Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (59 page)

said Karan, shuddering.
The thranx writhed, one wing flapped like a banner in the wind, and died.
With a flick of his wrist Rulke woke the globe once more. 'You saw?' he
whispered to Yalkara. She did not need to answer - it was written in the
ravines of her face.
'One last try,' he said. 'Come all of you, at once.'
It is over, Rulke, Yalkara sent.
'No, I have control back now.'
You're too late. They were the last! The rest of us are as barren as the tombs
that you will lay them in.
Rulke was trembling. 'What about you, Yalkara? You're the youngest. You've
proven your fertility.'
Look at me, Rulke! I gave away half my life, and alas my fertility went with
it. I am an old woman now. Our extinction is inevitable.
'No!' Rulke screamed. 'No! It cannot be. I will not allow it. Come to
Santhenar. There are ways. We can harvest their eggs and seed, and plant them

-'
A host of Charon appeared, reflected in the brilliant curve behind her. They
were called the Hundred, though barely seventy remained. They were all old
now. No! they said as one. Some things are not meant to be. Let us at least
face extinction with dignity.
'I will do it anyway,' he said in an aside to Maigraith, 'if I can just get
them here.' He looked into Yalkara's eyes. 'Please come.'
No, Rulke, said Yalkara. What time we have left will be bitter enough without
spending it on a foreign world. Come back to Aachan. We will go to our
extinction together.
The Thrice Betrayed
Faelamor crouched high on the other side of the hall, out of sight. Karan's
onslaught on the balcony had almost sent her to her death, but her will kept
her hanging on. At least the Charon were dead, one threat eliminated. I am
almost there, she told herself, and began her own working.
The mist that enveloped her extruded another lobe, which extended outward. At
the other end it stopped before a crowd of Faellem, gathered together in
Elludore, forty leagues and more away. They could have been a colony of minds,
so regular was the linking. They made a perfect, translucent sphere, flecked
regularly on the outside with each will, slowly revolving one way and then
another, and in the centre a greater spot, a darker will than any, directing
the whole. Faelamor had gone on to the next stage of her plan, the linking of
all the wills of the Faellem.
'Not even Rulke can stand against this force,' she said to her people.
The Faellem stepped between the trees and into the pale green light, that
misty gate-lobe, and out of that into Shazmak. They gathered on the platform,
waiting for Faelamor.
'We should never have doubted you!' they cried. 'Show us the Way, Faelamor.
Lead us home to Tallallame!' There was not a dry eye among them.
'And Maigraith lives. She did not harm us after all,' said Faelamor. 'I am
glad about that.'
'She could have, but she has not,' Gethren agreed.
'Two things remain to be done,' Faelamor caressed the golden strings of her
nanollet. The music raised tiny ripples up Gethren's bare arms. 'First we must
rid ourselves of Rulke and his construct,' she said, 'else he will go back to
Aachan and do it all again, and we will forever be looking over our shoulders.
When the deed is done we will force Maigraith to burst apart the Forbidding.
Then we can return to Tallallame with honour.'
'Faelamor,' cried Hallal. 'Put down your instrument. It is no longer needed.
We have committed crimes enough.'
'I cannot,' cried Faelamor. 'If I let Rulke live, sooner or later he will come
for us. While I distract him, fetch Maigraith back.' She began to play her
nanollet again, more wildly than before.
Llian, watching the struggle between Rulke and Faelamor, was in an agony of

frustration. Tallia had been working with Shand and Malien for what seemed
hours, but nothing had made any impression on the barrier.
Yggur had given up. He just stood with his great hands pressed against the
glass. 'Maigraith!' he wailed. 'How could you do this to me?'
Shand took him by the arm. 'It's over, Yggur. What was between you and
Maigraith ended long ago.'
Yggur turned a blotched face to him. 'She doesn't know what she's doing. He's
bewitched her.'
'Look how they work together, Yggur!' Shand shook him hard. 'They were born
for each other.'
'She's mine. I've got to have her!'
'You must accept it, Yggur.'
'I can't!' he screamed. 'I just can't!'
Malien drew Shand away. 'I need to talk to you,' she whispered. 'Seeing Rulke
here, and Faelamor, and thinking
about all that's happened, I wonder if he's the real enemy now. And there's
Mendark ...'
'I wonder too - ' said Shand. He broke off as Yalkara's face appeared on the
reflecting sphere. 'Yalkara!' he roared, but reflections on the barrier
concealed him from her. Shand just stood there, staring at her, and no one
could rouse him.
The drum-tight Wall of the Forbidding began to lash back and forth. Smoke
gushed from underneath the construct. The stairs and balconies shook; the
whole of Shazmak felt ready to implode. While Rulke struggled to hold it all
together, a squad of Faellem crept out of a doorway, pelted across the room
and seized Maigraith. Faelamor was among them, sheltering them with her
illusions.
The webs protecting the Faellem were like sticky threads that caught
Maigraith's arms and legs. She cried out for help but Faelamor hit her with a
confusion at point-blank range. Maigraith could not move. Faelamor rifled
through her pouch and plucked out the Mirror.
"This is the last step,' she said to her people. 'Time to find the hidden Way
to Aachan. Bring her!'
They formed a circle around Faelamor, shielding her with their bodies and
their minds while she sought within the Mirror. 'I have it!' she exulted. They
marched off, still surrounding her.
At Karan's cry, Rulke sent the construct after the little band of Faellem. He
came up as close as he could, nudging it forward in little jerks, but dared
not use power while Maigraith was in the middle.
'Keep back!' said Faelamor, making sure that Maigraith was between her and
him. 'She is my hostage.'
Rulke's eyes could have burned right through her. 'Take us home,' the Faellem
begged. 'Leave her.' 'Not while Rulke lives,' said Faelamor. Flickering images
from the Mirror still reflected on her cheeks. 'What are you doing?' asked
Hallal.
'I'm following Yalkara's trace back to Aachan,' she said, taunting Rulke. 'She
will relish this irony, her own device used to unmake her kind.' Faelamor
stood up, looked deep into the Mirror and, one-handed, played three chords.
The Forbidding rumbled and the assemblage of creatures clustered outside
disappeared as if they had been sucked down a plughole.
'What have you done?' the Faellem cried.
'I've opened the void into Aachan. Soon the Charon will be no more.' As she
spoke, the reflecting metallic sphere that showed the mourning Charon
vanished.
Faelamor turned to Rulke. 'Our enemies are finished now, all save one. Now to
end the last.'
Rulke was strangely calm. 'Out of your instrument I have forged a better - one
that will outlast your kind.'
'Then use it! Go to Aachan, if you have the courage. Defend your people. It
will save me the trouble of dealing with you.'

Rulke hesitated, torn between the Charon and Maigraith, the past and the
future. In his mind's eye, as clearly as if it were shown on the sphere, he
saw the remaining Charon torn to pieces by the creatures from the void. Only
he could save them. But if he went to Aachan, Faelamor would finish Maigraith
and his future would be gone.
'What am I to do?' he said to Karan, or perhaps to himself. 'How can I abandon
the Hundred, my life? Or Maigraith, my love and my future?' Smiting the cowl
with his fist, he flung the levers over hard. The construct whirled around the
little group in a tight circle, so fast that it was no more than a blur. The
blood rushed to Karan's feet; she grew faint. She knew the agony he was going
through but there was nothing she could do to help him. Finally he slowed the
machine to a crawl. 'What do you say, Karan?'
'I would choose the future, if I was forced to choose. But of course,' she
said with a trace of bitterness that she could not overcome, 'being triune, I
have no future.'
Rulke squeezed her little hand in his. 'Nothing is certain in life,' he said,
grounding the construct directly in front of Faelamor. 'I choose the future.'
'Your choice is irrelevant,' said Faelamor. 'I cannot allow even one of you to
live.' She stroked her fingers across the strings of the nanollet for the last
time.
The Wall faded, churned and the outside layer split into a thousand panes that
drifted in the air, casting distorted reflections everywhere. Red smoke wafted
out from underneath the construct. A vent the size of Gothryme Manor opened in
the Wall but nothing came through it.
'You did your work too well!' Rulke snapped. He spun a wheel. The construct
groaned but did not move. Smoke belched out of it from a dozen places. The
light-lens faded. Cursing, he jumped off, sword in hand. Karan slipped down
the other side, out of sight of the Faellem.
Faelamor back-pedalled away from his long sword, moving her hand feebly in the
air.
'Your glamours are useless, this close to it,' he said. She backed slowly
around the front. Karan held her breath. One more step, she thought. Just take
one more step! Faelamor stepped back another step.
Lashing out with her foot, Karan kicked the nanollet from under Faelamor's
arm. It skidded under the construct. There was an explosion and the sound of
rending metal. The construct leapt in the air. When the clouds of magenta
smoke cleared Karan saw that one side was torn open, leaving jagged wings of
black metal protruding out, and dark complex innards revealed. The machine
drifted in slow circles, listing so far sideways that one of the wings
screeched on the floor. An oval plate the size of a cartwheel fell off the
underside, clanging on the tiles. Inside that cavity something burned like a
white-hot furnace.
Maigraith lay on the floor, concussed by the blast. The construct was still
drifting in a circle, heading directly for her.
'Maigraith!' Karan shouted. 'Get out of the way!'
Maigraith moved feebly. Karan ran and tried to pull her out of the way. She
felt so weak. As she heaved, the furnace blast from the inside of the
construct passed right over Maigraith's outflung arm. Her skin blistered like
a roasted chicken. Maigraith screamed. Rulke came running up and helped Karan
pull her free.
Maigraith hardly recognised him. Rulke held her face between his huge hands
and tried to remove Faelamor's confusion, but as soon as he let her go she
fell down again.
The construct, circling slowly, passed directly over the fallen nanollet.
There was a hiss like steam escaping. The instrument glowed red, blue and
violet-black. Then, in an explosion that sent all three flying through the
air, it disappeared.
Karan was hurled backwards against the spiralling stairs. There was a
sickening crack. She gave a little cry and slid down onto the floor like a
boneless carcass. Her legs were at a strange angle. She couldn't move. The

pain was agonising.
Rulke, who was unharmed, ran to Karan. 'I can never thank you for what you've
done today,' he said, then froze. 'Karan? Are you all right?'
She was rambling to herself, in a delirium of pain. 'All my fault. Llian!
Father? Father!'
Rulke picked her up, her arms and legs dangling like a sick swan. She
screamed. He set her down by the construct, which had settled lower, its
dimensions seemingly more squat, more menacing. After making her as
comfortable as he could, he began ripping the metal skin off the machine,
desperately trying to get it going again.
Llian could see that Karan was terribly injured. He felt an almost
irresistible urge to run at the glass and burst it with his head.
Karan arched her back, her mouth opening in a silent scream. Llian could feel
her agony. She was radiating it in a
sending that shivered its way up the spines and nerves of everyone in the
room. She was dying! She needed him desperately. Tears washed channels down
his grimy face.
He saw Maigraith lurch over to Rulke, who had his construct working again.
Rulke stopped the huge hole in the wall down to the size of a hoop. Nothing
had come out of it for ages.
Llian turned an agonised face to Malien and Tallia. 'I'm sorry, chronicler,'
said Malien. 'We've done everything we can, and it hasn't worked. 'I've
nothing left in me,' said Yggur listlessly. 'Please do something.'
'Mendark said you'd never amount to anything!' Llian said as cruelly as he
could. 'Shand?'
Shand had not noticed. He was still gazing at the place where Yalkara's image
had appeared, oblivious to everything else.
Llian turned away from the barrier. Wiping the tears off, he smudged the dust
into the trail of a comet on his brow. There is always a way, he said to
himself. 'Tensor!'
Tensor, sitting on the floor with his head sunk in his lap, did not answer.
'Tensor!' He shouted in the Aachim's ear and struck him on the shoulder.
Tensor raised his head, looking Llian in the eye. 'She's finished,
chronicler!' There were tears in his eyes too. 'We all are. We won't see out
the day.'
'Be damned! You owe me a debt and I call on you to pay it.' 'I owe you a debt,
chronicler? I can't think why.' 'You kidnapped me, dragged me all the way to
Katazza and used me there. You wronged me, yet still I aided you with your
gate.'
Tensor appeared to struggle to recall that time. 'I cannot see where the debt
is, but after today, what will it matter? Ask your boon, chronicler.'
'Smash down this barrier. Karan is dying all alone. I've got to go to her.'
Tensor peered through the glass wall and focussed on Karan. 'What can I do
when everyone else has failed?'
'Use the potency that you made for the destroying of Rulke.'
'The destroying of Rulke,' said Tensor wonderingly. 'That was my life's work,
once. I don't think I can get the potency back, chronicler. I am wasted,
empty.'
'Try!' said Llian imperiously. 'Remember how you hated Rulke once. Remember
all that the Charon have done to your people since they came out of the void.'
'I was hot with hate once,' Tensor said, shaking his head.
'Bring that hate out again,' Llian cried recklessly, urging Tensor on with
tales of Rulke that he knew were no longer true, lies made up to ensure that
the Charon remained the Great Enemy. He put every iota of his teller's voice
into it. Nothing mattered any more, except Karan. 'Remember the Clysm,
remember - '
'Llian!' Malien called. 'This is unwise.'
'Remember how the Hundred took your world,' Llian shouted. 'Remember how Rulke
crippled you in Katazza!'
'I do remember!' Tensor lurched to his feet.