Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (55 page)

gentle as ever.
'Don't let me go, Jevi. Don't ever let me go.'
'I won't let you go, Tallia!' And then he surprised her, and everyone else,
and himself too, by kissing her full on the lips.
'We've got to get to Shazmak,' said Yggur, shaking his head.
'By the time we do it will be long over,' said Malien, as Tensor dragged
himself up the stairs, more dead than alive, supported by two Aachim. 'Tensor,
can you make us a gate?' The irony was not lost on her, nor on Tensor either.
'Hah!' Tensor fell to his knees, arching his back, trying to find the position
that caused him the least pain. Finding none, he lay down on the floor. The
breakneck pursuit had treated him cruelly.
'I swore that I would not,' he said, 'and I will not, unless it is the last
hope.'
'If we can't get there today,' said Yggur, 'it will be no hope.'
'It would be quicker for you to walk there,' said Tensor. 'I'm no triune, as
Maigraith is, combining the talents of all the worlds. Nor have I the flute to
aid me. My first gate took me weeks. Even now, with help, it would take many
days. You must look elsewhere.'
'I have not the talent,' said Yggur.
'Nor I. I've failed and Aachan is doomed.' Malien cast herself on the floor in
despair.
'Not yet!' said Shand. 'I swore that I would never use my powers again. But
time cancels all oaths, if you have the misfortune to live long enough. Nor
have I made a gate before, but I know how, and this is probably the only place
that a weak vessel such as I could make one. Even so, I will need your strong
shoulders and your broad backs.
'Tallia, I remember how you laboured in Katazza to give Karan and Llian the
chance to come back. You can use those skills here. You, too, Yggur. Tensor,
advise me!'
'How will you find the destination?' asked Llian, fascinated.
'The destination is Shazmak,' said Shand. 'Look at the floor, moulded in the
form of the construct. Like calls to like -it will be a lodestone to our
needle. Get out of the way, Llian.'
Llian stepped back. Shand moved hack and forth around the depression,
eventually settling on the spot near the embrasure where Karan had sat when
she found the Way for Rulke.
'This is a good place,' he said. 'Let me think about it for a while. I suggest
we all eat and sleep first. Making gates requires a full belly and a clear
head.'
It was after midnight before they were ready to begin. People were sleeping
everywhere. Shand roused them with a roar.
'Give me your hands, Tallia,' he said. 'Put your back to my back, Yggur.'
Tallia stood facing him, gripping his hands, and Yggur at his back. Shand
concentrated.
'What will you use for a focus?' Llian broke into his thoughts.
'Be quiet, pest!' Shand thundered, looking very unlike his shabby old self.
Then, relenting, 'Watch carefully now, if you would put this in your tale.'
On one hand Shand wore the ring Yalkara had forged for him as a parting gift.
In the other he had his black staff. He closed his hands around Tallia's and
drew them up till the knuckles touched his forehead. The ring began to
shimmer. The shimmer spread to his hand, then his arm, enveloped his whole
body and expanded until it came to the depression in the floor. It curved away
around that to form a doughnut with a bite out of it.
'This is a special kind of gate,' came Shand's voice, slightly muffled. 'It
will remain here, once I anchor it . . .' his voice was strained, 'Thus! When
you step inside and I reach out to the destination, it will stretch toward
Shazmak, compressing
the distance between here and there into just a few steps. But you will always
be inside the gate as long as you stay within the light. Make sure that you
do. Other gates send you and receive you, but in between the gates you are

between, not within. Between is a particularly dangerous place to be, just
now.'
As they stepped into the gate, the shimmer became a golden-coloured veil. A
dozen questions trembled on Llian's lips but he was afraid to ask them.
Now they were all in but one. Tensor stood by the broken wall, looking out
listlessly. Shand called but he did not hear. The outside world was thinning;
he was barely visible now. Abruptly Shand tugged the ring off his finger, put
it in Llian's hand saying, 'Hold this tight. Don't drop it. Think of nothing!'
and stepped out of the mist.
The veil abruptly changed colour and began to pulse. Llian closed his eyes,
clinging to the ring, feeling that any minute it might turn into smoke and
disappear. The colours began to oscillate around the surface of the doughnut.
Shand put his hand on Tensor's shoulders. 'Come, Tensor. We need you.'
'This is the end of the world!' he replied.
'Do you want to end it in Carcharon?'
'It doesn't matter!' However, Tensor allowed himself to be led through the
veil of light and Llian surrendered the ring thankfully.
'Why did you tell me not to think?' he asked, fearing that they might have
been whipped to some inconceivable destination by the pure power of his
thought.
Shand laughed. 'Because it would change the colours.'
'How would that alter things?'
'It would frighten you,' he chuckled. 'You have no power to direct a gate,
Llian.'
'Oh,' said Llian. 'But in the Nightland . . .'
'That was a set gate. Whoever stepped within it would go to the same place.
Except Rulke, of course, who might direct
it anywhere that it was possible for a gate to go. Now cease your chatter!'
Llian shut up. Shand put the ring to his forehead once more, the doughnut
firmed into a golden cocoon that began to elongate, first slowly then faster
and faster, though strangely the other end did not seem to be much further
away. In less than a minute it stopped extending.
'Wait!' snapped Shand, stepping to the leading edge of the cocoon, and through
it into nothing. A minute later he reappeared.
Looking at the faces in the gate, Llian found no comfort anywhere. Everyone
else was as afraid as he was.
'Come forward, to the edge of the light,' Shand said. 'But on your life, no
further.'
'What are we going to find there?' Yggur muttered.
'Calamity!' cried Tensor.
They went slowly forward, walking on the spongy base of the cocoon. Llian did
not dare imagine what held him up in case it dissolved and dropped him into
blackness. The distance between Carcharon and Shazmak was reduced to nothing,
as if they stood at two ends of a great ovoid hall. Mist was all around except
directly in front of them. There, distant but brought to a clear focus, they
saw a clot of darkness shot with red flame: the construct!
Karan moaned deep down in her chest - she could not help it. There was no
strength in her arms and legs. She worked her muscles, praying harder than she
had ever prayed in her life that the trap would go off. This was a desperately
ferocious opponent.
The creature crept forward, another step and another. The trap must have
failed. Karan flexed her legs. Now it was only half a dozen paces away, just a
bound from those massive thighs. She looked into its eyes and fell into pools
as wild as the River Garr outside.
The thigh muscles corded, the lorrsk inched forward and
without warning sprang at her. Karan had lightning-fast reflexes but she could
not even move, it was so quick. Or had it used some mesmerising power against
her?
The trap snapped down beneath it. Instead of leaping high and landing on top
of her, the lorrsk's feet slipped on the down-swinging trapdoor and its leap

went flat. It landed a body length away and her side of the trap dropped as
well. The floor tilted right under Karan's feet - she must have been standing
on the edge, but been too light to set it off.
The lorrsk flung its immensely long arm at her. Karan tried to throw herself
backwards but her feet slipped and she fell flat on her back with her legs
dangling over the edge of the trap. The lorrsk's clawed fingers slashed
between her spread legs, tore through the fabric of her trousers and caught
the edge of the trapdoor.
Karan let out a terrified squeak - the claws were hooked through her pants
just below the crutch. If it fell it would take her with it. She dropped the
lightglass to scratch at the floor for any kind of handhold. Her fingers found
a crack as the trapdoor dropped right open. The lorrsk fell hard, which forced
a grunt out. Its joints cracked and the weight ripped the claws out of their
hold. Karan was jerked so hard that the back of her head banged on the floor.
She felt herself being pulled over the edge, then her trouser-leg tore from
crutch to ankle.
The lorrsk slammed the fingers of its left hand into the crack between
trapdoor and floor. This hold held. One claw was pulled right out, but somehow
the creature managed to hang on. It swung there, its weight suspended on three
fingers. She expected the doors to spring closed again but the weight of the
lorrsk held them open. Karan was balanced on a knife-edge. She dared not move
lest her legs pull her over.
The lorrsk groaned and thrashed about with its right arm, but couldn't quite
catch hold of Karan. One slash tore through her other trouser leg, shredding
it as well and rasping down
the inside of her thigh like sandpaper. Karan flung her legs up in the air,
certain that she was going to fall, but somehow her legs passed the point of
balance and she rolled backwards out of the way.
She scrambled to her feet, gasping. Would the lorrsk fall or get out? With a
wild lunge it caught the top of the trap with one claw of its right hand,
making an unpleasant scraping sound on the metal trap. It was going to
succeed.
She jumped up, retrieved her glass and felt around in the recess for the
trapdoor release. Then the lorrsk spoke.
'Hwix thrung? Hwix tjart?'
It was not just a ravening beast. It was a thinking creature, like her. It
must have sensed her hesitation for suddenly her mind was flooded with images.
She saw a cave lit by a tiny fire, around which was a family of lorrsk. One,
just like the creature here, held a haunch of something over a fire, while its
mate played with two furry balls, baby lorrsk. Another, between them in size,
was inscribing what could only be characters on the wall of the cave. Outside,
a pair of red suns glowed in a purple sky. Its longing for its family and its
nest, for a place that was not the terrible void, flooded her with emotions.
Was it trying to show that it was human too, or just to weaken her?
She forced the images out of her mind. 'That may be so,' she said, 'but if you
catch me you'll eat me!'
Her fingers caught a knob in the recess. The trapdoors sprang up again. The
lorrsk wrenched one hand out but the other fingers were trapped between the
edge of the trapdoor and the floor. It screamed, then stood up, stamping on
the trap with one foot, trying to set it off again. The trap shivered but did
not open.
Karan did not wait to see what happened. There was a tiny gap between the edge
of the trap and the wall, the width of a narrow board. She ran for it, one,
two, three, four steps on dangerously wobbly knees. To her amazement she made
it across. Karan raced up the tunnel without looking back.
Behind her the lorrsk kept screaming. Had it got free or had it fallen? She
wasn't waiting to find out, just pounded on with her shredded trousers
flapping, until her knees would no longer hold her up. She lurched around a
corner and ran head-on into a wall of rock.
Almost there! she thought, rubbing a bruised forehead. Back twenty paces was a

side tunnel, if she could find the key to open it. She went back, searching
for a hidden plate that would open the way up into Shazmak.
Here she encountered an unexpected difficulty. A vein of quartz pointed to the
plate that must be pressed to open the door, but it was at the highest reach
of an Aachim, much too high for her. She held up the lightglass, looking
fearfully down the tunnel.
Her dismal foreboding was realised. Two pinpoints of light appeared in the
distance. She sprang high but could not reach the plate. She sprang again not even as high as the first time.
Now Karan heard a curious wet plopping noise, like long-dead fish being
repeatedly slapped down on a slab. It turned the blood in her veins to ice. It
was the lorrsk, and though just a dark shape a long way down the tunnel, she
could sense it in her mind's eye as clearly as if a light shone on it.
She watched it come. Blood poured down its legs from the freshly opened
buttock wound. Its huge hand-feet, wet with blood, slap-plopped the floor as
it lurched stiff-legged toward her. Its long arms hung down, one hand dripping
dark blood where it had torn the fingers off in its desperation to get out of
the trap. The mouth was a toothed hole, the eyes bayonets fixed on her. Only
death would stop it this time.
Karan backed across the passage, ran and sprang as high as she could. It was
an awkward jump, since she had to hold the lightglass in her other hand. Her
outstretched fingers slapped the side of the plate. The door did not open.
Heel first, then fingers! She backed up, ran and leapt again.
Her elbow struck the wall, jarring the lightglass out of her
hand. It struck the floor, cracked and went out. Karan dived for it and
managed to coax a dim light out of the larger piece.
Flap-slap! Flap-slap! The lorrsk was close. It must have been as exhausted as
she was, but it had survived the void. It kept on doggedly. Well, it wasn't
going to have her! Her knees were wobbling as she prepared for another
attempt, her last. She leapt, stretching up as high as she could go. The heel
of her hand struck the plate, then her fingers, one after another. Something
groaned behind the wall and part of it slid away to reveal a dark tunnel that
led up into blackness.
Karan landed like a cat, twisted, and as the lorrsk swung its claws at her she
ducked under its arm, reeling from the stench of its gangrenous wound, and up
the passage. Somewhere to her left was the mechanism that would seal it behind
her. One of the stones of the wall - for this was cut stone, not native rock,
and therefore part of Shazmak - worked a coun-terweightedblock. But which
one?She couldn'ttell in this light, and there wasn't time to experiment. The
lorrsk rushed after her. It seemed to have found a new reservoir of strength.
She ran up the passage, slapping at the stones with her left hand, desperately
hoping that one of them was the lever. She only hurt her hand. Ahead was a
flight of stairs that led straight up - high steps meant for the long Aachim
stride. Karan took them two at a time, sobbing and gasping, all the way to a
landing where she had to rest no matter what. Her side was on fire and her
breath came in huge, shuddering gasps.
The lorrsk had fallen behind in the ascent but it was still coming, one step
at a time, with a deadly implacability. She knew it could keep this up all
day, whereas another half hour would finish her. She moved on, step by step
now, and every tread hurt more than the previous one.
How far was there to go? Karan had no idea - there was endless darkness above
her. What was at the top? Tensor had not told her. She must keep going, just
this step, just the next.
And somehow she did, up and up those endless stairs, a
thousand steps and more. She climbed until the stitch in her side disappeared,
and kept climbing until it came back again and would not go away. She climbed
until the flesh of her legs felt to be melting, until every muscle was on fire
and every sinew as tight as wire, until her throat burned and her stomach
heaved bile up into the back of her nose, until her head was a serrated
rasping pain that drove all thoughts away but terror. Finally Karan saw that