Read Mirror 04 The Way Between the Worlds for Free Online Page B

recovered Basunez was back in the
wall, only his eyes and hook-nose showing.
'I wonder . . .' said Rulke.
'What?'
'You say Galliad was beaten to death for a few coins. What robber would lie in
wait here, so far from anywhere? I wonder if he might not have pestered
Basunez's ghost too much.'
'My father was not afraid of ghosts.'
'Out with it, shade,' said Rulke, and did something in the dark that made the
ghost glow like a red-hot poker. 'What did you do to her father?'
'Unpleasant, inadequate man,' wailed Basunez, wrenching himself out of the
wall again. 'Always prying and trying to learn my secrets. Hah! I burned
everything to ashes before I died. No one will get the benefit of my labour,
not even you, Rulke! Anyway, the struggle is the answer! But he took the easy
way - he ripped my bones out of their crypt and dared to raise me from the
dead. And don't think I was the first either!' he sneered at Karan. 'He was
well practised in the unwholesome art of necromancy.' The ghost blurred back
into the wall, fading almost to nothing.
'Don't go,' said Rulke in a velvet voice. 'Why did he die?'
'He was not as cunning as I was!' Basunez's eyes gleamed, rat-like. 'I led him
on a playful dance, a merry climb right to the very tower top. Still he
pestered me, and I grew angry and flew at him. He fell to his death.'
'You killed him!' Karan screamed. 'You murdered my
father.' She tried to strike the shade with her fists but all she got for it
was bloody knuckles.
'A death for a life,' said the ghost of Basunez with grim irony. 'He
reanimated my dead bones, a greater crime by far than easing his miserable
life out of him.'
'Murderer!' she shrieked, thrashing about wildly. Rulke held her arms.
'Life-giver!' Basunez spat. 'I am dead six hundred years and still I cannot
lie in my grave. Send me back!'
'Enough!' said Rulke. His lantern flared brightly and Basunez faded to
nothing, though his cries could still be heard, 'Send me back, send me back!'
as Karan hurried up the ladder and Rulke closed the trapdoor of the cellar.
Back in the upper tower he sat Karan down and put a cup to her lips. She was
trembling. She held the vessel in two hands and sipped from it, staring at the
floor for a long time. Finally she gave a great shudder and looked up at him.
The light made her malachite-green eyes glow. She took a deep breath.
'He wasn't murdered at all, was he? It was just a stupid accident that means
nothing.'
'No more than a malicious accident,' he said. 'Ghosts can't do murder. Do you
feel better for knowing?'
'That my beloved father practised the black art, necromancy? No! But only the
child of eight thought he was perfect. I had to know the truth.'
Nonetheless she paced back and forth, as agitated as she had been down below.
Behind her back, Rulke did something with his fingers and suddenly her head
nodded. 'Oh, I'm so tired.'
'Sleep,' he murmured, drawing his fingers down over her face. 'It's nearly
dawn and there'll be no rest for either of us tonight.' Her eyes fell closed,
she subsided on the floor and he drew the sleeping pouch up around her.
'Well,' Rulke said just before moonrise that evening. 'Are you ready?'
'Almost!' She was still wondering what her father had been up to. 'But before
we begin I must know what has happened to Llian.'
'Another condition! He's out there with the rest of the company.' He gestured
to the embrasure that faced east toward the amphitheatre.
'I must know that he's safe.'
Rulke restrained his impatience. 'Very well. Come up!'
'What?'
    'Come up and I'll show you. I had thought to make a demonstration anyway.'
She walked over to the construct, rather anxiously. One of the Ghashad, a man
with grey warts all over his face, flung her up. Rulke caught her, setting her
down beside him.
'Hold tight to this rail,' he said, manipulating levers, knobs and wheels with
practised ease.
The construct radiated light that wove a spherical shield around them, their