The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  No, not this time! The Faellem had done her a great favor. Ever since Havissard, Maigraith had known that there must be more to her life. She had been carefully preparing herself, building her strengths, exploring her weaknesses. She was nearly ready to break away.

  “Yes, Faelamor?” she said calmly, emerging from behind her tree.

  “You betrayed me! I ordered you to say nothing to them!”

  “They are your people!” Maigraith tried to defend herself. “Why should I not answer them when they question me?”

  Faelamor’s rose-gold skin flushed copper. “Your duty is to me! Only me!”

  “Why is my duty to you?”

  “Because I fed you, clothed you and gave you the best education anyone on Santhenar has ever had. I gave a hundred years of my life for you!”

  “You didn’t do it for me! You did it to further your own wicked plans.”

  “It doesn’t matter why I did it.”

  “The Faellem say that…”

  “The Faellem are sheep!” Faelamor said contemptuously.

  Maigraith found a better argument. “I am not your species at all. I cannot owe any duty to you. I repudiate you utterly.” She held her breath for the attack.

  Faelamor’s eyes flashed and she raised one hand. Maigraith recognized the compulsion this time, though she still didn’t know how to defend herself against it.

  “You will—” Faelamor broke off and limped to the mouth of the cave. “There’s someone out there,” she whispered. Her golden eyes stared into infinity. “I know that aura, that defense. Oh, this cannot be! She can’t have come back.” She slid out the side of the cave, bent like a hunchback.

  It’s just the Faellem returning, thought Maigraith. Nonetheless she felt a twinge of excitement. Outside the air was still. Sugary flakes of snow drifted down to coat the rocks. She watched Faelamor creeping up the slope above the cave, only to vanish in mid-step. Maigraith shrugged, tucked her winter cloak beneath her and sat down on a log bench at the entrance. Sometimes this spot was warmed by brief shafts of sunlight.

  She took out the silver stylus found in Havissard, absently playing with it, remembering how she had used it as a focus for her return trip there a few months ago. She wondered if her two shaped ironstones were still intact. The Faellem might have knocked them down. They had been very angry about Faelamor’s gate—the forbidden device—but she did not know if they felt the same way about her own. It no longer mattered. Maigraith needed no such aid anymore.

  She felt in her pocket for the stone egg. It slipped comfortably into her palm. Maigraith suddenly felt sure that it was as much a focus, and the mouth of the cave all the structure that she needed, to make a gate. For months she had clung on here, waiting for some spark to send her on her way. Now suddenly that possibility became an explosion of liberation. Why not? There was time for her to make a new life in a new place. Faelamor had told her a hundred times how flawed she was, how worthless. Well, let her solve her own problems!

  Maigraith squeezed the egg between her folded palms, took a deep breath and focussed on using it to make a gate. Immediately the scene outside the cave began to drift, the rough brown trunks and brown fern fronds smearing together, though she had not even thought where to go. Then a stick snapped in the forest above her. Who could it be? The Faellem’s woodcraft was legendary. Maigraith hesitated. There wasn’t time to complete the gate and she did not want to be caught in the middle of it. She let go again.

  Faelamor came sliding down the slope, her boots gouging through snow into the damp earth. She looked like a corpse wired up into a semblance of life.

  “Someone’s got in!” she gasped. “I felt the same warping as in Havissard. It must be Mendark, come for my gold.” Rank sweat dripped from her brow.

  The warping had come from Maigraith’s aborted gate, but she said nothing. Faelamor’s terror delighted her.

  Faelamor went inside, the water bucket rattled and she reappeared, gulping from the dipper. She went quite still, then began to sway imperceptibly—a trance-like state she sometimes used to calm herself. Maigraith stood watching her, when she felt a ghostly stirring and all her skin rose up in goosepimples. Turning slowly she beheld an old man outside, barely four paces from her. His gray beard and floppy hat were coated with snow and ice. His green eyes shone. In one hand he carried a dark staff, but Maigraith felt not the least afraid.

  She leaned forward, wanting to cry out: “Who are you? What do you want here?” but the old man did a curious thing. Shaking his head, he put a finger across his lips.

  In the cave behind her, the dipper clattered to the floor. Faelamor let out a wailing cry. Maigraith did not turn around—she wanted to hold onto this strange dream for just a moment longer.

  The man gave her a reassuring glance. His eyes moved past her, following Faelamor’s movements. Faelamor stopped dead. It was not Mendark, but a face she had long forgotten.

  The man’s face changed. He became very cold, very stern. He stepped forward. Maigraith could have reached out and touched him. She wanted to.

  “Gyllias!” cried Faelamor.

  The man nodded. “That was my name once,” he said quietly. “But I am known as Shand now. I have come for what is mine.”

  Shand! Maigraith tasted the name. It was a strong, kindly name. She had heard it before. Shand was Karan’s friend. She looked him over—weatherbeaten old face tanned to a leathery color, a stocky frame that was still in good condition.

  Faelamor spat on the floor. “You were not my match even in your prime, Gyllias, and your prime was a very long time ago. Even with the gift of life, as evidently you have, time has wearied you.” But on the last word Faelamor’s voice cracked. She thrust the fear away. “Old man. Old fool! Feel your old knees tremble. See the mist before your old eyes.” She gestured in the air.

  Maigraith’s knees went as weak as butter. Her vision grew blurred, as if she was an old woman peering out of cataract-ridden orbs. She was so decrepit, so useless that she could scarcely remember who she was. She wanted this dear old man, so kindly when he gazed at her, so stern when he looked away, to turn aside, shaking his head as if he had been overcome by a dream, and pass out of their lives again. Faelamor had terrible powers at her command. Her illusions could drive anyone insane. Maigraith wanted no harm to come to Shand. And yet she wanted him to stay, to confront her as no one had in all her memory.

  Shand laughed and the illusion fell to the ground like a discarded nightgown. “The time for games has gone, Faelamor! I am indeed old. Old as the mangrove tree that grows with its knees in the sea, year in, year out. And I am tough as the roots of the mangrove tree too. Bent I am, and brown, baked into a form that can resist any battering, as the roots of that tree make boat ribs to withstand even the hurricanes of the great ocean.”

  Faelamor’s answer was another gesture, another simple pattern; but every muscle stood out with the effort. Maigraith fell to her knees. None of her senses seemed to work properly. Her vision shrank into a tunnel directly in front of her, outside which everything was distorted unrecognizably.

  Shand waved his hand in the air and Yalkara’s protecting ring shone in a fleeting beam of sunlight. The gesture was a dismissal, a refusal to believe in illusion, and instantly it was gone.

  “You robbed me of my daughter,” said Shand. “You took from me the most precious thing I ever had, and unmade it. Now I have come for payment.”

  Faelamor cast mirages in the air that would have driven anyone else mad, that had Maigraith gasping and twitching on the floor of the cave. Shand was unmoved. She tried other deceptions, the best she knew, but confidence was all and hers had evaporated before those deep green eyes, that unshakeable resolve. Her legitimacy was lost. She could not stand before the wrath of old Shand.

  Maigraith saw Faelamor’s courage dribble away. It was like cutting off her right hand to submit to Shand, yet Faelamor was defeated and she knew it. She put a glamour on herself and disappeared. As she went past, Shand spread
his fingers at her, using the Secret Art this time, and her concealment was stripped off. She put the deception back at once, and Shand did not renew his charm, but for a fleeting second Maigraith saw her face. It was as if Faelamor screamed out in agony—a torment embarrassing to have witnessed.

  Shand’s eyes followed her invisible progress out into the forest. “She won’t be back for a while!” he said softly.

  Maigraith was utterly confused, yet at the same time felt like bursting into song. This was the greatest day of her life. She went slowly toward Shand. He took off his hat. He was a short man, only her own height. The hair was thin on the top of his head. She felt concerned for him.

  “Why have you come?” she whispered. “Who are you, Shand?”

  He gazed at her in wonder. “I am your grandfather.” He held out his hand. She took it. “Aeolior, your mother, was my daughter, and Yalkara’s. Oh Maigraith! Granddaughter!” He threw out his arms.

  Such a feeling of warmth and belonging came over Maigraith that tears sprang to her eyes. They walked down the steep slope together, and downstream to a special place by the river where she sometimes came to sigh and dream—things she had only learned how to do since Havissard.

  It was a little platform of gray stone, raised slightly above short grass. Behind, the tall trees of the forest ran in a sweeping curve. The platform dropped in two steps to a tiny rapid over which the transparent water chuckled merrily into a pool whose bottom of multicolored pebbles was perfectly clear. One side of the pool graded into a beach of cobbles. On the other side the sward swept around the platform in the shape of a B, and between the two rounds of the B a leaf-strewn path led into the forest. They sat together on the platform. Maigraith still held Shand’s hand. She turned to him a face wet with tears.

  “I’ve not cried since I was a child,” she said. “Faelamor did not allow tears.”

  Maigraith was almost exploding with tension, with expectation. Shand had answers to the most important questions of her life—who she was and where she had come from. She could hardly bear to ask him.

  “Tell me about Aeolior, Shand. And my father, who was he? Tell me everything.”

  Then, before he could begin she put a finger to his lips. “Wait—I have something to show you. These are my most important treasures and I don’t even know why.” She carefully unpacked her prizes, showing them to him—the silver stylus and the writing tablet with the single word, rather smeared and smudged now: Aeolior.

  Shand stared at the relics in wonderment. “I gave that stylus to your grandmother. It was my very first gift to her. Where did you get it?”

  “Faelamor and I went through a gate into Havissard. She was afraid, but I was happy there.”

  They clung together once more; together they wept by the river. “That stylus brings back wonderful memories, and terrible ones too,” he said. “It was Yalkara’s most precious possession, but she could not take it with her through the gate.”

  “Tell me about Aeolior.”

  He told her the terrible story, concluding, “And Faelamor stole her and mated her with a Faellem man to make a triune.”

  “Me?” she exclaimed.

  “Yes, you are triune.”

  “Like Karan!” she whispered. “Perhaps that’s why I’ve always been drawn to her.”

  Shand started, but did not question her. “Karan!” he said thoughtfully. “That explains many things. You are like her, but at the same time very different. What a coincidence! Or is it? You are, very probably, the only two triunes in existence.”

  “Who was my father, Shand?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps only Faelamor does.”

  Only then did Shand remember Yggur, who had been waiting quietly all morning so as not to interfere with this time. “I have another surprise for you.” He leapt to his feet and cried out, “Hoy!” in a voice that echoed in the valley.

  Yggur appeared, limping, unable to hide his unease. He looked older, more worn, and his eyes were distorted behind thick glasses.

  “Yggur!” she cried, leaping up and running to him, her hair flying. “Oh Yggur, how I worried about you. Faelamor told me that you were dead in Katazza.”

  “I was close to it,” said Yggur, “but that is quite some time back now.”

  She embraced him too, though with more solicitude than passion. She had never before displayed her emotions in public, but now she did not care. Even Yggur shed a tear at the sight of her joy, and put out a hand to stroke her beautiful hair, though he did not. She brought them together as if they did not know one another, and sat between them, and laughed and cried and skipped and sang. Such a perfect day.

  Finally Shand stood up. “We can’t stay here—the longer we give Faelamor, the more time she will have to think of a way to attack us. What will you do now, Maigraith?”

  Maigraith had no idea. “What do you require of me?”

  “Require?” said Shand. “That life is over forever. What do you want from your life?”

  She could not get used to the idea that they could want her and yet not want something from her, so inured was she to duty and to service. Freedom was not part of her existence.

  “I want to know who I am, and everything about my family. I want to fit into my family Histories.”

  “Will you come back with us?” Yggur asked diffidently. “At least until you find yourself.”

  “Why do you ask so timidly? We are still friends, if we can be nothing more.”

  “Your life has greatly changed, and so has mine,” Yggur replied softly. “I have been close to death, though,” here he gave a wry smile, “evidently not as close as you were told. I have been brought very low, and though I rose up again I am greatly changed.”

  “Shall we go?” said Shand. “To Thurkad?”

  “If that’s where you want to go,” said Maigraith, “I’ll gladly go with you. All places are the same to me. But I would like to see the Mirror, if you have it.”

  Shand handed it to her without a word. She allowed it to unroll on the palm of her hand, then passed it back.

  “It’s yours,” said Shand.

  “Mine?” she said in amazement. “I don’t see how it can be, but even if it is, I don’t want to receive it here. When we reach our destination will be soon enough.”

  Shand put the Mirror away and they departed. They did not want to hurry, but each knew that they could not indulge themselves. The climacteric was at hand.

  And on their journey to Thurkad one thing soon became quite clear. Whatever she still felt for Yggur, it was as a friend, not as a lover or a partner. That struck him hard, for it was the death of all his hopes and dreams. He did not show that face to her, but afterwards he was as hard as stone to everyone else.

  22

  Reunion

  After leaving Gothryme, Karan and Tallia walked steadily from dawn to sunset every day, but it was hard going in the slush and took an exhausting week to reach Thurkad.

  “You’re very quiet lately,” Karan said on the seventh day, as they climbed a stony ridge.

  At the top, Tallia rested momentarily against a post-and-rail fence, which moved under her weight. “I was thinking about Lilis… Wondering how she is.”

  “And Jevi?” Karan asked, idly picking pieces of lichen off the rail.

  “Him too.”

  In the early afternoon they trudged up to the Saboth River bridge, which was still under repair from the damage done in last summer’s siege. They found the bridge to be a mess of scaffolding with just three rows of nailed-down planks across the long center span. They had to wait their turn to cross, and the wait looked like being a long one. Ahead of them a series of wagons were being maneuvered across on the planks.

  Karan paced back and forth, cursing the war, the bridge, the incompetence of its builders and the stupidity of all wagon drivers, not to mention the arrogance, venality and corruption of the man who ran the city—Mendark! Tallia listened in silence.

  “I’m afraid!” said Karan. “I’m s
ure something’s happened to Llian. You know how he needs taking care of.”

  “It won’t be long now,” said Tallia. “There goes the last wagon. He’s got a hell of a load on.”

  The wagon was so old that it was practically falling to pieces. Karan resumed her pacing. “They’re so damned slow!”

  “I would be too, if I were taking a horse and cart across that.”

  “The horse doesn’t seem very happy.”

  The nag, a bony gray mare whose mane had been trimmed into a chevron shape, had balked in the middle. The driver was out in front, heaving at the reins, but the horse refused to budge.

  “I hate this city!” Karan said. “Only in Thurkad would they do such a makeshift job. Look, there’s a whole stack of timber over there that’s not being used.”

  “Oh dear!” exclaimed Tallia.

  Karan spun around. The teamster was cursing and snapping his whip at the horse’s flank. She tossed her head and one back hoof skidded off the side of the plank. The mare reared up, the wagon rolled backward and the left-hand wheel went over the edge. The teamster roared, the mare screamed, the wagon tilted sideways.

  “The poor horse!” shouted Karan. “Quick, Tallia!” She ran onto the middle row of planks.

  Tallia followed carefully, for the planks were wet and it was a long way down to the river, which was flowing strongly after days of sleety rain. The brown flood looked perilous, and the further shore was rimmed with ice.

  The driver, a podgy man of middle age, completely lacking in hair and even eyebrows, lashed furiously at the terrified horse. His cheeks were carved with lines of bitterness and frustration.

  “Pull!” he screamed. “Cursed nag, pull harder!”

  The mare lunged weakly against the harness, but the wagon continued to slip backward, for it was so laden that the axle was bent. Karan came racing up. “Cut it free!” she screamed, “or you’ll lose the horse as well.”