Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (64 page)

It took a second piece and then a third before the pain diminished enough for
Idlis to put her fractured pelvis back together. When that was done, and it
was not done quickly, he straightened her legs, smoothing the flesh with his
hands, and all of a sudden the stress went from her face. He fixed her bones,
cleaned the many cuts and abrasions, and bound them with clean cloth. Finally
he drew the blankets over her again. Even his iron-hard features showed
weariness.
'I thought her back was broken,' he said to Maigraith, who was standing at the
head of the couch. 'But it is not - only the pelvis, though that in three
places, and both legs high up. One hip is dislocated, and sundry other bones
broken too. Only time can fuse them together, but I have put them back as they
should be. Bones are my special skill. Now we must encase her hips in plaster,
and her legs, else she may never walk again. Perhaps she may not anyway. And
as for childbirth ...' he shook his head. 'Best that pregnancy be avoided
altogether.'
'She is triune,' said Maigraith coolly.
'Nonetheless!' said Idlis. 'Tonight I will build a metal frame for her lower
body, to force the bones to heal true.'
He set to work with plaster, and when that was finished said to Maigraith,
'You may begin your own work. But take it slowly. She is weak and has lost
blood inside, and the hrux, as I said, is dangerous. For your sake as well as
for hers, don't push her too hard. But first let me attend your injuries, or I
will be laying you beside her.'
Karan felt quite strange, as if she was floating above her broken body. There
was no pain; she felt no sensations whatever. But there was work to do. She
drew a link between herself and Maigraith. The hrux made that easy, for she
was halfway into the world of dreams and hallucinations anyway, but the link
was a tenuous, wavery thing.
Maigraith hammered the fatal metal thorn down flat, climbed the construct and
sat in the high seat. She worked the controls and instantly a section of the
Wall thinned to gauze. The armies clawed against the other side. She let out a
gasp.
'Maigraith, are you all right?'
'I can hardly breathe,' said Maigraith. 'My throat feels closed up. I know I'm
not strong enough.'
'I can't help you,' said Karan.
'I know!' Forcing calm on herself, Maigraith spoke over the link. I'm ready.
Now do your part, if you can.
Karan sought out through the Wall for that wandering, ethereal path that was
the Way between the Worlds, the path from Santhenar to Aachan. In spite of the
chaos of the Forbidding the Way was easier to find than before. Perhaps the
pain and the drug stripped away all distractions and allowed her mind to focus
on just one thing.
I have it, she said across the link. See, here it is!
Maigraith used the construct as she had seen Rulke do, wrenched with her mind
and opened the Way. At once the armies of the void renewed their assault, and
the Wall began to flutter as it had done before.
'Show me the Council chamber of the Charon,' cried Maigraith in a great voice.
'The place where Rulke spoke with Yalkara.' Using the construct, she created a
golden globe in the centre of the wall, to give vision to Karan's inner
seeings. It was surrounded by an iridescent doughnut shape that shone with
distorted reflections.
Karan brought forth the image onto the globe, though with difficulty. The pain
was growing again in spite of the hrux. The image wavered.
'Hold it!' Maigraith yelled.
Karan firmed the image, which showed the Charon discussing the upheavals in
the void and the imminent breakdown of the Forbidding. Yalkara looked up
suddenly.
'You live!' called Maigraith to her grandmother.
Rulke?

'It is I, Maigraith. Noble Rulke is dead.'
How did he die?
'Tensor struck him down with a potency. Rulke saved me at the expense of his
own life.'
He sacrificed everything for you? That is - she broke off. Forgive me!
'I don't know,' said Maigraith dumbly.
Then the experiment in Santhenar has truly failed, said another, and our
species is finished.
He tore off his shirt and cast himself on the floor in grief and loss, an
Aachim custom that the Charon had adopted. Then the one next to him tore off
hers, and the rest did likewise, and Yalkara rent her blouse last of all.
Finally she stirred.
If it is the end, let us go to it bravely, as he would have done. Thank you
for bringing us the news.
'Wait, the Forbidding is failing! Will you show me how to restore the balance
between the worlds?'
You must bring the construct here. It can't be done anywhere else.
While they spoke the Wall of the Forbidding had begun to reverberate back and
forth across the room, and each time it snapped the other way it made a boom
that shook the building like an earthquake. Cracks appeared in a side wall.
One of the staircases fell down with a shocking clatter.
'Don't go,' said Karan aloud. 'I can't hold the link. You'll be trapped
there.'
'I must,' said Maigraith. 'This is what I was born for. Don't lose sight of
the Way, whatever you do.'
Despite Karan's pleas, Maigraith bound Rulke's body to the
side of the construct, in a desperate hope that they could bring him back. She
looked down at Karan, shuddering on her couch, and tickled the levers. The
globe became transparent. An aurora of pastel colours flickered around it. A
landscape rushed across the globe, distorted as if reflected onto its curving
inner surface. Karan saw a gloomy plain dotted with buildings growing out of
the ground like clusters of metallic bubbles. Several were circled by
platforms that resembled planetary rings. Volcanoes were erupting everywhere,
flooding red lava down to overwhelm the bubble clusters.
Maigraith roared in pain, then she and the construct vanished. The landscape
faded from the globe, to be replaced by the Charon again. With a thunderous
roar, the construct with Maigraith atop it, materialised in the centre of the
council chamber. The great table around which the Charon sat was shattered to
kindling, though they seemed unfazed. 'Thank you,' said Yalkara, brushing
splinters off her face and arms. 'This construct will be Rulke's monument,
temple and tomb. We cannot cower here, dwindling to nothing, dying out one by
one. There can be no greater agony than to know that you are the last of your
species. We shall leap hand in hand into the eternal night. We will take the
construct into the void.'
'First show me how to restore the balance,' said Maigraith. 'You cannot alter
the balance with the construct,' the Charon cried. 'You are the instrument.
You must do it.'
In restoring the balance the instrument will be lost, said Karan across the
link.
'Lost to Santhenar!' said Yalkara.
The Charon explained what had to be done. 'It will be hard,' said Yalkara.
'None of us could do it.'
'I know what to do,' said Maigraith. 'My whole life's purpose was for this
task.'
Suddenly, incomprehensible visions flashed through Karan's mind and across the
brilliant sphere. Everything flickered and wavered. Her pain was growing
again.
'Hold the link!' Maigraith screamed.
As she spoke the door was smashed open and a horde of Aachim pushed through.
They were heavily armed, their faces resolute. They had rebelled against their

masters at last.
'Stand firm!' Yalkara shouted. She leapt right over the construct and caught
Maigraith about the waist, supporting her while the Charon made a wall before
their enemies.
As Yalkara and Maigraith strove together, weird visions spun through Karan's
mind. The images on the globe whirled sickeningly, then it blanked out. Karan
tried to get it back but the sphere remained dark.
Behind her there were running footsteps and incoherent cries of joy. The
company had returned through their hastily constructed gate from Carcharon -
Shand, Yggur, Llian, all of them. Llian ran to Karan, weeping for joy, but she
put her hand up.
'Not now!' she gasped, and turned back to the globe, forcing through her pain
to recover the link and the Way. Everything was changed again. She found
something and brought it out on the surface - an array of dancing dots that
had a vaguely human shape. 'That's Maigraith,' she said, and all at once the
dots resolved into Maigraith and the room was back again, though now
everything was tinged with dark auras like an indigo and black rainbow.
Shand stood as rigid as a post, staring at Yalkara. His arms hung straight
down. His fists were clenched. Malien, beside him, was shaking with her own
conflict. She wanted the Aachim to seize the construct and free their world,
but not at the expense of the Forbidding that protected this one.
The Charon's council chamber was in uproar, Aachim and Charon in wild melee.
Then, as Karan watched, helpless, a muscular Aachim man crept out from behind
the construct and struck Maigraith down without warning. Leaping over her, he
climbed onto the construct. A dozen more Aachim followed him. Maigraith
groaned and rolled over.
'Maigraith, flee!' cried Karan. 'How can I?' her cry returned.
The first Aachim took the wheel. A rumble shook the room. The watchers in
Shazmak saw the globe vibrate. A yellow light came out of an aperture at the
front of the construct, so bright that it carved smoking channels in the air.
It splashed on the wall of the chamber, searing it away. Outside, an orange
moon hung in the black sky, so big and bright that it might have been
suspended in a tree. Volcanoes were erupting everywhere, flooding red lava
towards them.
'Flee!' screamed Yggur, and his cry was transmitted through Karan all the way
to Aachan.
'Not without the construct,' Maigraith shouted, shaking her head. Hurling away
an Aachim woman who resembled Karan, she advanced, shielding her eyes. The
beam shot from the aperture again, vaporised the remains of the table and
moved jerkily toward her. The room began to fill with smoke. 'Can no one help
her?' Karan screeched. 'What about my people?' said Malien, staring hungrily
at Aachan. 'What about my world?'
The Charon seemed paralysed. An eternity passed in a few seconds. Yggur's face
contorted. He shot out his hand. His back arched. His eyes bulged. Calling up
aspects of the Secret Art that he had lost in his decades of madness, he did
something that had never been done before. A bolt of blue fire seared through
the Wall, across the Way between the Worlds, into the chamber, and turned the
construct into a glowing cinder. The Aachim went in all directions.
Maigraith's face looked out from the globe. She reached out her arms to Karan
as if she could pull her through, but it was too late. The Way slowly
collapsed in on itself. The sphere vanished. The luminous layers of the
Forbidding flared bright and disappeared forever.
It was over. The balance had been restored. Yggur crashed down on his face and
could not even move a finger. Karan fell back with a little cry.
Llian laid his head upon her breast, thinking her dead. But she moved under
him, and her warm breath came past his face in a little sigh. 'What on earth
happened to your hair?' she said, opening her eyes and smiling fondly at him.
'A fire. But this time I didn't light it,' he said hastily. He was referring
to his clumsy rescue in Narne, when he had burned the house down while they
were still trapped inside, and had to break through the floor to get out.

That reminded her of one of his earliest absurdities. 'My name's Llian. I've
come to save you,' she quoted dreamily, and smiled up at him in that teasing
way she had.
'I thought you were dead!' he said accusingly.
She snorted, opened her eyes and put her free arm across his shoulders. 'I was
near enough to it a while ago, but I am better now. So very much better,
Llian.'
The hrux had begun to wear off. Karan hurt all over. Not as badly as before,
but badly enough to take away every worry about the carnage here, and the loss
of Maigraith, and all the other dead.
Yggur lay not far away, tossing and turning in a hideous version of
aftersickness. The superhuman blast had torn him inside. He looked like a
dried-out cadaver, though Idlis had said that he would recover.
Llian sat with Karan for an hour, then was called away to corpse duty. There
were many dead, and each must be honoured according to their own customs. The
creatures that had come out of the void had to be destroyed to prevent
disease.
So it was that Karan was alone when the lorrsk that had hunted her throughout
the tunnels eventually tracked her down. It had spent most of the day in
hiding, for fear of the Sentinels, but it was much bolder now. For the past
few hours, when the Sentinels sounded, no one had come to investigate.
The lorrsk was a dreadful, ruined, slavering thing, for it
had been terribly hurt before it overcame the two Ghashad at the mine gate,
and their sinewy flesh had not slaked its desperate hunger. It had tracked
Karan all this way, cunningly evading the few Ghashad patrols, stung and
blasted by a hundred Sentinels. One arm hung half-severed and useless, and
three fingers were gone from its other hand. It was gouged and rent and half
its fur had been burnt off. The ghastly buttock was a pulpy, gangrenous mess.
But it had found what it was looking for - the juicy red-haired woman, and
this time she looked completely helpless. It hobbled across the room, so
intent on her that it did not even notice Yggur until it trod on his face.
Yggur shrieked and the lorrsk jumped sideways a couple of spans. Karan snapped
awake. At first she thought it was a hallucination brought on by the hrux, but
no hallucination could be that horrible. The great room was empty. There was
no one to help her.
'Oh, Llian,' she thought aloud. 'Just when I believed it was all over. Where
are you now?'
She stared at the lorrsk. 'What can I do? I can't do anything at all.' The
lorrsk, remembering her previous tricks, stood motionless, gauging her. Then,
rather gingerly, it reached out for her unprotected belly.
Out of the corner of her eye Karan saw the object of her hopes and fears.
Llian, coming back for the next body, must have heard Yggur's cry.
'Karan!' he screamed. Snatching up Rulke's sword, he ran straight at the
lorrsk, brandishing the huge weapon like a butcher his cleaver.
'Oh, Llian,' she said calmly, 'this is not a good idea at all. You won't even
get one blow in.'
The lorrsk turned away with terrifying speed, despite its injuries, and hurled
itself at Llian. He flailed the sword furiously, the creature ducked and
Llian, completely off balance, fell to one knee right in its path. It swung
its arm, its huge hand connecting with Llian's side with a thump like
a butcher dismembering a carcass. Llian was hurled through the air to land on
his shoulder, somehow still clutching the sword. His shirt had been ripped
off. There were bloody gashes across his side.
No one could survive such a blow from a lorrsk's claws. This was the end of
the line. Karan felt the most unutterable agony.
Then, miraculously, Llian moved his legs. He groaned and tried to sit up. The
lorrsk flapped after him. There was only one thing that could possibly be
done, and this was the only time Karan could have done it, while the hrux
still pulsed through her brain. She hurled her fury at the lorrsk in a violent
sending, the twin of her accidental sending into the mind of the Ghashad, that