The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  “On Aachan?” asked Rulke. “They are legion, I believe, and not much reduced by their servitude.”

  “I would have loved to see Aachan again.”

  “But you never will.”

  “No, I never will. But at least I go knowing that I have finished you at last,” said Tensor.

  “I wish you joy of your victory,” said Rulke, and held out his hand.

  Tensor’s face wrenched. “You have defeated me, and outmannered me,” he said. Then he toppled sideways, dead.

  Maigraith, supported by Vartila, labored across. She stood beside Rulke like a marble statue, staring down at the hideous gash in her lover’s side. She was utterly still. “You gave your life for me,” she said.

  “We made vows together,” he replied simply. It encapsulated everything there was to be said.

  “I will never forget you,” she said.

  “I will be part of you forever.”

  “What will happen to your people now, my love?”

  Rulke looked up at Maigraith. “We will not dwindle away to nothing. The void is the only place left. It may remake us, but most likely it will erase us utterly, like the ten billion species that have come and gone since the ancestral mite. If we are to be extinct, we will face it bravely. We will embrace it.”

  Maigraith went to her knees and laid her head on his breast. “What am I to do, Rulke?”

  He held her with one arm. “It hurts, Maigraith! I’m so sorry. Mourn me as you see fit, then follow your destiny.”

  “I don’t know how,” she said plaintively. “How can I restore the balance between the worlds?”

  Rulke coughed shiny blood onto the floor. “Only Yalkara knows what she intended. Take the construct to Aachan.” He choked. “If she has survived, tell Yalkara of my death and beg her assistance.” His eyelids fluttered.

  “How we would have loved, you and I,” he went on. “But it was not to be.”

  She gripped his hand. “I once loved, and was loved.” She dropped a feather kiss on his eyelids.

  “And the fruit of our love will shake the Three Worlds to their underpinnings. But this is the end of the Charon.” Rulke closed his eyes for the last time.

  His death turned Maigraith inside out, the marble-statue calmness wrenched into a feral rage over the futility of it all. “I will not allow it!” she screamed at the construct and the Wall and the place where Faelamor had disappeared. “I will reach even beyond the grave to bring him back.”

  Mendark had been quietly biding his time, watching from his balcony for an opportunity. And though he had never really expected it, that chance had now come. The construct was unattended. He had coveted it since the instant he’d heard of it. With it he would seal the Forbidding and rid himself of his enemies forever.

  But when that was done, what opportunities the construct presented him! He would order Santhenar the way he had always wanted to; perhaps the other worlds too. Mendark felt a surge of excitement such as he had not felt in a hundred years.

  He crept down the stairs. Faelamor was nowhere to be seen. No one was watching; they were all busy with the dead and the dying. The construct was between them and him. He climbed the hidden side, fell into the seat and sat in silence for a few moments, savoring this time of triumph. Putting his hands to the controls, Mendark began to think himself into the way of controlling the machine.

  He pressed buttons, eased back levers and prepared to deal with the first of his enemies—Yggur! Nothing happened. He tried again. The construct was absolutely dead.

  There came a piping cry from below. “It’s Mendark!” Lilis’s thin arm was pointing directly at him.

  Mendark would have struck her down if he could have. What was one child before the security of the world, before his great destiny? He did not get the chance. In a few seconds the construct was surrounded.

  “Come down!” Yggur said coldly.

  “Stand back,” Mendark cried, holding the flute up so they could all see it. “I have the flute and the construct too.”

  “It will be the death of you,” said Shand.

  “Shut up, you old fool! I’ll be glad to see the end of you.”

  Raising the flute, Mendark drew the notes out of his memory and began to play a melody so wild that his mind could scarcely encompass it.

  “Not on the construct!” screamed Shand.

  Too late! Abruptly the whole room twisted and turned back on itself, writhing with impossible colors and music. Mendark’s eyes burned with splinters, as of colored ice. Then the whole fabric of the Forbidding began to peel apart layer by layer, like a burning book. Bits of shredded Wall floated in the air, charred flakes as from the death of a library. The flute had betrayed him. The Forbidding was coming apart!

  Once more he played, exerting all his mind and will to tune himself to the Forbidding and seal it tight. Too late he realized that he did not know how. Everything was different now. The whole Wall became transparent, allowing him to see what waited on the other side. The shapes and spaces of beyond shivered. A shadow appeared in the mazy void, then another. The flute had called a hundred creatures, a thousand. A veritable army was gathering on the other side of the Wall.

  An approaching army of thranx and lorrsk, and a hundred other creatures that looked just as bloody. In the infinite history of the void there had never been such an alliance, but the ripe plum of Santhenar was worth putting aside old feuds for. Mendark slowly rose to his feet, staring at the nightmare. The hand holding the flute fell to his side. There were hundreds upon uncounted hundreds of them. Then, as his focus moved progressively out from the Wall, the hundreds became thousands and the thousands millions, marching in ranks, in planes and layers, in three-dimensional arrays from every direction. Marching to war against Santhenar. The world that he loved more than life was doomed. And he had doomed it.

  Mendark lifted the flute then lowered it again. He dared not tamper with the Forbidding now. Was there another way?

  As he pondered, something stirred among the dead on the floor. It was the second thranx, still stuck with spears. From the shadows it hurled a broken spear at Mendark, smashing the golden flute out of his hand. The instrument rang out on the floor, a single pure note that sent a shimmering along the transparent layers of the Forbidding. The thranx crawled toward the flute.

  Mendark cursed and shook his throbbing hand. Then, suddenly understanding what the problem had been, he laughed for joy. The two devices had been interfering with each other. He banged the levers over and the construct moved. “Keep it!” he roared. “This is what I came for.”

  He swung the construct around smoothly. The remnant of the company were all in its path. The Wall first, or his enemies? Yggur’s fingers were working, preparing to blast him. Several of the Aachim raised their bows. And, he saw with dismay, even faithful Tallia was speaking urgently to Shand, surely plotting his ruin. They all wanted the construct for themselves. But none of them could save the world. Only he could do that. He directed the construct toward his enemies.

  “No, Mendark!” wept Tallia. “Is this how you would have posterity remember you?” She held out her hands to him.

  Not even Tallia could be allowed to stand in his way. He prepared to blast her down. But as they faced each other, something stung his eyes. Dear Tallia, they’d shared such times together. It was harder than he’d imagined. But I will do it! Mendark thought. Before he could wrench the control rod the thranx forced itself to its feet. The spears quivered like the quills of a spiny anteater. It put the flute to its lips and blew. The construct bucked, turned over and Mendark was flung off. He landed on his feet, running forward to stop himself from falling, but he ran one step too far.

  The thranx swung its powerful arm and claws like daggers ripped through Mendark’s middle, sending him tumbling through the air. He began to drag himself back to the construct, leaving a trail of blood. The thranx began a different melody.

  In the background, the vanguard reached the Wall and pressed against it. Th
e Wall molded itself to their shapes like a rubber sheet.

  “What’s it doing?” Lilis whispered.

  “It’s calling its own,” said Malien.

  “Mendark!” screamed Tallia. “Stop them!”

  Mendark tried to climb the construct but slipped in his blood and fell down again. He looked up at the wondrous machine and wept.

  “Mendark!” Tallia shrieked. “Stop it, quickly!”

  She tried to run to him but Jevi and Lilis held her back. Mendark forced himself to his knees, moved his hands in a spell and the flute glowed red-hot. The thranx screeched and dropped it. Mendark stood upright but his entrails began to spill out of his belly. He looked down at the fatal wound, pressed the innards back in and duck-walked to the flute. As he raised it, white smoke came from his fingers and his mouth. He blew a plangent series of notes.

  A cyst grew around Mendark. It swelled with every note and rushed outward to envelop everyone in the room. The thranx was tumbled backward until it came between the cyst and a side wall, where it was squashed to a smear.

  “Is it all over now?” Lilis asked, staring at the ranks of creatures that stretched to infinity across the void.

  The cyst continued to grow until it touched the Wall. It bonded to it, plugging the tiny vent and clouding over the Wall. But they all knew that what waited on the other side was only a blink away.

  Jevi brushed Lilis’s shining hair off her face. “No, Lilis, it’s not over yet. Not near!”

  The strain began to tell on Mendark. Would he fail before the work was complete? The cyst stopped growing. He weakened, fell to his knees, clutched at his belly, played on. Then all at once the air rushed out of his lungs. A bloody bubble grew out the end of the flute to burst in a discord. The note failed, the flute fell and Mendark lay dead.

  Tallia ran to the man she had served so faithfully for so long, to perform her last service. Stooping over the body, she smoothed his hair, closed his eyes and arranged his robes so that they covered the horrible wound. Then she carried him slowly across to the others. He looked quite small in her arms. There she sat, looking down at him, her beautiful face cold.

  “I will see that this deed is recorded for the future,” she said, “though I doubt that it will balance the others. My oath is undone, my service ended.”

  44

  Going Home

  Maigraith, pacing back and forth in a daze of grief, saw Faelamor appear near the bottom of the central stair. Shand, Yggur and Malien came the other way, preparing for the greatest battle of their lives.

  Maigraith held up one hand. “Stay back! This is between her and me.”

  Faelamor positioned herself at the point where the cyst curved away from the Wall. “This is the weak point,” she said to Hallal. “We will open it here.”

  “You’ll destroy the world!” said Shand.

  “I can control it,” she replied coldly.

  Faelamor reached out. The Wall was now so thin that it parted in front of her. Through a crack she peered beyond, searching for the path to Tallallame. She needed no one to find that track for her. “I have it,” she said, and opened her Way.

  “You see,” whispered Karan, “I never did harm you. How could I have? I never understood why you feared me so.”

  Faelamor looked across at Karan, lying between the bodies of Tensor and Rulke. “It was not the triune endangered us after all! It was forbidden device, the-three-and-the-one. Why couldn’t I see it?”

  The Way became a shining funnel. All around it the alien armies swarmed. When the Wall finally fell apart only Faelamor would be able to stem their flood, but Faelamor was going home.

  Maigraith paced up to Faelamor, whose face showed anguish; guilt too. “Now is the moment I trained you for, Maigraith. Why did you abandon me?”

  “You sent Ellami to kill me!” Maigraith whispered, still finding it impossible to comprehend.

  “Not I,” said Faelamor. “I could never harm you. The Faellem voted that you die.”

  “Voted?” shrieked Maigraith. “So my life is no more than an election that you couldn’t be bothered to rig!”

  “I tried. They won the vote! It was the worst day of my existence. I could not stop them.”

  Catching sight of Rulke’s sword lying on the floor, Maigraith snatched it up. “I’ll show you how!” she screamed.

  Faelamor put her hand out. “You can’t!” she said. “I made you so you could never turn on me.”

  All Maigraith could see were those golden flecks in her eyes. She felt torn apart between her hatred of Faelamor and the chains of the compulsion. “I will not…” she began, but Faelamor screwed her control tighter.

  Maigraith was helpless, as she had always been. Then, thinking about all she had done the past year, she knew that only fear of Faelamor held her back. She had grown beyond her.

  Could she overcome that fear and strike Faelamor down? Maigraith thought of her dead lover and that fear was gone forever. With a shrill laugh she raised the sword. “I’ve broken your compulsion and your conditioning. Are you ready to die, Faelamor?”

  The answer was in Faelamor’s eyes—the sudden terror, the realization that, after all, Maigraith had beaten her. “Go on then,” said Faelamor. “Have your revenge. Let it be all the sweeter for the knowledge that I die having gone so close to my duty, and failed.” There were tears in her eyes.

  Maigraith held the sword high, taking pleasure from her opponent’s pain. Remembering Rulke’s last bloody moments she wanted, more than anything, to see Faelamor suffer the same way.

  “Do it quickly!” said Faelamor in a cracked voice.

  The Faellem stared at the frozen tableau. None stirred to Faelamor’s aid. Did they not dare, or did they not care? The minutes passed.

  Abruptly Maigraith lowered the sword, slapping Faelamor on one cheek with the side of the blade. “Go home!” she said harshly.

  A shiver passed over Faelamor’s face. She looked frail now. “Happy are the Faellem,” she murmured, “to put all their burdens on their leader. Have I the strength for the last act?”

  The Wall rippled. Something hideous and unbearably potent reached in beside the funnel and gripped her by the calf. It pulled, trying to draw her in. She dashed it away like a fly. Blood ran down her leg from three claw marks.

  “You won’t stop me?” she said to Maigraith.

  “No,” said Maigraith, numb in her agony. Suddenly Faelamor seemed lost. “Was it worth it, for this? Does this justify the ruin I heaped upon the world, and on the child who would have been greater than me?”

  Bowing her head, Faelamor took Maigraith’s slender hand in her own small one, and a single golden tear fell on Maigraith’s wrist. Maigraith wrenched away. “It was not worth it,” Faelamor whispered. “I must atone. I take this duty on myself, in penance for my crimes.”

  Faelamor stood up straight and the years dropped from her. She looked as she must have done all those countless centuries ago, when she first led the Faellem to Santhenar.

  “I am the Faellem!” Faelamor cried in her glory and her grandeur, holding open the Way between the Worlds by will alone. “Come, my people! Now is the time. We are going home!”

  The first approached and pressed his lips to Faelamor’s hand. He hesitated. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she gave a gentle push. He leapt, the Way snatched him and he disappeared. The second came forward, a little old woman with silver hair like Faelamor’s, and did the same. Then another man, similar in size and features to the woman. Faelamor counted them past.

  Without warning the glowing funnel shuddered as it was struck a massive blow. A crack gaped between the Way and the Wall. A man-shaped creature squeezed in through the space and like a balloon pumping up it expanded to its full size, as big as Rulke. It was a lorrsk-like thing with massive arms and legs, an enormous chest and a head that came out of its shoulders without recourse to a neck. Claws scraped on the floor as it leapt and struck at Faelamor. The sleeve of her shirt was torn off. Two bloody gouges opene
d up from shoulder to elbow.

  Faelamor shuddered. “Sixty-one, sixty-two—” Her voice, counting her people past, cracked. She moved her free hand in the air and the lumpen creature doubled up. But the diversion had allowed another in, and a third. They attacked her all at once, clawing at her back and her legs, trying to hamstring her. Despite the power of her glamors, fading but still strong, they landed a blow here and there. She writhed under their strokes but her will held her firm. Nothing could stay Faelamor’s iron command, at this moment she had waited for so long.

  The Faellem were passing her quickly now, just a tap on the shoulder for each, then through the gate and gone. Suddenly Faelamor went down under the weight of her attackers. They were all about her: snapping, rending. The gate quivered, the Way shook again. “Two hundred and fifty-six, two hundred and fifty-seven—” She pulled herself to her feet and swept her bloody arm in a circle, scattering her assailants. The creatures hurled themselves away from her as if they had been stung. The last of the Faellem passed through. The funnel of the Way narrowed. Faelamor staggered and fell to her knees.

  “My duty is done at last!” she gasped. “I can scarcely believe it.” Sitting down on the floor, she wept for the centuries of trial and torment that were finally over. Wiping her face clean, she stood up. “I had one last task for you, Maigraith, if ever I got this far. To hold open the Way for me so I could be the last to go.”

  “Go!” spat Maigraith, “I will hold it! It will be worth it to see you gone forever.”

  Faelamor did not move. “Now that my duty is done I must tie up all the ends. It doesn’t matter whether I get home or not.” She bent down over Karan. Karan trembled.

  “You once did me service at great cost to yourself,” Faelamor said. “You carried the Mirror faithfully all the way from Fiz Gorgo to Thurkad, in fulfilment of Maigraith’s obligation to me. You have never been paid for that service.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” whispered Karan. “I’m dying.”

  “Perhaps you are,” said Faelamor, touching Karan’s forehead. The pain suddenly lifted from her. “I cannot see the future. But I must pay my debts, every last one. What goods that I and the Faellem have, I leave to you and your estate, to do with as you will. These things may be found in the cave in Elludore where Gyllias… found Maigraith.” She slipped an ebony bracelet off her wrist onto Karan’s. “They are protected by a perpetual illusion, but this will dispel it.”