Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (66 page)

Shand came up behind Yggur and put a hand on his shoulder. If anyone had
influence over the man it was he. 'In this particular case there are
mitigating circumstances,' Shand said. 'I think that an argument can be made
for an extension.'
One side of Yggur's face twitched, then he nodded coldly. 'Very well! In view
of your situation, Karan, and what you have done for us, which I acknowledge,
I will give you grace until the end of autumn. But if it is not paid then,
your lands and possessions to the value of your taxes are forfeit.'
The problem was only postponed. The sum would hardly be more affordable in the
autumn even after the best of seasons.
The next morning the company continued on to Thurkad, for there was Santhenar
to be ordered, and all sorts of
creatures to be hunted down. The world had to be remade.
'And someone must make it,' said Yggur as he dragged himself onto his horse.
'Though what is the point I cannot imagine.'
Karan waved them off through the doorway. Llian came back inside.
'Well, it's all over. At last!' He wandered aimlessly around the hall and went
out in the direction of the kitchen.
It's not all over, Karan thought. Nothing ever is. She lay back on her bed,
staring up at the blackened beams. The manor was completely quiet.
Her healing bones ached, and again she felt that desire for hrux. She pushed
it away, as she was used to doing, but this time it came back stronger than
ever. Karan turned her head so she could see the fire, but that also reminded
her of the drug, and how she had burned it that night up in Goth-ryme Forest.
Right now she would have scratched through the burning coals to get it, to
feel that rush of power and invincibility. To escape the pain and despair.
'Are you going to leave me too?' Karan said that afternoon. 'I suppose you'll
be off to the college any day now. I dare say you're getting bored with me.'
'I wasn't planning to,' Llian said, and tickled her feet just to annoy her,
and to see her helpless laughter.
1 am reckoning up every one of your unkind deeds,' Karan said, rather more
irritably than usual, for the discomfort was unbearable and she had not had a
good night's sleep since Shazmak. 'Don't think that I won't exact a price when
I'm better.'
Llian was not intimidated. He pulled the blankets up, tucked her in, then sat
beside her on a cushion. 'What are you doing?' she asked, suspicious, but when
he held out his hand she slipped hers in it.
'What's the matter, Karan?'
She burst into tears.
'I've been looking forward to this day for nearly two years,' she wept. 'But
it's all gone wrong. Look at me! I'm a useless cripple and Yggur's going to
take Gothryme away. And ... and ...'
'And what, Karan?'
She turned her head away. 'It's too awful. I'm no good. I want you to go away.
Go back to the college and find someone
else.'
Llian was taken aback, but decided to put her to the test. 'Actually,' he said
thoughtfully, 'I do have a friend at the college. She's not at all like you
though. She's tall and elegant, with beautiful dark hair and she has big - '
Karan gasped, punched him in the belly, then tried to scrunch her upper half
into a ball.
'I was teasing you,' he said softly. He untangled her arms from around her
head. 'So, you don't want me to go away after all.'
'No!' she whispered.
'Let's see if I can work out what the problem is,' said Llian. 'Do you think,
because you can't have children, that I don't want you?'
She sat up painfully. 'How did you know I can't have children?'
'You're triune!' He hugged her tightly. 'I've known for
ages.'
'And ... you still want me?' she said as if she couldn't believe him. 'Don't

you like children?' She sounded suspicious.
'I'd love to have children. But I want you more.'
They lay together for some time. It was awkward because of her casts. Karan
was still as tense as wire.
'There's something else, isn't there?' he said.
'Isn't that enough?' she cried.
'Tell me, Karan!'
'It's hrux! I want it all the time now. I thought the longing would go away
but it's stronger every day. I can hardly think of anything else.'
Llian sat silently. Hrux addiction was something that only she could overcome.
All he could do was support her as best he could. But how? Then he saw the
way. In fact it had been on his mind all the way home from Shazmak.
'I wonder, would you like to hear a little tale?' he said.
'A tale?' she said irritably.
'A bedtime story.' He put on his best teller's voice.
'It's not bedtime!'
'Nonetheless! It begins like this: Once upon a time - '
'Is it romantic? I like romantic tales best.'
'It could be,' Llian said.
'But not sad, like the one about Jenulka and Hengist. I couldn't bear a sad
tale today.'
'Not particularly sad.'
Karan sighed and snuggled her head against his shoulder. 'Well, at least it
begins in the right way,' she said grudgingly. 'The traditional way.'
'Once upon a time there was a small girl with red curly hair and eyes as green
as bottles. She was a cheerful child, even when it was hard to be cheerful,
and that was most of the time. Her father was dead, and her mother too, and
she lived with her mother's elderly cousins who treated her very badly. The
only hope in the poor girl's life was a dream she kept having. Then, after she
grew up, her life was so miserable that she completely lost the dream.'
'What dream?' Karan asked suspiciously.
'Well,' said Llian with a sly grin, 'she knew that, of all men, tellers were
the handsomest, the boldest and the best lovers.'
Karan gave a derisive snort. 'Poor fool!'
It's working! Llian thought. 'And since she was little, she had dreamed about
wedding a teller.'
'Oh really?'
'And not just any teller. She had her eye on a master chronicler of the
College of the Histories, and he the handsomest and boldest of them all.'

'I look forward to you introducing me to him,' Karan said with mock sarcasm.
'Ah, what a man he was, for his was an inner beauty that made her sing
inside.'
'That's what all the ugly ones say!'
'Hush!' said Llian. 'When the teller smiled at her it was like the sun coming
out after a week of rain. And when she heard him tell his tales it made her
dissolve inside.
'Now comes the bad bit,' said Karan.
'Unfortunately, this teller had one or two character defects, though of the
teensiest kind - '
'I think I know this story,' murmured Karan, squeezing his hand. 'He was vain
beyond all vanity and proud of his art to the point of arrogance! He knew
nothing but thought he knew everything. He was so curious that he pried into
everyone's business - he just couldn't stop himself. What's more, at every
single other thing he was so useless that it's a wonder he managed to feed
himself. He could never walk down a step without falling on his face. The
wonder is - '
'You've heard it already,' Llian said sorrowfully. 'And the wonder is - ?'
She practised fluttering her eyelashes a couple of times. 'The wonder is that
she, who was so beautiful that the moon hid its face when she went outside,

who was clever and resourceful and brave and kind - '
'Yes?' said Llian impatiently. 'What is this wonder?'
She smiled enigmatically, looking up from under lowered eyelashes. 'The wonder
is that she loved him so,' she said softly. 'Go on with the tale, Llian. What
did this paragon of a teller do?'
'It happens that, not long after fate threw them together, he fell upon hard
times. No fault of his own, you understand -' 'Of course not.'
'They were hunted across the world and had many adventures together. Horrible,
gruesome adventures, which is good. That kind make the best telling - '
'Don't bother with all the tedious details,' said Karan. 'What happens at the
end? That's all I want to know.'
'It's bad manners to interrupt the teller. I'm sure I've told you that
before.' He sighed loudly. 'Very well. Though they had travelled the world
together, sharing everything, there was one thing he had never been able to
say to her - '
'What?' cried Karan, shaking him. 'What couldn't he tell her?'
Llian smiled. She had forgotten all about the pain, and her longing for hrux
had vanished.
'Stop grinning like a loon and finish the story!' she shouted. Rachis put his
white head around the door briefly, smiled and went away again.
'He loved her more than the moon and the stars - '
'What about his college and his books?' she interrupted, but now there was a
shining light in her eyes.
Llian pressed her hand to his lips. 'He loved her more than his college, his
books, his pens and paper, his writing desk, his ink bottle - '
'Get on with it!' Karan cried in a frenzy. 'She knew all that long ago.' She
tried to sit up. Llian helped her, very gently.
'But..." he paused deliberately.
'Quick, quick!'
'This great teller, this master of all the words in the dictionary, could not
find the courage to say those four little words that had been in his heart for
more than a year. Poor man, he was terrified.'
'Poor stupid girl!' said Karan. 'She should have said them for him.'
'If only she had,' said Llian. 'What a silly, miserable duffer he was. Because

-and now I find that the story does end sadly after all - he never did.'
'And that's the end?' she exclaimed. 'What about "and they lived happily ever
after"?'
'That's a different tale. Karan?'
'Yes, Llian?'
He opened his mouth but no words came out.
'Will you marry me?' they both said at the same instant, and fell down on the
bed, laughing and crying and hugging one another.
'What's the matter with you,' asked Karan a few nights later, when it was late
and the house was quiet. Llian had been unusually subdued all afternoon. 'I
thought I'd made you the happiest man in the world.'
'You have, yet I'm stricken by my crimes. I am shaken to my bootstraps.' 'What
crimes?'
'Collaborating with Tensor in Katazza; taunting Mendark so that he burnt down
the archives and stole the flute; driving Tensor into a fury that led to him
destroying Rulke. What pride I took in using my teller's voice, and in my
ability to manipulate him! What reckless joy it gave me! And look how tragic
the consequences!'
'Well, you may rue them, while knowing that if you had not acted, things might
have been very much worse. I would be dead, for one.'
'I feel so guilty. My curiosity was fatal. I will give up being a chronicler
and a teller too. It is the only way. I shall labour in your fields from dawn
to dusk to atone for my crimes.'
'You would be the most useless and miserable labourer in the whole of
Bannador,' she said with a heartless laugh. 'I would probably sack you before
lunchtime. Anyway, that's all past and done, and we have to look to the

future. Think of all the good you've done with your tales and your Histories.'
Llian sat listlessly. 'How are you going to support yourself?' she continued.
'Not to mention contributing to this place, which burns money like firewood
and never makes any. Did you not promise Rulke that you'd write the Histories
of the Charon? And what about the people of Bannador, who have suffered so in
the past two years? Are they not entitled to hear the Tale of the Mirror?'
'You're right, I suppose,' he said, not quite so unhappily.
'You also have to tell the full tale to the college. You can't get around
that. It's your duty as a master chronicler.'
Llian perked up at that thought.
'Besides, how could I possibly bond to a farmhand? That would make me very
unhappy. Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed about wedding a teller.
There's even a tale about it'
That was a busy, indeed a desperate time. Meldorin was harried by thranx and
bands of lesser creatures, and they did almost as much damage as the previous
year's war had done. Even Thurkad was attacked on one terrible day at the end
of spring.
Llian had many calls to go to Thurkad and other places to tell his tale. He
had handsome offers too, but refused them all.
'It's not finished,' he said in each case, 'and when it is, first I must tell
it in Chanthed.'
He stayed at Karan's side, comforting her and attending to her needs, and
putting up with her mischief and her temper. And that was very great, when
finally she got out of her chair and tried to walk with sticks. But
surprisingly, even in her worst moments she felt no desire for hrux. That
longing had completely gone.
'Today is the day!' said Karan early one morning about a month after their
return. It was the seventh day of Bolland, the first month of summer.
'What day?' Llian wondered.
'It's six weeks! The day I get my plaster off! You can't possibly imagine how
much I've longed for this day.'
The metal frame was taken apart, the plaster casts carefully sawn through and
cracked away from her hips and each leg. Karan was helped into a chair.
'Oh, it feels funny to sit on my bottom, after so long on my back. I can feel
my bones creaking.' She looked down at
her withered legs. They were like straight, blanched sticks, her knees were
mere knobs in the middle and her ankles stuck out. 'Oh, yuk. I'm so ugly! Help
me with my trousers, quick.'
When that was done, Karan put her hands on the arms of her chair and tried to
push herself to her feet. She got halfway up and fell down again. 'Don't just
stand there like a fool!' she shouted. 'Help me up!'
Llian gave her his arms and heaved her onto her feet but her legs would not
hold her up. She sagged sideways, almost pulling him over. Karan burst into
tears.
'Put me back,' she said. 'It's no use, my legs don't work any more. I'm a
useless cripple.'
Rachis came by. 'Karan child,' he said, 'you're taking it too quickly. After
all this time, you have to build up your muscles before you can expect to
walk.' 'I can't even stand up!' she wailed. 'But if you exercise first,
tomorrow or the next day you will. And a few days after that you'll take your
first step. Soon you'll be walking everywhere. I've seen it many times.' He
went out, whistling.
'That's so,' said Llian. 'I've often heard about it.' Karan dried her angry
tears. 'I'll believe you then, though it doesn't seem possible. Now, run me a
bath and put me in it please, so that I can get rid of this awful itching. And
you'd better stay to make sure that I don't drown, and to lift me out again.
And then you can carry me up the stairs to my bed, where I will claim my
reward for the last six weeks, and offer you your own.'
After a few days Karan was able to get around by herself, though she was on
crutches for another month. Llian had recovered from his malaise by now. Freed