A Shadow on the Glass

by Ian Irvine

  The chamber in which they stood was large, simply decorated and dimly lit by glowing flasks set on brackets around the walls. It was cold, as was the whole of Shazmak. The walls bore somber murals of an alien worldscape, similar to those outside, which he took to represent Aachan. Llian was too weary to look at them closely. The only furniture was a small table set against one wall and two large couches in the middle of the room. Four rooms opened off the main chamber. One was a cooking and eating area, the second a bathing room with extravagant plumbing, the third a room with a pallet along one wall, chests for storage, a table, chairs and something resembling an armchair. Karan touched the flask over the table and it began to glow more brightly.

  “This will be yours,’ she said to Llian.

  He eased the pack off his shoulders and let it fall onto the pallet It rolled off the end and the contents spilled on the floor. Llian left it where it lay and trudged after Karan.

  The last room was smaller than the others, though still spacious, and brightly lit by a large window let into the far wall. The furnishings in the room were similar to those in Llian’s. The weariness seemed to have been lifted from her, Karan moved as though she was dancing on air. Llian, by contrast, was so exhausted that he felt like a great slug.

  “This was my room when I lived in Shazmak-they made it so for me,” she said, gesturing. “It is the only apartment in Shazmak with a window.”

  “How can they bear to be shut up in this gloomy place?”

  “They rather look on it as shutting our world out, the better to remember their own. Now, there are things you will need to know,” she continued, “but later. I plan a bath, a long soaking tub—at least an hour to remove the grime of the past month, and another hour just for me. Then, since you made our last meal, it is only fair that I cook tonight I hope I can outdo you.” She laughed at her own humor, and Llian laughed too, reminded of the moldy slurry that they had endured last night “I’ll cook Aachim-style, for I see the kitchen is well stocked. Go away now, I need to be alone.”

  Llian went out Karan walked around the room once or twice then sat down on the end of the pallet looking out the window at the spires and towers. There were so many memories here. This had been her room from her first night in Shazmak, this apartment her home for six years. She closed her eyes and lay back. The wind howled outside, and that too was a comforting, familiar thing. The memories were so clear that her first night here might have been last night.

  How kindly they had treated her at that time. They had bathed her, taken away her ruined clothes and burned them, and brought her garments newly made. They had given a small banquet in honor of her and her dead father. They had done everything they could to make her feel at home: shown her the whole of the city and the land of Chollaz, taken charge of her education. And everywhere, helping and guiding her, comforting her when she was lonely or unhappy, asking nothing in return, had been Rael. Dear Rael. The instant she saw him again she realized how much she had missed him.

  Llian lay dozing on his pallet. Through the open doorway came the sound of splashing and a high clear voice was singing a carefree, silly child’s song. He hadn’t heard Karan sing before. Her voice was not well-schooled, but very charming. He closed his eyes again. The next he knew she was standing over him, wrapped in a large towel, water dripping from her red curls.

  “Wake up, sleepy,” she said gaily, smiling down at him and shaking her head so that a shower of drops fell on his face. “You need a bath: I can smell you from the kitchen. Hurry now.”

  He stared at the apparatus in the bathing room for ten minutes before deciding that he had absolutely no idea how to make it work, but after her previous insults he was loath to admit his inability. When she finally came to investigate the noises the room was full of steam and water was spraying at the ceiling while Llian sat, naked and incredibly grubby, in the bathtub, trying to wash himself in a trickle of icy-cold water.

  “Don’t stand there laughing,” he said in a surly voice. “Help me. I’m neither practical nor resourceful enough to make a bath for myself, it seems.”

  “I am sorry,” she said, with a total lack of sincerity, dashing the tears from her eyes. “You look so ridiculous, so dirty. I can’t help myself. I’m sorry,” she repeated, more soberly. “You should have asked for instructions. What I said to Rael today, that was but a joke. Please forgive me.”

  She leaned over him, shut off the steam and the spray and with a few quick flicks the bath began to fill with warm water. “To turn the water off you do this,” she demonstrated, “and to let it out again, this.” She maintained a contrite expression as far as the door, then turning around for a last look, exploded with laughter again and danced out, slamming it behind her as a misdirected boot crashed into the lintel.

  Half an hour later Llian crept out again, realizing only after he had washed his filthy clothes that he had nothing left to wear. However, in one of the chests in his room he found a robe in the style of the Aachim which, although much too large for him, at least kept the cold out. He simmered in his chair but, in a little while, hunger, curiosity and the smells from the kitchen combined to draw him out of his room and his anger evaporated.

  Karan was rummaging under a bench when he entered the cooking area. She looked up sideways at him with a soft expression, apologizing with her eyes, but seeing that he was no longer angry her mouth twitched again and she gave a muffled snort. She, too, was wearing an Aachim robe in cream with devices in maroon and black. The robe was too small and did not reach to her knees. Her feet were bare. She had pretty feet, he noticed. Her ankles and calves were shapely too—not at all what he had expected under the baggy trousers. His gaze moved slowly upwards.

  “I often wore this when I was young,” she said. “Everything I left behind is still here, but this especially reminds me of those times. Go away now, I can’t think with you staring at me so. Here, open this if you can. She handed him a large squat bottle made of glass, with a glass stopper sealed with hard blue wax.

  “What is it?”

  “Wine, of course. Hurry up.”

  Llian had not seen wine kept in glass before, but where drink was concerned he was prepared to experiment. He chiseled the hard wax from around the stopper and got the bottle open with no more damage than a cut finger, then Karan poured him a large goblet and put him out of the kitchen.

  The food of the Aachim was like nothing he had tasted before. There were many small dishes—pickled nuts, large and small, wrinkled and smooth, and some in thick sweet sauces with the fire of ginger, or the aroma of unknown spices. Meats there were of all kinds, in tiny portions: some dried, hard and black as coal, others smoked or pickled sour or spicy; vegetables and fruits raw, preserved, smoked or served with extraordinary sauces, or crystalized in honey; dried cheeses, shaved or sculpted into unusual shapes, sometimes with a single shred of fiery herb inside, or corn of pepper; flavored mushrooms and other fungi, the ones that grew on long-fallen trees in the forest, as well as pale long-stalked kinds from dark caverns, and some that looked like tangled skeins of cotton. And there were other foods so strange that he could not guess what they were made from, or whence they came. The wine was familiar, though it was of an excellence beyond his experience.

  Within their tower the howling of the wind was barely audible, save near Karan’s window, and, well-fed, clean and comfortable, Llian could find nothing to complain about, except that it was cold. But even that could be solved. Karan went to a cupboard and came back with two thick, silvery-gray blankets. They each wrapped one about themselves and sat sipping their wine, feeling no need for speech. Karan looked as though a great burden had been lifted from her.

  “I think I am safe here,” she said. “Safe at last.”

  She had not slept in a bed for months, and since they had entered Shazmak could scarcely think of anything else. She laid her glass aside, sat back and looked at her companion. Llian’s cheeks were red and his eyes bright from the wine, for which his appetite was pr
odigious. He was smiling and happy. And he was talking, telling, and though she loved his tales, and this was a marvelous one, her bed had more appeal. After a while she got up quietly and went into her room, lying down on her pallet in the darkness. The magic of his voice came softly through the half-open door and carried her off to a sweet and dreamless sleep. Llian watched her go, and happy for her. He needed no audience but himself for the perfecting of his art.

  The inn at Tullin was empty now, save for the landlord and his family, and old Shand, and a solitary guest: Tallia. And Tallia grew restless. She had done everything that could be done, searched everywhere that could be searched, but all traces of Karan and Llian were gone. Now she sat watching the snow falling gently outside and fretting. All at once she got up, tore a half page from her little journal and wrote the following note.

  The Inn, Tullin

  Sord 10

  Mendark,

  Your message came yesterday, but I have no news to comfort you. I searched for more than ten days but could not find them, only traces. Llian met Karan and they fled into the desolation south of Tintinnuin. I caught up with the Whelm there, hunting in a place of caves and tunnels, and drove them to the west; but I dared not return at once for fear that they would follow. More than a day it was, and though by chance I found the place where Karan and Llian had sheltered, they were gone and the snow so thick that there was no chance of finding them. After that the weather drove me back to Tullin. This is no country to be alone in at this time of year. Now that I have your map I see where they might have gone, but it is too long ago. If they have survived they must be far away. I spoke long with Shand, and searched all around in case they turned back, but no trace could I find. I will remain another week, then if there is no word I will return to Thurkad. Even the Whelm have given up. They went back toward Hetchet a few days ago, at a great pace.

  Send back the skeet.

  Tallia

  Tallia went downstairs, encountering Shand on the doorstep, ie smiled at her request and turned into the grain store next o the stables. Shortly he returned, carrying a bowl with a large brown rat in it, freshly dead. They went together to a lean-to shed at the back of the inn, where Tallia’s courier bird was housed. Even for a skeet it looked miserable, clinging to its perch in the half-light, though when they came lear it snapped at their faces viciously, shifting its weight rom one foot to the other, the gray claws grasping the pole, Its large black eyes were dull, not even reflecting the light rom the doorway, and the dark skin of its breast was visible where it had plucked away the down in its distress.

  Shand snapped his fingers before the skeet, keeping well out of the way of the lunging, spitting, croaking beak, while Tallia stole behind it and with a swift movement slipped the snool, a leather bag on a long handle, over its head. Instantly he skeet became docile and Shand held it, stroking its soft leek feathers while Tallia put on the string harness with the message pouch. When this was done Shand stepped back, put the bowl with the still-warm rodent on the platform beside the perch, and Tallia eased the snool free of the head and the long curved beak.

  The skeet struck once at Shand in a half-hearted way, then turned and noisily tore the animal apart and swallowed it in large dripping chunks. The metallic smell of warm blood filled the lean-to. The skeet walked sideways along the perch, wiped its beak on the straw, took a long drink, then another, its throat undulating, then abruptly spread its wings with a crack and lunged forward eagerly, bright-eyed now.

  They went carefully to the door, opened it a fraction and slipped through and behind. Shand flung the door wide. Nothing happened for so long that Tallia moved to peer around the door. Shand caught her arm and pulled her roughly back, and as he did so the big wings cracked again, like a whip, and the bird flashed through the doorway into the open, slashing at Tallia’s face with one long claw as it passed. Free of the shed it sailed, hung in the air a moment, glaring evilly at her, then the cold wind rushed across its wings and it shot up into the sky and turned toward Thurkad.

  They watched it go in silence. When it was a speck blurring into the dark sky they went back to the warmth of the inn.

  “I should have known better,” she said, her hand on the door. “Had you not caught me…”

  “You can never relax with them. Not for an instant I saw a man die once, his throat gone. But as long as messages must be sent…”

  Two days later another skeet came. This time the message was not on the Magister’s parchment but on a soiled scrap of brown paper.

  Tallia,

  My worst fears have come about, and I am overthrown with violence. They came in the night. Some of my poor servants are dead, but I was ready and fled the secret way. I think they would have killed me too, could they have done it in darkness, but now my villa is made secure and I am safe for a time.

  No point searching anymore; come back to Thurkad, but come carefully. I will try to maintain my factors for as long as I can, for information is all, but without the resources of the Magister it will be difficult. We must make contingencies against the finding of it.

  Yggur marches on the south.

  Send no more skeets.

  M.

  Tallia showed Shand the letter, wordlessly.

  “You are going?”

  “I will, in spite of the snow. He needs me now. As long as I’ve known him he has lived in dread of this time, of Yggur. But to have the world go crazy at the same time…”

  “Yes,” said Shand. “It even begins to worry me, here in Tullin. Though I swore it, I can no longer remain aloof. If I had helped Llian when he asked me… But no use, that. I too will go to Thurkad, though not with you. I”ll come later, when the snows have hardened. There are things I must do here first.”

  23

  * * *

  TALES OF

  THE AACHIM

  The next day Karan rose at dawn, prepared her breakfast and took a tray into the other room. She shook Llian awake.

  “What?” he cried, screwing his eyes closed. “Is it an earthquake?”

  “Wake up, you slug.”

  He rubbed bis eyes and pushed himself up in the bed. “What’s the matter?”

  “Breakfast,” she said, putting the laden tray in his lap.

  He shook his head, which throbbed to remind him of the wine.

  “I’m going to see Rael. Would you like to come?”

  “I need another ten hours’ sleep,” he said grumpily.

  She touched him on the forehead and danced out of the room. Llian picked at the tray, but as soon as the door banged he put it down on the floor and was fast asleep in an instant.

  Rael was eating alone when Karan appeared at his door. He embraced her in the doorway. “Come and breakfast with me,” he said. “I’ve just begun.”

  “I’ve eaten, but I’ll take some tea, if you have my favorite.”

  She took a cushion and sat down on the other side of the table, holding the bowl out in the correct manner while he poured cold ginger tea. Shards of ice rang together in the bowl.

  “It’s so good to be back in Shazmak. So good to see you again.”

  “I missed you,” said Rael, “from the moment I left; and the whole year that I spent in Stassor. When I came back you were gone and I couldn’t find you.”

  “That year after you left was one of the worst,” she said. “Emmant tried to fill your place, as though anyone would do for me. Vile, depraved beast. Shazmak became unbearable.” She shuddered. “I tried to leave no trace, for fear that he would follow me, and I kept traveling for four years. Why did you go?”

  “Tensor required that I do so.”

  The name struck her like a blow in the face. “Tensor! Is he… here now?”

  “Does it matter?” He was looking puzzled. “No, he went east months ago, and won’t be back for a year.”

  Karan tried to suppress her relief. “When you left I was devastated,” she said. “I had thought… thought that we might—”

  “I had thought that to
o,” he said, his big sad eyes fixed on her. “I came back ready to ask you, and if you said yes, to break with my people and go into exile. But it was not possible.”

  “I thought that Malien cared for me,” she whispered, staring just as hard at him.

  “My mother loves you dearly, but Tensor would not allow it.”

  “What does he have against me?”

  “Blood, and the consequences of mixing it.”

  “There have been cases…”

  “I know. I quoted them, but he was inflexible. There is something about your heritage, but he would not even whisper it.”

  Karan sagged down as though her bones had dissolved. “Perhaps he is right. There is much madness in my family. Brilliant or mad are the house of Fyrn. That saying goes back more than five hundred years.”

  “It wasn’t that. In Aachan we valued madness for the genius that came with it. It was something else.”

  “Well, you could not have gone against him.”

  “I would have, seven years ago,” Rael replied. “Karan, I…” He choked; began again. “I am so sorry. It can never be.”

  Karan drank her iced tea in silence, watching Rael while he tried to eat his breakfast. Finally he pushed it aside, as though it was bitter in his mouth.

  “Well, as you say, that was seven years ago,” said Karan in a flat voice. “I’ve gone a long way since then. Perhaps it was for the best.”

  “Perhaps.” He seemed to take that as a sign that the subject was closed. “You’ve certainly come here the long way. Where did you come from?”

  “Tullin.”

  “Why on earth did you take that path, or is it something I should not ask?”