by Ian Irvine
“Hello,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Karan.”
“Thandiwe Moorn,” the other replied, inspecting her minutely. “Are you a chronicler too?” she asked in dubious tones.
Karan felt horribly embarrassed. Her clothes were now practically falling to bits and she had no profession at all. “No, I’m… on the land.”
Thandiwe looked amazed, though she hid it quickly enough.
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” said Karan, desperate to get away. “I’m starving.”
She hurried inside, Thandiwe’s throaty laughter following her, and the door banged.
Eventually Llian appeared, but to Karan’s dismay the woman followed him and sat down at the table. Karan sipped her tea, conscious that the lovely Thandiwe was inspecting her surreptitiously. Eventually she spoke.
“Where are you from, Karan?”
“Gothryme!”
“Where is that, pray?”
“You would not have heard of it. It is in the mountains of Bannador.”
Thandiwe stared at her, realization slowly dawning. “Then you are Karan of Bannador—Karan of the Mirror!” Her face lit up like a miniature sun.
Karan hated talking about herself to strangers. She always felt so self-conscious. “Yes,” she said in an almost invisible voice.
Thandiwe leaned across the table to take her hand. “You are not… what I imagined, but what does that matter? You are famous here. I told your tale for my Graduation Telling. But I never expected…” She eyed Karan up and down.
Karan felt more embarrassed than ever. “What did you expect—that I would prance about in silks and furs?” she said acidly, withdrawing her hand. She felt an irresistible urge to flee, then Llian took her other hand under the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She mastered herself. “How did you hear of it?”
“The tale was all over Meldorin last winter. A scribe fleeing from the war brought it here.”
“In Chanthed we have a particular hunger for new tales,” Llian explained. “Students at the college have been known to fight each other for the privilege of telling a new one.”
Thandiwe seemed to feel that her dignity had been impugned. “I did not fight anyone for your tale,” she said stiffly. “I had heard parts of it long before it came from Thurkad, and it called to me. I realize why, now,” she said, glancing sideways at Llian. “I put my case to Wistan and he agreed that I was the best to make the tale. Perhaps you would like to hear it sometime.”
“Perhaps,” Karan said very politely, desperate to get away.
“The very idea!” she raged to Llian later that night. “Why, her breasts were practically falling out of her dress. To think that I would want my tale told by her.”
“You misjudge Thandiwe,” Llian said, treading as delicately as he could. “She has the greatest respect for you and tries to show it as best she can. She’s just a student, after all—she’s done nothing with her life. While you are quite famous in Chanthed. You are in the Histories!” He said it with emphasis, as if it was the greatest honor that anyone could wish for. Which it was.
“I don’t want to be in the Histories,” Karan sniffed. She knew exactly what Thandiwe wanted.
“Then you’re the only person on Santhenar who doesn’t,” Llian retorted. “Better be careful, else the students will think you ill-mannered and proud, and that you regard yourself as being better than them. They are mostly poor, after all, not like you who have a manor and land and forest; no matter how old and shabby that may be,” he added to forestall her. “And Thandiwe is one of the poorest. She’s worked very hard to stay here.”
“Oh!” Karan said, drying a tear. “Was I proud and rude? I would not have her think so. I will try harder next time.”
Early the next morning they were summoned to Wistan. Though a year had gone by since Llian’s banishment, he was apprehensive about the meeting.
“Karan Fyrn!” exclaimed Wistan, clasping her hands in his gnarled paws. “I have heard your tale more than once, and liked it more each time.”
Karan eyed the hideous little gnome uncertainly. Llian’s tales had rather colored him in her eyes.
Wistan smiled. “I knew your father. Galliad was a very clever man. He often used the library, though I don’t think he found what he was looking for.”
Karan was immediately disarmed. “I came here with him many years ago. I sat on the floor while he talked to you—it was over in that corner. And it was you who sent Llian off to find me last autumn, so I owe you more than I can repay.”
Wistan glanced at Llian, twisting up his thick lips. “What I did was… not from the best of motives. If it turned out well it was not of my doing. Now, to business! We followed your tales eagerly, the fragments that have reached us over the past year. But we’re desperate to know what really happened, especially since the Conclave.”
The war and the Ghâshâd had shaken the townspeople out of their prosperous complacency. Wistan now understood the value of powerful friends. Despite Mendark’s fall last year, it appeared that he was still powerful. No one could afford to be without allies these days, and Llian’s name had been mentioned more than once in tales about the war and the Mirror. And Wistan had the chronicler’s craving for news. Who better to give it to him?
Llian told him the news, briefly.
“You are much changed,” said Wistan at the end of it.
Llian knew that he was. He could scarcely bear to think of the callow youth that he’d been then. He had learned much; suffered much. There was more to the world than himself.
“I am,” he said. “I’m sorry for the trouble that I caused you. It was just a game to me then. It’s all too real now.”
“No matter,” said Wistan. “You may do us great service if we survive the coming storm. I am very glad to see you.”
“You’re different too,” Llian observed. Wistan was as withered and ugly as ever, but he seemed less cold now, less manipulating. Perhaps he’d never been as bad as Llian had made him out to be. And the destruction had shocked him, making him realize that he was too old to defend the college any longer. It needed a new master, one who was not only a great chronicler but who had strong allies.
“Tell me,” said Llian. “Where’s Trusco?” He had not seen the big, cheerful captain anywhere.
“Poor Trusco,” said Wistan. “He was killed in the war, defending the college.”
“I’m sorry. He was your friend and I liked him.”
“I miss him. Enough of that,” Wistan said abruptly. “Now, how can I help you? Will you stay for a while? You must tell us the complete tale at the festival.”
Llian looked to Karan. “I’d give anything to stay, but I’ve got to get home,” she said.
“I can’t; not this year,” said Llian. “The business of the Mirror is far from finished, and Mendark does not want it put about. It’ll have to be next autumn. I’ll come back when it’s all over and do my best to make a Great Tale of it”
“That’s too far away!” said Wistan. “What if you never return! What if—” The old man stared into the distance. Llian knew that he was thinking about his own death, surely not that far off. Wistan did not want to die without seeing the tale properly set down, to the everlasting glory of the college and, let it be said, himself. “What you have seen already must not be lost.”
That was an imperative that Llian could not deny. Wistan called for food and wine, and summoned two scribes. Llian told everything that had happened since he left Chanthed, save for the meeting where it had been decided to attempt to remake the flute. That secret was not his to reveal. The telling took all night and the following day, and two long days after that, and scribes recorded it in a shortened hand, to the extent of twenty-four scrolls each sixty pages in length.
“It is not very satisfactory,” Llian frowned after he had checked and amended the scrolls, several more days” work. “Nothing like a tale. But better than nothing.”
“It is a wonderful tale,” said Wista
n, his eyes shining. “A Great Tale in the making, and a great honor for you and the college.”
The scrolls were put in a locked cupboard until Llian should return, or to be opened in the event of his death.
After that Llian begged for the privilege of using the library again, and was given a special pass. He could not quite believe that his banishment was lifted, could not put himself in the place of an honored visitor, after so long thinking himself a failure and an outcast. He still felt himself to be the feckless youth who had been thrown out a year ago.
Karan was woken at dawn by a twinge in her wrist, the one she had first broken when she fought Idlis’s huge dog last autumn. She felt that she should remember something. Outside they found a dusting of snow in the gutters, months before it was expected here.
While they were eating breakfast at a streetside table she realized what it was. “Llian, it’s my birthday!” she sang out. “I’m twenty-five today.”
Without a word Llian kissed her hand and ran out to the kitchen.
Karan, briefly alone, reflected on past birthdays. Last year she had woken with Idlis’s whelp standing over her. She had only escaped by thrusting her fist down the dog’s throat and choking it to death, though she’d been cruelly mauled in the process, and her wrist broken. Later she had shared her chocolate with Idlis in his agony. That was so long ago that it was hard to imagine any longer. A whole year had gone by and she was still buried in the affair of the Mirror, with no expectation of ever getting out of it.
Llian staggered in bearing a great two-handled mug of hot chocolate the size of an urn, covered in whipped cream in a variety of colors, grated nutmeg and shavings of black chocolate. “I know you love chocolate,” he said, putting it down in front of her with a bow.
How much was all this? she wondered, licking cream off a vanilla bean before placing it on the side of her plate. Chocolate cost its weight in silver, she’d learned once when she’d thought to buy some.
The day passed in a whirl as Llian carried her from one of his favorite places to another. It was a wonderful carefree day, one of the best of her life, when all her troubles receded into the background. And as they strolled back down the hill for lunch, Karan carrying a spray of irises, they ran into Thandiwe again. Karan did not feel the least bit jealous now.
“Thandiwe,” she said, “I was hoping we’d meet again. What is the news of Bannador? I’ve been away a long time and I’m worried.”
“I haven’t heard anything about Gothryme,” said Thandiwe. “But I know the lowlands suffered terribly in the war.” The tales she told made Karan feel more helpless. She wished she hadn’t asked.
“I’ve got to go to the library,” Llian said, clutching his belly after a long luncheon banquet in his honor. “It’s why I came to Chanthed. Do you want to come?”
“Not really!” said Karan. “Not if you’re going to spend days poring over incomprehensible documents.”
“It won’t take long,” said Llian. “I know what I’m looking for.”
Karan raised a sceptical eyebrow. “And that is…?”
“It’s got to do with the Tale of the Forbidding, my original quest. Remember when Faelamor quizzed me about it in Katazza? She wanted to know who was the first to go into the burning tower—she couldn’t disguise it. But as soon as I told her, she pretended that she wasn’t interested any more.”
“So, what are you looking for?”
“The drawings made at the time by the war artists. A dozen armies were there and every event was recorded. I’m going to check all the drawings again. Something puzzled me before, but I never got the chance to investigate it properly. Some of the numbers seemed to have been changed.”
Down in the archives he checked each of the paintings and engravings. Several showed Yalkara wearing her gold. So that was where he’d seen it before! He began on the drawings, untying the tapes of one packet. The papers sprang out, all crumpled up where they had been stuffed in carelessly.
Llian was furious. “Who would treat such precious things so badly?”
“Someone in rather a hurry,” Karan guessed.
“These are the original sketches made by the artists in the field. All the engravings and paintings were based on them.” He went through the sketches one by one, finally stopping at the set that showed people preparing to attempt the ruined tower. “It’s never been clear who was the first into the tower after the flute was destroyed. There are so many different versions of the story.” He stopped suddenly, frowning at the drawing in his hand. “The numbers don’t agree with the catalogue!”
Karan laid the sketches out on the floor, holding each up to the light to check the faded numbers, then putting them in order. Finally she put the pile down carefully, searching the benches and the floor.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing. There’s a couple missing, is all.”
“Probably pushed to the back of the shelf,” said Llian. “They were all here when I looked last year.”
Karan searched everywhere. “No, two sketches are definitely missing.”
Llian went through the pile. “That’s strange! They’re the ones whose numbers seemed to have been changed, last year.”
They stared at each other. “Who was here last?” Karan asked.
Putting everything back, they ran out. Llian spoke to the warden of the archives about what they’d found. She consulted the register.
“Only three people have looked at these papers recently,” she said. “You did, a year ago, not long before your great telling, and again just after. Wistan did too, when he checked the proofs of your tale.”
“I think I can guess the third,” said Llian in an aside.
“A visitor with a pass from the library at Tellulior, a university city in the southeast. She was here last summer.”
“What name?” Karan and Llian asked together.
The warden squinted at the register, took off her glasses and put them on again.
“Kekkuliel,” she said. “A small woman—I recall her now. Golden skin and eyes, and pale hair.”
“Faelamor!” said Karan in Llian’s ear. “Evil news.”
“Thank you,” Llian said to the warden. He took Karan’s arm. “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.”
At the back of the library they sat down in an empty room. “Why did she take those drawings?” Karan asked.
“They told her something—maybe who first went into the tower—and she didn’t want anyone else to find out.”
Karan shivered, confronted by a mental image: Charon and Aachim, Faellem and old humans, all with their competing devices and their gates, bringing war and bloody ruin upon the whole world.
“What can we do?” asked Llian.
“I don’t know. Who can we trust? Maybe we should send to Yggur in Thurkad.”
“No!” cried Llian. Yet he knew it was his responsibility to take this news to Thurkad. Mendark must soon return from the east.
They told Wistan what they had learned. “Leave it with me,” he said. “Though I can’t even send a message at the moment. There’s not a skeet left in Chanthed. The war wiped them out.”
In the morning Llian and Karan set out for Tullin. Looking over her shoulder as they departed, Karan saw the lovely Thandiwe staring morosely after them.
Just outside the uphill gate they went past a legless beggar sitting in the shade of the wall. His face was covered in sores and flies.
“Alms, lady,” he wailed. “Alms, for pity’s sake.”
Karan felt in Llian’s flabby wallet. She came up with a silver tar, a small fortune for any beggar, and even for them, but the poor man looked desperate. She held out the tar, not knowing that it was the last.
The beggar snatched at it, then his pus-filled eyes touched on Llian. With a cry of rage he smacked the coin out of her hand. It rang on the stones at the edge of the road, before it disappeared.
“Curse you, Llian!” he shrieked. “Curse you until the earth bleeds
and the black moon rots to pieces.”
Llian stared at the beggar open-mouthed. “Turlew!” he cried. “What happened to you?”
Wistan’s former seneschal, who had attacked Llian on the road to Tullin last year, spat on his trouser leg. Llian sprang out of range.
“I lost my job because of you. Wistan threw me out of town. Then the war—” He thrashed the stumps of his legs then went on in a gangrenous voice, “I have only one thing to say to you, Llian. Enjoy your success while it lasts, for it won’t last much longer. Soon you will not have a friend in the whole of Santhenar. Your very name will be a curse, and before the coming hythe you will wish you were as happy as Turlew the beggar man!”
Llian seemed unfazed, but Karan could feel the flesh freezing all the way down her back. “Come on!” she said, dragging him away.
They hurried up the road. After they turned the corner, Turlew dragged his stumps across the gravel. He searched among the stones and thistles until the light faded, but the precious silver coin could not be found.
That night they camped in the hills above Chanthed, among the gellon trees not far from the place where Llian had spent his first night out of the college almost a year ago. Most of the copse bore only shriveled, blighted fruit, but on one single tree the fruits were so ripe that they were bursting, their sweet juice oozing out to form clumps of sugar crystals which attracted bees by the thousand.
Llian seemed to have forgotten the beggar’s curse. He had literally been bouncing all day. It made Karan feel grumpy.
“What are you so happy about?” she asked as he ran back and forth, piling up wood for the night’s fire. Llian was normally a slacker when it came to camp duties.
“You can’t know what it’s like to be Zain—an outcast.”
“You’re right,” she said, on hands and knees, gloomily striking flint into tinder. It refused to catch. “I can’t!”
“The college was half my life—more—but I never felt accepted there. Not even after the Graduation Telling, when I was made a master.” He knelt down beside her and began to fan the smoldering tinder with his journal.
