Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (34 page)

'Never!' The three voices cried out as one. 'That is the greatest sin we can
contemplate.'
Faelamor was on her feet, a leader again, as bold as ever. 'Listen to me! For
more than three thousand years we opposed the Charon here. And if you recall,
we tried everything that the Faellem ever knew. Everything! But we were
powerless because we obeyed the prohibition and refused to amplify our power
with magical devices. How many of us fell before we learned that? How many
more fell after? That's why we had to shrink away and hide, and forget what we
came here to do. Maigraith was my way around the prohibition - a human
device!'
'But Maigraith is lost to you, and now she is uncontrollable,' Hallal said.
'We are worse off than ever.'
'Then here is the second task,' said Gethren. 'Maigraith must die!'
Faelamor went rigid, her eyes almost starting out of her head. 'No,' she
whispered. 'She is everything to me, despite that I treated her so ill. It
would be like cutting off my own limb.'
'The limb is diseased and must go, else the whole body is threatened. Do you
put her before Tallallame?'
'No,' said Faelamor.
'We do not like it either, but it must be done.'
They all looked at Faelamor. She was lost inside herself, the despair and the
longing feeding on themselves until she was almost driven mad. She had failed;
Maigraith was gone. She would never recover her now. In her head she knew that
they were right, but her heart could never sanction it.
'I cannot do it,' said Faelamor, biting her lip until the blood flowed. 'Do
you vote on it?'
'We do!' they said as one.
'I vote nay,' said Faelamor. 'I beg you, do not harm her. We are tied
together, she and I.'
'The vote is lost,' snapped Ellami. 'Do you submit to our will, or go into
exile with your triune?'
Faelamor was in agony. 'I cannot bear exile again,' she whispered. 'Ah,
Maigraith! I cannot see her harmed either. You know what she means to me.'
'You are overruled,' Gethren said coldly.
Faelamor cast her hood over her face and scrunched herself up into a little
tight ball on the ground.
The three Faellem stared at one another. 'I have always liked Maigraith,' said
Ellami. 'But I will do it if it is agreed that it must be done.'
'It must be done,' said Hallal, and Gethren echoed her. 'But be quick; be
merciful.'
'It must be done,' said Ellami in a voice like the stone lid
sliding over a crypt. 'And the other triune too - the sensitive! Karan must
also die. Her death will put a spike in Rulke's plan. Are we agreed?'
'Yes,' they chorused. 'Karan must also die.'
'Our third and most desperate task,' said Ellami before they could catch their
breath, 'is to combat Rulke and his construct. Do you have an idea about that,
Faelamor?'
Faelamor made no response. Gethren picked her up and Hallal stripped
Faelamor's cloak and hood away. Her eyes were dead holes.
'Well, Faelamor?' said Ellami.
'There is only one way left,' she whispered listlessly.
'What is it?'
'I have already left the path in so many ways, but this crime is of an
entirely different order.' She looked absolutely desperate. 'We must break the
prohibition and make a device of our own. We must use Yalkara's gold.'
'Never!' they cried as one.
She sat up straight, terror overcoming her agony for the moment. 'Listen to
me,' she hissed. 'Where did the prohibition come from anyway? Can any of you
tell me that?'
'No,' said Gethren. 'It is lost in the depths of time. It has always been.'

'It has not always been. I wonder if it was not put on us to keep us down.
Maybe our enemies shackled us so, in the distant past. How can we, the noblest
of all the human species, endure to be so encumbered? Without such a device we
have no chance against Rulke, do we?'
'We have no chance,' said Gethren sombrely.
'Then I say we overturn this prohibition and make ourselves a weapon that is
the equal of Rulke's. It will not be easy, and we might fail, but at least we
will have given our species the chance. What do you say?' Her eyes flashed
fire.
'Show us the gold,' said Ellami.
Faelamor brought out the jewelry she had taken from Havissard. She spilled it
on the ground in front of them, a
heavy chain, a bracelet, a torc, all of red gold. She touched it with her
finger. It did not shock her as it had back in Havissard, but it felt most
unpleasant. She passed it to Gethren, piece by piece, and he passed each piece
on to the other two.
'It feels prickly,' said Ellami. 'Oh, I don't like the sense of it at all.'
She threw it back to Faelamor.
'That's because our enemy Yalkara used it. Ai!' Faelamor wailed. 'How she
taunted me with the Mirror, twisting our foretellings to her own purposes. How
she dared me to look inside. But I did dare, and found what she had kept
hidden. It is very special, this Aachan gold.'
'And very dangerous,' said Gethren. 'Why do we need it?'
'Devices are not our way,' Faelamor reminded him. 'None of us have skill with
them. If we must adopt the arts of our enemies and make a sorcerous device,
all the more reason to form it out of the most potent substance there is.'
'Strong weapons need strong shoulders and a steady hand,' said Hallal. 'If we
must commit this terrible crime, and I do not say that we must, then let it be
with a device that is within our skill to use and to control.'
'From what will we make it? Where will we find it? How will we learn to use
it?' cried Faelamor. 'I can make a surpassingly powerful device with this
gold, for every atom resonates with its former use. But if I were to take
other materials - metal or precious ebony or tusk, say - and shape them into a
flute or any other device that I cared to imagine, it would remain just
lifeless material. I cannot put power into it.'
'Then what you cannot make and know, you should not contemplate the use of,'
said Gethren. 'This is the greatest folly that I have ever heard. I say nay.'
'Do you give up then?' Faelamor shouted in his face. 'If you do, you condemn
your species, here and in Tallallame too, for my very bones know how our world
cries out for aid. There is no other way.'
The three went into the trees and talked among themselves. Then they came
back. 'We will allow it,' Gethren said, 'so long as you make a device that is
part of our tradition. No flutes! No constructs!'
'You have consulted us,' Hallal continued, 'as is proper, and we have laid
down our rule. Now it is your duty to decide what course to take.'
'Thank you,' Faelamor whispered. 'I would sooner make that choice here with
you.'
She sat for a long time with her head bowed. 'Whatever I choose, the Three
Worlds will be changed forever. Perhaps Tallallame is already irretrievably
altered. Doubtless it has been, in the time we've been gone. But all things
change, and the prohibition must be abandoned.
'I have made my choice,' she said, and her voice was a knell in all their
hearts. 'This is our third task. We will use the gold. We will shape our own
instrument with it. We will make a nanollet, something that every Faellem
child knows how to play. With it we will smash the Forbidding asunder, and
Rulke's construct too, and cast him down so low that he will never rise again.
And then,' she said, her eyes shining, 'we will go home to Tallallame and know
that our duty is done.'
Like a Row of Dominoes
Maigraith and Shand stood in Yggur's dingy workroom, with the rest of the

company gathered around them. They were all staring at the writing on the
Mirror.
. . . Your task is to dismantle the Forbidding and at the same time restore
the balance between the worlds that existed before the flute.
This is what you must 'The next part of the message is missing,' Maigraith explained to the company.
'It ends: look upon the Mirror, and it will show you what you must do.'
'The two sayings are linked,' cried Mendark. 'Recall the answer to the
foretelling: There will appear an instrument -"khash-zik-makattzah,"
the-three-and-the-one - and if a way can be found to use it, Santhenar can be
redeemed. But at the end the instrument will be lost.
'We know what the three means: gold of Aachan, precious ebony from Tallallame,
and the wit and skill of the artisans of Santhenar who are to make it into the
golden flute. And the one to use it can only mean you, Maigraith.'
'How can that be right?' asked Maigraith. 'Yalkara warns that the use of such
devices will hasten the failure of the
Forbidding. How can she have intended that the golden flute be made anew?'
'That's obvious to any fool!' snapped Mendark. 'If the flute is used in the
right way it will unmake the Forbidding rather than cause it to fail.'
Maigraith felt panicked by Mendark's pressure. 'What right way? No one knows
how it was used.'
'Then I suggest,' Mendark said coldly, and it was clear that he found her
Charon appearance unnerving, 'that you spend your time trying to find the
missing bits of the message rather than criticising those who are actually
trying to do something. We have precious ebony, and we have skilled goldsmiths
able to work to Tensor's pattern, if we can convince him to make one. Aachan
gold is all we lack to make our weapon.'
He spilled the few pieces they had onto the table. They included the ring
Yggur had shown them months ago, some links of fine chain and a few fragments
of leaf. 'It's not enough,' Mendark said dismissively. 'Not near.'
'Yes!' said Yggur. 'We've got to make a stand. Rulke exerts his strength in
the west, testing us. The Ghashad have come out of Shazmak again. He grows
stronger by the hour. We must oppose him, or fall.'
Maigraith sat silent, intimidated by Mendark's aggression. She was sure that
he was wrong. Then, puzzling over what she knew about Yalkara, something else
occurred to her. 'Is the Mirror my birthright, or something else?' she said in
Shand's ear.
Shand thought for a moment. 'No, not your birthright, but Aeolior's. I've
always thought that it was the Mirror. What else could Yalkara have meant?'
He thought for a moment, then got up. 'Come outside,' he said to Maigraith.
'As usual, you're off as soon as there's work to be done,' Mendark said with
heavy sarcasm.
Shand grinned over his shoulder, then he and Maigraith disappeared out the
door.
Karan sat listening to the talk of war. She had known it was coming - her
dreams of Shazmak and the void had returned a week ago. It would not be long.
I've got to go home, she thought miserably. I've got to be there, this time.
'This is a waste of time,' cried Yggur following hours of fruitless
discussion.
'Aye,' said Nadiril. 'Faelamor has Yalkara's gold, that's the only certainty.'
Yggur stood up abruptly. 'I've got better things to do.'
'We must take an army to Elludore and wrest it back from her,' said Mendark.
'You don't have an army,' Yggur said frostily, but he sat down again.
'Ah, but if I did, Yggur, I wouldn't lack the courage to lead it'
'Enough of your sly manipulation, Mendark. I've proven my courage!' Yggur
riffled through the papers on his table and held up a rolled map. 'But for
once you're right. Maybe we should go to Elludore and seize the gold.'
'She'll hide,' Karan said. 'You'd never find her.'
'I've an idea!' cried Yggur. 'Guards, clear the room!'
After everyone had gone, Mendark and Yggur kept on as if the best of friends,

not bitter rivals.
'She can't hide from me,' said Yggur, unrolling his map. It was the one Shand
had drawn in the seaside cabin, showing Faelamor's valley in Elludore. 'I can
assemble a gross of illusionists on a day's notice. We can pin her there - her
perfect refuge will be a perfect trap. Look, there's only one way out, unless
you're a mountaineer.'
Mendark inspected the map. 'Shand certainly has an eye for detail! You can
truly field so many illusionists so quickly?' he asked with raised eyebrow.
'Well, perhaps not a gross, but many! As soon as I knew Faelamor had the gold
I began gathering them together.'
'I too,' said Mendark, fascinated by the idea. 'Tell me, how would you go
about it?'
'See how her valley is bounded by cliffs on all sides, even where the river
flows out, and that path is easily blockaded. There are one or two ways down
the cliffs, but very awkward. I'd take this way in,' he indicated it on the
map, 'though we'd need protection.'
Mendark broke in. 'With enough master illusionists, and the right sensitive to
link and bind them together, we can sense any glamour she makes and cast our
own to unbind it.'
Yggur rubbed his chin. 'I know that you're a sensitive, Mendark. But would you
risk your sanity and perhaps even your life in what must be an untestable and
... hazardous enterprise?'
'I'd prefer not to,' said Mendark. 'It is, as you say, a risky business, and I
have other responsibilities.'
'Then do you have a sensitive in mind? The wars have taken a toll of them, I
know, but I could . . . provide you with a few suitable names.'
'I have several in mind but I would be glad to hear of yours. Which is not to
say that any sensitive would do. I must have one who can link.'
'And one who has been proven under great pressure.'
'Maigraith can link.'
'But she is not a sensitive. Besides, Faelamor knows her too well.'
'I had in mind to use someone who owes us all a debt. A triune, but a
controllable one. She's such a little, incomplete thing, is Karan.' Mendark
smiled grimly.
'Also my choice. Bring her!' Yggur said to his guard.
Karan was led in and the matter put to her. She sat before the two stern men,
afraid and intimidated. 'My life has gone
full circle, like it was at the beginning. Everyone wants to use me.'
'Sadly, that is the fate of sensitives, blendings and most especially
triunes,' Yggur observed without sympathy. He might have been inspecting the
horses in his stable, for she seemed to warrant no more choice than they did.
'Do I have an option? What if I should refuse?'
'We will consider our options,' said Yggur.
But Mendark said, 'This is your reckoning, Karan! You betrayed us in Carcharon
and it was only blind luck that we were not overcome there. Speaking as
Magister, I say that you have no choice. Either this pays for that, or you go
to trial. And since you have already admitted your guilt, you will be
convicted and sentenced as is appropriate for treachery. As you have such
useful skills, it is probable that the sentence would be slavery as a
sensitive, rather than execution.'
'And the first part of my slavery would be to serve as a sensitive on this
mission,' said Karan.
'Precisely.'
Karan bowed her head. Every one of my actions has led irresistibly to the
next, she thought, since this business began. What is the point in trying to
resist fate? 'I will be your sensitive,' she said. 'When do we start?'
'At once,' said Mendark. 'Gather your illusionists, Yggur, and I will mine.'
'So soon!' said Karan, alarmed. 'How can you attack her with so little
preparation?'
'If we delay, if Faelamor is warned, we'll never find her.'