The Way Between the Worlds

by Ian Irvine

  “Poor stupid girl!” said Karan. “She should have said them for him.”

  “If only she had,” said Llian. “What a silly, miserable duffer he was. Because—and now I find that the story does end sadly after all—he never did.”

  “And that’s the end?” she exclaimed.” “What about ‘and they lived happily ever after’?”

  “That’s a different tale. Karan?”

  “Yes, Llian?”

  He opened his mouth but no words came out.

  “Will you marry me?” they both said at the same instant, and fell down on the bed, laughing and crying and hugging one another.

  “What’s the matter with you,” asked Karan a few nights later, when it was late and the house was quiet. Llian had been unusually subdued all afternoon. “I thought I’d made you the happiest man in the world.”

  “You have, yet I’m stricken by my crimes. I am shaken to my bootstraps.”

  “What crimes?”

  “Collaborating with Tensor in Katazza; taunting Mendark so that he burnt down the archives and stole the flute; driving Tensor into a fury that led to him destroying Rulke. What pride I took in using my teller’s voice, and in my ability to manipulate him! What reckless joy it gave me! And look how tragic the consequences!”

  “Well, you may rue them, while knowing that if you had not acted, things might have been very much worse. I would be dead, for one.”

  “I feel so guilty. My curiosity was fatal. I will give up being a chronicler and a teller too. It is the only way. I shall labor in your fields from dawn to dusk to atone for my crimes.”

  “You would be the most useless and miserable laborer in the whole of Bannador,” she said with a heartless laugh. “I would probably sack you before lunchtime. Anyway, that’s all past and done, and we have to look to the future. Think of all the good you’ve done with your tales and your Histories.”

  Llian sat listlessly. “How are you going to support yourself?” she continued. “Not to mention contributing to this place, which burns money like firewood and never makes any. Did you not promise Rulke that you’d write the Histories of the Charon? And what about the people of Bannador, who have suffered so in the past two years? Are they not entitled to hear the Tale of the Mirror?”

  “You’re right, I suppose,” he said, not quite so unhappily.

  “You also have to tell the full tale to the college. You can’t get around that. It’s your duty as a master chronicler.”

  Llian perked up at that thought.

  “Besides, how could I possibly bond to a farmhand? That would make me very unhappy. Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed about wedding a teller. There’s even a tale about it.”

  That was a busy, indeed a desperate time. Meldorin was harried by thranx and bands of lesser creatures, and they did almost as much damage as the previous year’s war had done. Even Thurkad was attacked on one terrible day at the end of spring.

  Llian had many calls to go to Thurkad and other places to tell his tale. He had handsome offers too, but refused them all.

  “It’s not finished,” he said in each case, “and when it is, first I must tell it in Chanthed.”

  He stayed at Karan’s side, comforting her and attending to her needs, and putting up with her mischief and her temper. And that was very great, when finally she got out of her chair and tried to walk with sticks. But surprisingly, even in her worst moments she felt no desire for hrux. That longing had completely gone.

  “Today is the day!” said Karan early one morning about a month after their return. It was the seventh day of Bolland, the first month of summer.

  “What day?” Llian wondered.

  “It’s six weeks! The day I get my plaster off! You can’t possibly imagine how much I’ve longed for this day.”

  The metal frame was taken apart, the plaster casts carefully sawn through and cracked away from her hips and each leg. Karan was helped into a chair.

  “Oh, it feels funny to sit on my bottom, after so long on my back. I can feel my bones creaking.” She looked down at her withered legs. They were like straight, blanched sticks, her knees were mere knobs in the middle and her ankles stuck out. “Oh, yuk. I’m so ugly! Help me with my trousers, quick.”

  When that was done, Karan put her hands on the arms of her chair and tried to push herself to her feet. She got halfway up and fell down again. “Don’t just stand there like a fool!” she shouted. “Help me up!”

  Llian gave her his arms and heaved her onto her feet but her legs would not hold her up. She sagged sideways, almost pulling him over. Karan burst into tears.

  “Put me back,” she said. “It’s no use, my legs don’t work any more. I’m a useless cripple.”

  Rachis came by. “Karan child,” he said, “you’re taking it too quickly. After all this time, you have to build up your muscles before you can expect to walk.”

  “I can’t even stand up!” she wailed.

  “But if you exercise first, tomorrow or the next day you will. And a few days after that you’ll take your first step. Soon you’ll be walking everywhere. I’ve seen it many times.” He went out, whistling.

  “That’s so,” said Llian. “I’ve often heard about it.”

  Karan dried her angry tears. “I’ll believe you then, though it doesn’t seem possible. Now, run me a bath and put me in it please, so that I can get rid of this awful itching. And you’d better stay to make sure that I don’t drown, and to lift me out again. And then you can carry me up the stairs to my bed, where I will claim my reward for the last six weeks, and offer you your own.”

  After a few days Karan was able to get around by herself, though she was on crutches for another month. Llian had recovered from his malaise by now. Freed from constantly needing to attend her, he threw himself back into his work. There had been a message from the College of the Histories. He was to tell the tale at the Graduation Telling, only two months away. Old Wistan had nominated it as a Great Tale, and all the master chroniclers would be there to vote. There was an incredible amount to do if the Tale of the Mirror was to be ready in time.

  Llian allowed himself to dream about that. The first new Great Tale in hundreds of years. His tale! Surely they would vote for it. And old Wistan was well past his time. Last year he had talked about passing on—and the need for the college to have a new, young master. And, with the tale to his name, perhaps he, Llian, would be the one…

  Llian suddenly burst out laughing, at himself, and where his daydreams had led him. I am truly incorrigible, he told himself. But, can I not dream?

  There finally came a day when Karan was able to cast aside her sticks. Soon she was walking and running everywhere, and taking such pleasure that she was able to, though she knew she would never get back the fleetness and agility of before. To the end of her days she walked with a slight limp, and in winter especially her bones troubled her.

  One evening Shand appeared at the front door of the keep. “Shand, it’s good to see you,” Llian said merrily, for the old man had not been back since their return from Shazmak. “Come in!”

  “I can’t stay.” Shand looked uncomfortable. “I’ve too much to do.” Thrusting a small package into Llian’s hands, he immediately headed back down the path.

  Puzzled, Llian went back inside, unwrapping the package. Within a box of white wood, nestled on a crumpled piece of midnight-blue velvet, was the silver chain Shand had once pawned for Karan. It had been cleaned and looked as beautiful as the day the master craftsman had made it.

  Llian examined it carefully. Inside was the engraved “shu” character, Shuthdar’s mark, and it was quite worn. A thrill went through Llian at the sight of it—to think he held in his hands something made by a legend, four thousand years ago. And there on the clasp, the letters widely spaced, in a wavery hand that was not worn at all, were the letters F I A C H R A—the name of the crippled girl whose mysterious death had started it all. Surely that proved it was Shuthdar’s gift to her.

  “Karan!”
he yelled. “Look what Shand has brought back!”

  Karan came running. “Oh, Shand, thank you!” she cried. She held the silver chain to her cheek. She looked around. “Where is he?”

  “He didn’t stay.”

  “Why not? Why has he gone? At this time of night?” She ran out the door.

  “I don’t think he wanted to be asked questions,” Llian said.

  Shortly she returned arm-in-arm with a notably incommunicative Shand. Karan was practically floating in the air. Shand, however, would not even relate how he had recovered the chain. He said little at dinner and retired straight after.

  Karan bathed and scooted up the stairs to her room, wrapped in a threadbare towel. Llian was in bed already, apparently asleep. She brushed her hair, hung the towel over a chair and slipped Fiachra’s chain over her head. Karan slid into the sheets and burrowed her way into Llian’s warm spot. Rousing, he took her in his arms. Soon they both slept.

  Karan dreamed the Histories. She dreamed herself into Llian’s Tale of the Forbidding, the way he had told it right at the beginning. She could see him, just as he had looked on stage that night of the Graduation Telling, two years ago. Karan saw herself too, living the Great Tale and her heart going out to the teller.

  But with that strange self-awareness that comes in dreams, Karan realized that she had dreamed right into Huling’s Tower on the Long Lake. She could see herself there, a ghostly image at the top of the stairs, looking over the walls to the water on one side and the semicircle of burning forest on the others. Shuthdar’s enemies were coming and nothing would be allowed to stand in their way.

  Karan turned, dream-slow. Shuthdar, as gruesome a wreck as could ever be imagined, was staring right through her. Poisoned by the metals he had spent so long crafting, his very bones had been deformed. His legs and arms were knots of wasted muscle that clothed bones as gnarled as tree roots. His skin was eroded like a half-peeled potato, while his fingers were twisted, arthritic claws.

  But it was his face that was the ultimate horror. It was equally eroded, equally deformed, while his shrunken lips gaped open to display the most hideous travesty of his craftsmanship. His false teeth were iron that did not fit the weeping cave of his mouth—rusty, misshapen things that stained lips, beard and shirt blood-red.

  Karan cried out in her sleep. Or was it Karan the ghost, for Shuthdar’s gaze fixed on her before slipping to one side? His eyes softened, his ghastly mouth curved into a smile. Turning as well, Karan saw the crippled girl sitting on the flat roof nearby. Her twisted legs were tucked up under a long skirt. Fiachra was lovely, a small heart-shaped face framed by thick black hair. There were pearls of perspiration on her brow from the magical dance Shuthdar had given her.

  The girl looked up at the monster with such adoration that Karan caught her breath. Shuthdar spoke and Fiachra’s face lit up, though his words were inaudible. He pointed to the burning forest. She shook her head, and the look that passed between them made Karan sing inside. Shuthdar took a chain from around his neck—the chain that had carried Karan into the dream—and scratched Fiachra’s name on it. It was a protection against what was to come. He slipped it over her head, touched her cheek with the back of his hand, then scuttled up onto the wall, flute in hand.

  Outlined against the ghastly moon, the dark side full and reflecting across the lake, he brandished the flute at his enemies and blew a single blast.

  Everything vanished in rainbow-colored shockwaves that thundered out in all directions. The tower fractured. Waves burst over the ruins. Time slipped sideways, and when it resumed Shuthdar had disappeared and the top of the tower was rubble. Hidden behind a wall of debris, a shimmering cylinder enclosed the sleeping girl.

  As Karan’s ghost reached out, the cylinder burst and Fiachra roused. She scratched at the wall, crying out for Shuthdar, but he was dead. All that remained was a slowly congealing puddle of gold, the remains of the flute. The girl sank weeping behind the rubble.

  Time shifted again. A tall specter appeared on the stair. It fell on the gold with a cry of exultation, using a great spell to mold it into three pieces of jewelry. Karan saw smoke rise from the specter’s hands, proof that it was flesh and blood. Finally the job was done, the jewelry quenched in a puddle. The specter looked up suddenly, realizing that it was being watched. It sprang up onto the wall. The crippled girl made a futile attempt to get away but the specter plunged a long pin into her back. Fiachra cried out, stiffened and did not move again.

  Karan groaned aloud. Though she knew she was dreaming, and knew that the murder was more than three thousand years old, it was as shocking as if it had been done in her own bedroom.

  The specter turned abruptly and for the first time Karan saw its face. It was a woman, tall and broad of shoulder, with black hair, a long, beautiful face and searing indigo eyes. Yalkara! It all fell into place!

  The specter lunged at Karan’s ghost with bloodstained, blistered hands. Karan screamed and woke in Llian’s arms.

  “So Yalkara killed her,” Llian said in the morning, as Karan and he were taking breakfast with Shand. Karan had just finished telling them the chain-inspired dream.

  “I thought as much, as soon as I saw the drawings Faelamor stole from the library,” Shand said sadly. He picked at his food. “But the chain confirmed it. Once I held it in my hand again I knew what had happened. The metal was imprinted with the deeds done in the tower—the destruction of the flute, the protection, the murder, the Forbidding! Oh, Yalkara! What an ignoble deed, to kill a helpless girl.”

  “I suppose she felt that she had no choice,” said Llian. “The gold was too warped and deadly ever to be used again. No one could be trusted with it, so no one must know that she had it. The crippled girl had to die.”

  “And did she kill Kandor, too, when he found out about it long after?” asked Karan.

  “To kill one of her own, one of the Hundred, would have been a far, far different thing,” said Shand.

  “I don’t understand why Yalkara didn’t get rid of the gold,” said Karan. “Why didn’t she grind it to dust and scatter it across the waters so that it could never be recovered? Why leave it around to be found and used, if it was so perilous?”

  “I suppose she kept it in case her need was desperate,” said Shand. “Remember that Havissard was the safest place on Santhenar; it was impregnable. Remember, too, that Aachan gold was incredibly precious. Then, when she had to flee unexpectedly, she was too badly hurt to do anything with it, and she could not take it with her.” He sighed. “Ah, Yalkara, even knowing about this crime, even after all this time I still ache for you.”

  “So how did Kandor end up with the chain?” asked Karan.

  “He was one of the thousands outside when the flute was destroyed,” Llian replied. “And later, knowing that the girl had been murdered, he took the chain from her neck, thinking that the evidence might be read from it. Whoever had the gold would hold the greatest power on Santhenar. He coveted that power, for Kandor was always insecure. That’s why he put everything into making his empire. He had to display his strength and have other people envy him for it. And fear him!”

  Shand took up the story. “But all the while he knew that he was second-rate. He could not read the murderer’s name from the chain. Worse, someone much greater than him had the gold yet did nothing with it. And when the Sea of Perion began to dry up Kandor realized that only one power could save him.

  “Descending into paranoid madness he built the Great Tower of Katazza, following the same pattern as the chain. The congruence between the two was a form of sympathetic magic. But also a boast—‘I know what you’re up to, but my Art is greater’.”

  “The boast was empty. The sea went dry and Kandor’s empire failed with it. Now believing that Rulke had the gold, Kandor wrote those letters to bring him and Yalkara together, hoping to expose Rulke and cause his downfall.

  “But Yalkara refused to come, and Rulke, in a letter of his own, accused Kandor of treachery. So Kand
or betrayed Rulke to the Council, through the woman he was betrothed to. And Mendark, knowing that Kandor could destroy his reputation, had him killed.’

  48

  The Great Tale

  In the last month of summer, Karan, Llian and Shand made the journey across the mountains to Chanthed for the Graduation Telling. It was a painful trip for Karan. Her bones hurt most of the time.

  On arriving in Chanthed they found many friends there—Tallia, Jevi, now first mate on The Waif, Lilis and Nadiril, Malien and Asper, and even Pender. The other Aachim were fighting a colony of thranx on the other side of Lauralin. Malien looked older, and her red hair was threaded with silver. She did not say much. The fate of Aachan, and her inability to do anything about it, was a constant preoccupation.

  “Pender!” Karan exclaimed, “Just look at you! You are magnificent!”

  Magnificent was perhaps overstating it, but all things are relative and Pender had done his best. The stubble that habitually graced his jowls had been carefully removed. He was dressed in clothes that were, if not the height of fashion in the waterfront inns of Thurkad, at least clean and new. They had even been pressed, though not very well, and the belly straining at his coat buttons showed that he’d had a prosperous year. He was as round as a bottle.

  Pender grinned and opened his arms. He’d never had much time for Llian, but Karan was a great favorite. “It’s been a good year for trade, eh! I am thinking that I might buy a new boat.”

  “Oh, you’re not going to sell The Waif, are you?” said Lilis. “I would be very sorry to see her go.” Lilis had also grown over the past months. She was still small but not quite so skinny. She was rounder in the hips, fuller in the chest—definitely a woman now.

  “Well, Lilis, I can’t sail two boats at once, can I? And I have to pay Tallia back her share, eh!” He went on in a stage whisper. “Now don’t tell anyone, but I might sell her to your father.”