A Shadow on the Glass (77 page)

“The Zain has neither ethics nor honor, nor, it seems, much intelligence,” he said. “Well, that later. Here is my news. We sought Karan for weeks, after Shazmak, but fruitlessly, and, until recently, harried by the Whelm. Then they vanished—they have learned to fear us! We searched as far south as Sith, though we could not get into the city, and in Bannador before the burning, but she was not there. Even to get here was an ordeal—Thurkad is ringed by great armies and must fall. After this there will be no power in Meldorin but Yggur—and the Aachim. Even as I left Shazmak my people were readying themselves.”

“Then you have not been back since Karan fled?”

“So I said. But we are ready. Long have we guarded our strength for this time.”

He turned to go, then stopped at the door. “I have not forgotten you, Llian of Chanthed. We will yet have our reckoning.” Then he was gone.

“Mendark!” said Llian. “I need to talk to you.” “Go away. We will also have a reckoning, you and I, but not tonight.”

The Conclave began in the late morning, in the Great Hall of old Thurkad. That was a long, high hall, very plain, the walls and vaulted roof paneled in dark ironwood. It was very ancient, a remnant of the earliest city, and had a special place in the hearts of the people of Thurkad. The hall was austerely furnished, with only a large table at one end and thirteen chairs, at which sat the arbitrators, the Just, and a dais beyond for witnesses and claimants. For the audience there were fixed benches with high wooden backs. Above, a high balcony looked down on the table.

Tallia led Mendark and Llian into the Great Hall and sat down at the bench behind the table of the Just. Tensor was already there.

“What if Thyllan refuses to come?” Llian asked Tallia.

“Then we must think of something else.”

“You still haven’t explained the purpose of this Conclave,” Llian whispered to Tallia. “How can it help Karan?”

“In time of peace her case would be dealt with by the lesser Conclave, but in war it is suspended. The purpose of the Great Conclave is to deal with the danger to Thurkad, but Mendark has drawn the protocol so that the Just must resolve the ownership of the Mirror first. Everyone who has an interest in the Mirror must declare it, and plead their case; and Mendark first, because he called the Conclave.”

“And if Thyllan does not abide by their arbitration? What will happen then?”

Tallia turned a shocked face to him. “The decree of the Just will not be challenged.”

* * *

Llian sat musing on his hard bench. It was only a week to endre, midwinter week. A week and a half to hythe, midwinter day, an ill-omened date. And today was Galend 22, 3098; the anniversary of Kandor’s death. Another coincidence?

The clock on the wall struck eleven. Thyllan had still not come. Nonetheless the Prime Just, a frail old woman with white hair and sunken cheeks, signed to Mendark to begin his address. He walked across to the dais. It was open at the front, with a semicircular wooden railing level with his chest, and behind an arched hood flared to twice his height.

“I thank you, Nelissa,” he said, bowing in her direction, and beginning in his ponderous way. “I have called this Great Conclave, as is my right and duty as the longtime Magister of the Council of Santhenar, that we might find a path through the peril…”

The doors banged open. Thyllan had come after all, with a retinue of guards and attendants, and Karan hobbled beside him. Thyllan scowled at Mendark. There was a long swollen gash on his face, Karan’s work no doubt.

Back at the dais, Mendark was completing the formalities of his entreaty. “… but a few days ago, unlooked for, Karan of Bannador came to us, bearing an artifact known as the Mirror of Aachan, stolen from Yggur. These last months I have spent trying to bring this device to Thurkad, for our glory as well as our defense. But Thyllan the usurper stole it, and the woman as well. This act challenges our ancient codes and threatens the safety of Thurkad itself. Will the Conclave permit it?”

“Do not waste our time with posturing, Mendark,” said the Prime Just through shrunken lips. She looked old, sour and fearful. “Yours is the right, and we are hearing it, though to call a Great Conclave at this time shows only contempt for our ancient traditions. Just this morning I heard Thyllan’s
complaint that you broke the truce. Make your case well, or you too may be charged.”

“First I would tell you of Yggur, and the foundations of his grievance against us in the Proscribed Experiments that went so wrong.”

“We know it,” said Nelissa, “and we also know your dubious part in it, and your penchant for rewriting history. Make your point.”

“Of his taking ruined Fiz Gorgo,” continued Mendark, though now he seemed to have lost the thread of his argument. “The slow … building of his forces, the excursions against his neighbors, until the whole of Orist was his, from the River Fiery to the Birquâsh Mountains, and all the peoples of Meldorin waited in dread. But here in Thurkad, protected by the mountains, we have laughed at him until this day. And why does he march? He blames the Council for all his troubles, though we did but…”

“Leave history to the plodding chroniclers,” Nelissa interrupted again, “or we will still be in Conclave when he batters down the doors. Get to the root of the problem. What help can the Mirror be to us? Why did Thyllan act as he did? Was he right to do so? Karan of Bannador, you are central to this. Give us your story. No, come down here,” she said, gesturing to the dais where Mendark still stood, as Karan began in an almost inaudible voice.

Karan began to rattle down the steps in her chains.

“Release her!” cried Mendark. “None may be shackled in the Great Conclave.”

Thyllan gestured to his armorer, who came down with a thick key in his hand and released the chains. They rattled onto the floor, then Karan limped down to the Just, her bare feet making no sound on the stone. There were red welts about her slender ankles, and her cheek was bruised purple
and black. At the dais, within its dark, flaring hood, she looked terrified and lost.

None of those present, save Llian and Tensor, had heard the story of her escape from Fiz Gorgo as she told it then. Though she spoke woodenly, looking neither to right nor left, and in a distant voice, as if it had happened to someone else, none failed to be moved by her courage. The light gradually faded from the high windows as she told of the nightmare journey. She did not tell them about the waking of the Ghâshâd though; the memories of that night at the camp near Name were hidden too deep.

The Just listened carefully to her tale. There was a long silence when she was finished.

Tensor shook his head. “So brave, so clever and resourceful. How came you to betray us?” he said sadly.

“I betrayed the Aachim to save them from you. You are Pitlis come again.”

Tensor rocked on his feet. Then he cried, “You are mad, like your mother,” and dismissed everything she had said with a flick of his wrist.

“Is there not more?” Mendark asked gently. “Tell the Conclave what happened when Emmant came to your room.”

“Came here? I don’t remember that,” she said, looking confused. She had wiped it from her memory again. Mendark filled in the details, then Karan was released, but only to the front bench where the other witnesses sat.

Servants appeared with platters of food. When it was eaten and the empty trays borne away, and they sat with their bowls of red buttery tea steaming in front of them, Mendark rose again.

“The Conclave does not know the history of the Mirror.” He gave Nelissa a defiant stare. Her mouth seemed frozen, a down-hooking slash, but she signed to him to continue.
What he said was similar to what Karan had told Llian a long time ago, before Shazmak, though Mendark took rather longer to tell it.

“The Council’s purpose,” he continued, “has always been to study the sciences of the enemy and make defenses against him. Many battles we have fought, many defeats suffered. Few victories, save for putting Rulke into the Nightland, and keeping him there. I believed the Mirror might advance our great project (his final banishment), and sent Llian of Chanthed to find Karan and bring her to Thurkad. I have no false hopes for the Mirror: it is like a book of a million pages, each torn to pieces and cast into a barrel. We may never learn to decipher it.” Mendark paused, but Nelissa merely waved tiredly.

“Thus we come to the essence. Thyllan threw me down from the citadel and seized the Mirror for himself. For himself,” he repeated. “My long service in the Council is known to all, but Thyllan is an upstart, an adventurer, a self-seeker. Are you fools, to trust the fate of Thurkad to one such as he?”

“Mendark twists the truth to suit his own case,” Tallia said in Llian’s ear. “Thyllan and he have long been warring.”

Thyllan leapt to his feet. “Mendark calls you fools because that is how he thinks of you. But you know the truth of the matter,” he boomed, looking at each of them in turn. “He plays games with words. The project is obsolete—Rulke dwindles. Each time we check him he is weaker, duller. Soon he will be so feeble that we can reach into the Nightland and crush him: then Santhenar will be free. May that day come while I am Magister. Do not be swayed by the sneers of Mendark. He shows how little he values your counsel.”

“No,” cried Karan wildly, “for Rulke touches me in my dreams. He is cruel, and strong.”

Thyllan looked at her pityingly. “Always it is the mad ones who are touched by the finger of the gods. You may have your dreams, but leave the affairs of Thurkad to those who dream only of its glory.”

“That is a deadly folly,” shouted Mendark. “Thyllan tells you what you want to hear, as Rulke shows you what you want to see.” But Mendark seemed to speak without conviction, and beside Thyllan he looked old and weak, and the Conclave began to turn away from him.

“The fool is old,” Thyllan roared, “trapped in the past! Santhenar is being refashioned and so must the Council be. The Mirror shows us the way. The secret of making portals lies within it—instant travel anywhere in the world. What power will Thurkad have then?”

Thyllan was magnificent, his hair wild and his eyes glowing, and he awoke in the breasts of all who listened a lust for power, a longing for great leadership, and a greed for the glory that would be Thurkad. “Under Mendark we declined, while he diverted himself with trifles. And where is the wealth of the Council now? The treasury is bankrupt, yet he idles away his dotage in luxury.” He flung out his arm at Mendark. “The result—Yggur is at our gate! We must meet him, destroy the threat and make Thurkad strong again, a great, proud city, the first city of Meldorin, even of Santhenar. Already our armies have hurt the enemy. We will cast him back into the stinking swamps of Orist where he belongs.”

Now he spoke quietly, cajolingly, as one who was not required to explain but did so anyway, out of his great regard for his subjects. “I expelled Mendark, it is true, but only for the good of Thurkad. He has so little honor that he broke the truce of the Conclave yesterday, sending his chronicler to
steal into the citadel.
Why was he really there?
Not to set free this girl, as he pretended. He broke into Rulke’s archives.
What was it he sought so urgently?
Mendark has kept that from the Conclave. Something to his advantage, you can be sure.”

Mendark glared at Llian through bushy eyebrows, as though to say,
see what you’ve done, you fool!

“Why, Mendark?” cried Nelissa. “What was Llian looking for?

“I cannot tell the Conclave that,” Mendark said. “I will say it only to the Arbitrator, in private.”

“One rule for Mendark, a different one for everyone else,” Thyllan said with venom.

Nelissa held up her hand. “I cannot force you, but it weakens your case immeasurably, Mendark.” And from that moment the mood of the room shifted perceptibly to Thyllan’s side.

“Who would you trust?”
Thyllan roared. “Mendark broke the truce, showing the contempt he feels for me and for the traditions of Thurkad. But still I came to his Conclave to explain what I have done. Yes, I took the Mirror. I am proud to admit it. It will be the foundation of our new project, and we will have the powers of the Charon. No longer will we struggle just to keep watch on Rulke; we will destroy him. His strength will be Thurkad’s. Would you give up such a destiny?”

A great sigh of yearning went through the Conclave.

Then the moment was shattered. “You know nothing of the Mirror,” came a high, cold voice from the balcony above. “You will never learn its secrets.”

The whole Conclave looked up. Standing at the railing was a small woman dressed in dusty traveling clothes, her long silver hair plaited and bound up at the nape of her neck.
There was such a puissance, a strength of purpose about her that even the Prime Just quavered when she asked her name.

“I am Faelamor,” the woman said. “I did not die; I hid myself from the world. It was I who trained Maigraith to creep into Fiz Gorgo and take the Mirror. It is mine,
and I will have it.!”

Tensor was on his feet, staring at her with such intensity that scarcely could he restrain himself from crying out.

Faelamor turned back to the Just. “You are wrong about the Mirror. It was only ever used by the Aachim as a seeing device, a trivial thing. In the Clysm Yalkara took the Mirror, that the Aachim laid aside,
that they no longer dared to use
, and bent it to her will, using it for seeing and spying. In her last years we fought many battles, she and I, but at last I was defeated, for she knew too many secrets. She found a warp in the Forbidding, made a gateway and fled, leaving the Mirror behind.