A Shadow on the Glass

by Ian Irvine

  From the crest of the hill he looked back. The ferry was almost across to Name. The stony soil showed no footprints, not even his own. Forward the path disappeared in the thick forest that began part-way down the ridge.

  A feeling of woe grew in him. Something had happened to her—Tensor must have found a way across and used another of his potencies on her. That was why she had sent him away. He, Llian, should have been there to help her. What a fool, a cowardly wretch he was.

  Without any conscious decision he found himself jogging back to the camp. The further he went the more his disquiet grew; the jog turned to a run, the run to a sprint, he must not stop, not for the agony in his side or the throb of his head, down valley, across stream, up hill, across clearing he ran, on and on, gasping down each breath. At last, here was the brook cutting across the path. He dashed up, into the clearing, and stopped.

  There was no sound but his hacking breath. The grassy mound was shady, cold, damp, and the tall trees seemed to hang back from it. The tent was still there. The unease drained from him in a wave of relief. She must have decided to stay another day.

  “Karan,” he called. There was no answer.

  A shiver began to make its way up the back of bis neck. He walked across and saw that the tent was torn open. Karan’s pack lay half inside. It had been ripped apart, the frame smashed beyond repair. The contents were strewn about and broken. Inside the tent the blankets were in disarray. Llian picked one up. It was slashed and covered in blood. The others were the same. He dragged them out of the shelter. The ground beneath was also wet with blood, a great deal of it. More than one person could lose and still be alive. He threw himself on the ground and wept.

  PART THREE

  30

  * * *

  THE LINK

  When Faelamor finally poled the boat out of the channel into the reed thicket, it was near to sunset Ten hours had gone by since she had stolen Maigraith out of Fiz Gorgo. Maigraith was slumped against the side, feverish and only semiconscious, her blistered feet in a black, foul-smelling slurry of mud and swamp water that washed back and forth with every lurch of the boat They grounded suddenly on an island of mud. Maigraith gave a low moan and opened her eyes. They were sunken, the whites yellowed.

  Faelamor stepped out into the brown water and pulled the boat up onto the bank, though with the tall reeds all around there was no chance that it would drift away. Then she backtracked, teasing the bent reeds back to their former positions until there was no sign that anything had passed that way. She climbed onto the shelf of mud, exploring the island. The mud was soft on the surface but firm beneath and clung to her boots in sticky layers, so that it took an effort just to heave each foot forward. She forced her way through the reeds to the other side, then back again and across the other way. There was no dry land anywhere, just cold gray mud and the reeds and a single spindly tree, long dead. With sunset the mist began to rise.

  When she returned to the boat Maigraith was sitting up, retching over the side. She looked up as the boat rocked, then another spasm caught her and she clung to the side again. Faelamor watched her impassively.

  “We’ll make camp in the boat,” she said, when Maigraith was better again. “There’s nothing but mud here. Let me at tend you now, while there remains some light.”

  Faelamor eased the stiff fabric from her back and examined the wounds carefully. “You’ve taken in some poison here, and here,” she said, frowning. “I would guess that they had it on one of the instruments. I’ve a liniment that will help.”

  She took three steps to the other end of the boat to rummage in her pack. The wind cut into Maigraith’s back. Her coarse garments were already dank from the mist. The night was bleak. Faelamor returned and smeared her wounds with the ointment. The touch of her fingers was painful but the salve brought a relieving numbness.

  “I’ve nothing to dress your injuries with; they are too many, though they’ll heal quickly now. Put this on.” Faelamor took a long loose shirt out of her sack; it sighed over Maigraith’s shoulders and down her back like silk. Maigraith held it back up while Faelamor treated her remaining wounds.

  Maigraith woke late the next morning to find the boat sliding through an endless swamp forest. The water was dark, the color of tea, and speckled on the surface with yellowing leaves of the sard tree. The trees were tall, at least twenty spans, with enormous boles and multiple trunks; soft bark the color and texture of parchment hung down in banners or floated on the water in rafts. The boat was heading almost due north; the low sun struck at them through a gap in the trees.

  “Good morning,” she called out to Faelamor, who was poling the boat from the stern.

  Faelamor, who had evidently spent the night brooding about Maigraith’s failures, stared at her briefly, scowled and turned away without answering. All the morning they continued in the same direction; after every temporary detour Faelamor turned the boat due north. At midday Maigraith tried again.

  “Where are we going? Why north?”

  “Be silent!” she shouted at her. “I no longer trust you with my business. Ask no questions. You failed me, after all I taught you.”

  Faelamor turned away and resumed her poling, heaving the boat along with furious thrusts.

  Maigraith closed her eyes, laid her head on the side and tried to sleep. And sleep she did; that day and the next she spent more time asleep than awake, the boat rocking gently under her. And surprisingly, her dreams were gentle too, most of the time. Once only she dreamed of the Whelm and woke screaming. Faelamor was beside her at once, stroking her damp brow and murmuring to her in the language of the Faellem. As she drifted back to sleep she thought she saw a tinge of pity in Faelamor’s eyes, that she had never seen before. Pity—or sorrow. Something that Faelamor had never allowed herself to show.

  Whenever she woke the picture was the same: Faelamor standing at the stern, pole in hand, staring straight ahead with a face of stone. Twice a day she stopped briefly while they ate a silent meal of bread, smoked fish and dried fruits, washed down with the cold brown water from the swamp.

  On the fourth day Maigraith stirred well after midnight. The crescent of the rising moon slanted through the thin leaves, the white trunks stretching away in all directions like the columns of a temple. The boat was still, Faelamor taking a brief rest at the stern. Maigraith came softly up to her, laying a hand on her shoulder.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I failed you badly. But everything is not lost. Karan still has the Mirror. She will bring it to you. She swore a binding oath.”

  Faelamor woke up suddenly, dashing Maigraith’s hand away. Her ageless face suddenly cracked. “You wretched fool,” she said. “Don’t beg. I can never forgive you. I told you to go alone.”

  Maigraith took an involuntary step backwards, caught her heel on a rib of the boat and fell heavily against the side. Faelamor stared down at her with a bitterness rooted in the age-long frustration of the Faellem.

  “I had to have her help; I could not do it alone.”

  “Pah! This upstart Yggur is no match for you, for what I made of you.”

  “That may be so. Sometimes even / feel that I am strong. But there is one thing you neglected in my training, one vital thing. The will, the urge to dominate. I did my duty by you, sent away with Karan that thing which you want so badly; even overmastered Yggur for a time. I took no pleasure from that, and soon my will failed me. Later, when I knew him and what troubles him, I came to pity him. I learned that in Fiz Gorgo.”

  “Pity him!” Faelamor was incredulous, realizing for the first time that the instrument was flawed, and it was of her making. “After what he did to you? You must live to hate him, burn to destroy him. He showed no pity.”

  “I do not believe that he sent them for me. His control of the Whelm is failing; they serve him only so long as it suits them. And he is not the only one to have used me ill. Many times I have asked myself what vile crime my mother and father did, or was done to them. Why did you take me?
To what end do you instruct me? Why must I hide the color of my eyes?” Her voice rose until she almost screamed: “Who am I?” Then her tones became soft, pleading. “Why me? You have shown how easy it would have been for you, a master of illusion such as you are, to take the Mirror. Why did you not?”

  Faelamor was momentarily disconcerted by the attack and the unaccustomed display of emotion. By the knowledge that there were parts of Maigraith about which she knew nothing, over which she had no control. What had happened in Fiz Gorgo to transform her so?

  “Think what you will. It wasn’t easy, even for me. With the working of illusions the hard work is done before.”

  “You wanted to test me, test my training! To what purpose would you put me? The Faellem knew, for when I was a child they cast you into exile over it. Why will you not trust me? I have always been loyal. I think of nothing but my duty to you.” Her tones were plaintive now.

  Faelamor came close, looked into Maigraith’s eyes and laid a hand upon her brow. “Maigraith, Maigraith,” she said soothingly. “The fever burns in you and sends you wild imaginings. Come, you must rest now.”

  Almost at once Maigraith felt calmness descend upon her, the torturing emotions draining away. She straggled for a moment, but already the effort was too great and she allowed Faelamor to sit her down. A blanket was placed around her shoulders and she gripped it and pulled it tight, suddenly very cold. She sat with her back against the side, shivering, staring with unfocused eyes into the swamp. Faelamor was busy down the other end, then she came back with a small bowl in her hand.

  “Drink this,” she said. “It will ease the pain and the fever and help you to sleep.”

  But the pain is gone and there is no fever, thought Maigraith drowsily, looking into the bowl. A small quantity of a thick, metallic-looking liquid lay there, moving sluggishly, like quicksilver in the thin moonlight.

  “Drink,” said Faelamor, and she drank. Faelamor watched her carefully, noted her swallow, then took the bowl and put it away.

  As she did so Maigraith sank her head down on her arms, and under their cover allowed the remaining liquid to dribble out of the corner of her mouth onto the side of the boat, where it ran down into the muddy bilge and disappeared. Even as she did she was overcome by weariness. She slumped against the side and was instantly asleep.

  Faelamor looked down at Maigraith. In her robes she made a dark shapeless lump, with one bare slender arm stretched along the gunwale. I am not barren of pity, she mused, but pity does not benefit my quest. I will not give it up, or you, but I must be more careful with you.

  She eased herself out of the boat onto a small, reedy is land. There she found a clearing among the reeds where some low herbs grew, and sat down, trailing her fingers through the aromatic leaves. How did I come to this?

  To lead the Faellem to Santhenar—how I strove for that honor in Tallallame, uncounted ages ago. How I burned for it. How eagerly I reached for the glory; how carelessly I assumed the duty. Did I know then that there would be no respite from that duty, save in death? I can no longer remember. Happy are the Faellem to put their burdens on their leader.

  Yet so reluctantly did the congress send us here. Duty drove us, and fear. Once the Charon broke free of Aachan we had to follow. The Three Worlds are linked. We had to oppose them for the sake of the balance, for everything touches everything else. But how we hated Santhenar. Oh, there is beauty here, of a sort, but nothing as to Tallallame. So lonely we were. So lonely am I. How I long to have my people about me, enfolding me. This remnant I brought here are corrupted, as I am…

  I led the Faellem here, and I must take them back. But no one was made for such an impossible task. The Forbidding was seamless, impenetrable. Duty bound me to find a way, but there was no way. The conflict almost drove me beyond my wits, and my loneliness became unbearable. Then my enemy Yalkara, cunning beyond belief, found with the Twisted Mirror a warp in the Forbidding; but she closed it behind her when she fled. Utter despair followed swiftly upon that brief hope, and it was then that my corruption began. Brooding, searching, spying, at last a hope came to me, and an opportunity.

  Perhaps if you knew us better, Maigraith, you would understand how, seeing at last a way home, I did this terrible wrong to make it so. Little wonder that I hate you so. I made you, and when I look at you, all I see is my own debasement.

  The soliloquy became a vigil, and Faelamor sat silently on the grass, staring up at the stars until they faded with the dawn.

  Maigraith woke late, with a dry mouth and a dull feeling in her temple. The events of the previous evening were curiously distant, though she knew with an awful urgency that she must remember. She forced her dull mind back. As she did so she looked up and caught Faelamor’s gaze on her, a gaze of particular intentness.

  “How my head aches this morning,” she said, wrinkling her forehead and turning away so that Faelamor would not see the sudden remembrance in her eyes.

  “But the fever is gone, I see. My medicine was effective then.”

  “I suppose so, though I have no memory of it. What day is it?”

  “It’s the morning of the fourth since I brought you out of Fiz Gorgo. What do you remember?”

  “The chamber of the Whelm. I could never forget that. You came for me,” she said in a dreaming tone. “Stone corridors. My feet paining me, and my back. All of me hurting. You lifted me into a boat This boat,” she said looking around her. “For a long time we seemed to be drifting through a forest of great white trees, though that could have been a dream. No, unless we are still in it, for such trees are all about. I knew you would come for me,” she said smiling at Faelamor, and Faelamor smiled back at her and touched her on the shoulder, though there was still a wary look in her eye.

  Later she questioned Maigraith at length about the stealing of the Mirror, the Whelm, and Yggur, but especially about Karan. Maigraith did not know what to say, torn between loyalty and duty. The Whelm had been curious about Karan as well. What was it about her? That she was sensitive? Why were they so exultant when she’d betrayed Karan’s ancestry? What had Vartila said? Now I know what to use against her.

  I warned Karan to conceal her heritage. I should have warned her about me. Never to trust me. What have I betrayed her to? Death, or slavery?

  “Curious,” said Faelamor. “There are depths to Karan that I had not imagined. This talent of linking—where can it have come from? I must know more about her. Her family seat is near Tolryme, you once said. One of the Faellem dwelt there in ages past, and it was rumored that he fathered a daughter, though of course she never came to us. Perhaps something remains in the line.”

  But Maigraith was not listening. She was consumed by guilt and shame; terribly afraid for Karan. She said no more about her.

  In the middle of that day they poled through a band of rushes into a small lake. Across the lake they abandoned the boat, walking for another day through forest before coming into a village beside a river that flowed east rather than west. There Faelamor bought a canoe for a few pieces of silver.

  “This stream flows into the Hindirin River,” she said. They traveled day and night after that, as best they could, for there was no moon. Faelamor was desperate to find Karan, even though such a long time had gone by that she knew the hope of her still having the Mirror was faint indeed.

  One day, when they had stopped so that Maigraith could climb the high banks and find out where they were, she saw that the forest was gone save for a narrow band along the river. Grassy plains extended as far as she could see.

  “Good progress,” said Faelamor when she climbed back into the canoe.

  “We should come to a city downriver,” said Maigraith. “Preddle it is called. If we are to go openly I must have other clothing, and boots in any case.”

  “I see only two choices,” said Faelamor, “assuming that Karan is still going to Sith. We can go south-east, cross the Hindirin at Galardil, go through the Zarqa Gap and enter Iagador from the south, or we can go no
rth-east and cross into Iagador over the mountains. The southern way is longer; on the other hand the passes may all be blocked if there has been heavy snow.”

  “There are two passes that might be open,” said Maigraith. “There is the one from Hetchet to Bannador, through Tullin. But that is too far from here. The other is the old road across the mountains from Preddle to Name and Sith. I came that way only a year ago. It is the most direct way from here to Iagador, though still a month’s journey. From Name we can go down the river to Sith, or north to Bannador and Thurkad. Those are the places she will head for.”

  “Let me go to Preddle and buy the things you need, and food. I will seek information while I am there. Then I will decide.”

  They paddled on until they came to the hovels that sig naled the outskirts of the city. Faelamor put a different appearance upon herself and went to Preddle. Maigraith paddled back upstream, hid the canoe in the trees and slept, but only for a little while. She was restive now that Faelamor was not there, and there was a great deal to think about.

  What would Yggur do? Would he send after her? For a while it had seemed that what she could tell him was secondary to the planning of his campaign, his struggle with the Whelm and his own nightmare. As though he did not know what to do with her. No, he would not pursue—she’d been a diversion, something that had intrigued him, but now he would carry on with his own campaign. What would happen then? And what of the Whelm?

  And she began to understand the nature of her own conflict. She was growing out of Faelamor’s shadow; there must be more for her than simply duty. There must be.

  * * *

  It was mid-afternoon when Faelamor returned. “We must go over the mountains,” she said, as Maigraith threw off the robes she had worn for the past days and donned her new clothes. “There was no talk but of the marching of Yggur’s armies from Orist, and from the south. They are advancing on Iagador through the Zarqa Gap and all the bridges are under guard. We cannot go that way.”