by Ian Irvine
Karan firmed the image, which showed the Charon discussing the upheavals in the void and the imminent breakdown of the Forbidding. Yalkara looked up suddenly.
“You live!” called Maigraith to her grandmother.
Rulke?
“It is I, Maigraith. Noble Rulke is dead.”
How did he die?
“Tensor struck him down with a potency. Rulke saved me at the expense of his own life.”
He sacrificed everything for you? That is—she broke off. Forgive me!
“I don’t know,” said Maigraith dumbly.
Then the experiment in Santhenar has truly failed, said another, and our species is finished.
He tore off his shirt and cast himself on the floor in grief and loss, an Aachim custom that the Charon had adopted. Then the one next to him tore off hers, and the rest did likewise, and Yalkara rent her blouse last of all. Finally she stirred.
If it is the end, let us go to it bravely, as he would have done. Thank you for bringing us the news.
“Wait, the Forbidding is failing! Will you show me how to restore the balance between the worlds?”
You must bring the construct here. It can’t be done anywhere else.
While they spoke the Wall of the Forbidding had begun to reverberate back and forth across the room, and each time it snapped the other way it made a boom that shook the building like an earthquake. Cracks appeared in a side wall. One of the staircases fell down with a shocking clatter.
“Don’t go,” said Karan aloud. “I can’t hold the link. You’ll be trapped there.”
“I must,” said Maigraith. “This is what I was born for. Don’t lose sight of the Way, whatever you do.”
Despite Karan’s pleas, Maigraith bound Rulke’s body to the side of the construct, in a desperate hope that they could bring him back. She looked down at Karan, shuddering on her couch, and tickled the levers. The globe became transparent. An aurora of pastel colors flickered around it. A landscape rushed across the globe, distorted as if reflected onto its curving inner surface. Karan saw a gloomy plain dotted with buildings growing out of the ground like clusters of metallic bubbles. Several were circled by platforms that resembled planetary rings. Volcanoes were erupting everywhere, flooding red lava down to overwhelm the bubble clusters.
Maigraith roared in pain, then she and the construct vanished. The landscape faded from the globe, to be replaced by the Charon again. With a thunderous roar, the construct with Maigraith atop it, materialized in the center of the council chamber. The great table around which the Charon sat was shattered to kindling, though they seemed unfazed.
“Thank you,” said Yalkara, brushing splinters off her face and arms. “This construct will be Rulke’s monument, temple and tomb. We cannot cower here, dwindling to nothing, dying out one by one. There can be no greater agony than to know that you are the last of your species. We shall leap hand in hand into the eternal night. We will take the construct into the void.”
“First show me how to restore the balance,” said Maigraith.
“You cannot alter the balance with the construct,” the Charon cried. “You are the instrument. You must do it.”
In restoring the balance the instrument will be lost, said Karan across the link.
“Lost to Santhenar!” said Yalkara.
The Charon explained what had to be done. “It will be hard,” said Yalkara. “None of us could do it.”
“I know what to do,” said Maigraith. “My whole life’s purpose was for this task.”
Suddenly, incomprehensible visions flashed through Karan’s mind and across the brilliant sphere. Everything flickered and wavered. Her pain was growing again.
“Hold the link!” Maigraith screamed.
As she spoke the door was smashed open and a horde of Aachim pushed through. They were heavily armed, their faces resolute. They had rebelled against their masters at last.
“Stand firm!” Yalkara shouted. She leapt right over the construct and caught Maigraith about the waist, supporting her while the Charon made a wall before their enemies.
As Yalkara and Maigraith strove together, weird visions spun through Karan’s mind. The images on the globe whirled sickeningly, then it blanked out. Karan tried to get it back but the sphere remained dark.
Behind her there were running footsteps and incoherent cries of joy. The company had returned through their hastily constructed gate from Carcharon—Shand, Yggur, Llian, all of them. Llian ran to Karan, weeping for joy, but she put her hand up.
“Not now!” she gasped, and turned back to the globe, forcing through her pain to recover the link and the Way. Everything was changed again. She found something and brought it out on the surface—an array of dancing dots that had a vaguely human shape. “That’s Maigraith,” she said, and all at once the dots resolved into Maigraith,” and the room was back again, though now everything was tinged with dark auras like an indigo and black rainbow.
Shand stood as rigid as a post, staring at Yalkara. His arms hung straight down. His fists were clenched. Malien, beside him, was shaking with her own conflict. She wanted the Aachim to seize the construct and free their world, but not at the expense of the Forbidding that protected this one.
The Charon’s council chamber was in uproar, Aachim and Charon in wild melee. Then, as Karan watched, helpless, a muscular Aachim man crept out from behind the construct and struck Maigraith down without warning. Leaping over her, he climbed onto the construct. A dozen more Aachim followed him. Maigraith groaned and rolled over.
“Maigraith, flee!” cried Karan.
“How can I?” her cry returned.
The first Aachim took the wheel. A rumble shook the room. The watchers in Shazmak saw the globe vibrate. A yellow light came out of an aperture at the front of the construct, so bright that it carved smoking channels in the air. It splashed on the wall of the chamber, searing it away. Outside, an orange moon hung in the black sky, so big and bright that it might have been suspended in a tree. Volcanoes were erupting everywhere, flooding red lava toward them.
“Flee!” screamed Yggur, and his cry was transmitted through Karan all the way to Aachan.
“Not without the construct,” Maigraith shouted, shaking her head. Hurling away an Aachim woman who resembled Karan, she advanced, shielding her eyes. The beam shot from the aperture again, vaporized the remains of the table and moved jerkily toward her. The room began to fill with smoke.
“Can no one help her?” Karan screeched.
“What about my people?” said Malien, staring hungrily at Aachan. “What about my world?”
The Charon seemed paralyzed. An eternity passed in a few seconds. Yggur’s face contorted. He shot out his hand. His back arched. His eyes bulged. Calling up aspects of the Secret Art that he had lost in his decades of madness, he did something that had never been done before. A bolt of blue fire seared through the Wall, across the Way between the Worlds, into the chamber, and turned the construct into a glowing cinder. The Aachim went in all directions.
Maigraith’s face looked out from the globe. She reached out her arms to Karan as if she could pull her through, but it was too late. The Way slowly collapsed in on itself. The sphere vanished. The luminous layers of the Forbidding flared bright and disappeared forever.
It was over. The balance had been restored. Yggur crashed down on his face and could not even move a finger. Karan fell back with a little cry.
Llian laid his head upon her breast, thinking her dead. But she moved under him, and her warm breath came past his face in a little sigh. “What on earth happened to your hair?” she said, opening her eyes and smiling fondly at him.
“A fire. But this time I didn’t light it,” he said hastily. He was referring to his clumsy rescue in Narne, when he had burned the house down while they were still trapped inside, and had to break through the floor to get out.
That reminded her of one of his earliest absurdities. “My name’s Llian. I’ve come to save you,” she quoted dreamily, and s
miled up at him in that teasing way she had.
“I thought you were dead!” he said accusingly.
She snorted, opened her eyes and put her free arm across his shoulders. “I was near enough to it a while ago, but I am better now. So very much better, Llian.”
The hrux had begun to wear off. Karan hurt all over. Not as badly as before, but badly enough to take away every worry about the carnage here, and the loss of Maigraith, and all the other dead.
Yggur lay not far away, tossing and turning in a hideous version of aftersickness. The superhuman blast had torn him inside. He looked like a dried-out cadaver, though Idlis had said that he would recover.
Llian sat with Karan for an hour, then was called away to corpse duty. There were many dead, and each must be honored according to their own customs. The creatures that had come out of the void had to be destroyed to prevent disease.
So it was that Karan was alone when the lorrsk that had hunted her throughout the tunnels eventually tracked her down. It had spent most of the day in hiding, for fear of the Sentinels, but it was much bolder now. For the past few hours, when the Sentinels sounded, no one had come to investigate.
The lorrsk was a dreadful, ruined, slavering thing, for it had been terribly hurt before it overcame the two Ghâshâd at the mine gate, and their sinewy flesh had not slaked its desperate hunger. It had tracked Karan all this way, cunningly evading the few Ghâshâd patrols, stung and blasted by a hundred Sentinels. One arm hung half-severed and useless, and three fingers were gone from its other hand. It was gouged and rent and half its fur had been burnt off. The ghastly buttock was a pulpy, gangrenous mess.
But it had found what it was looking for—the juicy redhaired woman, and this time she looked completely helpless. It hobbled across the room, so intent on her that it did not even notice Yggur until it trod on his face.
Yggur shrieked and the lorrsk jumped sideways a couple of spans. Karan snapped awake. At first she thought it was a hallucination brought on by the hrux, but no hallucination could be that horrible. The great room was empty. There was no one to help her.
“Oh, Llian,” she thought aloud. “Just when I believed it was all over. Where are you now?”
She stared at the lorrsk. “What can I do? I can’t do anything at all.” The lorrsk, remembering her previous tricks, stood motionless, gauging her. Then, rather gingerly, it reached out for her unprotected belly.
Out of the corner of her eye Karan saw the object of her hopes and fears. Llian, coming back for the next body, must have heard Yggur’s cry.
“Karan!” he screamed. Snatching up Rulke’s sword, he ran straight at the lorrsk, brandishing the huge weapon like a butcher his cleaver.
“Oh, Llian,” she said calmly, “this is not a good idea at all. You won’t even get one blow in.”
The lorrsk turned away with terrifying speed, despite its injuries, and hurled itself at Llian. He flailed the sword furiously, the creature ducked and Llian, completely off balance, fell to one knee right in its path. It swung its arm, its huge hand connecting with Llian’s side with a thump like a butcher dismembering a carcass. Llian was hurled through the air to land on his shoulder, somehow still clutching the sword. His shirt had been ripped off. There were bloody gashes across his side.
No one could survive such a blow from a lorrsk’s claws. This was the end of the line. Karan felt the most unutterable agony.
Then, miraculously, Llian moved his legs. He groaned and tried to sit up. The lorrsk flapped after him. There was only one thing that could possibly be done, and this was the only time Karan could have done it, while the hrux still pulsed through her brain. She hurled her fury at the lorrsk in a violent sending, the twin of her accidental sending into the mind of the Ghâshâd, that night in Gothryme Forest after her second dose of hrux.
She found herself in an alien, desperate mind, more in pain than she was. She saw though its eyes, felt it raise its good arm to tear Llian apart, and with an effort that was like lifting a boulder she tried to seize control. Fighting muscles that were ten times as strong as hers, fighting a will the equal of her own, all Karan could do was force the swing to go high. The blow passed just over Llian’s head. The lorrsk bellowed and flung her back out again.
Then, with her own eyes she saw the most incredible sight. Llian came to his knees and hurled the sword underarm up at the creature as if he was pitching manure with a shovel. It was a hopeless, agricultural throw. Karan was just steeling herself for another sending when the razor edge carved along the side of the lorrsk’s neck, bursting an artery. The creature danced around in a circle and fell flat on the floor in front of her, dead.
She looked down at the ruined hand. The two remaining claws were broken to stumps. That was all that had saved Llian from being disemboweled.
Llian wobbled across. There were two great gouges across his ribs. “Don’t say it,” he said as he put his arms around her.
“I’ve come to save you?” She gave a muffled giggle. “I wasn’t going to.”
“I never wanted to be a hero anyway, just a teller.”
“Well, you are now. A genuine hero. But then, you always were to me.’
47
Forever Exiles
In the morning Idlis reappeared with a metal and leather frame made to fit over the plaster casts. It ran from Karan’s waist to her feet. They put her in it and he adjusted the straps and the tension of various springs which pulled on her feet and kept the bones straight.
“This will keep everything in place until the bones have grown back together,” he said to Llian. “She must stay in it for at least six weeks, and may not be moved for two.”
Llian eyed the contraption. “It looks hideously uncomfortable. And how will you…?”
Karan laughed. “Attend to my bodily functions, you mean? I will have a nurse, of course. If you truly love me you will do that for me, and when I finally get out I will reward you. And myself, naturally.”
Idlis took Karan’s small hand and kissed it. Her skin no longer shrank from the rubbery feel of his skin. He felt like a friend to her now.
He said, “I will come to Gothryme on this day once a year, in case you need hrux. There is no other way of getting it, for no one else knows how it is made. If you should need me, send a message to Pymir, a place on the southern shore of the Karama Malama—the Sea of Mists. I must go after Yetchah.” His eyes were moist. “Fare well!”
“Fare well,” said Karan. “There is a future for you now. Come to Gothryme if ever you need me.”
Malien came over, to stand by Karan’s stretcher. “Do you hate and despise me?” Karan asked in a small voice.
Bending over, Malien pushed the hair from her brow. “You are kin, Karan, and I will always love you.”
“But I betrayed my kin and helped Rulke.”
“And once again you were right to do so. It’s done with, Karan.”
Karan heaved a vast sigh.
“But can you forgive us, Karan, for all the Aachim did to you and your family?” It was Malien’s turn to look anxious.
“Malien…”
“Yes, Karan?”
“You didn’t finish brushing my hair,” Karan said, referring to their fight in Thurkad weeks ago.
“I’ll do it right away.” She laughed. “And to show my contrition, I’ll even use my own brush, since no doubt you’ve lost yours.”
“Now that is a favor!” Karan said cheekily. “First your boots, then your hairbrush. When I next go east, maybe you will give up your bed for me too.”
“Don’t push it!” Malien laughed.
The Aachim closeted themselves with Tensor, prepared the body and kept vigil over it for a day and a night, playing their plangent instruments and speaking their threnodies. The following dawn they buried him in the tomb reserved long ago, in the catacombs of old Shazmak, sealing him in with a simple, dignified ceremony.
“He will not leave his beloved Shazmak again,” said Malien. “And none of us will ever go home to
Aachan. We are forever exiles.”
“Does that matter after all this time?” Llian asked. “Your ancestors were born here, surely?”
“They were, but the longing is burned deep into our souls. Aachan is a place we all dream of making our pilgrimage to.” She sighed heavily. “I’m worried now. Did you see the volcanoes erupting? What’s happening to my world?”
“Is there anything you can do?”
“No!” said Malien. “Whatever fate is in store for my people on Aachan, good or bad, they’re on their own.”
“What will you do with yourselves now?” Llian wondered.
“We’ll go off to our eastern cities, I expect, and make our way in the world somehow. We were never as great as we thought we were, but we’re survivors. Our long march of folly is finished. And it gives us heart to know that our slavery on Aachan is over. We could have ended it ourselves four thousand years ago, had we the courage to challenge the Charon. Had we known how vulnerable they really were. But we didn’t.”
Mendark they entombed in Shazmak too, and the other dead. All that remained of the nanollet was a film of gold and soot on the floor. The Aachim smashed the tiles to powder and threw it bit by bit into the Garr, along with the ashes of the dead creatures that had come out of the void. In its last flight the construct had passed over the flute and melted it into a puddle that had seeped into the cracked floor. They chiseled that out and cast it into the Garr as well. It was not what they had pledged to do before the flute was made, but it was the best they could manage now.
When all that work was done, Karan, still in her plaster and her frame, was bound to a stretcher. Only ten days had gone by but they could delay no longer. There was much to be done in the real world, the only one they’d ever know.
They made their way out of Shazmak for the last time, on foot, for Shand’s gate had failed when the Forbidding dissolved. All those who knew how to make gates were dead now, or lost, except Shand alone. He was a downcast automaton. Having lost Yalkara and now Maigraith, there seemed no reason to go on living.
“Why don’t you try to make another gate, just to get us safely to Gothryme?” Llian asked as they stood at the end of the glorious cobweb bridge. Karan was already suffering.