A Shadow on the Glass (20 page)

At dusk she rose, took her mount to water, rewarded him with a hug and a double handful of oats which he snorted all over her, then climbed into the hard saddle and rode till after midnight. By the time they stopped, with the glaring nebula already starting its descent, she was so sore that she could barely stand. Most of the night she lay awake, picking oats
out of her hair, counting her bruises, watching the stars and the standing shadow of Thrix, who snorted even ins his sleep.

Before dawn she woke suddenly from a troubled sleep, from dreams of faces in the Mirror, faces glaring out at her, accusing her, demanding that she do her duty. The dreams faded as she was still trying to remember who the faces were. Maigraith was there, or was it the older woman she had seen in the Mirror in Fiz Gorgo?

And now there was this new complication. Mendark would know as soon as Tallia could get a message to him. This Mirror was drawing all the powerful to it, sucking the whole of Santhenar into its whirlpool. She did not know much about the Magister, but rumor did not make him a kind man. Karan had no wish to have any dealings with
him
.

Karan rode on, still troubled by the dream. For days she had been worrying about her duty to the Aachim. She owed them so much, much more than her debt to Maigraith. Breaking
that
oath now seemed the lesser crime. After all, the Aachim had held the Mirror for thousands of years and did no harm with it. And Karan knew that the making of the Forbidding had been a time of great upheaval. What would happen if Faelamor broke it?

Karan still had friends among the Aachim of Shazmak. One of them, Rael of the red hair and the wistful smile, could have been more than a friend once. She lost herself in memories of growing up in Shazmak among the towering mountains, the roar of the furiously rushing Garr never out of her ears. It was Rael who had taught her how to climb. She still missed him. If only Tensor hadn’t…

Tensor!
Leader, if they could be said to have one, of the Aachim of Shazmak. A mighty man with a mighty presence; a hero in the struggles of the Aachim with their enemies, the Charon, in ancient times. One of the original Aachim whom Rulke had brought to Santh from Aachan. Tensor was a stern
proud man who had never given up the struggle, who was full of bitterness at their loss and who talked constantly of the renascence of his people. A man with an implacable hatred for their ancient enemy Rulke, the Charon responsible for all their troubles.

She could see him now, black locks flying, beard bristling, great fist upraised. “Just give me the power,” he had raged.

Karan’s respect for Tensor bordered on awe, as was due to him, but she had never felt comfortable in his presence, had always felt that he had something against her, as though he had judged her and found her wanting; or perhaps had found her father wanting for
going outside
. Tensor had tutored her in the development of her talent in her early days in Shazmak, though the experience had been uncomfortable and she felt as though she had lost something because of it. And later when he had sent Rael away to the eastern cities, Karan had known that it was because of her.

Perhaps I
should
give the Mirror to Tensor. After all, I owe the Aachim more than I can ever repay. But, they failed to support me when Emmant harassed me. That cancels a good part of the debt. What would Tensor do with it anyway? Perhaps it would just be fuel to bis hate.

Faelamor or Tensor? The Faellem or the Aachim? Was one option better than the other? Was either better than Yggur who, for all his imperial ambitions, was reputed to be a just man, a law-bringer?

Well, I took the Mirror, she thought. I set all this in motion and now I have a duty to make the right choice.

Agonizing over her decision, Karan traveled the Hirth-way north to Flumen, through country that became increasingly barren, and then to the hills of Sundor, a distance of a hundred leagues, in only eight days. In all that time there was no sign of any pursuit and she relaxed a little. That was when it all began to go wrong again.

Climbing into the arid and desolate hills of Sundor, riding too hard, Thrix slipped on the rough ground, fell and shattered his foreleg. Her heart went out to the great beast as it lay on the road, looking at her with its moist brown eyes, but there was only one thing to be done. She gave Thrix a last hug, her arms not meeting around his sweaty neck, covered his eye with her hand and cut his throat with one deep cut. The hot blood sprayed all over her arm and her clothes and the big head slowly sank to the road.

She turned away, tears watering her dusty face. It was a long time before she forgot the killing of her horse, and the smell of his blood stayed with her for days. And, in her distress, she relaxed the control of her talent and her emotiosns that she had been exercising since the swamps.

In the hills of Sundor the hallucinatory dreams came back. Once more she dreamed that the hooded Whelm were listening for her. But this time it was worse, for a big wasted hound crouched beside them, the firelight reflected in its staring eyes. For two nights she had these dreams. On the third morning Karan woke in terror and saw the Whelm far below, and so she fled once more. Soon the chase blurred into that hunt in the swamps, and though that was weeks ago the interval now seemed like a minute’s waking in a day-long nightmare.

That night, as she dozed upright with her back against a stone, a single howl came on the wind. A low-pitched, ragged-at-the-edges note, endlessly drawn out. Karan jumped. It cut off suddenly and was not repeated, but she knew what it was—the hound from the cistern, or another just like it. She had been expecting it even before the dream. She could sense it, could imagine the gaunt thing perfectly, if she closed her eyes. She was more afraid of this Whelp—that was a good name for it!—than even of the Whelm.

She looked around her camp. It wasn’t much to defend—
a pouch of coarse grass with upthrust rocks above and below, halfway up a stony hill, and a couple of scrubby conifers on her right. She was protected only from above. Karan was tempted to light a fire even though it would draw the Whelm. They would find her soon enough in this country, with dogs. There was no hope even if there was only one Whelm, one dog! The panic built up until the urge to scream was irresistible. She put her fingers in her mouth and bit down hard and kept biting until the pain brought her to her senses.

Karan realized that she was broadcasting her panic again, drawing them to her. She forced herself to breathe slowly, to slow her racing heart, to make some defense.

Fire was not a good idea. Up among the rocks with her back to a bit of an overhang was the best she could manage. Her only weapon was her small knife. Not enough! She gathered a pile of rocks for the sake of doing something. What a stupid idea: rocks were useless in the dark. She wrenched a small branch down off a tree, hacking the tough bark away from the trunk. It wasn’t big enough to do serious damage though it felt good in her hands. Now she waited, wanting sleep but not game to doze for an instant, staring into the night until her imagination began to make Whelm stick-figures out of the shadows.

The night dragged to a close. Monochrome shades gave way to the faintest colors. Pink dawn touched the east The wind died down momentarily. She had survived another night. Her neck ached. Time to go. No, just a little bit longer. She closed her eyes.

The sun leapt above the horizon. Karan slept, a few blessed moments of peace. Her breast rose and fell. Sunlight crept up her outflung arm, her slender throat, struck gold in her lashes and brows, bronze in her hair.

The hound crept closer, taking advantage of every
shadow, every hide, to get within springing distance of Karan, crouching on its belly, then swinging its gaunt body up and forward on anchored feet; springing forward one bound then crouching down again. Now it was just a leap away. It opened its long mouth in a grinning yawn.

Karan dreamed that she was lying in a lovely soapy bath, luxuriating, warm and clean. Suddenly the bath dream drained away and she was naked, unprotected. The wind blew on her throat, shivering her awake, shocking her with the realization that for the second time she had slept on watch.

But the sun was just up. She had not slept long at all, and she had survived the night. A fragment of another dream came to her, a child’s birthday party.
It’s my birthday!
Not much to celebrate. Nonetheless the thought was a little bit cheering. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, massaged her scalp with her fingertips, ran fingers through tangled hair and automatically looked around.

The biggest, gauntest dog she had ever seen crouched just a few paces below her. It wavered its muzzle from side to side but the yellow eyes did not leave her face. Karan felt for her knife—it was by her side—and grasped her stick. She rose to her feet, sliding back into the rocks so that it could only come at her one way. She flicked her eyes around but there was no one in sight. Did the dog plan to attack or just bail her up here until its master came?

She lifted the stick with both hands. The dog quivered. “Get away!” Her voice sounded unconvincing. The hound grinned then leapt at her.

Karan swung her stick and struck it on the shoulder, knocking it to one side in a jumble of legs.

The dog was up again at once, unhurt, gray claws scrabbling on the rocks. It snapped at her thigh. She swung the stick again but it struck the overhanging rock and jarred out of her hands. Karan snatched the knife with her right hand.

The dog sprang and hit her in the stomach, knocking her back on the stone. It straddled her, snapped, and caught her knife arm halfway up to her elbow. Then it looked her deliberately in the eye, sank its teeth in and held her.

Blood ran down her arm; saliva dripped from the huge jaws onto her chest. She let her arm go limp and the knife clattered on rock. One crunch of those great jaws could probably bite her hand off. She stared up at the dog, trying to find a chink in its armor. It wore an iron collar. The front teeth were broken stumps though most of the side ones, the bone crunchers, were good.

Karan moaned. The dog flicked up its ears. She moaned again, putting all of her pain and weariness and fear into her voice, trying with all her talent to reach the dog, to convince it she was harmless, to make it let go for an instant. But even if she could reach it, put it off-guard for a second, what could she do? Her reflexes were lightning fast but hardly as fast as a dog’s. Unless the dog was slow and awkward like the master…

Karan gave a little sigh, rolled back her eyes and closed her lids to the merest slit. Her body went limp. The dog held on, standing patiently. She gave a low shivery groan, then a shudder that rippled her from head to foot.

The hound lowered its head and sniffed at her face. She shuddered again. The dog let go her wrist and instantly her left hand flashed up, grabbed the iron collar and twisted with every ounce of strength she had. It jerked back, choking. She balled up her right fist, punched it through the open jaws and jammed it hard into the dog’s throat, at the same time pulling it onto her fist by the collar.

The dog convulsed, jerked its head and fell sideways, almost tearing her hand from the collar. It snapped its jaws, the rotten teeth lacerating her wrist and forearm. Sure that she was going to lose her hand, Karan thrust harder down its
throat, thrusting and thrusting while its claws scratched frantically at the rock.

Just then someone whistled, a low creepy sound not far away. The dog flung up its head, trying to bark, its eyes rolling, and Karan’s wrist snapped with a shocking pain. She wanted to shriek, to scream out her agony, but instead thrust against the pain until the dog went still, and even after that until she was sure mat it was dead.

She withdrew her hand. Her forearm was rent by dozens of gouges and punctures and there were strips of skin hanging off. Blood poured down her wrist. Karan sat down suddenly, feeling that she was going to faint beside the emaciated hound. Though it had been her life or the dog’s, still this corpse was almost as bitter to her as the horse she had left up the road.

The whistle came again, off to one side, shocking her. Karan wiped cold sweat from her brow with a hand that shook, found her knife and climbed awkwardly up into the rocks. The slightest movement was an excruciation.

On a rock she perched, washed and salved the wounds and tried to bind her wrist. Though she was left-handed, her efforts would have been comical if the situation had not been so dire, the pain so awful. She found some knobbly sticks for splints, but could not fix them tightly enough to make any difference and finally gave up, just binding her arm and wrist and hand as tightly as she could bear, knowing that it was a hopeless job and would have to be redone today if her wrist was to heal properly. Happy birthday!

“Droik! Droi-ik!” called Idlis in his burbling voice, looking this way and that as he came closer. It would be
his
dog! If she looked down Karan could still see the dead thing, gray tongue flopping out. She started to clamber up between the stones. She did not want to be here when Idlis found it.

“
Droiiik!
” A moan of utter despair. “Droik, little puppy.”

Don’t look down. She looked down and beheld Idlis cradling the giant hound in his arms and weeping as though it was his own child. Then he looked up and saw her staring at him. His face showed no recognition. His agony moved her soft heart, but she wanted to be well away when his grieving was done. She eased her way between the rocks and ran.

It was nearly midday when next she saw him. Idlis, the tireless one. It was as if they had been running together for weeks, for all of her life, some thread of common purpose holding them together. Karan was empty inside now, sucked dry, an exhaustion of the spirit, her wrist and arm a killing pain. Why did she run? She no longer knew. Why did he follow? She couldn’t even imagine what drove him.