by Ian Irvine
Llian looked around wildly. Nothing he ever did seemed to go right. The guard appeared, staggering out of his guardhouse with sword in hand. What could he do? Was there any way of breaking this Sentinel? He tried to pick it up but it wouldn’t move, as though something was holding it down. He kicked it, hurting his toes. It was unharmed.
Suddenly inspired, Llian whipped out the oilskin and squeezed the contents in through the slit. The clanging grew muddy but the violet glare was as baleful as ever. The guard pounded toward him. Llian ripped the lamp off the wall, smashed the glass and touched the wick to the Sentinel. A small yellow flame grew there. Just in time, for the guard was almost on him, swinging his sword in unsteady arcs. Llian hurled the broken lamp at his head, missed, turned to run and slipped on a patch of oil.
He fell right into the path of the guard, who took a tremendous swipe with his sword. Had it connected it would have taken his head clean off, but Llian fell flat on his face and it whirred above him. The guard overbalanced and fell, landing on Llian’s back, knocking the breath out of him and cracking his jaw against the floor. The sword clattered across the flagstones. Llian lay still, winded and stunned.
The guard clouted Llian over the head. Then, as Karan stood with her hands out, straining against the Sentinel but helpless to do anything, he kicked Llian in the ribs, three times, and staggered across to his sword. Llian groaned and pushed himself to hands and knees, spitting blood.
Karan screamed, a terrible ululation. The guard looked over his shoulder, then hefted the sword. At the same moment flames burst out of the top of the Sentinel, something tinkled inside, the clanging wheezed to a stop and the violet glare went out, leaving the corridor lit only by the guard’s lantern, which lay on its side on the floor. The guard did not even look around, so intent was he on bloody murder. The sword reached its apex. Llian tried to scramble backwards but, like a cat on ice, kept slipping on the oil.
Karan came out of the cell like a bullet, leapt high and her knees struck the guard in the back of the neck. Her outstretched hand caught his sword arm and knocked it sideways. He smashed into the floor and did not move. Karan heaved Llian to his feet, snatched up the sword and yelled, “Which way?”
Llian pointed back up the corridor toward the guardhouse.
“No, that’s the way they’ll come. Quick, grab that lamp!”
Llian did as he was told, Karan took his hand and they ran down the corridor into the dark. Already they could hear distant shouting. Around another corner, another corridor junction, up a little staircase. Karan suddenly stopped, out of breath but laughing.
“Firebug! Can’t you think of any other way to rescue me! And don’t think I invite any old errand boy to my bed. Now, where are we going?”
Llian was delighted to see the old Karan back again, even if it was just a shadow of her normal self. “A secret tunnel, but it’s a long way away—right on the other side of the citadel. I don’t see how we can get there from here, with the whole place alerted.”
“Well, most of the guards have gone to the war. Give me the map. Stick your head around the corner and see if you can see any lights.”
“Nothing!”
“We’re here, right?”
He laboriously worked out their position and nodded.
“Where’s the tunnel?”
Llian traced out his route.
“That far?” She frowned. “Well, we’d better get as far away from here as possible. Let’s take these stairs, right up to the top. It’s a bit further, but maybe they won’t expect us to go that way.”
The stairs were narrow and very steep, a service way, nothing like the grand affairs in the main parts of the citadel. They wound their way up six or seven floors, stopped for a breather, then up the remaining two to the top floor of the citadel.
At the top she stopped, panting, trying not to make a noise. “I’m so weak,” she cried in frustration. “I’ll just have to sit down for a minute.”
Llian was glad of the excuse. He kept watch while Karan unshuttered the lamp and consulted the map again. “This place is a warren,” he said. “A dozen staircases, a hundred corridors. They can’t search them all at once.”
“Anyone in sight?”
“No!”
“Then we’ll go right across this floor to the other side, then all the way down. That should bring us out quite close to your secret tunnel. What do you think?”
They scampered along, turning the corner into a much wider corridor that was carpeted, hung with tapestries and portraits. Some of the doors were open, revealing opulent, empty rooms. Halfway along, passing a massive set of double doors, someone said, “Right away!” and the door was flung open.
“Don’t look back!” Karan muttered, gripping Llian’s arm. “Just walk normally, as though you are any other servant.”
Faint hope! thought Llian, considering the state of your rags.
“Hoy! You there!” The call echoed along the corridor.
“It’s Thyllan,” said Karan. “Run!”
They fled.
“After them!” Thyllan boomed. “Guards, to the east stairs!”
They reached the end of the corridor, skidding on the carpet, and hurtled down the first flight. Llian stopped on the landing, holding his ribs.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ll manage.”
Halfway down the second flight they heard their pursuers reach the top of the stairs. They ran until Llian could run no more, until Karan felt like a limp rag.
“This is the last,” she panted. “Do you remember where to go now?”
“I think this way,” gasped Llian. He hobbled ten or twelve paces along the corridor, then back. “No, it’s that way.” He ran a bit further, then stopped. “I’m not sure.”
Karan had the map out. A horde was clattering down the stairs. “Follow me,” she cried, running past him and folding the map up as she ran. She took a left turn into a wider corridor.
“Yes, I’m sure I remember this way,” said Llian. Behind them the pursuing guards appeared, only a spear-cast away. Now another group poured around the corner before them. Trapped!
“Down here!” Karan darted into a side passage, then right, left, and left again into an even narrower one. They’d temporarily lost their pursuers, gained perhaps a minute. Suddenly they burst into an unfurnished room that had no other door. “Is this it?”
“Yes! Yes it is! I took note of those marks on the wall.”
“Then find the way out! I’ll try to stop them.” She held out the guard’s short sword.
The instructions for opening this door were different. Four separate bumps on the wall had to be touched in sequence. Llian tried a set that looked right. Nothing. Another set, but the wall remained a wall: cold, grimy and damp. A third set. A fourth, his fingers dancing over every bump, every knob on the wall.
Clang! The sound of sword on sword. He looked back. Karan was waving the blade around in what looked like a professional manner, and in the narrow hall only one guard could get at her at a time. But he was head and shoulders above her, and his weapon much longer. It could only end one way. It would have ended already save that they had orders to keep her alive.
“Give up,” cried Llian, knowing that one slip of the blade and she would be dead.
“Be damned!” she cried. “Find it, you fool!”
Llian kept at it. Then, when he was beginning to think that he was in the wrong place, even the wrong room, the wall gave a groan and started to revolve.
“Karan,” he screamed. “I’ve got it!”
At the same moment the fellow slipped his sword under Karan’s guard and sent her weapon flying. She jumped backwards, but he was desperately fast. In three strides he had her by the arm, a grip that was unshakeable. Behind him were a dozen others, and Thyllan too. There was no escape.
“Go, Llian,” she said softly to his mesmerized face. “I’ll be all right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Don’t count on it,” grated Thy
llan.
Llian realized that she spoke sense. They had no reason to treat him kindly. He waved, jumped through the doorway and slapped the other side of it. It began to close.
The big man who was holding Karan let her go and raced forward. Immediately she flung herself free of the other guard and darted across the room, making a diversion so Llian could get away. The big guard jammed his foot in the door, then looked back to see what she was doing. The door closed, grinding away as though there was no resistance. The guard screamed and tried to pull his foot out but it was too late. Bones cracked; he screamed again, trapped by his mangled pulp of a foot. The door slammed shut.
Llian shuddered. He lit the lamp. Better get on his way- they’d soon force the door, or break it. He squeezed the dribble that remained in his oilskin into the lamp and began the journey back.
“You’re a fool, Llian! No wonder they threw you out of the College. What on earth were you thinking?” Mendark had been in a black rage even before Llian came staggering in to report his fruitless journey.
“How could I leave her there once I had seen her? You did nothing for her.”
“Nothing?” Mendark was beside himself. “I’ve been working day and night for a week on this Conclave, and now you’ve mucked it all up. You had no business being anywhere near there. Do you realize what you’ve done? Thyllan doesn’t have to come to the Conclave now. And what if you were caught and he learned what you were after? He’s no fool. He would have a hundred scribes in there by now, in spite of the war, and if there was anything to be found, he would have found it. And you found nothing at all!”
“The records were obviously cataloged by an idiot,” said Llian. “There wasn’t time.”
“I cataloged them myself,” said Mendark coldly. “Never make excuses to me!”
“Well, I found nothing that seemed useful. Maybe when I’ve—”
“Aaarrgh! Get out of my sight. Tallia? Tallia!
Llian made himself scarce. He hadn’t been game to tell Mendark about the stolen letters.
* * *
That night he couldn’t sleep for thinking about his folly, and how Karan would suffer for it. In the middle of the night he started going through the letters. A sleety dawn rain was spattering on his window by the time he found the next clue. It was in a letter from Kandor to Rulke, written over a thousand years ago, when the Clysm, the devastating war between Charon and Aachim, was at its height.
17 Mard, 4201
My dear Rulke,
I am so weary of war, and this world, that I would do anything to end it. The loss of Perion [he referred to the ruin of his empire after the Sea of Perion dried up] has eaten the heart out of me. Once more I beg you—share what you know with me. Say the word and everything I have is yours. I will even bend the knee to you. You know how much that takes, but I am beaten.
Something happened at the time of the Forbidding. I have spent a fortune trying to find out what it was. Was it you? Let us come together on this—we are both Charon. I think you forget that sometimes. I beg you, by the one thing that you cannot refuse, that tops all other considerations: the survival of our species.
I have written to Yalkara as well. I will gladly bring what I have to Alcifer, if you will it. I wait upon your reply.
Kandor
At last, vindication!
There was no record of a reply from Rulke. Llian knew that Kandor had been killed about a thousand years ago. Had any meeting, any exchange ever taken place? If not, might Kandor’s papers still be in his abandoned stronghold, Katazza?
What was the date of his death? Learning dates was childhood stuff, done in the first year of Llian’s sojourn at the college, nearly sixteen years ago. Kandor’s death was quite easy to remember—Galend 22, 2092, measured in years after the Forbidding. One thousand and six years ago, almost to the day. But Kandor’s letter used the Charon calendar, dating from their conquest of Aachan.
Llian converted the dates. The letter had been written more than a year before Kandor was killed. Time enough for the two, and Yalkara as well, to have met. But if so, Llian had seen nothing in the files. He’d have to get back into the archives to be sure. If there was nothing there, the next step was a journey to Katazza. Either way, he would need the money and resources that only Mendark had.
Llian tried several times to see him, to put this proposal to him, but Mendark was frantically busy and would not admit him. It would have to wait until after the Conclave.
40
* * *
THE GREAT
CONCLAVE
It was the night before the Great Conclave, long past midnight. Mendark and Tallia stood before Mendark’s desk, which was piled high with maps and papers and scrolls partly unrolled. They had been reviewing the protocols for the Conclave and discussing strategies all day. Llian, still exiled, was hunched up in a chair by a downstairs fire.
Suddenly there was an altercation. A bell rang in the hall. Tallia went to the window that looked down on the gate and pushed it open. The intruders were clearly visible in the light from the guardhouse. “It is Tensor,” she called over her shoulder, “and there are Aachim with him, eight or nine of them. Shall I allow them?”
Mendark nodded and she called out to the guards to let them through, her voice pealing like a bell in the night silence. She went down to open the door.
“Tensor!” Llian cried when she told him on the way down. He ran toward the back door. Tallia caught his wrist.
“Quiet! Do you think he concerns himself with pawns at a time like this? Go upstairs.”
Shortly she came up and Tensor followed, mud-spattered and weary. He refused all offers of refreshment.
“There is a Conclave tomorrow,” he said. “To what purpose?” He looked around the room, his eyes piercing Llian. “Karan is here?”
Mendark told Karan’s story again, briefly, wearily.
Tensor reproached himself bitterly. “Emmant! That was my doing. I should have foreseen this, after the Syndics cast him out. He was a very unhappy man. So Karan is taken, and the Mirror too. What can a Conclave do?”
“It was to bring them out of the citadel, though after Llian’s stupidity yesterday, maybe not.” He related what Llian had done.
Tensor inspected Llian as though he was a maggot in the dinner.
“The Zain has neither ethics nor honor, nor, it seems, much intelligence,” he said. “Well, that later. Here is my news. We sought Karan for weeks, after Shazmak, but fruitlessly, and, until recently, harried by the Whelm. Then they vanished—they have learned to fear us! We searched as far south as Sith, though we could not get into the city, and in Bannador before the burning, but she was not there. Even to get here was an ordeal—Thurkad is ringed by great armies and must fall. After this there will be no power in Meldorin but Yggur—and the Aachim. Even as I left Shazmak my people were readying themselves.”
“Then you have not been back since Karan fled?”
“So I said. But we are ready. Long have we guarded our strength for this time.”
He turned to go, then stopped at the door. “I have not forgotten you, Llian of Chanthed. We will yet have our reckoning.” Then he was gone.
“Mendark!” said Llian. “I need to talk to you.” “Go away. We will also have a reckoning, you and I, but not tonight.”
The Conclave began in the late morning, in the Great Hall of old Thurkad. That was a long, high hall, very plain, the walls and vaulted roof paneled in dark ironwood. It was very ancient, a remnant of the earliest city, and had a special place in the hearts of the people of Thurkad. The hall was austerely furnished, with only a large table at one end and thirteen chairs, at which sat the arbitrators, the Just, and a dais beyond for witnesses and claimants. For the audience there were fixed benches with high wooden backs. Above, a high balcony looked down on the table.
Tallia led Mendark and Llian into the Great Hall and sat down at the bench behind the table of the Just. Tensor was already there.
“What if Thyl
lan refuses to come?” Llian asked Tallia.
“Then we must think of something else.”
“You still haven’t explained the purpose of this Conclave,” Llian whispered to Tallia. “How can it help Karan?”
“In time of peace her case would be dealt with by the lesser Conclave, but in war it is suspended. The purpose of the Great Conclave is to deal with the danger to Thurkad, but Mendark has drawn the protocol so that the Just must resolve the ownership of the Mirror first. Everyone who has an interest in the Mirror must declare it, and plead their case; and Mendark first, because he called the Conclave.”
“And if Thyllan does not abide by their arbitration? What will happen then?”
Tallia turned a shocked face to him. “The decree of the Just will not be challenged.”
* * *
Llian sat musing on his hard bench. It was only a week to endre, midwinter week. A week and a half to hythe, midwinter day, an ill-omened date. And today was Galend 22, 3098; the anniversary of Kandor’s death. Another coincidence?
The clock on the wall struck eleven. Thyllan had still not come. Nonetheless the Prime Just, a frail old woman with white hair and sunken cheeks, signed to Mendark to begin his address. He walked across to the dais. It was open at the front, with a semicircular wooden railing level with his chest, and behind an arched hood flared to twice his height.
“I thank you, Nelissa,” he said, bowing in her direction, and beginning in his ponderous way. “I have called this Great Conclave, as is my right and duty as the longtime Magister of the Council of Santhenar, that we might find a path through the peril…”
The doors banged open. Thyllan had come after all, with a retinue of guards and attendants, and Karan hobbled beside him. Thyllan scowled at Mendark. There was a long swollen gash on his face, Karan’s work no doubt.
Back at the dais, Mendark was completing the formalities of his entreaty. “… but a few days ago, unlooked for, Karan of Bannador came to us, bearing an artifact known as the Mirror of Aachan, stolen from Yggur. These last months I have spent trying to bring this device to Thurkad, for our glory as well as our defense. But Thyllan the usurper stole it, and the woman as well. This act challenges our ancient codes and threatens the safety of Thurkad itself. Will the Conclave permit it?”
