by Ian Irvine
Her dreams were not restful. She kept seeing Ellami creeping up on her with that hooked blade, but Maigraith was a child again and could only watch helplessly from her bed as the knife plunged at her.
The dream repeated about twenty times before Maigraith sank into a restful sleep. Suddenly she was jerked awake by a blinding glare, as if the sun shone in her eyes. She lifted her head, trying to see.
The Mirror was ablaze with light; a molten sun shone out of it. The blaze faded, revealing a green and golden land, a paradise of lake and forest, mountain and lush meadows. The viewpoint rushed toward the lake, highlighting a pavilion on its shore, carved from white marble. A woman sat by the edge, her long back resting against a five-sided column. She was tall and languid, with black hair that hid her face. Her attitude was melancholy. The fingers of one hand trailed in the water.
The lake was as still as metal, but as Maigraith watched, a breeze ruffled the surface and something appeared beneath it, like a black, reflecting teardrop.
The ripples died away and the woman rose, staring down into the water. The teardrop cleared. Inside Maigraith saw something struggling to get out. She caught her breath. A young man was trapped there, a handsome, broad-shouldered fellow with curly dark hair.
He clawed desperately at the walls of his prison, his mouth gaping wide. The woman stared, helpless to do anything. She cried out to him but the words could not be heard. She looked around frantically for something to break that prison, and Maigraith saw that the woman was Yalkara, in the flower of her youth.
She let out a wail of anguish, and Maigraith read the word from her lips. “Gyllias!”
The man was a younger version of Shand. Maigraith groaned aloud, for Shand was as much trapped in his teardrop world as Yalkara was in her Eden. There must be a way to bring them together.
Yalkara held out her hands to Shand, showing her helplessness. Caught up in their torment, Maigraith realized that there was a way to release them—the golden flute! The Mirror had shown her the path at last.
“I will give up my gold,” she said aloud. “But I will not allow the flute to be used against Rulke.” Then she slept.
In the morning Maigraith walked into the council of despair and dropped her jewelry on the table in front of an astonished Mendark.
“Here is Yalkara’s own gold, Aeolior’s birthright and now mine,” she said. “You may use it to remake the flute.”
There was a long silence.
“How did you get it back?” cried Mendark. He gave Shand a suspicious glare. Shand smiled innocently.
“This isn’t the gold that Faelamor stole,” said Maigraith. “This is Yalkara’s own gold.”
“Then where did the other come from?” asked Yggur.
Maigraith shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Shand?” cried Mendark in a rage.
“I don’t know either,” Shand replied.
“We’d better find out,” said Yggur, staring down at the jewelry. “I don’t like this at all. Where the hell is Llian? Maigraith?”
“Yes?”
“What condition do you put on your gold?”
Every eye turned to her. “I cannot give away my birthright. What is made of it remains mine.”
Mendark looked ready to protest but must have thought better of it. “Let’s see if we can make it first,” he said, lowering his snake eyes. “Then will be time enough to decide who may use it. Indeed, who can use it.”
“Thank you for the offer, Maigraith,” Yggur said gravely. “Though I don’t know that we should accept it—”
“I accept it!” roared Mendark, holding the shining gold high in the air.
Sitting down at the table, Maigraith put her head in her hands, already afraid that she had made a stupid decision. She was seized by the feeling that Yalkara would not be happy after all.
Mendark rubbed his scaling hands together, calling loudly for an aide, and when the man came running he told him to fetch the Aachim at once.
“Are they back from overseas?” Karan asked.
“Their boat docked yesterday morning,” said Tallia.
It was quite some time before they appeared, six of them. Tensor looked worse than ever. The once glorious black hair lay like a rug over the top of his head. His lips were gray as slate. Malien looked older and more resolute. Xarah was there too, fully recovered from her wound at Carcharon.
“Maigraith has brought us Yalkara’s true gold,” said Mendark. “Now it’s your turn, Tensor. Will you show us how to make the golden flute anew?”
“Maigraith the Charon!” said Tensor bitterly. “It’s Aachan gold, stolen from us!” He peered at Maigraith and shuddered, then his eyes drifted around the room to settle on Karan. They flickered at her. She went to his chair.
“Is it still your wish that I help you?” he asked in a spidery voice that only she could hear. On the trek back across the Dry Sea from Katazza he had promised her that.
“I want nothing for myself,” she replied. “I would be back in Gothryme, tending my gardens.”
He blessed her with a ghostly smile. “Then you’ve learned more than I ever did. What do you ask of me?”
She was reluctant to ask him anything. “Do you think that this is such a great crime, to remake the flute? Is it a wickedness, or a folly?”
He grimaced. His mouth was so dry that it might have been carved out of teak. He touched her cheek. “It’s no crime to defend yourself, or to strike your enemy before he strikes you. It may be folly—that’s what we call the bold schemes that fail.”
“Does it give us a chance?”
“No one can predict the outcome to this struggle. I care not, either way. My time is past. The decision is in your hands.”
“Why is it up to me to decide? Everything I do goes wrong.”
Tensor’s eyes never left her face. “Because that is my price,” he said at last. “Karan, as many terrible wrongs come from doing nothing as from doing the wrong thing.”
She knew he was right. The doubt was there, the agony of choice, but she had made her decision.
“I ask it,” she whispered.
“Then I will do it.”
His grip, once so strong, felt like a loose collection of bones. He clung on to her. “Help me up! I clutch at my dignity, since I have lost everything that really matters.”
They wavered their way to the front of the room. Tensor forced himself to his full height, put a hand on Karan’s shoulder momentarily, then stood erect. Karan tried to sneak away.
“Stay,” Tensor said out of the corner of his mouth. “It would not do for me to fall down and not be able to get up again.
“I will show you the way,” he said to the group. “I and my Aachim will supervise your craftsmen in working this dangerous material. You—” (it was not clear whether he addressed Yggur, or Mendark, or all of them collectively) “—will provide us with a secure, spacious workshop, the equipment required for melting, purifying, transforming and forging the metal, and all the reagents, stills, crucibles and other tools necessary.”
“It shall be done,” said Yggur.
“And afterwards, everything will be destroyed by burning or melting, including the building itself and the earth beneath to a depth of half a span, and the calcine shall be dispersed across a hundred leagues of the deep sea. And you will give me your oath that the flute, if it survives, will be ground to dust, mixed with ashes to the extent of ten wagonloads and put into the deep sea as well, so that it may never be recovered.” He swayed and jerked Karan closer to him.
The conditions drew a flurry of conversation and debate, but at last they agreed. Three copies of a convention were prepared, setting out each of these conditions, and everyone came forward to sign it, either as parties or witnesses.
“I have such a workroom available,” Yggur said. “The old bakehouse, in the western corner of the yard, has the space you require, as well as flues and chimneys. You’ll have to build your own furnace. Would you care to inspect it now
?”
“I will,” said Tensor.
They all trooped down. The bakehouse was a splendid old structure of polychrome brickwork and pale stone, solid and secure for it had no windows, just a back door and a front. Tensor went inside, with Yggur, Karan and the Aachim, while the others waited outside the door. After an hour or so they came out.
“It is sufficient,” said Tensor. “Send down your smiths for examination. We will seal the back door. Henceforth no one may enter without my invitation. We begin in the morning.”
Just after dawn the company returned to the workshop. Tensor himself opened the door, walking unaided. Maigraith stepped forward. She was dressed in a gown of black silk that showed her slender figure, and she wore Aeolior’s birthright. The red-gold chain was about her throat, the bracelet on her wrist, and the torc upon her brow. From a distance she looked queenly, but close up, insecure. The tension between her and Tensor was like a live thing, for Maigraith looked so Charon that he could scarcely bear to be in the same city with her.
“Come!” he said. “You too, Karan.” They followed him inside and the door snapped shut. The Aachim were already at work.
“Maigraith, I cannot deal with you!” He was quivering with animosity. “My rage is too ingrained, though I know that you were not brought up Charon. Henceforth our communications must be through Karan.”
“As you wish.” They stood on opposite sides of the room. Maigraith was as still as a post. This is not right, she was thinking. He is my enemy, as he was Yalkara’s, and will be Rulke’s until the instant of his death. What would my grandmother think to see me deliver her gold into his hands?
Tensor’s frame was wracked by a spasm that he could not control. Momentarily his face showed like a death’s head. He was near his end, and this business would surely finish him. It was not him Maigraith had to worry about, but the ones outside the door. Make a decision, she told herself, and stick by it!
With a physical wrench she stepped forward. Taking off the torc, bracelet and chain, she held them in her hands for a moment, then with a jerky gesture put them in Tensor’s hands. There were tears on her lashes.
“She may well have brought it to Santhenar for this very purpose,” said Tensor, staring at her unblinking. Something showed in his eyes, an acknowledgment of her suffering.
“Why do you say that?”
“I knew her.”
“Here, on Santhenar?”
“Yes, and even before. The Charon were few when they stole our world from us. I knew all of them, in my time.”
In the background the Aachim were working quickly but carefully, though all they seemed to be doing was cleaning, removing every speck of dust from the workroom. The whole place was spotless already.
“There can be no foreign particles here,” he said as if he had read her thought. “The least speck of dross will spoil it. Later today we will construct a special room for the forging, with walls that can be washed down and double doors to exclude all drafts, and a giant bellows to ensure that the air flows out and dust cannot seep in.” He looked toward the other end of the room.
Maigraith saw that it was time to go. She bowed. Tensor escorted her to the door.
“It is begun,” she said to the company.
30
The Golden Flute
Inside the workroom, forges were lit and bellows began to pump in preparation for the great work. Smoke issued from the chimneys. But whatever was done there was a secret well kept. No one but Karan was allowed inside, and then only after the work was finished for the day and every secret device put away again.
While the flute was being crafted, spies were dispatched to Elludore, Carcharon and other places in the east and the north, to find out what their enemies were up to. Messengers were sent to all allies, and skeets to those who were further off. One flew to Wistan, the Master of the College of the Histories in Chanthed. All favors were being called in, and all debts.
“And I trust that Wistan will treat this message with more respect than he did the last,” Mendark said darkly as the skeet soared into the air. A year and a half ago he had begged Wistan to find Karan and have her brought to Thurkad. Wistan had given Llian the job, but only to get rid of him, hoping that he would fail. Mendark never forgot a favor, nor a grudge.
“I gather Tensor’s having problems,” Shand said to Mendark a few days later.
“Your spies must be better than mine are!”
“I picked up a bit of gossip,” Shand said enigmatically. “The gold is proving difficult to work, and sometimes strange things happen in the workshop.”
“Such as?”
“Well, at first they couldn’t get the gold to melt, though they heated it way above the normal melt temperature. Then tools would mysteriously lose their edge without ever being used. Once the bellows pumped backward and caught fire, burning one of the smiths so badly that he had to be taken to the hospital. The artisans are terrified. Tensor is close to giving up.”
“No doubt Yggur will be pleased to hear it,” said Mendark.
A week went by before the Aachim first reported their progress. The company was called to the steps of the workshop and Tensor came out, looking better than any time since Katazza. He walked freely now, though not without pain. Despite the disturbing rumors, the work seemed to have been good for him. He appeared euphoric.
“It’s taken more labor than we expected,” he said. “There were impurities in the gold, and some most obdurate and refractory ones, but they are all gone now. And we had… other problems that I won’t go into. It will be some time until it is finished, but we’ve forged the body of the flute just this morning.”
He drew from its cloth wrapping a golden tube the length of his forearm and outstretched fingers. The metal was dull and rough, having not yet been cleaned from the molds. Nonetheless it was a beautiful object, and an enticing one. They all felt the pull of it. Tensor could not keep his hands off it. He kept sliding it though his fingers, fondling it. Maigraith saw Mendark gazing at it with an equal longing.
After the company had gone, Tensor called Karan and Maigraith inside. Maigraith was amazed at the summons, considering the tension between them, but it seemed Tensor had gained control over his feelings during the time of labor.
“There was a little more gold than was needed,” he said. “When we weighed it at the beginning, one link of the chain was left over. Aachan gold has always been precious to me and I hate any Charon who has it.” His hands were clenched into fists, wrapped around by those extraordinarily long fingers. “But this has been in Charon hands so long that I cannot bear to keep it. It has not been melted, just shaped into a ring. Take it, despite that you are my—No, I won’t say it. Take it and go!” He held out to Maigraith a rather thick, plain ring, beautifully polished but unadorned. His hand shook.
Maigraith held the gold up on a fingertip. Was it a trap? She could not sense anything wrong, but she would make sure later on. She slid the ring onto her finger. “Thank you,” she said.
Malien came into Karan’s room while she was washing her hair in a basin.
“I must talk to you, Karan. Is Llian around?”
“He’s gone to the library. What’s the matter?”
“No hurry! When you’re finished.” She sat on the bed.
Karan rinsed her hair with several jugs of water and began to towel it dry. It took rather a while, and when she’d finished, her hair looked like a tangled fleece. Finally she mopped the floor with a towel and changed her blouse, which was saturated. She looked around for her brush.
Malien found it for her. “Would you like me to brush it for you?”
“Yes, please.”
Karan sat on a chair and Malien on the bed behind her, easing the tangles out. “What did you want to talk about?” Karan wondered.
The brush stopped by her ear. “Us Aachim—and you!”
Malien’s voice had the same kind of magisterial sternness that Karan remembered from Tensor, in her childhood.
“What was decided?” Karan asked.
The brush continued its work but Karan no longer found the grooming comfortable. She felt dominated, as she had never felt by Malien before.
“A number of things. I can’t tell you those plans. But I can tell you that we are resolved to take our place in the great struggle. We plan to fight Rulke with whatever weapon comes to hand! And that’s why I’ve come to you.”
“Me?” Karan did not like the way this was going.
“Because of your Aachim heritage, and because you kept the Mirror from us. You owe us doubly, Karan.” The brush tore painfully at a knot of hair. “Most of all because you helped the enemy in Carcharon. You know things about Rulke that we do not.”
“I never expected this of you, Malien,” Karan said after a long silence.
“Well, Karan, will you aid us, or not?”
“I have other loyalties now,” Karan said fiercely. “And I haven’t forgotten what the Aachim did to me! You demand loyalty but refuse citizenship to all who are not pure Aachim. That destroyed Emmant and it destroyed my father.”
Malien’s hand froze in mid-air. “You reject us when we most need your help?” she said incredulously.
“I do not. But I won’t submit to emotional blackmail either! Nonetheless,” she continued more calmly, “I will do what I can for the Aachim, as long as it doesn’t conflict with my other responsibilities.”
Malien gave her a cold stare. “Then answer me this. What’s Maigraith up to with the flute?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“What does she want it for? It doesn’t seem to match what I know of her.”
“No it doesn’t,” said Karan, wondering herself. “I suppose… I imagine she’s doing it for Shand.”