A Shadow on the Glass (16 page)

Tallia was a dark, striking woman, though she did not look it, for she had plastered herself with mud and her black hair was matted with twigs and water weed. For three days she had lain hidden there. She had seen Yggur’s departure, Karan and Maigraith’s entry, Yggur’s furious return. And even from outside Fiz Gorgo she had felt the ripples from Maigraith’s profligate use of power. That made her very thoughtful indeed.

Just as she prepared to depart there came a roar on the seaward side of the fortress, not far from her hiding place. Tallia found a flood still gushing down an obscure channel into the sea. She picked her way along the shore and was hidden when Karan struggled out of the water and disappeared into the forest.

Soon after, she heard a fitful thrashing and, creeping down, Tallia saw a Whelm staggering in the shallows. Tallia was not afraid—she was highly skilled in combat with and without weapons and had other powers to call upon at need. They weren’t necessary—the fellow was dazed and bleeding from a dozen lacerations. She dragged him into the scrub.

“Who are you following, Whelm?”

He struggled but did not answer. She had not expected that he would. A Whelm would die rather than betray his master. She had other ways, not always effective, especially
with these, but the man was half-dead. The simplest of tricks might be enough.

“Who is your master?” she asked.

“We serve Yggur,” he replied in a monotonous gurgle.

She sent him into a trance with her voice and her fingers, and put her hand over his eyes. The feeling of his skin was horrible. “I am Yggur,” she said, imitating Yggur’s voice imperfectly. It had been months since their only encounter.

“You are not my master.”

She tried again, got it right this time.

“I am Yggur. What are you doing here?”

“The woman escaped from the sewer. I, Idlis, hunt her until she is found, and the

Mirror recovered.”

“Do you remember her name, and the name of the other thief?”

The Whelm gave their names. Further questioning revealed what little he knew: that Maigraith was imprisoned, that the relic was the Mirror of Aachan. Tantalizing but unsatisfactory.

“Sleep now; forget that we met.”

He fell face-down in the mud. Although Tallia tried to follow Karan she could find no trace of her in the swamps. It was essential that she get this information back to Mendark.

A couple of leagues from Fiz Gorgo she came to a creek that rushed over stony ground into the estuary. Tallia washed the mud away, donned fresh clothes and dozed fitfully in a vase-shaped tree until dusk. During her waking moments she wrestled with the problem of these intruders. Their strength argued for an important new power, or a resurgent old one, but the Whelm had not been able to tell her anything useful about them or the Mirror, whatever
that
was.

Where had Yggur got the Mirror from? He had been at Fiz Gorgo for many years now, but only recently had he
begun his campaigns against the lands of the south. She recalled Mendark’s reaction after the last victory.

“How does he do it?” Mendark had said, fretting and worrying his beard into rat’s tails. “It’s as though he knows his rivals better than they know themselves.” Mendark, formerly so commanding, seemed to have trouble coping with this colleague of times long past who had now reappeared as a foe.

As dark descended, dogs began to bay in the forest beyond the creek. Tallia was shocked, thinking that she’d covered her trail better than that. It sounded like a whole pack, too many for her to deal with. She waded into the creek and went like a wraith down the braided channels into the sea. There were islands out in the bay, half a league away, a long cold swim, but she had no other recourse. She set off for the nearest. By the time the dogs howled and leapt around the foot of her tree she was well out into the bay and it was so dark that the islands could not be seen. Treading water, she listened for the sound of waves breaking on rock and stroked silently in that direction.

Shivering in wet clothes all that night she barely slept. The scorpion nebula shone in and out of the mist. In her far-off homeland of Crandor the appearance of a nebula was an evil portent. This one, this scorpion, was as ill an omen as she could imagine.

Days later she boarded a smuggler’s boat and, in the foggy night, traveled up the River Or to an island among many in a vast lake. At a manor concealed in the forest she wrote a note that went by carrier bird, or skeet, all the way north and east to distant Thurkad.

Pulin 3

Mendark,

You were right—Yggur
had
found something. A relic of the ancient past called the Mirror of Aachan. But it is gone, stolen. One
of the thieves was taken. Her name is Maigraith. The other escaped. Karan of Bannador she is called. There is a dangerous new power here. I’ll try to learn more. Send orders to me in Preddle.

Tallia

“She’s gone!”
Yggur’s voice fell to a deadly calm. “Whelm sealed the sewer. Whelm checked the sewer. Idiot Whelm assured me they had her. How gone?”

He had been waiting above the shaft while Idlis went in to get Karan. Then the water roared and Idlis did not come back.

Another Whelm stuck her head out of the shaft. “The sewer is breached. She got the bar off the doors and the water burst them open. Certainly she’s drowned.”

“No. This woman is a formidable foe. Find her! What about the wretched Idlis?”

“He is…not as capable as some. Surely dead as well.”

“A fool among fools! Find him too. He has a job to finish, if he lives.”

A ladder was fetched and Yggur climbed down to see for himself. The sewer was almost empty. The great bar lay in the sludge. There were fresh scratches on the stone where the hinges had been.

He’d had no sleep and his leg was so painful that he had to hold onto the ladder. Any other man would have ranted. Suddenly, to the astonishment of the Whelm, he chuckled.

“What a woman! She is unarmed, has no powers, just a bit of a talent, yet she’s got away. When all this is over I could enjoy—” Seeing the Whelm’s expressions he kept the rest to himself. They could never be generous to an enemy—he knew they wanted to torment and crush Karan, to utterly expunge this defeat. Something close to contempt for him showed on their faces. How much longer could he rely on them?

“Help me back up,” Yggur said. “Bring my boat.”

It was already dark outside. They searched the estuary from boats and the shoreline for half a league east and west of the place where the sewer came out. Not a trace did they find of Karan. Some went back underground, others down the shore to the fishing villages, or hunted down and searched the fishing boats and the smuggler’s vessels.

Now it was late and there was still Maigraith to question. Yggur signed for the boat to turn back. They rowed up into a creek that was close to the perimeter path.

“Stop! What’s that?” said Yggur, pointing up the creek to what looked like a gray log on the mud. “Hold the lantern higher.”

Two Whelm loped up. Yggur limped after them. The log turned out to be Idlis, clad only in a loincloth.

Yggur looked down at Idlis. The sight of the Whelm unclad disgusted him—the anorexic thick-jointed limbs, the protruding ribs, the spatulate fingers and toes, the fish-belly skin that burned even in the weakest morning sun. The black eyes that must also be shielded. At times he hated himself for keeping them, would not have but that they were so obedient, so dogged, so frightening.

Someone turned Idlis over. He groaned and heaved up mouthfuls of black mud and mucus. A grid pattern of bruises and lacerations covered his torso and one leg; his hatchet nose was bloody. He had hit the grating outside the sewer doors very hard.

A hatful of water was flung at his face. Idlis moaned and tried to get up.

“What happened to Karan?” asked Yggur coldly.

“Followed her, far as I could,” Idlis choked. “Already I told—” His eyes crossed, tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he flopped back down.

“I haven’t—” Yggur began. His mind raced. “A
compulsion
!
Search this place,” he cried. “Vartila, find out what happened here.”

A bony woman with gray hair to her shoulders knelt in the mud and put her hands on Idlis’s head.

“Master!” a shout from down the creek.

Yggur hobbled down.

“See, bootprints,” said the Whelm. “Someone dragged him up from the water. Spoke to him here, then went that way. Then Idlis crawled up there.”

Shortly Yggur knew how Idlis had been questioned and what he had said. An outside accomplice was his first thought, but an accomplice would not have asked those questions. This had the mark of Mendark.

Idlis was beginning to recover. “Fix his injuries,” barked Yggur. “Give him some robes and go after Karan. You three, after the spy. I’ll come with you a little way. Vartila, you begin with Maigraith.” Then in afterthought, wondering why as soon as he had spoken: “I would not have her harmed.”

Was it coincidence that the two parties had arrived here at the same time; and the guards were distracted just in time for the intruders to go over the wall? Possible but unlikely. Could Faelamor and Mendark be in league? Also improbable, but the Histories told of stranger alliances. And it would be a difficult one for him to combat.

This spy intrigued and bothered him too. It must be Tallia, the best of Mendark’s lieutenants and the only one who had heard the sound of his voice. What a blow it would be if he could take her. He sent one of his guards running back for the dogs.

Yggur followed the tracks for some time but learned little new. Finally he turned back to the estuary and sought out the Whelm who were searching for Karan. They found nothing until the early morning. Near the mouth of a tiny creek
less than a thousand paces from the sewer they came upon a single small footprint in the mud, where in her weariness Karan had wandered out of the stream and the sluggish tide had not come in far enough to wash the mark away.

Yggur inspected the print. It was quite distinct, a small foot, of a small woman or a child. It need not have been Karan but he knew it was, for the people of the villages had wide feet with splayed toes. Even the children had broader feet than these and they did not go barefoot at this time of year.

“It is Karan,” he said, calmly now. “She has gone into the forest.”

He gave the rest of the hunt their instructions and turned back to Fiz Gorgo to interrogate Maigraith. Another mystery, another challenge.

Clouds came up and rolled away again. The sun came out. The Whelm donned their eye shields of carved bone against the glare, adjusted the slits so they could see, pulled their hoods low over their faces and pressed on with the hunt.

K
aran woke, warm for the first time in days. She stretched and thought of breakfast, but all she had in her little pack was wet bread and muddy, moldy cheese. The bread was horrible, a soggy pulp. She cut off a piece of cheese and, scraping off the mud with the edge of her knife, regarded it warily. The cheese had a strange flavor, the pungency of crushed ants mixed with the stench of sweaty boots. Even before Fiz Gorgo she had found it barely edible, but it was all they could get in Orist.

She chewed the mess, considering. Maigraith had carried most of the food. No way of getting more here, where no one lived. Wild food was scarce anywhere at the end of autumn, save nuts, but there were no nuts in the swamp forest. Doubtless there were edible plants, but the country and the flora were foreign to her, and after an experiment on the way in that had left her lips and tongue numb for half a day she was reluctant to try again. She had nothing to fish with either.
What food she had was enough for two mean days, but Neid was at least three days away. There was food there, where they’d left their heavy packs, though it was scarcely better than what she had. But what if Yggur had learned of Neid? She shivered.

Black eyes glared through the slitted bone. The sun made dazzling reflections on the water, hurting Idlis’s eyes despite the shields. His battered body throbbed, though that was easier to endure than the shame of his failure. He dipped a leaf-shaped blade, thrust, and the prow of the canvas boat parted the reeds and glided into the adjacent channel with the barest rustle. Indeed she was cunning—but not cunning enough. There were signs. A handprint on the bank; a V-shape through the rushes. Soon he would redeem himself.

Karan repacked her pack. In spite of what was behind and what lay ahead she felt good-humored today. Yesterday had done a lot for her. So good it was to be alive, to have beaten such an enemy, that she felt positively cheerful in the sun; not discouraged by the hard hungry days ahead, not really daunted by the filth of the mire.

Then she looked down at herself and laughed wryly. Her trousers were caked with dried mud that flaked off with every movement. Her feet were gray with mud, there was mud under her nails, in her hair, up her nose. She stank, the sulphurous odor of swamp mud and the foulness of sewer water. She had not changed her clothes in a week. Disgusting!

Catching sight of her face in the Mirror, Karan quickly put it back in its inner pocket and buttoned the flap down. She was not ready to tackle that problem yet. Humming softly to herself, she settled the pack on her back and set off.