A Shadow on the Glass (43 page)

The skeet struck once at Shand in a half-hearted way, then turned and noisily tore the animal apart and swallowed it in large dripping chunks. The metallic smell of warm blood filled the lean-to. The skeet walked sideways along the perch, wiped its beak on the straw, took a long drink, then another, its throat undulating, then abruptly spread its wings with a crack and lunged forward eagerly, bright-eyed now.

They went carefully to the door, opened it a fraction and slipped through and behind. Shand flung the door wide. Nothing happened for so long that Tallia moved to peer around the door. Shand caught her arm and pulled her roughly back, and as he did so the big wings cracked again, like a whip, and the bird flashed through the doorway into the open, slashing at Tallia’s face with one long claw as it passed. Free of the shed it sailed, hung in the air a moment, glaring evilly at her, then the cold wind rushed across its wings and it shot up into the sky and turned toward Thurkad.

They watched it go in silence. When it was a speck blurring into the dark sky they went back to the warmth of the inn.

“I should have known better,” she said, her hand on the door. “Had you not caught me…”

“You can never relax with them. Not for an instant I saw a man die once, his throat gone. But as long as messages must be sent…”

Two days later another skeet came. This time the message was not on the Magister’s parchment but on a soiled scrap of brown paper.

Tallia,

My worst fears have come about, and I am overthrown with violence. They came in the night. Some of my poor servants are dead, but I was ready and fled the secret way. I think they would have killed me too, could they have done it in darkness, but now my villa is made secure and I am safe for a time.

No point searching anymore; come back to Thurkad, but come carefully. I will try to maintain my factors for as long as I can, for information is all, but without the resources of the Magister it will be difficult. We must make contingencies against the finding of it.

Yggur marches on the south.

Send no more skeets.

M.

Tallia showed Shand the letter, wordlessly.

“You are going?”

“I will, in spite of the snow. He needs me now. As long as I’ve known him he has lived in dread of this time, of Yggur. But to have the world go crazy at the same time…”

“Yes,” said Shand. “It even begins to worry me, here in Tullin. Though I swore it, I can no longer remain aloof. If I had helped Llian when he asked me … But no use, that. I too will go to Thurkad, though not with you. I”ll come later, when the snows have hardened. There are things I must do here first.”

T
he next day Karan rose at dawn, prepared her breakfast and took a tray into the other room. She shook Llian awake.

“What?” he cried, screwing his eyes closed. “Is it an earthquake?”

“Wake up, you slug.”

He rubbed bis eyes and pushed himself up in the bed. “What’s the matter?”

“Breakfast,” she said, putting the laden tray in his lap.

He shook his head, which throbbed to remind him of the wine.

“I’m going to see Rael. Would you like to come?”

“I need another ten hours’ sleep,” he said grumpily.

She touched him on the forehead and danced out of the room. Llian picked at the tray, but as soon as the door banged he put it down on the floor and was fast asleep in an instant.

Rael was eating alone when Karan appeared at his door. He embraced her in the doorway. “Come and breakfast with me,” he said. “I’ve just begun.”

“I’ve eaten, but I’ll take some tea, if you have my favorite.”

She took a cushion and sat down on the other side of the table, holding the bowl out in the correct manner while he poured cold ginger tea. Shards of ice rang together in the bowl.

“It’s so good to be back in Shazmak. So good to see you again.”

“I missed you,” said Rael, “from the moment I left; and the whole year that I spent in Stassor. When I came back you were gone and I couldn’t find you.”

“That year after you left was one of the worst,” she said. “Emmant tried to fill your place, as though anyone would do for me. Vile, depraved beast. Shazmak became unbearable.” She shuddered. “I tried to leave no trace, for fear that he would follow me, and I kept traveling for four years. Why
did
you go?”

“Tensor required that I do so.”

The name struck her like a blow in the face. “Tensor! Is he…here now?”

“Does it matter?” He was looking puzzled. “No, he went east months ago, and won’t be back for a year.”

Karan tried to suppress her relief. “When you left I was devastated,” she said. “I had thought… thought that we might—”

“I had thought that too,” he said, his big sad eyes fixed on her. “I came back ready to ask you, and if you said yes, to break with my people and go into exile. But it was not possible.”

“I thought that Malien cared for me,” she whispered, staring just as hard at him.

“My mother loves you dearly, but Tensor would not allow it.”

“What does he have against me?”

“
Blood
, and the consequences of mixing it.”

“There have been cases…”

“I know. I quoted them, but he was inflexible. There is something about your heritage, but he would not even whisper it.”

Karan sagged down as though her bones had dissolved. “Perhaps he is right. There is much madness in my family.
Brilliant or mad are the house of Fyrn
. That saying goes back more than five hundred years.”

“It wasn’t that. In Aachan we valued madness for the genius that came with it. It was something else.”

“Well, you could not have gone against him.”

“I would have, seven years ago,” Rael replied. “Karan, I…” He choked; began again. “I am so sorry. It can never be.”

Karan drank her iced tea in silence, watching Rael while he tried to eat his breakfast. Finally he pushed it aside, as though it was bitter in his mouth.

“Well, as you say, that was seven years ago,” said Karan in a flat voice. “I’ve gone a long way since then. Perhaps it was for the best.”

“Perhaps.” He seemed to take that as a sign that the subject was closed. “You’ve certainly come here the long way. Where did you come from?”

“Tullin.”

“Why on earth did you take that path, or is it something I should not ask?”

“I … I would not want to lie to you, Rael. I am mixed up in strange business. I used my talent to help a friend into Fiz Gorgo, and to steal something from Yggur. She was caught
and I took on the burden of the rest of the mission. I have been hunted these past two months.”

She had never seen Rael look so surprised. “Truly the girl I knew back then is gone. What was it that you stole?”

“I am sworn to secrecy.”

“No matter. What do we care for the intrigues of San-thenar? Tell me the rest of it, whatever you can.”

The morning fled as she told Rael the rest of her tale. Several times she almost unburdened herself to him about the Mirror, was on the point of taking it out and offering it to him, but the reserve that had arisen between them held the impulse back. Suddenly she realized that it was midday.

“Oh!” she cried. “I have left poor Llian all alone, in a strange city. What must he think of my manners?” She jumped up.

“Karan!” cried Rael. “The world is at a crossroads. Blendings will soon be more at risk than ever. Tell no one of your heritage.”

“I won’t,” she replied, kissed him on the cheek and ran out.

Back at her chambers she found Llian to be amply catered for, for a number of the Aachim had come to visit her and had stayed to talk with the Aachimning, the stranger. Needing to digest what Rael had told her, she went out again, wandering the corridors of Shazmak, dreaming and remembering, and greeting old friends wherever she went, sometimes bringing them back to meet Llian, to explain him to them, though they all knew about him already.

Everyone treated Llian with great courtesy, and some even asked him about himself, and what his talents were, and he was delighted to hear that they too kept the Histories and knew of the Festival of Chanthed, though he was secretly chagrined to learn that they had not heard of him or his tellings.

* * *

In the late afternoon Karan and Llian were drinking tea when Rael came in through the open door of the apartment, smiling.

“I have some news that will delight you,” he said. “Tensor will be here in a few days, a week at most.”

Karan dropped her bowl, which smashed on the table, sending a flood of yellow tea toward Llian’s book of the Great Tales. He snatched it away and wiped the cover on his shirt. By the time the mess was cleaned up, she had regained her composure and her voice did not betray her further.

“Tensor! I thought that he was across the Sea of Thurkad.”

“He was, but events called him back, apparently. A message has just come from Thurkad, dated two days ago, and he will be nearly to Bannador by now. He will be glad to see you.”

“I hope so,” she said in an odd way, as Rael withdrew.

When he had gone Karan sat there as still as stone, and did not speak again. Shortly she got up, went into her room and closed the door. Climbing up onto the broad windowsill, wide as a seat, she sat for hours with her shoulder against the thick glass, watching the light fade, even after it was dark and the window had become a mirror showing only her face.

Tensor!
What was she to do? She could think of nothing. The chance to give the Mirror away had passed; now she was trapped here with it. And she had brought Llian into the trap as well.

Llian respected her need for privacy for as long as his curiosity would let him, then knocked at her door. She did not answer but he came in anyway, bearing fresh tea and a platter of food left over from the previous night. Karan indicated the pallet and he sat down, looking up at her and then away again.

Suddenly she jumped down from the window. “I have to get away,” she cried, and rushed out of the room.

It was not clear whether she wanted to get away from him or from Shazmak. Llian sat there, moodily eating the food and drinking the tea, then picked up the platter and went back to the main room. The rest of the evening he spent writing in his journal, conscious that it had lain unopened in its bag for more than a week. He quickly became immersed in the writing and all other concerns disappeared.

It was quite late when Karan returned. She came in softly, looking weary and unhappy, and flopped down on the couch opposite. Her eyes met his.

“Tea?”

“Please.” She sounded exhausted.

She sipped the hot tea, warming her hands on the cup, and nibbled at a piece of dried fruit.

“It’s Tensor,” she said. “I knew I should not have come here.”

“Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t” Then, after the silence had drawn out uncomfortably long, she said, “Thank you, Llian. It’s good to have you with me, but there’s nothing you can do. Leave it alone.”

In the middle of the night Karan woke from a horrible, terrifying dream. She had dreamed that Shazmak had been betrayed, that it had fallen without any opposition, her friends slaughtered like unresisting sheep. Everything she knew and loved about Shazmak was utterly destroyed and violated, and it was all her fault, for it all came from her bringing the Mirror here.

When she woke her dilemma was worse than ever, as she could not recall whether the cataclysm came from giving the Aachim the Mirror or keeping it from them, only that she had caused it all.

* * *

In the morning Karan was morose and as time passed she became increasingly sullen and withdrawn, almost furtive in her movements. Llian did his best to help her, but she kept him away; he saw little of her after that morning. She rose early and often did not return to their chambers until after he had retired, and he was left alone.

Their rooms were cold and he spent little time there, preferring to wander the halls and corridors of the great city, sometimes with Rael, more often by himself, for Rael had described an area within which he might move freely. Everywhere he was treated with restrained courtesy, his questions answered with unfailing patience. Not by the flicker of an eyelid did his hosts show irritation at his inquisitiveness. And he learned much about the Aachim, fitting their story into the greater pattern of the Histories in his mind, and making notes for his
Tale of the Mirror
, though he did not ask about that and they did not speak of it. And how much greater his
Tale of Tar Gaarn
would be now, after living in Shazmak.

By the second day Llian had tired of wandering. Though the buildings and murals were everywhere different, the somber world they symbolized was the same. He sought Karan in vain; she had risen early and left her chamber before he woke, and Rael was nowhere to be found. In the morning he practiced his art, but this only reminded him of the Mirror, and his craving to see it,
know
it. He wrote in his journal for a while, but today that did not satisfy him either.