by Gwen Perkins
The
Universal Mirror
Copyright © 2012 by Gwen Perkins
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
Hydra Publications
337 Clifty Dr
Madison, IN 47250
www.hydrapublications.com
To Amaranth, Nynaeve, Oisin, and Laura.
PART 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART 2
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
PART 3
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Samples of Other Hydra Titles
Andraste by Marisa Mills
Bridgeworld by Travis McBee
Extraterrestrials by Kenneth C. Eng
Gnosis by Tom Wallace
The Heart Denied by Linda Anne Wulf
Secret by Morinda Montgomery
PART 1
Chapter 1
Asahel could feel the heat of the lantern perilously close to his face as he worked, his fingers clutching the handle of the shovel and pushing down deep into the ground. He forced it down further, pressing his heavy foot against the metal and putting his weight against it, feeling the packed dirt crunch beneath him. The air between them smelled of loam and rain, the dirt wet and so slick that he almost slid into it again with another good push. The lantern rocked again as Quentin tried to match him, swaying on the branch on which they'd propped it as Quentin leaned into the dirt, his strength less than the other man's, borne as it was by a lean frame, tall though it was.
"Watch the light," was all Asahel said. His voice was calm, too calm for the enterprise.
"You can't dig this alone." Quentin answered but he put the shovel down and reached up in the branch to unhook the lantern. A faint stream of oil hit his arm and he winced. The sound of digging stopped.
"What happened?"
"Just burnt myself." He placed the lantern on the ground where it did little good. The light extended only faintly past the glass, shining a brief, bright circle to the edge of the pit. He heard a grunt, and then a clod of dirt flew up, spattering his hair. He sighed, reaching up to wipe it free, and then called down, "Couldn't we just cast a spell? Do you have to do all that digging?"
"I have got to do all this digging, aye." Asahel's gaze rose. He was a short man but the pit they had dug yawned only to his shoulder. It has to be six feet buried or more, Quent thought dimly. That meant a good hour or more of work. He leaned down and offered his friend a hand. He just wrinkled his nose and shook his head hurriedly, the dark curls twitching in the lamplight, the flickering of the light changing the tangles into a dark halo. His back hunched as he reached back down for the shovel. "We haven't got all week or even past the night. You know what this is that we've done."
He knew but he wouldn't speak the word. It was as if speaking the crime would seal the commission of it. They hadn't yet completed what they'd come to do.
"Then we'll do it together," he said. He put his hand against the dirt gingerly, feeling it slide against his skin as he jumped down. They were covered in mud, the pair of them, and as the man picked up the other shovel and pushed it into the ground, he wondered what his wife would say when he returned home. Asahel was thinking the same thing, apparently, as he stopped and looked at Quentin, those curious brown eyes almost blended with the gray haze of the night fog.
"Does Catharine know what you're doing?"
"Do you think she cares?" A broken nail scraped the handle as he put his back into the motion, shoving harder against the dirt. The shovel cracked the ground, striking rock and dirt with equal quickness as he hurried his movements. The smell of the ground here was almost sweet. He tried not to think of what it meant, even as it kept his thoughts from the way that Asahel was watching him, with gentle concern. The other man's eyes almost felt like a hand on the back of his neck, the touch so worried that it provoked a defensive reaction. "Of course, I didn't tell her. How could I tell her? This is madness what we're doing. It's-" And again, Quentin paused. He would not say the word.
"Heresy." It was not a question but an answer. The answer.
"Don't say that." He pushed the metal down so hard it hurt, the impact flinching through the skin to the bone. They were down deeper now. The hole was just above Asahel's head although he could still stand even with the top of the ground.
"Do you think someone will hear us?" He didn't accuse, stating the question without a hint of recrimination.
"It's not that. It's that-" Metal struck earth again. "We haven't done anything yet."
Quentin felt a hand reach his, rough and coarse as the splintered wood itself. It gripped his fingers so hard that he had to stop shoveling, then released. He watched numbly as Asahel knelt to the ground, his eyes nearly black as they reflected against the green of his own. His nose was scrunched, looking up at his friend as he'd found something interesting. Then, gently- ever so gently- Asahel's large hands, graceful where all else about him was not, touched the ground where the shovel had been. His fingers brushed the dirt as if he was touching a woman's hair, sweeping it back to reveal the faint reddish tinge of gnarled heartwood.
"I think," the words were hoarse. "We have."
We don't have to finish this, Quentin thought, suddenly afraid. His heart was pounding in his throat, so hard that he could feel it choking the breath from him. It tasted like ash. He jerked his head to the side, his hand gripping the shovel to keep himself from falling.
"How can we open it?" He asked finally.
"I brought a hammer." The other man wasn't looking at him either. "I'd need to... I think I'd need to loosen the nails. Down here. Then we could maybe carry her?" His voice dropped an octave on the last sentence, so husky that Quentin could barely hear it. Asahel's fingers were still moving, as if something else was directing them, touching the nails on the corner of the casket, shoving his dirty thumbnail underneath it, lightly prying. Quentin looked down at his own hands- long, thin and pale. They were the type of hands that were meant to be playing on a harpsichord or touching a partner's wrist in a dance- not the fingers of a man who was standing in a grave, staring at his best friend.
"I'll get it."
"I can-"
"No, you're heavier." It was a cruel thing for Quentin to say, compounded by his fear as he added, "You'd pull more dirt down on us. I'll go." The truth was, he was frightened of standing in that hole alone, only a board's depth from the dead.
Quentin scrambled out of the hole, long arms grasping at a tree root that jutted from the ground. The man barely managed to pull himself up, gasping as he stumbled against the wet grass, knee soaked by a pool of water. The rain was starting again, a heavy, rolling rain that was beating against his face as he stared up at the heavens. There was no answering sound from the pit below save
the low shuddering of Asahel's breath.
Pants clinging to him, pressed tight with sweat and rain, the man slowly stood, his legs trembling. He tried to take a step towards the wool coat tossed against the base of an oak but could not. The thing in the casket- for he could not, even now, let himself think of it as a person- had been alive. And life- to work any magic that affected life itself, in any form- that was the first Heresy.
There was nothing learned in university to prepare him for the reality of this, whatever he and Asahel had set upon in these still hours.
The breathing from the pit was quickening and Quentin remembered then that, whatever his own fear was, he had left Asahel deep down in the earth, alone with his.
"Have you got the hammer yet?" Asahel's gravelly voice was tight- showing more tension than Quentin suspected his friend would have liked.
"No, not yet." A pause, then Quentin lied to cover his shame. "I can't find it."
"It's in my coat."
His stomach lurched as he heard the words but he didn’t betray his feeling with sound. Instead, he stumbled over to the coat, his hands reddening as they rummaged through the coarse black wool. He dug through pockets full of receipts, coins and small, stray objects before his hand fell on the small wooden handle. Clenching it, he tugged it forth and returned to the hole.
Kneeling, Quentin called, “Do you want me to hand it down?” He heard the sound of a boot stepping in water.
“No, do you know- I think I’d rather you were down here?” Though the sentence was characteristically patient in tone, Quent could sense a strained urgency in the hurried weight of his friend’s voice. “My feet are half-soaked in this rain.” The sharp intake of Asahel’s breath echoed up, then the man added, “They’re not as big as yours.”
“Very funny,” he said, climbing down. His hand still coiled around the hammer so tightly the knuckles were white, he held it out to Asahel.
“You’re going to have to let go.”
“Right.” The fingers uncurled. He’d been unaware of how hard he was holding it. Quentin watched, his body numb, as Asahel knelt in the water, shivering. There wasn’t enough to create a consistent depth of more than a quarter-inch on the casket but he noticed that, clumsy as the broader man was, he managed to plant both of his knees in spots where the wood had warped and water had collected.
That faint, sweet smell was flooding his nostrils again, mingling with the complex textures of sweat, rain, earth and new grass. It reminded him of rose blossoms gone sour, overblown and gone to seed.
The first nail cracked, the wood of the casket groaning with the pressure. Asahel’s knee pressed down a little harder as he leaned forward, the wood sagging underneath his weight.
“Stop,” Quentin said. “Stop. This doesn’t seem right.”
“That’s because it’s not.” The other man’s paling face flickered with green shadows as he looked up at Quentin, wide brown eyes sunken with lack of sleep. “But it was your idea.”
“I didn’t think-” The clattering of the hammer against the wood as it dropped from Asahel’s fingers broke the words.
“I know you didn’t,” Asahel’s face looked fevered now, the bridge of nose and cheek so red it looked as if touching it would blister the skin. “You never do.”
“What do you mean by that?” He stepped closer, his foot bracing the pooling water that Asahel was kneeling in.
“Nothing, I guess.” The wind picked up and the lantern above them rocked, pulling the light away from the top of the hole. It was now so black that he couldn’t see the other man. Quentin could only feel the warmth echoing off his legs, only warm because it was so bitterly cold in the rest of the space.
“What do you mean by that?” Quentin repeated helplessly.
“You brought the shovel.” There was a long pause before Asahel said, “But I had to do most of the digging. That’s all.” It was more than shovel and hands of which he spoke. The younger man pushed himself off the ground slowly, body groaning from the strain of it. He didn’t take the hand that his friend was holding out. Quentin thought to himself that it was because he could not see it.
“She- it- was alive once.” It was a tame argument after the impassioned rhetoric that had brought Asahel with him in the dark of the night. “It didn’t seem real before.”
“No,” Asahel agreed. “It didn’t.”
“Perhaps if you hadn’t chosen a woman-”
“Perhaps.” But he didn’t sound convinced. The thud of metal of wood stilled Quentin slightly until he felt Asahel press the handle into his hands, still damp with the other man’s sweat. “You’re filling it in though.”
Chapter 2
Quentin’s boots were still mud-slicked from the rain when he entered the hall. He stood in the entrance for a moment; his arms outstretched just slightly, water dripping down from his coat onto the floor. It was too late for servants to answer, however, and he had his coat off and in hand by the time Cosimo came barreling down the corridor. The manservant’s eyes were still crusted in sleep, fingers curled in the fist that was his only weapon.
“Sir—” Despite the tired blinking of his eyes, Cosimo didn’t yawn. “Let me take your coat.”
He held out an arm towards Quentin and the younger man draped the damp fabric over it, ignoring the fact that Cosimo was still in his nightclothes. The ritual was performed as gracefully as if Quentin had come in at sunset rather than near-dawn.
“Is Catharine awake?” Quentin’s voice lifted on the question, his foolish eyes hopeful.
Cosimo hesitated.
“Come on, man,” Quentin said, “I know that you hear everything in this house.” The movement of the older man’s head was close enough to a nod to give Quentin hope.
“Perhaps you would like—”
“No, no.” Quentin’s eyes were still on the landing. “Don’t bother on my account. I’m home late, that’s all.” If Cosimo thought his lord’s behavior strange, his face didn’t betray it. He simply nodded, picking up his lamp.
“Do you need anything more of me then?”
“Blast, no,” Quentin laughed unevenly. “Just don’t remind me tomorrow what a fool I was tonight.” Cosimo nodded again, this time deeply, and began to walk back towards the servants’ quarters. The other man waited for him to disappear completely before springing up the stairs.
Catharine’s room was at the far end of the hall, at opposite ends to his own. Since their wedding night three years before, Quentin had spent little time behind that door. No servants’ gossip or the idle chatter of society had brought them any closer together—instead, the more people talked, the further away she edged from him. He stared longingly at the crack of light under the door, not invitation, but announcement.
He walked over. His knuckles rapped lightly against the wood, then drew away.
Quentin looked down at his hands and saw that they, too, were still dirty. Bits of clay and dust tainted the lines of his palm as he flexed it, watching the grime fall in tiny flakes to the floor. How bad were Asahel’s hands? Even at his cleanest, his friend’s face seemed always to be smudged with dirt, his clothing to smell of the sea.
Quentin loved that about him but he would never, ever admit it.
The door opened while he was thinking of the other man. When he looked up, he wasn’t sure how long Catharine had been staring. Her eyes were the only beautiful part left of her face—wide and gray; there was a life in them that he knew no other woman to possess. The rest of her skin was pitted and scarred, a reminder of the plague that had come to Cercia just before she reached womanhood.
“Yes?” She asked, sleep in her voice. As always, Quentin felt a tremble on the back of his neck at the sound of her words. He could feel his ears start to go red at the tips, the heat flushing rapidly into his cheeks.
He didn’t know what to say now that the moment was upon him.
“It’s late,” Quentin finally managed to scratch out. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it, save for some lost,
lingering hope that she might care.
“I know.” Catharine’s eyes narrowed. A pock on her left cheek strained with the gesture, the red skin cracking. She crossed her arms over her chest like a shield. What do you expect me to say? Her gaze seemed to ask and Quentin looked down once more at the dirt covering his body.
She moved away from the door, opening a path inwards, and he said, “No. I didn’t come here for that.” It hurt to see her shoulders relax as he said it, her arms coming uncrossed.
“What did you come for then?”
“I thought we could… talk.” The confidence he showed his best friend disappeared in the presence of his wife.
“Talk? About what?” Everything about Catharine went sharp. “We don’t talk, Quentin.” She withdrew again, her gaze receding. He noticed how thin she’d grown since they married, how pointed the tips of the elbow she rubbed nervously.
He reached for her and she flinched.
Their eyes met. Catharine turned away first.
“I wanted to tell you where I was tonight,” he said lamely.
“I don’t want to know.” He couldn’t determine what she was thinking by the sound of her voice. It was simply heavy, the sound of a woman used to carrying the world on her back. “Please, Quentin, if you need a confessor, call Cosimo. It is what we pay him for, isn’t it?”
And with that, the door shut in his face. The sound of its closing was quiet—not even Catharine dared to slam a door in the face of a husband.
Quentin almost knocked again. He knew what she was thinking. There were no good reasons for him to have been out almost until dawn. The cold, harsh light of morning shining through the hall windows reminded him that this was best. The lie that she believed was better—safer—than the truth.
