Heroes And Fools totfa-2

by Margaret Weis

  “Lies! Lies!” The vulture face blossomed crimson. Mendel’s eyes fairly bulged out of their sockets. The mage raised his staff high and with surprising speed, considering his withered appearance, struck out at the jeweled and gilded frame of the mirror.

  Vandor’s world rocked, an earthquake of titanic proportions. Mendel had, in times past, told him that if the mage completely shattered the looking glass, his ungrateful wretch of a slave would cease to exist. As futile as his existence was, Grizt still clung to the hope that some day. .

  “Lies!” Mendel rasped again. “I think, my dandy thief, you’ve grown a tad too used to the chill in there! I think you should warm up a little!”

  “Mendel!” Vandor Grizt gasped. The mirror had not shattered, but he was overcome by dizziness and fear. “Think what you’re doing! If you lose me-

  Too late. The furious, bent figure clutched his medallion tight, glaring at the handsome reflection that did not belong to him. “Come out, Grizt!”

  An inexorable force pulled Vandor toward Mendel’s side of the mirror, toward the real world. Try as he might to fight it, the thief could not. First his hand went through the mirror. Then the rest of him was sucked through, all definition of form vanishing.

  On the other side of the mirror, a yard from his master, Vandor Grizt reformed. . yet not completely so. A haze surrounded him, a grayness, as if he had become part smoke. The mirror from which he had just been plucked could almost be seen through his writhing body.

  “For the love of the gods, Mendel!”

  “There are no more gods for you, Grizt, save for me.”

  Vandor had never been a violent man, always preferring stealth and the ladies to unnecessary adventure. Sometimes, though, he had been forced to take action, and if ever there was anyone he would gladly kill, it was his tormentor-now. He had no opportunity, though. Before Vandor could move even one step, his hands began to smoke. The sleeves of his shirt crinkled black from heat. Vandor felt his skin beginning to crackle as horrible pain wracked every fiber of his being.

  “For pity’s sake, Mendel! I’m burning up!”

  “So you are.” The mage watched without emotion, visibly gauging just how far he could go with his slave’s suffering. When Vandor had almost given up, Mendel uttered, “Begone to the mirror, spectre!”

  Instantly Vandor found himself sucked back into the mirror. Now was one of the rare instances when he appreciated the chill, foreboding surroundings to which he had been doomed. All signs of the inferno that had engulfed him disappeared. He shivered, grateful for the blessed cold, for the safety of his mirror prison.

  “Let that be a lesson to you! No more lies! Prester has the crest, and you’ll find it, won’t you, my little mirror thief?”

  Vandor could not look at him. “Yes. . Mendel.”

  “This was only a taste of what I could do to you, Grizt.” The horrific punishment through which he had just put Vandor brightened the mage’s spirits.

  “Remember. . I also have your actual body under a continuing spell. I need new infusions of magic to keep that spell going, you know. Think what would happen if I were forced to allow the preserving forces to fade from your empty shell.”

  Vandor fell against the mirror, pleading with the madman on the other side. “No! Please! Mendel. . Mendel, you would be taking away the one thing that means anything to me, and I would be of no use to you at all! Where will you find another thief so knowledgeable of the ways in which the rich and cunning hide their treasures? Where will you find another with the cleverness to see behind their facades? Where will you-”

  “. . Find another as vain as you, Vandor Grizt? Certainly bold. . at least you used to be. What other fool would dare steal from a wizard without any magic of his own to protect him? Who else would think he could enter my sanctum not once, but twice, to take away those things most precious to me?”

  Vanity had indeed been Vandor’s downfall. Another mage had promised him much for a token carried by his rival. That alone should not have been worth the risk, but the mage had played on Vandor’s reputation, that no thief could compare to Grizt. Vandor had stolen that trinket and stolen it with ease, understanding that even the best wizards underestimate their security. The very fact that he had no magical powers himself encouraged him to find a different way inside the sanctum, one that no spellcaster would predict of a mortal man. Vandor would wait weeks before striking such places, planning his moves, but when he acted, he usually acted well.

  Emboldened by his first success, Vandor took on a second such challenge, then a third. The fourth brought him to the then-impressive abode of the great black mage Mendel. Mendel’s citadel was a slightly more time-consuming affair, but in the end Grizt made his way out undetected. . so he supposed.

  When but a few weeks later, a hooded black robe of more than attractive female features offered him a sizable ransom to steal from Mendel again, Vandor Grizt at first hesitated. The prime rule of any good thief is never to strike too soon again at the same place. However, he learned that Mendel intended to be away for two weeks. Unable to resist both the challenge and the feminine allure of the one offering to pay for the job, the daring thief took the assignment. He even chose a different mode of entry, knowing that the wizard might have discovered traces of the last trespass. Entering Mendel’s inner sanctum proved to be a little more difficult the second time, but finding the artifact in question, now that caused inordinate trouble. It was small and rumored to be hidden in an unusual place, the female black robe had said. Vandor had cautiously searched everywhere in the sanctum, behind paintings and wall hangings, before finally coming to the covered mirror.

  There he made his fatal mistake.

  At first he remained wary of the mirror, studying its intricate framework but unwilling to approach. Then, curiosity got the better of him, and Vandor lifted the black curtain a bit. Seeing his own hand reflected in the mirror, the thief raised the curtain more.

  At this point, vanity took over. Vandor paused too long to take an admiring glance at himself, a glance that became a lingering look at the handsome thief who had dared not once but twice to steal from a deadly black-robed wizard. How clever, how handsome he looked.

  Before Vandor could realize what was happening. . he was drawn into the mirror. Instead of looking into the mirror, he now found himself looking out. . out at his own limp, sprawled body.

  “Always think yourself so clever, dandy!” Mendel mocked now as he listened to Vandor plead from behind the mirror. “The very next day after you’d first had the audacity to steal from me, I brought the mirror into play!

  I then searched around, and it wasn’t too difficult to find some bauble that a petty thief as arrogant and foolish as yourself might be tempted to steal! I already knew your great weakness, your love for yourself! Ha! I knew that you would not be able to resist gazing at yourself in the covered mirror, and so with the willing aid of one of my own order, a most delectable associate, I set about preparing your doom!”

  Mendel had not returned to his citadel for an entire day. In that time Vandor had grown frantic and very cold. He was trapped in the mirror and continued to stare at the body from which his-spirit? — had become separated. In every way he still looked like himself, even down to the clothes he was wearing before the mirror captured him, but his true corporeal form was abandoned on the other side, dying.

  “For your crimes against me,” the mage reminded him, “I commanded you to a lifetime of servitude. When-and only when-I’m satisfied that you’ve served your punishment, I’ll return spirit to body and make you whole again-but not before you find me the Arcyan Crest!”

  “My body!” Vandor gasped. “Is it still well? The spell you cast over it keeps it intact?” It was his only hope. “You doubt me?” Mendel’s hand rose to the medallion. “No! No!” The thief sank back.

  His gnarled master seemed mollified. “Better, then! All right, Grizt! You’ve failed me once, but you’ve brought back this other prize, so I cannot compl
ain too much. Tonight, though, you will return to Prester’s sanctum and search it again! This time you must not fail. I am losing patience!”

  “But if he doesn’t-”

  “He has it! Do not doubt me!” Again the staff came up and rattled the frame of the mirror.

  Grizt remained silent as his foul prison trembled. He knew he could not convince the damned mage otherwise. He feared the medallion’s tortures. Even the medallion’s worst could not compare with his fear that some day he might not have a body to which to return. “I will find it,” he promised. “See that you do.”

  The great hall. A banquet room. The kitchen. Prester’s bed in which Prester himself slept. The room in which his only child rested, a small girl not even ten years of age. The spell that bound Vandor to Mendel’s special mirror allowed him to travel anywhere there was a reflection, be it glass, metal, or a bowl of purest water. The spell permitted the thief of mirrors to reach out as far as the length of his arms, sometimes even the upper half of his torso if he struggled.

  Moonlight shining through a partially open window glittered on a polished breastplate once worn by Prester’s grandfather, a Knight of Solamnia. Through the breastplate Vandor Grizt emerged, glancing about the room, Prester’s personal library, counting the seconds before the growing heat would consume him. He had been in the library before and noticed nothing. However, libraries were often the location of wall vaults, hollowed-out books, and hidden drawers in desks.

  Vandor sank back into the breastplate, only to emerge a moment later from the tiny, metallic surface of a desk drawer handle. Slim hands with tapering fingers reached into the real world and drew open another drawer. Grizt felt under the top, looking for a secret hiding place.

  Nothing. He returned to the breastplate, which offered him a better view, and studied the chamber again. Assuming Prester had the Arcyan Crest, which Vandor doubted, he might not even realize its significance. Even some of the former wizards from whom Mendel had forced him to steal had not always recognized the prizes in their own possession. That had sometimes made his task more easy, but just as often it made things more frustrating, for victims with no idea as to the true worth of a treasure were wont to store it anywhere.

  On a hunch-and hunches had, for the most part, served him well in the past-Vandor Grizt returned to the bedroom of Prester’s daughter.

  He had not searched the room as thoroughly as he should, feeling some guilt about rifling through the young child’s belongings. The girl’s mother had died when she was but five, the victim of some malady. Unlike her husband, the mother had had no taste for magic, but she did boast a noble lineage encompassing not one but several great houses through the centuries. Little money had come with that lineage, but her noble station had given her husband a status that aided his ambitions, going from red-robed mage to landowner.

  Vandor studied the slumbering child, guessing that she would never wake from so deep a sleep. Slipping out of the small mirror in her chamber, he reached into a nearby chest and quietly but quickly searched the contents. Clothes, pins, toys. . all the things of a well-born child. Vandor recalled his own early childhood, a kitchen brat in a lord’s castle. He had gained a hunger for fine things from that existence, ever watchful as the nobles wasted what he so coveted.

  Across the room he spotted a cabinet, but at first a useful reflective surface near it resisted his searching eyes. Vandor’s gaze drifted to a small stand by the child’s bed. On the stand stood a mug of water, only partially emptied. Enough of a reflective surface for his needs. With careful planning, it would enable him to search the cabinet.

  He had to make this a most thorough search, even more so than the last. If the Arcyan Crest was hidden anywhere in this castle, Vandor had to find it. He had no doubt Mendel would keep his promise to punish him for failing.

  Transferring to the mug took but the blink of an eye, but from there the thief moved with caution. Not only might the mug wobble, but the child just might wake because of his nearness.

  Slowly Vandor Grizt rose from the water. Head and arms floated above, a misty layer below them. Concentrating on maintaining his partially solid form, Vandor stretched his left hand forward, seizing the nearest drawer handle.

  With some difficulty, he searched the first two drawers, returning quickly to the safety of his chill realm whenever the burning grew hot enough to threaten him. Unfortunately, Vandor found nothing in either drawer, and the time he had wasted irritated him. Determined, the spectral thief reached for the third.

  A high squeak from the drawer made him freeze.

  In her bed, the young girl turned over, mumbling. Vandor vanished into the reflection, then, when he felt the water rock, jumped swiftly into the mirror on the other side of the room. From there he watched as the child sat up and drank from the mug. The thief silently cursed; if she finished the water, he would have no method by which to reach the cabinet again.

  At that moment he noticed the brooch in her hair.

  That a child would wear a brooch in bed seemed odd enough, but the piece looked valuable, making Vandor all the more curious. He waited in frustration as the girl finally put the mug down and lay back on the bed. He waited until she had fallen asleep, then, with one last look at her face, shifted back to the container.

  The remaining water barely covered the bottom of the cup, but it served for one with no corporeal form. Pushing himself, Vandor managed to get as much as half his torso above the mug. Gently he leaned over and studied the brooch as closely as he could. Eyes accustomed to darkness had little trouble making out the various details of the jewelry. A ruby sat in the midst of two warring griffons of gold, their diamond eyes glaring at one another. A kingfisher flew above, sword and shield in its talons. Tiny encrusted points thrust out from every edge of the item, which resembled a miniature sunburst. The brooch was valuable purely in terms of coin; Vandor knew it was invaluable to him. He stared at the child’s bauble with the eyes of one who has seen the culmination of a lifetime quest.

  He had found the Arcyan Crest.

  Why Prester would keep so valuable an object, even if he did not know its true nature, on the person of a small child, Vandor could not say. Sentiment, perhaps. Assuming that the former red robe did not know its magical history, he might have given it to the child as some heirloom from her mother. Had not Prester’s wife come from royal lineage. . possibly even descended from Arcya?

  All that mattered to the thief of mirrors was that he now beheld the one object that might prompt Mendel to grant him his freedom. To walk again among men, to kiss a fair damsel, drink a little ale, and pick a pocket or two. . But first he had to steal the brooch from the child.

  Already his body sweltered from heat. Wisps of smoke rose from his fingers. However, Vandor Grizt did not return to the water in the mug. He could not wait any longer for his freedom. His tapering fingers gently lifted the brooch so he could undo the clasp. Another second or two and he had the Arcyan Crest free. Child’s play! he thought to himself, admiring his own pun even as the pain, coursing through his body, began to overwhelm him.

  Holding the crest close to him, he dove into the watery reflection, then from there to the mirror across the room. True mirrors gave him a swifter path back, and with a treasure of this nature Vandor desired the swiftest path possible. The longer the artifact remained with him in this chilling realm, the more peril there was. Real objects lasted only a little longer in the mirror realm than he could last outside the mirror, only they froze where he burned.

  “Mama’s jewel. .”

  Vandor Grizt stiffened in the mirror. The little girl, blonde hair half obscuring her features, stared back at him from across the room, an indecipherable expression on her delicate features. She pointed at him, at the crest he held, in a manner so accusing that the thief felt she could see him with strange clarity.

  Flee, you fool! he told himself. No force held him here save astonishment, and he could not afford that now. Grizt thought of Mendel’s cursed mirror
, knowing full well that to think of it meant to take the first step in returning.

  Yet, even more astonishingly, he remained in the child’s room.

  “Give me Mama’s jewel!”

  Suddenly the thief found himself dragged toward the mirror. The Arcyan Crest-the young girl’s brooch- struggled to free itself from his grasp. Try as he might, Vandor could not keep his hands from passing through the glass.

  The realization struck him. The little girl was a mage! Small wonder to him now that Prester had given her the crest. Prester must have seen his daughter’s talent, a rarity since the Chaos War. The crest would only increase her abilities.

  The child continued to glare accusingly at him, but Vandor fought back fiercely. If he forfeited the artifact then not only would he lose his one hope of gaining his freedom but Mendel would punish him horribly.

  The war of wills continued. Grizt’s arms were extended completely from the mirror but no farther. The battle might have gone on for the rest of the night if not for the inevitable. The thief’s hands, then his arms, began to smoke. Before Vandor’s very eyes, his fingers, his expert, thieving fingers, blackened. The skin peeled away, then the muscle began to burn, revealing darkening bone. Yet, despite the incredible agony, the horror, Vandor Grizt refused to yield.

  He heard a minute gasp, then felt himself falling backward head over heels. He was unable to orient himself for a moment. Slowly it occurred to him what had happened: the child had noted his terrible fate. She couldn’t help but allow her concentration to lapse, not only saving him but enabling him to escape.

  Escape to where, though? Vandor blinked, seeing that now he stood on the inside of a mirror in a familiar chamber-Lady Elspeth’s. He knew it to be hers for suddenly the noblewoman gasped, dropped a small hand mirror, and turned his way. However, Vandor had already disappeared, the power of Mendel’s sinister looking glass pulling him away. He found it astonishing that he had been cast into a foreign mirror without his knowledge, or the wizard’s permission. Or Lady Elspeth’s. . although Vandor might be condemned to be a phantom, still his thoughts sometimes turned to solid flesh. He had marked the beauty of Lady Elspeth. That desire must have been present when he had been cast loose by the startled girl.