Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds (70 page)

the tone of her voice made him look up. Karan's beautiful, malachite-green
eyes were liquid bright, gazing at him in wonder. Her cheeks were glazed with
tears. She put out her hand, and he took it and drew her to him.
'Well, maybe my injuries, or the hrux, or more likely Rulke's Gift, unblocked
something. I'm pregnant!'
Epilogue
'Too well I see and rue the dire event,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us Heav'n . . .'
MILTON, PARADISE LOST
Maigraith had lost the will to live. For weeks she lay in a coma of
depression, unable to speak. Then one morning her senses woke of their own
accord and she opened her eyes. Her grandmother sat by her bed, watching
Aachan's small red sun set over peaks as jagged and uninviting as broken black
glass. A huge orange moon hung in the sky, so low that Maigraith could feel
its weight making tides in her belly. She had been devastated by the loss of
Rulke; then finally her lethargy had given way to fury and irrational urges to
avenge his death. But she was helpless to do anything about it. Gates would no
longer work.
'Maigraith!' Yalkara was at her side instantly. 'I thought you would never
wake.'
Maigraith opened her mouth but only a croak came out. She had practically
forgotten how to speak. 'I long for Rulke so badly,' she whispered.
'I'm so very sorry!' Yalkara brushed Maigraith's hair back with her fingers.
'If only I could do something for you, but I cannot.'
'If there were a way to bring him back, I would reach beyond the grave to do
it. I would do anything!' 'He can never be recovered, Maigraith.' 'Then I will
devote my life to the revenge he swore, whatever it takes.'
'That's just as pointless. Tensor is dead.' 'But the Faellem have everything
they ever wanted.' 'Have they?' said Yalkara.
Plucking the Mirror out of Maigraith's coat she conjured a vision of the
bloody hell that was Tallallame. It looked as if the whole world was on fire.
The once beautiful forests were just black spikes in a sea of ash. Yalkara
cried out in anguish and several of the Charon came running. They all stared
at the ruins of what had been their world, before the Mariem had been cast
into the void.
'They might as well be dead,' said Yalkara in a whisper. 'See, Rulke is
avenged, and they did it to themselves.'
'The Twisted Mirror,' Maigraith said bitterly, but still she had to turn her
head away. 'It lies!' 'Not to me!'
'I'm sure Faelamor survived it.'
'Look!' said Yalkara, thrusting the Mirror into her face. 'Look, and know that
revenge is pointless.'
The scene shifted, shifted again, then settled on one place. It was a clearing
snowy with ash, in the middle of which lay a small pile of unrecognisable
bones. Maigraith knew, without knowing how, that they were Faelamor's. Only
then did she weep for the grandmother she had spent most of her life with and
never known.
The Charon mourned for Tallallame, an ancestral memory but a very powerful
one. No world could come up to it. Its loss was the final blow. 'I have but
one wish left,' said Yalkara, 'and that is to lead my people back into the
void.'
Maigraith slumped into a heap. 'I never asked who my Faellem grandfather was,
and now I will never know. I have nothing to live for any more. I will come
with you, Grandmother.'
'Nonsense! We choose the void willingly, knowing what it is like. You have no
conception. Think about Rulke's sacrifice. Think about his parting words.'
'The fruit of our love will shake the Three Worlds to their underpinnings,'
she quoted. 'I don't know what he meant.'
'I wonder,' said Yalkara thoughtfully. Drawing up Mai-graith's shirt she put

those terribly scarred hands on her belly. Maigraith felt soothed, at peace.
She was drifting off to sleep when Yalkara's cry broke into her thoughts.
'A miracle!' Yalkara was shaking with emotion, 'A miracle has occurred.'
'What?' Maigraith asked sleepily. 'His parting gift. Rulke has quickened you.'
'Impossible!' said Maigraith. 'I am sterile. Faelamor told me so.'
'And you believed her? Of course she would say that. She was terrified of the
triune and everything you represented! No, there's no doubt about it. We know
everything about conception.'
'Rulke said that too,' Maigraith said, and smiled for the first time since his
death.
Yalkara looked up, her eyes brimming, and called her
people to her. 'This is our greatest day in a thousand years.'
The Hundred, what was left of them, all gathered round
Maigraith, touching her as if she was a saint, a miraculous
vessel, their way forward into the future.
"This gives me hope,' cried a sage, a greybeard sodden with tears. 'I see that
it will be the first of a new human species. Our extinction is a rebirth - a
species that has a better hope of survival than we ever did.'
'My plan has taken on a life of its own,' Yalkara said to herself, 'and in a
way I never expected. Alas, I'll never see how it turns out.'
'What do you mean?' cried Maigraith, whose hearing was keen. 'Did you plan
this all along?'
'Not in the way you're thinking, Granddaughter,' Yalkara
replied calmly. 'But I knew (as Rulke did not) that we Charon were no longer a
viable species. One hundred was not enough - we lost too much of our heritage
in the void. Our only chance was to breed with the other human species and
find a way to make the offspring viable.'
'Then you will stay?' Maigraith asked, holding her grandmother's scarred
hands.
'No, child. Our time is past. I was the youngest of the Charon, but I gave
half my life away, and now Aachan has withered my ovaries as it shrivelled the
gonads of each of us. We have already made the decision to go.'
'But . . .' said Maigraith.
'Maigraith, the extinction of a species makes all other human tragedies
insignificant. It has always been my destiny to lead my people. How can I
abandon them now? But to know that you carry our seed into the future, that
from you may spring a new species, is all that we need.'
Maigraith faced the thought of life on Aachan without them. 'Even the void
would be better than remaining here after you have gone.'
'But you are triune! You are at home on any of the Three Worlds, in any of the
human cultures.'
'Or none!' she said bitterly. 'So did Faelamor warp me.'
'We would not leave you to suffer our fate,' said Yalkara. 'Besides, this
world is surely doomed. We will try to send you back to Santhenar, before we
go. Do you have friends to support you? The coming months will be difficult.'
Maigraith thought about those left behind. 'There is Karan, if she is still
alive - the best friend anyone ever had.'
'Good! Are there others?'
'Malien, Tallia, Yggur, Llian! Yes,' she said, realising for the first time in
her life that she had friends. 'And of course, dear Shand, who is everything
to me.'
'Shand?' frowned Yalkara.
'My grandfather, Gyllias!'
Yalkara might have been struck by lightning. 'Gyllias lives? And he found
you?'
'He lives, and he still longs for you. Will you not come back to Santhenar
now?'
Yalkara fell to her knees. 'Gyllias!' she screamed. 'Gyllias,' she repeated in
a whisper. 'How I love you. Gyllias! I want you still - '
A cry disturbed her. The Charon had all gathered round and were staring

desperately at her, afraid she would abandon them. They were old people now;
much older than her.
'Don't leave us, Yalkara,' wept the bearded old sage. 'Not in our most
desperate need!'
Yalkara looked from them to Maigraith, and back again. She put her arm around
Maigraith's shoulders and led her to a bench.
'Look at my people,' she said softly. 'We have been together, sharing
everything, since the Hundred came out of the void. We seventy are the last
Charon left in the universe and we are dying one by one. We can't bear that
any longer. We have vowed to leap into the void together. All for all. They
depend on me, and I need them.' 'But, Gyllias - '
'I want to see him desperately. I want to go with you, too. But I can't,
Maigraith. It's too late now. Far too late!'
Yalkara rocked back onto her knees and stood up. Her
forehead was smudged with a crescent moon of dust. 'The
past cannot be recovered. I cannot linger on in Santhenar
knowing that the rest of my kind are gone. Not even for
Gyllias would I be the last. I will go with them into the void.'
Maigraith shivered. 'You're right, Grandmother. I'm used
to looking after myself. But poor Shand! How will I tell him?'
'Tell him the truth. He will understand. Our lives have run
their course. But first we must find a way to send you back.'
The Charon took heart from this new project. They set to work to extract what
they could from the ruins of the
construct and build a device to open the Way again. That was a thankless task
and a very long one. More than half a year had gone by before they completed a
device to do the job. It was quite simple - just a flared tube of metal like a
hunting horn, but of exquisite make.
They stood Maigraith on a burnished plate of brass set in the floor and the
remaining Hundred embraced her, one by one. Last of all, Yalkara watered
Maigraith's slender shoulders and hugely swollen belly with her tears.
'Please come with me,' Maigraith begged, clinging to her grandmother's scarred
hands. 'I'm afraid. I want you there for my time.'
'I can't. Things are different now. The Way between the Worlds will be much
harder to find and to cross than before. This horn is good for two blasts only
- one to send you to Santhenar; one to take us home to the void. We are not
sorry to go, not now. Are you prepared?'
'Yes!' she squeaked.
'Be ready for anything. You may not end up quite where you hope. The passage
may hurt. And you will arrive there naked, for I can send nothing but you.'
'I came here with all my goods,' said Maigraith. 'I must at least have the
ring Rulke gave me.'
'The construct carried you here,' said Yalkara, 'and all your goods too. This
horn just sends you.' She consulted the others. 'I'll try to send the ring
with you as well, but don't be surprised if you lose it. Now, link with me.'
They linked and Maigraith showed Yalkara her destination, Gothryme Manor.
Yalkara traced out the Way between the Worlds for the last time, the way to
Santhenar, and that was much harder than it had been before.
'You're ready?'
Maigraith looked into her grandmother's eyes, took a deep breath and nodded.
'Wait,' said Yalkara. 'You won't be needing this.' She took the Mirror from
Maigraith's pocket. 'I'll take it with me into
the void where it can't do any more harm.' Then she thought of something. 'Oh,
Maigraith!'
'Yes?'
'There are still some Faellem left on Santh, I believe. In
the wilds of Mirrilladell.'
'That is so,' said Maigraith, wondering what she was getting at. 'Many did
refuse to join Faelamor in Elludore.'
'If you were to go there, you might find someone who knew Faelamor's consort

in ancient times. Your other grandfather.'
'Thank you,' said Maigraith. 'I will, one day.'
'And Maigraith?'
'Yes, Yalkara?'
Yalkara clutched her hand, squeezing so hard that it hurt. 'Tell Gyllias ...
tell Shand ... I have never stopped loving him. I never will!' She abruptly
let go. 'Go now.'
'Fare well.'
'Fare well, fare well!' chorused the Charon.
The horn blatted. Maigraith felt turned inside out. The baby kicked
frantically. Aachan vanished. She whirled through nothingness, keeping a
desperate grip on that image of Goth-ryme. Her finger burned as if the ring
had turned to molten gold. She closed her fist, and closed the other fist over
it as tightly as she possibly could, willing it to come with her. Everything
went blank, she lost her way, found it again and with a crack that hurt her
eardrums and sent the baby into a fury, she landed on her bottom on the
threadbare rug before the fire in Karan's living room.
The room was empty. It was just on dark. Maigraith got up, unsteady on her
pins. She leaned on the edge of a table, knocking it down and collapsing onto
her knees. Her belly felt much heavier than it had on Aachan. She was as naked
as the child within her. Her hand and ring-finger burned
unbearably.
She opened her fist. The ring was still there, but it was melted into strands
like four wires twisted together, with a
button of gold at front and back. It was still scorching hot. She wrenched it
off and the skin came with it. Her finger was burned around the circle so
deeply that the scar would never leave her. The other burn scars ran up her
arm past the elbow. Like my grandmother, she thought. Maigraith slipped the
ring onto a finger of her right hand and never took it off again.
A thin old man with white hair appeared in the doorway. His manners were far
too good to show his astonishment. Helping Maigraith to her feet, he swept a
tablecloth around her and settled her back into a chair before the fire.
'And who . ..? Ah, I remember you,' Rachis said. He shouted through the
doorway. 'Karan! Come quickly!'
Karan limped in. Her hair stood on end. Then she leapt right across the room
to embrace Maigraith.
'Maigraith!' she shrieked. 'How did you get here? And look how fat you are.
Why, you're pregnant!'
'So I am,' said Maigraith, smiling. 'To Rulke. It's so good to be home.'
'How did you get here?'
'Yalkara found a way to send me back. Oh Karan, I have no idea what I am going
to do with my life, but I feel that I belong for the first time.'
'Well, there is one complication - '
Just then Yggur came in to see what the fuss was about. When he saw Maigraith
he went pale, and one side of his face froze the way it had done when he was
still possessed by Rulke. He staggered, his knee gave way, then he came on,
limping badly. Shand stood behind him in the doorway, his eyes shining.
'Maigraith,' Yggur whispered, holding out his arms. 'I tried to find a way to
bring you back.'
She took his hand but did not embrace him. 'I see,' Yggur said, abruptly
turning away.
'Is Yalkara .. .?' began Shand.
'She lives,' said Maigraith.

'Did you tell her about me?' The yearning in Shand's eyes was awful.
'Yes,' said Maigraith, wanting to run away from his hopeless longing. She took
him in her arms instead. 'She said she will never stop loving you.'
Shand stiffened. 'She's not coming, is she?' 'No. She wanted to, so very badly
but she could not abandon her people. They are going back to the void.'
Shand hung his head in his hands. His voice reflected off the floor. 'I should