The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  She didn’t know the half of it. Sword had shared Maddox’s head for the better part of the past year. He knew Maddox had seen visions of magic capable of doing exactly that. A second Long Night led by a cult of worm fanatics promised to be just as bad as the first one, if not worse. Coming here with Maddox might have been a bad idea.

  Sword planted his feet and readied his blade. “You serve the Harrowers? That’s not going to happen as long as I exist. I am the Valor of Crigenesta, the Vorpal blade of Arrix, and the Sword of Saint Jeffrey. I stood against Vilos in the battle of Bamor and defeated him.”

  “So… it is the blade that gives you your defiance,” Sybil mused. “A blade can be taken and the Harrowers’ great enemy eliminated. What remains is flesh… which is pliable.” She raised her hands slowly above her head and outstretched them quickly.

  The sensation, Sword realized as he watched his sword fall from his hand, came from his arms being ripped out of their sockets. Two Proteans who had been invisible the entire time, Ryon and the sadomasochistic ginger from room twenty-six, materialized, each carrying one of Soren’s brawny arms. He didn’t feel pain.

  “You see, we have magic as well,” Ryon said, tossing Soren’s limb to the ground.

  Sword had lived in hundreds of bodies, from young to old. Sometimes blind or crippled. He had fought one-handed, but never no-handed. He fell to his knees as blood and theurgy poured out of his stumps. He looked for his blade, but one of the Proteans snatched it before he could call to it.

  He could feel his body trying to repair itself. He looked back at Maddox. “Sorry, Battle Buddy. You fought well…”

  Maddox sighed. “Fuck this.”

  Maddox shut his eyes. His body burst into white hot flame, igniting a rug and the two women holding him. They may not have felt pain from hacking or stabbing, but the fire charred both their arms and the worms inside. Their hands retracted, and they flew upward, pinned against the ceiling where more flames from Maddox’s hands cooked them alive. Their guts burst open, and strings of slimy wriggling horrors burst forth desperate to escape, only to be incinerated.

  The sound of screeching worms was shrill and horrendous. It wasn’t so much screeching as pockets of steam bursting from their soft lumpy skin.

  “Please do not do this, wizard,” Sybil warned. “We may appear as monsters to you, but we are people with thoughts and feelings of our own. We can give you what you want, what your world would never give you, if you simply listen.”

  Proteans edged closer to Maddox. Sword gasped to warn Maddox, but he didn’t move. The charred remains of his captors fell from the ceiling as he released a blast of telekinetic force in all directions, scattering them to clouds of ash before they hit the ground. His face was stern, lit by the flicker of fire that flowed over his clothes and mantle. He looked, in that moment, like a true Archwizard of old. The glimmers of promise smoldered in the embers of a raging inferno of power.

  Proteans lunged for Maddox on all sides but stopped short inches from his body, repelled by the flashing barrier of his Warding Seal. He’d tightened it around his body, reinforcing it against the colossal strength of the Proteans’ fists. He flinched a little but mostly kept it together.

  Maddox folded his hands across his chest. His body burned white hot again. This time the fire filled the confines of his barrier. Waves of heat radiated through the air, making the room like an oven. Maddox’s fire continued to build inside his cocoon of force, until it was as bright as a sunset.

  The Proteans scrambled away, vanishing behind invisibility veils as they retreated.

  A molten column of fire blasted through the top of his bubble, creating explosive conflagrations as it burned through everything in its path. A font of burning flame started on the ceiling and filled every inch of the top two stories. Screams and the crackle of fire. Then silence.

  Maddox walked over to Sword and covered him.

  Sword gazed at the inferno around him. The atrium crumbled, and charred remains of the interior crashed into the sitting area. His skin blistered and healed from the intensity of the heat. “The fuck was that?”

  Maddox bent over and whispered in Sword’s ear, “I’m doing what we should have done to begin with. I’m alerting the authorities.”

  A flaming lattice of rafters tumbled toward them. It broke to pieces on a new dome-like barrier Maddox was projecting around them.

  “Inspector Colette’s gonna be pissed.” Sword coughed. “I don’t think there’s a single crime in Dessim we haven’t been at the scene of.”

  “Where’s your blade?” Maddox asked, choking on the smoke. He waved his hand, and Sword’s arms reattached themselves.

  “Got it.” Sword used Maddox’s seal to retrieve the long silver blade from the rubble. It was cool to the touch.

  The air grew thin, and it was harder to breathe. The stone of the building glowed from the heat like a great kiln.

  Maddox gasped. “Just don’t touch me. If you draw power, I won’t be able to keep us safe.”

  Sword nodded; he was suffocating. “Take the blade. Soren will resurrect.”

  He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable release of his tether to Soren’s body. It should have happened by now. It didn’t matter. He blacked out. It had been a good fight.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Bedlam

  LYTA

  Dorana gazed out at the crystal skyline and twinkling stars. She saw Creation floating in the void, a vast sphere spinning atop a turtle’s back. The city below teemed with men and women in silver suits, their faces pale and smiling.

  “Where am I?” Dorana asked, eyes wide in wonder at the splendorous scene before her.

  The man in silver simply smiled. “You are on the Moon in our great city of Niyooshokoo where there are no monsters.”

  Dorana gasped. “Where did they all go?”

  “They were never here. On the Moon, everything is perfect.”

  “I want to live here forever,” Dorana declared. “And I will sing moon songs and eat moon candy!”

  The man in silver smiled even wider. “The moon songs are the finest you will ever hear, and moon candy is the sweetest you will ever taste. But you cannot stay here.”

  Dorana started to cry. “Please. I’ll be the best little girl you ever saw. Promise.”

  “You have seen the monsters,” the man in silver explained seriously. “Once you have faced darkness, it becomes a part of you. There are no monsters on the Moon, and there is no darkness…”

  He removed a long blade from his belt, and Dorana screamed.

  —THE PEOPLE ON THE MOON, A CHILDREN’S BOOK

  HEATH WORE A woman’s veil and robe as they made their way through the streets of Baash. He moved with a feminine grace that disguised his broad shoulders, pulling it off better than Lyta ever could. The man was an encyclopedia of dirty dealings and subterfuge, and Lyta begrudged herself for wanting to learn from him.

  She said, “You never asked me what I am or why I can do the things I do.”

  Heath continued walking. “Because either you don’t know or you don’t want to tell me. Our alliance is tenuous, Lyta. You build trust by giving it first.”

  “The woman you had me fight, did she teach you this?”

  “Daphne?” Heath paused to inspect holy symbols at a merchant’s stall. “She preferred intimidation and blackmail to negotiation.”

  “You were the one who killed Grand Patriarch Ibiq,” Lyta said. “He was a man of peace.”

  He didn’t deny it. “Too bad the world’s at war. If the Protectorate doesn’t get its house in order and support Jessa, then the Dominance plunges into a years-long civil war that may result in Nasara becoming Empress. Nasara won’t stop until the Free Cities are once again under Imperial rule. And all of this? She would put Baash to the torch for heresy.”

  Lyta rolled her shoulders. “We would not be as easy prey as Rivern.”

  Heath chuckled. “We didn’t see it until it was too…”

  H
is voice trailed off. A crowd of people were stopped in the street, heads looking toward the sky, pointing and murmuring excitedly. Lyta glanced up to see a dark shape hovering against the blue sky. She could barely make out a galleon, complete with sails. “An Archean sky ship. I’ve never seen one fly that close before.”

  Heath grabbed her arm and continued walking. “It’s not close. It’s fucking huge. The hull was originally a Thrycean dreadnaught—that’s a warship.”

  “Why is it here?” Lyta asked.

  “I have no clue,” Heath said. “But it’s probably not good. No one’s seen the Archean navy since the Long Night.”

  Lyta nodded. She didn’t trust Heath, but she admired his breadth of knowledge and his effectiveness. He always knew exactly what needed to be done, considering it from every angle.

  They made their way to the temple. It was a windowless square three-story tower of white marble with a single door and no windows. It looked more like a prison than a temple. A massive circular Eye of Ohan was etched into the stone. Two bored Fodders leaned on spears by the door. They perked up as Lyta and Heath approached.

  “State your business,” the one on the left said.

  Heath doubled over and started coughing softly into his sleeve. Lyta instinctively grabbed his shoulders to comfort him. For a second, she thought he might be ill. She looked to the guards. “My aunt is very ill.”

  The guard gave her a puzzled look and then shrugged. “Let’s get you signed in.”

  The interior of the temple was an atrium open to the sky above. It was clean, with white floors, white railings, and pale blue walls. A fountain dominated the center. People in long, loose white tunics shuffled about the courtyard or sat at simple wooden tables, eating slop out of bowls and playing cards. Patreans armed with clubs strolled among the population, alongside healers in flowing robes.

  A hairless old woman sat on the edge of the fountain, arms crossed over her chest, rocking back and forth. From upstairs, a man screamed unintelligible words as he clanged a battered metal cup against the metal bars of his room.

  “What kind of temple is this?” Heath whispered.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been sick and we have—had our own healers in House Ibazz.” The truth was that besides formal occasions and ceremonies when it was absolutely required, she had never set foot outside the compound. “I believe it is a residence for lunatics.”

  “An asylum,” Heath said. “Light doesn’t heal mental infirmities. Why keep them in a temple?”

  “Where do you keep them in Rivern?”

  Heath shrugged. “Depends on how rich their families are. The Invocari dungeons are full of crazies. They were anyway.” He walked over to a bench and sat down next to a pretty young woman with long brown hair. She didn’t turn; her green eyes stared into the distance.

  Heath smiled. “Hello, I’m Heath.”

  She continued staring off into the distance at the fountain and the entryway beyond. Her voice was soft. “They call me Victoria.”

  “Do you spend a lot of time sitting here?”

  “I like this place.”

  Heath turned toward the woman and asked, “Have you seen any three-headed monsters lately?”

  Her voice was airy and distant. “On the Moon we don’t have monsters of any kind. The Moon is a place of peace and silvery reflection in crystalline cities.”

  It was an image from a children’s story, The People on the Moon. The bright spots on the Moon were written as vast cities of myriad wonders. Most educated folks knew they were more likely vast mineral deposits of prismite, a nearly priceless luminous mineral the Archeans used for currency. Hence the idiom not for all the money on the Moon.

  Heath asked another question, “How about a woman like in this picture?”

  He pulled out a portrait on a sheet of loose canvas that Safina had sent to him. Lyta remembered it had taken three days of sitting in the gardens for the artist to complete it. Her heart ached to see Shannon’s golden hair and rosy cheeks amid the beauty of the jasmine trees.

  “On the Moon,” the woman began, “we do not carry pictures. The only pictures we carry exist in our minds.”

  “This is a waste of time,” Lyta insisted. Seeing Shannon’s portrait brought up a well of raw urgency, and Heath was chattering with a madwoman.

  She swallowed her impatience and paced as she bit the back of her hand.

  Heath pointed toward the door. “You must see a lot of people coming in and out. Have any young women been brought in through the front door? She may have been disguised or veiled, probably unconscious. Possibly hurt.”

  “On the Moon, we don’t have violence,” Victoria said.

  Heath smiled. “It sounds like a wonderful place. How would you like to go back there? I have connections.”

  Her eyes widened, and she turned to him. For the first time her mouth smiled. “Yes! But how?”

  Heath assured her by saying, “The woman I’m looking for has magic that can open a gateway. But I need to find her.”

  Victoria pulled her hair and cried. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. On the Moon, we don’t have monsters!” Her scream echoed throughout the atrium, turning heads.

  “Get away from her!” One of the healers noticed and walked over briskly. She was a heavyset woman, wearing a full veil of an initiate healer. Lyta knew that walk anywhere. You didn’t share a home with six sisters without learning to recognize them beneath a veil.

  Bejia stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Lyta. Her eyes narrowed with recognition. She tore off her veil and snarled, “Lyta. Why are you here, upsetting Victoria? And who is this?”

  Lyta unveiled her face and pointed her chin defiantly. “My sister is here, Bejia. Where are you keeping her?”

  “She isn’t here.” Bejia crossed her ample arms. “I’m going to have you arrested, you… murderer.”

  “I only killed Patreans. Safina can send me the invoice.” Lyta balled her fists.

  “I would advise you to think about your next move very carefully.” Heath ripped off his disguise and stood next to Lyta.

  Bejia’s face went pale with fear. She took a step back and placed her hand against her throat. “Stormlord.”

  “We know she was taken here,” Heath said confidently. “Blood magic pinpointed her location.”

  It wasn’t exactly true. Heath had taken her word for it that Shannon would be in the mirror of the Palace of Keys, where they had put those horrible things inside her. Her certainty crumbled. Shannon could be anywhere.

  “She isn’t here,” Bejia reiterated stubbornly. “I won’t risk violence in this asylum by calling the guards, if I don’t have to. But I cannot allow you to upset our patients. I demand you leave us in peace. Now.”

  Victoria stood, eyes sparkling with tears. “Don’t make him leave. He’s taking me back to the Moon!”

  Bejia’s mouth curled in disgust. “You are not just a liar, you are an evil man, Stormlord. Do you even care what happens to Victoria when you fail to deliver on your promise?”

  “Shannon’s life is in danger,” Lyta said. “She was your sister. If that means anything to you at all—”

  “Oh. You’re looking for Shannon?” Victoria said brightly. “I know her. She talked to me yesterday. But she looks nothing like the rendering.”

  “Where?” Lyta grabbed for the woman’s arms, but Victoria shrank away.

  “Don’t touch me. Never touch me,” she hissed.

  “No one’s touching you,” Heath assured her. “Where did you see her?”

  “By the fountain,” Victoria said. “She was a fat man they had to lock away because he started screaming. On the Moon, we don’t have screaming. No one ever has to raise their voice to be heard.”

  Heath looked to Bejia. “I need to see him. Please. You don’t gain the Light if you don’t have compassion. I’m asking you as a healer to help us save a life.”

  “Yet you have no compassion,” Bejia stated.

  Lyta w
asn’t sure how true that was. He had spared Daphne when he could have killed her. He had spared her own life when Safina sent him to murder her. He was trying to save Shannon any way he could.

  Heath smiled weakly. “I didn’t start out that way. So let me give you a piece of wisdom. The quickest way to end up exactly like me is to put your own anger ahead of the needs of others.”

  Bejia scowled, gathered her robes, and motioned for them to follow.

  They made their way to the third floor and saw more guards on each level. Each room they passed was barred shut, each one a window into madness and misery. As they passed, a toothless woman snatched something from her waste bucket and shoved it into her mouth, chewing openly, with her face pressed against the bars.

  Bejia explained, “It’s not uncommon for people to take on other identities in here. We have two Achelons and a man who claims to be possessed by Harrowers. Shannon Ibazz is a well-known name to the people of Baash. Her recent departure caused a scandal. The man Victoria spoke of, Rancis, could have heard any number of people talking about it.”

  “Did you question him at all?” Heath inquired.

  “Why would I? Shannon and this creature here ruined my life. I never wanted to hear that name again.”

  Lyta sighed. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, Bejia. If I’d known, I never would have done it. It was pointless and stupid, and now Shannon’s going to pay for my mistake.”

  Bejia shook her head. “Those houses, the games we played… Honestly, I’m glad I will never become a First Wife like Mother Safina. I like healing and using my Light to help people. I don’t forgive you, but I have made peace with the consequences.”

  They reached Rancis’s cell. He was obese, at least three hundred pounds, naked, and manacled to the floor, shivering. He turned to look at them. His eyes were pale white, but they widened in recognition. His voice was high. “Lyta?”

  The way he said it made Lyta’s skin crawl. “Shannon?”