by Ian Irvine
“Go through the gate,” Karan said to Llian and Sulien. “Wilm, Aviel, you can’t stay here. Go with Malien.”
Aviel shook her head. “I’ve got to tell you exactly how to use the scent potion. It’s complicated.”
“All right, go after Llian,” said Yggur. “You too, Karan.”
As Karan went in, Llian was standing beside the gate, white-faced, holding Sulien’s hand. The wind was tugging at them, almost lifting her off her feet.
“Get going!” Karan yelled.
“Keep your heads down,” said Shand.
Llian and Sulien, heads lowered, stepped in front of the gate. As the wind took hold of them and hurled them through, boom-boom, a pang pierced Karan where Jaguly had stabbed her in the belly. There had been so little time, and the gate felt too wild. What if they hadn’t made it properly?
She ran after them, forgetting to lower her head. Boom! The wind lifted her off her feet, cracked the side of her head against something hard, then hurled her down a pitch-black passage that reminded her unnervingly of the Nightland.
Boom-boom behind her. That would be Wilm and Aviel.
The gate belched her out into a vast tiled chamber and she skidded across the floor on her bottom for twenty feet. This hall had once been the grandest space in the whole of Shazmak, but the city had been badly damaged in the Whelm’s attack eleven years ago, when they had killed many Aachim and driven out the rest, and parts had been vandalised during the Whelm’s brief occupation.
Now, having lain empty for a decade, everything was layered in dust, which the humid gale howling through the gate lifted into mud-coloured clouds. The floor was littered with shredded books and papers and the rags of Karan’s magnificent old canvas map. Did they symbolise her own life, her own future?
Llian, Sulien, Wilm and Aviel were ten yards away, picking themselves up. Llian was kneading his shoulder and wincing; the others did not seem to be hurt.
Boom! Boom! Yggur came through, skidding on the soles of his boots, then Shand sliding on his knees. He lurched to his feet, wincing, and pointed at the gate. It closed, then vanished.
Yggur and Shand stood side by side, Shand the best part of a foot shorter, and worked some incomprehensible mancery. Karan assumed they were erasing all trace of the gate’s path.
“Can that really hide us from her?” said Yggur.
“I don’t know,” said Shand. The knees had been torn out of his trousers and his own knees were bloody.
“Where to?” said Llian.
Karan pointed to the staircase, the most magnificent ever built on Santhenar, that coiled gently around the walls of the huge hall, then spiralled up the mighty tower above it for a good seven hundred feet.
His eyes followed her finger up. “Hell of a climb.”
“She’s coming,” whispered Sulien. “Mummy, she’s coming.”
“How has she traced the gate so quickly?” said Yggur.
“I’d say she’s come into the powers Rulke gifted her,” said Shand.
“Go up, Sulien,” said Karan. “Don’t run; you’ll exhaust yourself.”
“I guess I won’t be teaching you how to use your gift,” Shand said to Sulien. “And I was looking forward to it.”
Sulien and Llian began the ascent, Llian labouring under his heavy pack, which was no doubt half full of Rulke’s papers. Karan sighed. Stupid, impractical man!
“You’d better tell me how to use the scent potion,” said Karan to Aviel.
“Not here!” hissed Yggur. “Don’t talk about anything until we get to the top and I’ve put up a secrecy barrier.”
Aviel headed for the staircase, limping, with Wilm and Yggur beside her. It would take four full circuits of the great hall before they were up in the tower out of sight. If Maigraith reopened the gate before then they would be clearly visible.
“Get moving,” Shand said to Karan. “My work is done now, and if Maigraith does reopen the gate I might be able to delay her.”
I wouldn’t bet on it, Karan thought. “Thank you. If this works I’ll never see you again.”
“The past twelve years have been … interesting.” Shand took her hands in his and she thought he was going to embrace her, but he just squeezed her hands and pushed her away. “Go!”
“I’ll miss you, Shand.”
She hurried after the others, her mind whirling. So many farewells, so many old friends she would never see again. So uncertain a future—assuming they had one.
Above her Aviel was hobbling and wincing with every step. She said something to Wilm, who nodded, heaved her over his shoulder and, taking three steps at a time, soon left Karan behind.
The healed knife wound in her belly throbbed with every step. After five minutes of interminable climbing she entered the tower. The diameter of the spiralling stairs was much narrower here and finally she felt that she was making good progress, though she still had five hundred painful feet to go.
Then, when she was halfway up, from one or two floors above her came a thick, glutinous voice that froze her marrow. She could not make out what he had said but Sulien’s voice was clear. “I’m waiting for Mummy.”
“So am I,” said Idlis.
Her legs were aching, but Karan raced up, fighting a stitch in her side and the stabbing pains in her belly. The others were out of sight. Idlis, who was even thinner and more battered than the last time she had seen him, stood on the landing between Sulien and the next flight, blocking her way.
“What are you doing here?” Karan gasped.
“Cast out by my people,” he said thickly. “Nowhere else to go.”
“Let Sulien past.”
“I swore to protect her, and I always will,” said Idlis. “But my obligation to you is cancelled, Karan, and now you will die.”
82
NO ESCAPE SAVE IN DEATH
“Please don’t hurt Mummy,” said Sulien .
“I am truly sorry, little one, but her betrayal cut too deep. She has to pay the price.”
BOOOOOOOM! echoed up the tower, and three puffs of wind, one after another, lifted Sulien’s unbraided red hair.
“She’s coming!” she moaned. She reached out to Idlis pleadingly. “Maigraith is coming for me. She’s going to take me away to live with her and her evil son, Julken.”
Idlis’s black eyes flicked from her face to Karan’s. “Is this so?”
“Yes,” Karan croaked. “It’s as I told you when we met near Chanthed, months ago.”
“When I saved you from Ragred. Another debt you refuse to acknowledge.”
“I acknowledge it. Please, Idlis.”
“No.”
Shouting echoed up the tower, Shand’s deep voice and Maigraith’s reply, though the words were so distorted as to be unintelligible. Karan felt a sharp pain in her chest.
“Let her pass,” she said.
Idlis moved aside, then drew a wavy-bladed knife. “Go up, child. I would not have you see this.”
Sulien did not move. “If you kill Mummy you’ll be dooming me too.”
He turned slowly, studying her then Karan. “You have powerful friends here, little one. Yggur and Shand, and the young man with the enchanted sword. They will protect you.”
“Maigraith will hunt me to the ends of the world. There’s only one way to escape.”
“From the top of the tower there is no escape save death,” said Idlis.
“Yes, there is,” Sulien said desperately, “but only Mummy can do it.”
“Don’t say any more!” said Karan.
Far below, she could hear feet on the stairs. Light feet, not Shand’s heavy tread.
“Why can only Karan do it?” said Idlis.
“Say nothing!” said Karan.
“I trust Idlis with my life!” Sulien lowered her voice. “We’re going to the future, and only Mummy is sensitive enough and experienced enough to see where to go. Without Mummy we’ll all die.”
Karan groaned. Idlis would betray them to Maigraith. They were utterly lost no
w.
“How?” he said, his close-cropped hair standing up.
Sulien explained briefly.
He considered her words for at least a minute. The sound of feet on the stairs grew louder.
“You speak the truth,” he said, “and my oath holds. Go!”
“Not without Mummy.”
“Go, both of you.”
Sulien ran to the strange, gaunt, unlikeable man, reached up and hugged him. “You are the noblest Whelm in the world.”
An unfathomable expression crossed Idlis’s hideous face—awe, perhaps—and his eyes went a shiny black.
Karan stared into his eyes. “Thank you.”
“I don’t like you, Karan, and never will,” he said. “But you and your daughter are the bravest people I’ve ever known. I hope you succeed.” He bowed, turned the other way and stood looking down the stair. Waiting.
Karan adjusted her pack and went up, Sulien by her side. Up and up and up. Sulien did not speak. Would Idlis keep to his oath? How could he? If Maigraith suspected anything she would tear the secret out of him, and neither Sulien, Llian nor herself would ever be safe. Maigraith would find a way to pursue them, even to the future.
“Is it much further?” said Sulien five minutes later.
“Hope … not,” Karan gasped. Her belly was agony, and her knees felt as though they were on fire. “Can’t go much further.”
“I’ll run up.” Sulien dropped her pack and raced away around the curve of the stairs.
Karan picked it up and laboured on. She could not hear Maigraith now, which was worse.
Wilm came running down. “Give me your pack.”
Karan was so exhausted that it was a struggle to get it off. Wilm slipped it on effortlessly, and Sulien’s as well. She supposed that, after five weeks hauling heavy stones for the Merdrun, the weight of two packs was insignificant.
“Take my hand,” he said.
She gripped it. It was hard, callused. Wilm ran up, hauling her behind him. One flight, two, three, four, five, then they were up on the top of the tallest tower of Shazmak. It was fifty feet across, circular, paved in dark, red-flecked greenstone, with a chest-high wall of carved black basalt around the rim. Karan pushed through a bubble-like membrane, Yggur’s secrecy barrier, and looked around her.
At this altitude, high in the mountains, it was bitterly cold. The day was overcast, the cloud base not far above the top of the tower, and huge flakes of snow were drifting in the wind. Llian was to her left, keeping well away from the wall; he had a tremendous fear of heights. Aviel sat with her back to the wall. She had taken off her belt, which held dozens of little scent phials in loops, and was sniffing them one by one. Yggur had both hands on the wall and was looking at the jagged mountains beyond. Their tops were concealed by clouds.
Karan stumbled to the parapet and looked over. The walls of the tower fell almost sheer for seven hundred feet to the level of Shazmak, then another three hundred feet into the great River Garr, a monumental torrent that hurled itself downstream as if determined to destroy everything in its path. She could not see the water, for mist filled the river gorge, but she could hear its roar and the sounds of boulders grinding against one another.
The scene reminded her of her dear friend Rael, Malien’s only child, who had helped her and Llian escape from Shazmak twelve years ago. This place had cost him his life; he had drowned just down there.
A distant cry, muffled by the secrecy barrier, echoed up the stair. There was no time for memories. “Maigraith must have got past Shand.”
“What took you so long?” said Yggur, who had the mimemule in his left hand and was running his fingers over the interlocking wooden spheres.
“Idlis.”
“Oh! How long do we have?”
“I don’t know. Not long.”
“I’m not sure we can …” Whatever he had been going to say, Yggur thought better of it. “Aviel, give Karan the scent potion and tell her how to use it. Llian, come here. I’ve got to extract that memory, and it’s going to hurt.”
Karan crouched beside Aviel. “What do I do?”
Aviel handed her a glass phial the length of her little finger. The outside of the glass was bubbly. Through it Karan saw a thin yellow oil with bluish streaks in it.
“It’s called Balsam of Hereafter and—”
“Where did it come from?”
“Radizer’s grimoire, but Shand had to change the method a bit …”
Aviel seemed uneasy, and that did not inspire confidence. “Does it work?”
“There’s no safe way to test the Great Potions.”
So the scent potion might not work at all. Or it might go disastrously wrong. Even if it did work there was no certainty Yggur could extract Llian’s memory of the virtual construct in time. And if he did, the mimemule might not be able to recreate such a powerful and complicated device. There were so many ways that this could end up a disaster.
But there was no choice—Maigraith had made sure of that.
“Keep the phial in your hand,” said Aviel. “If the potion gets cold you won’t be able to smell it. Take the stopper out but don’t sniff it directly; waft the scent towards your nose.”
“Now?” said Karan.
“Yes. It takes a few minutes to work and doesn’t last long. You’ll have to sniff it at least two more times before you go, and a few more times on the way to the future, depending how long you take to get there.”
“Why so many times?”
“You have to hold on to your vision of where you’re going, otherwise you could end up anywhere—or nowhere.”
“How can I see the future anyway? How can I possibly know where to go? And when?”
“I didn’t invent the potion,” said Aviel. “I just made it.”
Was attempting to reach an unknown but undoubtedly dangerous future really better than the alternative? When the alternative was Maigraith killing Llian and abducting Sulien, the answer had to be yes.
Karan wafted the scent potion towards her nose and took a tentative sniff. It was neither fragrant nor foul, herbal nor mineral. There were hints of warm iron, many unidentifiable floral and spicy scents, and cold sweat. No, that last odour came from herself.
“Deeper sniff,” said Aviel.
Karan wafted it from a closer distance, closed her eyes and sniffed hard. She caught the previous odours plus two others: almonds baking and hot rock. Her head whirled gently, the here and now blurred out, and she saw a battlefield littered with dead in strange uniforms, wild dogs tearing at the bodies and crows pecking.
“Shand said you have to focus on both where you want to go to, and when,” said Aviel.
Karan had not thought much about when. Maigraith, being a triune, could not expect to live nearly as long as her Charon or Faellem ancestors, but she could easily live another hundred years. Maybe a hundred and fifty, and, being implacable and obsessive, she would not give up her quest. Karan would have to go forward in time at least two hundred years.
It was a frightening prospect. Santhenar had changed greatly in the ten years since the Way Between the Worlds was opened; in two hundred years it might be unrecognisable. She tried to imagine the sequence of years, each winter and summer flickering by in a second, but lost count and there wasn’t time to start again.
From the other side of the tower Llian gasped and fell to his knees. His hands were pressed to the sides of his head and he was shaking it from side to side. Yggur stood above him, right hand on the back of Llian’s neck.
“More,” said Yggur.
Llian threw his head back. His eyes were wide and staring, his mouth open. It snapped closed, and he strained until the tendons on his neck stood out.
“More!” said Yggur.
Llian rocked forward. His forehead touched the icy floor and the breath escaped from between his clenched teeth with a hiss, forming frost on the greenstone.
“More!” said Yggur.
Llian toppled onto his side, fists clenched, his lo
wer legs swinging backwards and forwards. Yggur bent to stay in contact, held it for another half-minute then stood upright, made a double swirling motion with his free hand and turned away.
“Aaahh!” said Llian weakly. “That was …”
“Are you all right, Daddy?” said Sulien.
He came to his knees again, swaying from side to side. “Not the most pleasant experience I’ve ever had. And … the memory is gone completely.”
“Because I’ve got it,” said Yggur, tapping his forehead.
Sulien’s face twisted. “Shand must have come up after Maigraith and tried to stop her. She’s knocked him down, her own grandfather!” she cried, outraged. “She’s racing up the stairs.”
“Where is she?”
“Past halfway.”
“Five or six minutes then,” Yggur said thickly. “Not sure I can do it in time.”
He put both hands on the wall, wiped sweat off his face then took the mimemule out of his pocket and reached over the parapet.
“What are you doing?” said Karan.
“Maigraith must never know the construct exists; she must believe you’ve thrown Llian and Sulien over the edge, then jumped after them.”
“What?” cried Karan.
Llian spun round, gaping.
“It’s the only way,” said Yggur.
“You want the whole world to believe I went mad, killed my family and committed suicide?” Karan grated.
“By jumping into the Garr, where the three of you would have vanished without trace.”
“You might have discussed this with us first.”
“We were planning to but Maigraith got to Gothryme far too quickly. I’m going to materialise the construct ten feet down the side of the tower and set it to hover there. You’ll have to jump in.”
“Over a thousand-foot drop?” croaked Llian.
“Yes. Get ready.”
They heaved their packs on. On the far side of the secrecy bubble Wilm had drawn the black sword and was looking down the stairs.
“Karan,” said Aviel, “you need to smell the potion again.”
It was hard to concentrate but she must. Karan wafted the Balsam of Hereafter towards her nose, closed her eyes and took a big sniff. She saw a yellow waterfall, a plain covered in what appeared to be armoured tortoises though they had twice the normal number of legs, then a spiky tower made of blue-white ice in a snow-covered landscape. The look of it, and the sense of it, made her shudder. No, she said to herself. As far away from there as possible. Somewhere safe.