A Shadow on the Glass (23 page)

Llian went to sleep almost at once but woke soon after,
freezing cold, having slid halfway out of his bed. Just then he heard the clack-clack of hooves—that horse again. He peered uneasily out of the trees. The road was clear as far as the first bend, not far away, but he could not get back to sleep, on the stony ground, and lay watching the stars and the winking embers. Now he was really thirsty. Llian found his waterskin and his boots and trudged off downhill through the forest The filtered moon was just enough to see by.

Twice he got lost on the way back. The second time, Llian sat down on a log, thinking he would have to wait until morning; then he caught a whiff of smoke and, walking on, stumbled out onto the road not far below bis camp.

A horse whinnied not far away. That was strange, someone on this road so late at night There were no houses up here, no farms; not even the woodcutters came this high. Only a desperate man would ride that track in the dark. Or, cursing himself for being so slow on the uptake, someone who was hunting him!

Llian had no weapon save a knife so blunt he’d had trouble preparing his dinner with it, nor any training with weapons. He’d never needed any, in his profession. Anyway, the knife was back at the camp. Seized by the thought that he was being watched, he gripped his waterbag, slid back into the forest and looked for the campfire.

Leaves rustled behind him. He jumped but it was just the wind on the road. A stone rattled on the other side of the fire; a shadow blotted out the firelit trunks. The shadow disappeared then reappeared near his bedroll. Violence was done to his pillow, then it was flung aside with a curse.

Llian stole back to the road, coming out right next to a horse tied to a sapling. As he approached the horse whinnied, flung up its head, pulled the reins off the branch and cantered off through the forest. Someone shouted, a voice he
knew well. Turlew! Llian wrenched off the branch and followed carefully. Not far from the fire the horse pranced and pawed at the air while Turlew clung to the reins trying to calm it.

A stick cracked under Llian’s foot. Turlew spun around, seeming to know exactly where Llian was, and rushed him with his knife out. Llian swatted at his assailant with the pathetic weapon, stumbled, and before he knew what was happening he was face-down in the leaves. Turlew’s arm went around his neck and the knife pressed into his throat.

“Why?” screamed Llian.

Turlew flung Llian on his back and banged his head on the ground. “I hate you, treacherous Zain that you are,” he spat, so vehemently that flecks of spit showered Llian’s face. “Always showing off your lovely voice and boasting of your honors. I’ve worked for years to bring you down. Ha, that surprises you!”

Llian twitched but the knife was directly over his heart. “I thought it was Wistan!” he said in dazed tones.

“That old fool! I thought I’d convinced him, then he gives you a bag of gold and sends you off to Mendark!
Mendark!
Any chronicler in Chanthed would give his hand for a post with the Magister.”

“But—I’ve never done anything to you. I hardly know you.”

“No? I well remember when you first came to Chanthed, a sniveling, snot-crusted brat. That was my class, and I was the best, until you came. Pushed out by a filthy Zain.”

“I don’t remember you at all,” Llian dissembled, knowing that would hurt him the more, though he recalled the obsequious little worm well enough. The child had truly fathered the man. “The best? You are a clerk, not a chronicler.”

“You made me fail. You destroyed my career. And now I do for you.”

“With a voice like that you would never have made a teller anyway.”

Turlew struck him in the face. Then he laughed, a chilling sound. “Here’s a fine idea, much better than killing you,” he said with venom enough to choke a horse. “Let’s see how pretty you are with your nose gone, how well you tell with your tongue off,
how much a man when your manhood sizzles in the fire.”

He put the knife to Llian’s mouth and tried to prise his teeth apart. “Open up,” he said coaxingly.

L
lian had never felt so terrified. His fingers, scrabbling on the ground, came upon the neck of his waterskin. He swung it hard, Turlew turned at the movement and it struck him full on the nose and burst, drenching them both. Turlew was momentarily blinded. Llian smacked the knife out of Turlew’s hand, knocked him down and heaved a great log across his chest, pinning him to the ground. Turlew sucked asthmatically at the air, straining to fill his lungs against the weight, while Llian bound his hands with the cord from the waterskin.

Suddenly Turlew began to scream and kick his legs. “Get it off me!”

Llian put one foot on the log to keep it in place, then threw wood onto the fire so that it blazed up. “What is it?” he enquired, inspecting his enemy with all the interest of a teller in search of new material.

The flickering light revealed a huge and fuzzy-looking
black spider that had emerged from the log and was now crawling up Turlew’s throat toward his chin.

“Don’t panic, it’s just an
enormous
spider,” said Llian, as the creature hesitated next to Turlew’s plump wet lips.

“Kill it,” Turlew screamed, flinging his head from side to side.

“A few minutes ago you were going to kill me,” said Llian, taking a malicious pleasure in the reversal. “I’d stay still if I were you. One bite from a black huntsman…”

Turlew went utterly still. Llian fetched a brand from the fire. Holding it close he saw that the fuzziness was due to hundreds of baby spiders clinging to every part of the mother. The spider darted across Turlew’s cheek, sat up on its back legs just below his eye, waving its forelegs in the air, then darted again and straddled his glossy eyeball. Llian shuddered; he didn’t like spiders much either. Turlew shrank visibly.

He convulsed, then as the spider ran across Turlew’s forehead Llian killed it with a blow from his burst waterskin. Baby spiders fled in all directions across Turlew’s face, taking refuge in his hair, his ear, up his nose. He screamed and screamed and did not stop even after Llian poured the remaining water over his head, washing off the splattered remains.

Llian was not cruel by nature, but he could bear it no longer. He dragged Turlew across to his horse, heaved him head down over the saddle and tied him on. Despite the bonds, Turlew thrashed and tried to claw at his ear, tickled agonizingly by the little spiders hiding inside. Llian smacked the horse hard on the flank. It kicked backwards, almost braining him, and cantered off down the track, the screams taking a long time to die away.

Llian watched it out of sight in the moonlight and turned back to his fire. His knees would barely support him. He was
astonished at his victory though already the events seemed unreal, impossible. His only fights had been in the schoolyard, and he had seldom won.

He moved his camp across two hills, well away from the road and the fire, went to make a brew of tea, recalled that his water bottle was burst and turned to his sleeping pouch in disgust. More than once that night, as he tossed on the rocky ground, he thought of his warm bed in Chanthed. And for the whole night his skin crawled at the memory of the spider on Turlew’s eyeball.

Eventually he slept and dreamed, and his dreams were a curious blending of the fight, fragments of the Histories and his own romantic fancy. He was a hero, a protector, brave, cunning, always doing the unexpected, daring impossible dangers. And when he finally got to Thurkad they shouted his name in the streets.

Llian had been so occupied with his troubles that it was not until he woke at dawn, remembering with amusement and yet with a tinge of yearning his dream, that he gave any real consideration to his own task. He went to the creek with his cooking pot, then sat with his journal and his tea, as was his daily habit. Only now, as the previous day’s events were recorded, did he give serious thought to what Wistan had said.

Llian hardly knew whether to take the quest seriously or not. Why had he been chosen? Llian was not blind to his failings; he knew that outside his world of learning and telling he was awkward and ignorant. No, whatever the mission really was, he was here because of the malice of Wistan. Maybe there was no thief, no Mirror. Certainly he had never read of such a thing in the Histories.

Seized by a sudden fear he pulled out the purse and spilled the contents on the ground. It was real enough: good
gold and silver, a small fortune. And Wistan’s references, he found, described his qualities and accomplishments fairly, though without warmth. The master’s faults were legion, but evidently meanness was not one of them.

So the quest was real; though why did someone clever enough to bring the Mirror all this way need him for an escort? It didn’t make sense. It did not occur to Llian that Karan had stolen the Mirror for someone other than Mendark.

Still, any young chronicler needed a rich and powerful patron, lest he end up that despised thing, a wandering teller: a mere jongleur, or
jangler
as he had often joked. Mendark was very old, very rich, very powerful. Who better to help him with his search? And Mendark must have interesting work for a chronicler. For a Zain such as he, cast out into the uncertain world, the chance of such employment was worth any sacrifice.

The only thing that interested him in the whole affair was this Mirror. An ancient relic that had inspired such larcenous feats was interesting enough, but one that was not even mentioned in the Histories, that was intriguing. To learn its history, to write its tale, he would tramp from one end of Santhenar to the other.

Llian suddenly realized that the sun was well up, and he had been writing his daydream for an hour. If Turlew had freed himself and ridden all night he could be back in Chanthed collecting a gang of ruffians right now. And, importantly for Llian’s own future, what if he got to Tullin and Karan was already gone? He hurried on up the mountain and did not stop, save for a breather or two, until it was truly dark.

The two Whelm that had gone to Chanthed to look for Karan were worn out, iron-hard though they were. They had ridden
long days, asking everyone they encountered about her, but there had been no sign. More days they spent in Chanthed, asking their monotonous questions to no avail.

“She never came this way,” said the woman. She was almost pretty for a Whelm, in a dark gaunt way, all black hair and black eyes, though her lips were meager, fleshless.

“No,” the man agreed. “That guard lied for her. He will suffer, if I go back that direction.”

“On to Tullin then. Perhaps Jark-un has had better luck.”

They sold their horses that afternoon, since the upper part of the road to Tullin was presently passable only on foot. The next morning they came upon a curious sight: a man with arms and legs bound, lying in the mud of the track. The woman turned him over with her boot. Turlew was battered and bruised from his fall, but when she gave him water he gasped and was able to sit up.

“Do you know of Karan of Bannador?” she asked, as she had dozens of times.

“I know of her,” groaned Turlew, scratching furiously at his ear. “What will you pay?”

“A gold tell,” said the man, hiding his eagerness. “If your news is any help. Where is she?”

“Give me meat and drink first.”

The woman hauled him upright. “First the news, then the payment.”

Turlew croaked out the story of the message from Mendark.

“Mendark!” said the woman.

The man took her arm, the way a lover might, and drew her out of hearing. “Mendark is our master’s enemy,” he whispered. “This is bad news.”

“Indeed! If he gets the Mirror our master’s business will be exposed. The Magister is a fierce enemy.”

“All the more urgent to get it back then.”

They went back to Turlew. “What other news do you have about this matter?”

He told how Llian came to be sent after Karan.

“Who is he?” asked the man, touching her arm tenderly. “We heard this name in Chanthed, did we not, Yetchah?”

She frowned. “A chronicler who had gone missing.”

“A Zain, a fool and a scoundrel,” said Turlew bitterly.

“It was he who left you this way,” guessed Yetchah. “Not quite the fool you make out.” She gave him another drink from her bottle, wiping it fastidiously afterward.

The man cut off a greeny-black lump of some unidentifiable substance and put it in Turlew’s hand, then counted out the worth of a tell in silver tars, twenty of them. The two Whelm turned together and loped off up the road.

“Hey, what about my bonds,” cried Turlew, holding up his hands.

“That was not part of the bargain,” she said over her shoulder, then they disappeared around the bend.

“This is a strange thing,” said the male Whelm.

“Scarcely credible,” she replied, “but I believe him. I say we shadow this Llian until he finds her. Let him lead us to her. I sense that he will.”

“Good. We will go secretly.”

“Even from Jark-un and Idlis?”

He spat in the road. “They’ve had enough chances. Time to think of our own favor.”

In the afternoon of the third day Llian passed the ruins of Benbow. Even the scars of the dreadful fire had faded into the grass, and the scorched and blackened beams of the hall were hung with pale-gray lichen. The ruined walls might have been that way for a thousand years, the way the vines crept around and over them. Llian had told the
Tale of Benbow
, a minor tragedy, only months before, and he was disinclined
to linger there; so evident was the truth of it that he could yet hear the screams, see the flames leap up. But no aid had ever come.