by Ian Irvine
She failed. The gate exploded and dropped her into nowhere.
Faelamor had not returned from Havissard. In spite of her sense of liberation and self-discovery Maigraith remained in Dunnet—the chains of duty and responsibility were still strong. She kept on with her work and in her spare time practiced her mental and physical regimen until she was as fit in body and mind as she could possibly make herself.
Autumn passed. Preparing for the coming of the Faellem involved a mountain of work. When that was done Maigraith worked on her gate, shaping the twin ironstones into obelisks, making her controling stone, the four-part egg, more perfect, more attuned to the river, the cave and the obelisks, visualizing as best she could various destinations, and even opening gates to one or other of them. She never went through them though, for the work was exhausting and she knew that every gate was a risk—she might not come out again. For the moment there was no purpose to her life, and nowhere that she wanted to go.
And Maigraith had identified a weakness in herself that she was unable to overcome. Even for places that she knew well, most times she could not conjure up a clear picture of the destination in her mind. It made her afraid of the gate again.
The lonely days passed. Winter came. One day, when the snow was thick on the forest floor, Faelamor returned unexpectedly. Maigraith was pleased to see her, finding her own resources stretched thin by the months of isolation.
“Where are the Faellem?” Faelamor shouted from across the clearing.
“I have seen no one since you left.”
Faelamor swore, something that she rarely did. “Then I have hurried all this way for nothing. I called you with my mind, many times. Why did you not answer?”
“I sensed no link,” said Maigraith coolly. Why should she be blamed for Faelamor’s failing?
Faelamor smashed her fist against a tree, even more uncharacteristic. “Is there food?”
Maigraith turned into the store shelter to fetch what she had. She laid it out on the flat slab that they used for a table: small flat cakes, baked of nutmeal and honey that morning and flavored with the sexual parts of flowers; fish from the river, smoked; pickled mushrooms; wild onions, rather old and withered; the bulbs of a plant rather like a lily that grew by the river, though these had a starchy, gluey flavor. She also had a very mild wine made from fermented nectar.
Faelamor looked at the food with scant enthusiasm.
“I will have tea as well,” she said, turning down to the river to wash.
Maigraith was not hungry but she joined Faelamor at the meal, nibbling on a piece of nutcake.
Faelamor finished her meal, wiped her face and stood up. She had not taken her pack off.
“Are you going again so soon?” cried Maigraith, feeling like a child who, though uncomfortable with her visitor, did not want to be abandoned. “Did you recover the book? What news of Mendark, of Yggur?”
“News must wait! It is a race now. Mendark and Yggur are up to something.” She turned away.
“I will not be treated like a child!” insisted Maigraith. “Tell me what is happening in the world or I won’t be here when you return.”
Faelamor scowled, but answered. “I tried to force the gate to take me to the book, but it hurled me out of Havissard into a secret library, one Mendark built, a long way south. How I got out again is a tale in itself. I didn’t recover the book. But Mendark is back and I’m sure he still has it. Since then I’ve been spying on the company’s meets,” Faelamor said with a little pride. “It wasn’t easy, even for me.”
She told Maigraith the gist of the tales about Mendark and Yggur, and Karan and Llian too, which were already well known. Itinerant tellers were now spreading them around Meldorin. “And there are most disturbing rumors from the mountains behind Tolryme, where we met a year ago, if you recall?”
“I remember. We met there after you betrayed the Aachim and let the Ghâshâd into Shazmak—”
“I did not betray them—they are not our species; not Faellem! I warned Tensor of the consequences of holding me but he chose to ignore me.”
“Beautifully rationalized! You went to Tolryme to spy on Karan.”
“To search out her ancestry, and learn what you had kept hidden from me: that she was triune!”
“I didn’t know she was triune,” said Maigraith. “And you did betray the Aachim. Hundreds died because of you.”
“I warned them!” Faelamor repeated angrily. “Besides, that was a year ago.”
“That makes it all right, does it?”
Faelamor ignored her. “Something is stirring near Tolryme, in a place called Carcharon. An ominous name! How am I to deal with that as well?”
“I—” said Maigraith.
“Yes! Go and find out what is going on—it may be Rulke. I’ve got to go back to Thurkad and recover Yalkara’s deadly book. Go as soon as you can.”
“I will,” Maigraith said.
Then over her shoulder Faelamor said: “When the Faellem come, tell them nothing.”
It was the best part of fifty leagues to Tolryme the way the forest paths ran. It took Maigraith ten long days of marching in the cold. On the tenth evening she reached the town just on dusk and took a room in its only inn, a large square granite building that was rustic in the extreme. She longed for a bath but because of the wood shortage that was impossible. The best she could do was an all-over wash with a jug of lukewarm water.
She changed her clothes and went down to the dining room. That was a spartan affair too—coarse bread and a watery stew of vegetables that were long past their prime. As she was mopping up the last of the liquid with a crust a young man limped up to her table.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, doffing his cap and twisting it in his hands.
She looked up. He would have been a handsome fellow had he not been so thin, for his brown hair was magnificent and his bones well chiseled. But his cheeks were hollow and one arm was gone above the elbow.
“You are Maigraith,” he said.
“I am,” she replied, “though I would prefer that you did not broadcast it about. How do you know me?”
“I fought for you at the battle of Casyme last summer, when you overcame the sorcerous Ghâshâd and saved the First Army. My name is Evenil.”
“How is it that you are here, Evenil?”
He smiled self-consciously. “This was my home town before I went a-venturing. But one day I found myself in Orist without a copper grint to my name, so I joined Yggur’s army and eventually ended up here again.”
“What do you do now?”
“I was paid out when I lost my arm—a few silver tars—and now I do whatever I can. There’s plenty to do, even for someone with my handicap, but no one has any money to pay for it. And even if they could, there is precious little food to be bought, and hellish expensive. My tars are already gone.”
And you are beginning to think that you will starve this winter, she thought. She had seen the same dozens of times, even on this short journey.
“Tell me, Evenil,” she said, indicating the chair opposite, “do you know my friend Karan Fyrn?”
He sat down. “No,” he said, “though I’ve heard all about her. I used to play at Gothryme when I was young, but she wasn’t there then.”
“Is she at home now?” Maigraith asked with sudden hope.
“I don’t believe so. I heard she went to Thurkad a while ago.” He looked downcast, evidently thinking that he had nothing useful to tell her.
“Have you heard of a place in the mountains called Carcharon?”
“Of course! It was built by mad Basunez. I could guide you there, if you wish,” he said more boldly.
Maigraith considered, and the longer she did the further his face fell. He was so thin that he would surely not survive the winter. No, she said to herself, this man lost his arm in my service and now he has asked me for help. I cannot refuse him.
“You can guide me,” she said. “But—”
“Oh thank you!” he c
ried, taking her hand and kissing it, then immediately letting it go. A flush crept up his throat.
“It may be dangerous,” she said. “Have you heard rumors about that place?”
“They are everywhere, but here we have more important questions to worry about: what we will eat tomorrow.”
“Have you family here?”
“No more, though there is a girl that I would take to wife, if she would have me. Janythe was my sweetheart before I went wandering. We had dreams of a cottage and children, but what use am I to her with this handicap?”
“You are still a man, and in my service now. Go and ask her!”
“After we come back,” said Evenil, but she could see in his eyes that he no longer felt good enough.
“Here are three silver tars,” she said. “Buy food for a week, if you can get it, and meet me here at dawn.”
He did so, carrying a pack and another bag which held the sorriest grain, fruit and vegetables she had ever seen. “It is the best I could buy,” he said, “and it cost all of a silver tar.” He handed back the other two. “And I could find no meat at all.”
“No matter,” she said, handing the money back again. “I don’t care what I eat. Keep this, there may come a chance to buy more. If necessary we can hunt.”
At Evenil’s side a sword was slung off a bit of rope. It was a short ugly thing with notches along its blade, and looked as if it had been used for cutting wood. It looked not much use even for that.
They set out toward the granite cliffs. Evenil must have sensed her mood for he said nothing at all, but he was very attentive to her every need, as he imagined it, pointing out the best route and the best stepping places on the way up the cliff path. Maigraith forbore to point out that she had crossed the known world more than once. He was doing his best to earn his hire.
They were crawling up the last part of the ridge, a knotted club of rock with steep steps cut into it.
“Above this,” said Evenil, trying to steady her, though having only one arm it was sometimes at the risk of both their lives, “there is a round place with stone seats where they say mad old Basunez used to stage bloody spectacles for his masons.”
“An amphitheater, on this miserable ridge?”
“That is the word. Amphitheater!”
“Then it must be the most dismal one in all of Santhenar.” She pulled her cloak about her more tightly but the wind—the incessant wind—blasted right through it. It was a rare sunny day but the sun had no warmth in it and the wind was a wild, wailing, biting, aggressive thing—it hated them for their life and their warm blood and did its best to take them unawares and hurl them down into the gulf. It was almost mid-winter—hythe only a few weeks off.
They gained the amphitheater, made their way across it and peered over the shallow western lip. A narrow path carved atop the ridge crest wound down and then back up to a hideous nine-sided tower. Snow coated its helmeted brass and slate roof.
Carcharon was indeed occupied—two stick-figures, unmistakeably Ghâshâd, stood at the top of a stair by a pair of open gates.
Maigraith and Evenil huddled there all day, watching; a day of the most miserable tedium. The Ghâshâd walked up and down the steps; they paced around the walls; they changed every two hours. Occasionally other guards appeared, patroling in pairs on the walls or sighted through embrasures. What were they guarding?
Maigraith knew that this news would not be enough to satisfy Faelamor. She would have to find out, though the prospect was terrifying. And she had to look to the safety of her faithful guard as well, whose chivalry up here would be a hazard to both of them.
“I’m going up to the gate,” Maigraith said as dusk approached. Tiny ice crystals sandblasted their exposed faces. “Stay right here; guard my back! There may be scouts out.”
She could see, even in the failing light, that he knew it was an excuse. And he, a soldier once, was humiliated. “Do you obey my orders, Evenil?” she said harshly, thinking that she could not afford him up here. He was perceptive; he realized that too. He bowed his head.
Maigraith crept along the winding path; a precipice lay to either side. For a few minutes at the change of each guard there was a chance to get close, for it was so cold that even the iron-hard Ghâshâd lingered in the shelter of the open door when one pair relieved the other. They still watched, but there was an opportunity. She moved as close as she dared, lying on the edge of the path well below the stair, concealed by the blowing snow as long as no one came down the steps.
No one did; eventually the guard changed and in the thickly falling snow she made it right up the steps and slid in behind a bronze statue of a mythical winged creature. From there she could hear the guards’ talk. They were uneasy—perhaps they sensed her. She knew she would never get in through the doors, but spines and rods embedded in the wall offered another opportunity. She began to climb up toward a lighted embrasure near the top.
If the cold had been bad before, up here it was unbearable—the wind hunted like a howling pack and the metal rods stuck to her skin through holes in her gloves. She had to climb around the tower to reach the embrasure she was aiming for, and knew that she hung over the unseen precipice.
Reaching the embrasure, Maigraith slanted her gaze in, keeping out of the light. A big man moved into the line of sight and she knew him at once. It was Rulke, heading across the room. Her heart leapt from side to side; she felt weak, exposed, afraid. And drawn to him too, though that was madness.
Rulke whirled, staring at the northern embrasure as if something had startled him. He had sensed her! She ducked away from her window, the eastern one, and began to climb down hastily. Came a roar from inside—Rulke’s voice. She swung from spine to prong, hurrying, taking risks with the icy metal, desperate to get around the corner before he looked out the window.
She heard an answering cry and knew that it was brave, foolish Evenil come to rescue her. In the lights from the open door she saw him running up the track with his blunt sword upraised. His tragic loyalty brought tears to her eyes. They would kill him in an instant. She moved more quickly but was too late. While she still hung four spans above the rock there was a short sharp battle on the path, but the onearmed man with the blunt sword was no match for their spears. One glided into his breast, he sagged down and was toppled over the edge.
Maigraith hung in the freezing cold until the guards had checked the path and gone back inside to report. Then she crept along the track to the point where Evenil had gone over. She found it easily enough, for there was enough light from the windows to show the snow blushing dark in a patch the size of a hat, where the spear had carved him. She looked down, trying to remember how steep it was here, midway between the amphitheater and Carcharon. Further over the slope was gentler, but here it was precipitous. Impossible that he could have survived. She could see in her mind’s eye how the spear had plunged into him. He would have been dead before he fell.
She squatted there for a long time, mourning her guard. He had served her to the best of his ability and this was his reward. Nothing she could do about it. Faithful Evenil was gone.
Maigraith could have gone back and slain them on the step, but what would be the point? Her melancholy duty was clear. She must take the news to Janythe, Evenil’s sweetheart whose hand he had not dared to ask for. There would be no cottage and no children now. Sick at heart, Maigraith headed back down the mountain.
It snowed all the way home. Maigraith arrived back in Dun-net after an exhausting, slow trek to find Faelamor waiting for her. She had failed to recover the book. Moreover the Faellem had still not come. Faelamor was in a shocking mood, terrified that they might not be coming at all. She had tried to raise them by means of a link but had not been able to get back the merest whisper.
“Well, what did you learn?” Faelamor snarled.
“It is Rulke!”
“You’re sure? How can you be sure?”
“I climbed the wall of the tower and looked in at the window. I
saw him clearly. I’ve seen Rulke before, remember. I recognized him at once.”
Faelamor was, if anything, even more furious than before. “Fool!” she shrieked. “What if he saw you? He needs your kind just as much as—” She broke off, staring right through Maigraith as if she had just realized an awful possibility. “Why?” she said in a whisper. “Why did he go to Carcharon when he had all Shazmak at his disposal?”
“I have no idea. Carcharon is a powerful place. Maybe—”
“And it’s a place that’s positively impregnated by a certain family. “Basunez! Galliad!” She grabbed Maigraith by the jacket and shook her. “And who owns Carcharon? Who lives just a step away? Who is a sensitive and a triune, surely just what Rulke requires?”
“Karan,” said Maigraith weakly for lack of air.
“Tallallame, Tallallame, your fate rests on the one which is three.” The proverb had been old before Faelamor had left her world.
Faelamor released her, stumbled backwards and sat down abruptly on the snowy ground. Maigraith walked away to the river, wondering what the proverb meant.
When she was gone Faelamor said to herself, “The balance has tipped right against me. Rulke was bad enough by himself. With the triune he will be invincible.” She sank her head on her arms and rocked back and forth for a few moments, then sprang up again. “I was right about Karan the first time. I must finish her. I should have done so long ago.’
40
* * *
DINNER WITH
NADIRIL
In the evening Nadiril appeared at Llian’s cell with a parole from Yggur. “Come with me,” he said. “We have much to talk about.”
They went down to the waterfront of Thurkad, to an inn which had private dining rooms. Nadiril was greeted with a bow so low that the doorman’s bald pate touched the floor, then they were led to a large room on the second floor. There was a glorious fire. Small-paned windows looked out over the harbor, though presently the view was obscured by sleet whirling against the glass. An aged waiter lurched in with a menu as long as his arm. Llian looked at the prices in alarm, surreptitiously feeling the sad little coins in his pocket.
