The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  But he never did, and later when I asked him about it he pretended that he had been wrong all along. Why did he lie? Was he afraid what I would do if I knew I had Charon blood in me?

  Taking out the Mirror, she stared at the silvery metal in the threads of moonlight. Ghostly images swarmed just below its surface, her past and perhaps her future too, but she did not stir a finger to bring them out. Not now. Not here!

  Maigraith continued on. It was a long walk from the way station to Shazmak, but she did not dare to rest, in case Karan freed herself more quickly than expected. In the afternoon she reached the gossamer bridge beside which Karan and Llian had camped on their journey into Shazmak from Tullin. Crossing the bridge, she kept going. Several times she sensed iron Sentinels watching the track, but each time Maigraith slipped past without alarming them. It was something that she instinctively knew how to do. The night was cold and clear, not what she would have chosen. How would she get in? What would she find there? What would she do then? She had no answers.

  Around the middle of the night she crossed the last bridge. Its gentle swaying under her feet made her nauseous. She was almost ill with exhaustion and hunger. Out over the middle of the Garr, the river’s tumultuous passage down the gorge made a roar that even this high above was deafening. Ripples passed along the bridge. The wind was a swell that lifted it and let it fall again. At the same time it oscillated from side to side, sinuous waves passing along it like a snake crawling across sand. Maigraith felt well and truly seasick by the time she reached the other side.

  Before her was a set of great gates made of wrought-iron, with towering gate posts, but they were closed. She inspected them using a glimmer from her globe. As she did so she became aware of figures beyond the gates: two of the tall Whelm. No, these ones called themselves Ghâshâd. She squeezed her lightglass and its rays streamed out between her fingers, illuminating her. She knew that she looked very strong, remote and unpredictable. She rapped on the gate.

  “My name is Maigraith,” she said to the first sentry. His face was scarred as if it had been rubbed with grit paper. The second was a woman, almost as tall, with a fall of raven black hair and black eyes, pretty in a gaunt sort of a way. They were Idlis and Yetchah, banished to guard duty since their vote against Rulke’s tale at the great telling in Carcharon. “Take me to Rulke!” She felt a thrill run through her on saying his name.

  Recognizing her, Yetchah let out a wailing cry and sprang forward, quivering with animosity. Idlis restrained her. They each took an arm, but Maigraith would not be led like a prisoner, especially not to him.

  “Let go my arms,” she said coldly, and they did so, ushering her through a roofed passageway and across the courtyard, with its amber and black flagstones, its little coiled towers, its domes of carven jade. The silver tracery on the towers made shining lines in the moonlight, but the black fountain was crusted all down one side with ice frozen like candle wax. Somehow that seemed to diminish the magnificence of Shazmak.

  “Go before,” she said. “Announce me!”

  Perhaps these Ghâshâd knew what she had done to their fellows in Fiz Gorgo and in Bannador. Or perhaps they had orders concerning her, for they made no further attempts to secure her. At a set of double doors, three times her height, Yetchah rapped a signal. The doors opened. She spoke to the guards inside. A pair went out to do duty at the gates. Maigraith passed through; the doors slammed behind her. She had got in, but would she ever get out again?

  “Come!” said Idlis in his glutinous voice.

  She followed him down long corridors and up strangely twisting stairs. Yetchah trod right behind her, which made Maigraith so nervous that she was oblivious to her surroundings. She could not have told what the floors were made of, or the walls. She did not once look at the carvings and murals on every surface, or the wire sculptures hanging from the ceilings. She could have found her way out again, but that was all.

  Her heart began to pound. She tried to will it to be quiet. Her mouth was dusty dry. What if she opened it to speak and only a croak came out? All sorts of fears, mostly fanciful, began to plague her. She forced them away; it took a great effort. Maigraith noted how her self-control eluded her, as it had let her down so often in the past. She had it in abundance, until she really needed it.

  They entered a meeting hall, a vast space with a soaring ceiling that grew out of the walls like the curve of a shell. It made a dazzling architectural display, a demonstration of the Aachim’s mastery of space and materials. The hall must have been two hundred paces long, and nearly that wide and high. Off the sides were smaller chambers with the same shell-like curves of wall blending into ceiling. Slender staircases wheeled across the walls to a series of balconies, platforms, mezzanines and subsidiary chambers, while higher stairs led to a curved ceiling which was glassy clear and showed the stars.

  Right in the center of the room was a pair of staircases that looked to be made of glass and cobweb. They spun up from the floor in spirals of increasing diameter, helically coiled together then exploding apart to opposite sides of the hall near the ceiling.

  And there stood Rulke, halfway between the central stairs and the wall, working at a table ten spans long. The black bulk of the construct reared up behind him. He turned away to it.

  “Master,” said Idlis nervously. “This woman reached the front gate undetected. She is the one you put your mark on last summer—Maigraith!”

  Pushing her hood back, Maigraith stepped into the light.

  “You!” Rulke exclaimed, setting down a mechanical device he had been working on. “When the intruder was reported I thought it was Karan. But you—you are more interesting yet. It is as though she has come back. Come forward, Maigraith.”

  Who did he mean? Yalkara? Maigraith walked slowly across to him, made self-conscious by the intensity of his stare. Rulke was a very big man, taller even than Yggur, and powerfully built. His hair was glossy, thick and black, as was his beard.

  She walked right up to him. Their eyes met. They measured each other. Finally Rulke put out his hand. Surprised, she took it. His hand completely enclosed hers, as if he took her into himself, and his skin was hot.

  Maigraith felt a tingly sensation run down her backbone, like someone breathing gently on the back of her neck. She lost track of time and self. The feeling ran up and down her spine, a delicious itchy shudder like a current flowing out of his hand into hers, charging up every nerve to red-hot wires until her whole body was afire. She squeezed her thighs together until her knees hurt. Her nerve ends throbbed, from head to toe she tensed and itched like an approaching sneeze, then with an explosive convulsion that bent her double, the swollen current discharged back through her hand into Rulke.

  “Aaaahh!” he shouted, flinging out his free arm, fingers spread. Goosepimples broke out up his arms, his eyes rolled back and forth, he squeezed her hand till her fingertips went purple. She did not try to get away—Maigraith felt ecstasy for the first time in her life.

  Finally Rulke opened his eyes, looked deep into hers, released her burning hand. Her slender fingers, bloodless and pale, lay across his dark palm, lingering there. He lifted her fingers to his lips, touched them momentarily, then drew back his arm.

  Maigraith’s hand fell to her side. She stared up into his eyes, hungering for him and aware that he knew it. They were oblivious to the Ghâshâd, assembled round them in a perfect circle, staring. Then, as though moved by a single mind, a hundred Ghâshâd roared approval, spun on their heels and left them alone in the vast chamber. Even Yetchah was gone, her jealousy replaced by revelation.

  Maigraith felt weak at the knees. She shook her head, looking down, blushing scarlet in her embarrassment. The Ghâshâd had hated and feared her once, when they were Whelm. But that was before Rulke put the seal of his approval on her.

  “What is the matter with me?” Rulke murmured. “I have never lost control like that before. Come to the fire. Take off your cloak and coat.”

  “I am comforta
ble,” she replied, but removed the garments anyway and laid them over his arm, feeling the weight of his eyes. She was reminded of the night they met. How violently the storm had struck at the dome of the citadel, like a living creature that must smash everything to pieces. She also recalled that she had been clad in nothing but her wet shift that night.

  “Don’t stare so,” she said, feeling that he could see right through her clothes. “It troubles me.”

  “I would not discomfort you in any way, but I cannot tear my eyes off you.”

  Nevertheless Rulke turned away. He clapped and a servant appeared, not Ghâshâd but a young man who was thin to the point of emaciation. He limped across the room and bowed low. Thick brown curls tumbled over his gaunt cheeks, then he stood before them, silently waiting. There was a dimple in his chin.

  “Bring meat and drink, Jance,” Rulke ordered. Jance hurried away.

  Maigraith waited patiently, her head to one side. She looked quite calm, quite regal, but her insides were churning. He motioned her to a chair, waited until she sat down and drew up another before her.

  “Why did you come here?” he asked.

  Why had she? Rulke’s strength surrounded her—in the number of the Ghâshâd; in the construct squatting in the middle of the room, black monstrous thing with a sheen as if it had been polished in oil; even more in Rulke himself. So this was what the Charon had been like. Again she felt herself drawn to him, and to that species who were so few, yet had done so much.

  I suppose it’s because I’m triune, she thought. Though I’m half-Faellem, I have never been able to identify with them, because of Faelamor. And Santhenar is all around me, part of me and yet less than me. But how I yearn for my Charon heritage. Can he give that to me?

  “I came to prevent you from making alliance with Faelamor,” she said. “I know what you have,” indicating the construct with an almost imperceptible motion of her eyes, “and what you lack too. Do not ally with her, I beg you.”

  “Faelamor?” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Absurd notion!”

  “Please don’t.”

  Jance returned, bearing a low table rather awkwardly. He set it up, coming back with cutlery, dishes of food and a jug of drink. She saw the reason for his awkwardness—one hand was cut off at the wrist. Rulke poured yellow fluid into a drinking bowl and passed it to her. The cordial was hot with a peppery flavor. It went straight to the pit of her stomach and roiled there.

  “Why not?” he responded.

  “The Forbidding is decaying and failing. If you break it Santhenar is doomed.”

  “I hear you,” he said. “I know the risk, but I have studied the Forbidding. I can manage it.”

  “There is an imbalance in it,” she said. “Have you not felt it when you used the construct? I have, every time I made a gate.”

  “You made a gate?” he asked, rather taken aback. He paced across to the paired stairs and back. “How so? What device did you use?”

  “I learned from Faelamor.” She described Faelamor’s clumsy gate. “She lacks confidence, and competence too, but once taught I found it to be instinctive. I need no device now. As long as I can truly see the destination, all I need is in here.” She tapped her forehead.

  “What is it about you?” he sighed. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  She saw no reason not to tell him. “My father was Faellem. My other grandparents are Shand, whom you may know as Gyllias, and Yalkara. I am triune.”

  He sprang up. “Now I understand!”

  “What?” she asked anxiously.

  “Karan linked to you at Narne, and I sensed it and used it to wake my Ghâshâd. I’ve never understood how I could have sensed a link from the Nightland.”

  “How did you?”

  “It was a triune-to-triune link, the rarest and most powerful of all linkings.”

  “We tried to link once before. At Fiz Gorgo, but it failed.”

  “Yggur’s protection would have been too strong. So!” He let out his breath in an explosive hiss. “You make gates all by yourself! If only you can pass that talent on down the generations.”

  “Unlikely,” said Maigraith with a chilly laugh, feeling her womb cramp at the thought. “Triunes are sterile.” Children were not even a dream for her.

  “Most are, but not all. And even so, there are ways to improve your chances. We Charon know everything there is to be known about conception.”

  “This is ridiculous!” she shouted, feeling very uncomfortable. Faelamor was prudish and had never talked about such things. “Irrelevant! You must listen. The Forbidding fails and your construct can only hasten it. No one understands what they are dealing with. You risk opening Santhenar to the void.”

  Rulke waved his hand in dismissal. “I’ve heard you. Tell me about this new flute. Where did it come from?”

  Why shouldn’t she tell him? “Tensor made it using my birthright—Yalkara’s gold.”

  “Ahhh! So she did find it.”

  “No!” she said, speaking without thinking. “Faelamor stole that gold from Havissard, and I now know it’s the remains of the golden flute. My birthright was Yalkara’s own jewelry which she brought from Aachan.”

  “How can you be sure which is which?”

  Maigraith went still. The question had been raised and it would not go away. How could anyone know? “By the feel of it. Yalkara’s gold has a lovely old feel, like other things of hers that I have. The gold Faelamor stole feels horrible; corrupt!”

  “And so it is,” said Rulke. “Where is your flute?”

  “I tried to use it, but it was a wild, dangerous thing. I left it behind. The next time you use the construct…”

  “Don’t lecture me, Maigraith!” he said fiercely. “Do you think I don’t understand? Did I not lead the way out of the void to Aachan? Did I not reach across the void in ancient times, in the perilous labor of summoning, and pluck the accursed Shuthdar from this world to make the flute for me? That was my folly, choosing that depraved madman. Far better that I spent ten times as long and made it myself. Did I not use the construct last hythe to reach out across the void?”

  “And it went wrong. Karan told me so.”

  “I was careless. I did not protect her as I should have. It will be different next time!”

  His dark brows knitted. As he spoke she had a fleeting image of someone staggering up an endless stair of metal and stone. The tormented figure went past and she saw from the red hair and the pale face that it was Karan. Then it blinked out again.

  He took her hand. “Maigraith, listen! I have done much work with the Forbidding. That’s what the Nightland was made of. I will be careful.”

  “You have another world to return to. What do you care for Santhenar?”

  “Ah, but this is a better. Aachan is fatal to us. I do care, more than you can ever know. More than anyone can know who has not been exiled and cast into the void to perish. I care for all the worlds!” He spoke with such vehemence that Maigraith did not know what to say.

  “Look at us!” He pressed her hand between his two hands, drew her to him and looked deep into her eyes. She felt that wild thrill again.

  “Once, Maigraith, when we had a world, we were many. But we were cast into the void, every one of us, to die! For our kind to be utterly extinguished.”

  Still gripping her hand, he spoke with such passion that Maigraith was captivated.

  “Can you imagine what it is like in the void? It is the most violent, barbaric, barren and desperate universe. It is ever changing, and the things that dwell in it mutate just as swiftly, for that is their only chance to survive. There is no mercy there; no charity; no forgiveness. Nothing but survival matters! How they feasted on our children, our weak and our old.”

  She was amazed to see tears in his eyes. More amazing, she felt them in her own.

  “In a month our millions were reduced to a few thousand. We learned a lot about survival in that month. We learned to defend our shelters within the barren, boiling
rocks which are all that passes for worlds in the void. We learned to prey on every creature that was weaker than us, and hide from those that were stronger, or more cunning, or more intelligent.”

  His indigo eyes flamed. He crushed her hand painfully but she did not want him to stop.

  “We could never increase, though we learned the lessons of the void and became as brutal as any. Everything there was desperate to escape, but we were more desperate, for we knew what the outside universe was like. We once had a world, and lost it! I love Santhenar, Maigraith, but I care for our survival more than anything.”

  He released her hand. Maigraith left it where it was. Rulke had disarmed her and she did not know how to deal with the situation. She began to wonder why she was here at all. Yet she was mindful of his reputation for treachery.

  “Why did you come to Shazmak?” he asked.

  “I told you. To prevent Faelamor from making alliance with you.”

  “Ridiculous notion! Yet, I will do what I must do to ensure our survival,” he replied thoughtfully. “Are you a sensitive, like Karan? Can you find the Way between the Worlds for me?”

  “I am not, and I cannot,” she replied.

  “Can you bring Karan here?” he asked.

  Maigraith wondered what Karan was doing now. “Possibly, if I thought it was the right thing to do! Though Karan is of her own mind. What do you want her for?”

  “I will not discuss my plans with you, unless…” He leaned forward and would have taken her hand again but she drew it back. His voice aroused her deepest yearnings. “Come, join me! We would be a perfect partnership. Your soul is Charon, Maigraith. I know it!”

  Maigraith knew it too. His words had shaken her to the core. But her intellect could not permit her emotions to take over her life in such a way.

  “You know that I have another duty,” she said tonelessly. “It conflicts with your plans. What’s more, I am minded that you are Yggur’s enemy, and treated him cruelly. He is still scarred by it.”