A Shadow on the Glass (4 page)

“Yes he is, the good and the bad. Wistan—”

“I won’t harm him as long as he cooperates!” snapped Wistan.

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I will discredit him utterly and strip him of his honor.”

It was midday when Llian rose. In the daylight his fears of the previous night had receded to a distant worry, one that could be put off. Fifteen years of toil at the college were over! He was a teller
and
a master chronicler at last, the youngest to have achieved either honor in more than a hundred years. He was just twenty-eight, the whole world was wonderful and it all lay at his feet. Whatever he wanted could be his, though all Llian really wanted was to be a chronicler, to fill in the gaps in the Histories; and a teller, one who searched out forgotten tales or made new ones. His dream was to make a new Great Tale, though a dream was surely all it could be. In four thousand years of keeping the Histories, only twenty-two tales had been judged worthy of being Great Tales.

Llian scratched himself, inspecting the damage of the previous night in a cracked mirror. His brown eyes were bloodshot and bleary, and his head throbbed. Llian might have been called handsome, save that his mouth was too wide and his chin lopsided, but when he smiled it lit up his whole face. He was of middle height and slimly built, though with strong shoulders. Llian was likeable and charming, though occasionally a little full of himself. Sometimes, because of his heritage, he tried too hard. His voice was soft and rich and mellow, touched with lights and shadows, utterly
enchanting. Friends, enemies; all loved his voice. As did he.

Llian combed untidy brown hair, worn fashionably long, and was halfway through lunch with his friends when the expected summons came. It was Turlew, Wistan’s detestable seneschal, a bitter failed chronicler who hated all students and, most of all, Llian.

“Wistan requires you in his office immediately,” said Turlew, licking soft wet lips that looked as though they had been stung by a bee.

“Tell him I’ll be along presently,” said Llian, and belched. Everyone laughed.

Turlew’s chubby cheeks grew red. “At once, Wistan said!”

“I’m not a student anymore,” said Llian. “I’m a master now, you strutting peacock, though since you weren’t invited to the telling last night I’ll excuse you for not knowing that.” Llian was not normally rude but he detested Turlew as much as Turlew resented him.

“A master, eh? You still have the manners of a student. Have you a position to go to?” Turlew looked as though he could spit venom. “Without Wistan’s references you won’t even get a clerk’s post.”

“Don’t forget who my sponsor is,” said Llian arrogantly. “Mendark himself! What does Mendark care for Wistan’s references?”

“You might find that Mendark demands more than you care to repay.”

That was something Llian had no answer for. Mendark was a mancer—a wielder of the Secret Art—of great power and subtlety, an uncertain friend, a deadly opponent. A perilous master, so the tales went. Mendark had extended his own life many times over, as mancers did, and now his tentacles reached across the known world. Why he had sponsored
a Zain at the college no one knew. Suddenly the world outside seemed all too precarious.

Wistan was pacing the room when Llian entered. He did not smile.

“Good afternoon,
Master
Llian,” he said.

“Good afternoon, Master Wistan,” Llian replied politely.

He stared at Wistan, apprehension mingled with contempt, his teller’s eye making a caricature of the ugly little man. The skin of Wistan’s long and scrawny neck sagged in festoons like a curtain above a window and quivered with every forced-out word. On top of this column there tottered a head the like of which Llian could not look on without mingled mirth and horror. It was almost fleshless, small and flat at the top, flaring to a jaw so large that he appeared to be nothing but face. The lips were gray and bloodless, the nose a flattened, insignificant thing with large open nostrils of greenish hue. His head bulged at the back and the eyes protruded out of the concavity of his face like two peas resting on a saucer of lard. A few straps of dung-colored hair, hastily combed across the top of a blotchy skull, now hung limp and greasy about his ear.

“You will never tell that version of the tale again,” said Wistan, pursing his slab lips.

“But…” said Llian. “I don’t understand …” Did Wistan know what he suspected?

“Don’t play the fool, Llian. The paper proves that she was stabbed from behind. You have uncovered a deadly secret. A brilliant piece of work, but it must be suppressed. I will not allow you to risk the college.”

Llian could hardly control his face. So, murder
had
been done! There
was
a Great Tale here, and he was going to uncover it no matter what Wistan said. “But hundreds of people heard me last night—the whole college.”

“And I will speak to every one of them. Everyone will swear, on pain of expulsion, never to mention it again.”

Not everyone, Llian thought, remembering the small red-haired woman who had touched his mind. He could hardly remember what her face looked like, but the impression of her mind touching his was still vivid. She was not from the college. She might have told a dozen people by now.

“It’s like trying to hold back the tide,” he said. “You can’t control two hundred people. The story will be all over town already.”

“Chanthed is a town full of rumors. If you do not substantiate them they will die.”

“How can I deny what I’ve already said? Anyway, it’s traditional that the best tale of the graduation is told at the Festival of Chanthed next autumn. That is my right.”

“Rights must be broken at need. If you wish to have what is your due, find another tale, or another way to tell that one. You have plenty in your armory.”

“I demand my rights!” Llian said furiously. “I’m not a student anymore.”

Wistan held onto his temper with an effort. “Grow up, Llian! You have a lot to offer, but a lot more to learn. You are about to go out into the world and seek a position, and for that you need my goodwill. Do you imagine that you can just write what you like, or tell what you like? If you do, then I assure you that your tenure will be very short indeed.
Good day!
”

Llian went out and wandered about the grounds. He climbed up a little knoll, a favorite thinking place, and lay down on his back in the grass. From here he could look out over the college and the winding streets of Chanthed further down the hill. The town was a lovely sight, a green and gold oasis nestled into the folds of the sun-browned hillside and extending its flanks to the clear waters of the Gannel. The
yellow sandstone buildings positively glowed in the afternoon sun. The cobbled streets were like gray streams running down to the river.

If he looked the other way Llian could see the foothills of the mountain range that extended along the entire eastern side of the great island of Meldorin, a distance of three hundred leagues. Across the mountains were the fertile plains of Saboth and the ancient coastal city of Thurkad. Beyond that the long narrow gutter of the Sea of Thurkad separated Meldorin from the continent of Lauralin. The barren land where the Zain dwelt was on the other side of the continent, more than four hundred leagues away.

Time to consider his future. There would never be a post for him here while Wistan was master. Nor did he want one. After fifteen years Llian was chafing to get out into the world. In three month’s time his stipend would expire, so he had to find a way to earn his living before that. He had no idea where to start. In truth Llian was naive about the world. Moreover he was clumsy and inept at most things save his art, telling, and his trade, the Histories.

The Histories were vital to the culture of Santhenar and permeated every aspect of life on it. Even the poorest families kept their family registers, taught orally to their children if they were illiterate and could not afford the services of a public scribe. But to have one’s life told by a master chronicler, to actually play a part in the Histories of the world, was the greatest honor that anyone could long for. This longing supported a wolfpack of charlatans and false chroniclers, and it was a hunger that even the greatest were not immune to. Even Mendark, Llian’s grotesquely rich sponsor, longed to be honored in his own Great Tale.

“Llian, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

It was Thandiwe, her face flushed from running up the hill. She flopped down on the grass beside him.

“Is something the matter?” Llian asked.

“No, I just wanted to see you. I suppose you will be leaving Chanthed soon.”

“I suppose so.”

They sat in the grass for a long while, pursuing their own thoughts.

“So, what are you going to do with yourself, Llian?”

“I was just wondering that. For the last four years I’ve done what I wanted, working on my project. Now it’s all over and I’m afraid. How am I to find a master? What if I end up with a coarse, stupid master who wants nothing but nursery tales?”

“What about your sponsor?”

“Mendark? I imagine that he will call me when he wants me. I’m… afraid to go to him. Afraid to presume.”

“I would be afraid of what he wanted from me,” Thandiwe said softly.

“That too!”

“How was it that he sponsored you? That’s something you’ve never talked about.”

“No, I haven’t, because his name has earned me nothing but envy and blows. Mendark first came to our house when I was eight. We were a close family, though poor. We lived in Jepperand, a desert land next to the Dry Sea, my mother and father and my two sisters, and me.”

“Two sisters,” she sighed. “I have five older brothers.”

“Llayis, my father, is a scribe. He looks like me, though taller, and he hasn’t got much hair anymore. I suppose that’s my fate too.” Llian laughed somewhat tentatively and ruffled his fingers through his untidy locks. “Zophy, my mother, is little and round and cheerful. She is a letterer, an illuminator really, as are my sisters. My older sister Callam is tall and serious, with very dark hair; she takes after my father.
My little sister Alyz… How I miss her! She is more like my mother, and the best worker of us all.”

“How come they sent you so far away?” Thandiwe asked.

“I was too clever—I wrote a catalog of tales when I was eight. It amazed even our scholarly race, and I suppose that was how Mendark first heard about me. Anyway, when I was twelve, he appeared at the front gate. He bent down, inspecting me as though I was something he considered buying, then went into the house and closed the door. I was afraid.”

“Mendark!” She gave a theatrical shudder. “I would have been too.”

“As soon as Mendark had gone my parents called me inside. He had offered to sponsor me at the college, even to master chronicler if I could rise that high. An undreamed-of honor. I was shocked. The College of the Histories was famous even in Jepperand, but I knew it was on the other side of the world.”

“You did not think to refuse?”

“I wanted to, but I wanted the honor too, and I did not want to let my family down. It is not uncommon for clever children to be sent away to learn, but no Zain child had come as far as Chanthed in a very long time. Such an opportunity would never come again. Though my parents were both learned, they were still poor. Almost everyone is, in Jepperand. I suppose they would have refused had they thought I really didn’t want to go.

“I can still remember the look on my little sister’s face as I joined that caravan of strangers. She was six; she couldn’t possibly have understood. I was almost as bewildered myself. But we Zain endure what cannot be altered, so I bit my lip and clenched my fists to stop them trembling, and kissed my mother and father, and my older sister.

“Only little Alyz did not know how to behave. She
started to cry. ‘Llian is never coming home again,’ she wailed. ‘Never, never, never!’

“That broke us all. Callam began to weep, and my mother cried, and even my father shed a tear. Then they all embraced me together, which made it much worse. I wept till my eyes could make tears no more, and then it was time to go, so dutifully I went.

“It was the worst time in all my life, that journey. I was the only child there and no one tried to comfort me. It took six months of heat and dust and flies and miserable food before we reached the Sea of Thurkad. On the other side Mendark appeared, examined me briefly and sent me straight on to Chanthed. All he said was, ‘When the time comes, remember your debt.’ ”

“Is that all?”

“He spoke about posterity and his place in it. He was most concerned for his reputation.”

“So, did the college live up to your dreams?”

“Not for a long time. Everyone knew I was Zain and that I was only here because my sponsor was too powerful to refuse. It was years before I made a friend, and my work became everything to me. You were my first friend, Thandiwe.”

“I envied you,” she said. “I thought you had everything. You seemed to do your work so easily. Your illuminated book of the Great Tales is as good as anything in the library.”

“Not really! But I grew up with that art. I watched my mother do it every day.”

“And your fees and board and stipend were paid for you. It has been such a struggle for my family to keep me here.”