by Ian Irvine
He wandered along in these fantasies, oblivious to his vow of only an hour ago. His way in the world was now quite different, and his first purpose to record the Tale of the Mirror—now beyond question a Great Tale, and one that must be told whatever the outcome.
Lost in such delightful dreams, Llian had hobbled a considerable distance. Becoming aware of his surroundings again, he found that he was standing in the entrance to another great chamber. Moreover, for it was lighter here, one whose appearance struck a familiar chord. Familiar indeed—the ghostly light showed obsidian pillars as wide as the trunks of forest trees, and beyond, a carven ebony throne…
Had he fallen into a nightmare? This was the place he’d seen in his nightmares, and in those he’d shared with Karan long ago. The memories brought back the horror. This must surely be the Nightland, a bubble of nothingness enclosed by an impenetrable cyst—the place made to be Rulke’s prison. The Taking of Rulke was a Great Tale, one that Llian had studied in all its versions and variants. The Nightland was a dark cold soulless place, a place to sap the will of Rulke, to weaken him.
Well, out of that nothingness Rulke had fashioned an icy palace. Surely within it must be all that he needed to survive. Rulke was flesh and blood too—he must eat, must drink, must sleep. Somewhere sustenance must be found. That set Llian thinking about the Nightland, as he walked along. What was it made from and how had Rulke shaped it since? For the Tale of the Mirror he would need to learn all that too. No one had ever written anything about this place. No one had ever been here. If he were the first—but what point to these foolish dreams? If he couldn’t find the gate again, here he would remain until he died.
No escape! Llian sank into a bitter despair, a hopelessness blacker than the blackness of the Nightland itself, perhaps the echo of what Rulke himself must have felt at the beginning of his imprisonment. Yet he had never given up. All that time he had dreamed and schemed.
If only Karan were here too. But how could Karan find a way out where, for a thousand years, the genius and the strength of Rulke had not been able to?
Already the odor of this place works upon my spirit, he thought, beginning to understand how Rulke’s imprisonment must have chafed him. Little wonder he feels such bitterness and malice toward us. And what was Rulke up to now? Maybe he had overcome everyone in Katazza already and prepared to move on the rest of Santhenar.
Llian suddenly felt very small, alone and frightened. Realizing that he was still standing before the vast throne, he hurried away, calling Karan’s name in a loud voice. The echoes pursued him across the room.
On the far side he saw the outline of another door. Though closed, when he pushed it moved easily. He entered a smaller room which was faintly lit. There was a large and intricate object in the middle of the room, a machine of some kind, but as the light came from the far side he could see it only in outline. The outline made no sense, even when he walked all around it. In the dim light the complex shapes seemed to shift before his eyes. His skin crawled. Whatever it was he wanted nothing to do with it.
“Karan,” he cried in a great voice, making for the door again.
“Karannn… araaann,” moaned the echoes. There was no reply.
7
* * *
THE BLACK POOL
In the gate Llian’s arms were torn off Karan and he whirled away, then vanished. Karan, too, went blind and deaf, though she knew exactly where she was going, for like Men-dark she was a sensitive, and in her mind’s eye she could now see her trajectory as clearly as if it were a paved road extending across the sky. But she had no idea where Llian was. He had simply winked out of existence.
The road dived into a black hole shaped like a corkscrew. She spiraled through until finally it spat her out the other end into an inky pool. Karan bobbed to the surface and tried to swim to the edge. The first stroke lifted her right out of the water, leaving a trail of black drops drifting in the air behind her like soap bubbles. She splashed back down, touched bottom and stood up. Even that pushed her up into the air. The liquid came up to her waist here, and when she stood up it tried to tip her off her feet. She waded out onto the shore, her head beginning to throb, an effect of the gate.
The stuff in the pool was cold but did not wet her; now it cascaded off her clothes and tumbled slowly down in spheres to form dark shiny pools and little globules on the floor. It was like quicksilver, but light. She shook herself, shivered, emptied fluid out of her pockets and her boots and looked around for something that might be the gate; her way out of here. There was none unless it was beneath the pool, but finding Llian was more urgent than going back in there. Karan wrung black bubbles out of her hair and set off the way she was facing, since every direction looked the same—black ground, black sky. Had Llian also ended up in this place? No way to tell. Better get moving.
Karan walked, or rather bounced, for what seemed like a day and a night, though since the gloom scarcely changed she could only guess the passing of time. She went through rooms numberless, all the kinds that palaces have, but they were empty, silent and cold. None attracted her interest at all; she would much sooner have been home in her cramped and battered manor in Gothryme. Assuming that it still existed after the war. She almost choked on the thought.
She trudged across a throne room and down a grand corridor, looking in each room, calling out for Llian all the while. At the further end she found herself in a bedroom fit for an emperor, though a dismal and depressing one. The floor was red marble, the walls draped in velvet and silk, and the bed a head-high platform raised up on six posts of carven ebony, with a canopy so high that it disappeared in the gloom of the ceiling. Flames roared in a fireplace at the far end but the room was as frigid as everywhere else in this horrible place.
Karan stood by the fire, holding her hands out to the flames, but found they gave off no more heat than a candle. The fire was merely a decoration, a conceit. Maybe Rulke had no need of warmth. Maybe there was not enough substance in the Nightland to make the fire any hotter.
Karan was so cold and tired that even the thought of Rulke had lost its power to frighten her. She pulled a rug over in front of the fire, folded it several times and sat down as close to the flames as she could get. Taking off her boots and socks she put her frozen feet right up on the grate.
There she sat for hours more—a small, forlorn figure, her pale round face resting on her upturned hands. Her curls, red as sunset, were a tangle practically untameable by brush or comb. Once or twice, as she ran her fingers through the mop, a small shiny black globe would be released to drift off like a soap bubble.
Eventually Karan became a little warmer. Suddenly she felt drowsy, as if she had taken a sleeping potion. Even standing up she could barely keep her eyes open. She had not slept for an eternity. Climbing the end of the bed she dragged off her dirty clothes, the same ones that she had climbed the tower in a few days ago, dropped them in an untidy pile at the end of the bed and fell in between chilly silk sheets to sleep, but not to dream. The Nightland was a dream, and her sleep was absolute.
“Karannnn!”
The mournful cry jerked her awake, refreshed as if she had slept for many hours. The words had the toneless repetition of one who has long since given up hope of an answer.
“Here!” she shouted.
There was a long silence, then as her eyes cleared she saw, through the end of the bed, Llian’s familiar figure at the door. He limped into the room, looking at his wits’ end—his long brown hair was like a rat’s nest, his cheek and forehead crusted in dried blood, one trouser leg rent and flapping. He scanned the room then turned to trudge out again.
“Llian,” she said softly.
He walked around the bed but still did not see her.
“Up here, you nitwit,” she cried, leaned out over the end of the bed and shook her lovely breasts at him.
Llian looked up, saw her there with her arms outstretched, and his face showed such a mixture of relief and frustration and lust that she
burst out laughing. He took Karan’s hand and clambered up into her waiting arms.
“Rulke’s own bed!” he said, falling flat on his back. “How bold you are.”
“And you are not?” she cried in outrage that was only half-feigned. “What a compliment!”
“I’m too exhausted to care. I just want to sleep.”
“Not yet,” she said, unfastening his shirt in haste, to stop him from dropping off right away. “I have a bolder plan yet, and I can’t do it by myself.”
And when Rulke’s beard was thoroughly tweaked they collapsed in each other’s arms.
“No one has ever done that here,” she said, stroking Llian’s cheek, “unless he conjures phantoms for his pleasure.”
Llian did not answer. He was fast asleep. Soon Karan slept too, and dreamed of home.
When Llian woke, Karan was not there. Had it all been a hallucination, a Nightland fancy? After dressing, he automatically reached for the bag that held his journal and the precious notes for the tale. It wasn’t there. With a sudden, heart-stopping spasm, Llian realized that he hadn’t seen it since Katazza. Had he lost it in the gate?
“Karan,” he shouted in a panic, hopping down from the end of the bed and bouncing high again. Pain shot through his ankle. No answer. “Karan!”
“I heard you the first time!” Her soft voice came from the doorway. Running barefoot across the room, she leapt and clasped him around the neck. His ankle gave way and they fell together on the cold floor.
“Aah!” he yelped.
“What’s the matter?” She stroked his blood-crusted face. His brown eyes were still bloodshot.
“I twisted my ankle yesterday. Where have you been?”
“I was looking for something to drink; I’m parched.” She gave his ankle an experimental poke. His groan was unfeigned.
“Oh, I’m so happy that we are together, even here,” and she hugged him again and kissed his brow.
The thought of Rulke was a storm cloud blotting out Llian’s sun. He lay where he had fallen, holding her hand. “This is the Nightland,” he said.
“Where else?”
“What will he do to us when he comes back?”
“I don’t know.” She felt his ankle all around, more gently this time. “It’s not broken. Though sometimes you can walk on a small break. Just twisted, I think. Put the boot back on; that’ll support it until the swelling goes down.”
“Mm,” he said, still distracted by his loss.
“What’s the matter with you today?”
“I’ve lost my bag. The journal, the papers, everything! What am I going to do?”
“It’s back in Katazza, silly, hanging on the wall at the top of the tower.”
The relief was overwhelming. “I’m really thirsty,” he said shortly. “Did you find any water?”
“Not yet. I came back for my boots.” She put them on.
“Well,” said Llian, “you brought us here. How do we get back?
“I don’t know. I thought the gate would take us back to Thurkad, after Faelamor.”
“But we don’t even know that she went there. Maybe Rulke sent us here.”
“Did you come through anything that looked like a gate, at this end?”
“I couldn’t see anything. I just landed in the middle of a huge room,” said Llian.
“I landed in a pool. I don’t know whether that was the gate or not. How could it be? How could there be two exits?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think straight. But you heard what Rulke said. He has need of us. He’ll come back.”
“If he can,” said Karan.
“Then we’d better find the gate first.”
“Can you get back to the place where you landed?” She was not expecting too much. Llian’s sense of direction was hopeless at the best of times.
“Probably not.”
“Then let’s go to mine.”
They wandered through the gloom, Llian wondering how Karan could find her way in this place that was so lacking in landmarks. But she did, and a good while later reached the spot she was looking for. Karan waded into the pool, into the shiny liquid that was like black water but did not wet her.
“Can you feel anything?” Llian called, glad that it was her rather than him.
“No,” she said, quartering the pool. In the middle it was well over her head. She waded out again, liquid cascading from her in globules that took a long time to fall.
“Then we’re trapped. When he returns we must be fearful, and cooperate.”
“The first will cause no difficulty,” said Karan drily, as they headed back.
“What if he’s overcome everyone in Katazza?”
“Let’s just keep our wits about us and wait for an opportunity.”
“I don’t…”
“He’s unfit, Llian. Didn’t you see how hesitant he was against me? How slow his reflexes were?”
Llian had noticed nothing of the sort. Surely she was exaggerating to cheer him, but it only made him feel worse. How dared she pit her wits against Rulke? It bewildered and frightened him.
“He’s dull,” she went on, “but maybe he hasn’t realized it yet. An opportunity must come, and when it does, I’ll distract him while you go through the gate. Then I’ll follow.”
“And he’ll follow after. We’ll just be back where we came from, or some other worse place, with him on our heels. Ow!” He sat down on the floor, pulling at his boot. The ankle was much more swollen than before.
“It’s not far now,” said Karan. “Lean on my shoulder.”
As they walked along she explained her thinking. “Passing the gate takes a toll—you must have felt it?”
“Yes, my head still aches a bit.”
“To actually control the gate must take a far greater toll—you saw how badly Tensor was affected when he used it. After holding it open all this time, surely even Rulke will be sweating. Wrestling with so many powerful enemies must have hurt him, too. If he comes, he will be exhausted; why would he follow us if he knows he can come and go as he pleases?”
“Well, if we get the chance, let’s get the gate to take us to another place—to Gothryme, even.”
“I don’t know how to use gates. How can I send it anywhere? Can you?”
“No,” said Llian, knowing how foolish his words were. What did he know about gates anyway? It was hard to get them to work at all, and few places were suitable. He knew that from the Histories and from Tensor. A gate could be directed to most other gates, and to a few other special places, though that was much harder and more perilous. Sometimes they failed or went astray, to the death of those using them. But all gates had failed with the Forbidding; Tensor’s was the first since that time. Maybe the old rules no longer applied.
“Here we are.” Karan pushed open the door of Rulke’s bedchamber. “Everything about gates is a risk, particularly going through them. I’m famished. I’m going to look for water and something to eat. Are you coming?”
“My ankle’s really sore; I think I’ll stay here.”
“Good idea.” She set off.
After a while Llian felt better, so he limped through the nearby rooms, mentally noting everything for his tale. Going into the next room he stopped abruptly. It was the alarming machine he’d seen before. The light was brighter today; now it was unpleasantly familiar. A complex device: alien curves of dark metal, ominous bulges, curious levers and projections—a construct! It was the thing he’d seen in Karan’s dream that night long ago, when they had fled from Sith in Pender’s boat. Llian had no idea what it was for, but there was an ugly practicality of shape about it that was menacing.
Llian put out his hand to touch the construct, the hard, blue-black incomprehensible surface of it, but his hand went straight through it. He jerked his hand back out again. It was not there! Rulke had made it, complete in his mind, but yet it lacked physical form. Maybe such a thing could not be formed in the Nightland. He walked around the construct, wondering, but it surpassed
his understanding.
He touched it again. Again his hand slipped into it without any resistance. Curiosity overcame his fear and he put head and shoulders in. For an instant his senses were disconnected, then the inside of the construct sprang out at him, illuminated by a dark-red light that was unnerving. Everything was fuzzy, slightly out of focus, so that when he moved his head it made him dizzy. He saw two oddly curved seats, a variety of levers, knobs and glassy plates on which colored lines danced—and everywhere, more complex shapes and improbable devices than on the outside.
Something sighed on the other side of the room—he sensed a presence behind him. Karan had been quicker than he’d expected. He said over his shoulder: “Did you ever come across anything like this in Shazmak?” His voice rang with a thousand echoes.
The laughter was rich and deep, so deep that the room seemed to vibrate in sympathy, the construct to waver at the edges. His whole body shivered too, and the hairs on his arms stood up. Llian jerked his head back out, became disoriented, instinctively tried to support himself on the construct and fell straight through it.
8
* * *
THE CONSTRUCT
Master chronicler!” said Rulke in a low, amused voice. “Do you tell me you’ve not come across a construct before? What did they teach you at your little college?”
“That you’re a monster!” squeaked Llian, trying to look like a shadow. Rulke’s physical presence was overpowering. As men go, he was the biggest Llian had ever seen; broad-shouldered, wide-chested, long and muscular of limb. But he was more than a man—he was Charon, a different human species, and Llian was so afraid that his mouth had dried up.
Rulke sprang at him. “Maybe I am.”
The daydreams vanished in a second. Llian stumbled backwards with his mouth open and his hands in the air. Though he did not realize it, this was the one pose to convince Rulke that he offered no threat. This combination of terror and blank stupidity was a reaction that he was most familiar with.
