A Shadow on the Glass (35 page)

Hours later she returned silently from another direction. Llian had dozed off and the fire was no more than a bed of coals. “Wake up,” she said, cheerful now, brushing his face with something soft and wet. Llian woke sluggishly from a fitful sleep. It was the tail of a small plump fish, and four others dangled from a string.

“Where did…?”

“I was sitting above a pool and the scorpion shone so brightly that I saw a shadow move under the ice, so I broke it and there they were, all fat for the winter, so tame that I caught them with my hands.”

She roused the fire to a fierce blaze and began to clean the
fish. “I’m sorry I was so rude. I was worried, but I think I know where we are now. When we went around the wrong side of the mountain we ended up much too far West Now we must follow the ridge and cross over at that saddle we saw earlier.”

“Will this give us enough food to get to Bannador?”

“Almost. If the weather holds.”

On the morning of the sixth day they set out as soon as it was light The path now left the valley and skirted the edge of the eastern mountains. The lower slopes were rounded and they crunched through prickly heath and dry grasses that stuck up through the snow. They went this way for two days, traveling slowly in thick snow, before the track began to climb.

For three days they climbed. The track wound its way into the high mountains, but always to the south; yet even as it climbed the peaks rose ever higher, so that their task seemed to grow more difficult the further they went. And the mountains were highest and most steep to the south and the west and it seemed that in their shadow the steep northern slopes were left rocky and barren. No longer did they wade through soft snow, and that was a blessing, yet the higher they climbed the harder it became, till every step was an effort that made them gasp, and the burden of their packs, even half-empty as they were, was almost too much to lift onto their backs each morning.

Finding water was another chore, for every trickle was frozen, and now there was seldom any wood for a fire. They had to pack their water bottles with snow, or sometimes chips of ice, and carry them under their clothes so that their warmth would make a little water, but never quite enough. They were always thirsty now; always cold, even when they huddled together at night. But there was one consolation—
Karan dreamed no more, and there had been no more sight of the Whelm. If Llian’s presence had anything to do with that she was grateful for it.

Llian was particularly slow now, so that Karan found herself constantly waiting for him, and fretting about their lack of progress. At this rate their food would run out long before Bannador, and that left only one alternative, one that Karan did not want to think about…

On the eleventh day, Llian woke exhausted from a night of tossing and turning, with a headache that became worse as the day dragged on. Twice during their trek he was sick without warning, and even during rest breaks he panted like a dog in the desert sun.

The path dwindled to a track that was indistinguishable from all the other animal trails. Karan had difficulty finding her way, and many times they plodded to the top of a ragged bill only to look down into a pathless wilderness of rocky ravines, and knew that they must go all the way back down again. The ground was bare and stony, littered with flat sheets of slate that cracked and slipped underfoot, and off which the low sun reflected silver. The path zig-zagged up a steep ridge and the way forward was hidden.

Suddenly Llian flung himself down on a boulder. His face was red and blotchy. “I’m so thirsty,” he panted. “How much longer is it going to be?”

Karan passed him her water bottle and pointed up the hill without saying anything.

“What does that mean?” he asked frettishly.

She glared at him. She was worn out as well, but she didn’t make a constant fuss about it “Once we cross this ridge we’ll be able to see the top of the pass. What’s the matter with you anyway?”

Llian did not answer. Shortly they reached the top of the
ridge. Before them the mountains ran, steep and snow-tipped, in an unbroken line from east to west. The distance was obscured by haze.

“Look! There’s the pass!” said Karan, pointing toward the middle of the line of mountains.

Llian could see nothing that looked remotely like a crossing place, and said so in a morose tone.

Karan pointed again. “There, a little to the east of south. It’s as plain as day.” Llian still could not see it. “Don’t trouble yourself,” she said in vexation. “Just follow.”

They woke early the next morning, eating a frugal breakfast of preserved fruit and moldy cheese while the sun rose. Hunger and headache had left Llian sullen and Karan was still angry and worried.

It was late in the afternoon when they finally reached the top of the pass. There had been no sign of a path since they had crossed the ridge and Llian, now staggering like a drunkard in Karan’s footsteps as they passed back and forth across the steep northern flank of the mountain, had long since abandoned hope of finding a way across. They crested the ridge and looked across a sea of white-tipped peaks and bottomless, shadowy defiles. Llian was dismayed. He dropped his pack and flopped across it as though he was dead, and might have been, save for the rasping breathing that Karan could hear from ten paces away.

“What is this place?” he asked listlessly. “I thought we’d see Bannador from here.”

“If only!:” Karan said, with a mirthless laugh. “This is the land of Chollaz,” indicating the mountains ahead with a sweep of her arm. “All you see within the ring of mountains. Bannador is still more than a week away. We’ll camp now. Look, there’s a way station!”

Llian looked around him. The mountains to right and left
towered above the pass. They continued in a chain of peaks making a ragged semicircle that enclosed Chollaz on the northern side. The mountains within the semicircle were only marginally smaller. The southern extent of the land was lost in a mist that rose even as they watched. Within minutes the shafts of sunlight that spilled through the gaps in the western range were gone, the blue seeped out of the sky and in the thin mountain air they were chilled to the bone.

The way station was just below the crest of the pass, a tiny spherical building of stone with a curving roof and a small entrance-way. There had once been a sliding door, a slab of stone, but it lay on the ground in pieces. The shelter kept out the wind but inside it Karan felt claustrophobic so they sat outside for their meal. The only fuel was a few windswept bushes. Karan chopped them and made a meager and temporary blaze just outside the door.

Llian was so miserable and depressing that she could not bear to be with him and after they ate she pulled her coat around her and walked down the path. She did not go far, only away from sight of the fire, where she sat down on a cold boulder and stared into the mist. The night was very dark, just the brightest stars visible, swimming in white haloes. She clutched the thick coat more tightly around her. Somehow she seemed to have lost her direction, her purpose, since she had taken on the burden of Llian. How would she get out of it now? She could hear him coughing from here. It just went on and on.

After a while the cold became disheartening and she walked back to the dying fire, warmed her hands and sat down beside Llian, who was bent down with his head in his hands. He broke out in another coughing fit, sat up suddenly and Karan was horrified to see that there was blood all over his mouth.

“How long has this been going on?” she cried, tilting back his head so that she could see his eyes. They were red as well.

“Just this afternoon. I feel like I’m going to die. What’s the matter with me?”

Karan had seen it before. “Mountain sickness,” she said, a chill going down her back.

“How bad is that?”

“It’s a common thing, this high up. You
could
drop dead of it, although most people don’t. But the only remedy is to go back down the mountain again.”

Llian almost wept. “I can’t!”

She thought he was talking about the descent, but he went on, “I can’t. There is a tale here and I have to write it.
I will not die
.”

His face was so twisted with passion, his eyes so red, so liquid that it looked as though he was weeping blood.

“I won’t let you die,” she said, holding his head in her arms. “But we are in desperate trouble, even were you well. There isn’t the food to go back, nor to get to Gothryme anymore; we’ve been so slow these last few days. I miss my home terribly.”

“I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “If it wasn’t for me you’d be nearly there.” He broke into another fit of coughing that left him so weak he just lay on the ground.

Karan heaved him up again and wiped pink foam from his lip with a handful of snow. “There’s only one thing we can do—keep going.”

“Tonight?”

“As soon as it’s light. This is the highest point on the path. Tomorrow we go down a bit. You should get better then.” Karan hoped so, though she knew that mountain sickness did not always go away so easily.

“Where can we go? What’s the point, if we’re going to starve anyway?”

She hesitated. It was prohibited to speak of Shazmak, but he had to know now. “There is a city. A forbidden place, but it is our only hope.” She paused for a moment, listening, still looking down. A solitary howl came on the still air. Llian looked uneasy. “It was far away,” she said, then continued. “A city of the Aachim. A city in size though no longer in numbers, I should say. But a stronghold still. Few know of this place, for the Aachim require little of the outside world. They seldom go abroad, and in disguise, and secretly.”

“I know something of the Aachim,” said Llian, “from the Histories; but not of such a place.”

“It is called Shazmak.”

“Shazmak! Then I do know it, of course I do! But Shazmak was abandoned long ago.”

“Not abandoned. Hidden; withdrawn from the memory of the world. I lived there for six years, after my parents died. My Aachim friends will help me.”

“And me?”

There was a long pause.

“Aachim. The Mirror of Aachan,” said Llian, puzzling over the possibilities inherent in the names. “I have a tale of the Aachim, though the Mirror is not mentioned. Oh, how I wish I could see it!”

“You can’t” Karan got up before he could harass her further and walked away from the fire again, out of sight down the slope. She came to a withered old tree and rested her cheek against the corrugated bark, looking down into the mist. The matter was not finished and she knew it. Just above her head a dead branch still had a cluster of cones on the end. She snapped it off and walked back up to the fire, plucking off the cones as she went. She sat down beside
Llian and threw a cone onto the coals. Eventually it blazed up with red and blue fire.

“Did the Mirror belong to the Aachim?”

“Once,” she said. “Long ago.”

“You are returning it to them?”

A perceptible pause before she answered. “I did not say that.” Karan hesitated again. “I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Surely the Aachim will want it back.”

Karan did not answer. She could hardly stop thinking about Shazmak, now that they were going there. It was the most beautiful place she had ever been, though its was a harsh, uncompromising beauty. Most of the happy memories of her life were there.

Llian was staring at her. “Give me your confidence,” he cried in passion. “If you demand trust you must also give it.”

Yes, she thought, gazing at his red, ardent face. I must. But why is it so difficult to trust you? Can
I
be guilty of prejudice against the Zain?

Or is it because of the look in your eyes when you are thinking about the Mirror? The more you learn the more you will want.

“I will tell you what little I may, and in return you will protect me,” said Karan. “Say nothing about the Mirror in Shazmak, even if they ask you. You know nothing about it.”

Her thoughts went back to Shazmak. Perhaps Rael would be there. Rael, so different from the other Aachim, and once her closest friend. So gentle, so patient, so sad. She could see his face as clearly as on the day he had been sent away to the east—the curling red hair, the sad green eyes. She could hear, even now, the music that he had played so often for her, melancholy despite his attempts to cheer her.

Karan realized mat her heart was beating wildly, just at the thought of seeing him again. She trusted Rael utterly.
She could give up the Mirror to him and know that she had done the right thing. For a long time now Karan had deliberately not thought of the Mirror, as though by ignoring the problem it would disappear. But she could ignore it no longer. Suddenly the decision she had agonized over for so long was made. She
would
give back the Mirror to the Aachim, to Rael.

Llian hunched over the coals, coughing and spitting blood. The Histories flowed in his mind, the faces of the great whirling and spiraling like the flames in the wind, calling to him, whispering their secrets in voices that he could not quite hear, laughing at him, jeering and insulting him. A bas-relief high on a stone wall became a face on the Mirror, dissolved into other faces. Llian crawled to the doorway and put his face in the snow to cut through the hallucinations, desperately trying to think straight.

The Aachim came into the most ancient tales, even the first, the tale of Shuthdar and the flute that he had made for Rulke the Charon. Then after the Forbidding the Aachim grew strong in their own right, and fought the endless wars, now called the Clysm, against the Charon.