by Ian Irvine
Now the wind rose, blowing more strongly than she had ever felt before; at any moment she might be blown right off the ridge and flung across the sky like a rag. What if the Whelm came at her here? They were close, but how close?
Karan gripped a vertical blade of slate with her good hand. She could not defend herself here—to stand up was to be blown away. Was that a shadow moving below? The moon was gone again; the wind peppered her with sleet. Her fingers were frozen lumps. Oh, for a fire! No wood; no courage! The moon peeped out once more, and briefly the lower fall of rock swarmed with shadows. Even after it disappeared again they danced in her eyes. She rubbed her gloves across her face, trying to rid herself of the demons. She was so tired that she could have slept standing.
Karan stirred in her sleep, reaching out for the comfort of Llian’s solid back, but he was not there. How lonely she was.
He was not there! Had never been there; she had not even met him. Surely she dreamed awake, clinging to her spur of rock, a romantic fancy built on someone she had seen just briefly. A magical tale told at a festival, a teller who had wrung her young heart with his tale. He had looked at her as he told it, and in her mind she’d felt that he spoke just to her, that he reached out to her alone. That was the dream. She could almost feel the warmth of his body, then the shrieking wind tore it away.
No longer could she think that thought, dream that dream. She was too cold and too afraid. She must never allow herself to give up. How could the Whelm be this close? On the snow she would have seen them half a league away. These must be phantoms, delusions drawn out of her tormented mind like waking nightmares.
Then, just as her courage was coming back, the clouds parted above her and the moon shone brightly down on her pale face. Moon? But it was too high in the sky, too large, too red and black. Was the dark face of the moon glaring down at her too? No, more like the giant, carmine-eyed figure of her dreams. More like Rulke watching her!
A moan rose in her throat; she could not keep it down. But she must! Karan knew that if she cried out the terror would feed on itself and she would be lost. She put her finger in her mouth and bit it as hard as she could. Pain cut off the moan and the eye faded, the light dimmed, the moon waned. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw the shadows dancing, and the terror, which had just hidden in the dark spaces of the room, returned more strongly than ever.
Llian’s pendulum was swinging from the present to the past as well. He kept dreaming, waking again—one minute in this room now, the next in last year’s room then, and somehow linked to Karan’s now and her then dreams as well. Fleetingly he saw her where she huddled on that ridge, and knew exactly how she felt. He had clung at the same spot a day later, as he followed her to the ruins.
But the eyes, which were a symbol of terror to her, were familiar to him. He suddenly remembered what Rulke had made him forget—their talk in the Nightland, and the outrage they’d both felt that the Histories had been corrupted. And what Rulke had offered, knowledge that no other chronicler had access to. In his half-dreaming state Karan’s terror now seemed self-indulgent. Why could she not see? Rulke was their friend. There was no danger from him, only a wonderful opportunity. Rulke could give him everything he had ever dreamed about, and more: things that he had never been able to dream about. And for practically nothing in return.
“Aahhhh!” The cry came right through the wall. It was Karan. But when he tried to get up he was punished with pain like a spear through his brain. Everything was too hard. He lay down again. Karan will be all right, something sighed in his brain. I’ll take care of her for you.
Karan sat up abruptly, the blankets sliding off her bare shoulders. Her finger was bitten so badly that it bled, but she knew nothing about it save that she’d had a terrible dream. She was wide awake now, or thought she was. The foreboding grew more terrible and urgent. What was Llian doing? It felt like her trial in Shazmak, when she had read her dream back from him and told it to the Syndics. Only now she was dreaming his dream. But Llian was dreaming a lie and dragging them both to damnation.
She tried to get up but could not; awake or asleep she must keep traveling that dream. How has this come about? the conscious part of her mind wailed, while the rest of her was on that windswept ridge, watching the flitting shadows and the clouds slowly parting above. The moon—the eye—glared down at her: cold, manipulating, treacherous. Bending her to its will.
No, I will not! But at the same time her other self was raising her hands to keep away the terror, seeking, crying out for a friend… No, that was yet another time, when the Whelm had come for her near Name and she had made the fateful link to Maigraith that had betrayed them all. Was Rulke trying to force that link from her again?
Llian’s dream of a year ago began to dissolve into two parts. One part was himself in this room in Tullin, dreaming that he was at the festival, telling the greatest of the Great Tales, the Tale of the Forbidding. The other part was with Karan on the mountainside, and she was crying out, “Help me! Help me!” He reached out to her slowly, and more slowly, and yet more slowly still, as the telling reached its climactic phase where the mad Shuthdar, surrounded by his enemies, capered on the high tower, cursed them and blew that fateful blast on the flute that sent the whole world spinning into madness.
Karan caught the dreaming and it wrenched her heart, for it was the tale and the teller that she had yearned for ever since the Graduation Telling. He brought it to a triumphant conclusion and her heart went out to him. And the dream went out from the now-Karan in Tullin to the then-Karan on the ridge, and she cried out in desperation and wonder and hope, “Help me; help me!” and to her joy the answer came back, “Where, where?”
The now-Karan wept with anguish. This was much more than a dream—look what it had led to before. Her link to Maigraith had been captured by Rulke, used to wake the Whelm to their true identify—Ghâshâd—and set in motion the holocaust. She had opened that box. How much worse would it be now that Rulke was free? In her mind’s eye she could see the now-Llian sitting up in his bed, reaching up to Rulke, and the other Llian of a year ago looking up in terror, trying to shield himself. And she saw the Karan of a year ago (the images repeating and disappearing and merging into each other as if seen in a pair of mirrors) protecting her face with her hands. This was not at all what she’d imagined when she made that first sending for help, a year ago.
Karan’s dream blurred into Llian’s. Had he sold himself or was he compelled, overpowered? Whatever it was, she had to break it now. Perhaps if she used the link cunningly enough she could snatch away Rulke’s control. Karan tried to sense her way into Llian’s dreams but instantly the whole world-view tipped upside down and began to revolve sick-eningly. Her head spun, her view of Rulke suddenly changed. He was great and majestic and wise. She should follow him. Why did she struggle?
No! Rulke was trying to compel her through Llian, using her own link. Karan tried to snap the link but it was now like a rigid cable joining them together. She could not break it! Rulke was far too strong, much stronger than he had been in the Nightland, for they were close to Shazmak here, where a legion of Ghâshâd waited to do his bidding. Then she realized that even if she did break the link she would be abandoning Llian again. She would have bought her freedom with his soul.
To do anything at all was hard—Rulke’s will was utterly dominating now. Come to me, come to me! he sighed, his very voice a seduction. I can give you what you most desire.
I’m coming, I’m coming! she sang back to him, forcing herself to think of nothing else. Don’t dare think or it will give you away. But Karan could scarcely think anyway, for the voice was so overpowering that she must follow wherever it led.
Karan fell out of bed. No time to dress, not even capable of thinking of clothes, she forced herself against air that felt as cold and thick as tar, her only drive to stop this before it went to its inevitable, deadly conclusion.
She stumbled to the door, shaking her head, trying to clear the dr
eam/dreams from it while the honeyed voice sighed across the link. Struggling with the door, her thoughts were so sluggish that it was a minute before she remembered that she had bolted it. She wrenched back the bolt. The dream was quite horrible now. The Llian from last year and the Karan on the ridge, sad phantoms of yesteryear, were fading. In his room Llian stood on unsteady knees, reaching out with both arms like a prodigal son to his father. The great figure rose from the stone chair, broken chains glistening at its feet. The air began to swirl lazily in toward the center of the room, making a whirlpool with Llian at its center.
“No!” she cried softly, running the few steps to Llian’s door, praying that he had not locked it when he went to bed. Why would he? Tullin had seemed the safest place in all Meldorin.
You fool! Oh, you stupid, stupid fool; you’re doing just what he wants.
The door opened easily and she fell in, tripping over Llian’s gear inside the door. She crouched there, looking up. The dream and the reality superimposed, blurred, shifted separately—the one seen from where she stood, the other as from the far side of the room.
An image of Rulke formed slowly in the center of the room. She could tell that it was just an image because there was no rush of air as there always had been through a gate, and the image was translucent, wavery. Llian looked rapt, like an acolyte about to receive the first of the great secrets from the master. How could she stop it? The dreams of then were almost gone, merging into the reality of now, no longer needed. Whatever Rulke had wanted set in motion was flowing now of its own accord. But what did he want of Llian?
The dreams winked out but the compulsion that flowed from Llian was as strong as ever. She had to break it before Rulke crystallized in the room or he would have them both. How? Under the bed she spied an old chamber pot of thick porcelain, thin gray stripes and a heavy handle. In a single movement she picked it up and hurled it at Llian’s head.
He did not even look around. The heavy object struck him on the side of the head, beside the temple. One minute he was reaching up and the next he toppled slowly over and lay still. The pot rolled off the far side of the bed and smashed. Karan felt a brilliant flash of pain in her own head, a moment’s empathy for Rulke’s own pain as the link was abruptly severed. The empathy bothered her. The apparition vanished at once.
“Liannnnnn!” she wept, thinking that she’d killed him.
Llian was deathly white save for a dark bruise on the side of his head and a curving gash where the side of the pot had caught him. The gash ebbed a small amount of blood but it soon stopped. Suddenly all the anger, all the bitterness, all the feelings of betrayal were gone. He was as much used and abused as she was. How could he possibly resist Rulke? No one could. She leapt up on the bed and took Llian in her arms, cradling his cold head against her breast. Perhaps it was better that he be dead than what he would have become. Perhaps it was better.
He shuddered. Karan put her hand on his throat and felt a pulse beating. She slid down in the bed, pulling the blankets up around them both, holding him tenderly, trying to warm him, oblivious to the curious faces at the door, the innkeeper and his wife come to see what all the fuss was about. Evidently just a lovers’ tiff, and they would pay for the damage in the morning. The two went away again.
The room still had an unpleasant feeling, a presence. Karan did not dare close her eyes for fear of seeing that image again. Surely if she dreamed it, it would let him back.
She had to get Llian out. Karan could just lift him, with his feet dragging. She staggered up the hall, rolled him onto her bed and folded him into the covers.
Llian lay still as death all night, and just as cold. The room was dark but she did not dare leave him even to light a lantern. Pulling him onto her, Karan settled his head between her breasts, giving the warmth of her body to him. Absently she caressed him, only moving when she could bear her cramped position no longer. She was too fearful of her dreams to sleep. Rulke was abroad with his construct and Llian was overcome. She was all alone, twenty leagues from anyone who could help her. The company were divided and scattered across the earth; even if they could be trusted.
She had to tell someone, but if she did it would be betraying Llian to almost certain death. There was no solution.
Sometime after dawn, as a dim light began filtering in through the shutters, Llian’s unconsciousness passed into a deep, still sleep. His breathing became a little deeper, a little stronger. At last she let go. Karan slept too.
26
* * *
TAR GAARN
Tallia!” Mendark called, a few hours after The Waif had set out from Flude.
Tallia was standing at the bow, staring into the swell, dreaming of Crandor. Her long black hair streamed out behind her in the wind.
“Tallia!” he shouted.
She turned, wiping spray off her eyelashes and forehead. “Yes?”
“A packet came in last night from Nadiril at the Great Library. Some more information on Havissard. This letter was with it. It’s taken quite a while to arrive.”
Tallia sat down out of the wind to read. The letter was written in a beautiful hand, though a rather ornate style that had gone out of fashion a century ago.
Guffins 18, 3099
The Library
Zile
My dear Tallia,
If you receive this, please write back with your news. Both Lilis and I are very anxious about you. Now to your quest. I have initiated enquiries, even as far away as Thurkad, using up a good deal of Lilis’s ransom money in the process. I am saddened to discover how much it takes to buy a customs officer these days. In my time it could be done for a handful of coppers. What a wicked world!
As you recall, Lilis said that her father was taken by a press-gang seven years ago. It was a fast boat with a red sail and a name like Cutter or Dagger. Unfortunately those are popular names for boats. I attach a list of a dozen that visited Thurkad at that time, and their home ports as set out in the customs registers.
I suggest you pay particular attention to the last seven, all from Crandor and other eastern lands (see Lilis’s letter, and mark how well she’s learned her lessons).
And Tallia, beware—pressing sailors is a capital offense in most ports; this boat is doubtless a pirate, or smuggler!
Your friend
Nadiril
Tallia turned the page. Written on the other side, in the same archaic style but a more rounded, childish hand, was a letter from Lilis.
Dearest Tallia,
I can’t tell you how happy I am. I have been working very hard on my lessons, and Nadiril is pleased with my reading, though he still thinks my writing is TERRIBLE!
You would not believe what marvels I am learning. Nadiril is teaching me the catalogue, though to tell you the truth, Tallia (and I hope he does not read this bit over my shoulder), it is in rather a MESS. I am working hard at it but there is so much to do.
I’ve missed you so very much, Tallia, that sometimes I cry at night for fear that you are lying DEAD in the middle of the Dry Sea. I have read everything about that horrible place. Just the thought of it makes me shiver. But you are so strong and clever and brave, I’m sure you will be all right.
I must finish this, for Nadiril keeps reminding me how expensive paper is. I’ve remembered something about the day Jevi was kidnapped. The men who took him had dark skins like yours, and spoke the same way that you do, so they must have been from the east.
Please say hello to Pender, and Osseion too, and EVEN Mendark. That says how much I miss you all.
Fare well,
Lilis
I miss you just as much, Tallia thought, consulting the list. The seven vessels from the east were: Ivory Cutter, Cutlass, The Silver Sword, Stiletto, Kris Kris, Machete and Spear of Midnight. Unfortunately, the ships’ details did not include the color of the sails, and red was a common color, so they were not much better off. Three vessels were from Crandor, but the other four were from ports hundreds of leagues apart up the east
ern coast of Lauralin. It would take months just to visit them all. The quest was hopeless.
She took the letter to Mendark. He was in a good mood today.
“Lilis says hello to me?” he said with a smile. “She has mellowed. Well, we’ll stop where we can, but don’t take too much time. And don’t stir up any trouble.”
“Me, trouble?” she said innocently.
The trip north up the long western coast of Faranda was tedious, for the rugged land was desert and practically uninhabited. For the first week they had the benefit of a following wind and northward-setting current, and made excellent progress, sometimes more than forty leagues a day. By the time the winds failed, The Waif was rounding the tropical northern bulge of Faranda. From then on they had a slow, dangerous passage between the inner and outer barrier reefs that looped their way for a thousand leagues around the top of Faranda and east down the coast of Crandor.
A fortnight into the voyage they stopped at Nys on the northernmost tip of Faranda. Tallia was glad of the diversion. Their progress up the coast seemed imperceptible. Crandor was a longing that was still a month away, and every other thought was a worry. Time ticked by while they rocked on an empty sea.
Nys was one of the centers of the spice trade, a dirty tropical city surrounded by plantations. However, Tallia’s family on her father’s side had been in the trade for many generations, and the reek of cloves, cardamom and mace from the warehouses on the waterfront brought tears to her eyes.
They only stayed long enough to obtain water, fresh meat and vegetables, for Mendark was driven by the urgency of his mission. Tallia had no luck with her search, though she did manage to cross one boat off the list. Kris Kris had been driven onto the reef in a typhoon three years ago, going down with all hands.
