

  “It was our secret. And as I said, I had a different name then,” Shand replied. “Several names in fact. I was known as Gyllias in the east, but in the west, in the days of my power I was called Cheseut, which is my real name and the one Mendark knew me by.”

  “You must be the famous Recorder!” said Llian excitedly.

  “I was the Recorder,” Shand responded. “It took you a long time to work that out.”

  “The rest of Maigraith’s story you know,” Yggur concluded.

  “Maigraith!” breathed Shand. “The daughter of our daughter, and I never knew. Karan often spoke of her. Oh, what a wonderful day! If I could just see her I would be happy to die.”

  Mendark did not look entirely pleased. “This makes your dereliction of duty all the greater, Shand,” he said sourly.

  “I don’t owe you any duty, Mendark!”

  “And Tensor recognized her heritage,” Mendark continued. “Recall his words at the Conclave, when Maigraith first appeared: Do the Charon spring up again from the earth? Though I don’t think he knew who she was.”

  “He didn’t,” said Llian. “Karan also saw Yalkara’s face on the Mirror in Fiz Gorgo, for she mentioned it soon after I met her. But she thought it was an older Maigraith. I wonder if the Mirror recognized Maigraith even then.”

  Shand let out a heavy sigh. “I have done you a monumental injustice, Llian. From the very first I blamed the Zain, and I have always doubted you. I poisoned the minds of these people against you, and Karan too, as I have worked to bring your people down for centuries. No service I can do you can make up for this evil, but demand of me what you will and if it is in my power I will do it.”

  “I want Karan back,” said Llian, “but that’s beyond your power. Or anyone’s…” He sank his head in his hands and the shackles rattled faintly.

  Yggur shouted at the guards. “Bring hammer and chisel. Strike these chains off at once.”

  They all watched the operation. “Nonetheless,” Mendark scowled, “you may not leave the citadel until we learn the truth about Karan.”

  Llian made a rude gesture. He felt so light that he could have floated up to the ceiling. “So that’s how you knew about the thranx and the void,” he said to Shand. “I always felt that there was something special about you.”

  “Yalkara taught me many things,” Shand replied. “The answer to many of your wonderings, though not all, lies there. I have never stopped longing for her—to bring her back, or follow her to Aachan. It’s been the passion of my life. A totally fruitless one!” His eyes closed. He did not speak for a long time.

  “Shand!” Yggur said abruptly.

  Shand shook himself out of the daydream. “Does anyone know where Maigraith is now?”

  20

  A Stroll in the Country

  “You’re looking remarkably well today, Shand,” said Yggur the following day. They were taking lunch together in Yggur’s rather grim workroom, though the fire was crackling cheerily.

  “I feel like a young man again. No, that’s not true. I feel reborn; unfortunately as an old man.”

  Yggur laughed. “Well, there’s plenty to be done in your new life.”

  “Plenty to be set right! What a fool I’ve been!” He did not say this bitterly, but as one whose eyes had just been opened. “I’ve got to find Maigraith, and I know you’ve an idea where she might be.”

  “I have a number of ideas,” said Yggur.

  “You mentioned Elludore,” said Shand. “That’s a huge place.”

  “It is, but Faelamor has been out more than once. Did you know that she sneaked into our first meeting, after we came back from Katazza last autumn?”

  “What!”

  “Yes! She was very bold. I didn’t realize she was inside until the Council was underway. You might have wondered at the strange course it took.”

  “I remember it well,” said Shand. “It was full of posturing and taking positions—political nonsense! I thought you and Mendark were playing games. I was so angry that I left Thurkad straight afterwards.”

  Yggur leaned back in his chair, reflecting. “Well, I had to break up the meeting without alerting her. But she was too clever. Before I could seal the doors she was gone again. After that I did… certain things to secure our meetings. I don’t know if she tried again or not.

  “I knew her refuge was not far away,” he went on after an interval. “Elludore was my guess, and that was confirmed a few weeks ago. Three Faellem came across the sea from the south-east. I had them followed.”

  “We might never find her,” said Shand thoughtfully, “even if we took an army in there.”

  “Especially if we took an army. But that wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “What can two old men do that an army cannot?”

  Yggur laughed. “Quite a lot, I imagine,” he said. “Is the morning soon enough for you?”

  Shand had never seen him so cheerful. “I think I can restrain myself.”

  They slipped out of Thurkad well before dawn. Yggur was heavily disguised, for he was all too recognizable. Shand was just Shand—he could look nondescript or imposing as the mood took him. Today he was like any other old man on the road. His beard, which he had started growing when he left Tullin a year ago, was now long and gray. His hair was sheared off roughly at the collar. He had his knobbly black staff in his hand. His clothes were faded, work-stained browns.

  Yggur was also dressed in drab: green shirt and mud-colored trews. His jet hair was powdered to gray and he too was bearded, though his had been made during the night and glued to his face. He wrapped himself in a long cloak and pulled a baggy brown hat low over his eyes.

  The guards over at the western gate looked sleepy. They checked the papers, not as thoroughly as they might have, and waved them through.

  “Remind me to send them on marsh duty for a month when we return. They should never have let you through on that pass.” Yggur’s teeth flashed in the gloom.

  Shand chuckled, urging his horse into a trot.

  “There was a time when I would have had them
whipped,” said Yggur, his levity disappearing. “In the days of my misery I was as hard as stone.”

  “I heard what you… did to the Second Army,” said Shand carefully.

  “Most commanders would have done the same, but I’m just realizing that there can be another way.”

  “The thranx has changed you.”

  “Perhaps it has. I lived so long in terror of Rulke that it colored every aspect of my life.”

  “And that’s gone now?”

  “I think so. At Carcharon I resolved to face my fears and die, but somehow I survived. Transformed, I hope.” He rubbed his cheek with his fingertips. “This beard is so damned itchy! And it stinks! What did you make it from?”

  Shand chuckled. “Horsehair and fish glue.”

  There had been rain during the night, just enough to make slush of the dirty snow on the road. A morning breeze came off the sea. Fog drifted in patches across the fields. The sun rose, thickening the fog, but within an hour it was gone.

  “I feel that I’ve just put aside a great burden,” said Yggur. “Is this what I really want, to spend all my days chairbound, administering an empire? Scheming, manipulating, trying to outwit Mendark and his pretenders? I was happier in those years I spent on the road, when I had nothing.”

  “I used to think that too,” said Shand. “Tell me about it.”

  “I was recovering from the Proscribed Experiments. You would know all about that.”

  “Hearsay only. I’ve never heard it from Mendark.”

  “You won’t hear the truth from Mendark!” Yggur said with a tinge of his old bitterness. “The Experiments were a different way of using the Secret Art. I won’t say much about that, even to you, Shand, but you can probably guess that it was like the summoning that Rulke originally used to draw Shuthdar to Aachan, to make the golden flute for him. And a bit like the warping of place and space that goes to make up a gate.”

  “And the Experiments were forbidden,” said Shand, sifting through ancient memories of his own, “because they often went wrong.”

  “No one has ever been able to codify the laws governing that branch of the Art. It’s like trying to design a bird without understanding that there are laws of flight. More than once the Experiments punched a hole through into the void and let in creatures that were never intended to roam Santhenar. With terrible consequences, though of course the Council never owned up. It was just an unfortunate conjunction of the planets, people were told.

  “All such experiments were proscribed a good few thousands of years ago, before the Forbidding sealed Santhenar off. Though not everyone obeyed the edict.”

  “Perhaps that’s what Basunez was up to in Carcharon,” said Shand.

  “I’d say so.”

  “So why did you use the Proscribed Experiments, Yggur?”

  “The Council, and particularly Mendark, was desperate to rid the world of Rulke. They saw the Experiments as the only way to trap him, and me as the only one who could control them. One Council made the prohibition; another had the power to overturn it. And of course by that time the Forbidding protected us from the worst consequences. Nothing could get through it.”

  Yggur’s horse picked its way around a mud-filled hole in the road that could have swallowed it. Soon they were spattered with yellow mud. The sun came out momentarily.

  “But the Experiments failed,” said Shand, taking a swig from his water bottle.

  “The Council’s courage failed them at the critical time, and Mendark abandoned me when he should have supported me. He made the failure certain! Rulke possessed me, and though he was later imprisoned in the Nightland, I was left to die and blamed for the whole disaster.”

  “But you did not die!”

  “I was driven mad though. I’d give anything to know what really happened then, but the memories are completely gone. A hundred years vanished! I rolled out of my furs one morning, looked around and was aware. The light of morning showed all the ugliness and squalor of my past existence—a century of beasthood. My furs reeked—ratty uncured hides, gnawed by vermin, full of fleas, lice and ticks. I stank too. The mouth of the cave was a midden of bones and shredded fur. Scavengers slunk away as I came out.” Yggur scratched furiously at his beard.

  “Walking hurt me. Not just a twinge but a grinding of the bones and a spasming of the muscles along my side. The last I remembered, I had been young and strong and whole. Handsome and brilliant too, I could have had anything I ever wanted.”

  He went silent and they rode on until the morning was gone, Yggur lost in his memories as Shand was in his.

  “This village is called Spinct.”

  It took some time for Shand’s voice to penetrate Yggur’s introspection. Yggur inspected the scattering of mud-and-thatch cottages to right and left. Most were only one or two rooms but they looked well cared for, and here and there in a front garden the first winter crocuses peeped cheerfully through the snow, as yellow as butter.

  A white-haired crone smiled toothlessly at them from a front porch. A red and blue parrot squatted on her white-spattered shoulder. “Look at the ugly man! Look at the ugly man!” it squawked as they passed.

  “It’s talking about you!” Yggur and Shand said together, then burst out laughing.

  “There are two ways we can go from here,” said Shand as they approached an intersection. “The main road is more direct but it goes through several large towns. The left-hand fork is longer, but goes only by villages.”

  “Let’s go the winding way. There’s less chance I’ll be recognized.” Yggur lapsed back into his study, then realized that he hadn’t finished his tale. “I beg your pardon, my friend.”

  “I’d like to hear the rest of the story, if you care to finish it.”

  “Why not? Doubtless there are parallels with your own life.” Yggur looked away and they jogged along without speaking for a while. He was choosing his words with care, or perhaps wondering where to start. In the end he sighed and went back to where he had been before.

  “What was I saying?” He paused for a long time. “I didn’t even know where I was, though it was a long way from Alcifer, where the Experiments were done. I must have fled for months in my madness. Of the hundred years following that, when I was a mindless creature, just occasional flashes.” Another long hesitant pause.

  He mused. “Imagine how I felt that morning. I wanted to run and shout like a young man, but I was a wretched cripple. It was painful to walk, even to talk, as it still is sometimes. I’m not half the man I was.

  “I came to terms with that in time. I cast off my furs, plunged into the river and rasped my skin with a piece of sandstone until the filth was gone. I cut my hair, beard and nails, got new furs. I still looked like a wild man, but at least I was a man. How was I to make a new life? I did not want employment; I was too used to solitude. I wanted to wander, to see the civilizations and ruins of Santhenar, to find out who I was now.

  “I had to have clothes, food, coin. I might have used my powers. They remained, reduced but not lost. The hiring out of the least of them would have made me wealthy. Yet I was reluctant. The Secret Art had betrayed me.”

  They were now climbing toward the top of a steep hill, the horses plodding in the clinging mud. Yggur and Shand swung down simultaneously.

  “So what did you do?”

  “I became a wandering tinker. I had always been good with my hands. I fixed pots, mended chairs, windows, cart wheels—anything that was broken. I earned an honest living and traveled the four corners of Lauralin for a few hundred years more—my wizardly long life had not been taken from me either.”

  The road became an overgrown track. They reached the top and saw that ahead the path wound across an undulating meadow of gray turf—coarse grass that was long dead. A line of green marked the course of a rivulet, wandering back and forth to their left. The road crossed it half a league ahead. Directly in front of them, beside the road, were the ruins of a cottage. Just a chimney remained, the angle of two walls
and a scatter of stone. Behind was an old fruit tree, twisted and rotten in the middle, but with one upstanding branch to which a few yellow leaves still clung. Two rotten strands of rope, forlorn remnants of a child’s swing, dangled down.

  “What a sad place,” said Shand, this ruin making an echo in his own life.

  They mounted up again but Yggur did not resume his tale. He was thinking much the same thoughts as Shand. How would it be when they found Maigraith? How would she react to him? Yggur felt insecure. Surely if she still cared she would have tried to contact him before this.

  “How did you find the Mirror, Yggur?”

  “I heard rumors about it.”

  “Long ago?”

  “No, only twenty years. Just yesterday in the span of our lives, though long after I went to Fiz Gorgo and made it mine.”

  “So what brought you out of your tinker’s life?”

  “I enjoyed listening to the wandering tellers and the tavern yarns, particularly about the deeds of the great, such as Yalkara’s disappearance. That was a long way from here—I spent most of my time in the east and the chilly south. But one time I had come west as far as the shore of the Sea of Thurkad, and there I heard a tale about a certain Magister of Thurkad, a great hero who single-handedly saved the world from Rulke after my follies had brought all to ruin. My memories of that time were faulty, but not so faulty that every twisted bone and warped sinew did not scream out, Lies! Lies!”

  Shand listened in silence, but for all his liking for Yggur he could not help wondering who was doing the lying. Wondering if Yggur, after committing the great crime of the Experiments, might not have invented the story to avoid facing up to his own culpability and his own failure. The past year had demonstrated what an unstable man Yggur was. When he was up, he could be the most pleasant company. But when he was down, not even his best friend was safe.