A Shadow on the Glass (72 page)

“It looks as though he may have uncovered something.”

“Perhaps, and then again it may come to nothing, like so many of these hints from the past. Did Tensor speak true, I wonder, when he said that whoever went first into the burning tower was a Charon, one of the three? Better follow it up.”

“Tell me, Mendark, why
did
you sponsor Llian?”

“It was obvious that he was brilliant but needed the very best training. As did you before him! But I need someone
with his talents too. Our past and our future are all tangled up, and who better to sort it out than a chronicler?”

“I thought you wanted him to sing your glories in a Great Tale after you were dead.”

Mendark chuckled. He was not embarrassed at all. “That too.”

Llian came back and finished the story of his travels. “So today we arrived here, and after much searching I’ve found you,” he concluded. Though he had never ceased to think about the dream he’d had in Shazmak after reading
Tales of the Aachim
, and the fabled Renderer’s Tablet, he said nothing of it to Mendark. That secret was his alone. But some day, when the debt was paid and Mendark was in a good humor, he would press him about the Forbidding. His need to know who had killed the crippled girl was not diminished by all that had happened since.

“Karan is here in Thurkad now with the Mirror?” cried Mendark, leaping to his feet. “Oaf! Why did you not bring it here? Need I remind you how much you owe me?”

“She would not come. She is afraid. And she will give up the Mirror only to someone called Faichand.”

“Faichand!” said Mendark. “I’ve heard of her; a minor mancer, surely. Why her?”

“I don’t know,” Llian said. “And there’s another thing. Karan often dreams of Rulke rising up and flinging off his chains.”

“Rulke,” said Mendark. “He is securely held.”

“Is a watch maintained on the Nightland?”

“Indeed it is, and I maintain it still. But the defenses are in place and secure. Perhaps her trials have driven her mad.”

Llian looked shocked, but it was the shock of hearing aloud what he was afraid to face. He closed his eyes and lay back in his chair.

“Where is Karan now?” asked Tallia sharply, bringing them back to the present. “Is she alone?”

“Yes.”

“We’d better go,” said Mendark, shrugging a cloak over his shoulders. “She is in terrible danger. The whole world has taken refuge in Thurkad, evil as well as good, and Yggur is only days away. Can she use the Mirror?”

“She said not, and I certainly can’t,” said Llian, recalling the day he had huddled in a hollow tree in the forests above Name. “I had it for several days, and tried everything I knew or had read of, but I saw only my own face.”

“What did you expect?” said Mendark mildly. “You more than most should know that there is a craft to the use of such things, and it is long in the learning.”

They went out through the guard post, which was now occupied by the surliest guards that Llian had ever encountered, and onto the street.

“What news of the war? Does Sith still stand?”

Tallia shook her head. “It fell days ago, and all the lands to the south are overrun. You saw the smoke. Yggur is burning as he comes. His armies will be here in a few short days.”

“What happened to you, Mendark?”

“I have been cast down. Perhaps I deserved to be. It seems I look too much to the past. All the more need to call in my debts. But we will talk of that later.”

They hurried through the darkness. The drizzle had turned to steady rain and driven almost everyone off the streets. Once Llian thought he saw Lilis behind them, but when he looked again there was no one there. In an hour or so they reached the inn. Llian knocked on the door. It was nearly midnight, but Karan’s voice called out instantly, “Who’s there?”

Llian responded: the bar was drawn back cautiously.
Karan’s knife was in her hand and she did not put it away when she saw him.

“Llian, where have you been?” she began; then, seeing the shadowed figures behind him, her face went white and she turned as though to flee.

“Karan, I have brought Mendark, as we agreed,” Llian said urgently.

She turned back with an effort. “Who is the other one?” she demanded in a high voice that trembled. “I know her from somewhere.”

Karan had changed into clean clothes, the dark-green loose trousers and blouse that she favored, and had evidently bathed recently for her feet were bare and her hair hung in red, lime-scented ringlets about her ears. The lantern she held in one hand accentuated the shadows beneath her eyes. She held it up to Tallia’s face. “You!” she said, relaxing a little.

Llian introduced Mendark and Tallia. Karan shook hands with them, warily.

Karan walked slowly back from the door, eyeing the man who stood so confidently by her fire, inspecting her. So this was Mendark, whose legend stretched as far into the past as Yggur himself. He looks like those I see in every tavern, drinking wine and spinning lies, she thought contemptuously.

Mendark said something to Tallia and all three laughed. Then he saw Karan’s small figure hesitating in the middle of the room and, by some trick of the light, he seemed to be come smaller, less threatening, and his pensive manner took her fear away.

That was clever; he is sensitive at least, Karan thought grudgingly. She offered them tea.

Tallia leaned casually on the mantelpiece, sipping her tea
and talking quietly to Llian. She gave out the same calm authority that she had shown in Preddle, after Karan’s ordeal in the stables.

Karan scowled at Tallia, resenting the glossy black hair hanging below her shoulders, her glorious chocolate skin, her dark-brown eyes flecked with gold, her long oval face. Tallia’s garments were of finest lamb’s wool; a scarlet scarf of silk was at her throat. Llian murmured something to her and she laughed, a rich deep sound, revealing beautiful teeth. They were laughing and talking together so freely that they might have been friends for years, and Karan felt as though Llian had abandoned her. Faithless friend, how can you laugh and joke with
her
?
She
could not understand what I’ve endured. Karan turned back to Mendark, who was leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

“What do you want with me?”

Tallia answered. “Remember our meeting in Preddle. I was spying for Mendark, and I reported back to him what I had learned about the Mirror and about you. You fled north while I waited for instructions. Perhaps if I’d followed you at once you might have had less trouble.”

“Perhaps,” scowled Karan, “though I do not trust easily, and your looks are against you.”

“By the time Mendark’s reply came, with orders to find you, you were far away. All I could do was send word that you fled toward Hetchet.”

“Many messages went back and forth to find you and bring you here. So Llian came, in a roundabout way, though he would not have been my choice,” said Mendark.

“Nor mine,” said Karan, “though I would not be here without him.”

Tallia continued. “I spoke to old Shand in Tullin and he told me where you’d gone. I almost caught you, south of the mountain, but the Whelm were between us. I drew them
off to the west, but when it was safe to return you had disappeared. I thought you must have died in the snowstorms.”

Karan inspected Tallia minutely, seeming to weigh all that she said, so that even Tallia felt self-conscious. “The balance falls in your favor,” Karan said eventually. “But can I trust
him
?” she said rudely, glaring at Mendark.

Llian looked embarrassed. Tallia turned away, hiding a smile. Mendark returned her stare blandly.

“May I see it?” he said after a moment.

A refusal sprang automatically to her lips, then some thing in his face made her reconsider, and she slipped her hand into a concealed pocket and handed the Mirror to him without a word.

He held it gently between his fingertips. Why did I give it to him? she agonized. Has he placed a compulsion on me so easily?

Llian was astonished. She quelled him with a glare.

Mendark said a word under his breath and the tight coil of metal snapped open and lay upon his palm. He touched the scarlet and silver symbol with his fingertip. A picture grew on the Mirror: a black desolate landscape, a plain dotted with steely-gray masses, structures like a cluster of bubbles. The plain was cut by an icy rift, dark and deep; an iron tower leaned from a hill to one side. There were jagged mountains in the background. A small red sun peeped fit fully through rushing storm clouds. There was no living thing in sight.

“That is Aachan—the world of the Aachim and the Charon. I’ve seen its likeness often enough in Shazmak,” said Karan.

Llian pushed closer, staring at the Mirror with bright eyes. “It’s like looking through a window.”

Mendark nodded absently. “But where does the window start, and where does it lead? Is this just a memory cast up
by the stirrings of the Mirror? Is it Aachan as it once was; as it is now; as it will be? Why this place, and not another? Is there a message or a meaning?”

Karan shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything on it before,” she lied. “In Shazmak they never talked about it.”

Mendark touched the symbol again. The image vanished. He spoke another word, but nothing further appeared. He examined the Mirror closely but, discovering nothing more, handed it back to Karan. She looked surprised, then slipped it back in her pocket.

“You will come with me now,” Mendark said to Karan. “Thurkad is a lawless place now that Thyllan is Magister. I am not completely beaten but I can defend you better on my own lands.”

Karan had almost been ready to go with him, but some thing in the tone of his offer offended her and, without even thinking, she refused.

“I too can defend myself, and I have much experience with enemies. I will stay here. You may go or stay, as you wish,” she said curtly to Llian. “My thanks for the assistance you have rendered me, though not for bringing me here.”

“I will stay,” said Llian, though not without a sigh for the comforts of Mendark’s villa.

Mendark stopped dead. Karan was sitting on her cushion, hugging her knees with her arms. With a swift movement he sat down in front of her on the hearth. She turned her head away.

“Karan,” he began. She did not stir.

“Karan, these are desperate times. Thurkad is besieged from without and within. Yggur’s army has come on so quickly that he has outstripped our spies. It was not chance that cast me down from the Council. There are alliances building in Thurkad as much to be feared as the enemy out side. We must stand together or we will fall together. You are
friendless and cannot stand alone. You must place your trust somewhere. Come with me.”

“No!” she said angrily. “My enemies have hunted me for months. You look the same to me.”

Mendark rose slowly to his feet. “Wretched girl,” he said, looking down at her defiant form. “The old world is failing, the world of the Council, that has endured since the Forbid ding. This opportunity will never come again.”

Karan sensed his mood so strongly that it was almost as if she could read his mind.
How can she resist? Yes, why not! I will take it
.

Without warning Karan leapt to her feet, scattering the cushions, backing away, the small knife glittering in her up raised hand. Mendark made as though to raise up his arm. Karan tensed.

“Do so, mancer, and my point will be in your eye before you can utter a syllable,” she breathed.

Llian watched, powerless to act, the hairs on the back of his neck erect. Any chance thing, a movement, a sudden noise, might set her off.

Then Tallia reached across from the mantelpiece and put her hand on Mendark’s arm, saying softly, “Stay, Mendark.”

The three stood frozen for a moment, then all at once the tension was gone. Mendark shook his head as though to clear it, then turned and went out without glancing back.

Tallia looked as though she wanted to speak with Karan, then changed her mind and followed Mendark.

Karan crouched there still, with staring eyes. Llian gently disengaged the knife from her cold fingers, led her back to the fire and sat her down on the cushions. She closed her eyes. A tremor ran through her; she looked up, giving Llian a wan smile, and gripped his hand tightly.

“For a moment I heard the music of the shades; it was calling to me,” she said in a melancholy way.

“Too loudly,” said Llian with a shudder. “Do not do that again, I beg you. Mendark is not to be trifled with.” “I will defend what was given me in trust.”

On the street the rain had stopped. Mendark’s hair billowed out behind him in the breeze as Tallia caught him up. They walked together back to the villa without speaking.

“That was foolish,” she said as they mounted the front stairs. “She was near to coming with us. Now she never will. You chose a poor subject to try your tricks on, my friend. She knew what you were going to do before
you
did.”

“I was sure she would give it up, if I pressed her.”

Tallia glowered at him, part sympathetic, part pitying. “How
could
you have thought that, after hearing all that she has done?”