Read Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds for Free Online

wriggled in her pouch but could not get warm. And being a sensitive, she
could feel the age-old emotions stirring in this place. The stones were
saturated with the death
agonies of the hundreds of workers who had died building Carcharon, with the
mad cunning of her ancestor, Basunez, and with strange, older passions that
she could not disentangle from the rocky matrix.
Karan hated Carcharon. Her beloved father had been killed here too, seventeen
    years ago, a senseless crime. After all this time she still missed him. Just
to think of Galliad was to bring back her childhood longings. She could not
sense him here, but how she wanted to.
Exhausted, she kicked off her pouch, drew on socks and crept across to where
Rulke slept beside the construct. Evidently he was impervious to cold for he
lay on the floor wrapped in only a single blanket, and his mighty chest was
bare. His shoulders were each the size of her head. Karan eyed them in
uncomfortable awe.
'There is something I need to know,' she said.
He woke instantly. 'What is it?'
'A question of the most surpassing interest to me.'
'Then ask it,' he said, sitting up. His muscles rippled. She pulled her eyes
away.
'My father was killed here. Do you know why?'
'I don't know anything about your father, except that he was a blending of
human and Aachim. What happened to him?'
'He was the rock of my childhood,' she said in melancholy tones. 'He was
coming back from Shazmak but never arrived. Finally he was found here, beaten
to death for the few coins in his pocket. No one could understand why.'
'Why would he come here, so far off the path to Shazmak?'
'He was fascinated by this place, and by Basunez.'
'Mad Basunez!' said Rulke. 'He can't have been quite as mad as he was made
out.'
'Why do you say that?'
'The bronze statues are too perfect. He found something here, and he had to
have looked into the void for it. That was what first attracted me to this
place.'
'Last summer?'
He smiled at her naivety. 'Little Karan! You still think all this came about
by accident, by some chance of fate.'
'What do you mean?' Suddenly she felt panicky, all shivery afraid and choked
up. 'What wasn't an accident?'
'Even from the Nightland I could sense Basunez working here. His corrupt
experiments had thinned the wall between Santhenar and my prison, and the void
too. Had he succeeded your old human species would probably no longer exist.
Fortunately he failed, but I've been watching this place ever since. For six
hundred years I kept vigil! I even noticed you.'
Karan writhed, imagining that he might have looked down on her most private
moments. 'What do you mean, noticed me?'
'I mean that I sensed you. This place is one of the most potent sites on all
Santhenar for working the Secret Art, which is why Basunez built Carcharon
here. What he did here allowed me to detect him, and you too.'
She turned away abruptly.
'Don't worry, I couldn't actually see anything from the Nightland. I felt that
he was carrying out dangerous experiments which were of great interest to me,
but I couldn't find out what they were. Then, not so long ago, I sensed
something here again, where there had been nothing for centuries. Someone
strange and rare. It turned out to be you!'
Karan trembled. 'Does this mean that other people can tell that I am ...
triune?' Her heritage had caused her enough trouble already.
'I wouldn't think so! Not even I can sense you from Santhenar. The Nightland
is different; a higher plane.'
'When did you sense me?' But she knew all too well.
'Time has funny habits in the Nightland. It might have been ten years ago, or
thirty.'
'I came here with my father when I was eight, not long before he died. And to
think you were spying on us!' Her voice rose in outrage.
'Not spying. I had no idea if you were young or old, man or girl. All I knew
was that there was a unique talent in Carcharon. It made me sweat. This place
might have been full of