by Ian Irvine
Lilis’s face blossomed like a flower opening in the sunshine. “Jevi,” she shrieked so that every head in the room turned. “Jevi, Jevi! Pender is going to sell The Waif to you!”
Jevi, who was just behind her, smiled and said, “Yes, we’ve talked about it already. Can you imagine me owning my own boat? I never dreamed of such a thing. I am a new man, Lilis.”
Tallia came up and put her arms around him. “I liked the old one well enough, but I am happy for you.”
“So, what are your plans?” Pender wondered, turning back to Lilis.
“There’s plenty to do. I have to finish copying Llian’s tale for the Great Library. And I’m not even halfway through my apprenticeship. Come over here, Pender, say hello to Nadiril. You’ll like him very much.”
Llian still had to resolve one final detail before he could tell his Tale of the Mirror. “Why did Yalkara engrave those glyphs around the Mirror?” he asked the company, who were gathered by the fire in their inn. “And why the moon symbol? Do you know, Shand?”
“I believe so. We worked part of it out just before Mendark’s fire, if you recall. In their final battle, Faelamor had forced Yalkara to reveal that the key to making gates lay within the Mirror. Yalkara was so afraid that she changed the Mirror at once. She then engraved the script there, to be certain Aeolior would still be able to use it. Apparently she taunted Faelamor with the verses too, though she left out the third and fourth lines, which were meant only for Aeolior. This is how it goes, and the emphases are important:
“The Mirror is locked, but within lies the key
Come, look inside; see what you want to see
Take hold of your birthright; you will see true
Then the Glass cannot lie to me or to you
Tallallame, oh my Tallallame
Your fate does rest on the one which is three
“The message had several layers,” Shand explained. “Once Yalkara let slip the secret of gates, Faelamor saw the way home to Tallallame at last. At that point she began her three-hundred-year-long plan.
“Yalkara’s message was an enticement to Faelamor to look into the Mirror and, combined with that ancient Faellem prophecy, one impossible for her to resist. It was also a sneer—See what you want to see!—that Faelamor was not strong enough to make the Twisted Mirror show true. And a prediction about the fate of Tallallame that emphasized Faelamor’s misunderstanding about the triune.”
“And the moon symbol?” asked Lilis, fascinated. “Was that to Faelamor too?”
“Not at all!” Shand replied. “It was for Aeolior alone, an illustration of Yalkara’s only hope, that the Charon blend with the other species. Look at it!” Shand sketched it on a scrap of paper.
“The outer circle symbolizes us old humans, the ancestral human species, complete but insufficient (to her mind anyway); too primitive. The three scarlet crescents depict the Faellem, Charon and Aachim—powerful but all, in some ways, incomplete.”
“And the inner circle?” asked Karan.
“The three golden balls must represent the triune,” said Llian, “set in a completed circle which, I imagine, is meant to depict a new kind of human.”
Malien, who had sat quietly through the discourse, now finished it. “That part might also represent the cells of the human embryo. But the symbol was also a threat to deter us from ever using the Mirror again, for it’s a reworking of an old Aachim doom symbol. We were all terrified when we saw it. Even Tensor, though his lust for the Mirror’s secrets outweighed his fear of it.”
This year the honor of the final night of the Graduation Telling had been awarded to Llian’s friend Thandiwe, though of course she could not tell the Tale of the Mirror. Instead she retold the very first Great Tale, Nulki’s Saga, a tragic story from before. It, alone of all the Great Tales, dated from the time prior to Shuthdar’s stealing of the golden flute. Though Thandiwe was a chronicler rather than a master teller, she told the tale very simply and touchingly. Even Llian was impressed.
Karan was astounded at the difference in Thandiwe. Less than a year had passed since their meeting, but Thandiwe was no longer the girlish student pining for her lover. At the conclusion of her tale she was acclaimed as a master chronicler, and on the stage in her simple black gown she looked the equal of any of them.
The following night Llian began the first part of the Tale of the Mirror. The tale was in four parts, to be told on four successive nights. Two years had gone by since his retelling of the Tale of the Forbidding that had begun the tale.
“The first part of the Tale of the Mirror is called A Shadow on the Glass,” began Llian, “and it was that fleeting appearance of Yalkara’s face on the Mirror in Fiz Gorgo…”
The Tale of the Mirror was finally told. Llian bowed his head. There was absolute silence. Then, up the back someone let out a great roar. A young woman echoed it from across the hall, and suddenly the whole room was on its feet, roaring, yelling and screaming their acclamation. Ovation followed ovation until it was put to rest by the students swarming onto the stage and carrying Llian across and back, and up and down the hall through the audience a dozen times.
At last, exhausted by cheering, they set him down again and trooped back to their places. Old Wistan shuffled up to the stage. He was quite frail now, and a thickset master had to help him up the steps.
Wistan nodded to Llian, rather curtly, and moved forward to the front of the stage. “A fine tale!” he said. “A wonderful tale, I’m sure we all agree. And now comes the time that I have been waiting for all my life, as no doubt many of you have too. Every master chronicler is here tonight.” He read out sixty-four names, one by one, very slowly and deliberately.
Karan, sitting in the front row in the place of the guest of honor, thirty-one masters to her left, an equal number to her right, was absolutely burning with impatience.
Wistan reached the end of the list. The last three names were Thandiwe, Llian and himself. “My fellow masters, distinguished visitors, students, I will be brief. I hereby nominate the Tale of the Mirror to be a Great Tale. The master chroniclers have all read the documents, spoken to the witnesses and checked the facts. Now you have heard the tale told by a master. What say you? Is it a Great Tale? Yea or nay? Answer one by one, if you please, and the Recorder will register your vote.”
He paused for effect. Karan felt a momentary twinge of unease, though it passed swiftly.
“Master Quendryth, what say you?”
A small, white-haired woman stood up at the very end of the row. She nodded to Llian, to Wistan and to her fellow masters. “Yea!” she said in a husky voice. “It is a Great Tale.” Without further word she sat down again.
“Master Laarni?” called Wistan.
The dark-faced man next to Karan sprang to his feet. “Yea!” he roared, making sure there was no doubt of his opinion. “A Great Tale! A very Great Tale! Note down my vote carefully, Recorder!” He sat down with a thump that rocked the whole row of seats.
“Master Cherith?” cried Wistan. A fleshy, black-clad woman of barely middle age rose from the other side of the room.
“Yea!” she said softly. Then she smiled, infecting the whole room with her good humor. “A Great Tale it is, Master Wistan.”
“Master Thandiwe?” said Wistan.
The youngest of all the masters, Thandiwe stood up. Karan noticed Llian staring at her and again felt a little stab of jealousy. Thandiwe looked truly breathtaking tonight, in a sheath of red satin that hugged her voluptuous form. She gave her vote, for the Great Tale, and sat down quickly.
So it went on, back and forth across the front row. Finally all had voted but one, the Master of the College of the Histories. Llian could not vote, of course. Again Karan felt that twinge of unease. This honor meant everything to Llian. Wistan had hated Llian once. What if, despite all, he still did?
Wistan said not a word. The room was silent. Karan’s unease grew. Then Quendryth’s seat creaked and Karan realized that the master of the college was waiti
ng to be asked.
“Master Wistan,” said Quendryth. “You have checked the documents, questioned the witnesses and heard the Tale of the Mirror. What do you say? Is the tale worthy of the highest honor?”
“The tale is worthy of my vote,” said Wistan, then paused. He looked ancient, exhausted, grim of face.
The pause stretched out to minutes. Karan could hear the heavy breath of Laarni beside her. She couldn’t breathe at all. Her chest hurt.
“And what is your vote?”
Wistan took a deep breath. He swayed on his feet. “It… it is a Great Tale,” he whispered, and had to sit down. “The Tale of the Mirror is a Great Tale, the twenty-third.”
The roar shook the tiles in the distant roof. The whole room stood. Slowly Karan rose too, moved to tears. Oh, Llian, she thought, you have what you wanted at last.
Llian now stood alone in the middle of the great stage and the tears ran down his face unchecked.
When the clamor finally died down, Wistan took the stage again. “There are two final matters to be attended to,” he said. “I have been master here for more than fifty years. I have seen the college safely through the war and into the new age. I have heard the Great Tale. My health is failing rapidly and I no longer have any reason to keep going. It is time to pass the burden on. Tonight, before we leave, we will elect a new master.”
A stir went through the audience, like a wind blowing dry bracken across the yard. Wistan held up a shaky hand. “The old world is gone forever. A new master is required, and a fresh start for the new age. Propose none of the superannuated old guard. Go for youth, talent and integrity, and trust that wisdom will develop. I call for nominations!”
“Master Llian,” sang out a voice in the crowd.
Llian stepped forward, nodding his acceptance. Even after all the acclaim he positively shone with eagerness for this final honor. It would signal that the outcast Zain was accepted at last.
Karan was torn between conflicting desires. Did Llian want to be master more than he wanted her? If he got it, he would have to live in Chanthed. But how could she cling to him if he wanted to go?
The Recorder carefully inscribed his name in an ancient red book. “Other nominations,” called Wistan from his chair.
“Master Laarni,” shouted a master across the aisle from Karan.
“Do you accept the nomination, Laarni?” asked Wistan.
The dark man beside Karan stood. He bowed to the stage and to the man who had nominated him. “I do not! I am of the old age.” He sat down again.
Wistan scanned the room. No one moved. “Come on!” he said irritably. “There are half a dozen here tonight worthy of the honor.”
After a long pause, two others were nominated. Both declined. The election seemed a fait accompli.
Wistan’s face spasmed. He stood up, creaking forward painfully to the very edge of the stage, and his cloudy eyes sought one face among the row of masters. “There must be a vote,” Wistan whispered. “I nominate Master Thandiwe Moorn.”
Thandiwe almost fell off her chair. A mutter of astonishment went through the hall. Llian looked incredulous. Then Thandiwe stood up and Karan’s heart went out to her, for the young master’s face was as red as her gown and she was trembling almost to fall down.
“Do you accept the nomination, Thandiwe?” asked Wistan.
“I am unworthy of it, much less the position,” she said softly.
“I think otherwise. The new master of the college must be young, as you are. Must be brilliant—no one could disagree that you are. Must love the Histories as much as they love life itself. But most of all, the new master must have impartiality and integrity. I say you have all of these attributes. Again I propose you.”
Thandiwe looked him in the eye. “You are wise and I am not. Surely you see what I cannot. I accept the nomination.”
“Then take your place on the stage and wait our judgment. Are there any further nominations?” There were not. “Come, Masters, we must discuss the merit of the candidates.”
Burly Laarni supported Wistan into the adjacent debating chamber. The masters followed and the door thudded closed. The audience began to chatter among themselves. Llian and Thandiwe sat on their separate chairs. Llian leaned back, and it took all of his teller’s self-control to maintain a blank face. Thandiwe looked as if she wanted the floor to open and take her away from the torment.
Nothing happened for a very long time. From the other side of the door Karan heard raised voices, a long and spirited debate. Finally the door opened and the masters emerged. They spread across the back of the stage, muttering to one another. The two candidates were urged forward. The masters all put slips of paper into a box, which the Recorder counted out and, with painful slowness, entered into the red book.
Finally the Recorder looked up. “It is done, Master.”
“Have you a majority for one candidate.”
“I have, Master Wistan.”
“What is the majority?”
“Forty to twenty-two.”
Wistan smiled. “A clear win! A good start for the new master. And the name of the winner?”
The Recorder handed Wistan a long slip of paper. Wistan walked along the line, showing the votes and the count to each of the masters except the two candidates. Each nodded their acceptance of the vote. Wistan came to the front of the stage, between Thandiwe and Llian.
“Will the candidates rise?”
Llian and Thandiwe stood up.
“The winner,” said Wistan, displaying the biggest smile anyone in the college had ever seen, “by the margin of forty votes to twenty-two, is Master Thandiwe Moorn.”
The audience was stunned to silence. The momentary look of consternation, followed by dismay and humiliation, on Llian’s face must have delighted his enemies. He hid it quickly. Forcing a smile that fooled no one, Llian put out his hand to Thandiwe. He would have been delighted for her had she beaten anyone else, but this was more than he was capable of.
“You will make a fine master,” he said. “I wish you well.”
Thandiwe could not smile back. There were tears of disbelief in her eyes. She kept shaking her head. Llian bowed to her, to Wistan and the assembled masters, and turned to leave the stage.
Wistan motioned him to stay. “Thandiwe Moorn, you have been elected the seventy-fifth Master of the College of the Histories. Do you accept the election?”
Thandiwe firmed her shoulders. “I do, Master Wistan,” she said softly.
“You will take up your position upon my death, which is,” he gave a wry smile, “expected imminently. I congratulate you.” He shook her hand.
Again Llian turned to go. “Stay a moment, Llian,” cried Wistan in a voice suddenly loud and firm. “There is one last matter to attend to.”
Llian sprang back to center stage as if he expected a consolation prize. Wistan gestured the masters forward.
“Master Llian,” said Wistan, “you have made a new Great Tale, and been acclaimed for it. You are a great chronicler, and a great teller too, no doubt of it. Perhaps the greatest of the age that has just ended.”
Llian bowed to Wistan and to the audience. Again Karan felt that prickle of unease.
“But Llian, as I said to you more than once when you were a student here, Genius without ethics is a deadly commodity. Just how deadly I never realized. A great chronicler you may be, Llian, but you are not a worthy master. Your tale proves your dishonor. You betrayed your calling in Katazza by collaborating with Tensor, and betrayed it again in the Nightland.”
Wistan held up his hand as Llian began to defend himself. “You’ve had your say—four long nights of it—and now I will have mine. Those crimes might have been forgiven, done under duress as they no doubt were. But not what you did next. You meddled in the Histories, Llian. You manipulated Mendark in Thurkad just to find the answer to a historical curiosity. The result—a hundred prisoners burned to death in the citadel cells, and a priceless library of the Histories destroyed.”
He paused. Llian looked as if he had been punched in the face.
“And then in Shazmak you did it again. Perhaps worse! You manipulated Tensor using your teller’s gifts…” Wistan almost choked on his fury, “causing the death of noble Rulke and all the consequences that flowed from that to this day. Have you anything to say now, Llian?”
You stinking hypocrite! Karan thought. The whole world hated and feared Rulke until his death, and did all they could to destroy him.
“No!” whispered Llian. “Nothing at all. Everything you say is true. I accept your rebuke and vow to mend my character.”
“This is not a rebuke!” snapped Wistan. “You are corrupt, Llian. You are unworthy to be a master chronicler. You must be taught a lesson.”
Llian bowed his head. “I’ve learned that lesson!”
“You haven’t! How could you, a Zain, think to be master of this college?” Wistan’s voice positively dripped malice.
Karan wondered whether the friendliness of the previous year had been hypocrisy, too, or if Llian’s behavior had merely reinforced old prejudices. Wistan had desperately wanted the honor of the Great Tale, but now that he had it would make no concession to the detested Zain.
“I raised the least of us to the position of the greatest,” Wistan continued, “to demonstrate that you could never be acceptable to us!”
Llian went white. The whites of Thandiwe’s eyes could be seen. She was quivering with fury.
“Accordingly, by my right as master of the college you are hereby stripped of the honor. You are master chronicler no longer. Give me your badge.”
Llian was so shocked that he staggered and would have fallen off the stage had not Thandiwe caught his arm. He fumbled in his pocket, brought out the master’s badge that was more precious than his life, and handed it to Wistan.
Wistan looked around at the assembled masters. “Does anyone disagree with this judgment?”
Several masters scowled and scuffled their feet. “No point, is there?” shouted Laarni. “Not all of us together have the power to reverse your decision!”