by Ian Irvine
“I don’t know. Probably flay us alive, for starters!”
“But…”
“But the Aachim are so civilized, you think. Not when they see themselves betrayed, Llian. If they catch us it is the end, and a nasty one it will be.”
Then Llian saw what had been staring him in the face. “No! You saw it! Water was running down into the crevasse from the pool. It must lead somewhere or it would have filled up. Quickly.”
They leapt up and ran back to the main chamber, splashing across the pool to the crevasse. Karan took off her pack and, holding it sideways in front of her, slipped into the crack. As she did so they heard the rattle of a dislodged stone from up the tunnel. Llian thrust himself in after and followed as closely as he could. It was a tight fit, and many times he forced his way past projections of rock until his ribs were scored and bruised, and though he favored the side that he had damaged, the healing ribs pained him terribly. The crevasse meandered down steeply, and soon they knew that their tiny light could no longer be seen from the chamber. They pressed on.
It was only a few minutes later that they heard the echo of voices and the splashing of feet. Llian tapped Karan on the shoulder. She thrust the globe into a pocket, just to be sure, and stopped at once. Let them go past, Llian prayed, squeezing her hand. The noise died away to a rustling in the distance.
“They must be searching all the tunnels,” he whispered in Karan’s ear.
They crept on, silently. The crevasse shrank down and widened out, finally becoming a low-roofed tunnel down which the water still flowed.
They crawled along steadily, dragging their packs behind them. Suddenly, without warning, a vast roar seemed to come from up the tunnel and at the same time from within themselves. For a moment Llian’s thoughts were paralyzed. He looked around at Karan, who was behind him now, his eyes staring. She touched him on the cheek with two fingers and tried to smile.
“Be still,” she said softly. “Tensor has retraced his path and discovered how we made our escape. He tries to bewilder and confound us, and thereby make us come back to him.” This time she managed a wan smile. “It shows his desperation; if we stay calm we just might be able to get away now. Either he doesn’t know where the crevasse comes out, or he knows but cannot reach it. The compulsion won’t work at such a distance. If he continues it’ll only tire and confuse him. Let’s hope that he does.”
The roars continued for a while, then all grew silent again. Absolutely silent. Even the trickle of water made no sound, as they crouched there in the embrace of the indifferent rock. They crept away.
The tunnel continued to slope down, though the going became easier now. The trickle became a flood that tried to overbalance them. Then it split and became a trickle again, and eventually fell over a ledge into a pool, four or five paces wide and extending before them beyond the light shed by Karan’s globe. The pool was waist-deep and cold.
“Now we can rest for a few moments,” said Karan.
Llian said nothing, but he took her hand again and held it tightly. They sat together on the driest part of the ledge with their feet dangling over the pool and ate bread and preserved fruits from his pack. “What will they do now?” he wondered.
“They won’t give us up. Some will search all the springs and caves around the base of the cliff. Others will wait along the main path to Name, in case we’ve found a way back to it. We’ve earned ourselves a little breathing-space, but once we get out of the caves our perils begin again.”
They waded out into the pool. After thirty paces or so the roof began to decrease in height, so that they had to walk bent over, and shortly it plunged beneath the water. Llian turned to Karan. “What now?”
“It may not extend very far. I’ll go and see.”
She stripped down to singlet and knickers and packed her clothes carefully in a bag made of waxed cloth. With the globe in one hand, Karan pushed past Llian, dived into the water and disappeared. Llian waited anxiously, but very soon the water swirled in front of him and she reappeared, water cascading from her hair, her face mottled blue and red from the cold.
“Had you waited for a moment I would have volunteered…” he began in a dubious and unconvincing tone.
“That’s why I didn’t,” she interrupted rudely, her teeth chattering. “I didn’t want to have to find you under there. Besides, I’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“It’s a long swim—almost a minute,” she went on, after she had wrung the water from her hair. “And longer with our packs. Can you do it?”
He nodded. He had always been a good swimmer; it was the cold that he found hardest to bear.
They swam the tunnel. It was, as Karan had said, a long swim, though not a difficult one. Llian was not greatly troubled by it, except when he caught his pack on a projection and struggled for what seemed an age before wrenching it free. Once on the other side the floor sloped gradually upwards, and all at once the roof was higher and they could walk upright again. They pressed on, and ten minutes later, to their great surprise, daylight appeared at the end of the tunnel. They crept closer. Karan turned to Llian in puzzlement.
“That’s strange,” she said. “I can’t sense them at all. It’s as though there’s no one there.” They walked cautiously through the entrance, blinking in the light of the setting sun. Suddenly Karan laughed out aloud and threw her arms around him. There on their right was the waterfall and the River Garr, flowing away to the south-east.
“I don’t understand,” said Llian, holding her tightly.
“Somewhere underground we passed right under the river and now we’ve come out on the other side,” she replied. “The stair of the Aachim opens on the eastern side, but we’re on the west. We’re free! There’s no crossing the river before Name and that’s more than two hard days’ walk downstream. No wonder Tensor despaired, if he knew. We don’t deserve such good fortune. Perhaps my luck turns at last.”
“Won’t they be waiting for us at Name? You said so yourself.”
“Undoubtedly, but that’s a long way away, and much can happen. Besides, we’re in Bannador now. Let’s get clear of the falls; then we shall eat and rest and make our plans.”
They had come out right at the base of the cliff and the ground was a vast pile of broken and shattered rock which they must negotiate before they could find their way free to the south. Eventually they passed beyond the scree and as it grew dark found themselves in a hilly country, thickly forested and shrouded in drifting mist from the falls. They were still high up but the hard cold of the mountains had gone; the air was moist and spicy between the trees.
“A forest,” said Llian. “I thought there were no trees left in the world, after Shazmak.” He sat down on a mossy log and gave himself over to contemplation.
They spent two more days in that country, making their way slowly through the dense forests, and it was hard going. The land was corrugated by steep valleys, tributary to the Garr, that cut directly across their path. They started off near the river bank, but shortly the country became so rugged that they had to climb up into the foothills of the mountains to find a clearer way. At last they came across a narrow path that led more or less in the direction of Name. Here the land was broken into small ridges like ripples on a beach, and as the path led across them they were forever trudging up the gentle slope and peering uneasily along the ridge line before plunging down the steep side and splashing through the creeks that trickled in every gully.
It was late on the second afternoon now. Llian labored along behind, following Karan without thought, hoping that the top of each succeeding ridge would show the town of Name below. The trip had become an ordeal. How he hated traveling, if this was what it was all about. How could he ever have thought that there was romance in tales such as this? But at least they had lost their pursuers; there had been no sign of them since the caverns.
Just then Karan stopped. “This is close enough. Let’s find a place to camp. It’ll be dark shortly.”
; “Can’t we go on to Name?” Llian pleaded. “It’s so close. I’m so sick of walking. I want to sit in an inn beside a fire with a great bowl of wine in front of me and a hundred other people doing the same.”
“You’ll have to wait until Sith!” Karan replied. “Name is across the river and late at night we’d have to signal for a ferry. We know Tensor will go to Name, and he will be watching all the ways. It’s too small a town for us to hide. Even in the daytime, in a crowd, it will be difficult. Anyway, Name is not a friendly place.”
They came to a spot where the path crossed a brook, the clear water running silently in its stony bed, and Karan turned upstream. Shortly they found a grassy mound where the forest drew back from the water; there they made camp. The grass was soft, green and welcoming. The tall trees made a wall around the clearing that seemed somehow protective. Fragrant herbs grew in the damp soil at the edge of the water. The atmosphere was so soothing that Llian, sitting beside the pile of twigs he had collected for the fire, put his head in his hands and fell fast asleep.
In a while he was awakened by Karan, who had gone into the bush with her hatchet and now returned, whistling and dancing, with an armload of wood. He began to get up guiltily, but she put her hand on his forehead and pushed him down again. “You have not done badly,” she said fondly.
He sat there, enjoying the stillness as the light slowly faded. Karan crossed back and forth in front of him with her quick, graceful step, now cutting out a circle of turf and the soil beneath, now lining the hollow with stones from the river, building a little nest of shredded bark and twigs. Ex pertly she set it smoldering with a single spark, blowing the spark into red fire and feeding it with larger sticks until it blazed up. She looked up and caught his eyes on her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I was just thinking how little your wrist hinders you. There seems to be nothing you can’t do for yourself.”
“The first time I broke it I was fleeing for my life. I had to do everything, and so I learned to. It healed quickly, but it troubled me even after I met you, for I’d set it badly. You and Rael did a better job—already the bones are knitting. There’s no pain anymore unless I jar it. But there’s no strength in it either. Go and bathe if you want to-I’ll cook tonight. Here,” she threw something at him. “Use my soap.”
Llian caught it and went downstream a little way, where he took off his clothes and stepped into the water. The stream was only a couple of paces wide and no deeper than his ankles. He squatted among the coarse pebbles and scrubbed himself with soap and handfuls of sand. The water was cold on his toes, but nothing like the Garr had been. It was invigoratingly cold, and his scoured skin tingled.
She glanced down at him once or twice as she cooked.
He’d lost weight on their trek and his shoulders seemed disproportionately broad, his ribs bony; yet he still had a care less, boyish charm. And he seemed to have gained something—he was more confident, less awkward.
Just then Llian looked up from drying himself with his shirt. He caught her gaze on him and, suddenly self-conscious, dropped the shirt into the water. He let out a yelp and darted after it, and Karan turned away with a smile.
“Only you would stand in the river to dry yourself,” she said as he came up.
“And where would you stand?” he asked with mock surliness.
“By the fire of course. Where else?”
She served the food with a flourish, with some of the dark granular Aachim bread and small sprigs of a minty herb that grew beside the stream. They ate silently, their only accompaniment the snapping and popping of the fire and the placid gurgle of the stream. Llian rinsed the plates in the river and stood them against a cobble to dry. Karan took a generous pinch of tiny pods from a bag, crushed them between two stones and brewed a special kind of coffee from them. While it was simmering she went down to the river and rejoiced in the cold water too. There had been so few opportunities before Shazmak. How she hated to be dirty.
“The coffee’s ready,” Llian called, and she wrung the water from her hair and came quickly up to the fire. She revolved slowly, bathing in the warmth, the firelight turning the drops on her pale skin into rubies, and her tangled hair to polished copper. Llian was watching her without expression, though she noticed that his hand shook as he poured the coffee, spilling it on his foot. She dried herself quickly on a clean shirt and wrapped her coat around her. She combed her tangles as best she could, dabbed lime perfume on the back of her neck and ran her fingers through her hair.
“I can’t remember when I last had such a cup,” she sighed, making a bowl around the mug with her hands and breathing the rich aroma. “I wonder where Rael… came by it. It doesn’t grow in Bannador anymore-the frosts are too hard. What a pity we have no wine.”
“No, but I’ve something that will serve,” said Llian, remembering the little silver flask that had lain in the bottom of his pack all the weeks since he left Chanthed. “It’s a liquor that we make in Chanthed in the winter. We drink it to celebrate an unexpected good fortune, or the return of a loved one.”
He unscrewed the cap on its silver chain and passed the flask to Karan. She sniffed cautiously then took a small sip. The liquor was thick and sweet, with a pungent aftertaste of wild herbs, and it burned her lips and throat. She took another small sip then passed the flask, with a smile, back to Llian.
There they sat in silence, on opposite sides of the fire, with their coffee and their thoughts. Karan looked serene in the flickering light, but Llian’s thoughts went back to the trial and the Mirror, and the entrancing possibility that the information he sought might lie within it. Dare he ask her again to see it? He hesitated to.
“We’re in my country now,” she said. “How I love it.”
“I didn’t know that Name was in Bannador.”
“Name isn’t. Horrible, ugly place, full of unpleasant people. The river marks the border here. Bannador is a long narrow land, right against the mountains.” She breathed a great sigh.
“You’re in good spirits tonight. Are you no longer afraid of Tensor?”
“I am. He will never give up. By morning they may even have crossed the river.”
“And after you’ve given the Mirror away?”
“He will pursue it rather than me. If he gets it, perhaps there will be an amnesty. Perhaps not. Who knows?”
“Could they have taken the ferry tonight?” Llian asked, suddenly afraid that the Aachim might even now be creeping toward them. He looked around him. The light from the fire flickered, throwing long shadows on the grass, turning the enveloping forest into a hard dark wall.
“I don’t think so. I’ve thought about it all day. How could they have reached Name in time? They might hire a ferry during the night, but how would they find us up here, in all the forest? No, they’ll wait.”
“So, what are you going to do with the Mirror now?”
She looked into his brown eyes. “I’ve made so many plans, and broken them all. At least, every option has been closed off, save the first. I will keep my oath to Maigraith after all, and take it to her liege in Sith. And pray that no evil comes of it. If we get up early, and get the first ferry across to Name, we can hire a boat and be in Sith in four days.”
“What then?”
“I get rid of the Mirror and go straight home to Gothryme. I’ve been gone much longer than I said I would.”
“How far is that from here?”
“It’s at the other end of Bannador. A week or two. So what will you do? Continue on to Thurkad?”
Karan held her breath, and Llian did too. They had only been together for a month, but it could have been years, so shocking was the realization that they might soon part and never see each other again.
“Well, that was my destination. I don’t know. I suppose I will head in that direction.”
Karan’s knuckles were white, so tightly were her fists clenched.
“And then, I’ve never spent time in Bannador.” He gave her a
sly glance from under his lashes. “What is it like at Gothryme this time of year? Would I be bored, do you imagine, if I went there for a day or two?”
“It is the most wonderful place on Santhenar, at any time of the year,” she said, laughing. “At least, if that is what you think. Here is an idea—what say you walk that far with me, and I will show you some of the special places that I know, and then, when the rains have eased and the snow is hard, and you have read all the Histories in our library, and told me all your tales, and we are heartily sick of one another, you can go on to wherever you want to.”
“Then it is settled. Who knows what I might find in your library. I will walk to Gothryme with you.”
She settled back with her eyes closed. Llian drifted away in his own thoughts. What could he make of the clue that Tensor had given him? Even if Tensor’s guess was right, it could have been any of the three Charon who had come to Santhenar after the flute. Three cities to search. What did he know of them?
Alcifer, Rulke’s great city and the closest of the three, was still inhabited. It lay on the coast less than a hundred leagues south of Sith. But doubtless Rulke’s records were long gone. Mendark would know, but would he tell?
Havissard, Yalkara’s fortress, lay far to the east, in the mountains of Crandor, not that far from Llian’s homeland, Jepperand. He knew nothing about Havissard.
Katazza, the island city of Kandor’s empire, was in the middle of the once beautiful Sea of Perion. But the sea had dried up long ago, and Katazza was abandoned after Kandor’s death. That was also a long way off, and no longer shown on current maps, which depicted the Dry Sea as a vast desolation. And if Tensor was wrong, Llian’s quest was no further advanced than when he’d left Chanthed.
* * *
“What did you do to the Syndics, Karan?” asked Llian a while later.
“It’s not easy to explain,” she said, thinking back on it. “I’m not sure that I understand it myself. I don’t even know where it comes from, that talent of mine: perhaps from my grandmother, Mantille, though it’s not a gift that is common among the Aachim. Perhaps from my own family. My talent allows me, sometimes, to sense the feelings or moods of certain people, even when they are far away. If the need is dire and the temper takes me, sometimes I can make a sending, even a link, though at cost of much pain and aftersickness.”
