by Ian Irvine
Faelamor opened the small volume, idly glanced inside again and as she did so actuality shivered a third time. The image of Yalkara appeared once more and looked up from her stool, straight into Faelamor’s eyes. Instantly Faelamor was speared through the heart by a realization. A tremor passed up her spine. The writing was indeed familiar, she could read a glyph here and there. She closed the book, staring into space and time. To say that she was shocked and disturbed would be a profound understatement. She was terrified, though she could not say why.
Dark rumors from the past rose unbidden. The impossibly distant past—the time that the Faellem had erased from the annals of their world. Only myths and rumors remained, and cautions.
No time for that now! “Go back to the gate!” Faelamor screamed. “Make it ready immediately!”
Maigraith took one look at her face and ran.
Faelamor used what remained of her strength to disguise her appearance. The illusion was not one of her best; not much more than a change of clothes and hair color. She sat staring at the glyphs in the little book, waiting for the intruder while the time stretched out eternally.
He stopped in the doorway when he saw what lay within—a vast library—the storehouse of one person’s Histories. He stared, holding the globe high, then moved forward reluctantly, perhaps thinking that it could only be a dream, and a disappointing one. But it was no dream. It did not recede before him. Faelamor studied him from under her hand.
It was Mendark! He could only be here for one thing. That must mean that the Council’s own plans were well advanced. Well, she had what he wanted. Be careful, he was very dangerous.
He approached, the unreality that she had felt before spreading out in front of him like a shockwave. Her head spun. She felt that she was losing control. What power had he used to get inside? Whatever it was it was still active, and interacting with the protection it was a peril to them all.
Faelamor leapt out, attacking him with phantoms and delusions that even to her own mind seemed twisted and dangerous, nothing like what she had intended. Mendark, taken by surprise, fell and she fled at once, feeling as if she was pursued by the shades she had conjured. Aftersickness was burning, roaring, exploding in her brain. She was incapable of noticing that the little book had slipped out of her bag.
Faelamor came lurching up to the gate, her face gruesomely twisted. Maigraith had never seen her so wracked.
“Is it ready?” Faelamor screamed.
“Yes,” said Maigraith with provocative calm.
“Show me the destination!”
Maigraith sent the image, the woven platform suspended above the river, across the link. It was so clear and perfect that they might have been looking through a window.
“Follow me!”
Faelamor leapt recklessly into the gate. Maigraith followed, infected by her malaise, and it grew worse when she realized that Faelamor had vanished. This time the passage was a desperate, unreal one, and as soon as Maigraith was in it she knew something had gone wrong. The link evaporated, then she came out in suffocating cold and wet and dark, an explosion of water that stung her skin like a hundred little whiplashes.
Maigraith felt the water boiling away from her. How could the destination have been so wrong? Cold water burned in the back of her nose. Perhaps she was in the bottom of the deep ocean—a current was pulling her along. Maigraith felt gravel under her feet, propelled herself upwards and her head broke the surface. Rubbing water out of her eyes she saw the platform hanging placidly just upstream—they had come out at the bottom of the river.
Maigraith was not a strong swimmer. She struggled out to lie gasping on the bank. When she recovered her breath she looked around but could not see her liege. Then, downstream, a bundle of rags bobbed to the surface. A feeble claw clutched at smooth rock, then the water pulled her under again.
Maigraith felt that thin hand clutching at her heart. For better or worse she was bound to Faelamor, hating her yet still finding something in her that she needed desperately. Running down she dived back in, found Faelamor underwater by feel and brought her to the surface. Water dribbled from her nose. Maigraith heaved her onto the ground and pressed the water from her lungs.
Lying there on the mossy bank Faelamor looked weak, tired and old. The straps of her leather pouch were gripped so tightly that Maigraith could not prise them loose. What had she found in Havissard? Opening the flaps of the pouch, Maigraith spilled out the contents. It gleamed red against the grass; a heavy rough-cast chain of gold; other, smaller jewelry. The sense of the gold alarmed her—a horrible raspy feeling up the nerves of her arms. What could Faelamor want it for?
Beside her, Faelamor gasped a breath. Maigraith put back the jewelry, fastened the pack and walked away toward the forest. When the river was beyond sight she opened her own small parcel. The stylus was undamaged but water had got into the package containing the loose leaf from the tablet, smearing and twisting the writing into a cry: Aeolior! Something wrenched at her heart. She folded the paper over carefully and walked deep into the forest.
33
* * *
A LITTLE
REBELLION
Faelamor forced herself to hands and knees, choking up mud and water onto the ground. Water and vomit burned in her lungs and up her nose. She heaved until there was nothing left but bile and blood—she brought that up too. Clawing at the grass, she dragged herself away from the mess to the river bank. As she leaned over to scoop water onto her face, the turf was springy beneath her breast. The water was still, a little quiet backwater beside the race that had almost drowned her. Her face was reflected, haggard as death itself, and her pale hair hung down like the unraveled ends of a dirty old rope. Too weak to move, she stared at the wretched old woman she had become. She had no idea what had happened.
Faelamor dangled her fingers into the cold water and sucked the moisture off until she had the strength to get up. Memories began to come back—Havissard. The Aachan gold. The little book, in an unknown script that was hauntingly familiar. The gate going wild. Perhaps the gold had forced it to go wrong. She had no memories after that.
Where was Maigraith? She dragged her head around, which hurt horribly. Maigraith was nowhere to be seen. Where was her pouch? Where was the gold? Faelamor began to panic. Was it lost at the bottom of the river? Or, almost as bad, had Maigraith found it? She recovered a fleeting memory of Maigraith bending over her. Faelamor crawled back up the slope and saw her pouch on the grass, next to the contents of her stomach. She fumbled with the straps, tore them open, felt inside. A wave of relief passed over her when she realized that the gold was still there. Her safety net, if all else failed. But the relief was short-lived—the little book was gone. Where was the dreadful book? She fell back onto the grass.
Cold brought Faelamor out of her dreams. She must have lain there for hours, almost comatose, for the shadows of the trees now stretched right across the clearing. She was freezing, chilled to the core, and she stank of bile, vomit and blood. She was lying in it. It would have been very easy to remain there. She felt so sleepy, so enervated. But a voice kept whispering at her and it got louder and louder until it was a scream: You are the Faellem. You must go on! You must!
What was the matter with her? Why was she so weak, so ill from the gate? Faelamor had forgotten how it had wracked her, forgotten that for a day and a half she had forced back the aftersickness resulting from all she had done in Havissard. Finally it had returned, doubled and redoubled, and claimed her. She pulled herself to her feet, swaying and staggering. Not far away was a pebble beach and shallow water. She dragged her clothes off, dropped them on the shore and flopped into the water. It was like being molded in ice.
After washing herself all over—her face, her hair, inside her mouth—she crept out again on all fours. Upriver, the gate structure that had sent them to Havissard and back again still hung between the trees over the water, curving like a smiling mouth. Grinning at her wicked folly. She would never use it again
. She left her clothes where they lay and crawled the hundred or so paces to the shelter of woven reeds.
Faelamor was tormented by her blunders. She had nearly drowned, a dishonorable death, a failure of her duty. She kept thinking that, over and over—not that she had nearly died but that she had nearly failed
It was almost dark now. Creeping into Maigraith’s sleeping pouch, she pulled it up over her head. It shut out the light but the nightmare of Havissard was stronger than ever. I am the Faellem, she told herself. I may not rest until my duty is done. Her body gave up and dragged her down to blessed sleep for a few minutes, then the cold flung her into wake-fulness again.
She dressed herself with all the clothes she had, heavy woolen socks and boots, gloves, coat, hat. Her belly burned like acid, as if she had burst her insides with all that retching. She forced the pain away but that just brought back the cold lurking in the background. Fire! I must have fire or I will die. Faelamor crawled to where dry sticks and kindling were stacked under another woven shelter. Maigraith was so damned efficient! She dragged out wood with her teeth, piece by piece, and set a fire, but though she struck sparks into it for half an hour it would not catch. Her sin had offended even the elements.
Faelamor could feel herself weakening every minute. It was almost as bad as it had been in Thurkad after the Conclave last winter. The nights were not so cold here, at this time of year, but still cold enough to kill her if she collapsed outside. Had she been Yggur or Mendark or Tensor, she might have brought flame out of her fingers, but that form of the Secret Art was barred to her. Then inspiration struck. She crawled to the shelter, finding by feel one of Maigraith’s little lightglasses. Even so insignificant a device as this was forbidden to her but what was one more crime? She lay on the floor with it in her hand, the glow stirring and seeping out between her fingers, remembering the first time she had seen one.
Maigraith had been just a young woman—barely out of childhood—when they had gone together to an ancient place in the south, stronghold of some long-dead, long-forgotten tyrant. The people who had taken over his demesne were mere squatters who understood nothing, but they knew how to light the opaline spheres above the doors.
Maigraith, as usual, had watched all this in silence, but on returning to camp she had sat quietly with metal and crystal of various kinds; smoothing, polishing, shaping until she had her own version of a globe. She sat back, examined it on all sides, and touched it in a certain way. It did not light. Nor did the next one, nor the two or three hundred after that. But Maigraith was admirably persistent and, one day, one did light up. The ones after that were smaller, and worked better, until eventually the globes she made were more perfect than any Faelamor had ever seen.
Faelamor had not asked how she knew what to do. Whether it was intuitive, or transmitted in some way across the generations, Faelamor did not know or want to know. The very idea of working with devices, of empowering objects through the Secret Art, made her shudder. Forbidden knowledge!
Taking the globe between her teeth she dragged herself back to the fireplace. She put it down on a stone beside the wood and smashed it with the back of the hatchet. It burst with a blast of blue-white heat that burnt her fingers and set her coat smoldering up to the elbow. Faelamor beat it out and looked down with satisfaction at the blaze.
After rescuing Faelamor from the river Maigraith walked off into the forest in an uncertain mood, half-joy, half-melancholy. Havissard had been good for her.
Now she had found something that could not be taken from her. She belonged somewhere at last. She was not just a tool in Faelamor’s hand. She had a different destiny—she was here for a purpose. Was it tied up with Faelamor? She did not know, only that she was part of a puzzle, perhaps the key part.
Maigraith walked in the forest until dark. As night came down she remembered Faelamor. She felt the outline of the silver stylus in her pocket, smiled and turned back to the campsite.
Faelamor was hunched over the fire, shivering. Maigraith saw that her eyes were turned inwards—she had retreated right into herself. Her lips were pinched blue. Maigraith touched Faelamor’s cheek with a finger. She was like a piece of meat in an ice chest.
A pot stood in the fire. Most of the water had boiled away but there was enough for a small cup of chard. Maigraith stirred the big leaves into it, added honey from a comb, squeezing the dark brown stuff out of the waxy cells until the chard was as thick as syrup, licked her fingers, picked out a young wasp that had been squeezed into the mug, stirred the tea with her finger, licked it again and held the mug to Faelamor’s lips.
There was no reaction. She prized Faelamor’s teeth apart with a stick, held her head back and poured the hot liquid in until it overflowed. Faelamor gasped, choked, spluttered. Her eyes flew open and she looked blankly at Maigraith. Then she recognized her. Maigraith held the cup to her lips again.
“Turn and turn about,” Maigraith said wryly, remembering how Faelamor had rescued her from Fiz Gorgo a year ago.
Faelamor did not reply. The cup was soon empty.
“More?”
Faelamor nodded. Maigraith fetched water, boiled the pot and repeated the dose. Two cups later Faelamor was able to hold it by herself.
“My guts are on fire,” said Faelamor. She crawled into the shelter and slept until the middle of the following day.
When she arose Faelamor was back to her old self, though still weak. “Knowing how much you hate me,” she said, “makes me wonder why you dragged me out of the water. Why you came back.”
Maigraith shrugged. “My whole life has been duty. Everything I have ever done has been to meet other people’s goals. At the moment I can see no other way for myself. Perhaps I can do nothing else, being, as you made me, so incomplete.”
Faelamor was not certain what to think about this, but she took it as though her indoctrination, or her compulsion, still held. Then Maigraith stripped that illusion away in a second.
“As soon as you went through the gate,” she said conversationally, “I considered breaking the anchor and leaving you in between.”
Faelamor shivered, and looking into Maigraith’s eyes she saw something that she had not seen before. Something steely that she had always thought Maigraith lacked.
“Not even you could have survived that,” Maigraith went on. “I considered it seriously, then I recalled to mind the lessons that you taught me. Duty above all. Respect! Honor! My honor, that is, since you have none. And so I let you live, knowing that your goal was a noble one and mine to support it.”
Faelamor wondered if she was being sarcastic, or ironic.
“Then prepare to do it,” she said, but Maigraith was not finished.
“But be sure of one thing! As you were lessened by what you met in Havissard, so was I increased by what I found. I aid you now of my own accord, and if I decide to go that will be of my choosing too.”
Faelamor did not feel strong enough to challenge this statement; she merely gave a non-committal sigh which Maigraith could interpret how she pleased. Yet inwardly she was raging. Whatever you have seen of my strength before, she thought, was but a tenth part of what I have at my disposal. Your time will never come! I made you with a flaw so that what you boast about can never happen. When I am ready you will feel that power, and then you will come back, begging to serve me. That is your only duty.
No more was said. There were months of work to be done before the Faellem arrived, if they were coming at all. Things to be found, things to be learned; watch kept on Thurkad and for Rulke. And together they must practice all the skills they needed for her ultimate goal.
Faelamor sat silent, quivering with some emotion that she had been trying to control all this time.
“What’s the matter?” Maigraith asked.
“I had a book,” said Faelamor, her eyes showing raw fear. “What happened to it?”
“Your bag was fastened when I pulled you out of the water. There was no book in it.”
“You saw it!�
�� screamed Faelamor in a panic. “The small book in that strange script!”
“Perhaps you lost it in the river.”
Faelamor squeezed her head between her hands. “No! I must have dropped it in the library when Mendark appeared. This is a disaster!”
“We can go back for it if it’s so important.”
Not far upriver the gate hung between the trees, swaying ever so slightly when there was any breeze, leering at her, a reminder. Faelamor knew she could not use it again. That it had worked at all was surprising, so imbued were her atoms with the prohibition against devices.
“I can’t go through the gate again,” she said, shuddering at the thought of that sin, and at the memories of Havissard too. “I’ve too much to pay for already. You’ll have to go.”
“Me?” cried Maigraith, even more afraid of the gate now. “I can’t!”
“Of course you can. You did most of it the other day. Why won’t you have confidence in yourself?”
“Because you made me so,” Maigraith said softly.
“I must have the book. You’ll go in the morning!”
That was that. She had to go—her liege had ordered it.
I suppose I can make the gate work again, Maigraith thought. I did seem to understand it, instinctively. “I’ll try,” she said.
Faelamor examined her. “I must have the book, but no one must know I have it. And be careful—Mendark could still be there.”
Maigraith lay awake that night, mentally preparing herself. After their precipitous return from Havissard things would never be the same between her and Faelamor. She had gained some little thing that she could not articulate; a sense of belonging.
But what did the future hold for her? If she freed herself from Faelamor, what would she do with her life? If she did have a purpose, what was it? Maybe she would find the answers in Havissard. The first visit had been a revelation.
