Shards of Time

by Lynn Flewelling

  The arms and legs were haunches of meat again, sheep by the look of them, and a skinned sheep’s head lay in the trencher where Sedge’s head had been.

  “You must allow me my little amusements. Of course, it’s a riddle. Which illusion is the real one?” Rhazat opened the kitchen door and let her back into the corridor, then slipped her arm through Klia’s and led her upstairs to Klia’s bedchamber.

  “Good night, my dear,” Rhazat said, all sweetness now. “Pleasant dreams.”

  Klia went into her room and closed the door, then stood there with a hand over her mouth, trying to blot out the memory of that kitchen. Which is the real one?

  She went to the bed and lay down for no better reason than she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Something was different here, too, though it took a moment to figure it out. The drapery at the window was faded, and she could see where bits of it had rotted away in the sun. The coverlet she lay on was threadbare, the sheets full of holes. The carpet was missing, the stone floor bare.

  Is this an illusion, too? she wondered. Was she being punished with poor accommodations? It seemed petty and halfhearted revenge at best.

  She and Mika had taken everything with them when they’d tried to escape. There was no sign that he’d ever been here. For the first time since she’d been trapped in this hell, Klia felt truly alone. She gave way to despair for a brief moment, then sat up and wiped her eyes. It didn’t matter if she was alone or not; she still had a duty to destroy her enemy.

  She hadn’t taken off her gorget since the day she’d used it as a mirror to see Rhazat’s true form. Unhooking the chain, she turned it over in her hands: carved side, smooth side, carved side, smooth side … She ran a thumb along its curved edges. Rhazat couldn’t touch it. If a harmless gold object caused her distress, then what would a golden blade do to her?

  Going to the window, she opened it and began rubbing the curved outer edge of the gorget on the angle of the stone sill, using it like a whetstone. If it didn’t work on Rhazat, she could always use it on herself.

  Seregil and Micum arrived two days after Micum had gone, riding into camp as the sun was dipping behind the glistening peak of Mount Erali.

  “Where have you been?” Alec demanded, walking with them to Thero’s tent.

  “I’m feeling much better, thank you.” Seregil threw an arm around Alec’s shoulders. He was sporting another green head scarf today. With that covering his shaved pate, he looked quite well.

  “Any news here?” Micum asked.

  “Mika’s doing well, and we’ve been busy.” Alec told them of the fruitless search in the palace, and what they’d discovered in Zikara.

  Thero was sitting at the desk when they came in, and Mika was leaning on it, watching his master work on another amulet.

  Seregil took out the golden seal Gora had made and placed it on the desk in front of Thero, then put the rolled chamois containing the stone beside it.

  “Oh, and this, too.” Seregil presented him with the golden arm ring.

  Thero unwrapped the black opal and just sat there staring at it for a moment. “How?”

  “We’re on an island, and Deep Harbor is the only city. I took my chances there and it paid off. The workman who stole the seal swallowed the stone to conceal it, and it killed him. Most of the gold part had been hacked away to pawn, but there was a piece left and I had the goldsmith incorporate it in this new casting. I thought it might help.”

  “You are brilliant, both of you.”

  “It was Seregil who figured it out. I just did the digging,” said Micum.

  Mika reached for the stone, but Thero caught his hand. “It’s dangerous,” he warned. “Fetch me the medium-sized toolbox, please.”

  Mika opened one of the large chests Thero had brought and returned with what looked like a workman’s caddy. Thero took out a large forceps and carefully picked up the stone to examine it. “Should I ask what this dark matter is caught in the carving?”

  “Let’s just say it needs a good wash,” said Micum.

  Thero rinsed it in a bowl of water, then picked up the rosette and set the stone into the space at the center. It fit. Thero covered it with his hand for a moment, and when he took it away the stone was perfectly beveled into the gold. He set it down and regarded it pensively. “Thank you both. This is incredibly powerful. But—”

  “But what?” asked Micum.

  “Mika, please go to the fire circle and have your supper. Stay there until I send for you.”

  “But Master—”

  “Go on now.”

  As soon as Mika was gone, Thero cast a silencing spell on the tent, so that no one outside could hear their conversation.

  “So what’s the ‘but’?” asked Seregil.

  “Alec and I have done some research while you were gone, and have been talking things over. The boundary between our plane and Rhazat’s is permeable in a very limited way. Alec and Mika can get through, but I can’t. We tried and failed. As I told you earlier, Nysander refused to teach me any magic that would allow me to cross. Klia and Rhazat’s other prisoners were brought through by dra’gorgos controlled by the dyrmagnos.”

  “She possessed Zella with one, as well,” said Seregil. “The poor woman was a puppet, for all intents and purposes, and a spy.”

  He explained what had happened in the carriage.

  “Are you sure it was a dra’gorgos and not a demon?” asked Alec.

  “If it had been a demon I wouldn’t be standing here now. She attacked me, but when she touched the amulet Thero made, it drove the dra’gorgos from her and it disappeared.”

  “And Kordira witnessed all this?” said Thero.

  “Yes. It couldn’t be helped. For what it’s worth, she kept a remarkably cool head about it, and was very helpful.”

  “I see. How much did you tell her?”

  “Nothing, really. She already knew what a dra’gorgos was. I did get some history from her, though. Nhandi was the last Hierophant, and supposedly the island was struck with a huge black wave that killed thousands. Kordira’s theory is that it was a gigantic tidal wave. Anyway, Nhandi had an Aurënfaie lover, a wizard, who somehow betrayed her and was executed. Which may explain the skull in the cave.”

  “But not the vision I had,” said Thero. “I saw Rhazat with the man she called Khazireen in the cave where the seal was. If he was her accomplice, then why wasn’t he sealed up with her?”

  “Maybe someone killed him before they sealed her in,” said Alec.

  Thero nodded. “Punishment for his perfidy. Mika had a vision of the two of them being celebrated in Menosi. It seems she might have ruled for some time with him as consort.”

  “And now he’s caught yearning for his lost Black Pearl for all eternity,” said Micum.

  “His lost Black Pearl—Black Pearl, Black Pearl.” Seregil paced across the tent and back. “I asked Kordira what Nhandi had looked like. She was also called Nhandi the Lovely and Kordira’s theory is that Nhandi would have looked like our modern-day Plenimarans, since they are direct descendants who didn’t mix blood much. Her exact words were, ‘If you want to know what the Hierophants and their people looked like, look to us.’ ”

  “Rhazat looks a lot like Kordira,” said Alec.

  “Either of whom would be worthy of the love name Black Pearl,” Seregil pointed out. “Micum told me about the strange word Mika heard in the cave when Rhazat was torturing him.”

  “Eshrlee,” said Thero.

  “No, Thero, it’s es rili, old Aurënfaie for ‘my skin.’ ”

  “What does that mean?” asked Alec.

  “I don’t know.” Thero picked up the golden arm ring. “I’m hoping this can tell us something, if anything is left after so many years.”

  He sat down cross-legged on the carpet and took out his crystal wand. Holding it and the arm ring between his joined palms, he closed his eyes and went completely still. Seregil could hardly see him breathe.

  The arm ring was made from gold m
ined in the north of Kouros and cast by an Aurënfaie woman with grey eyes and silver hair. It was given to Nhandi, daughter of Kala, by her lover, Khazireen í Alos, on the occasion of her twentieth birthday. Nhandi was a beautiful young woman with black hair and eyes the color of the evening sky. She wore it for 414 days.

  She took it off and gave it to Khazireen after they made love in the Cave of the Pictures, after they’d discovered Rhazat’s tunnel into the fourth cave, the way she’d been coming and going to ravage the populace of Menosi. The entrance of the tunnel had been cloaked with magic, but Khazireen had discovered and unmasked it. It was a remarkable work of engineering, running under the ridge to the hillside overlooking Zikara.

  Khazireen embraced her desperately and gave her the last of a thousand kisses. Holding the arm ring to his heart with his right hand, weeping, he stood facing his beloved as she stood in the mouth of the fourth cave, facing him. They both raised their left hands, each holding a Seal of Holding, each of which was mounted on a golden spike. Together they recited the spell—Saka dosthey arnatha somay—then touched the ends of the golden spikes together. Khazireen watched in despair as the cave behind Nhandi disappeared, replaced by an opening into a dead, grey vista.

  The island shook to its very foundations, knocking him to his knees. Even here, deep in the ground, he could hear thunder rending the fabric of the world. It went on and on, then suddenly—silence.

  He stood alone, facing the stone wall of the cave, where the Stone of Holding glowed in its golden setting among the archaic dancing figures in black. Khazireen screamed his agony, then called out “Erísmai, Nhandi, Nölienai talía!” Still clutching the arm ring, he knelt before the seal, drew a silver dagger, and slit his throat. The arm ring slipped from his fingers as he died …

  Thero let out a bloodcurdling scream and cried out “Erísmai, Nhandi, Nölienai talía!” then curled in on himself and began to sob, horrible, raw, ragged cries, as if grief were ripping out his very soul. The arm ring fell from his fingers to the carpet.

  As the others stood in shocked silence, Seregil knelt beside Thero and put an arm around the wizard’s heaving shoulders. No one said a word, and in time the sobs tapered off to choking gasps.

  “What did you see?” asked Seregil.

  Thero wiped his face on his sleeve, fighting for self-control. “I—I can’t, not all of it.” Alec offered him a cup of water and Thero downed it in two gulps and held out the cup for more. Gulping that down, he rested his head in his hands.

  “The woman you saw, Alec—I believe it was the spirit of Hierophant Nhandi. The dyrmagnos has taken on her appearance.”

  Seregil remained by Thero. “ ‘My skin,’ she said to Mika. What if it wasn’t Rhazat who showed Alec the seal? What if it was Nhandi, trying to make herself known?”

  “What’s skin got to do with it, though?” asked Alec.

  “The dyrmagnos may be wearing Nhandi’s skin to alter her appearance,” rasped Thero. “That would explain why she can’t allow her reflection to be seen. You can’t deceive a mirror.”

  “So the person Mika heard say ‘es rili’ must have been Nhandi,” said Micum.

  Seregil nodded. “Still fighting after all these centuries, any way she can. What an incredible woman she must have been in life.”

  “So whose lover was Khazireen?” asked Alec.

  Thero shuddered again and wiped his eyes. “Khazireen was Nhandi’s lover, not Rhazat’s. There’s a fourth cave, or rather, a cave and a tunnel from the other side of the ridge. She stood in the fourth cave, and he in the third—he and Nhandi performed the spell of sealing that created the plane to trap the dyrmagnos. He—he had to seal her in.” He drew a shuddering breath. “I heard and felt the cataclysm as the plane came into being. She went willingly, and Khazireen killed himself as soon as it was done.”

  “That explains why he’s still there. But how did his skull end up on that pillar?” asked Alec.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps whoever sealed the tunnel with the tablet performed that final rite for him.”

  “She and all those people were trapped,” said Micum. “Such a tragic sacrifice. How powerful must this Rhazat woman have been for them to go to such lengths?”

  “Could you tell where the tunnel went?” asked Seregil.

  “No, but it must come out somewhere on the far side of the ridge, near the ruins,” said Thero.

  “I’ll ride over there tomorrow and see what I can find,” said Micum.

  “I’ve got to get Klia out of there before we use this seal!” said Alec.

  “Yes, and you’re the only one who can do it,” said Seregil. “Now that we know the amulets don’t work, though, what protection do you have?”

  “Nightrunning, I guess. But I’ve been thinking. It’s not just ghosts we’ve come up against. Besides the dra’gorgos, there are the things that attacked you and Sedge—the demons. What I mean is, the ghosts come from dead people and dra’gorgos come from magic. So where do the demons come from, and why haven’t we ever encountered them before?

  Why only here?”

  “Perhaps they come from that other plane,” said Micum.

  “And yet Alec hasn’t encountered any there,” Thero pointed out. “They have only appeared when a portal appears. I wonder if there’s someplace in between our plane and the other, a sort of middle space that gets opened, as well, and lets them through?”

  “What can we do about that?” asked Seregil. “If any of us runs into another one without you there, we’re dead.”

  “I can try making a charm against them. I can’t guarantee it will work, but it’s better than nothing. Would someone go and fetch Mika, please?”

  Alec nodded and went out.

  Thero delved into one of his equipment trunks and returned to the desk with a leather envelope and a stylus made from a small feather. He carefully extracted a thin sheet of silver from the envelope and smoothed it on the surface of the desk. Using the stylus, he inscribed line after line of tiny characters on it, murmuring to himself. When he had filled the sheet, he drew his wand and rolled the foil around it, whispering more magic.

  “This is a combination of the protective binding spell and a ward,” he explained as he unrolled it and cut the foil into five narrow strips. “Let me see your amulet, Micum.”

  He pulled it from the neck of his coat, and Thero wrapped the foil tightly around the string above the golden amulet. “This should ward off demons.”

  “Should,” muttered Seregil as Thero did the same with everyone’s amulet. “I’ve never liked that word.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  Alec returned with the boy, and Thero fixed charms to their amulets.

  “Are you sad, Master?” asked Mika as Thero hung the amulet around his neck. “Your eyes are red.”

  “I’m worried about Klia,” Thero replied.

  “I am, too,” Mika said, and hugged Thero.

  The wizard still did not seem completely comfortable with being hugged, but he smiled and patted Mika’s back. “Thank you.”

  “We’ll save her, Master.”

  “Yes, we will,” he replied, but Seregil heard the doubt and concern in his voice. “Alec, are you up to going in now?”

  “Of course. All I need is some food and my sword. I’ll put on those rags I got on the other side and hope they turn back into clothing. If not, I know where to find more.”

  “Do you need me to come with you?” asked Mika.

  “Not this time,” said Alec. “If I can’t get back then you’ll have to come find me, right?”

  Mika nodded.

  “Good. You’re very valuable, you know.”

  “I just want Klia back.”

  “We all do,” Alec replied with a smile. “Look after everyone for me while I’m gone.”

  “I will.”

  “And I think I’ll try my luck down by the river, where you went through, this time.”

  “Just go to the rock,” Mika advised. “That’s where
I saw the boy and after that I guess we just got in without me noticing until later.”

  Thero and Seregil walked with Alec to the cook’s area and watched as he put a few turnips, some hard-boiled eggs, a loaf of bread, and a skin of water into a sack.

  Thero stepped away and returned a moment later with a live chicken flapping as he held it by the legs.

  “What’s that for?” asked Alec.

  “You couldn’t walk through with me in the palace. I’m curious as to what would happen if you carry something living with you.”

  “And if it works, do I have to carry all of you in on my back?”

  “One step at a time.” Thero handed Alec the chicken, and he settled it under his arm.

  Seregil walked with Alec down to Mika’s rock. From there they wandered up and down the road and riverbank as Alec looked for a portal in the gathering gloom. The first stars were pricking the sky overhead, and the edge of the moon was peeking over the eastern sea.

  “Mika got in and out at the same place,” noted Alec as he climbed the small rise overlooking the river.

  “You haven’t so far.” Seregil climbed up after him. Far in the distance they could see the twinkle of a watch fire.

  “I wonder if those shepherd boys could tell us more about the city?”

  “I’ll ride out tomorrow and talk with them again,” said Seregil.

  Alec stood atop the ridge, looking around. “I don’t see anything up here. I’m going to try following the riverbank like Mika says he did and then I’m going to go give Thero back his chicken.” The unlucky hen struggled, then tucked her head under her wing.

  Seregil chuckled. “You’re an unlikely-looking explorer.”

  Alec walked to the riverbank and started downstream. Seregil remained at his side.

  “You think you can get in this way?” asked Alec.

  “It seems to be different from the portals in the palace. Just thought I’d give it a try.”

  Alec shrugged and ambled along the bank beside him. “That was something, wasn’t it, the way Thero reacted to whatever it was that the arm ring showed him? I’ve never seen him like that.”