Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (28 page)

together, though she had not even thought where to go. Then a stick snapped in
the forest above her. Who could it be? The Fael-lem's woodcraft was legendary.
Maigraith hesitated. There wasn't time to complete the gate and she did not
want to be caught in the middle of it. She let go again.
Faelamor came sliding down the slope, her boots gouging through snow into the
damp earth. She looked like a corpse wired up into a semblance of life.
'Someone's got in!' she gasped. 'I felt the same warping as in Havissard. It
must be Mendark, come for my gold.' Rank sweat dripped from her brow.
The warping had come from Maigraith's aborted gate, but she said nothing.
Faelamor's terror delighted her.
Faelamor went inside, the water bucket rattled and she reappeared, gulping
from the dipper. She went quite still,
then began to sway imperceptibly - a trance-like state she sometimes used to
calm herself. Maigraith stood watching her, when she felt a ghostly stirring
and all her skin rose up in goosepimples. Turning slowly she beheld an old man
outside, barely four paces from her. His grey beard and floppy hat were coated
with snow and ice. His green eyes shone. In one hand he carried a dark staff,
but Maigraith felt not the least afraid.
She leaned forward, wanting to cry out: 'Who are you? What do you want here?'
but the old man did a curious thing. Shaking his head, he put a finger across
his lips.
In the cave behind her, the dipper clattered to the floor. Faelamor let out a
wailing cry. Maigraith did not turn around - she wanted to hold onto this
strange dream for just a moment longer.
The man gave her a reassuring glance. His eyes moved past her, following
Faelamor's movements. Faelamor stopped dead. It was not Mendark, but a face
she had long forgotten.
The man's face changed. He became very cold, very stern. He stepped forward.
Maigraith could have reached out and touched him. She wanted to.
'Gyllias!' cried Faelamor.
The man nodded. 'That was my name once,' he said quietly. 'But I am known as
Shand now. I have come for what is mine.'
Shand! Maigraith tasted the name. It was a strong, kindly name. She had heard
it before. Shand was Karan's friend. She looked him over - weatherbeaten old
face tanned to a leathery colour, a stocky frame that was still in good
condition.
Faelamor spat on the floor. 'You were not my match even in your prime,
Gyllias, and your prime was a very long time ago. Even with the gift of life,
as evidently you have, time has wearied you.' But on the last word Faelamor's
voice cracked. She thrust the fear away. 'Old man. Old fool! Feel your old
knees tremble. See the mist before your old eyes.' She gestured in the air.
Maigraith's knees went as weak as butter. Her vision grew blurred, as if she
was an old woman peering out of cataract-ridden orbs. She was so decrepit, so
useless that she could scarcely remember who she was. She wanted this dear old
man, so kindly when he gazed at her, so stern when he looked away, to turn
aside, shaking his head as if he had been overcome by a dream, and pass out of
their lives again. Faelamor had terrible powers at her command. Her illusions
could drive anyone insane. Maigraith wanted no harm to come to Shand. And yet
she wanted him to stay, to confront her as no one had in all her memory.
Shand laughed and the illusion fell to the ground like a discarded nightgown.
'The time for games has gone, Faelamor! I am indeed old. Old as the mangrove
tree that grows with its knees in the sea, year in, year out. And I am tough
as the roots of the mangrove tree too. Bent I am, and brown, baked into a form
that can resist any battering, as the roots of that tree make boat ribs to
withstand even the hurricanes of the great ocean.'
Faelamor's answer was another gesture, another simple pattern; but every
muscle stood out with the effort. Maigraith fell to her knees. None of her
senses seemed to work properly. Her vision shrank into a tunnel directly in
front of her, outside which everything was distorted unrecognisably.
Shand waved his hand in the air and Yalkara's protecting ring shone in a

fleeting beam of sunlight. The gesture was a dismissal, a refusal to believe
in illusion, and instantly it was gone.
'You robbed me of my daughter,' said Shand. 'You took from me the most
precious thing I ever had, and unmade it. Now I have come for payment.'
Faelamor cast mirages in the air that would have driven anyone else mad, that
had Maigraith gasping and twitching on the floor of the cave. Shand was
unmoved. She tried other deceptions, the best she knew, but confidence was all
and hers had evaporated before those deep green eyes, that
unshakeable resolve. Her legitimacy was lost. She could not stand before the
wrath of old Shand.
Maigraith saw Faelamor's courage dribble away. It was like cutting off her
right hand to submit to Shand, yet Faelamor was defeated and she knew it. She
put a glamour on herself and disappeared. As she went past, Shand spread his
fingers at her, using the Secret Art this time, and her concealment was
stripped off. She put the deception back at once, and Shand did not renew his
charm, but for a fleeting second Maigraith saw her face. It was as if Faelamor
screamed out in agony - a torment embarrassing to have witnessed.
Shand's eyes followed her invisible progress out into the forest. 'She won't
be back for a while!' he said softly.
Maigraith was utterly confused, yet at the same time felt like bursting into
song. This was the greatest day of her life. She went slowly towards Shand. He
took off his hat. He was a short man, only her own height. The hair was thin
on the top of his head. She felt concerned for him.
'Why have you come?' she whispered. 'Who are you, Shand?'
He gazed at her in wonder. 'I am your grandfather.' He held out his hand. She
took it. 'Aeolior, your mother, was my daughter, and Yalkara's. Oh Maigraith!
Granddaughter!' He threw out his arms.
Such a feeling of warmth and belonging came over Maigraith that tears sprang
to her eyes. They walked down the steep slope together, and downstream to a
special place by the river where she sometimes came to sigh and dream -things
she had only learned how to do since Havissard.
It was a little platform of grey stone, raised slightly above short grass.
Behind, the tall trees of the forest ran in a sweeping curve. The platform
dropped in two steps to a tiny rapid over which the transparent water chuckled
merrily into a pool whose bottom of multi-coloured pebbles wasper-fectly
clear. One side of the pool graded into a beach of cobbles. On the other side
the sward swept around the
platform in the shape of a B, and between the two rounds of the B a
leaf-strewn path led into the forest. They sat together on the platform.
Maigraith still held Shand's hand. She turned to him a face wet with tears.
'I've not cried since I was a child,' she said. 'Faelamor did not allow
tears.'
Maigraith was almost exploding with tension, with expectation. Shand had
answers to the most important questions of her life - who she was and where
she had come from. She could hardly bear to ask him.
'Tell me about Aeolior, Shand. And my father, who was he? Tell me everything.'
Then, before he could begin she put a finger to his lips. 'Wait - I have
something to show you. These are my most important treasures and I don't even
know why.' She carefully unpacked her prizes, showing them to him - the silver
stylus and the writing tablet with the single word, rather smeared and smudged
now: Aeolior.
Shand stared at the relics in wonderment. 'I gave that stylus to your
grandmother. It was my very first gift to her. Where did you get it?'
'Faelamor and I went through a gate into Havissard. She was afraid, but I was
happy there.'
They clung together once more; together they wept by the river. 'That stylus
brings back wonderful memories, and terrible ones too,' he said. 'It was
Yalkara's most precious possession, but she could not take it with her through
the gate.'
'Tell me about Aeolior.'

He told her the terrible story, concluding, 'And Faelamor stole her and mated
her with a Faellem man to make a triune.'
'Me?' she exclaimed.
'Yes, you are triune.'
'Like Karan!' she whispered. 'Perhaps that's why I've always been drawn to
her.'
Shand started, but did not question her. 'Karan!' he said
thoughtfully. 'That explains many things. You are like her, but at the same
time very different. What a coincidence! Or is it? You are, very probably, the
only two triunes in existence.'
'Who was my father, Shand?'
'I don't know. Perhaps only Faelamor does.'
Only then did Shand remember Yggur, who had been waiting quietly all morning
so as not to interfere with this time. 'I have another surprise for you.' He
leapt to his feet and cried out, 'Hoy!' in a voice that echoed in the valley.
Yggur appeared, limping, unable to hide his unease. He looked older, more
worn, and his eyes were distorted behind thick glasses.
'Yggur!' she cried, leaping up and running to him, her hair flying. 'Oh Yggur,
how I worried about you. Faelamor told me that you were dead in Katazza.'
'I was close to it,' said Yggur, 'but that is quite some time back now.'
She embraced him too, though with more solicitude than passion. She had never
before displayed her emotions in public, but now she did not care. Even Yggur
shed a tear at the sight of her joy, and put out a hand to stroke her
beautiful hair, though he did not. She brought them together as if they did
not know one another, and sat between them, and laughed and cried and skipped
and sang. Such a perfect day.
Finally Shand stood up. 'We can't stay here - the longer we give Faelamor, the
more time she will have to think of a way to attack us. What will you do now,
Maigraith?'
Maigraith had no idea. 'What do you require of me?'
'Require?' said Shand. 'That life is over forever. What do you want from your
life?'
She could not get used to the idea that they could want her and yet not want
something from her, so inured was she to duty and to service. Freedom was not
part of her existence.
'I want to know who I am, and everything about my family. I want to fit into
my family Histories.'
'Will you come back with us?' Yggur asked diffidently. 'At least until you
find yourself.'
'Why do you ask so timidly? We are still friends, if we can be nothing more.'
'Your life has greatly changed, and so has mine,' Yggur replied softly. 'I
have been close to death, though,' here he gave a wry smile, 'evidently not as
close as you were told. I have been brought very low, and though I rose up
again I am greatly changed.'
'Shall we go?' said Shand. 'To Thurkad?'
'If that's where you want to go,' said Maigraith, 'I'll gladly go with you.
All places are the same to me. But I would like to see the Mirror, if you have
it.'
Shand handed it to her without a word. She allowed it to unroll on the palm of
her hand, then passed it back.
'It's yours,' said Shand.
'Mine?' she said in amazement. 'I don't see how it can be, but even if it is,
I don't want to receive it here. When we reach our destination will be soon
enough.'
Shand put the Mirror away and they departed. They did not want to hurry, but
each knew that they could not indulge themselves. The climacteric was at hand.
And on their journey to Thurkad one thing soon became quite clear. Whatever
she still felt for Yggur, it was as a friend, not as a lover or a partner.
That struck him hard, for it was the death of all his hopes and dreams. He did
not show that face to her, but afterwards he was as hard as stone to everyone

else.
Reunion
After leaving Gothryme, Karan and Tallia walked steadily from dawn to sunset
every day, but it was hard going in the slush and took an exhausting week to
reach Thurkad.
'You're very quiet lately,' Karan said on the seventh day, as they climbed a
stony ridge.
At the top, Tallia rested momentarily against a post-and-rail fence, which
moved under her weight. 'I was thinking about Lilis . . . Wondering how she
is.'
'And Jevi?' Karan asked, idly picking pieces of lichen off the rail.
'Him too.'
In the early afternoon they trudged up to the Saboth River bridge, which was
still under repair from the damage done in last summer's siege. They found the
bridge to be a mess of scaffolding with just three rows of nailed-down planks
across the long centre span. They had to wait their turn to cross, and the
wait looked like being a long one. Ahead of them a series of wagons were being
manoeuvred across on the planks.
Karan paced back and forth, cursing the war, the bridge, the incompetence of
its builders and the stupidity of all wagon drivers, not to mention the
arrogance, venality and corruption of the man who ran the city - Mendark!
Tallia listened in silence.
'I'm afraid!' said Karan. 'I'm sure something's happened to Llian. You know
how he needs taking care of.'
'It won't be long now,' said Tallia. 'There goes the last wagon. He's got a
hell of a load on.'
The wagon was so old that it was practically falling to pieces. Karan resumed
her pacing. 'They're so damned slow!'
'I would be too, if I were taking a horse and cart across that.'
'The horse doesn't seem very happy.'
The nag, a bony grey mare whose mane had been trimmed into a chevron shape,
had baulked in the middle. The driver was out in front, heaving at the reins,
but the horse refused to budge.
'I hate this city!' Karan said. 'Only in Thurkad would they do such a
makeshift job. Look, there's a whole stack of timber over there that's not
being used.'
'Oh dear!' exclaimed Tallia.
Karan spun around. The teamster was cursing and snapping his whip at the
horse's flank. She tossed her head and one back hoof skidded off the side of
the plank. The mare reared up, the wagon rolled backwards and the left-hand
wheel went over the edge. The teamster roared, the mare screamed, the wagon
tilted sideways.
'The poor horse!' shouted Karan. 'Quick, Tallia!' She ran onto the middle row
of planks.
Tallia followed carefully, for the planks were wet and it was a long way down
to the river, which was flowing strongly after days of sleety rain. The brown
flood looked perilous, and the further shore was rimmed with ice.
The driver, a podgy man of middle age, completely lacking in hair and even
eyebrows, lashed furiously at the terrified horse. His cheeks were carved with
lines of bitterness and frustration.
'Pull!' he screamed. 'Cursed nag, pull harder!'
The mare lunged weakly against the harness, but the wagon continued to slip
backward, for it was so laden that the axle
was bent. Karan came racing up. 'Cut it free!' she screamed, 'or you'll lose
the horse as well.'
The teamster wailed and slashed the whip uselessly in the air. 'My wife will
kill me.' he wept.
Karan tried to calm the frightened animal, but with the driver screaming and
lashing at it the mare was beyond help. It reared up like an angry stallion,
pawing the air with its front feet. Karan, who had been stroking its neck,