by Ian Irvine
Yggur continued. “Then I learned that Mendark was still alive. He was still Magister of Thurkad as he had been eight hundred years before, when my downfall began. He had lost nothing, yet still he felt compelled to aggrandize himself and destroy my reputation.” Yggur twisted the reins so hard around his fist that they made red and white stripes across his skin. “That day, that minute, that second I resolved to revenge myself on him for that great lie.
“But I soon found that Mendark’s tentacles were in every business. He was rich beyond any description of riches, while I was a wandering tinker with nothing but what I carried on my back. In eight centuries my powers had faded practically to nothing. I had forgotten most of the Secret Art, so long had it been since I’d used it. My revenge would have to be the project of lifetimes.
“I had to have a place where I could slowly build my strength, and moreover one that cost me nothing, since I had nothing. So I took over the ruin that was Fiz Gorgo. It was so far from anywhere important that for a decade no one even knew I was there. I made parts of it habitable, wrote down a book—hardly more than a pamphlet, actually—of what I remembered of the Secret Art, and began to practice it. That took the most laborious and painful effort to cram into my brain, and even more to keep there. Finally I mastered some of the simplest procedures, and that gave me something I could sell. I hired out my powers in enterprises that were dubious more often than not, gaining wealth enough to employ retainers and begin the repair of Fiz Gorgo. After that, fifty or sixty years ago, I discovered the Whelm. They had dwindled away to nothing for want of someone to serve, so I swore them to me.”
“Did you know that they’d once been Ghâshâd?”
“Of course! That’s why I went looking for them. I had the irony in mind, though it has bested me since. Anyhow, I set out to track down any device from the ancient world that could help me gain what I desired. The tavern tales were full of magical cups and rings, chalices and swords, bells and orbs, and enchanted handkerchiefs for all I knew. I made lists and set out to find them, and if necessary wrest them from their owners. I collected a great swag of them, though few lived up to their reputation.”
“Including the Mirror?”
“It wasn’t on my list—I came across it by accident.”
“Really?” said Shand. “I have some interest in this part of your story.”
“Not really accident, I suppose, since by now I had a network of spies who reported strange and unusual things to me. Some third-rate cutpurse had looted it, or stolen it from someone who had. She made a living with it at country fairs, reading futures. She must have had a minor talent, for she could make the Mirror show a different scene each time a customer looked at it, and then she told them what it meant.
“I had never heard of the Mirror of Aachan but I was interested enough to go to the future-teller myself. As soon as I saw the device I knew how valuable it was, and how old. It showed me Aachan and it showed me Rulke, though now that I think of it, never Yalkara. I took the Mirror—I paid her a fair price!—and went back to Fiz Gorgo to learn how to use it. As a spying device it was far from perfect, but it gave me an impossible advantage over my neighbors, and soon I grew powerful.”
By the time they reached the stream it was mid-afternoon. They broke the journey with bread, cheese, onions and a bowl of chard or two to warm them. A south wind had come up strongly and neither was in a hurry to go back out in it. Shand put the pot back on the fire for a second brew.
Scarcely had Yggur lifted his bowl to his lips, found that it was too hot and put it down again, when they heard galloping hooves. Shortly a patrol of his own troops came up the road from the west in full flight. As they flew past they must have seen the smoke, for they wheeled and came trotting toward the camp. They were soldiers of his First Army. He knew the sergeant, a veteran called Grisk.
For once in his life Yggur did not know what to do. His disguise would fail as soon as he opened his mouth—his voice was utterly distinctive. The last thing he wanted was to be recognized, to put up with the apologies, the discussion of his plans, and probably, no matter what his orders were, being secretly watched over by them. His troops took their duty seriously.
Shand came to the rescue. “Hunch down. Look ill. If you have to speak, just whisper.” He took the bowl out of Yggur’s hand and held it to his lips. Yggur sipped then Shand tipped the bowl right up and a flood of hot chard poured down his windpipe. Yggur choked and spluttered. Tea dripped from his beard.
When Grisk strode up Yggur was gasping, tears flooding from his eyes. “Don’t laugh,” said Shand. He rose to meet the sergeant.
“Papers!” said Grisk.
Shand was already patting his pockets, looking obsequious and bobbing up and down on his toes with the expression of anxiety characteristic of the genuinely innocent when confronted by authority. Grisk frowned at the papers, which were in perfect order, but much tattered and stained. He turned toward Yggur. Shand had already anticipated him and was fumbling in the pocket of Yggur’s greatcoat. He drew out the documents in their wallet, handed them to the sergeant and turned back to Yggur, whose beard was now sagging off his chin. The tea had dissolved the glue. Yggur stank of rotten fish.
“My cousin is poorly,” said Shand over his shoulder, shoving the beard back in place with the heel of his hand. “I’m taking him to his daughter in Sallitt to be nursed.”
Grisk inspected the papers, then peered at Yggur. He had drawn his shoulders forward and assumed a look of abject misery, punctuated by fits of coughing. Grisk examined the papers again. He looked uneasy.
Yggur hawked, coughed and hawked again, trying to clear his throat. He made a revolting gurgling, bubbling noise and finally spat a strand of mucus onto a stick in the fire, where it lay sizzling. Then he began again, hunching his shoulders and coughing until the tears started out of his eyes. He paused for a moment, managed to whisper, “Rafe at your service, sur.” Hawk, hawk, gurgle, sniff. “I’ll be with you in a minute, sur.” Hawk. Cough.
Grisk had lost interest. He handed the papers to Shand, walked back to the patrol, who had not dismounted, and they continued up the road at a fast pace.
Shand burst out laughing.
“You can laugh!” Yggur said furiously, tearing off the beard. His cheeks were red and blistered. “You just about choked me, and I’m sure the whole roof is gone from my mouth. But… thank you!”
On the second night they left their horses at a village near the border of Elludore. They were heading into the deepest, oldest parts of the wood, places where there were few paths and mounts were of little use.
“Now comes the difficult bit,” said Yggur, standing under the eaves of the forest.
Shand had gone back a way and was staring west, where the mountains, a wall of snow-covered peaks, rose out of forest-clad hills. He was thinking about Karan and the mistakes of his past.
“Come on!” Yggur called impatiently.
Shand shook himself out of his recurring daydream. “The wheel turns, and turns again. What will we find in Elludore?”
“Maigraith, I hope,” said Yggur. “I miss her terribly, Shand. She did so much for me. After this, I’ll never let her go.”
Shand frowned and changed the subject. “I wonder about this gold of Faelamor’s.”
“So do I. Especially since Mendark is so keen on it.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Oh, I’m keen all right. Keen to find out what it really is and where it came from.”
“You don’t believe what you’ve heard so far?” Shand’s expression was studiedly neutral.
“There’s something not right about it. I won’t be making any golden flute out of it if we ever get the stuff. But I don’t like the idea of Faelamor having it either.” He shrugged his pack higher.
“Then let’s keep our eyes open,” said Shand. He brushed past and led the way into the forest.
They walked steadily all day, south and west, hardly speaking. The going was easy in undulatin
g country. The trees were far apart but there was a dense undergrowth, so that it was difficult to see from the path into the forest.
In the afternoon the ground began to slope upward, and here the forest became taller on rich chocolate soils scabbed with old snow. At dusk they reached the top of a ridge and found that the other side sloped steeply down into a deep ravine that cut across the path. It was too dark to work out a way around it so they made camp halfway down, where a tiny spring bubbled out from the base of a limestone scarp. Shand traced the whorls of eons-dead creatures in the stone and shivered.
“Look at this! Did you ever see such beast-forms?”
Yggur grunted.
“How old is Santhenar, that the very life in the seas has turned to rock? This must be a magical place.”
“There are many such places,” said Yggur, “but no one has ever worked out how to tap such old magic.”
“Right,” said Yggur after dinner. “We’re here! Where do we start?” He unrolled a map copied onto parchment and spread it out on the ground. The forest, mapped in emerald ink, looked enormous. He measured it with his fingers.
“Twenty leagues by fifteen. That’s a vast area,” he said gloomily.
“What did your spies tell you?” Shand asked.
“The ones who followed the Faellem? They lost them midway into the forest; on the second day, or the third. They crossed the river and went west.”
“Beyond this spur?” Shand pointed to a branch of the mountains that extended east of the main range.
“I’d say so.”
They narrowed their search down to a section of forest a few leagues along a side. Shand brought out his flask of liquor and they enjoyed a tot each. They both stared at the map in the firelight. Something rustled in the forest behind.
“I once knew this forest quite well,” said Shand, pouring himself another drink. “We’ll find them.”
“I’ll have another, if you don’t mind,” said Yggur, pushing forward his cup. Shand poured a none too generous measure. Yggur rapped his mug against the flask. Shand glanced up, laughed and topped it up.
“I can’t help it,” he said with a lopsided grin. “The first cup is freely given, but the second, that I begrudge. I had another flask in my pack but it seems to have disappeared when I traveled with Tallia. If it were anyone else I would suspect robbery, but not my dear Tallia.”
“Surely not!” Yggur burst out laughing. “But I’ll make sure to savour it, since you’ve made clear it’s my last. Do you have somewhere in mind?”
“I was thinking that there are places in our search area which would be ideal for her. Deep and easily defendable valleys, running back right into the mountains.” Shand scratched his head. “I once panned for gold in this part of Elludore. There’s still plenty here too. I wonder…?”
“What are you thinking?”
“I used to practice the Secret Art, you know.” Shand had a gleam in his eye as bright as flakes of gold in the bottom of a dish.
“I had guessed,” Yggur chuckled. “And you have in mind a little… geomancy, perhaps?”
“Where better than in this ancient place?”
Shand was up at dawn, pacing back and forth as he worked out what was required. “Get up, lazybones!” he said, nudging Yggur’s sleeping pouch with the toe of his boot.
“I’ve never been called that before,” grumbled Yggur as he rolled out. “At least, not by anyone still alive!”
Shand snorted. “Climb up there, would you?” He pointed to the cliff face. “Find me a bowl-shaped stone made from that ancient rock. Then weave a little boat, from this!” Shand hacked a lock from his beard. “It will help point to Maigraith, I hope.”
“I haven’t had my breakfast,” Yggur said sourly.
“You haven’t earned any! Come on, time’s a’wastin’.”
Taking his dinner plate, Shand headed down to the river. “I may be some time,” he said over his shoulder.
He walked along the bank for an hour or two before finding a suitable place, where gravel was trapped in rock riffles underwater. Wading into the frigid water he excavated material from the very bottom. Shand swirled gravel in his plate, rocking the dish back and forth as he spilled the coarse material over the side. He found no gold there, nor from several nearby locations, but gravel from across the river rewarded him with half a dozen flakes no bigger than grains of salt, and one larger piece of gold the size of a tealeaf. It was enough. He headed back.
At the camp, ham and onions and bread were frying in dripping. Yggur had levered out a lump of stone the size and shape of a washbasin. The strange petrified life-forms ran through it from front to back. He had also woven the hair into a tiny canoe and sealed it with tree gum.
“I found this as well.” Yggur displayed some shiny yellow crystals on his palm.
“Fool’s gold! Let’s hope it doesn’t make fools of us.”
After breakfast Shand filled the basin with river water, put the true gold in one end of the canoe and the fool’s gold in the other, and rested it on the edge of the basin. Holding the sides, he concentrated on the reflecting water, trying to imagine Yalkara’s face on it as he had seen it in the Mirror. That was as close as he could get to Maigraith.
Shand strained with all his will, and once thought that he did see Yalkara’s shadow there. At that instant he slid the canoe into the water. It drifted halfway across, slowly revolved twice, moved slightly back the other way and stopped. The end containing the true gold was pointing west of south-west.
Shand did not consult the map. “I know where they are!”
Several days later they stood on the crest of a limestone pinnacle above a precipice, staring down into a deep and thickly wooded valley that ran right up against the sheer flank of the mountains. The rocks were saturated and moss-hung, for water poured down them most of the year. The valley was cliff-bound on either side too, and at its entrance the over-arching bluffs made a gorge with only a narrow track on one side of the river.
“This is the place,” said Shand.
“I’m afraid,” Yggur muttered. “I’d sooner go up against the thranx again than Faelamor. But to recover Maigraith I would…”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Shand said with a grim smile. He rotated Yalkara’s gold, silver and platinum ring on his finger.
“But even you, Shand—” Yggur said doubtfully, “great as you once were…”
“Yalkara taught me a lot about her. I have right on my side. And this ring, if its power has lasted. A form of protection against my enemy, the letter said. Not that I plan to rely on it. No, woodcraft and cunning will get us into the valley. Then we will see. But Yggur, may I say one personal thing, quite frankly? Regarding Maigraith?”
Yggur scowled. “As long as you don’t plan to trade on our friendship!”
“Don’t… have unrealistic expectations.”
“I’ve heard enough!” Yggur snapped.
21
GYLLIAS
A snowstorm drove the Faellem into the other shelter and Maigraith heard no more. She drifted in and out of sleep for the remainder of the day, waking at dusk. The Faellem were by the fire again. Their conversation had moved on, to tales of the south that reminded Maigraith of long ago. She went out to them.
“We must find a better camp,” said Gethren. “Even were we to stay, hundreds can’t be accommodated here.”
“There are caves further up the valley,” Maigraith replied, “where the cliffs come right down to the river. They’re large enough to shelter a few hundred through the winter, though in cramped circumstances.”
“We like being close together. Food will be the problem. What you have put by will last our people for less than a week.”
“The hunting is good in the forest,” said Maigraith.
“We’d better get to work.”
That day was hythe, but it passed unnoticed, for here it was overcast and had been snowing for a week. However at moonrise Maigraith felt a foreboding and was shi
very afraid all night.
She spent little time with the Faellem, who were busy hunting, fishing and smoking their catch; gathering from the nut thickets outside the valley; moving the camp upstream well past her ironstones; preparing the caves. A fortnight went by.
They began to go further afield now, on hunting and foraging trips that lasted for a week or more. They had just returned from the first of these, weary but laden with fresh meat and gatherings, when Faelamor hobbled into the camp. She moved like a crippled old woman, for her back had been damaged when Tallia crashed down on her, a fortnight ago.
Maigraith had gone down to the stream to get water. As she returned, bearing her load in wooden buckets slung from a pole over her shoulders, she saw the three Faellem standing in curious attitudes. They were arguing violently with Faelamor.
“Three hundred only!” Faelamor screamed. “What about the rest of the Faellem?”
“They swore to remain here on Santhenar,” Ellami replied, leaning backward like a tree in a storm. “They will not follow you a single step. Not even if it is the only way home.”
Faelamor shook from head to toe. Maigraith ducked behind a tree, thinking her liege was about to have another of her fits, but Faelamor controlled herself.
“And what do you say?” She gave each of them a stare that might have melted glass.
The Faellem stood up to her. “Maigraith has told us your dishonorable tale,” said Gethren. “As soon as we find the book you lost, we are going home. To Mirrilladell!”
“Mirrilladell is not home!” Faelamor shrieked. “We are Faellem. Tallallame is our only home.”
The three turned as one and walked away, their backs very straight. Faelamor roared at them but they ignored her.
“Maigraith!” she screamed.
Maigraith set down her buckets. She knew what was going to happen. Faelamor would humiliate her and remind her how useless she was. Again she would be stripped of what self-worth she had painstakingly built up.