The Way Between the Worlds Read online

  Then an image of the country flashed into her head as she had seen it from a window a few days ago. She knew exactly where she was. Ahead was a rocky gully, not much more than a ditch, and beyond that a broken cliff ran behind the western wall of Carcharon. On this side it swung sharply to the west, blending into the precipitous rim of the ravine a little to her left. She would have to be careful there.

  On she crawled. Her hands were stiff, unfeeling blobs and her knee hurt. So did her ear. By the time Karan reached the top it was beginning to get light, a slow seeping grayness, the air so thick with driven snow that she could see only a few steps ahead. But that was enough. Any more and her enemies could see her, for she was still so close to Carcharon that she could have hurled a pebble over the western wall.

  On the steep slope above her the loose snow had been scoured away by the wind. What remained was a rough crust that was quite hard. By mid-morning she was high above Carcharon. Further up, the ridge was dotted with boulders and outcrops. Karan planned to make a snow shelter in the lee of one of these, where there were snow drifts.

  After much searching she found a long outcrop that was eroded underneath. Snow had piled against the uphill side, higher than her head. She made a shelter the way she had seen her father do long ago, the snow hollowed out and packed tightly to secure the walls and roof, leaving a tiny cave against the rock. The door was a ball of snow that she could roll back or forward. The space was just large enough for her to sit, or lie curled up on her cloak to sleep. The only way she could be found was if someone walked right up to the rock, and it was one among thousands.

  Now her cares came back redoubled. Was her collaboration with Rulke the most terrible crime of all? When the thranx had shaken the construct with one blow of its shoulder, when it had gone through the wall as if it were made of a child’s blocks, she had felt truly afraid. The price of Llian’s life might be the death of everyone she cared about. And Llian too! And below, Gothryme lay in its path.

  It began to snow heavily, which pleased her. Karan emptied her pack on the tiny patch of floor in front of her, sorting out her supplies. There were two slabs of smoked eel, now frozen so hard that she risked breaking teeth on them, the long stick of cheese, a string of purple onions, very strong, some with bad spots, an orange-like marrim, a few pieces of dried fruit and half a loaf of dark bread she had brought from Gothryme. The rest had been lost in the snow. It wasn’t much, but she could survive on it for a few days. Worst of all, she had no knife. She missed her little knife, her companion on the road.

  She put the fish inside her coat where it would warm and gnawed on the end of the loaf. Stale even before they left Gothryme, now it was like eating sawdust. She peeled away the skin of the onion with her teeth, nibbling at the shoot end, which had thawed a little in her hand. It was crisp and hot. Hunger improved the taste immeasurably.

  The dried fruit was unfamiliar, rust-colored on the outside but crimson within. Karan recalled seeing the Ghâshâd eating it once or twice. She tasted a small piece, rather tentatively. It was leathery, like a dried apricot. The first impression was a tangy flavor like ginger and just as hot, though the aftertaste was strange, slightly off.

  Her lips began to tingle. A warm glow ran all the way down to the pit of her stomach. Little beads of perspiration sprang out on her forehead. Her heart began to race and suddenly Karan felt hot all over. Even her fingers and toes started to tingle. Her mouth tasted odd though. She put the rest of the piece back.

  The snow must have stopped, for the light was brighter now. Karan rolled the ball of snow away and put her eye to the tunnel. She could see right across the ridge. She wriggled out, trying not to disturb the opening.

  It was still snowing, though not so as to impede her vision. The walls and tower of Carcharon were clearly visible half a league below. Quite a lot of snow had fallen since she had made her cave, enough to cover her tracks. Occasionally the sun peeped through low, rushing clouds.

  Karan scanned the slope—up, down, across. Nothing but snow, ice and rocks. There was no sign of activity at Carcharon either. She backed into the shelter, which now gave off a warm fishy reek that grew stronger every time she moved. The eel had begun to thaw inside her coat.

  Her lunch was a piece of fatty smoked eel, dry bread, hard cheese and the rest of the onion. The eel had a river-bottom muddy flavor that was unpleasant, and it was full of tiny wire-like bones that caught in her teeth and throat. The onion fumes made her nose drip.

  Karan curled up in the sleeping pouch and was soon asleep, but had troubling, hallucinatory dreams that she was being hunted by a blood-drenched lorrsk and woke sweating, almost unbearably hot. Surely the weather can’t have changed that much, she thought, taking her coat off. She stuck her head out of the entrance to find that it was late afternoon and the blast as wintry as ever.

  Karan felt ravenous. Her supplies now looked even less appetizing than before. Wanting something sweet, she felt in her pack, found the piece of dried fruit and popped it in her mouth. Instantly she felt the most delicious thrill course through her veins. Her blood pumped like hot metal. Nothing was beyond her—she could challenge Rulke himself for the construct.

  “Yes!” she cried, leapt up and her head brought down half the roof of the cave. It seared her roaring red cheeks and a clot of snow went down the back of her neck. Another huge lump landed on her head, flattening her to the floor. She felt suffocated in cold, all the more shocking because she had been so hot. Choking, she coughed the piece of fruit out into the snow.

  By the time Karan dug herself out and repaired the hole in the roof the feelings of euphoria were quite gone. She now felt desperately cold. Even wrapped in cloak, coat and sleeping pouch, she could not get warm. Her head was throbbing in the beginnings of a migraine. Eventually she drifted back into her alarming dreams.

  When she woke it was long after dark, and still snowing. Once she made out the lights of Carcharon, then a snow squall swept past and blotted it out. The snow she had so painstakingly packed into her water bottle had melted, generating less than a cup of icy water. She drank it, repacked the flask and pulled her sleeping pouch up again.

  She dozed off at once but did not sleep for long—one unpleasant dream followed another, and all on the same topic: the hunting of her younger self a year ago. Always running, always powerless. Not any more! She was wakeful and cold, and the pressure of her rage built up until she felt a sudden violent urge to strike; to make a link and transmit a killing impulse across it at Rulke.

  For a moment Karan reveled in this violent thought, this thrill of power, but reality intervened. If she dared to make a link this close, after their minds had been linked, he would have her instantly. Who was she to think of such things anyway?

  No, she would sit quietly, attempt nothing. They could not know where she was. In a day or two she could go free. She dozed again.

  “Skelaaarr!”

  The guttural cry shocked Karan awake, for it came from not far away. Ghâshâd! She crawled to the entrance, put her head out and recoiled in horror. A weak sun shone on the snow, illuminating the dark figures of five Ghâshâd climbing up the slope toward her. She watched them for a moment, just long enough to be sure. They were heading directly toward her as if following a line drawn on the snow.

  Though she was faster and more agile, it would not help her here, for they were spread out across the whole top of the ridge. She was trapped!

  For a few moments Karan sat paralyzed like a rabbit in a burrow; then she stuffed her goods in her pack and darted hopelessly up the slope.

  5

  The Thranx

  They waited in the arena for hours, staring at Carcharon. There was nothing else they could do. Someone kindled a fire with sticks that the Aachim had brought with them. The blaze was a meager thing about the size of a plate, always in danger of being blown out. It did little to warm or cheer them.

  Llian’s eyes darted back and forth over the company. It included a squad of about a dozen
of Yggur’s guard, battle-hardened veterans who never relaxed. Behind them the cold stick-figure of Vartila the Whelm stalked back and forth, shaking with passion. Most of the Whelm had abandoned Yggur a year ago, reverting to their old name—Ghâshâd—and serving their master of old, Rulke. But a few, unable to recognize him, had remained loyal to Yggur. I am blind to my master! Vartila had wept when Rulke first appeared. From the look on her hatchet face, Vartila’s loyalty was now being severely tested.

  Yggur was talking to Vanhe by the fire. A squat, bullet-headed man, Marshal Vahne had once led the First Army, but after the battle with the Second Army in Bannador, and Maigraith’s disappearance, Yggur had broken Vanhe to a common soldier.

  Yggur’s adjutant, Dolodha, a nervous young woman perennially dressed in ill-fitting robes, scuttled back and forth. Her promotion from servant-girl had been equally abrupt and she lived in fear of offending Yggur, who was notoriously unstable. No one could be a more generous master when things were going well. However in adversity he became dangerously capricious, changing in an instant to unforgiving brutality and sometimes to a kind of madness, the echo of that insanity he had suffered when Rulke was exiled in the Nightland. No one knew how to predict his mood.

  Mendark, who looked more like a bird of prey every day, was perched on a log staring into the fire. His guards, Osseion and Torgsted, were playing a game of dice on a slab of rock. As Llian watched, Torgsted threw back his head and roared with laughter. The firelight caught his broad, handsome face and the mop of dark curls. Osseion, who was almost twice his friend’s size, clapped Torgsted on the shoulder and threw his dice on the slab.

  On the other side of the fire sat Nadiril of the Great Library, with Lilis, her father Jevi, and Tallia. Shand had also been with them but was nowhere to be seen. Probably spying on Carcharon, Llian thought moodily. The Aachim made a third group, equally spaced about the fire. There were a dozen of them, including red-haired Malien, a silent Tensor and Old Darlish, an ancient Aachim whom Llian had not previously met. He was thin in the limbs but round in the belly, a rare thing in an Aachim. His hairy ears hung down to the level of his voice-box and his chin was as pointed as a trowel.

  “What are we waiting for?” asked Lilis.

  “The end of the world,” said Tensor direfully.

  “What mischief is he hatching now?” asked Old Darlish in a gravelly eastern accent.

  “Who can predict it?” said Nadiril.

  They stood ankle-deep in soft snow, and there was ice beneath that. Once or twice there were flurries of snowflakes, but even they seemed dispirited and did not last. The potential of the construct overpowered them. It is fated to be, the dark moon told them. Almost as one they drew away from Llian. His culpability was self-evident.

  Tallia strode across to where he huddled in the snow, to check his bonds. She wore a short sword on her right hip. Llian had not seen her bear arms before.

  “Tallia…” he began, then went silent. What was the use? The sullen moon washed the color out of even her chocolate skin. Though her long face was quite expressionless, she looked very beautiful. Her hair was blacker than the night. Llian noticed, not for the first time, just what a striking woman she was. But she could have been made of granite as far as he was concerned. His thoughts were back in the tower.

  He realized that she was speaking to him.

  “I said, is that too tight?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “I know not whether you’re guilty or innocent. That will be a matter for trial, if we survive. But I would not have you lose your hands, and that’s an easy thing on a night like this.”

  Llian tested the bonds absently. Tight, but not too tight. She began to move away. Something burst inside him—he made a groaning, choking sob.

  Tallia peered into his face. The moonlight touched one cheek, leaving shadows with tinged edges.

  “So now you’re feeling sorry for yourself! Or is it remorse?”

  “I’m terrified for Karan.”

  The tone of his voice seemed to unsettle her. She peered at him again, turning him by the shoulder so that the light was full on him, as if trying to read his face.

  “That surprises you? You all think that I betrayed her.”

  “There’s good evidence for it,” she said. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  “Nothing!” Llian raged. “Words mean nothing!”

  He no longer cared what she thought of him. What was Rulke going to do with Karan? That was the only question with any meaning. She was a sensitive with rare abilities and Rulke would never give her up.

  Llian examined the bowed backs and defeated faces around him. No help there. Tallia opened her mouth but whatever she had been about to say was cut off as Mendark approached.

  The fulfilment of the prophecy had come as a shattering blow to Mendark. He was greatly diminished, and whenever he saw other people engaged in quiet conversation his face would darken, as though he suspected that they were libelling him, or laughing at him. Mendark’s reputation meant everything to him and he would do anything to protect his place in the Histories. He could not bear for his long, long reign as Magister to end in such a failure.

  The veil which had been hanging across the moon parted and it shone out, red, purple and black, brighter than before. The light caught Mendark on the snow and for a moment he hesitated. He was so changed from the man Llian had known that he scarcely seemed to be the same person. The experience in Havissard a few months ago had almost killed him, and trapped in the brambles there he’d had no option but to renew his failing body one time too many.

  Mendark now looked like a withered raptor—his formerly broad nose was shrunken into a beak, hands to claws, narrow shoulders hunched forward. His hair was lank and his beard scanty. Huge creases ran from the corner of his mouth across half the length of his face and the skin hung loosely as if the flesh beneath had all dried up. The once full lips were just hard slashes across his face.

  Hopping across the snow like a condor circling a corpse, Mendark also checked Llian’s bonds. “What do you say now, chronicler?”

  “Only that I’m innocent.”

  Mendark bent to check the other leg, but so slowly and with such a shudder of pain that Llian, even now, felt a flash of empathy for him. Mendark straightened, even more painfully.

  “Maybe you are, Llian, but your actions speak otherwise.”

  “If I had died in Yggur’s dungeon in Thurkad, you’d still be standing here, waiting on Rulke’s whim!”

  “Hmn,” Mendark said. He made his awkward way back to the fire.

  The night grew colder. Carcharon was silent. The Aachim went down the ridge to their wood stockpile, to return hours later bearing huge bundles on their backs. They built another fire in the most sheltered part of the amphitheater and everyone huddled between the two.

  Later still, to Llian’s amazement, Yggur brought him a mug of soup. Perhaps he felt remorse for his earlier fit of madness. Llian wanted to hurl it in his face but that would not help Karan. He took off his gloves to warm his hands on the mug. His feet were turning to blocks of icy jelly. The soup was scalding. He looked up and Yggur was watching him.

  “You wanted me dead without trial, a month ago,” said Llian. “Do you judge me differently now, or do you want something from me?”

  “Rulke has made no effort to possess me,” Yggur replied. “I may have been wrong about you.”

  “Why don’t you go after him then? You were brave enough with your armies at your back, destroying half of Meldorin.” In his time as a tale-spinner Llian had developed his teller’s voice to a fine art, until he could move people to almost any emotion he desired. His talents had not been much used lately. Could he drive these cowards into some action that would help Karan? “You’re supposed to be a great mage. Why don’t you do something?”

  Yggur smiled. “You can’t manipulate me so easily, chronicler, despite that I am not what I was. It is a wondrous thing to have been great, and then
to be laid low; and then to try and rise again. Things that were once important now seem trivial. Things that once had been of no account… But that is bye the bye. About Rulke I can do nothing—I’m too afraid. I admit it. The thought of being possessed by him again turns my bowels liquid—”

  At that moment a white light shot up from the cratered tower top of Carcharon. Yggur ran to the lower edge of the amphitheater, shielding his eyes from the glare as he stared at the tower. He cursed and ran down the steps, and the rest of the party followed.

  Llian felt a momentary attack of vertigo. It was beginning! Karan was up there because of him, and he was powerless to help her. He hobbled after the group as fast as his irons would allow. They were hard with ice now. In a minute his shins were a bloody ruin. Soon he was alone in the darkness.

  He bumped down the steps, along the winding path and back up the steep track. The rest of the company were already on the stairs below the gate, but the light that had attracted them was fading. Now it disappeared, leaving them in a blacker darkness, for the moon was hidden again. Llian hung back where he could not be seen. He felt a vague physical discomfort in his guts, a certain disorientation in his head, a veritable shivering of the spaces around him. When he closed his eyes strange scenes, like the paintings of that alien world of Aachan that he had seen in Shazmak, and yet unlike—a little more twisted, a little more unreal—played inside his head.

  He knew what it was; he had felt it only a week ago. It was the construct. Rulke wasn’t just flying it now, he was beginning to operate it. This quivering of every inner cell was something that he had felt when Rulke flung him out of Katazza. But this was different from the other time—much stronger. This was the time!

  High winds tore the clouds to shreds. It became a wild night, a gale howling from the south, carrying frost crystals that tore the exposed skin. A night when all the lower air was filled with ice, but the stars above were brittle and cold. Blue-white auroras flickered across the sky.