by Ian Irvine
Yggur handed it back. “Well, I dare say you can’t do any harm with it.” He poured a goblet, quaffed it, sighed then rose. “If we’re going to get to Casyme at a civilised hour, we should go.”
“You’re going to Casyme now?” said Karan.
“News to discuss,” said Malien, “and plans to make.”
“You promised to take us east.”
“And I will.”
“When? Sulien had a seeing about Maigraith this morning,” said Llian. “She was in Shantin. She’ll be here in under a fortnight.”
Yggur and Malien exchanged glances. “That’s not good,” said Yggur, “but the sooner we go to Casyme—”
“What’s the hurry?”
“The town was sacked by one of Snoat’s armies a couple of months ago, and Wilm’s mother was killed.”
“Oh, poor Wilm,” said Sulien. “I can’t imagine …” She pressed up against Karan, who put an arm around her.
“And Aviel’s workshop was robbed and most of Shand’s house destroyed. They’ve lost everything.”
“But we landed there!” said Karan. “How come Shand didn’t say?”
“The snow was so thick we couldn’t see the house,” said Llian.
“Well, they can live here,” she said bitterly. “We’ll never see Gothryme again.”
“Shand’s planning on going west,” said Yggur. “He’s working on something mysterious with Ifoli. We’d better go.”
“When will you be back?” Karan cried, her voice cracking.
“Soon.”
After they had gone, Karan and Llian went back to the table. Sulien had sneaked upstairs, presumably to avoid interrogation about what else she had made with the mimemule, and Karan did not have the energy to follow her. She stared at the bottle. Llian poured hefty measures of Uncibular ’81 into their goblets.
“Our so-called friends don’t give a damn about us,” he muttered.
“Apparently,” said Karan.
“We can’t leave it to the last minute. Maigraith can travel faster than we can.”
“Let’s give Malien a week. If she’s not back by then, we ride east.”
“Yes,” said Llian. He sipped his wine. “I wonder if Sulien could make a case of this?”
80
HAND YGGUR THE MIMEMULE
A week went by with no word from Malien, then another eternal day, and Sulien’s premonitions about Maigraith grew stronger and more vivid by the hour. Karan was frantic and Llian was increasingly worried that she was going to crack up. She kept running backwards and forwards, stuffing items into her pack then taking them out again and flinging them about.
“Karan, stop!” cried Llian. “You’re not helping.”
She drew back her small fist and for several awful seconds he thought she was going to punch him. “Aaarrgh!” she shrieked.
She hefted a plaster bust of Tudup, one of her most unpleasant ancestors, and hurled it through the kitchen window. Crash! Glass went everywhere and pieces of plaster scattered across the terrace outside. She spun round, reached for a cast-iron frying pan and was about to hurl it through what remained of the window when Sulien caught her by the arm.
“No, Mummy!” she said sharply.
Karan came to her senses and dropped the frying pan on the table. “I’m sorry. I … I can’t take much more of this.”
“We can’t wait for Malien any longer,” said Llian.
“No. We’ll leave at dawn.”
The following morning they were saddled up and about to ride out when the sky ship came racing in, landing so fast that it slid across the icy snow and skidded around to face back the way it had come.
Wilm jumped out and stood by the ladder while Aviel came down, then Shand and Malien climbed out, and Yggur last. Wilm’s eyes were red and he kept rubbing them, not looking at anyone.
“I’m really sorry to hear about your mother,” said Llian.
“Yes,” Wilm said vaguely. “Thank you, Llian.”
Aviel, who was staring at her boots, seemed lost. She put a hand on Wilm’s arm and he looked down at her gratefully. She stared at her boots again.
“I heard your workshop was robbed,” said Llian. “I’m sorry. There’s plenty of room here, and you’re welcome—”
“They took everything I had,” Aviel whispered. “I’ve got nothing to work with. How am I going to survive?”
Llian did not know what to say. “Shand, I’m sorry you’ve lost your house.”
“Ugly place,” said Shand indifferently. “Can’t think why I moved there. Are you going somewhere?” He seemed better than he had in a long time; the haunted look he had worn for months was gone.
“In another minute we would have,” Llian said coolly. He felt very let down by Malien.
“No need now. Let’s go inside.”
“What for?”
“We can’t talk out here.”
“Why the hell not?”
“My granddaughter is a most formidable mancer,” Shand said quietly. “One whose skills even I don’t fully understand. We can’t take any chances.”
They all went into the old keep, and Llian headed for the big fireplace. “No,” said Shand. “Best we do this in the library.”
“Do what?”
Shand frowned at a small device partly concealed in his cupped right hand. In the library he closed the shutters, drew the heavy curtains and walked around, passing the device over the walls and floors. He climbed onto the library table and raised the device towards the ceiling. He jumped down, moved it back and forth across the section of wall beside the window, said, “Ah!” and pushed the concealed catch.
“How come everyone knew about the secret passage except me?” said Llian.
Shand said, “It’s safe,” and gestured to the library table. They sat. “This is the plan.”
“You mean, ‘We have a suggestion,’” said Karan tartly.
“No, I don’t. Maigraith’s power has grown tremendously since you dosed her with hrux, Karan. She spent weeks at Carcharon fighting the influence of the summon stone, and it almost overcame her; being that close to it for that long, it would have overcome anyone else.
“But she spent most of her life fighting the influence of Faelamor, who was the greatest manipulator of all, and Maigraith is stronger mentally than anyone I’ve ever met. She overcame the influence of the summon stone by focusing, no, obsessing on her own most earnest desire—to create a living monument to Rulke by uniting two triunes, Julken and Sulien.
“That obsession both corrupted and saved her, and she can’t give it up. And because of other powers Rulke gifted her before his death, powers Maigraith is only now learning to use, there’s nowhere you can go on Santhenar where she can’t find you.”
“Then what’s the point?” said Karan.
“Yggur and I believe there may be a nowhen where she can’t find you.”
“Going to the future!” said Llian. “Yes!”
“Does anyone else know that Rulke wrote about it?” said Shand. “Thandiwe for instance?”
“No, she never translated his Nightland papers. I only told Janck, and he’s dead.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me not to waste his time with such utter nonsense.”
“Then no one else knows about it,” said Shand, “and it’s unlikely Maigraith can find out. Let’s proceed. Sulien, would you hand Yggur the mimemule?”
Reluctantly, she passed it to him. Yggur closed his hand loosely around it, his eyes went out of focus, then a miniature stone cottage appeared in the middle of the table. His eyes misted; he shook the mimemule and the cottage faded away.
“An easy test,” he said but did not explain. “Let’s try it with one of the hardest.”
He strained until sweat ran down his forehead, until his knuckles went white and his eyes bulged. A sheet of black metal the size of a small book slowly formed in the centre of the library table. A metal mirror.
The edges of the sheet were raised to
form a frame, and inside it a reflecting material like jellied mercury shimmered and ghosted with phosphorescence. The frame was scribed with the finest silver glyphs, and a symbol was impressed in the top right-hand corner. It was like three golden bubbles grown together, enclosed by touching crescent moons in scarlet set within a platinum circle, the circle infilled with fine silver lines twining and intertwining.
“No!” cried Karan, shoving her chair back and leaping to her feet.
“How dare you!” said Shand, his breath hissing between his teeth.
Yggur slumped forward, breathing heavily. “Takes a lot out of you.”
Malien was staring at the mirror with a mixture of fear and longing. “The Mirror of Aachan! Stolen from us in the deeps of time.”
“And utterly corrupted,” said Llian, “long before Karan stole it from Yggur.”
Yggur came to his senses. “Not the mirror, but a copy perfect in every detail.” He shook the mimemule again and the mirror vanished, though the phosphorescence lingered in the air for several seconds. He stared at it regretfully, then laid the mimemule on the table.
“I had to put it to the sternest test I could think of,” he said. “I had to be sure before we began.”
“What happened to the mirror?” said Karan.
“As it was made, so was it unmade. It no longer exists.”
Sulien reached for the mimemule.
“Don’t touch it!” Karan said sharply. She swivelled towards Yggur. “Are you saying that the mimemule can copy anything?”
“Not at all. But I held the Mirror of Aachan for many years and I know it inside and out. No one else could have recreated it without knowing it equally well, the good and the bad.”
“And your plan is?”
“To copy the virtual construct you and Llian saw in the Nightland, but make it real.”
“You don’t know the construct inside and out, and I don’t remember it that clearly.”
“Llian does,” said Yggur. “A master chronicler can remember things he’s seen and heard perfectly—both words and images.”
Karan turned and stared at the fire. “But Llian isn’t a mancer’s bootlace.”
Llian was used to Karan saying things like that and no longer took offence. At least, not much.
“We’ve learned a lot about memories since we tried to recover Sulien’s nightmare. Malien and I have created a … a spell I suppose you’d call it,” said Yggur, sounding remarkably hesitant, “to extract Llian’s perfect memory of the virtual construct. Once I have it, I’ll use it to recreate the construct the way Rulke used it in the Nightland—but I’m going to make it real. In Shazmak.”
“Why Shazmak?” Karan’s voice shook.
“Travelling to the future will require monumental power, and far more in the real world than Rulke would have required in the Nightland. Such a gate can’t be made with my innate power, or even mine plus Shand’s and Malien’s.”
“It can only be made at a powerful natural place,” said Shand. “A place Ifoli calls a node of power. And we believe the most powerful node in Meldorin is at Shazmak.”
“Once we’ve extracted Llian’s perfect memory of the virtual construct,” said Malien, “Shazmak is the one place powerful enough for the mimemule to make the construct. So, Llian, while Yggur readies his spell, tell us what you saw.”
“All right,” said Llian, still shocked that they believed his mad idea could work. He collected his thoughts. “This is how I saw it, and what I thought when I saw it.
“Even from the outside the construct was a big, complex device, about six yards long and three yards wide and high. It was shaped in strange alien curves made from a blue-black metal. There were bulges all around and curious levers and projections on top. It looked as solid as everything around us now, but when I touched it my hand went straight through the side. Rulke had made it, complete in his mind, but he hadn’t given it physical form.”
Llian looked around the table. Everyone was staring at him. “Curiosity is one of my little weaknesses.”
“One of your major character flaws, I would have said,” said Shand.
“I had to know what it was like inside, so I put my head and shoulders in. The interior was lit by an unnerving dark-red light …”
“What did you see?” said Yggur.
“There were two oddly curved seats, and in front of them a variety of levers, knobs and glassy plates with coloured lines and moving patterns—and everywhere I looked there were more incomprehensible devices.”
“If he didn’t understand it,” said Malien, “how can he describe it so perfectly that it can be made?”
“Ah, but then Rulke found me,” said Llian. “I was terrified; I was sure he was going to punish me. But instead—he was never predictable—he linked his arm through mine as if we were brothers and led me around the construct, telling me all about it and explaining everything. I gathered that it was a device for making gates from one place to another—and for other greater purposes.”
“Why did he explain everything?” Malien said suspiciously. No Aachim could ever trust a Charon’s word.
“He told me that. Once I returned to Santhenar, Rulke wanted me to spread the story far and wide, to show how unsurpassed his own power was and to undermine his enemies. I don’t understand how the construct worked, but his description of it is burned into my memories.”
“Then as soon as Shand can make a gate to Shazmak—” said Yggur.
“I thought you weren’t making any more gates,” said Karan to Shand. “You said each gate took five years off your life.”
“Getting you three away will add five years to my life,” muttered Shand. “I made most of the preparations before we got here. It’ll only take an hour to finish the gate.”
“Then, once we’re in Shazmak …” said Yggur. “Malien, where would be best?”
“The top of the highest tower. It’s where Tensor used to go when he wanted to work a particularly challenging piece of mancery.”
“It must lie right over the node. All right; once we get to the top of the tower I’ll use the spell to extract Llian’s perfect memory of the virtual construct, and then the mimemule—I hope—will make it real.”
“Lot of ifs in the plan,” said Shand.
“Let’s assume it works and you can recreate the construct, perfectly,” said Karan. “How do we go to the future?”
“I’ll make sure of the settings,” said Yggur.
“But how do we know where to go—and when?”
“Ah!” Shand smiled. “I gave Aviel my grimoire and she’s crafted a scent potion from it—a damned dark potion, as it happens.”
“I thought her workshop was destroyed?” said Karan.
“I flew her down to the one she used in Sith,” said Malien. “That’s why we were gone so long. Karan, the scent potion will allow you to visualise where you want to go, and the year—more or less—you want to end up in.”
“It all seems a bit … thrown together,” said Karan.
“There’s a risk,” said Yggur. “Quite a big risk, actually. So if it’s too big for you—”
“She’s coming!” moaned Sulien.
81
SHE’S ONLY MINUTES AWAY
“She’s just left Tolryme,” said Sulien, huge-eyed.
The shock ran though Karan like a knife to the belly. How could Maigraith have made up so much time? She must be travelling day and night, riding horses into the ground.
Everyone scrambled up from the table. “She could be here in fifteen minutes,” said Karan. “Possibly ten. Can you make the gate any quicker?”
“At a very heavy cost,” said Shand. “But not in ten minutes. You’ll have to delay her.” He ran out.
How? thought Karan, mentally frozen. Ten minutes wasn’t nearly enough time to implement this absurd plan that was their only hope. “Llian, Sulien, get your gear.” They raced off. “What about you, Malien?”
“My sky ship’s ready to cast off.”
“Don’t leave yet. If Shand can’t make the gate in time we’ll have to go with you.”
“I’ll give him a hand; that’ll save a few minutes.”
Llian came in, a heavy pack on his back and his journal bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing a sword, which looked so wrong; he hadn’t strapped the scabbard on properly and it swung between his legs as he moved, threatening to trip him. “Are we going?”
“One way or another,” Karan said grimly.
She heaved on her own pack, made sure her knife was secure in its sheath and a second one hidden in an ankle sheath, and took a last look around the family home she would never see again. Memories surged, both wonderful and terrible, but there was no time for them, nor her tears. She wiped them away and went to the front door. Was that a cloud of dust along the cart track to Tolryme? It was.
Awful fear shivered through her. Maigraith always exceeded their direst forecasts. What would she do next? Could she blast the sky ship out of the sky? Possibly, though she would only do so if she knew Sulien wasn’t on it.
A minute hurtled by. Karan ran to the library, the pack banging against her back. “If the gate’s not ready, it’s too late. She’s only minutes away. We’ll have to go on the sky—”
Shand was doubled over to the left of the table, gasping, his face crimson.
Malien stood beside him, blanched and trembling. “It’s—”
Craaack! A black cavity rimmed with wildly flapping streamers of white and silver formed in the centre of the library. The gate was open. A wind from nowhere slammed the library door, then sucked books and papers from the shelves and hurled them into the gate. The huge canvas map was torn off the wall and blasted against the entrance, temporarily blocking it. The centre of the map bulged further and further into the gate, tore in a star pattern, and the map was sucked through.
“It’s ready,” Shand said redundantly.
Karan heaved the library door open. Yggur, Llian and Sulien were outside, along with Wilm and Aviel. “Malien, go!”
“Fare well,” said Malien. She hastily embraced Sulien, then Karan and Llian, and ran out.