by Ian Irvine
“I… I would not want to lie to you, Rael. I am mixed up in strange business. I used my talent to help a friend into Fiz Gorgo, and to steal something from Yggur. She was caught and I took on the burden of the rest of the mission. I have been hunted these past two months.”
She had never seen Rael look so surprised. “Truly the girl I knew back then is gone. What was it that you stole?”
“I am sworn to secrecy.”
“No matter. What do we care for the intrigues of San-thenar? Tell me the rest of it, whatever you can.”
The morning fled as she told Rael the rest of her tale. Several times she almost unburdened herself to him about the Mirror, was on the point of taking it out and offering it to him, but the reserve that had arisen between them held the impulse back. Suddenly she realized that it was midday.
“Oh!” she cried. “I have left poor Llian all alone, in a strange city. What must he think of my manners?” She jumped up.
“Karan!” cried Rael. “The world is at a crossroads. Blendings will soon be more at risk than ever. Tell no one of your heritage.”
“I won’t,” she replied, kissed him on the cheek and ran out.
Back at her chambers she found Llian to be amply catered for, for a number of the Aachim had come to visit her and had stayed to talk with the Aachimning, the stranger. Needing to digest what Rael had told her, she went out again, wandering the corridors of Shazmak, dreaming and remembering, and greeting old friends wherever she went, sometimes bringing them back to meet Llian, to explain him to them, though they all knew about him already.
Everyone treated Llian with great courtesy, and some even asked him about himself, and what his talents were, and he was delighted to hear that they too kept the Histories and knew of the Festival of Chanthed, though he was secretly chagrined to learn that they had not heard of him or his tellings.
* * *
In the late afternoon Karan and Llian were drinking tea when Rael came in through the open door of the apartment, smiling.
“I have some news that will delight you,” he said. “Tensor will be here in a few days, a week at most.”
Karan dropped her bowl, which smashed on the table, sending a flood of yellow tea toward Llian’s book of the Great Tales. He snatched it away and wiped the cover on his shirt. By the time the mess was cleaned up, she had regained her composure and her voice did not betray her further.
“Tensor! I thought that he was across the Sea of Thurkad.”
“He was, but events called him back, apparently. A message has just come from Thurkad, dated two days ago, and he will be nearly to Bannador by now. He will be glad to see you.”
“I hope so,” she said in an odd way, as Rael withdrew.
When he had gone Karan sat there as still as stone, and did not speak again. Shortly she got up, went into her room and closed the door. Climbing up onto the broad windowsill, wide as a seat, she sat for hours with her shoulder against the thick glass, watching the light fade, even after it was dark and the window had become a mirror showing only her face.
Tensor! What was she to do? She could think of nothing. The chance to give the Mirror away had passed; now she was trapped here with it. And she had brought Llian into the trap as well.
Llian respected her need for privacy for as long as his curiosity would let him, then knocked at her door. She did not answer but he came in anyway, bearing fresh tea and a platter of food left over from the previous night. Karan indicated the pallet and he sat down, looking up at her and then away again.
Suddenly she jumped down from the window. “I have to get away,” she cried, and rushed out of the room.
It was not clear whether she wanted to get away from him or from Shazmak. Llian sat there, moodily eating the food and drinking the tea, then picked up the platter and went back to the main room. The rest of the evening he spent writing in his journal, conscious that it had lain unopened in its bag for more than a week. He quickly became immersed in the writing and all other concerns disappeared.
It was quite late when Karan returned. She came in softly, looking weary and unhappy, and flopped down on the couch opposite. Her eyes met his.
“Tea?”
“Please.” She sounded exhausted.
She sipped the hot tea, warming her hands on the cup, and nibbled at a piece of dried fruit.
“It’s Tensor,” she said. “I knew I should not have come here.”
“Tell me. Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t” Then, after the silence had drawn out uncomfortably long, she said, “Thank you, Llian. It’s good to have you with me, but there’s nothing you can do. Leave it alone.”
In the middle of the night Karan woke from a horrible, terrifying dream. She had dreamed that Shazmak had been betrayed, that it had fallen without any opposition, her friends slaughtered like unresisting sheep. Everything she knew and loved about Shazmak was utterly destroyed and violated, and it was all her fault, for it all came from her bringing the Mirror here.
When she woke her dilemma was worse than ever, as she could not recall whether the cataclysm came from giving the Aachim the Mirror or keeping it from them, only that she had caused it all.
* * *
In the morning Karan was morose and as time passed she became increasingly sullen and withdrawn, almost furtive in her movements. Llian did his best to help her, but she kept him away; he saw little of her after that morning. She rose early and often did not return to their chambers until after he had retired, and he was left alone.
Their rooms were cold and he spent little time there, preferring to wander the halls and corridors of the great city, sometimes with Rael, more often by himself, for Rael had described an area within which he might move freely. Everywhere he was treated with restrained courtesy, his questions answered with unfailing patience. Not by the flicker of an eyelid did his hosts show irritation at his inquisitiveness. And he learned much about the Aachim, fitting their story into the greater pattern of the Histories in his mind, and making notes for his Tale of the Mirror, though he did not ask about that and they did not speak of it. And how much greater his Tale of Tar Gaarn would be now, after living in Shazmak.
By the second day Llian had tired of wandering. Though the buildings and murals were everywhere different, the somber world they symbolized was the same. He sought Karan in vain; she had risen early and left her chamber before he woke, and Rael was nowhere to be found. In the morning he practiced his art, but this only reminded him of the Mirror, and his craving to see it, know it. He wrote in his journal for a while, but today that did not satisfy him either.
Then a thought occurred to him. Shazmak must have a library; indeed, he remembered that yesterday it had been mentioned as they passed the stair to a certain tower. What a coup for a chronicler, if they would allow him there! Perhaps he might even learn something about the Forbidding. With that delicious thought he set off. A short time later he was hopelessly lost, standing at the foot of a long stair with his hand on the railing, wondering which direction to take, and if he was beyond the area where he could go alone, when he caught sight of Rael above. Rael came down and Llian explained where he wanted to go.
Rael gave a half-smile. “You are well off the path this time, Llian. The library is up, not down; in the Tower of Sind. But you cannot go there by yourself. Do you know the way home?”
Llian did not. Rael gave directions, but on seeing Llian’s doubtful frown offered to escort him.
“I was looking for Karan,” Rael said, “but she is not to be found, and next I must go that way. Have you seen her? She was to meet me early this morning. It is strange that she has not come.”
“No,” Llian replied. “Perhaps she forgot.”
Rael gave him a keen glance but Llian did not notice; his thoughts had already wandered. Who was Tensor, that she so feared? He was reluctant to ask Rael, but the question led on to the Mirror itself, never far from his thoughts. Particularly here in Shazmak, surrounded by scenes of Aachan whence
it came, and the Aachim who made it in the first place. Llian lost himself in these thoughts as they walked along, and it was a while before he realized that Rael had spoken.
“I beg your pardon,” Llian said. “My thoughts were deep in the Histories. Why am I interested in the library? In olden times it was the duty of the chroniclers to recover and set down the Histories lost during the Clysm. So I look wherever I go, whether I be in the great cities of the ancients or the taverns of my own country. The libraries of the Aachim must be a treasure-store of lost tales.”
“Doubtless they are,” replied Rael, “though I do not imagine that you will be able to read them. These days we mostly use the common speech in Shazmak, as you do, but when we write it is in the script of Aachan, which even you would find perplexing. However, I will take you there one day, if you wish. The librarian may be able to help you.”
Llian must have looked disappointed, for Rael then smiled and said, “Wait! If you are not busy, come with me to my chambers and share food with me. Then there are some things which duty, or habit, require me to do, but after that I will be free to take you to the library.”
They went to Rael’s rooms, talking cheerfully all the way. The food was simple compared to what Karan had given him, but superb, for all its strangeness. Afterwards Llian sat for a time, sipping from his bowl and leafing through one or other of Rael’s books, though he could not read a word. Rael wrote in a journal for half an hour, then took out an instrument not unlike a flute, but with several tubes and a complexity of levers and stops. It was a beautiful instrument that Llian knew was distinctively Aachim in design, made of silver and ebony.
The music was slow and strange to Llian’s ears-a lament. At the end of it he felt melancholy and lethargic, and cold. He wanted his warm bed, and a bowl of thick hot soup, and blankets clutched about his neck. The idea of the library seemed foolish, even a little menacing.
“I’m sorry,” said Rael. “We can be a dismal folk. The past is everything to us, and we forget that Santhenar is different. What can I tell you that will amuse? Would you like to hear about Karan?”
The trip to the library took half an hour, during which Rael entertained Llian with tales of Karan’s girlhood, her numerous pranks and practical jokes on the Aachim, and escapades that were downright dangerous, including one time when she had climbed the outside of the tall Tower of Sind, after Rael had said that it could not be done.
“She is a remarkable woman,” Rael said, sighing. “She is clever in so many ways. You are a lucky man, Llian.”
Llian misunderstood him. “She has given me so much. I am beginning to think that this might be a Great Tale after all.”
After that they were so busy talking that Llian scarcely noticed where they were going, save that they climbed a lot of stairs.
“Rael,” said Llian, already thinking of him as a friend, someone who could be trusted. He explained about the ending of the Tale of the Forbidding, and what he was searching for.
“I do not know, Llian. That was long, long before my time, before any of us here, except Tensor. And Llian, bold chronicler that you are, I hope that not even you would be so foolhardy as to ask him about it.”
“Why not?”
“We look back to that time with shame. The Aachim fled in fear when Shuthdar brought down the Forbidding. Even Tensor ran. He is a proud man, and cannot bear to be reminded. And because we owe him so much, we keep silent. Never mention it, I beg you.”
Llian did not care a fig for the dignity of this Aachim who Karan was so afraid of. If there came an opportunity he would not spare Tensor’s feelings.
The library was not at all as Llian had anticipated. The room they entered was light and airy, with curving walls, and unexpectedly, lit by tall windows. But the windows let in the incessant shrieking of the wind and put him on edge; a feeling that he had not felt in a library before. The room contained a number of compartmented scroll cupboards and many shelves, but there were far fewer books than Llian had imagined, and he said so.
“There are several other levels,” Rael explained. “Most of the books and scrolls are kept there, for they are little used in these times. But this is only a cadet library, suitable for an outpost as Shazmak now is. The greater is at Stassor, in the far east. As an Aachimning you may enter, if you are ever there, though it is a journey of two hundred days, and in these times a perilous one. I will fetch the librarian. His name is Emmant.”
Rael disappeared and Llian examined the books and scrolls on the nearby shelf while he waited. Few were illustrated and the tiny, convoluted script in which they were written was unreadable. He was looking at a small book illuminated in the style of the murals in his chamber when another man came silently in, as one used to creeping. Llian was shocked to find the Aachim suddenly beside him.
“Oh!” he said, and looked up into black eyes sunk deep in lightless caverns of bone. The hostility in the eyes was shockingly intense. Lilian knew that his voice would work no magic here.
Emmant was short for an Aachim, though still taller than Llian, and massively built with a large head and a thick powerful neck, but in spite of his bulk he moved with a subtle, dangerous grace. His dense black beard was cut by twin scars curving from his right ear to the corner of his mouth.
“Emmant, here is Llian. He is Aachimning. Take care not to show him any secrets,” Rael added cheerily. “Llian is a lore master of Chanthed. Let him read a thing once and he will never forget it.”
“I know the training of the master chroniclers,” said Emmant sourly. “What do you want?”
Llian explained his interest in the old tales, but even to his ears his story sounded childish and irrelevant.
“We do not concern ourselves overmuch with such things,” said Emmant, “though we have kept the Histories since we came from Aachan, and that was long ago. I have copies of many books, though I do not think you will find what you are looking for. There are thousands of volumes and none are in your language, or indeed in any of the tongues of Santhenar. You will not be able to read them. Even if you could, it would take more than a lifetime.”
“I have studied the Tale of the Forbidding,” said Llian. “I would know the Aachim’s story of that time.”
“I’ve heard,” said Emmant with a knowing smile. “You are a hundred years too late. Our records from that time went to Stassor long ago. If that is all you came for…”
Llian was beginning to despair. Whoever he asked, no one knew anything. “Is there no one in Shazmak who can tell me about that time?”
Emmant gripped his arm with overlong fingers, so hard that the bones hurt. “Ask the only one who was alive then, who was there,” he said in tones that dripped malice. “Ask Tensor, if you dare.”
He turned away, but Rael laid a hand on his arm and said in a low voice, “Emmant, he is Aachimning. Karan brought him to us.”
“Karan! I heard that darsh was back,” Emmant said in an ugly voice, and his face was twisted.
Rael winced at the insult. Llian too was shocked, though he did not know what the word meant; shocked also because he had encountered only politeness from the Aachim. This man was a great danger. He looked at him more closely. Emmant’s features were pocked with little marks and he had a thick accent that Llian did not recognize.
“Emmant!” Rael said again. “All that is over now. You gave your pledge. And Tensor would wish him made welcome.”
“Indeed,” said Emmant. “He sent word to me about Karan.” They faced each other for a moment, then Emmant shrugged and turned back to Llian.
“Is there any other tale that you seek?” he enquired in an ambiguous manner, his features now composed. “I can see that you came here with something in mind. What is it?”
Llian started. The Mirror! he thought. Mirror, mirror, mirror. The words reflected back and forth endlessly in his mind.
The librarian was staring at him. Mirror, mirror. Llian looked down at his boots, closed his eyes. He saw Karan’s face. “Never tell anyone
,” he heard her say.
They were standing beside one of the large windows. Outside, the windsong rose from a wail to a shriek. Even with his eyes closed he could feel the smoldering presence of Emmant before him. Llian looked up slowly; looked into the eyes of Emmant. The intensity burned him.
“What tale?” Emmant asked softly.
“The Mirror of Aachan,” he gasped, as though short of air.
“Ah!” Emmant said, searching his face. “Why that one? The Mirror is long lost, and the secret well kept. Where did you hear the story?” His eyes glittered.
Llian tried to look away but Emmant laid a hand on his hand. A thrill ran through him and he could not stay his tongue.
“The Mirror is found.”
Rael almost fell down in shock. His face showed that he had added Llian’s and Karan’s stories instantly, and the conclusion was anguishing. He reached out and gripped Llian’s shoulder, and he could breathe again, could think again.
Emmant stared at Rael. “Found? What does Karan know of it?” His thick voice became shrill.
The enormity of his folly began to come home to Llian. He tore his gaze away. What had Emmant done to him? “Nothing! I heard it in Chanthed,” he said, struggling to keep the tremor out of his voice.
Emmant looked at him with curious satisfaction, then turned and walked off down the rows of cabinets on the left side of the room. He beckoned to Llian and stooped to open a small black cupboard. Llian came slowly, his feet dragging.
“There was little ever written about the Mirror,” he said, his manner now almost jovial, “for it was such a trivial thing; used only for seeing. Later it was different; it changed, or was remade, and once it was our salvation. Yalkara stole it and profaned it but what happened to it in the end no one can say. Nothing was written about that, that you can read.”
“Outside Shazmak I have heard other accounts,” Llian observed.
“Doubtless,” said Emmant. “And they are lies. But there was a book of our history in your tongue.” He was pulling books, papers and scrolls from the cabinet as he spoke and placing them on a table nearby. “Ah! Here it is.” He bent down in front of the cupboard, seeming to take a long time. “It’s a copy of the Nazhak tel Mardux, an early history of the Aachim from their coming to Santhenar to the end of the Clysm. You might call the book Tales of the Aachim. It was prepared in one of the scripts of Santhenar, for it was meant as a gift to an ally, though it was never given. It is a most beautiful book and very old. There is nothing in it that you may not know.”
