The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  Rebekah kissed Soren, and he felt his body come alive with excitement. He clumsily reached for the back of her dress but then found himself pushed back to the bed by a wall of invisible force.

  Rebekah narrowed her eyes. “Allow me.”

  One by one, articles of Soren’s clothing unfastened and slid off his body as she sensually removed her dress. He ached for her, to touch her body, for the overwhelming power he drew from the touch of a woman’s skin. He had never felt so good. His breath ragged, he waited for her to mount him.

  His eyes shut in ecstasy as he felt himself slip inside her. It was the best feeling he could remember. He embraced her as they tumbled back on the bed. Flipping her over, he thrust himself as she traced her hands over his sweaty chest. Her head tipped back, and she let out a slow moan.

  The pleasure mounted until it seemed like the whole bed was vibrating. He climaxed inside her within a few minutes.

  Rebekah laughed. “You’re new to this, but it’s customary in your profession to inform a woman before you are about to finish.”

  “Sorry.” Soren grinned. “Is sex always this good?”

  “It usually lasts a little longer,” she admitted. “But we can work on it.” She dressed quickly and set a pouch of coins on his nightstand.

  “Why do you pay for sex?” Soren asked. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  “Because I can afford it. Goodnight, Soren.”

  She left. Soren was still naked and sweaty on the bed. He felt virile and ready for more action. He basked in the sensation.

  Then he heard a scream from the room below. A long terrifying wail of agony emerged through the floor. Getting out of bed, he put his ear to the floorboards, trying to make out more of the sound.

  Under his bed, a hole in the floor opened to the room below and let in a beam of reddish light. Soren snatched a wadded up rag next to the hole and quickly stuffed it in. It stopped some of the noise.

  I should get back to work.

  TEN

  Tea Time

  LYTA

  People say that Patreans do not have souls because we were created by man and not gods. I cannot measure this for I have always been what I am, an instrument of war and death, fearless and without mercy to my enemies—even when they share the face of my brothers.

  Our people turn from religion because it often turns from us. Yet I have found purpose in faith that transcends the bond of contract. If Ohan is real, and we have seen His miracles, is there not any contract more worthy than service to Him?

  I may not have a soul. A soul cannot be measured. But faithful practice? That is easily tallied by my actions, my prayers, my purity. I serve the Great Houses and Ohan by being their instrument of death and violence.

  For if I have no soul, there is nothing to be sullied.

  —CONFESSOR AMES, REFLECTIONS

  EACH OF SAFINA’S knuckles was clad in gold rings depicting the sun of Ohan set in various jewels. She sat in the atrium adjacent to her personal quarters. Beams of sunlight filtered through the latticework of the domed enclosure. She reclined in her chair, black curls framing her wide face. She smiled warmly. “Lyta, please come in and have some tea.”

  Lyta approached cautiously. She had never been invited to Safina’s quarters and had recently poisoned her daughter. Lyta’s stomach squirmed, but she tried to remain composed. “You asked to see me?”

  Safina motioned for Lyta to take a seat. “We get so little time to speak, you and I. With your sisters in Dessim, I thought this would be an opportunity. You didn’t choose to go with them. I wondered why.”

  Lyta shook her head. “I have turned my back on that part of my life, Mother Safina.”

  Safina poured some tea into Lyta’s glass. It smelled of jasmine. “I’m sure Shannon misses you. You two spend a lot of time together.”

  “I was her handmaid before you graciously adopted me, Mother Safina. We are close.”

  “Shannon,” Safina drawled, “has always had a fascination with Dessim and its distractions. Even when she was a baby, she had so many questions.”

  Lyta grabbed her teacup and swallowed nervously. “Curiosity is natural. Shannon never knew her birth parents, and she does not look like us. I think it is a simple desire to understand where she comes from.”

  “An interest you do not share,” Safina noted. “Do you have family in that depraved, unholy place? Anyone you miss?”

  Lyta’s shoulders tensed. “No.”

  Safina smiled warmly. “Child, it is fine. I know you did not spring from the ground, and if you were an orphan, you would have been given to Baash. So you must have had parents there. I am only curious as any mother would be.”

  Safina was right. Under the Compromise, young orphans were split by gender to live in one of the two cities. The males learned trade in Dessim, while the women learned to tend the Temple of Ohan.

  Lyta cast down her blue eyes. “My parents were Turisian nomads. My mother died when I was born, and my father brought me to the hateful city of Dessim to sell me as a whore. I escaped with my innocence… There is nothing for me there. I have told no one this, not even Shannon.”

  Safina smiled. “I like secrets. Can I share one of mine?”

  “If you deem me worthy, Mother.”

  Safina reached down and produced a pearl inlaid sandalwood box which she slid across the table. “Open it.”

  Lyta took a deep breath and flicked the gold latch. Delicately, her hands lifted the lid. Inside was a stack of pages torn from books. The cheap paper and smudged ink were like the pulp novels sold on Leader Street. “It’s pages from books.”

  “I have a weakness for the lurid literature of our wanton sister city, mysteries in particular,” Safina admitted freely. “But with every book, I remove the final pages and keep them in this box so I remain strong against temptation. I have read hundreds of books, and I don’t know how a single one ends. It’s given me an appreciation for enigmas.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in sharing this with me,” Lyta said, relieved. Such books were forbidden in Baash. She is opening up to me.

  “You’ve risen quickly in this family, Lyta. You have proven yourself loyal and devoted to the path Ohan sets before you. While my other daughters test their limits and boundaries, you have adhered to the strictures without fail. Shannon is willful, but your good influence keeps her here where she belongs.”

  “Thank you, Mother.” Lyta smiled.

  “Of course. More tea?” Safina offered.

  Lyta nodded gratefully. “Yes, please.”

  Safina refilled her cup. “I should have gotten to know you sooner. The loss of my daughter Bejia has left a place open in our family. It is immoral to show preference for the children born of my womb. I know this, and it is my fault for paying you so little attention.”

  Lyta sipped her tea. “You don’t need to apologize, Mother Safina. There is only love between us.”

  “But I wonder if I had just taken the opportunity before to sit with you as we are now,” Safina said grinning, “if I wouldn’t have figured it out sooner.”

  Lyta froze.

  Safina’s expression went cold. “Poisoning Bejia was stupid and reckless. It’s not your style at all. You’ve been nothing but careful in your schemes before.”

  “Bejia was not poisoned,” Lyta protested. “We all drank from the same container, and I finished her—”

  “Fire beetle husk,” Safina interjected. “Painful but not fatal in small doses. And it’s something our house confessors have in plentiful supply. It has no taste or smell.”

  “But I was fine. I am sorry to say, but Ohan—”

  “That tea you’ve been drinking is spiked with enough husk to burn your tongue off.”

  Lyta narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying.”

  “No. You are.” Safina clapped her hands. “Guards.”

  The side doors to Safina’s quarters burst open, and four female Patreans in white armor and gauzy veils marched toward Lyta.

&
nbsp; “You are an abomination,” Safina said. “I do not know what foul witchcraft you practice, and like the pages from my books, I will never know. The confessors, however, will torture your secrets out of you. After that, you will be branded and banished from House Ibazz and possibly Baash, if you are not sentenced to death. We will never know what became of you. Shannon will believe you abandoned her. A letter already awaits her when she returns.”

  Lyta fumed. “You are making a mistake.”

  Safina laughed. “I’m correcting one. Enjoy the absolution chambers, child. Perhaps the confessors will learn who exactly in Dessim you’re hiding from.”

  Lyta flung her tea on Safina’s face. “I poisoned your daughter because she was a bitch like her mother!”

  Safina shrieked in agony as the guards grappled Lyta. She closed her eyes and didn’t resist.

  The confessors left Lyta strapped to the chair for hours. In the dank undercroft, the only light came from a sputtering oil lamp set amid dozens of rusty instruments of torture, staged for maximum intimidation. She saw long pointed tools, along with blades and other contraptions for which she could only imagine the purpose. They hadn’t touched her yet. The confessors wanted her to be terrified first.

  All she could think about was Shannon, finding that forged letter. How Lyta wished Shannon’s second sight could view through Lyta’s eyes. She had faith in their love. Shannon wouldn’t be tricked, and even if she was, she would flee to Dessim to find Lyta without a second’s hesitation. Perhaps that was the second part of Safina’s revenge—sending the poor girl to the wild streets of Dessim to be eaten by the wolves that preyed upon desperate pretty girls.

  Lyta knew what she had to do. She just needed to wait for Shannon to get back home.

  The confessor emerged from the hallway outside the room. He wore a featureless golden mask with a mesh slit for his eyes. He was a hulking man with bone pale skin, covered in Patrean tattoos. The confessors, considered soulless, did not receive the sacrament of sun except during the solstices and equinoxes.

  “It is my right to offer prayer at sunset,” Lyta announced.

  “It is,” the confessor intoned. “But you are one hour from reprieve. Now let us begin.”

  The large man paced around the table of instruments and selected a long sharp spike.

  “Please,” Lyta pleaded. “Before you begin, is Shannon upstairs? I must know that she made it home safely.”

  The confessor caressed her hand. “You have lovely fingernails…”

  “Just tell me.” Lyta stared into his eyes. “I will confess all to know she is safe.”

  He grunted and stared hungrily into her eyes through the metal mesh. His eyes were brown. And confused.

  Lyta glanced down at her hand. The long metal tool had been inserted beneath her fingernail, she noted. She didn’t miss the sensation of pain, but in situations like this, it would have been helpful to have an inkling of how she should react.

  Lyta ripped off the leather restraint on her other hand and punched his mask as hard as she could. He flew backward against the table of torture instruments, breaking it to splinters as the metal implements rang loudly against the stone floor. She pulled the long spike from under her fingernail and tossed it into the confessor’s exposed throat.

  The other arm restraint tore easily and she examined her finger. It was already healing. After tearing off the leg cuffs, she walked out of the room. Two Patrean guards blocked her way, so she killed the one on the right by grabbing his head and breaking his neck. Turning, she found the one on the left had buried a scimitar in her gut. She kneed him in the stomach and knocked him back several feet.

  Lyta slid the blade out of her stomach. It was bloodless.

  The blade went into the guard’s guts. He might live if a healer found him in time. The Fodders were just doing their job; she could hardly bear them animosity.

  Striding down the confessor’s hallway to the stairwell, she found two more Patreans stationed there. They drew their blades the second they saw her. Lyta tried to grab the edges of their scimitars with her hands, but the women were much faster and better trained. They slashed at her mercilessly, ruining her dress.

  Lyta punched two fingers into each of their chests, breaking their ribcages. The slashes on her skin were already closed.

  Lyta ripped open the door to the basement, shattering the lock.

  Upstairs, she made her way toward Shannon’s room.

  The halls were ornately inscribed with geometric patterns that danced in the flickering light of the lamps. The floor was mirror polished marble that made little sound as her bare feet padded across it. Lyta found herself in the men’s wing of the Ibazz compound. Although it was a mirror of the women’s, she had never been allowed here and the layout disoriented her.

  She made a wrong turn into a library. Seventh Brother Hazim sat at a long table surrounded by a pool of open books. The fourteen-year-old looked at her in utter surprise.

  Lyta placed a single finger to her lips. He did the same.

  Out of the library and down a long empty corridor. Hearing the approach of footsteps ahead, she ducked into an alcove, pressing herself as tightly as possible against the wall.

  Vyzad’s voice carried through the marble hall. “The heretic is playing this well. He’s been meeting with the houses which have the greatest rivalry. He’s saving the Patriarch for last. He’s a smart man, and I have every belief he will get what he wants.”

  “But Father,” the voice of First Son Jad protested, “he is doubly an abomination. Not only is he a priest of a false god, he is a former Inquisitor. They would have us burned for rejecting their false doctrine.”

  Vyzad and Jad walked past the alcove. Vyzad intently explained, “He is a politician. He uses his religious office when it suits him. All that matters is that he believes we will be sympathetic. He will remove our obstacles for us…”

  Lyta waited for them to pass and then quietly crept down the hall as they continued their discussion.

  She found the door to the inner courtyard and sprinted over to the women’s wing. Making her way to Shannon’s chambers, she threw open the door.

  Shannon spun around. “Lyta?”

  “I didn’t abandon you. The letter was a forgery.”

  Shannon rolled her blue eyes. “Obviously. The letter said you poisoned Bejia out of envy. And I saw that whole wretched conversation with Safina when I was in Dessim. I do check in on them regularly.”

  Lyta smiled and reached for her lover. “Thank Ohan. I thought I’d lost you.”

  Shannon stepped back. “You broke a Patrean’s neck and killed a confessor.”

  “I can explain, but we need to get out of here,” Lyta urged. “We need to go now.”

  “Clearly,” Shannon said. “That’s why I’ve been packing for the both of us. But I want the truth when we get to Dessim.”

  Lyta sighed. “You will have it. All of it.”

  ELEVEN

  Honest Work

  MADDOX

  TASTING MENU

  First Course

  Crispy Fried Scorpion with Lemon Aioli

  Second Course

  Chilled Melon and Potato Vichyssoise

  Third Course

  Live Baby River Eel, Served in Seasoned Wine Broth

  Fourth Course

  Lamb Rack, Seared with Liquid Sunlight and Leeks

  Fifth Course

  Crystallized Sheep’s Milk and Honey

  —TASTING MENU, THE HORRIPILATED GOURMAND. PRICE 280 DUCATS (DOES NOT INCLUDE WINE PAIRING)

  “HOWDY, ISIK,” MADDOX said cheerfully as he strolled into the coroner’s laboratory. The smell, though dampened by medicinal preservatives, was like walking into a Backwash butcher shop in summer when meat in various states of rancidness was sold out of the back door. “Gross.”

  Three tables were piled with the meticulously rendered bits of flesh from the grisly feast. Isik was hunched over one of them, separating the tissues into piles. He stepped back
. “I told you I want nothing to do with your craziness.”

  “Relax. I’m here to help your investigation into my murder,” Maddox explained.

  “You have to have a license for that,” Isik said. “And a formal commission from the Inspector General. Just because you found this pile of crazy shit doesn’t mean you own this case. Thank you for your civic concern, but if I have any questions, I know where to reach you.”

  “The next constellation in the Dark Ecliptic is the Faithless Lover. I have a suspicion of who it’s going to be. The killer is selecting his victims to match the tableau he’s creating. None of these bodies were Leland Buckminster, were they?”

  Isik hesitated. “You figured this out yourself?”

  “I say this without hubris, but I am probably the smartest person you have ever met when it comes to theurgy.”

  “This is not Rivern where the Lyceum, Invocari, and Inquisition could jump into an open investigation,” Isik explained. “We have constables and that is all we have here in Dessim. You should not even be in here.”

  Maddox looked at one of the tables piled with body parts: bone fragments, organs, ribs, shreds of skin. He raised his hands and concentrated. The Sword’s intelligence was great at two things, spatial awareness and anatomical weak points. Maddox’s body was a well of untapped force. They made a perfect pair.

  “The fuck are you doing?” Isik exclaimed.

  The severed bits of flesh floated up into a cloud of whirling mass. Normally it would be impossible for a seal mage to track the motion of so many objects, but the Sword’s exo-brain did it easily, processing each item and rearranging it on the table.

  Isik watched in amazement as Maddox reassembled the body. Two thirds of it was still missing, but it had enough of a face. Maddox willed needle and thread to start sewing it back together, working at a furious pace. It was a middle-aged man, dark hair, pale Genatrovan skin.

  Maddox leaned back and appreciated his work. Offhandedly, he said, “I studied with Pytheria for a while. She’s senile and possibly undead; we don’t ask. They keep her in a locked tower in Amhaven now, but even at her advanced age she had excellent skill with stitching.”