Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (32 page)

was like a blind person who had just been given the gift of sight. All the
world was different to her, now that she had a place in it.
They spent several days there without Maigraith even glancing at the Mirror.
Their time was taken up in clambering over the rock platforms with the sleety
wind and the sea spray in their faces, or walking on the gravelly beach
collecting shells. Sometimes they sat rugged up on the porch watching the sea,
other times by the fire in the evenings, listening to Shand's tales and the
wind in the eaves.
At first, messages came several times a day from Mendark or Yggur, but Shand
tore them up and sent the messengers away. After a while they stopped coming.
Then one morning Maigraith woke and knew that she was ready to use the Mirror.
She was desperate to see her grandmother's face again, and to realise the new
life the Mirror had promised when first she'd taken it up in Fiz Gorgo.
Perhaps it could show her Aeolior's face too. She wanted that more than
anything.
Holding the Mirror in front of her, she tried to see into it. It remained no
more than a metal mirror, beautiful but blank except for her reflected face.
She sought out its essence as if it was a crystal that she was trying to make
into a lightglass. The Mirror was indifferent. She traced the silvery glyphs
around the border with a fingertip, thinking that they might be some kind of
key. If they were, it was not one she could use. Maigraith shook the Mirror,
cursed it, and finally, using all the power of the Secret Art at her command,
attempted to force it open, to make it show Yalkara to her. The Mirror
refused. It mocked her every attempt.
Reminiscences
That evening, when they were sitting on the porch again, well blanketed
against the cold, taking tiny sips of yet another of Shand's liqueurs, and
alternate sips of a steaming hot kind of coffee, and looking at the stars and
the scorpion nebula, Maigraith asked Shand to tell her about her mother.
'I've been dreading that,' he said softly. 'The reopening of old wounds. Poor
Aeolior! No one ever loved a child more than I loved my daughter. It would be
impossible to love anyone more.'
'What was she like?'
'Like other children, I suppose, though I didn't have much experience of
children then. I was much too important for that. Aeolior was a very wilful
child; clever and determined. She knew what she wanted and she would not rest
until she got it, whether by wheedling me or by her own hard efforts. Yet she
had a soft heart, and she was loving and mischievous too. Karan is like her in
some ways.
'She would have grown up to look much like you, I imagine. Her eyes were
exactly like yours, and the curves of her face. Her hair was rather darker and
wavy, like mine used to be, when I had some! She looked to be about thirteen
when I lost her, though in years of Santhenar she was much older. Aeolior
developed slowly, as the Charon do.' His voice quavered.
'As with her, so with me,' said Maigraith, and changed the subject. 'Tell it
some other time, if you prefer. For now, and since there are people waiting on
what I do with the Mirror, even though I try my best to put them out of my
mind, I would like to hear about Yalkara. And even about you, grandfather, if
it does not strain your modesty too much.' She said this last with a cheeky
sort of a grin. It looked a little strange at first, and she gave the
impression of being a little surprised at its appearance, so unused was she to
joking. The grin broadened into a smile, and Shand laughed with her.
'I'll leave those tales for another day! I'll tell you what I can about
Yalkara, though that may not be as much as you might suppose. We were lovers
for an age, but there were great areas of her life about which she would not
speak. Maybe after you've looked on the Mirror you'll know more about her than
I do.
'About her previous time, before she came to Santhenar from Aachan, I know
very little. About why she came here and did the things she did, and what her
motives were, again almost nothing. She had an evil reputation, and was more

often slandered than anyone I ever heard of. The Demon Queen they used to call
her, and the Mistress of Deceits. Many other names too; worse names; foul
ones! Great women attract such slander more than great men. To be great is to
make decisions that affect other people, and she did not shrink from that. Yet
I never knew her to do a cruel act, or even an unkind one knowingly, though
she could be hard as metal to her enemies.'
'How did you meet her?'
'I remember the moment I first laid eyes on her as clearly as this morning.'
He leaned back against the wall of the porch and closed his eyes.
The recollection stretched into minutes and the minutes into a long time.
Maigraith sat watching the old man. My grandfather, she kept thinking. This
man is my mother's
father. There will always be a bond between us. The commonplace relationship
felt so strange to her, yet so beckoning; so warming. And it spurred her to
find out about the other relations she would never know - her Faellem father
and his mother and father. Those grandparents could still be alive, she
realised, though her father was long dead, poor abused man. Yet not as abused
as her mother. Once again she was struck by the parallels between her life and
Karan's. They were almost the reverse of each other. What did it signify? Or
did it mean nothing at all? Was it just the kind of thing that happened to
those rare few who had the misfortune to be born triune?
She realised that Shand still had not answered. He was looking quite vacant.
'Shand?' she said gently.
He came out of himself like a sick fish drifting to the surface of a pond,
giving her such a blank look that in spite of herself she shivered. Then he
recognised her and smiled.
'I'm sorry. I find that I'm doing that more and more of late. A bad habit I
got into many years ago, when I was wandering in the most abject state of
misery, before I went to Tullin and found that I could be useful again. You
cannot imagine what is in the mind of someone as old as I am. So many memories
are tangled up together, and often it seems more pleasant, even more real, to
take refuge in memory rather than remain in the present. One day I may go off
into the past and never find my way back. I may forget that the now and the
future exist.'
Maigraith looked uncertain and afraid. 'I would be desolated,' she said.
Shand squeezed her hand. 'That's a way off yet, never worry. Be sure that when
I do go, it will be the best thing for me, because I'm utterly weary of this
world. The old must make way for the young. I should not have lived this
long.'
'Why have you?'
'In Havissard I did not seem to age. Some enchantment
of Yalkara's, no doubt. And before she left, she gave me the gift of part of
her life. I often wonder what it took from her, and if she survived it.' Shand
came back to the present. 'What were we talking about?'
'How you met Yalkara,' she said.
'It was during the Clysm. Do you know about that time?'
'Of course.'
He went on as if she had given the other response. 'The Clysm, the wars
between the Charon and the Aachim! Though when I say the Charon you must know
that I do not include Yalkara. She took no direct part in that struggle.
Indeed she had no army, only a small guard. The Clysm was mainly fought
between the forces led by Rulke and the legions of Pitlis. Pitlis was once
held to be the greatest Aachim who ever lived. He built their glorious city of
Tar Gaarn, and designed Alcifer for Rulke too. But he was seduced by Rulke,
and Tar Gaarn fell, and now they call Pitlis the biggest fool that ever drew
breath.
'That was a desperate time for Santhenar, the worst this world has ever seen.
I don't think anyone knows the true reason for the war. The Histories mostly
say that Rulke began it, and that might be so. You could ask Llian the
evidence for that viewpoint, if you're minded.

'Anyhow, that was when I was in the greatest flush of my manhood, full of
pride and self-importance. So rash and boastful was I that I cringe to think
about it. It came about that, after one terrible, bloody battle a long way
away, over near Crandor, some of us held a meet on the blood-soaked field to
try and find an end to it. Far better if we had gone and given comfort to the
dying,' he said with an edge of bitterness. 'We could hear their shrieks from
where we stood, but we left that to others. Important people must do important
work!'
He paused for a sip of his coffee, which was now quite cold. 'Are you cold?
Shall we go in to the fire?'
'After the tale,' she replied. She loved the shivery feeling
of listening to his story out in the chilly air, and the stars wheeling and
reflecting on the still sea.
'Our council was held under a great fig on the edge of the battlefield. It was
a gigantic tree, with a trunk made of thousands of roots all twisted and woven
and intergrown together. On the humped-up roots at the base we stood, one
after another, and made our speeches. What rhetoric there was, and more in
mine than in anyone's! And then we went down and built our alliances, and made
our petty deals, and betrayed one another.
'Just as I finished my speech I noticed, on the edge of the field, a woman
staring at me. That wasn't odd - everyone was watching my speech and quite a
few were applauding. One or two stood to the side giving me dark looks, or
turning to their own allies and their own schemes. She was a most beautiful
woman, though hers was a quiet regal kind of beauty, very understated. Just
like your own.'
'What is beauty anyway?' said Maigraith tersely. 'It is just something to make
use of if you have no useful talent. I never thought of myself as having any.'
'Where did you get that notion from?'
'Faelamor often told me how repulsive I was.'
'Hardly surprising, since you don't look at all Faellem, and much like her
enemy. Have you never heard the tale of the ugly duckling? No? I'll tell you
later on.
'As I was saying, that dark-haired woman was watching me. At the end of my
speech she gave her head a little shake, as if she had not found what she was
looking for, and turned away. I knew most of the important people there but I
had never seen her before. What was she after? My curiosity was piqued. I had
to know who she was, but no one could tell me. By the time I finished my
enquiries, she was gone.'
'Vanished?' asked Maigraith, who had risen right off the bench, staring at
him, trying to see Yalkara reflected in his eyes.
'No, just gone, away from the slaughter fields through the

forest. I ran after her, doubtless making quite a fool of myself and causing
some of my allies to have second thoughts, but I was indifferent. She must
have heard me, for I raced around a bend in the path and she stood there,
waiting. She seemed neither frightened nor uneasy at being accosted by this
madman, alone in the forest. She looked neither bothered by the intrusion nor
particularly interested in it. She just waited politely, to hear what I had to
say and send me on my way again.
'She wore black - a loose blouse of a lustrous material like silk, though not
a wrinkle anywhere, and pantaloons of the same material. Her hair was like
ebony silk and she wore red gold about her throat and forehead and wrist.
Yalkara had the most flawless skin I have ever seen. She was most beautiful,
perfect in every way. Then I saw that her wrists and hands were terribly
scarred, as if they had been burnt.
'I ran up to her, looked into her eyes and nothing in my life was ever the
same again. I, who had never wanted any woman, knew that she would be the only
love of my life. If I could not have her I would have none. I would cease to
exist. Every hair on my body stood on end. My stomach sweated boiling acid.
'She looked down at me, being a head taller. She inclined her head that I

should speak, and a cloud passed across her face. For a moment she looked
puzzled. Then she laughed, a rich mellow sound. "I see," she said.
' "What is your name?" I asked politely.
'She laughed again. "I do not give my name to strangers. You may call me Ilen,
if you wish. What did you want to speak to me about?"
'I was quite bemused. I entered thereupon a rambling and almost incoherent
recapitulation of my previous address. She listened to it at first politely,
but with increasing impatience, looking beyond me at the forest. I grew
desperate, stopped abruptly and turned away, shaking my head and feeling an
utter fool. I never knew her since to suffer such a fool, and
what made her do so then I cannot say. She must have seen something beneath
the pomposity and the pride, for she called me back.
' "I know what ails you, Gyllias," she said, "but it is beyond my power to
cure. Yet if it is not a passing thing, come and see me at Lorkist" (an
insignificant village in Crandor, on the other side of the mountains) "in ..."
(she seemed to be working something out in her head) "one year and fifteen
days from today. Come to the inn on the market square and wait for me, after
noon, at one of the tables outside."
'She nodded, then turned and strode away. I watched until she disappeared in
the golden shade. I had been dismissed, though ever so politely. A year and
fifteen days!
'That was the longest year of my life. Every day I thought of her; every hour.
It was an obsession, and it changed everything. I had to resort to the
severest mental disciplines to do my work. I, who had never needed to
concentrate on anything, found that I daydreamed constantly, that sometimes I
literally could not force myself to work at my task no matter how hard I
tried. That quite shook me, and many of my followers fell away.
'Anyway, at length the year passed, and the fifteen days too, and you can be
sure that I was there in Lorkist at the right inn and the best table well
before the appointed time.'
Maigraith could see the eagerness in his eyes even now; the passion that had
never been quenched.
'Noon came. She did not. Well, she had said after noon, and that might mean
anytime in the afternoon, or perhaps, stretching it, until midnight. I waited
and waited in the cold, and just at the point when I had begun to believe that
she was not going to appear, a servant approached my table. He was a man in
the prime of his middle age, and about his bearing there was something that
said he was honest and reliable.
"Are you Gyllias?" he asked me. I said that I was.
"Then I regret to advise you that my mistress, Ilen" (he
spoke the word with a slight emphasis), "is called away and unable to meet
you, as she said she would. She bids you come again four days after endre, if
you still care to."
'My disappointment must have been writ on my face; my hopes and dreams all
snatched away and replaced by this meagre crumb, for he went on: "She is very
sorry to have inconvenienced you."
'I thanked him and he turned away. I sat there for another hour or two,
watching the moon drift across the sky. Endre, mid-winter week, was 370 days
away, almost another entire year.
'I went about my business, and it was easier now, for some of the gloss had
gone from my obsession. I worked harder at my labours than ever, and achieved
great things that year, and finally endre came and I was back in Lorkist,
waiting as before.
'Again the afternoon passed without sign of her. It grew cold (for Crandor at
least). I was the only one sitting outside. Finally, just on dark, the servant
appeared again. This time the man was most apologetic. His mistress, unable to
return in time, had sent a skeet from far away, bidding me to a third
rendezvous.
' "Tell me where she is," I said, "and I will go to her."
' "That's not possible. Her whereabouts are guarded with the utmost secrecy.