A Shadow on the Glass (69 page)

“Where did Yggur find the Whelm in the first place?” Llian thought aloud. “There has been no mention of Ghâshâd in the Histories these past thousand years-not since Rulke was imprisoned in the Nightland.”

“We cannot even remember our true master, so long is he gone
,” said Karan from under the bedclothes.

“What?”

“Idlis said that to me long ago. He said they came from the icy south.”

When Karan slept again Llian rose, looking down from the narrow window into the alley and the fog and rain. In this weather Yggur could land boats anywhere along the eastern side of the island and no one would know of it until
his troops came ashore. If it kept up he could be in the city by nightfall.

Downstairs the old woman was sitting in a frayed cane chair by the kitchen fire, squinting at a small book bound in green.

“What news?” Llian greeted her. She pointed to a battered pot on the stove and only when Llian sat down beside her with a steaming mug in his lap did she begin. She was more cordial now that Gistel seemed to have taken responsibility for them.

“It’s very bad. The city is in chaos. A great fear has come over us: it was everywhere I went this morning. What can there be in life for me to fear now, save the way it ends? I have no fear of death, yet today I am afraid. Even the water carriers have gone into hiding.”

Pages rustled. Llian sipped the bitter, overburnt coffee. Outside the rain seemed to have stopped.

“There is one thing though,” she mused. “The terror-guard of Yggur, the Whelm, were everywhere across the river yesterday, directing the war. Yet today they are gone, not one to be seen in the hours before the fog closed in. Perhaps they are not needed anymore, and go forward to torment others.”

“Perhaps,” said Llian, swallowing the last of the coffee. The mug was solid silver and very heavy. It seemed out of place in this shabby house. A shiver went down his back. Whelm. Ghâshâd. Ghâshâd! Perhaps Karan’s dream was true. Perhaps they had gone to Shazmak. But the present was more urgent. “We’ve got to get away. Faichand will never come now, nor Maigraith. Where can we go? Would Gistel help us?”

The old woman looked around the empty kitchen. “Gistel!” she said to herself. “Perhaps, though I never liked him much. Now I wonder about him too. He was away for a long time. Where did he go?” She looked up from her book, peering at Llian as though weighing him as well. “I think it’s too
late. Still, what does it matter whether you go or stay? If you want to go, then go. But there is nowhere to go save Thurkad, and you’ll have to walk.”

As she was speaking Karan came into the kitchen. “I am afraid to go to Thurkad,” Karan muttered.

“I fear to stay here,” said the old woman, “but I’m too old to flee. You should have taken a boat down to the sea, but you’ve waited too long. The enemy holds the whole of Iagador south of the river. No boatman could take you there now.”

“I know one who might,” said Llian thoughtfully.

By eleven that night, the fog was so thick that they could not see from one end of the skiff to the other. They huddled together in the middle, waiting. Karan was apathetic, Llian anxious. Behind them Pender was swearing the same word over and over again, “Farsh, farsh, farsh!” A cold breeze blew momentarily.

“Where’s Gistel?” said Pender, angrily. “He should have been here an hour ago. Already the wind comes up; the fog will disappear. Your guide is a traitor, eh!” He started to get out of the boat.

Llian was struck by the same fear but he could not allow Pender to go. “Wait,” he called out.

“No longer. They’re coming!”

It was so. Behind them, from further up the island, they could hear the sounds of battle, the shouts and screams of people. The breeze came again. The fog began to thin and disappear frighteningly quickly, the shiny roofs of the towers appearing first, then the towers themselves, though mist still lay on the river. The cold moonlight shone on Sith. Llian grabbed Pender’s arm and forced him back roughly into his seat.

“Stay!” he said. “We go—with Gistel or without him.”

“Five minutes then. No more.”

They waited anxiously. The shouting grew louder. A fire broke out among the buildings behind the wharves, spreading quickly across the hill. Another blaze sprang up, this time near the waterfront. People began to stream out of the narrow streets onto the open wharf area. A man appeared, walking quickly along the edge of the wharves, looking down.

“There he is,” said Llian, standing up on the side of the boat and holding on to the edge of the wharf. “Hoy, over here,” he called, waving.

Pender climbed up as well. Gistel was running toward them now. “
Farsh!
” Pender swore, jumping down and sending the boat rocking. He tore at the rope. Llian looked around, not understanding, then he saw the two cloaked figures behind, also running. Pender pushed the boat away from the wharf with a huge thrust of his oar, unbalancing Llian and sending him flailing backwards against the bow.

Now the wind was breaking up the fog on the river into banks and billows. Pender heaved on the oars, expertly directed the boat toward the nearest fog bank. Three more figures converged on the spot from which they had fled, outlined against the burning warehouses. One of them pointed with a long arm, another kneeled. A bolt buried itself in the side of the boat, not far from Pender’s hand. He swore again, dug the oars; the boat spun and disappeared into the fog.

At almost the same time a tiny, waterlogged dinghy, plastered with mud and twigs, grounded silently against the rocky southern side of the island. A bulky shadow scrambled from it and clung to the wet rock while the dinghy slowly spun off into the darkness. The shadow scaled the cliffs in the blackness and the fog and crept into Sith. There it scurried about, searching, and even in the violence of that terrible night the fleeing people stopped to stare at the tormented, dreadful creature. The black-bearded face
showed nothing, but the glow of the flames highlighted the twin curving scars across Emmant’s cheek.

“What do you want me to do, eh?” asked Pender, as they huddled among the reed beds on the northern side of the river, a league or more downstream.

For the past three hours they had dodged the patrols of the enemy, darting from one fog patch to another, then when the fog was gone, creeping along in the myriad channels and backwaters of the lower Garr, hiding under the overhanging trees. Sometimes they had to wade through the fringing marshes, dragging the skiff. In the bright moonlight there was no hiding place on the river.

Llian was wracked by indecision. He did not know the land and had no confidence that he could bring them to Thurkad, especially as the armies would be keeping a lookout for them. He had expected that Gistel would take them there. Karan knew the country well, but the proud, confident Karan was gone; in her place a stranger, withdrawn and miserable. When Llian spoke to her she only repeated, “I dread to go to Thurkad.”

“We couldn’t stay in Sith.”

“I know that. I feared even more to stay.”

“What about Bannador?”

“I should have gone there at once, from Shazmak, even leaving you behind. I once considered it. Now it is too late; they will already be there, waiting for me.”

“Across the sea?” he asked doubtfully.

“They’ve followed all this way. I can’t hide on the plains of Almadin.”

“What can we do?” Llian pleaded, looking to Pender.

Pender found the experience a novel one but for the moment he said nothing. He was transformed-as capable and commanding on his boat as he had been surly and ill-at-ease off it.

“I wonder about the whole mission now,” said Karan. “What right has
she
to this Mirror anyway? Her name rings in my mind, a jarring sound. I begin to think that to give it to her would be as bad as giving it to Tensor. I can’t say what is right anymore; my judgment fails me, and my confidence, and all seems futile.”

“I know something of running and hiding,” said Pender in his nasal voice. “I would hide in Thurkad. A most wicked place, eh! Places there even
your
enemies wouldn’t go. And much stronger than Sith.”

“There is nowhere else to go, Karan. We must go to Thurkad.”

Karan turned away, staring across the water. She shivered, and though she squeezed her eyes tightly closed, two small tears escaped.

Pender saw the tears and the entreaty. You are kind, he thought. I would do it for you, if you asked it.

“I don’t know the country between here and Thurkad,” he said, with the reluctance of the sailor for any form of travel requiring the use of his legs. “And not even I can take you downriver in daylight, now. But there are many channels in the marshes; beyond, the river has many mouths, eh! I can take you to the sea on a dark night. Then you go your own way to Thurkad.”

But that night was clear and bright, with no fog and the moon nearly full, and so was die next, so they spent the two days among the reeds; dreary cold days. The third night was cloudy, foggy and dark and they set out as soon as the sun set

Karan hardly spoke during that journey—she was overcome by feelings of helplessness and resignation. She had nothing more to give. If only Maigraith had come; but she would never find her now. Karan could feel the strength of Yggur all around her, and the Whelm. Beyond Yggur, dreams of those eyes
grew: greater, more malevolent, and closer to her.
He
wanted her—she was part of his purpose. Day and night blurred together into one hideous dream. Beyond even that, a nameless, personal dread pursued her. She began to fear that she was losing her mind, though she took some comfort from Llian’s presence. Even the mercenary solidity of Pender provided a kind of bulwark against her fears.

Pender took them down into the shifting channels through the marshes and by the morning, when the wind blew from the east, they could smell the salt of the sea. At Pender’s insistence they hid in the bogs during the day, and it was well that they did so, for in the morning the enemy was about in small boats, combing all the channels, and later they heard the creak of timbers and the rattle of oars as a fleet rowed past upstream.

A wistful look came across Pender’s fat, pocked face when first they smelled the salt sea on the wind. “How I long for the sea,” he said forlornly.

This struck a spark of interest in Karan, for the first time in days. “What happened to you?”

“Had my own little ship, taking cargo along the sea; and be yond, sometimes. Too many enemies—always enemies,” he said with resentment. “They did not want me. Took away their profit, eh! They joined against me, hounded me, fired my boat. Everything burned. I could not pay, had to run. I was the best sailor on the Sea of Thurkad. Now I paddle this stinking river, and can’t even get enough for food and drink.”

In the evening they evaded the patrols without difficulty and by midnight had reached the sea through the northernmost channel of the delta. The wind was blowing strongly from the north and a big swell was breaking over the sandbar off shore. Each swell struck the little boat side on, making it wallow and sending a shower of spray over the side that the
wind caught and flung in their faces. Within minutes they were drenched. Pender clawed the boat around to the north and the spray eased, though now the bow rose up sharply with each wave and crashed down into the following trough.

“You’re safe now, safe as anywhere,” he shouted over the wind. “I’ll put you on the beach; not a long walk to the village, eh! You can buy a boat, or steal one. Thurkad is two or three days north. I must get back to my children.”

He pulled the boat through the surf to the beach and sat there. Karan stepped carefully from the bow onto the sand. She stood patiently, holding the rope, staring across the water. The stern rose and fell with each wave and the bow crunched against the beach.

Llian sat there, hopelessly afraid. He knew that even if he could steal a boat he could never sail it to Thurkad in that sea. He would sooner have walked that perilous path into Shazmak again.

“I can’t do it,” he said in a pale voice. “I’ve never sailed a boat before.”

Pender looked at him in disgust. “What a pathetic thing you are,” he said after a while. “To think I feared you once. Why should I help you? Not even for money would I do it.” Then his gaze lit on Karan, vacantly staring, and their eyes crossed.

“Would you do it
for me
?” she asked, and for once Pender’s mercenary heart was stirred. He considered, then his hand, perhaps by accident, brushed his purse and it chimed faintly. Llian put several thick pieces of silver into the leathery hand. Pender weighed them, left his hand outstretched a moment longer, until Llian grudgingly dropped another there. The money disappeared.

“Get in,” said Pender.

“What about your children?” said Llian.

Pender sighed heavily. “I suppose they are as safe in Sith as anywhere,” he said.

Mechanically, as though she had done it a hundred times before, Karan pushed the boat away from the shore and leapt nimbly onto the bow, without even wetting her boots. She climbed in and sat down, staring out to sea again.

I don’t think she even realizes we were here, Llian thought. Pender unlashed the mast, stepped it, and put up the little sail. The wind still blew from the north. They headed out to sea on the first tack.

That night Karan cried out again in her sleep. Llian took her hand and for a while she was calm, but later she began to scream and thrash about, crying out in a dialect of Bannador, which he scarcely knew. He held her tightly, stroking her tangled hair and her salty cheeks, and they both slept.