Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (50 page)

the tunnel.
After a few hours the tunnel plunged steeply down. The walls were wet here and
the floor slippery. Shazmak was built on a pinnacle of rock rising out of the
middle of the Garr, and therefore the way must go under the river at some
point. At the lower end of the decline, her lightglass showed a long stretch
of water. A thrown rock indicated that it was deep. She would have to swim and
hope that the tunnel was not full further on. Her small light did not reach
that far.
Carrying no change of clothes, Karan undressed, put everything in her pack and
drew the inner drawstring tight. With care it would stay dry. She stepped into
the cold water. In a few steps it was deeper than her toes could reach. She
turned on her back, held her pack against her chest with one arm while holding
the lightglass up with her other hand, and kicked along.
Almost immediately she felt uneasy, and the further she paddled the more her
disquiet grew. Irrational fears began to plague her, of slimy things that
dwelt in the depths below. Nonsense! It's just that I don't know how deep it
is, she told herself. It's the dark and the unknown. Nothing could live in
here - there's nothing to eat. It's just dead water.
Dead water! That thought was no more comforting, and now she began to think
that something sat waiting for her on the other side, watching as she kicked
blindly towards it. It's because I haven't any clothes on - it makes me feel
vulnerable. There's nothing to worry about. This place has been sealed for
centuries.
She paddled on, but could not resist the urge to look over her shoulder,
expecting eyes like lamps to grow out of the darkness as she approached. Her
foot kicked against a
slippery, unpleasant surface. She thrashed and churned the water to foam in
her desperation to get to the other side. Eventually she did, completely
unscathed, to find another empty tunnel. She sat on the gritty floor to dress.
As soon as she had done that Karan felt better, though so cold. She was glad
of the dry clothes. But still she could not escape the feeling that there was
something in the mine with her.
Karan examined the rock, which here was yellow, with veins, layers and knots
of red, brown and even black. She knew nothing about mining but the dark red
ore looked to be rich. Picking up a piece from the floor, she weighed it in
her hand. It was very heavy. She walked along, tossing it up in the air and
catching it in her hand. The light sparkled off crystals that were every bit
as beautiful as rubies.
Shelling some nuts she ate them one by one, nibbling away at their triangular
sides first and then crunching into the sweet interior. They weren't bad.
Karan sat down and consumed them all.
Time to get going again. As she lifted the globe the light swept across the
floor, illuminating a curious and unnervingly familiar marking. The back of
her neck prickled.
Holding the globe higher, she saw a dark stain on the yellow stone - the
outline of a heel. The shape was suggestive. She went down on hands and knees,
holding the globe close to the floor to look for other marks. She soon found
one.
It was the print of a square foot like the palm of a huge hand, with just the
trace of long splayed toes like fingers. She knew instantly what had made it.
It was the same print, probably the same beast, as she had seen in the snow
after she escaped Rulke and fled up the mountain from Carcharon. It was the
massive, hairy, dwarf-shaped creature that had come out of the void and moved
the levers of the construct so knowingly. She had spent that whole night in
terror of it. So this was where it had got to. It must have followed the
Ghashad back to Shazmak.
Karan cocked her head, one way and then the other. Her
hearing was poor on one side - the ear that the void-leech had punctured.
Lorrsk, Rulke had called it. She sniffed the print. It had the faint odour of
old blood. It was in pain, probably starving, and in here somewhere! It would

make a meal of her and she had no weapon at all. It might have smelled her
already.
Nonsense, she told herself. My adventures at Carcharon were ages ago. It must
be long gone, or hunted down or starved to death, or dead from its injuries. I
would have sensed it if it was near.
But the lorrsk was not gone. It had followed the Ghashad all the way back to
Shazmak, taking one of them on the way, and later a second, slashing the man
down with a single blow of its clawed hand. The meat was stringy and rank,
though in the void the lorrsk had learned that any food not actually poisonous
was a precious gift.
But it could not get into Shazmak, so temptingly full of live flesh. Sentinels
sounded the alarm before it could get near, closing every way against it. And
every movement broke open the hideous wound on its backside where it had
fallen in that pool of molten metal in Carcharon. One buttock hadbeen
completely burned away and after all this time the wound had still not healed.
It was now horribly infected. The pain, even for a creature inured to stoicism
as the lorrsk was, was shocking.
Then one day, as its hunger grew desperate and the pain more and more
unbearable, the lorrsk had chanced upon the old mine adit Karan had seen. It
crept inside, grateful for protection from the winter cold, and made a living
for a while on rats, bats and other small creatures. Exploring all the
tunnels, it found a fresh fall of rock that had a different smell. The lorrsk
broke through into the secret passage. But this, it sensed, was a dangerous
place, full of traps, so it went back to the mine. When it had eaten every
creature there, and still had not found a way into the larder of Shazmak, it
made itself as comfortable as the injury would permit and
sank into a state like hibernation, to await spring or some other opportunity.
Karan had often been afraid during the adventures of the past year and a half.
Terror had been her constant companion for good parts of that time. But she
had never before felt the mind-numbing dread, the absolute horror of knowing
that somewhere in the dark was a desperate, starving creature at least as
clever as she was, whose first aim would be to rend her limb from trunk, bite
her head off and crunch her bones to powder. Her sensitive nature allowed her
to imagine that far too well.
Putting the globe away, she felt her way along in the dark for a while, afraid
that the light would draw attention to her. But she realised how irrational
that was - the lorrsk could probably smell her like a dog and the light would
make no difference. She fished it out again.
She moved, and imagined that it moved behind her, stalking her, playing with
her. She stood still and knew that it waited silently for her. Every crack and
groan of the rock, every drip-drip-drip of water from the roof of the cave,
became a sign that the lorrsk was coming.
She wanted to scream and run in the dark, but could not. There were traps she
had not yet come to, and each would take patience and dexterity to disarm, and
probably a healthy dose of luck too, since she had no one to help her. If
anything could be worse than being hunted by the lorrsk, it would be waiting,
hanging helplessly in an Aachim trap, for it to come for her.
On she trudged, hour after hour. Surely there could not be far to go now. It
was ages since she had swum beneath the river. Only two traps remained to be
overcome before she could get into the lower levels of Shazmak. If she just
crept along like a little mouse, surely she could get there. Karan went past a
swarm of red veins that cut across the yellow rock of the tunnel. She counted
them - eleven. The
next trap, Tensor had told her, was just beyond this point. Once she reached
Shazmak her troubles would begin again, but she wasn't going to think about
that until she had to. She was exhausted but did not dare sleep.
The lorrsk grunted and rolled over in its sleep. Something had penetrated the
deep slumber of its hibernation. Its grossly infected, suppurating buttock
scraped against the stone, sending a shiver of agony through it.
The lorrsk rolled onto its stomach, unable to completely suppress a howl of

pain, though it cut that off at once. In the void pain meant weakness, and
howling about it was generally fatal. Its flabby belly reminded it of its most
vital urge, but it had been hungrier than this on many an occasion. Hunger had
not weakened it - the contrary! It closed its eyes and drifted back into
slumber, then something snapped it wide awake and it climbed to its feet,
sniffing the air.
There it was, the perfume of live meat! The lorrsk recognised the scent. It
was human, female - the young woman it had seen in Carcharon and subsequently
tracked up into the mountains. Compared to the stringy fare it had last eaten
this was like a bouquet of roses. Saliva dripped from its mouth.
Karan was feeling with her fingers in a recess in the wall, trying to find a
pad that disarmed the trap, when she heard that howl, swiftly truncated. It
had found her! She started, cracking her cheek on the rough stone.
But where was it? She might be able to use this trap if the lorrsk was on the
other side, but it would take nerves of steel, for she would have to wait with
her light glowing to see which way it came. If it was in front of her, well
and good. The trap would be between her and it, and she had better hope that
it worked! If the beast was behind her she had practically no chance. All she
could do was try to avoid its charge and hope that it set off the trap before
it got her.
Karan brightened the lightglass and used her cloak to dust off the floor,
hoping that the dimensions of the trap would be revealed. Tensor had told her
that it was a big pit trap with the doors divided into two leaves that hinged
down, and a long drop onto spikes. The trapdoors were designed to spring back
up and lock again, in case of a second lot of intruders. But did the pit
extend all the way across the tunnel, or was there room to squeeze by against
the wall? He had not given her such details.
Her work was fruitless - the dust was too thick and the trapdoor so cunningly
made that she could find no trace of it. What else could she do? She had a
short length of rope in her pack. If she tied that around her waist and the
other end to something back here, and went forward gingerly, as soon as the
trap went off she could haul herself back. Hopefully! But what if it came the
other way and she was tethered?
Suddenly she sensed the lorrsk. Karan had the globe high, scanning the passage
back and forth. There it was, ahead of her: a pair of reflections that were
quickly hooded. The first hurdle was passed. She watched as it approached.
Now she could see it, a shaggy outline, a man-like creature, though much
bigger than her. It had a dwarfish shape, with legs the diameter of her waist
but no longer than her own limbs, and a long barrel of a body. Its arms hung
almost to the ground and the fingers had retractable claws the length of her
fingers. The head was broad, with a domed forehead, deep-set eyes and a jaw
that could have crunched through her thigh bone.
The lorrsk advanced slowly toward her wavering light. It bared its teeth then
stopped, sniffing the air as if something was not quite right.
Karan was dismayed. It suspected the trap! This was a clever opponent.
The lorrsk stopped dead and the hair on its body stuck straight up. Perhaps it
was also a sensitive. That would help it to survive in the void. If it was,
she had an idea that might work.
Karan began to use her fear to think herself into a state of absolute terror,
a state where she would broadcast that terror to every living thing around
her. If she could make it strong and wild and desperate enough, perhaps it
would overwhelm the lorrsk's own senses. Well, she thought wryly, thinking
myself into such a state won't be hard, for I'm almost there already. And the
longer it stared at her, as if working out how best to carve her up, the more
terrified she became.
It's going to eat me! It was incredible, and horrible. In a minute it will be
biting my head off and tearing out my arms. Or maybe it will rip my belly open
and eat my liver while I'm still alive. The images were so frightening that
she let out a shriek, and had to put her hands over her ears to block out the
sound.

She screamed and screamed, the sounds coming out in pulses like her battering
heart. Her knees collapsed. She wanted to curl up into a ball on the floor. In
other crises she had been impelled to violent action, but now she was
petrified with terror.
Karan realised that she was lying on her face on the floor, waiting to become
a victim. Her terror was feeding back on itself, growing stronger and stronger
until it was taking her over completely. Or perhaps, the thought struck her
like an avalanche, it was being fed back to her!
Stop it! Stop it or you really will be eaten!
She banged her head so hard on the rough floor that she almost passed out, and
that sliced through the fed-back terror. She was dripping with cold sweat and
the dust had coated her like flour. Rolling over, Karan came to her knees,
holding the globe up in one hand.
The lorrsk was still watching her, but now it began to move slowly forward,
testing the floor beneath it with its hand-like feet. It was so big! It began
to make a sound like a purring kitten and its great mouth curved open in a
grin.
The Key
Llian woke not long after Karan left his bed. He was not surprised that she
was gone - she often rose before dawn these days. But her fleeting appearance
had disturbed his slumbers and he could not get back to sleep for worrying
about an alarming possibility: that he had made a mistake in his translation
from Tales of the Aachim weeks ago. At the time Llian had wanted Tensor to
check his translation, but the Aachim had been across the sea and Mendark had
demanded that it be completed at once. By the time Tensor returned, Llian was
busy on other things and had put it out of his mind. Now he cursed that
carelessness.
Dressing hastily, he noticed that his trousers were worn through at the knees.
His boots had holes in them too. He looked even shabbier than he had in his
student days, when he'd had his glorious stipend. Llian looked back on that
time with considerable nostalgia now. He had worked hard and played hard too,
but he'd always had a few coins in his pocket. Since arriving back in Thurkad
at the beginning of this winter that had seemed to go on forever, he had not
had a grint from Mendark for his service. Even the roof over his head was
provided by Yggur. For months he had survived on nocturnal gleanings from the
pantries and the kindness of his long-suffering friends. His ribs were like a
washboard.
Sneaking down the corridors in the dark, he tried the doors of the larders. A
small miracle - the lock on one was broken. Sliding in through the door like
the professional pilferer he had become he stuffed his day pack with a cheese
coated with poppy seeds, a round loaf, a handful of pickled onions and a
wax-sealed jug of red wine. Plain fare, but Llian felt as if he had robbed the
tomb of a queen of old.
He went down to the citadel. It was still dark but the guards were used to his
ways and allowed him in, escorting him up to the library and rousing out an
archivist to make sure nothing was lying around that he did not have
permission to see. His notes were still spread across the table in wild
confusion, just as he had left them the previous evening.
Eating in the Magister's library was a felony, but one Llian was so used to
committing that he now did it without a thought. As soon as the archivist was
gone he settled down at the table, carved a wedge of cheese, slabbed it
between doorstops of bread with half a pickled onion, and opened his journal.
But he could not concentrate. He gazed around at the magnificent room. The
library was shaped like a stubby cross, the four arms of which were filled
with cedar and rosewood bookcases of the most elegant construction, extending
halfway up to the lofty ceiling. The walls were panelled in precious woods and
the ceiling, which was a twelve-sided steeple, was clad in timbers equally
precious but of a lighter hue.
The place had everything Llian could wish for in a library. The walls were
hung with old paintings and engravings showing artists and writers at their