The Mirror After the Cavern

by Jeffrey Quyle

Sareen screamed.

  “That was dirty!” the robber with the cudgel said. “He wasn’t expecting that.”

  “We weren’t expecting to be robbed,” Silas countered.

  One of the men with a sword launched an attack, his blade aimed at Silas. Silas dropped into a crouch and shifted his feet to take the position Ruten had taught. His knife was shorter than the stick Ruten had employed as a practice sword, so he had to hold his counterstroke back a moment longer into the attack until the threat was closer, and within his shortened range. Even so, the training was effective, and Silas struck the sword, forcing it downward so that the tip struck the pavement. Silas stepped back, then placed his hand behind him and instinctively found Sareen. He began to press her along the wall, towards the temporarily unguarded end of the mugger’s perimeter.

  “You’re some kind of hotshot, aren’t you?” sneered the man he had just bested. “There’s no mercy for you now,” the man swore, then advanced once more, his companion with the other sword joining him. They both moved towards Silas, who tried to shield Sareen while the girl sobbed in fear.

  Both men began to strike with their weapons, and the man with the cudgel suddenly threw it towards Silas, distracting his attention as the two long blades approached.

  And at that point, the extraordinary ability of the knife took control of Silas. He felt the knife twist his arm to lead his whole body in a move that dodged attack by one sword, while the knife lifted itself and Silas’s hand in an attack that stabbed into the belly of the other swordsman. The knife instantly freed itself from the flesh of its victim, but as it did, the thrown cudgel arrived and struck Silas’s shoulder.

  He flinched from the pain and the force of the hit. At the same time, the uninjured swordsman, sliced his sword across Silas’s arm, leaving a fiery pain in the limb just before the magical knife in Silas’s other hand recoiled and planted itself in the attacker’s neck.

  A spray of blood astonished Silas while the victim dropped to the ground. Silas held his knife in front of him and backed up to the wall, next to Sareen, while the street robbers stared in horror at the results of the attack they had attempted to launch. One man was down on the ground and dying, while another lay doubled over in pain from being stabbed in the stomach, and a third clutched his wounded hand.

  Silas felt shaken and jittery, both full of nervous energy and fear. He was on the edge of vomiting from the violence and blood.

  And then the attackers suddenly lost their own nerve. “He is a demon, I tell you!” exclaimed the man who had thrown the cudgel.

  The three that were still living bolted away from the scene of the crime, leaving only the dead man sprawled on the walk in front of Silas and Sareen.

  “Let’s go!” Sareen cried, and she bolted away, running up the roadside in tears. Silas stared in horror at the dead man’s body for a moment longer, then stumbled as he began to follow Sareen, looking about to see if anyone else was on the street – anyone who had seen the deadly encounter that had taken place in the neighborhood. There was no one visible – anyone else on the street had melted away when the impending violence had begun to unfold.

  Sareen was running blindly, and before Silas could catch up to the long-legged girl, she ran into the entrance of the temple of Shaish, the goddess of water, the temple that they had been told was a landmark for their route to New Fields. Silas followed her into the temple, where startled priests and worshippers turned and looked in surprise and disapproval at the pair’s energetic entrance into the quiet and serene interior.

  “Silas!” Sareen turned abruptly and watch her companion approach. “You killed him!” she hissed in a low voice to avoid being overheard.

  “I can’t believe you did that! There were four of them, and you beat them with just a knife,” her face was white and she was clearly in the same state of mild shock that Silas himself felt. He stood in front of her and she gripped both of his arms with her hands in a tight grip that reflected her emotional state.

  “You’re bleeding!” she exclaimed, as she lifted her hand from his arm.

  Silas moved his other hand and pulled up the bloody sleeve that had been cut atop his arm. As he and Sareen looked down at the slice, it suddenly turned yellow and purple at one end, and then the colors crawled up his arm, healing the wound and leaving a colorful scar that matched the streaks cross his chest.

  “Great Shaish!” Sareen covered her mouth with her hand in astonishment, and stepped back from Silas, her eyes wide and staring at Silas’s.

  “Gentle, young one. He is my husband’s project. Do not fear,” a gentle woman’s voice whispered to both Sareen and Silas.

  “Who said that?” Sareen asked.

  “You are in my temple, and I have spoken,” the voice replied.

  “The goddess speaks about you,” Sareen’s voice was full of awe. “She said her husband takes care of you! Are you a godling?”

  “I’m, no, I’m,” Silas stuttered as he tried to explain and answer, even though he had no idea of the truth himself.

  “I’m not a godling. It’s just that Krusima has talked to me a few times,” he tried to explain.

  “If you’re not here to worship the goddess, I must ask you to leave the temple,” a priest suddenly interrupted the conversation.

  Sareen and Silas looked at one another wordlessly, then the girl spun and walked rapidly out of the temple foyer, with Silas belatedly following.

  When they got outside, Sareen stopped to get her bearings. “Let’s go this way to get to New Fields,” she momentarily pretended to ignore the extraordinary events, as she pointed up the cross street and began to walk, with Silas in her wake.

  “I thought I knew you,” she told Silas after long moments of silence. “I don’t know what to think or say.

  “I can say thank you for saving me from those men, I guess,” she decided inelegantly.

  “Silas, when we get to Greywold’s estate,” she hesitated.

  “What?” he prompted her.

  “Well, it’s just with your eyes, and the blood,” she referred to the spots of blood that had splattered on his frock during the fight, “even though you are a special friend to the gods, could you wait outside the gate while I go in?”

  “You’re embarrassed by me?” he asked incredulously.

  “No! No, not at all,” she stoutly rejected the description. “It’s just that you’ll be a distraction from my chance to see Greywold,” she answered, “and his sister,” she hastily added.

  “Fine,” he answered flatly. “I’ll wait at the gate. How long?”

  “I hope a good long while,” she smiled wistfully. “But I’ll cut it short.

  “And I’ll ask for directions to walk back a different way!” she laughed, beginning to lose her sense of awe at the strangeness of their journey, as she began to focus once again on the prospect of seeing Greywold the nobleman.

  After that exchange, the couple walked in silence along a street of better character than the one they had previously strolled, and within minutes were in a part of the city where the homes grew larger and were set further apart from one another. A question to a passing maid produced directions to the Greywold estate, where a sentry at the gate unenthusiastically sent Sareen’s name up to the large manor house as the girl waited expectantly outside the gate, and Silas loitered a few yards away.

  To the guardsman’s surprise, a note was returned to invite Sareen up to the home. She released a tiny squeal of delight, waved her fingers at Silas discreetly, then followed a servant up to the house, while Silas sat down on the ground, leaned back against the wall around the estate, and closed his eyes.

  His life might never become normal, he speculated. He had colored eyes that marked him as wanted; he healed in colors – someday his entire frame might be bathed in yellow and purple, he speculated; and he had gods that talked to him and about him. Not to mention he possessed a knife that fought better than anyone alive, he could practically see in the dark, and his mule seemed to be ab
le to read his mind, as he could read its. He wasn’t a tracker or a Speaker, but he understood both trades, while he traveled with an ordinary trading company – except he sensed that it wasn’t completely ordinary.

  That last thought was a new revelation in itself, one that his intuition had just arrived at that moment. But people of the quality of Prima, Ruten, and Minnie seemed too sharp, too nimble-minded and shrewd, to just be ordinary traders. He wasn’t sure what else them might be, but he told himself he’d try to keep an eye on things more intently.

  “Are you Silas?” a voice asked from the gate.

  He opened his eyes and looked at the maid who stood by the stone gate pillar closest to him.

  “Yes, with those eyes, I see that you are,” she answered her own question. “I’m to tell you that you don’t need to stay and wait for your friend Sareen to return. She’s going to be taken back into the city in the family’s coach after dinner, so you’re free to leave.”

  Silas sat blank-faced as he digested the surprising news.

  “Alright then,” he stumbled to find an appropriate response. “Her visit is going well?”

  “Quite, I believe,” the maid seemed ready to go, her message delivered.

  “Can you give me directions on how to walk back to the harbor?” Silas decided to accept the new development; Sareen would be very happy, he was sure. “I walked up past the temple of Shaish on the way here, and don’t want to go back that way.”

  “No, my word, no, you wouldn’t,” the girl replied in a shocked voice. “Go out here,” she pointed to her right, “to the crossroads, then turn left, and continue until you find the avenue with the statues. Turn left again there, and it’ll take you right down to the harbor.

  “Can I ask a question?” she asked hesitantly after a moment’s pause.

  “Where do you come from? Were you born with eyes like that?” the maid wanted to know.

  She didn’t mean to be rude, Silas could tell. She was simply curious.

  “I come from a village in the mountains, Brigamme, but my eyes didn’t change color until a few weeks ago, when I was in a cave with colored fumes,” he explained.

  “That’s, interesting,” she was at a loss for further words.

  Silas rose to his feet, and pulled his hood back over his head; his eyes were attracting too much attention. It struck him once again that he might be forever doomed to hide his eyes; he might spend the rest of his life skulking about, seeking to avoid attention because of the unusual feature. He shook his head at the dreary thought, then nodded at the maid and began his journey back towards the wharfside warehouse where the rest of the caravan sat.

  His journey was without incident, and provided a more scenic and wholesome tour of the city than Silas’s way out of town had shown. He saw shops and bustling traffic, a prosperous section of the city, and lovely, well-maintained buildings along the way. It was more people and traffic, with larger buildings, than he had ever seen before.

  When he returned to the warehouse and made his way back to the corral, he found Ruten sitting in place, watching over the placid creatures.

  “Where’s Sareen? Did you have a good trip through the city? See anything interesting?” the guard asked as his eyes examined Silas with modest interest.

  “She’s staying at the nobleman’s home for a while; they’ll deliver her back here in their carriage,” Silas answered.

  “And I killed a man on the way there,” Silas watched Ruten’s face to see the reaction to the shocking revelation.

  Ruten turned his full attention to Silas. “You killed a man?”

  “It was mostly my knife. Four men trapped us while we were walking, and they said they wanted Sareen. I fought them,” Silas answered.

  “Did they have any weapons, or did you just stab at them when they swung their fists?” the guard wanted to know.

  “Two of them had swords, one a knife, and one a cudgel – which he threw at me,” Silas inventoried the arms of the attackers. “They ran away after they started to lose.”

  “Were there any guards in the vicinity? Did anyone see you, or those eyes of yours?” Ruten asked, he seemed to relax as he understood the defensive nature of Silas’s battle.

  “The street was empty except for the thieves and us – there were no guards. They did see my eyes, and the maid at Greywold’s house saw my eyes too, but no one else; I kept my hood up,” Silas explained defensively.

  “That’s good. Still, we need to get you out of here as soon as we can, though,” the guard said. “I expect Prima will have everything wrapped up soon and we’ll be aboard ship by the day after tomorrow. In the meantime though, I’m afraid we ought to keep you confined to the warehouse.”

  Silas nodded, though he felt stung by the decision to prevent him from seeing more of the city. He felt a slight, irrational irritation with Sareen – it was because of her that he had been exposed so thoroughly and then restricted to the warehouse, while she was free to galivant at a nobleman’s luxurious estate.

  When the caravan workers who had been out on the town returned to relieve the shift inside the warehouse, two of the men went to talk to Minnie in the front wagon, and spoke with her as the three of them looked out at Silas. He wondered what the conversation was about, and walked forward to discover the words being spoken, presumably about him.

  “Have you ever gone fishing, Silas?” Minnie asked speculatively as she looked at him between the other two men. “You’re dismissed, and thank you for the report,” she told them.

  “My dad and I used to catch trout in the stream near our village when I was little,” he replied.

  “Never out at sea?” Minnie asked.

  “I’ve never even seen the sea,” Silas answered, confused by the line of questions.

  “Well, all of that is about to change,” she told him. “Ruten!” she called loudly, then placed two fingers between her lips and trilled a loud, sharp whistle of three notes.

  Within half a minute, Ruten appeared, breathing heavily.

  “I was almost out of the warehouse, going out on the town. What’s this about?” he asked, looking from Silas to Minnie.

  “Carrock said there’s a squad from Ivaric going about among the docks, asking if there’s a lad with strange eyes,” Minnie replied. “We need to move him now.”

  “Can’t we wait until Prima returns? When will he be back?” Ruten asked.

  “Not until tomorrow afternoon,” the woman answered.

  “You’re right; we have to act,” Ruten conceded. “What’s to be done?”

  “He’s going to go fishing,” she had her response at the tip of her tongue.

  Ruten only gave a puzzled look for a moment, then smiled. He clapped his hands together, and laughed.

  “I’ll go find a willing fishing boat,” he announced. “I’ll need a bit of persuasion though, I’m sure,” he held out an open palm.

  “Just a minute,” Minneota turned and entered the wagon she shared with Prima, then returned and dropped several coins into his hand.

  “Go put him out to sea,” she told Ruten as she closed his fingers around the coins.

  “It won’t be a luxury cruise, but we’ll keep him safe,” Ruten grinned. “Come with me boy. Go pack a few things to last for a day or two.”

  “What’s happening? What are you two planning?” Silas asked the pair.

  “We’re going to hire a fishing boat to go out into the harbor and fish for a day or two, and you’ll be on the boat with them,” Ruten explained.

  “That will make you disappear and be out of the reach of the Ivaric goons,” Minnie added.

  “Though I’m beginning to suspect that with that knife of yours, you might be able to deal with them; I’d like to hear how the tyrant of Ivaric would react to learning that one of his hidden squads was wiped out on a mission,” he grinned a grim smile.

  “Let me grab my pack,” Silas answered. He shook hands with Minnie.

  “We’ll see you when the ferry is ready to run �
� probably the morning after next,” she told him as she squeezed his hand affectionately. “Try not to do anything supernatural out on the boat, please!” she added.

  Silas grinned, and then walked with Ruten back towards his wagon. He stopped by the corral and hugged Hron on his way. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised the mule. “Be good for the new driver,” he urged the animal, then went over to his wagon. He pulled out his pack, which carried his goods, including the strange mirror fragment he had kept, and he was ready to go.

  Chapter 22

  Silas raised his hood as they exited the warehouse, and followed in Ruten’s steps, curious and excited by the prospect of going on a boat, out into a larger body of water than he’d ever seen before.

  “How did the people from Ivaric know to come looking for me here?” he asked his guide as they walked along the harbor front, passing the berths where the freighters docked.

  “There’s no country more compromised by Ivaric’s spies than its next-door neighbor, Avaleen, even though there’s no love lost,” Ruten replied. “And it doesn’t take a lot of brains to guess that we’d head towards the nearest country outside of Ivaric.

  “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll just slip you out into the harbor. Our next destination for the caravan is the island nation of Amenozume, and there’s no nation less akin to Ivaric than the island folks, for obvious reasons,” Ruten spoke casually.

  “What reasons? They aren’t obvious to me,” Silas had no idea about the nature of Amenozume, though he’d learned about its location and coordinates while he’d been studying at the academy in Heathrin.

  “Well, Amenozume is ruled by women. They have a queen – they always have a queen. They have a princess. There are men who run things like the traders’ guild, but women have the ultimate control of the nation. They don’t think well of Ivaric, and Derith thinks even more poorly of them,” Ruten explained. “But because they’re an island, they feel pretty safe from invasion.”

  “Prima’s taking the caravan to a land ruled by women?” Silas asked skeptically.

  “It’s ruled quite well, actually, young traveler who hasn’t seen much of the world, for one thing,” Ruten immediately answered. “And more importantly, there’s money to be made by trading there. So we’ve going.