by Ian Irvine
“It should,” said Nadiril, “but how are you going to support your family?”
“Live on my wits,” Llian said breezily. “They’ve served me well enough so far.”
Karan snorted into her cup, spraying tea across the table. Sulien rolled her green eyes.
“I suppose they have,” said Nadiril. He half-rose, found it too much of a struggle and sat down again. “You’re entitled to vote on Thandiwe’s tale, of course. And whether you do or don’t, I’d like your opinion on it.”
“As a Great Tale?”
“No, I want your opinion on the Tale of Rulke in terms of its historical truth and completeness.” He pushed himself up with his hands and succeeded in rising this time. “You can promise me that much?”
“Of course,” said Llian. “I’m looking forward to hearing the tale, very much.”
“I’m not,” said Karan.
75
IS THERE NO END TO YOUR CUNNING?
They assembled in the Great Hall of the College of the Histories two nights later. It was a small but lovely theatre that dated back to the founding of the college almost three thousand years ago, and the Great Tales had been told there ever since, apart from a long hiatus during the bloody chaos of the Clysm, when the tales had been kept alive in caves and forest clearings and even in private homes with the blinds down and the lamps out.
Llian gazed around him. The hall had a high triple-vaulted timber ceiling supported on intricately carved beams, and the walls were clad in carved panels depicting scenes from the Great Tales and the Histories. It was not nearly large enough these days, and every aisle was packed.
As the only living creator of a Great Tale he was entitled to sit at the dignitaries’ table on the left-hand side of the stage, but he had chosen the front row of seats with Karan and Sulien, Yggur, Shand and Ifoli, and Wilm and Aviel.
Thandiwe was a fine teller, one of the best the college had produced in decades, and Llian had been looking forward to hearing her tale, though from the beginning he felt disappointed. This was not due to the facts of the tale. Rulke’s life had been one of such towering courage, brilliance, achievement and cunning that even a teller of modest means could have made a lesser Great Tale from it. So what was it? Thandiwe’s telling was flat and dull, and a Great Tale must not be either.
“Well?” Nadiril said after she finished and the masters and dignitaries had withdrawn to a cramped side room, where they stood elbow to elbow, jostling each others’ cups of overly sweet yellow wine before the judging.
“A marvellous story …” Llian said ruminatively. “It could not be otherwise …”
“But?”
“How could Thandiwe write a Great Tale in a few weeks?”
“It’s been done before.”
“Only with short tales. Never about such a towering and long-lived figure as Rulke. Besides, Thandiwe can’t have translated a tenth of Rulke’s papers. I took a few key ones with me, and the rest I left at the Great Library.”
“I have them in my baggage, as it happens,” said Nadiril with a ghostly smile. “Didn’t want to leave them in the library where they …”
“Might fall into the wrong hands,” said Llian. “Is there no end to your cunning?”
“I carried them to Healer’s Isle but never got the chance to give them to you. Come and see me in the morning. But going back to Thandiwe’s tale, it does seem … hasty.”
“And far too short, barely two hours! Written out, it can’t be more than sixty pages. It’s just a summary with most of the drama left out.”
“Whereas the Tale of the Mirror?”
Llian felt sure Nadiril knew as well as he did. “The Great Tale, as I presented it here ten years ago, is four hundred pages long, and it took me four nights to tell it.”
“Four great nights. All right, what about historical truth?”
“I didn’t hear anything I knew to be wrong, or slanted to make Rulke greater than he was. If anything, by condensing the story so much she’s made him seem less extraordinary.”
“And completeness?” said Nadiril.
“She’s left too much out, much of it vital to understanding the Charon and why Rulke was so driven to save them.”
“For instance?”
“She skipped over Stermin’s crafting of the Crimson and Azure Gates, then ordering his people to choose one or the other and banishing everyone who chose the Crimson Gate. And she hardly mentioned the Merdrun, even though their ‘civil war’ with the Charon defined both peoples and Rulke.”
“Why do you think she downplayed them?”
“In the early days Thandiwe denied that the Merdrun existed. She kept parroting Snoat’s line that our leaders had invented them as a diversion from their own failures. I suppose the denial made it easier for her to justify stealing Rulke’s papers, and perhaps she discounted everything he wrote about the Merdrun—or simply didn’t read it.”
Nadiril’s clouded eyes roved over the throng while he considered that. “Anything else?”
“Only what I warned Thandiwe about in Alcifer before she fled with Rulke’s papers, and it’s the biggest flaw of all.
“Every tale is also a performance, and a Great Tale has to be a towering performance, but you must believe in your heart that, before everything else, you are that great teller. If you don’t believe it, your teller’s voice will show it. It can’t be faked. If you steal the tale or kill for it, in your own mind that’s what your real identity will be when you tell your tale to the masters: not a teller, but a thief or a murderer. You can’t be both. In reaching for the prize, you will have put it for ever beyond your reach.”
Llian met Nadiril’s eyes. “Thandiwe lied and cheated and stole for the tale, again and again, and that’s what she’s become in her own mind—not a teller but a thief. That’s why her tale feels so flat.”
A bell rang in the distance.
“Very perceptive,” said Nadiril sadly. “Though it doesn’t mean she won’t get her Great Tale. That’s the bell for the voting. You’d better go in.”
Llian went up onto the stage with all the other masters. There were sixty-four masters’ positions, though four were vacant due to death or incapacity, while Basible Norp had fled and Thandiwe could not vote.
Candela Twism ambled up. A short, square, heavily built woman with massive jowls and an untameable mass of grey ringlets, she had become acting master of the college after Norp’s flight.
She counted the masters. “Fifty-seven.” She frowned then said, “Ah! Plus me, of course.”
She sat in the vacant seat and turned to stare at Thandiwe, who stood exposed in the centre of the stage. She looked nervous, even terrified, and Llian knew how she felt. He had felt that way himself after telling the Tale of the Mirror.
Candela rose again. “Who would not want to be college master on such an historic occasion?” she said. “The reading of a new Great Tale—”
“We … haven’t … voted!” grated Limmy Tuul, a cold, hard-faced master, the black wen on his right eyelid fluttering. He had been a strong supporter of Thandiwe’s push to become master of the college several months ago and presumably supported her tale, but no master could endure having his vote taken for granted.
“Of … of course we haven’t,” Candela said at once, now flustered and smiling vaguely. She went to the front of the stage, turning her back to Thandiwe to show that her destiny was in the masters’ hands, and faced the audience. “How does it go?” she muttered, looking down at her plump fingers.
“My fellow masters, distinguished visitors, students,” hissed Master Laarni, the small, dark master at the end.
“Ah!” said Candela. “My fellow masters, distinguished visitors, students, I hereby nominate Thandiwe Moorn’s Tale of Rulke to be a Great Tale. The master chroniclers have all read the supporting documents and checked the facts. What say you? Is it a Great Tale? Yea or nay? Answer one by one and the recorder will register your vote.”
“Yea,” said Limmy Tuu
l.
“Yea,” said Master Cherith beside him. She favoured both Llian and Thandiwe with her enchanting smile.
“Yea,” said Master Laarni over-loudly, as if to emphasise his importance in the vote.
That was the way it went, the college masters saying Yea one by one, until only Candela was left.
“Yea!” she cried. “A Great Tale, a very Great Tale, the twenty-fourth.”
“Not yet,” grated Tuul. “There’s one vote to be counted. Llian’s.”
He had waited to vote last, as required, because though he was a master of the college, he did not hold a position at the college.
“What say you, Llian?” said Candela. There was nothing vague about her smile now. She was quivering with eagerness. Few college masters ever saw a Great Tale proclaimed; before Llian’s there had not been a new one in hundreds of years.
Thandiwe was quivering too, though Llian imagined it was with dread. The vote had to be unanimous; if he said Nay her tale would not become a Great Tale. She was staring at him, her lips slightly parted. Was she remembering the words he had quoted to Nadiril half an hour ago? Or running through the litany of crimes she had committed against Llian and the many threats she had made to destroy him, terrified that he would treat her with the malice she had shown him?
After a long pause, during which even Llian did not know how he was going to vote, he said, “I abstain.”
“What?” cried Thandiwe, shooting him a look of such hatred that he quailed.
There was a great stir in the audience. A third of the people were on their feet, staring at the masters, at Thandiwe and at himself. Llian looked down at the row of seats where he had been sitting previously, at the pale faces and long red hair of Karan and Sulien. Their eyes were on him but he could not read what they were thinking.
“You can’t abstain, Master Llian,” said Candela. “You have to vote Yea or Nay.”
“Yes, he can,” Limmy Tuul said in his grating voice. “But Llian must give a sound reason for doing so. He can’t abstain just because he finds the decision too hard.”
“Well, Master Llian?” said Candela.
Llian had not expected to have to justify himself. “I abstain,” he said, “because Rulke gifted his papers to me. We are extinct, chronicler, he said just before he died. The Charon will live on only in your tales. Will you take them on for me? It would not be fair for me to vote Yea or Nay on the Tale of Rulke. I could not eliminate my bias.”
“But you did nothing about the papers,” said Candela. “In nine and a half years you never even went looking for them.”
“I … was … under … a … ban,” Llian said through his teeth.
“Even so, you can’t possibly begrudge Thandiwe her tale, not after all this time.”
“I don’t,” Llian lied. He did begrudge her a Great Tale, though not out of malice. Her tale was rushed, oversimplified and utterly failed to convey the sweep, grandeur, passion and drama of Rulke’s life. It wasn’t worthy. “In any case, an abstention doesn’t change the vote.”
“It has to be unanimous,” said Candela. “Doesn’t it, Master Tuul?”
“An abstention is a null vote,” said Limmy Tuul. “It doesn’t count for and it doesn’t count against. Therefore the vote is unanimous—fifty-seven for the Yea, and none for the Nay.”
Candela’s lips moved. She nodded then stood there, rocking on her feet as if she did not know what to do next.
Master Laarni stood up. “Acting Master Twism,” he roared, “you have heard the vote for the Tale of Rulke, and it is unanimous. What do you say to Master Thandiwe Moorn?”
Candela Twism swallowed, cleared her throat, beamed at the audience then at Thandiwe. “The Tale of Rulke is a Great Tale, the twenty-fourth.”
76
ENJOY YOUR LAST MONTH!
The audience roared, but Thandiwe stood there for a full minute, staring vacantly into the audience as if she had not taken it in. Then she turned to the masters and her face lit up. Briefly she was the young, beautiful and passionate student Llian had known, lived with and even briefly loved before his Graduation Telling twelve years ago, and in the instant of her triumph he did not begrudge her the Great Tale one iota.
Then she looked him in the eyes and hers were so hard with malice that he jerked backwards in his seat. He did not know what she had wanted of him, though after blocking the overturning of his ban for nine years, betraying him to Snoat, stealing his gold and his papers and almost choking Karan to death on Maigraith’s orders, she could hardly have expected his vote.
But Thandiwe was a strange, unpredictable woman—though she had many times declared herself to be his enemy, she always expected his unwavering support and saw every denial of it as another betrayal. Tonight would be the same. She would view his abstention as a calculated insult intended to undermine the greatest night of her life and the Great Tale she so richly deserved.
Someone cleared their throat and Llian realised that Candela was talking again.
“The vacant mastership will now be decided,” she said. “In the previous election Master Thandiwe was the runner-up, and I hereby nominate her for the post of master of the college. Do you accept the nomination, Master Thandiwe?”
“Yes,” she said softly, eagerly. “Oh yes.”
“Are there any other nominations?”
More than half the masters turned to look at Llian, and it occurred to him that if he were to accept nomination he would probably win the mastership. He briefly considered it, then shook his head. He had other priorities now. Karan, who had gone rigid in her seat, slowly relaxed.
“Are there any other nominations?” Candela repeated.
None were made. Again she looked confused. She consulted Limmy Tuul, then said, “As Master Thandiwe Moorn is the only candidate, she is declared elected as the seventy-sixth master of the College of the Histories.”
Tuul whispered to Candela again, then took something from a blue velvet bag and handed it to her. It was an engraved brass disc on a white gold chain. Candela stood up on tiptoes, put the chain over Thandiwe’s head and settled the brass disc below her throat.
“The seal of office of the seventy-sixth master,” said Candela. “May you endure as long as it does.”
There was a great cheer from the audience, and all the masters rose to congratulate her. Llian was tempted to slip away and prevail on Karan to leave Chanthed immediately, but resisted the notion. Failing to congratulate Thandiwe would seem both petty and churlish.
He gestured to Karan and Sulien to come up: he never wanted to be alone with Thandiwe again, not even in such a public place. They climbed the steps to the stage, Karan wincing and pressing her hand to her belly where Jaguly had stabbed her.
She gave him a hug. “Well done, my love. Can we go home now?”
“Right now?”
She smiled. “Tomorrow or the next day, I meant. Once we’ve said our farewells.”
“Yes,” said Llian. “I’d like that.”
The line of masters congratulating Thandiwe was short now; it was almost his turn. He waited until Master Cherith had shaken Thandiwe’s hand, then stepped forward.
“Congratulations,” he said sincerely. “You’ve long wanted to be Master of the College and I wish you joy of it.” He held out his hand.
Thandiwe’s smile disappeared. She did not take his hand. “Why didn’t you stay away? You came so you could publicly abstain, didn’t you?”
“How could I stay away? You’re a great teller and I wanted to hear your tale.” The tale you stole from me.
“No, you came so you could ruin my great night—yet again.”
“But you’ve got everything you ever wanted,” he said, bewildered.
“And you’re going to get what you deserve,” she hissed. Her gaze swept across Karan to Sulien, who was halfway across the stage, talking to Lilis. “All three of you.”
The temperature on the stage seemed to drop by ten degrees. “What do you mean by that?”
“What?” gasped Karan.
Thandiwe gave Karan her sweetest smile. “Something about Llian’s story in Alcifer aroused her suspicions and she came after me, but I’d ridden off in great haste and she had no horses. It took her more than a month to track me down to Zile, and the first thing she did was ask me about Kalke. I told her there was no Kalke. Rulke never had a brother, much less a twin. Llian, the master chronicler and teller who had sworn a solemn oath to always put truth first, tried to send Maigraith to her death in the void with a tale that was a blatant lie.”
She prodded Llian in the chest with a hard finger. “You falsified the Histories for your own gain, and wouldn’t the masters love to know that?”
Llian could not breathe. Many times she had threatened to ruin him, only to try and win him over again as if nothing had happened. Now she could destroy him, and there was nothing he could do about it. But why was she doing this?
Clearly, Thandiwe knew her Tale of Rulke was an unworthy one and feared he would expose her, both for the many crimes she’d committed getting Rulke’s papers and the hasty way she had written her Great Tale without translating most of them. Exposure would mean the loss of her Great Tale and perhaps the mastership as well, but the truth about Llian’s lie would destroy his career as a chronicler and teller for life.
“What do you plan to do about it?” he said.
“What do you plan to do?” she said sweetly. “That’s what really matters.”
“Nothing. I’m going home with my family. Goodbye, Thandiwe. I hope I never see you again.”
He turned away, linking arms with Karan to reinforce the point.
But Thandiwe always had to have the last word. “She’s coming after you.”