A Shadow on the Glass (12 page)

Karan felt a momentary dizziness, Maigraith drawing on her strength through the link. What on earth was she doing? This was so unlike her. Karan’s face was bloodless. “Maigraith. We must fly. I can
feel
him coming.”

Maigraith tore herself away. “Let us go then,” she said in a strained voice, but it was too late. There were footsteps
outside the door, as loud as thunderclaps to Karan’s heightened senses.

Maigraith pushed the Mirror into Karan’s hands and thrust her below the level of the desk. Karan wanted to hurl the Mirror out the window. The metal was warm in her hands. Her gaze was pulled down; her life changed forever.

The writing scrolled across, then stopped….
If you come to read this, I have for you a message, a warning and a task
, Karan read. Then the letters faded and the face of a woman appeared, looking down as if trying to work a device with her hands. Karan stared. The likeness to Maigraith was astonishing, though the face was older, the dark hair woven with silver and the eyes were of deepest indigo. The woman looked up and her lips moved.

“Take it,” she seemed to say.

The door swung open. Karan touched the image with a fingertip. The Mirror went blank. She peered around the edge of the desk. A man stood in the doorway. They were in no doubt who he was, for he looked just like the magus of all the tales. Karan wondered if he used that illusion to bolster a more meager form. Remarkably tall he was, bleak of eye and the hair curving across bis brow was black as the wing of a crow. He did not look old, but like all mancers he had extended his life many times over.

It was Yggur—the warlord who had overrun the southwest of the island of Meldorin. Yggur, whose strength and cunning were legend.

He tossed the hair from his eyes and the light caught the brittles planes of his face, the jutting black brows, the dark ovals around faded eyes—frost on slate. Into the room he stepped, all-powerful, all-knowing, confident in his terrible strength. His chest was broader than Maigraith’s shoulders. She knew at once that there was no escape.

“Thieves!” he said, his voice as mellow as butter. “In my library!”

Maigraith exerted all her strength to oppose him. The illusion, if illusion it was, faded. He looked the same but now she saw that his right leg moved stiffly and he winced as if it hurt him, just a twitch of the cheek. Another surprise. He might be a mancer, as she was, but still he was just a man—very strong, but not more than human. Maigraith put herself between him and Karan’s hiding place.

“Who are you?” He spoke haltingly now, packets of few words; even to form them seemed an effort. “Which of my ancient enemies has sent you?” His forehead corrugated, a muscle jumped in his lip. “Have you come from Thurkad,
from Mendark
?” Rage, but disquiet too.

“My name is Maigraith,” she said boldly, though she was deathly afraid, “and my business is my own. I will tell you nothing.”

Yggur took another step toward her and Maigraith quailed. His presence was overwhelming. The painful movements, the halting speech, the sense of overcoming great obstacles, only added to the potency. She felt confused, hesitant, for it seemed that he knew her weaknesses as well as she did. Faelamor had neglected, perhaps deliberately, that part of her training where will is matched against will, and the sheer force of him shocked her. Maigraith was trained to submit, she shrank from confrontation. Karan was right, she was not up to this job.

Yggur trembled, mastering himself with difficulty. Then, as if a window had opened, she saw directly into his mind, saw that he suffered too. It was extraordinary, for she seldom empathized with anyone, but she no longer wanted to defeat him. Her heart was battering at her ribs. She clutched at her breast.

He raised up his hand. His eyes might have been needles
of ice, so did they probe her, prick her. Her mouth was dry as sand. She fell back a pace, cowering, as though expecting him to strike her. At that he looked contemptuous, which struck her worse than any blow. She stepped back again. He had done nothing and already she was defeated.

“Speak,” he whispered. Her lips began to make the words.

Karan, still crouched behind the desk, was outraged. She kicked Maigraith in the ankle, trying to rouse her.

Maigraith gasped. But I am strong, she thought, through the confusions. I have a duty here. She dashed the mist from her eyes. “No!” she cried, and drew herself up.

Their eyes locked and Yggur was shocked into stillness. Suddenly she showed her strength; the strength perhaps of an equal, if she had the will for it. And something in her eyes disconcerted him momentarily. He stooped and stared at her, both surprised and intrigued. For a long time his eyes searched her, then he turned away thoughtfully.

“Perhaps the weaker will serve,” he said, looking toward Karan’s hiding place. “Come forth. Look at me.”

The pressure of his will was shocking. Karan looked as though the weight of a tree had fallen onto her shoulders, and she had no defense but her innate stubbornness. She staggered away from the desk. Her face was stark against the red confusion of her hair; her hand trembled so much that the Mirror fell to the carpet. Yggur looked from the Mirror to her to Maigraith.

“Ah,” he said. “I begin to understand. Bring it to me.”

Karan picked it up, backing away. “I will not,” she said, her voice breaking.

“Go,” said Maigraith. “Leave me, Karan. Do as I bade you.”

Yggur held up his hand, saying, “Stay!” and she went
still, too afraid to move. He turned to Maigraith. “You
dare
defy me!”

Maigraith stepped forward. “I will have my will, even over you, Yggur.
Go no further!
” Her soft-spoken words disguised a power that shivered Yggur from top to toe. He struggled but could not move. Then, not looking at her, Maigraith whispered, “Karan, flee! I cannot escape.”

Karan stood mesmerized. Maigraith was still draining her through the link. You’re taking all my strength, she tried to say, but the words would not come. Yggur forced with all his will. Maigraith shrieked and he found he could move again. He took a painful step toward Karan, then another. He stooped over her.

Karan looked pleadingly at Maigraith. Maigraith could not help her. Yggur’s huge hands gripped Karan’s shoulders but still she would not look at him. Her back began to bow under the weight of him. His grip was cruel on her small shoulders. With one hand he turned her face toward him. His smoky eyes bored into her. She glared up at him—terror had not robbed her of dignity, nor resolution.

“Help me,” she cried in a thick voice, but Maigraith could do nothing.

“I
command
you!” said Yggur. “
Who do you serve?
”

Karan resisted, though the very force of his gaze seared her. She felt strengthless, hot and cold, dizzy, faint. Maigraith was sucking the life out of her across the link. There came a dreadful clanging in her brain, and each toll was the name that she dared not name. Was she in greater danger if she kept Faelamor’s secret, or if she revealed it?

At last Karan could resist no longer. A tremor passed through her from head to foot.

“Be silent,” Maigraith cried.

Yggur shook Karan so hard that her teeth clacked together.
“Was it
Mendark
that sent you?” He spat the name out, rage mixed with bitterness.

“Yes,” cried Maigraith. “Mendark! Mendark sent us.”

But it was too late. Karan’s face crumpled. There was bright blood on her lip. She tried to stop her mouth with her fist, but it betrayed her. One single word, unwilling, whispered: “Faelamor!”

Yggur released her and she fell to her hands and knees, still clutching the Mirror in one hand. “Faelamor!” he breathed.

Maigraith cried out from behind, “Oh, Karan, you have ruined me.”

Karan looked mortified, then her eyes sheered away and she broke the link. Maigraith reeled. Karan rose slowly to her feet and backed toward the door, still clutching the Mirror. Yggur shot out his long arm, but Karan sprang backwards out of reach, amazing him with her agility. A tiny hope flared within Maigraith—she did have the will after all. She reached beyond her despair to a deeper reserve of strength.

“Leave her!” she commanded, using the Secret Art as she had never used it before.

It struck him like a blow and he flung up a crooked arm, the way a bird might shield itself with its wing. A look of disbelief passed over his face. “I cannot move,” he said in wonderment. The muscles of his jaw were like knots in granite.

“Go!” Maigraith screamed. “Do what you promised. I cannot hold him long.”

Karan seemed smaller, her face rounder and paler, but there was a furious resolve, a determination to amend the failure. “I will take it,” she said. Then, turning to Yggur with simple dignity, “Nothing will stop me!”

Yggur gave a single labored jeer. “Nothing? Let me tell
you about my Whelm, my terror-guard. They were lost in the southern wilderness for half a thousand years. I mastered them, brought them out of ice and fire, and they will do anything I say. How they beg me to set them on my enemies. The Whelm will deal with you.” He made a curious gesture with one hand.

At the name, or perhaps the gesture, a shudder began at Karan’s ankles and traveled upwards until her flesh crawled and her hair stood up around her head. The shadow outline of the stick-man outside the wall rang in her mind. She was almost overcome by nausea, by revulsion, as though a dead dog had put out its rotting tongue and licked the back of her neck, leaving a cold trail of muck up to her ear.

Yggur laughed coldly. “So!” he said. “Faelamor is alive, and she wants my Mirror. I will forestall her. My armies can march on the east within the week, if they have to.”

Karan looked about to faint. Already her betrayal had begun to move the world. Maigraith put out her fist and squeezed it tight. Yggur went silent. Karan fled. The door banged and disappeared again.

Yggur turned slowly and painfully to face Maigraith. The right side of his face had set rigid. “Indeed you cannot hold me,” he whispered. “In the end you will weaken. Then I will break you.”

Maigraith stood straight, her fists clenched by her side, looking up at him. “I defy you. I
will
hold you till she gets away; what you do to me matters not.”

I
n Chanthed, Llian was dreaming the most delicious dream that any chronicler could have. After years of searching he had uncovered evidence of a terrible, breathtaking crime, a deed so bold and far-reaching that its perpetrator could almost be admired. Now he was putting the fragments together to make a new Great Tale, the first for two hundred and fifty years. His name would be forever linked with it—
Llian’s Tale
. The deed would put him among the greatest chroniclers.

Someone shouted in the next room. Another voice joined in, then a third, in furious argument. Llian groaned and pushed back the bedclothes. His head ached abominably, reminding him of the previous night, erasing his glorious dreams.

The reality was not worth waking for. In the month since his famous telling, Llian’s search for the killer of the crippled girl had become an obsession that consumed his whole life. He had scoured the library, read until his eyes would no
longer focus, till even to look at a page made his head spin, but had found nothing.

All his other work was abandoned. He still did tellings, but despite constant requests Llian had never told the
Tale of the Forbidding
again. He didn’t dare, in case Wistan heard about it And at the same time Llian lived with the fear that his version of the Great Tale would be proven false, his career destroyed. His rivals were saying that he was burned out a one-tale wonder. For someone who had never wanted more than to be a chronicler, that was the worst humiliation of all.

Llian had no money, for his stipend had not been reinstated. No one knew the Histories better than he did but he could get no living from them here. He existed by spinning scandalous yarns in the sleaziest drinking pits of Chanthed, and occasionally by writing pieces for students who were too lazy or stupid to do their own work.

His impossible fancy, to learn what had happened at the time of the Forbidding and to craft his own Great Tale from it, survived only in his dreams.

A few days later Llian got home well after midnight, after a night when he had not even earned enough to pay for his drinks, to finds his door standing wide open. He threw his bag in the direction of the table and it crashed to the floor. Holding his candle high, Llian saw that there was no table, no chair, no clothing on the pegs, no books on the shelf. His room was completely empty save for his lumpy straw mattress. Everything he owned, even threadbare clothes and down-at-heel boots, was gone. Anti-Zain obscenities were scribbled on the walls.

The loss of clothes and possessions was not such a blow; they were easily replaced, had he any money. But also gone were all his books of tales, laboriously copied by hand over fifteen years, his personal journals, precious family histories,
and all his notes for the new version of the
Tale of the Forbidding
. He had lost everything save his illuminated book of the Great Tales and a new journal that he had in his bag. Llian was devastated.

Then the rumors started. At first they were just drunken whispers in the inns or anonymous scrawls on the privy walls—that there was something strange about the way that he had become master; that his tale was a lie or a fraud. They could not take the honor from Llian, for that had been delivered by the unanimous acclamation of the masters, but they could fatally damage his name.