Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (24 page)

'I have it!' Mendark cried. 'The three means the flute, for it was the product
of three worlds: gold of Aachan for the body of the flute; precious ebony of
Tallallame the other parts of it; and the genius of Shuthdar, that conceived
and made it. And the one is the sensitive who will use it to unstitch the
Forbidding and restore the balance between the Three Worlds. But at the end
the instrument will be lost. Does that mean lost, or destroyed? Go through it
once more, Llian.'
Llian repeated the paragraph containing the foretelling.
'Perhaps there is a way that Rulke's prophecy can be averted. The Mirror,
Shand. Quickly!'
'I'll have to get Tensor to check my translation,' said Llian. 'I don't know
the language well enough.'
'Always excuses!' Mendark said. 'Do it again. The Aachim have gone across the
sea.'
Llian went through his translation again, explaining it all in excruciating
detail.
'What can it be but the-three-and-the-one?'breathedMendark when Llian had
finished. 'This is the sign I've been waiting for. The flute was the right way
after all. Shand, you can't refuse us the Mirror now. Let's see if it shows us
more than it did last time.'
Shand had been dreading this moment. How he wished that he had never left
Tullin. Yet he had, and once on the path there was no way to get off it.
Yet still, when he pulled the tight coil of metal from its case and it slowly
unrolled and hardened into the Mirror of Aachan, he did so with the greatest
reluctance. It lay open in his hand, a hard black beautiful thing inscribed
with those strange silver glyphs around the border, the moon symbol in one
corner and the restless quicksilver matrix reflecting
his battered old face. The others were all staring at it, each with his own
greed or wonderment, and Shand felt resentful. Look at them! They each think
that they will get something marvellous from it. Have they forgotten that it
is the Twisted Mirror, the breaker of dreams?
Look at Llian, standing there with his mouth agape. He thinks that it will
tell him all the lost tales of the past. He doesn't seem like a master
chronicler now. He looks more like a lecherous swineherd peeping through the
bushes at the village girls at their bath, dreaming that they will offer
themselves when he comes barging down to the water. But they won't - they'll
run away laughing and mock him cruelly from a distance. So too this Mirror.
Look at Mendark. He imagines that it will restore him to what was once his,
and give him the means to make his name ring down the generations. See how the
thought has almost erased the bitter downcast of his mouth. But it will betray
him. The result will be far worse than he can ever imagine.
Look at Yggur! If ever a man was made of stone it is he. Impossible to tell
what's in his mind. But the Mirror has something, and he knows it. See how his
eyes gleam, and if his face shows nothing, his posture gives him away. Sit
back, Yggur! There's no more in this for you than for me. Nothing for any of
us.
Shand stroked the border of the Mirror, feeling the master-work of the
engraved glyphs around the edge, unmarked by the centuries since Yalkara put
them there. That had been one of the last things she'd done on Santhenar, and
therefore important. He wished he knew why. What memories the Mirror aroused.
How terribly sad he felt. With a swift movement he passed it to Mendark.
Mendark held it lightly on his spread fingers, his thumb resting on the
engraved border. 'At last!' he exulted. He touched the symbol in the corner.
The scene appeared that he had produced when Karan first handed it to him in
Thurkad more than a year ago. The others crowded around to see.
It was a black, desolate landscape with tall mountains in the background.
Nearer was a plain dotted with steely-grey buildings shaped like ox kidneys,
curve upon multiple curve. The plain was cut by an icy rift, dark and deep; a
fibrous iron tower leaned from a hill to one side; a small red sun peeped
fitfully through rushing storm clouds. There was no living thing in sight.

He spoke a word - Dirgash! - and the image disappeared. He tried another word.
Other pictures appeared, views of Aachan like the first, but no more useful.
Shand saw a world of huge mountains crusted with sulphur-coloured snow and
trickling scarlet lava. A land of plummeting canyons and furiously rushing
rivers; of still, oily bogs and blue-black luminous flowers. Between the
mountains were plateaux covered in grey grass, and the mounds and ruins of
ancient cities. The sky was dominated by a huge orange moon hanging sullenly
on the horizon and bathing all in its dreary light.
He spoke other words, and combinations of words; sentences and songs and
exotic verbal symbols. New scenes appeared. Some showed people that he knew.
Here was Tensor, futilely trying to direct his gate with the Twisted Mirror.
Here Faelamor, staring desperately into it in Katazza, with the inside of the
platinum dome reflected in the background. There the image of Karan, wild-eyed
and hair matted, a big streak of mud on her face, looking down. Her head
jerked up, then the Mirror went dark.
'Don't tell me the little scrag has seen more than I can!' Mendark swore,
slapping the table with his open palm.
Llian was so overcome at the sight of Karan that he did not even hear the
insult, but Shand did. His tanned fingers gripped Mendark's thin wrist and he
squeezed so hard that the Mirror clattered to the table. Mendark lifted his
other hand; his eyes met Shand's. They sat like that for half a
minute, then Mendark said, 'I'm sorry,' and Shand released him.
'That must be just before I caught them in Fiz Gorgo,' Yggur said. 'Let's see
if there is more.'
Mendark took up the Mirror again but it now remained stubbornly blank. He
could not even recover what had been there before.
'What a capricious thing it is!' he said in vexation. 'I'll have to work on it
overnight.'
'It stays here!' said Shand vehemently.
'You're too anxious, Mendark,' said Yggur. 'Too angry. Let someone else try.'
Plucking the Mirror out of Mendark's hand, he passed it to Llian.
'I can't,' Llian said. 'I've looked before.' Nonetheless he tried, repeating
various phrases that he had read in his books. Nothing appeared.
'If Tallia were here . . .' began Yggur.
Mendark broke in angrily, 'Well she isn't! This is what you wanted all along,
so stop your posturing and use it.'
Yggur shot him a dark glance from those cavernous eyes. 'The mistake we all
made was in thinking the Mirror to be a formed, unchangeable thing. But it
isn't. It's dynamic, and every use alters it, makes it more complex, more
difficult. More dangerous! Perhaps it has transformed beyond anything we can
do to recover ...'
'Get on with it!' Mendark screamed. He felt that Yggur was taunting him.
Yggur took the Mirror from Llian, touched the symbol in a certain way and
immediately images appeared, flashing quickly from one to another in much the
same way as when Faelamor had used it in Katazza. Scenes of Tensor's gate; his
wracked face; incoherence, mist and jumbled faces and places.
Yggur put it down again. 'That's all I can find,' he said, 'and I know it
well.'
'You didn't even try,' Mendark accused, furious that Yggur
had found more in it than he had, and now laid it aside so casually. 'You've
some secret plan of your own!'
'Indeed I have not,' said Yggur. 'But I will not chant meaningless words at
the Mirror like some village shaman, hoping that something will fit the lock.
I do not have the key, and I know it. I had it for twenty years, remember. Let
it go back to its guardian.'
He handed it to Shand with a bow. Shand took it, feeling guiltily pleased that
none of them could work it, but before he could return it to its case Llian
said suddenly, 'You try it, Shand!'
'No! I was just the custodian. I've never used it, and I will not!'
Yggur looked thoughtful. 'Llian is right. Time for you to take off the mask,

Shand. Perhaps something was left there for the custodian.'
Shand looked sick. 'No,' he whispered. 'It was not meant for me. I vowed .. .'
'Time to stop hiding behind that vow. Look on the Mirror, Shand. If it shows
nothing, you are no worse off
'You don't understand,' said Shand, staring down at the cold, still surface.
'You can never understand ...'
The Ring
Mendark jerked upright in his chair. 'Wait!' he cried. 'I've just remembered
something!' He hurried out, shortly to return with a package and a rolled-up
piece of heavy writing paper clasped with a silver ring.
'I found these in Havissard,' said Mendark, putting them on the table.
Unwrapping a kid-skin wrapper he withdrew a small book bound in leather. 'Also
this. Faelamor dropped it on the floor of the library. I told you about it
just after I returned from the east, remember?'
He handed the book to Llian. 'See if you can decipher it, some time when
you've got nothing to do. Try and work out why Faelamor wanted it.'
Mendark looked up at Shand. 'I also came across this,' he said, handing him
the rolled-up paper and the ring. 'At the time I thought that it was only of
interest to a chronicler. Now I'm wondering if the custodian of the Mirror
might not know something about it. What do you make of it, Shand?'
Shand took it, looking puzzled. 'The workmanship is familiar,' he said
examining the ring. He put it down on the table, unrolled the paper and
smoothed it down.
'My dearest Gyllias . . .' he read, then cried out, gazing at the leaf as if
it had burned him. Cold shivers ran down Llian's back.
Shand stared at the letter without seeing it, lost somewhere in his past.
Looking over his shoulder, Llian read the letter aloud:
My dearest Gyllias,
Would that I could tell you face to face, but you are still not back and I can
wait no longer. Faelamor attacked me again and this time she was very strong.
She dealt me a wound which may well prove mortal. My only chance is to flee
back through the gate to Aachan. Beware Faelamor!
Alas, my work is not done! I fear that it will never be completed now. But I
beg you, take the Mirror and guard it well, against the possibility that
someone will come to restore the balance that Rulke broke with the flute. I
have locked the Mirror. Its secrets are hidden to all save the One who has the
key.
Take this ring, which I made with my own hands, of ore that I mined and
purified here at Havissard, gold and silver and platinum all. It is the key to
Havissard, and a form of protection against my enemy, and a token to give you
heart in the darkness, to remind you of my undying love.
It grieves me to go this way, but go I must.
Farewell forever.
Yalkara
Shand held the Mirror in his other hand, absently stroking the engraved symbol
with his fingertip, a soft, caressing touch. The Mirror suddenly exploded with
light that showed every wrinkle of his craggy old face, every hair of his
beard. He dropped it as if it was red hot. It fell flat on the table. They all
saw the image there.
It was a woman with a striking long face, long dark hair touched with silver,
and indigo eyes. She looked up, seemed to gaze at Shand, and smiled wistfully.
It was the face Karan had seen on the Mirror in Yggur's library at Fiz Gorgo.
'Maigraith!' cried Yggur. 'Maigraith, what has happened to
you? You have aged so!' Then he looked puzzled. 'Maigraith?'
'No,' said Shand quietly. 'It is Yalkara! Oh, Yalkara, my beloved, how I yearn
for you.'
The two men stared at each other.
'It is Yalkara,' Shand said, looking down at the Mirror again. His old eyes
were bright with tears. 'We were lovers for an age of the world. This is how I
last saw her - how she was when she left me.'

'I don't think you can hide your secret any longer, Shand,' said Yggur with
surprising gentleness.
'I can't,' he agreed. 'Doing so has become worse than bringing it out into the
light.' He wiped away a tear. 'I am -at least I was - Gyllias. I will tell you
my tale.'
Mendark stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. 'You were the great
Gyllias?'
Shand gave no acknowledgment. 'Over the ages Yalkara and Faelamor fought many
times, but they were well matched and neither could vanquish the other. Then,
not much more than three hundred years ago, Yalkara found a warp in the
Forbidding, a way to escape Santhenar. It was a secret that Faelamor was
desperate to have. Their last battle began in the ruins of Tar Gaarn, near
Yalkara's mighty stronghold of Hav-issard. For her it was a most unwelcome
struggle for many reasons, not least that she was with child, near her term.
It was a terrible battle, hurting her more than she dared show. No one knew
that she was pregnant, least of all Faelamor. That news would surely have
fired her up. Not even I knew, for I was across the world. Half a year I had
been away.
'Yalkara overcame Faelamor but was cruelly hurt inside, terribly damaged
protecting her secret. She called me and I set off in haste from far away.
Unfortunately the baby came early. Yalkara gave birth alone in her chamber, to
a beautiful girl child. She wept for it and for us, knowing that she could
neither remain on Santh nor carry it safely through the gate. It took her days
to make all the preparations, always hoping that I would return in time, for I
was weeks overdue.
'When I arrived she was already waiting by the gate. I ran to embrace her but
she said, "I'm sorry, Gyllias."
' "What's the matter?" I cried.
' "I am sorely wounded and no one on this world can help me. If I stay I will
be dead within weeks. I love you dearly but I love my own species more. I
cannot bear to die here so far from my own kind, and I cannot carry you to
Aachan with me. Alas, we must part forever. But I have for you a gift. The
greatest gift that any woman can give."
'Her whole body was wracked by spasms. She doubled over, covering her face
with her hands. When she stood up again she looked tormented. From a basket
she lifted a small bundle wrapped in furs, and held it out to me. I was so
shocked that I just stood there, staring at her. Finally I pulled back the
covers. A child lay within, a tiny baby. A beautiful little thing, with her
mother's eyes - the only child I ever had.
"She is our daughter," Yalkara said. "Her name is Aeolior. Take care of her
and guard her always, and when she is old enough, give her the Mirror and
instruct her in its use. I have left a message for her to find there. It will
comfort and guide her, for she has a destiny if a certain foretelling comes to
pass. And take this gift for her, my gold. I have always worn it. Give it to
her when she comes of age and bid her wear it."
'So saying, she took off the necklace of red gold, and her bracelet and torc,
and put them in my other hand. "I will also give you a measure of my strength
and my life. I hope that you don't find it too heavy a burden in the ages that
lie ahead."
'She took my forehead between her hands (they were cool and strong, her hands;
but terribly scarred). She trembled, and something passed from her to me, and
then she kissed me, a delicate kiss on either cheek, and a third on my
forehead. "Do not forget. Guard Aeolior always, and when she is old enough,
give her the birthright. But until then,
stay here in Havissard. I have set it to protect you both. And I have a little
gift for you, a ring that will permit you to come and go. Where did I put it?"
She looked around for the gift - this ring, Mendark, and the letter - but
could not recall where she'd left it. In the turmoil I thought no more about
it.
'I swore that I would guard and protect Aeolior, looking down in wonderment at