The Window and the Mirror

by Henry Thomas

  Apart from the pain and indignation, the fact that he could not understand anything that was being said was wearing on his mind, driving him to a state of fuming inner rage that threatened to consume him. They would beat him for a time and then all fall to chattering like a bunch of birds in their savage language. Rhael had always liked to know everything, he was infinitely curious and his vast knowledge often gave him control of every situation he found himself in. He knew how different he was, his mind capable of more than the average highborn man. He could out-think and out-strip lowborn men all day long without even straining himself. These fools having their fun with him now would pay. He would flay all of them alive, starting with their eyelids and faces and draw it out for as long as they could live, forcing them to watch as he did it. Perhaps the strong among them would survive for a week or more. That thought almost made Rhael smile. That one I’ll save for last, he thought, casting his eye on the old savage who had addressed him so boorishly at the onset of this debacle. He was still not quite sure how, but the old man had spooked his mount out from under him with a whispered word and before he had even time to reach for his belt they had been on him, stamping and dragging him into their squalid hut.

  Had he been able to quaff a bit of the potion that he kept in his silver flagon at his belt then these savages would all be burnt to cinders by now. Lord Rhael Uhlmet knew how to harness magic and bend it to his will, he was one of the few Mage Imperators whom had handled the energy and lived to tell it, and his mind was still sound. No, he thought, better. His mind was made to work magic, his body like a conduit. He was able to afford the finest specimens for his elixirs. His family owned vast interests in the shipping trade, and the shipping trade was built on toads and newts, salamanders and lizards from all over the world. These rare beasts were processed in a very meticulous fashion by his brethren, although a lower form of mage than he, one without the charisma or proper breeding to lead and exert power in the field, but useful in their own right as makers of potions, blenders of this strain or that strain of essence that allowed the more skillful and talented people like himself to harness magical energy and use it to his will.

  The Mage Alchemists were useful, for lowborn men, but they lacked the natural confidence and force of spirit that made men great, the natural high-born spirit of someone like Lord Rhael Uhlmet. Men needed the elixir to open their inner portals to the energy, otherwise the door remained hidden to the seeker. Rhael knew where to look, but he needed the elixir to lubricate his mind and allow the energy to enter him before he could access and bend it. This was the price of being a mortal, but Rhael believed he could change that and he never stopped seeking a way around it. That the Magistry believed the answer lay in Dawn Tribe lands, Rhael could not fathom. I should be in Kuilgarthen talking with the Crafters, he thought, not here in this cesspit. Kuilgarthen was the famed trade city where the Goblin Crafters sold their machines and magical devices. Men needed elixir to wield magic, but Goblinkind had developed a way long ago to trap magical energy and store it in machines and devices built to harness the power and focus it to a specific task. Some items were commonplace, such as the spoon he used in the mornings to stir his tea, which had the magical attribute of heating water rapidly; some items were rare and powerful: enchanted weapons and orbs of metal or glass capable of great destruction. To learn the secret that the Crafters used to harness power, the secret that they guarded with great care and jealously, this would be a great and powerful tool. It was one of his deep desires, finding out how the Crafters created the energy to be captured. Great power was what he wanted, but Rhael had submitted to the Council’s decision and led the survey company to the Dawn Tribe lands. He had spoken with other mages and they had told him of the savage lands and the custom the natives had of wearing gold and silver, and although he was already quite wealthy, Lord Uhlmet could always find a use for gold. That these other fools never thought of stripping the savages and filling their coffers while on survey seemed quite ridiculous to him. How else was one meant to profit from such an exercise? Interview and survey the fair-haired youths of the Dawn Tribe, count their number and indicate on the map where they were located and what sort of impression he had gotten from them in his interview, those were his orders. What a load of rubbish, mused Rhael. Someone must have bribed the Council to send him off on survey so that they could push about in his research unhindered, probably that lickspittle Norden, rifling through his rooms looking for his potions no doubt. Let him look, he won’t be able to make sense of any of it and he’ll never find my elixirs, thought Rhael. Norden would be grinning with delight and capering about like a fool if he knew where I was now, Rhael raged. The beating had subsided for a moment, but it was more savage gibberish and laughter. Rather than listen and be frustrated by his lack of understanding, Rhael let his limbs go slack and tried to overcome the pain and exhaustion that burned through to his very core, but the bonds were tied in such a way that when he released the strength in his arms his legs suffered, and when he relaxed his legs his shoulders were torqued in a painful stretch. If he gave up entirely, his breath would only come in gasps. so tight was the pressure on his throat and chest.

  At least he wasn’t alone, he thought, eyeing the balding head of the incompetent translator as it swiveled round to gaze his way. They had strung the man up by the ankles and beaten him with switches as well, but the women had hit him and only the children had beaten Rhael. Now the sorry-looking man was weeping and sniveling and saying omething over and over again. This was the behavior of the lowborn, to break and turn into weeping wretches who begged for mercy and forgiveness from their tormentors without a thought of honor and revenge, or escape and retribution. “Weak minds and weak wills make the lowborn.” Rhael’s father had taught him that, and to never give up.

  “Shut your maw, you gaping dullard!” Rhael hissed at the translator. The man just kept repeating himself, going so far as to actually ignore Rhael entirely.

  Whatever the present situation, the man should have never broken protocol.

  Rhael was still his better, and he still held command. When he escaped he would be sure to have the man executed. Let’s see how he looks hanging from his neck, he thought, at least he won’t be as noisome. He would have smiled then had he been able to through the pain that was spread over him like a blanket, his limbs involuntarily spasming and shaking with strain. He clenched his jaw tight and vowed that he would not cry out or whimper, that he wouldn’t give his savage captors the satisfaction of seeing him break. There was more of the savage chattering, it was all he could hear. It seemed to go on and on for such a very long time. It was maddening to him. His breath was coming rapidly now, and he could no longer control his convulsions. He was shocked and appalled by his body’s betrayal as a low animalistic moan escaped his throat and tears streamed over his cheeks and pooled in his ears. It took a few moments for Rhael to realize that he was weeping uncontrollably, like a child. He wept and wept, and cried out and forgot everything but what had happened to him and his physical pain and predicament. He forgot that he was highborn, and his arrogance failed and he was simply a man writhing in pain, bound and staked out in a round house in the dirt, and he wanted more than anything else at that moment for his pain to end.

  It would not end. It kept coming for him over and over in a relentless rush, an unending infinite torrent that left him weeping and moaning until he was hoarse and dry and croak-ing. He did not know for how long he wept, nor how long he lay bound and in agony, but he found himself staring through the hole in the center of the ceiling at the night sky when his bonds were slackened. He was unable to move and all of his strength had left him. Rough hands hauled him to his feet, but his legs failed and he went sprawling to the dirt. He managed to turn his head at the last moment and avoid breaking his nose but even that was difficult. He realized then that he had lost control of his bowels at some point and was covered in his own reeking filth.

  “Lord Uhlmet,” sa
id the man. It was not a question. The man spoke his name like a dire sentence. “In the village of Tregethrin you led away three youths. What became of them?”

  He tried to speak but nothing came out. The old man said a word in his savage tongue and a woman approached Rhael and roughly tilted his head back. He tried to struggle until he realized she was pouring water down his throat. He gulped at it greedily, too quickly, and he was sputtering and coughing. She was gone when his eyes cleared.

  “What became of the three youths?” the old man repeated.

  “I…asked them…questions.” Rhael could barely form words.

  “What became of them? I have asked you, yet you tell me nothing.” The old man fixed him with an unwavering gaze. “Perhaps you wish to return to your place on the floor?”

  “No! Please, I will tell you!” Rhael felt as though he were listening to someone else speak. “I asked them questions and released them. I sent them back to their homes.”

  The man looked at him unblinking. “Why did they never reach their homes, Lord Uhlmet?” Such a fine voice the man had.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why!” Rhael lied. They were dead. He had attempted to draw out their life energies and store them in a glass orb, an experiment he had hoped to repeat at every village in an effort to create a weapon like those of the Goblinkind, but he needed more subjects to perfect his transference theories. Magics needed to be carefully noted and experiments conducted in controlled situations so that the results would be reliable, otherwise the theory would remain unproven, and the council would never promote him based on an unreliable theory.

  The old man was still watching. Waiting.

  “I let them go, I’ve told you.” How would they ever know? He was the only person in his tent and he burned the bodies to ash with his energies once the experiment had failed.

  The translator was still hanging by his feet repeating himself. Rhael had regained enough of his senses that the man was annoying him again. “Why does he keep saying that over and over again?”

  “It is mine to question, Lord Uhlmet.” The old man stepped forward. He now stood directly over Rhael. “If I am to believe you, then no harm befell the three children and they were simply questioned and sent home?”

  Oh, but this was tedious, he thought. “Yes, that is what I have told you.”

  The old man held his eyes for a moment as if weighing his words, then nodded. “Then I have no reason to hold you here like this, I suppose. You are free to go.”

  “I’m free to go?” What was this, some sort of ruse? Rhael tried to stand but he could not. His limbs were useless.

  “Yes, of course, Lord Uhlmet. There is the small matter of the blood price, but a great lord such as yourself can surely afford to pay the families of the missing children their due. After all, you were the last person to have charge of them.”

  Rhael’s mind was racing. What was this old fool playing at? He would have to buy his freedom, ransom himself from these savages. The missing children ruse was simply a threat the old man was waving in his face with one hand while the other reached for his purse strings. Rhael composed himself as best his aching body would allow.

  “I can pay you what price is best for you, if that is your wish, but I’ll need access to my coffers.”

  The old man snorted derisively. “We have taken the liberty of bringing your coffers to you, my lord.”

  He motioned with his staff and two men brought forth a bundle they were holding between them on a blanket and lay it down at the old man’s feet.

  Wrapped up in another blanket that they now unfolded was a mound of gold and silver ornaments like those the primitives wore in their hair.

  “Do you recognize these things, my lord?” the man separated a few bits of gold with the end of his staff as he spoke, “This is what a man wears when his first son makes his third spring. This the mark of a mother of five.”

  “Perhaps these were taken by the soldiers, I had no knowledge of this.”

  “Really, Uhlmet, you must stop lying to me.”

  Rhael was feeling ill. It was a growing feeling of worry that had settled in the pit of his bowels.

  How could this old fool know anything? I was the only person in the tent that night. I burned the bodies to ash after it failed. I burned them all to ash, he thought.

  “I have other gold among my things. I have a spoon of great value.”

  “A spoon?”

  “Yes, a Goblincraft spoon of great worth!”

  “He has a spoon of great worth! A spoon!” The old man’s voice boomed throughout the roundhouse, the firelight glinting off of his many golden ornaments as he stretched out his arms and spoke to the assembly of savages like a showman. He was laughing as he proclaimed it, but he was the only one. There was no mirth in the eyes of the crowd. They probably couldn’t understand him, thought Rhael. Perhaps the savages don’t all speak Oestersh. When the old man turned back there was a cold fury in his gray eyes.

  “Tell me, Lord Uhlmet, how many spoons does it take to replace the life of a child?”

  Uhlmet started to speak.

  “Wait! Before you answer, let me be more exacting.” He cast his eyes over the crowd and motioned three men and three women forward. “How many spoons does it take to replace the lives of these people’s children?”

  The six people stared at Rhael with their haunted expressions.

  “Can your magic spoon return a father or mother’s affection? Can it do these things, my lord?”

  Now the old man’s voice had lost all its mellifluous charm and carried with it a dangerous and darkening edge that cut and bit deeper and deeper into Rhael as he spoke, seemingly gaining momentum as he drove his questions.

  “Perhaps if my lord has a way of dividing the spoon so that each family can have a small piece of it to aid them in their loss? Does that seem fitting to you, you monster? What were you sent here for Uhlmet? Truth will bring you mercy.”

  Rhael did not respond at once. A sharp crack to the point of his shoulder with the staff and his arm was numb and on fire.

  “I was to survey! I was to interview fair-haired youths! Write down the village names and survey the youths!”

  To his shock and dismay Rhael was in tears again, but his mind could not fight the pain and keep up with the questioning. He kept blurting things out. “I followed my orders! My men were unruly and wanted the gold and the women, I was merely keeping them in line!”

  “You saved us from your men by taking the children?”

  “No! I was following orders!”

  “And what orders did you give your men the night after Tregethrin?”

  “What night do you mean?”

  “The village from where you took the children, Tregethrin. What did you tell your men?”

  “Yes, I did that. I took them along. I told them to make camp by the river.”

  “Yes, and you told them to butcher the last of the goats.”

  How did he know that? “I’m not sure if I did.”

  “You did. I have it from one of your men.”

  Rhael paused.

  “You made a jest, it seems, a jest about goats and kids. It’s what your translator keeps repeating in our tongue. Over and over again, as you say.” Rhael’s look of shock and incredulity prompted the old man to continue. “You see, Lord Uhlmet, our spies followed you from Tregethrin and watched three fair children enter your tent. They watched all night and waited for you to release them, but no children came out of your tent. Our spies entered your tent in the night and found only you within. Only the Lord Uhlmet saw the new day dawn.” He shook his head disdainfully, “Every means you use to try and escape from the truth shall fail you. We know you killed our children. Now you must reap your harvest.”

  Rhael tried to protest, but the old man held up his hand and waved him to silence.

&n
bsp; “We have prepared a place for you, my lord, though it will not be to your liking. At least that is my greatest wish; long may you linger there.”

  He saw the old man turn and say something to the men who had brought out the gold and silver, and then he was being hauled to his feet and dragged. As he was shoved through the door he caught sight of the translator. They locked eyes. The man smiled grimly at him, upside down and hanging there. Rhael could only think of him hanging the other way as he was dragged off into the cold night.

  Three

  Joth had found the picket lines and taken the two best horses he could in a hurry without being spotted. He had made it back to the base of the hill and tied the horses to a small oak before making a mad scramble up to where he had left Wat sleeping. His heart was pounding in his chest. He was unused to trying to move quietly and avoid being seen, and he knew he was not particularly skilled at it. He was out of practice in regards to everything besides drilling and moving in formation. Now that he was alone without his comrades in the rank and file, Joth felt completely vulnerable and defenseless. Somehow he had managed to get away and back again with two horses in tow, and though he was elated, there was a desperate feeling welling up inside him, a feeling of panic now that he had almost reached Wat. What if they’ve discovered him? He thought, what if they are waiting for me there with Wat? He pushed these thoughts aside as he climbed up the hill, telling himself over and over again to keep calm and get to Wat so that they could both mount up and leave this sorry mess behind them.