The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  “We should get out of Dessim as soon as possible,” Lyta pleaded.

  “She’s the only one with answers about what I am and what my ability means,” Shannon insisted. “I’m sorry, Lyta, but I have to know.”

  Lyta folded her arms. “Fine. But first we’re getting you some clothes.”

  Lyta led Shannon through the streets. When she used her sight to see through another’s eyes, she was effectively blind. They wore matching hooded cloaks and nondescript garments.

  “There’s a well outside the building,” Shannon said. “Maybe fifteen paces.”

  Lyta squeezed her lover’s hand. “I think I see it up ahead.”

  The armory district was a mirror of the one in Baash. It was mostly Patrean soldiers and craftsmen. They were superlative weapon smiths, able to work long hours even into old age. Lyta had heard that all Patreans reached physical maturity at thirteen years and died on their ninetieth birthday, if they survived battle that long.

  It was rare to see an old Patrean. In their later years, they started to show marked physical differences based on the lifestyle they led. An old smith with a long white moustache pounded a sword on an anvil, his right arm massive and sinewy from decades of wielding his hammer.

  “There,” Shannon whispered as she gripped Lyta’s hand. “She can see us out of the corner of her eye. To your right… I mean your other right.”

  Lyta led her girlfriend into an open structure with rows of anvils and several forges. They walked past several stations, and Lyta could tell by Shannon’s reactions they were close. But she didn’t see a single Genatrovan amid the Fodders, let alone any blonde woman who could be Shannon’s mother.

  Shannon suddenly released Lyta’s hand and approached a middle-aged Patrean woman with gray-streaked black hair. “Mother?”

  The haggard woman looked up from her anvil. Patrean women were not the muscular caricature of male beauty that their men were. They possessed earthy, natural bodies and aged reasonably well. She looked up at Shannon, mouth falling open.

  “She’s a Patrean,” Lyta explained. “She can’t be your mother. Patreans only beget their own kind.”

  “Shannon?” the woman said slowly.

  “Mom?” Shannon asked.

  “Come with me. Now.” The woman set down her hammer and with great urgency pulled Shannon out of the pavilion. The woman smiled to the foreman and said, “Very important client. She needs a custom fitted breastplate.”

  The foreman, a Fodder going gray at his temples, nodded. “It’s fine, Ara. Greer can cover. She’s not busy.”

  Lyta followed Ara and Shannon as they briskly walked to a building with private fitting rooms. The room was cramped, but it had a sturdy door and stone walls that afforded privacy. A small pedestal stood in the center for the person being measured, and a mirror rested against the wall opposite the door.

  “Shannon.” Ara clutched her daughter’s hands. “How did you find me?”

  Shannon looked at the woman askance. “You know my name?”

  Ara closed her eyes and shook her head. “When you were born, we gave both of you Genatrovan names. We chose Shannon and Shane because they were the most popular.”

  “How could you be her mother? Explain,” Lyta insisted.

  “I have a brother?” Shannon asked.

  Ara nodded sadly. “He would have been given to the orphanage in Dessim.”

  Shannon laughed. “I have a real brother.”

  Ara nodded. “And six half-brothers, along with five half-sisters. Though they are all Patrean.”

  “Who was her father?” Lyta asked.

  Ara shrugged. “Don’t remember his name. He was garrisoned here for a Unification Day security. We spent a night together, and I didn’t see him again.”

  “My father was a Patrean as well?” Shannon looked perplexed.

  “That’s why I had to give you up when you were born,” Ara explained. “If the Warmasters knew about you, they would have… I don’t know, but you and your brother were born different. That never happens. I had to give you away.”

  “She’s lying,” Lyta said.

  “She knew my name, Lyta.”

  Ara said, “I would know my own daughter’s eyes as well as any Patrean—even after so many years. You must tell no one what you are. The Warmasters would hunt you to the ends of Creation if they knew you existed.”

  “Then you don’t know what I am?” Shannon asked.

  Ara looked down. “There are stories passed around the barracks that the Fathers who created us hid their greatest knowledge in our blood. That one in ten thousand carries some bit of their ancient magic. That some Patreans can wield the power of theurgy. But I don’t know more than that.”

  Shannon said, “It’s how I found you.”

  Ara smiled, her eyes wet with tears. “You are beautiful. You are unique and powerful. I don’t know why the Fathers chose me to carry you and your brother, but you must never tell anyone what you really are. By regulation all Patrean children born to enlisted soldiers are property of the militia. They will take you away, and you might never return. You have to leave… now.”

  “I’m a noble daughter of House Ibazz,” Shannon said. “Even disgraced and stripped of my name, I would never be remanded to their custody when I look nothing like you.”

  Ara sniffled. “Perhaps you are safe. Perhaps you aren’t. All I know is that I cannot protect you and I cannot be a mother to you.”

  Lyta wrapped her arms around Shannon. “I will protect her to the utmost of my ability.”

  Shannon added, “She’s amazing in a fight.”

  Ara nodded. “I wish you both the best of luck, but I must get back to work. Don’t ever return. You are free from servitude. Promise you will keep it so.”

  Lyta held Shannon as they watched her mother leave. The older woman’s back was starting to show a hunch from so much time spent over the anvil, and her gait was slow as she walked away. Ara cast one last glance at the two of them before leaving the fitting hall and returning to her armory.

  Lyta found the accommodations at Freedom House adequate. It was a far cry from the opulent luxury of House Ibazz. Shannon walked in and threw her silk-wrapped bundles of new clothes on their bed.

  “This is so much better than living under the thumb of Vyzad and Safina,” Shannon declared.

  Lyta lowered her head. It had been her own foolish ambitions that prompted their exile. She had felt safe in House Ibazz, unlike here where danger lurked around every corner. Now they had no choice but to flee.

  “Have you ever drunk wine?” Shannon asked, gazing longingly at a modest rack of bottles next to their balcony.

  “I can’t drink,” Lyta said.

  Shannon grabbed a bottle at random and stared at the sealed end of it, uncertain what to do.

  Lyta walked over, took the bottle, and found the corkscrew in a drawer by the cabinet with the glasses. She opened the bottle gently and poured Shannon a generous helping of Qaadar Cuvee.

  Shannon took a sip and smiled. “It tastes funny. Like there are too many flavors to describe. I’ve shared other people’s sense of taste when they drank, but everyone’s sense of taste is different. Some people even see colors differently.”

  Lyta stroked Shannon’s shoulder. “Perhaps it’s an acquired taste.”

  Shannon looked Lyta straight in the eye. “What’s your secret, Lyta?”

  Lyta folded her arms. “If I tell you, you will not want to be with me ever again. But I will tell you everything if you ask.”

  Shannon sipped more wine. “We’re both freaks of nature. Just tell me already.”

  Lyta walked out toward the balcony and gazed across the wall at the city of Baash. “I was thirteen years old when I came here. My mother died during childbirth, and my father was a Turisian plainsman with a penchant for wine and gambling. Once a year, we came from the plains to trade in the bazaar. By the time I was thirteen, Father had acquired a considerable debt so he sold me to a brothel.”


  “That’s illegal in the Free Cities,” Shannon said.

  “What’s a thirteen-year-old going to do when her father hands her off to another family? File a report with the Inspector’s office? I could have run away, but what would have been the point? I could live on the streets or in the orphanage. The place my father sold me to was… luxurious. At first anyway.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Shannon placed her delicate hands on Lyta’s shoulders.

  “They did things to me there. Unspeakable things…”

  Shannon placed her head on Lyta’s shoulder. “Men are so disgusting.”

  Lyta replied breezily, “Men were disgusting, but they were mostly gentle and surprisingly considerate. I was lucky. I never had a client hurt me physically out of intent. In fact, I was so in demand, it was prohibitively expensive to bruise my skin. I was handled like a glass egg.”

  “Did you enjoy being with men?” Shannon kissed Lyta’s neck.

  “I didn’t hate it. Not all of the time, anyway,” Lyta admitted. “But I was never fond of men in the same way I felt about women.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Lyta sighed. “When I was mature, they told me I was ready to join the inner circle, that my body was ripe. They took me to a room and laid me on a bed and…” Her voice choked with tears.

  “You can tell me,” Shannon encouraged.

  Lyta turned toward her lover and said, “They changed me.”

  “How?”

  Lyta stripped off her shirt. “The reason you’ve never been able to see through my eyes is because you’ve never touched me. This skin is not who I am.”

  Lyta grabbed her breasts and dug her fingers into her ribs. Shannon screamed and stumbled back. Lyta calmly pressed her fingers deeper and slowly tore her ribcage open, like doors to a cabinet. Thousands of slithering purplish worms writhed around her organs.

  “I’m not human,” Lyta said calmly.

  Shannon’s wineglass fell to the floor and shattered. She bit the side of her finger. “Fuck.”

  Lyta pressed her shattered ribcage together, and the worms within her body mended it in seconds, even repairing the seam of her torn skin. “They put these things inside me, to make me one of them. Only it didn’t work. I’m still me—but my body is something else. I ran away to escape the people who did this to me.”

  Shannon chewed her bottom lip.

  Lyta felt tears well up in her eyes. “Now, I’m—” The words died in her mouth. She felt disgusting. I’m an abomination.

  Shannon got another wineglass and poured it to the top. She drank it quickly, letting it spill over the corners of her mouth onto the neckline of her new tunic. She slammed the glass on the counter and stared at Lyta with ice blue eyes.

  For a while neither of them spoke. Lyta had no excuse for herself.

  “That’s… amazing,” Shannon said finally. “Can you show me again?”

  “Shannon, I…” Lyta said warily.

  Her lover’s eyes narrowed. “Show me. And this time, let me touch the real you.”

  SIXTEEN

  Lady of the House

  HEATH

  Inspector Margulies shut the door to the drawing room and set his gaze on the Countess. She shifted uncomfortably, casting her glance to Melanie, the serving girl. The other guests exchanged puzzled looks, wondering where the famed inspector was going with this.

  The inspector smiled. “So… Countess. How many forks did you place next to his plate?”

  She said, “A man has been murdered. I don’t see how this is relevant.”

  “But Countess, you said you laid out only three forks for Lord Uppington since he does not eat shellfish.”

  She scowled.

  “Then why,” he began pacing the drawing room, “was your footman Nigel disposing of this before he turned up dead in your solarium?”

  Inspector Margulies whipped the bloody oyster fork from the pocket of his coat and held it for all gathered to observe. “A bloody fork… and if I’m not mistaken, the blood mage will find not only Uppington’s humor but also… shellfish.”

  Their eyes widened in recognition as all the pieces fell into place.

  The Countess stood and spat, “Damn you, Inspector Margulies!”

  —SEVEN COURSES OF DEATH, AN INSPECTOR MARGULIES MYSTERY. LAST PAGE FOUND IN MOTHER SAFINA IBAZZ’S COLLECTION OF ENDINGS

  HEATH WALKED THROUGH the gardens of House Ibazz as a small contingent of Patrean soldiers led him to a fountain. A plump woman in robes and a veil sat on the edge, her well-manicured hand gently brushing the water. She looked up to him, and through her semitransparent veil he could see her ruby lips curl into a smile.

  “Welcome, Stormlord.”

  Heath nodded and took a seat on the edge of the fountain. The guards backed away, but he counted at least five snipers with bows aimed at his head in various positions around the courtyard. “First Wife Safina, I presume.”

  “Indeed.”

  Heath scratched his head. “My apologies. I thought I was to meet with Vyzad.”

  Safina waved her hand. “Vyzad is with the other Patriarchs. I felt this would be a good time for us to talk.”

  Heath regarded her warily. “My business is with Vyzad.”

  Safina explained, “Vyzad does what he does. I do what I do. We both represent the interest of our house in different ways. As a man, his honor is held to a high level of scrutiny, whereas I am simply a wife. No one cares what I do.”

  Heath chuckled. “Perhaps I should have negotiated with you before your husband.”

  Safina folded her hands in her lap. “You have done this house a great favor by killing Ibiq Qaadar.”

  “I appreciate your faith in my ability, but assassination doesn’t serve my agenda.” Heath grinned.

  “I meant no disrespect,” Safina apologized. “It’s just that your skill as an Inquisitor is well-established. My purpose is not to place blame. Whoever killed Ibiq did us both a great service. I feel your interests and those of House Ibazz ‘align,’ as you Stormlords are fond of saying.”

  “Oh?” Heath said.

  Safina flashed a devious glare. “Jessa’s appointment to the Coral Throne would create a bridge between Thrycea and the Free Cities. It would enrich our house to have first rights on trading contracts. House Ibazz is now in a position to nominate a representative to the Grand Assembly. We need just one thing in return—a sign from Ohan.”

  “He does not speak to me. But I am curious as to what favor piques your interests. Perhaps the act of speaking it aloud might see it come to pass… through the Will of Ohan,” Heath said.

  Safina raised her veil. Half of her face was burned and covered in pustules.

  Heath recoiled. “Ohan’s mercy—why haven’t you been healed?”

  Safina grinned. “I want to remember. The one who did this was an abomination living in our own house. I called her daughter. Now she’s run off with our precious jewel, Shannon. I want someone to bring us Lyta’s head. If someone, by Ohan’s mercy, can return Shannon, we would be doubly pleased, though I would not ask more of the All Father than his generosity provides. If this came to pass, after speaking it in your presence, then House Ibazz may take it as a sign from Ohan to support your efforts in the Grand Assembly.”

  Heath cocked his head. “How could you guarantee me anything, First Wife Safina?”

  Safina smiled. “Everyone is looking for Ibiq Qaadar’s killer. Many say it is you—you’re an outsider, a Stormlord, an Inquisitor, a homosexual, and a Bamoran. The only trait you’re missing in the eyes of the Patriarchs is a pair of horns. What if you were to change that perception, by Ohan’s miraculous intervention, just slightly enough that the First Son of Qaadar could consider your proposal without compromising his integrity?”

  “It would indeed be a blessing,” Heath said.

  “Lyta was an abomination living among us for years. She killed several guards with her bare hands, ripping out their hearts. Our coroner will confirm this in verified documents. P
erhaps it was she who also committed this monstrous assassination.”

  Heath folded his hands. “Do you have any evidence linking Lyta to Ibiq’s untimely death?”

  Safina shrugged. “People are mourning Ibiq’s loss, and the Patriarchs need to give them answers. Nothing more than answers. Ibiq was not beloved by all the houses, and pointless blame could continue for generations. I don’t believe the true killer, whoever they may be, would dare to strike again, do you?”

  Heath shook his head. “The assassin is most likely long gone and beyond the reach of justice.”

  “I thought as much.”

  They sat in the silence of the garden as the sun rose to the middle of the sky. Birds chirped from the branches of flowering fruit trees, and the scent of jasmine wafted in the air. The fountain gurgled clear sparkling water.

  Safina gathered her long skirt and replaced her veil. “I have to lead the noonday prayer. You will hasten the will of Ohan and bring me Lyta’s head, yes?”

  Heath nodded gravely. “If this were to happen, by Ohan’s grace—”

  “This is not my first time airing my thoughts before the All Father,” Safina cut him off. “I’ll have her dossier couriered to your apartments in Dessim. May the Light of Ohan shine upon you forever and always.”

  “And you as well.” Heath smiled.

  Heath quickly made his way back to Dessim, fighting a throng of traffic. Mourners draped in white shrouds flooded the streets to pay their respects to the fallen Patriarch. Some of them were tearful. Others took the opportunity to hawk street food and holy talismans to the stream of grieving faithful. When people saw Heath’s eyes, they stepped out of his way. One person spat on him.

  Jessa wanted to create an empire that respected all faiths equally, but Heath found little to nothing worthy of respect in the orthopractic faith of the Ohanites. The Omnitheists were dilettantes, but at least they were tolerant. He had witnessed a true god when Kondole came from the sky and banished Kultea from the canals of Rivern. Heath was a prophet of a beautiful, compassionate faith that had been lost to history.

  Now he was going to kill someone else. His years in the Inquisition had taught him to keep his faith separate from his necessary actions. Even the purest of gods needed to get their hands dirty sometimes.