A Shadow on the Glass

by Ian Irvine

  She questioned Emmant about Karan, trying to identify that illusory quality about her that had bothered her so much at their only meeting. But the picture was one full of hate and bitterness—he made Karan detestable, treacherous.

  Everywhere I go I find her deceptions and betrayals, she thought. She and Emmant deserve each other. For she saw clearly the weakness in Emmant; the violence and the dangerous, crazy cunning; the obsession. And she saw something that she could use, and pursued it, drawing out of him his weaknesses until he was driven into a frenzy of hate and despair.

  And suddenly he said something that struck her like a bolt of fire.

  “Karan is a cross, like me, but a lesser one, only a quarter. Why the Aachim…”

  “No, she is a blending of…” she began, then realized suddenly that he could not possibly know what she suspected, that Karan had blood of the Faellem in her. She was almost afraid to listen. “What did you say?”

  “Her grandmother was full-Aachim, a distant cousin to Tensor. Mantille was her name.”

  “Already a blending!”

  Faelamor was so shocked that she could barely retain control of her face. This was much, much worse. Perhaps she was a triune, one with the blood of all the Three Worlds. No wonder Maigraith was drawn to her. An accident of history, unrecognized, uncontrolled; and so vile, so treacherous. Faelamor had been right to fear her. And Karan had the Mirror now, or at least had it not long ago. How had such a one come to be uncontrolled, this blending of a blending, this wild triune?

  Fear struck deep into her heart—her own quest was also on a blade. What might this triune be capable of? What chain of events might she set off; perhaps had already begun? How might she divert the order that Faelamor had spent so long shaping? No room for sentiment here, or honor, the danger was too great to let her live. And what finer weapon than this wretch before her? He might be made to serve both purposes at once.

  And yet she must confirm it, must go to Gothryme. There might be sisters, brothers just as deadly. More important than even the Mirror, this.

  Faelamor had tried to tempt Emmant to give her her freedom, but not for himself would he betray the Aachim, or for her. Not for me, no, and why should he? But for Karan—if I could give her to him, I believe he would do it. And it would serve my own purpose, for he is full of such lust and hatred that he would destroy her in the end. Once set upon the task nothing would divert him, neither hunger nor exhaustion nor fear of death.

  And Emmant, sensing that she could give him what he most desired, came back again.

  “The woman that you lust after,” she said to him. “I will tell you how you can have her.”

  Emmant’s eyes glittered but his face remained sour, the curving scars white through his beard. “She will never submit.”

  “I will show you the way.”

  He sat there unmoving, staring through the bars, his eyes never leaving her face, hating her more than anyone. ‘Tell me,” he said at last.

  “She has a talent of linking. It can be used to take control of her will. I see that you too have a small talent to sense the minds of others. That is not uncommon among the crosses of the Aachim,” she said, making little effort to conceal her contempt “I will show you how to make a link that she can never break. Then you may do with her as you wish. But of course if you truly love her…”

  Emmant was impatient now. “And what must I do in return?” he said angrily. “I cannot free you. There are too many guards now, too many checks. I have already thought on it.”

  “You will leave Shazmak by the secret way. You will go to Bannador and there seek out the Whelm near Name. Show them the secret way into Shazmak, and the disabling of the Sentinels. Tell them that Karan hid the Mirror here. That will bring them.”

  “The Whelm! I cannot do it.”

  “They are not your enemies,” said Faelamor, closing her mind. “What can a handful of Whelm do against the might of the Aachim, that has endured for millennia?”

  “Then how will you free yourself?” he asked, not caring, hoping that they would smash her, smash everything, yet wondering.

  “I have a power over them,” she replied. “They cannot hold me.” Not much is needed to convince you, my friend, she thought contemptuously. You are so rotten that any excuse will suffice, even if you betray your own. No wonder you Aachim gave up your world so easily. No Faellem would ever betray her world or her people.

  “How can I make this link?” he asked, and Faelamor knew she had him.

  “Do you have some thing of hers that I can use? Something that she has held close about her? Something perhaps that you have secreted away?”

  His sour face brightened briefly and he went away without speaking, only nodding to the guards at the outer cell. When he returned he had in one thick hand a fine silver chain. A small jade amulet hung from it.

  “This was hers?” asked Faelamor. “You are sure of it?”

  “Yes. I took it from her room when she was in Shazmak last, only weeks ago. I tried it already but could not make it work. Perhaps she has an immunity to such charms.”

  She examined it. “There is a residuum here, a puerile, common thing,” she said. “Little wonder.”

  He cringed, but said nothing. He could wait.

  “Give it to me, then go. Return in the morning.”

  The next morning Emmant was there before dawn. Faelamor was already awake. She handed the chain back to him.

  “When you find her, give this to her and bid her put it on. I laid a certain wile within it during the night. Follow the instructions that I give you. A link will be formed between her and you, and she will be unable to break it. She will bow to your will.”

  “And she will love me? I have your word?” A whine had crept into his voice.

  “Would you trust my word? If so, I give it to you freely.” Then, in a low voice, she told him exactly what he must do.

  Still Emmant hesitated. “How will I find her?”

  “Go to Name and seek her friend, one called Maigraith. You are sensitive, I can tell.” She linked to Emmant and showed him Maigraith, so that he could not mistake her. “She will lead you to Karan. If that fails, look for her in Thurkad. Already Yggur sweeps on Iagador and there is nowhere but Thurkad that can resist him. Do what you must, then keep the Mirror safe for me. I will come to Thurkad for it.”

  “I must give Maigraith a reason for seeking Karan, else she will be suspicious.”

  “Tell her that you bear a message from Tensor, a message of conciliation. She will know that Tensor was like a father to Karan once. She will believe that he could forgive her. And tell Maigraith that I am held in Shazmak, but not to come here, for I will free myself. Tell her that we must speak, and to seek me at Tolryme, in Bannador. Go now and go in disguise; Maigraith may have heard of you.”

  Ten days passed while Faelamor clung to the bars of her cell and waited, hoping that she had judged Maigraith right. She will come. Already she will be regretting what she said to me, and she will be guilty and confused. She needs me—she will always need me, and her duty will call her back. It must. But will she come?

  In the early morning she was awakened by cries and battle, then all at once the Sentinels failed and she walked free of her cell. She took upon herself a disguise and watched, appalled by what she had done; sickened by the ferocity of the Whelm. Their power over the Aachim was manifest. Where had they come from, and so many?

  Then a dreadful realization dawned. These were not Whelm, no longer Whelm. More than Whelm—Ghâshâd! He stirred; the Mirror was loose; a wild triune at large. He would know what to do with her.

  32

  * * *

  THE TRIUMPH

  OF THE WHELM

  When he had wept until he could weep no more Llian rose, his heart an icy fist of rage, and submerged his grief in the searching of the campsite. He put his hand in the ashes but they were cold. They must have come soon after he had fled, Llian thought bitterly. Karan knew they were coming. Why di
d she demand that promise? Why did she drive him away? Why had he gone?

  It was mid-morning now, two hours after Maigraith and Faelamor found the campsite, and as long again before Faelamor returned alone. Searching by the stream he found bootprints—heavy folk with long narrow feet—and nearby a smaller print, though larger than Karan’s foot. There might have been five, or even more.

  Karan’s belongings made a pitiful bundle when he finished collecting them: the cooking pot still lay where he had washed it the previous night but her mug and plates were trodden on and bent. The food bag was undamaged though the contents were scattered on the ground. He picked the food up mechanically and put it back. Her boots were slashed apart, even the heels wrenched off in their frantic search, though her other clothing, with the exception of the heavy cloak, which was gone, had not been damaged. Hairbrush, socks, knife, all bloody; rope, the soapstone jar of ointment, the lightglass, all scattered or trodden into the mud. He found her little journal under the tent, covered in mud, somehow missed in the dark. The hatchet was halfburied in the ground. He picked up what was not ruined and put it into the food bag.

  Could she be alive? He allowed himself a little hope. It might not be her blood. This attack seemed too vicious, too vindictive to be the Aachim. But then, what did he know of them? How would they treat an outcast, a betrayer? No, it had the mark of the Whelm, especially the nightmares.

  And she knew they were coming, yet had not tried to get away. She had seemed resigned to it, as though they had done something to strip her will from her. If that was so, why had they not used that power before? She’d had just enough strength to send him away. Oh, Karan!

  At the end of his search Llian saw something white behind a log at the edge of the clearing. It turned out to be half of the plaster cast, rudely hacked down its length during the search for the Mirror. He carried it out into the clearing and sat down with it on his knee.

  A wave of desolation swept over him. Everything that made Karan what she was, gone to nothing. He traced the curves of her arm printed on the plaster. How slender her wrists, how small and delicate her hands. How he missed her. How he loved her! The realization was quite shocking. He had never felt this way before, not at all. Why had she been taken away from him? Where was justice?

  There he sat, head bowed, the drizzle making little beads on his hair and trickling down his face. His thoughts turned at last to the Mirror. “I will not speak of it, tonight of all nights,” she had said. Even at the time he’d wondered what she meant. Even then she had known. She would not give the Minor away that easily. Where had she hidden it, so that even the Aachim could not find it?

  Looking down, he realized that he still held the plaster cast on his knee. No, it could not have been that simple. They’d searched beneath the cast; they said so at the trial. And not inside it, either, for he’d watched Rael mix the plaster and spread it over her arm, over and around the splint. He weighed the cast in his hand, looked at it more closely. The cut edge was jagged. There were a few spots of blood on it. Her blood! Abruptly he flung the stained thing from him. It struck a rock and cracked, exposing the end of one of the hollow metal rods. That reminded Llian of the whole sorry business back in Shazmak. How he had searched Karan’s room and been caught—embarrassing to think about, even now.

  Llian bent down and picked up the piece of plaster. He broke the plaster off the rod, rubbing it on his trousers until the beautifully worked surface was clean. He found the other piece, half-hidden in the leaves and cleaned it off as well, working without even thinking about it. He idly tried to screw the two rods back together, but they wouldn’t go. There was something inside this one. He eased it out with a twig—a tightly coiled scroll of dark metal. It unrolled by itself and hardened into a sheet of black metal the size of a leaf from a book, with a reflecting material like mercury set within the black frame. His face—dirty, unkempt, whiskery—stared back at him from the brilliant surface.

  Llian gazed at the Mirror in astonishment. It had not occurred to him that it would be coiled up—why would it? Rael and he had both known those rods were there, but did not even think of them, once the cast was made. And the Whelm had searched hastily, in darkness. Karan must have put it inside when he went to fetch Rael for the plaster.

  How desperate he had been to see it. He didn’t want it now—it didn’t belong to him. Then he came suddenly to his senses. What was he doing, sitting here in the open with it in his hands? Anyone could be out there, watching and waiting.

  Suppressing the urge to look over his shoulder he slid the Mirror into a deep inside pocket of his cloak and buttoned the flap down, reminding himself to sew it in later, so that it couldn’t possibly be lost. It coiled tightly in the darkness. He tossed the plaster cast casually back on the ground.

  If I were a passing vagabond or a treacherous friend I would take all this, he thought, checking Karan’s remaining possessions. At least I look the part. He cut off the unstained portion of a blanket and made a bundle of the items, slinging the swag over his shoulder on a piece of rope.

  It was late morning now. Which way had they gone? Searching downstream he found the imprint of a long boot. Further downhill, on the other side of the path, there were more footprints, heavy nailed boots, broad and long. Llian examined them closely. One set was particularly deep. The others were fainter: just the impress of a nail-studded heel here, the crescent edge of a sole there. Was that a splash of blood on the moss? He touched one of the rusty spots with a fingertip, sniffed it. Blood, but whose? Hope welled. They must keep her alive, since they hadn’t found the Mirror.

  Llian followed the stream down toward the Garr. Twice he saw other prints, smaller and lighter, that he wondered at, but no more blood. They were the marks left by Maigraith and Faelamor but a few hours earlier, though of course he did not know it. The drizzle turned to misty rain. Suddenly a horse whinnied right in front of him. Two horses, tethered on long ropes, and the ropes already tangled. Without even thinking, Llian cut them free and kept on.

  The gentle valley grew steeper and more rocky, the rivulet deeper and faster and more overgrown. Vines scram bled through the tall trees; ferns grew profusely underfoot and hung from every branch. The air was thick with moisture. Around midday he stopped to gnaw a piece of dark bread, for once having thought of food he realized that he was famished. The rain began to fall heavily.

  All day he searched. Before the sun set the forest was covered in a gray mist and there was no further trace of them. Down nearer the river the going was so tangled that he made less than a thousand paces in an hour, and knew that there was almost no hope of finding her. Should he wait for dawn? Their tracks would be lost anyway, with the rain. But they must be making for the river and a secret boat, else they would have taken the path.

  He went on, picking his way along the edge of the stream until it grew dangerously steep. There he was forced to turn away into the forest. It was more open along the ridge line. He made good progress and soon emerged on a rind of steeply sloping cleared land. Beyond lay the river, below a rocky bank three or four spans high. Llian followed the clearing upstream. Five minutes’ walk and he found the rivulet again as it cascaded into the Garr over a stepped waterfall, thrice his own height. The rain had cleared but in the dim starlight no tracks were visible. He sat down on a rock to think.

  Why come this way unless there was a boat waiting? Were they gone already, or did they wait for the night? He curled up on the damp soil beneath a bush to wait.

  * * *

  Llian woke suddenly from a troubled sleep. The pale radiance of the Chain of the Tychid filtered through the foliage. He rolled out of his cloak and peered through the vines that screened his camp from the river bank. The starlight gleamed from every leaf and blade, almost bright enough to read by.

  Llian stood up and made as if to step out of the forest when he was arrested by a hollow thump: the noise, he realized, that had wakened him. It was followed by a metallic tapping, as against stone; dist
ant, as though it came from the river. Without thinking he slipped out of the forest and crept on his belly to the river bank. There he concealed himself in the bushes that grew along the edge and looked down.

  A boat was tied up fore and aft, some fifty paces away. It was long and narrow, with a projection at the front. A shadowy figure, tall and bulky, stood there looking up. Another figure had just begun to scale the rocky upper bank. It reached the top and crouched on the edge, looking this way and that, then, apparently satisfied, slipped across the verge and into the forest. Had Llian not turned aside he would have walked right into them. He worked his way back to the forest and crept closer.

  When he was only a few paces from where the figure had disappeared, he wormed his way inside a straggly bush with long, drooping leaves and a faint odor of camphor. There was not long to wait. A sudden crunch of twigs and five tall figures emerged, clad alike in hoods and cloaks of dark cloth, belted at the waist. One came, then two carrying a stretcher between them, then another two with a similar burden.

  The first paused at the edge of the forest, looked around, then beckoned to the others. As they passed, starlight fell upon them through a gap in the trees. A wisp of long gray hair escaped from beneath the hood of the leader: Llian saw a woman of middle age with a strong sharp face and a long chin. The faces of the others were not clearly visible. Llian’s eyes turned to the first stretcher. It bore a man, Whelm, of middle age, tall and heavily built. Long dark hair fell over the stained bandage around his forehead. His chest was bandaged as well, the bandage dark with blood. His eyes were closed and he was tied to the stretcher.

  On the second stretcher, wrapped in her tattered cloak, feet bare, her hair tangled, eyes wide open, staring unblinkingly at the place where he stood, was Karan. She, too, was bound to the stretcher. Llian stood, shocked into immobility. Before his sluggish mind could formulate a plan to rescue her the first stretcher had disappeared over the edge of the river bank and the woman was shepherding the second down the steep slope close behind.