The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  “I have you.” Sword smiled. “We’re going to be together forever and ever.”

  “Yeah, we should probably merge before it gets too late,” Maddox said, removing a charred packet from his belt. The euphorium pouch he would have used to kill himself dissolved into ash and sticky green sludge in his fingers. He hurt all over and just wanted to be reborn. Dessim had no healers aside from blood mages, and they were not as effective, or wholesome, as priests.

  “I’m keeping Soren,” Sword said, “till I know what to do with him.”

  “It’s not your decision, Sword. It’s his.”

  “Like hells,” Sword protested. “I can mimic any magic I touch. I don’t even know how many powers I have right now—immortality, fire, warding, regeneration. I was able to absorb a Traveler’s power, for Host’s sake. This body isn’t just a Patrean throwback—if they had incubi this powerful, they would have won the war easily.

  “He’s more like a fuck-you weapon that you unleash when you’ve already lost the war. And the first thing this kid is going to do when he wakes up is bolt. The next thing he’s going to do is feed on whatever mages he can get his soft, delicate hands on.”

  “Is he more dangerous than I am?” Maddox inquired.

  “Maybe,” Sword said evenly. “This magic isn’t supposed to exist. Say what you want about Achelon, but after he killed all the immortal wizard kings during the Long Night, life got a lot simpler. You can’t even understand how crazy it was. In Sarn, humans were slaves to their creations. The Patreans were so obsessed with physiological perfection they weren’t even human anymore.”

  “And the Macerians?” Maddox asked.

  Sword finished his brandy. “Point is, all those shit weasels got exactly what they deserved.”

  Maddox held the bottle of brandy in his hand. Only a splash remained. “Except Archea. They got off easy.”

  Sword chucked. “Archea was a joke. Literally, the whole floating island was raised by some Academy students as a graduation prank. They stayed out of the arms race after that. Sure, they had slaves and an epically shit bench on their arena team, but they never crossed the line of using humans for experiments.”

  Maddox set down his glass. It showed soot marks where it had touched his lips. “I wanted to go to the Academy more than anything.” He recalled that fateful day he had inscribed the Seal of Vitae. He imagined the accolades he would have received and the lectures he would have given to auditoriums filled with the brightest, most eager minds in Creation. The loss of that dream left a gaping empty hole in his life.

  His existence stretched out before him, like a barren road without end or destination.

  Titus, with his brawny tattooed arm, set another bottle down in front of Maddox. “Did you see the Archean sky ship parked above Baash?” Titus had clearly been eavesdropping.

  “The fuck’s it doing in Baash?” Sword asked. It was a valid question. Baash had temples but no institutions of arcane learning or trade guilds.

  Titus shrugged. “Maybe you should ask them.”

  “I’ll get right on that,” Maddox slurred as he poured himself two fingers from the new bottle. It might have been cheaper to buy the bar outright than run up his tab with credit notes from the Bank of the Coral Throne. He fished in his pockets for an imperial credit script before realizing they had burned up in the fire. “I’ll have to get you later.”

  Titus shrugged. “That’s fine. This one’s courtesy of the Bamoran woman back there. Maybe she likes scrawny wizards?”

  Sword’s hand clamped down on Maddox’s shoulder. “Maddox. You may want to take that drink before you turn around…”

  Maddox didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He turned slowly to where Sword was looking. Maddox’s blood ran hot with anger. There she was, the woman who had violated his mind, sitting comfortably at a table. Daphne’s face had some new scars, and she wore black leather like an Inquisitor. She raised a wine glass, a self-satisfied smirk plastered across her face.

  Maddox was out of his seat before he even knew what he was doing. He moved so quickly the stool clattered against the bar. “You,” he said in low, measured tones, “need to get the fuck out of here. Now.”

  “Maddox,” Daphne cooed. “It brought me no pleasure doing what I felt I needed to do. But you yourself admitted you were a danger. I’m glad to see you were able to recover. We need to talk about Heath.”

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you.” Maddox’s voice trembled. “No, give me sixty reasons in ascending order of importance.”

  “You’re not my mission anymore, Maddox,” Daphne said. “I’m on a crusade against the people responsible for destroying our home, drowning our friends, and leaving Rivern defenseless. The Backwash is gone. All of those people dead, including your aunt Cara. Your father’s alchemy shop is erased.”

  “Cara?” Maddox felt something catch in his throat. Cara had done her best to protect Maddox from his father. She was the one who had Maddox sent to the Lyceum, one of the few good things to ever happen to him.

  “They need to be eliminated. All of them,” Daphne said firmly.

  “Satryn paid for that in blood,” Sword said.

  Daphne rolled her eyes. “But what about the next person to take the mantle of Tempest? Jessa may seem sincere now, but treachery runs deep in the blood of Stormlords. Iridissa raised her daughter to be a weapon. She planned this attack for decades. What’s to say that Jessa isn’t just the final stage of the conquest? Or the next generation? We cannot risk our security.”

  “Then make better security, you batshit fanatic,” Maddox said hotly. “The towers of Rivern fell because no one expected the attack to come from inside the warded cell. It should have been obvious that Satryn’s power could reach outside the boundaries when she received her power from her brother. How was that possible if she was cut off? The Invocari were stupid. That kind of attack will never, ever happen again.”

  “Heath is working with the Proteans,” Daphne said.

  Sword groaned. “Just leave already, Daphne. No one is buying your horseshit.”

  “Wait.” Maddox peered at her. “How do you even know what those are?”

  Daphne tapped the side of her head. “I met one, and she nearly killed me. I had to consult the bestiary, but she was incredibly strong and healed herself instantly. Sound familiar?”

  Sword and Maddox looked at each other. Even with soot smeared all over his face, Soren’s body was a gorgeous sight to behold.

  Sword asked, “Why would he be doing that?”

  “Heath was one of my best Inquisitors,” Daphne said. “He would use any resource at his disposal to achieve his objective, but I kept him on a tight leash. And now that he’s become a Stormlord, he’s a mad dog. He’ll kill anyone who gets in his way without a second thought. When an agent goes too far, it’s the responsibility of the Inquisition to put him down.”

  “Like Esme?” Maddox asked. “The problems in Rivern started a long time before Satryn, and your precious agent was at the center of it.”

  “I regret the role my negligence played in the affair.” Daphne cast her eyes downward. “There are many things I would have done differently, and I will atone for that for the rest of my life. But right here and right now, the only thing I can offer the dead is justice.”

  Maddox said. “On behalf of everyone who died in Rivern, myself included many times, we don’t want your justice, or anything from you. I’m half tempted not to drink this brandy.” He looked back at the bottle he had left at the bar.

  “Let’s just find Heath together,” Daphne offered. “We can ask him what he’s doing and why. If you’re satisfied with his explanation, I give you my solemn oath on Ohan’s will that I will walk away. You already know he isn’t the same man you knew in Rivern.”

  Sword walked over and put his hand on her shoulder. “Actually, Daphne, I could use your help.”

  Her eyes fluttered as Sword slid his hand up the nape of her neck and started massaging it. He ben
t down, cradled her head, and kissed her passionately on the mouth. Maddox felt like he was going to throw up as he stood there awkwardly gaping at the public display of affection that went on for entirely too long.

  Sword pulled away and let her head drop to the table.

  “Did you kill her?” Maddox whispered.

  “I wouldn’t lose sleep if I did,” Sword said, nonchalantly hoisting her body up and slinging her arm over his broad shoulders. “We should get cleaned up and find Heath.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Titus said from behind the bar as he started to polish Maddox’s forgotten glass.

  ***

  Daphne wasn’t dead, just very deeply asleep and drained of her Light. Sword used her power to sober up Maddox on the way to their apartment at Freedom House. It was a strange feeling going from pleasantly sloshed to uncomfortably lucid in the span of seconds. He also noted that his throat and burns felt better.

  Sword took off her abraevium chain and used it to secure her to the sturdiest armchair in the room while Maddox carried buckets down to the fountain to top off the bath. He did it in a couple of trips and politely shooed the staff who offered to carry water for him. He placed his hands in the bathwater, which instantly filled with inky clouds of ash. His Fire Seal heated the bath until it was steaming.

  “I’ll go first,” Maddox said. “You watch her.”

  He turned. Sword was standing there, already stripped of his clothes. The fading sky through the windows framed his naked glory. His bare chest was smooth and unsullied where his jerkin had been. The straps of his sandals left white lines in the thick ash covering his skin. He was at full mast.

  “Sword?” Maddox stammered.

  Without making a sound, Sword put his arms around Maddox’s waist to help him out of his shirt. Maddox was getting turned on as Sword pressed himself closer and traced his fingers over the seals on Maddox’s chest. He knew it was an incubus thing, but in a moment, he wouldn’t care.

  Maddox pushed back and nearly fell ass first into the bathtub. “This is too fucked up. We can’t do this. You’re like my—” There wasn’t a word for people who had been as intimately connected as Sword and Maddox.

  Sword reached out and took Maddox’s hand. “I’ve been inside you before. Get in the tub.”

  Maddox sighed and unbuckled his belt, letting his charred trousers drop to the floor. He felt inadequate standing in front of Soren’s perfectly sculpted athletic physique. Maddox had some muscle, but he’d always been a bookworm with skinny legs.

  He dipped himself into the water, and it turned black. Candles spurted to life in the various wall shrines for the gods of cleanliness. Sword dropped a chalky tablet in the bath that smelled of sandalwood and myrrh. He took a sponge and dipped it in the water, squeezing it over Maddox’s head. He closed his eyes as the warmth of the water cleaned the grime from his face.

  Sword washed Maddox, and for the next hour, they bathed together, pressed against one another. It was the only time in Maddox’s life anyone had ever shown him tender affection, and if he wasn’t so turned on, he might have been moved to emotion.

  “I wish I could do more with you,” Sword whispered in Maddox’s ear. “But I don’t know what will happen. These incubus abilities are difficult to control the stronger I get.”

  Sword was right; the Patrean Fathers had designed Soren’s beauty as a weapon. Maddox’s mind wandered to uneasy thoughts of what other empires of the Second Era had sent against the Patreans. Maddox grunted in frustration and finished himself in the filthy black bathwater.

  They toweled off as the water spiraled down the drain. The sponge looked like a lump of coal, and the tub was a grimy catastrophe. They were about as clean as one could expect from marinating in polluted water for an hour. But at least they smelled nice.

  Maddox smelled something else. A fragrance, floral but indefinably sublime, wafted into the bathroom. It was the perfect smell, if such a thing existed, as if the Guides themselves had created mankind’s noses just to experience this one sensation. He charged into the living area, towel held against his privates.

  Daphne stood, hand on hip, a black rag held over her nose and mouth. Her restraints hung loosely around the overstuffed chair. “I didn’t figure Heath for the sentimental type, but look, he kept the flower I gave him.”

  Maddox saw the century orchid too late to react. He fell to the floor before he could even retort. His muscles didn’t respond, and his vision grew blurry.

  He heard Sword drop and bang against the tub in the bathroom and then the click of Daphne’s boots. “Tell Heath that if he wants his Sword back, he can meet me at our favorite bookstore. He’ll know where it is.”

  Maddox died, but the scent of the flower would be something he’d remember forever. So beautiful.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Skin Deep

  HEATH

  Chimera: Refers to any creature composed of the parts of multiple creatures. They were battlefield scavengers in the Patrean wars, harvesting tissues from the recently dead with surgical precision and using it to heal the injured or add to their own bodies.

  There are very few left as the art of creating them has been lost. Their masters are long dead, but they will occasionally harvest to repair their bodies. There have been no confirmed reports of them attacking the living.

  They are extremely strong and difficult to kill, possessing multiple vital organs and having a non-standard anatomy. Fire works best.

  They could, by some accounts, reproduce, but we have no evidence of this happening.

  —THE INQUISITION BESTIARY

  HEATH AWOKE FROM some waking dream to find Lyta shaking him violently. Her face was etched with worry, and something haunted showed in her expression. Gently, he raised his hands and placed them on her arms to calm her. “Lyta? What’s going on?”

  “Shannon was controlling you somehow. She kept saying she needed help. She was controlling everyone here except me and Moon Girl.”

  Heath massaged his forehead. He knew he’d lost time, maybe a few seconds. He didn’t like the idea of anyone being in his head. That was going to be a problem, and he needed to be ready to do what was necessary. Lyta wasn’t going to like the solution. Few things could drive Heath to a murderous rage, but the loss of control of his own body was a death sentence.

  Bejia woke from her trance and quickly hastened to shut the barred door to Rancis’s room. The lock had been ripped out of the wall. “Ohan, may his light shine forever, protect us! There is darkness and dark magic all around!”

  “You didn’t tell me your girlfriend could use people like sock puppets,” Heath said sharply.

  Bejia gasped in horror. “Shannon is your… girlfriend?”

  “Yes.” Heath shot her a withering silver glare. “That’s the most shocking thing about that sentence.” He spun on Lyta. “I want answers. Now.”

  Lyta stammered, “She’s never done this before. She can see and feel through other people’s bodies, but she has to have touched them at least once. Shannon had control of the whole asylum. She couldn’t have touched everyone. Oh, Heath, she was so scared. We have to find her.”

  “We’re not doing anything,” Heath snapped. “She took control of my body. What happens if we get in a fight and I turn into a scared teenager? We need a way to block that. Why didn’t it work on you or Moon Girl?”

  “Victoria gets violent when people touch her,” Bejia offered.

  Heath paced in a tight circle. “So Shannon can link to people who’ve touched people she’s touched. Bejia, I assume you have contact with everyone here.”

  She nodded. “Yes. This is evil power we’re dealing with. We have to tell the Patriarchs. They’ll know what to do.”

  “They’ll call me or someone like me.” Heath smiled. “I’m an Inquisitor. I know what to do.”

  Bejia seemed relieved. She said, “I saw something. When… it was happening.”

  “What?” Lyta asked.

  “It was dark and cold… unde
rground I think. There were bars and I could hear rats scurrying. It smelled like death.”

  “This place have a basement?”

  “No one goes down there,” Bejia said. “A long time ago they used to house the most dangerous madmen and cut them open, trying to find the source of their insanity. Ibiq Qaadar, may Ohan preserve him, declared the practice unholy, and it’s been shut down for decades.”

  Heath smacked his forehead. “A condemned dungeon for psychopaths. I should have known.”

  Lyta said, “If this is built the same as the one in Dessim, I know the way. I’m going with or without you.” She walked toward the stairs to the ground floor.

  He knew better than to try to stop her. He didn’t like going in blind, and Lyta could probably handle herself. He focused on building a wall around his mind like he’d learned to do when he had trained to hunt Binders. It wasn’t reliable, but he wasn’t about to be caught off guard again.

  Heath ripped off his disguise, revealing his black leather battle armor and springblade gauntlets.

  He followed Lyta as she pushed her way past guards and anyone else too slow to get out of her way. They all gave Heath a wide berth when they saw his silver eyes. The only thing more terrifying to some of these people than a black man was a black man who wielded the power of lightning.

  Lyta pushed through to a kitchen area and spotted a door. A couple of surprised inmates stared at them as they went through the door and down a curving flight of stone steps. The exposed masonry was rough to the touch and looked older than the construction above.

  They emerged into a storage pantry. Lyta marched over to a section of wall that had been bricked over.

  She turned to Heath. “It’s behind here.”

  Before he could ask how the hells does a three-headed monster walk through a sealed wall? Lyta was breaking it down with her bare hands. It fell apart like something a child would build with blocks, kicking up a cloud of gray dust. The passage beyond yawned into total darkness.

  “Hold up. Let’s get some light,” Heath said. He raised his hand and called forth a sphere of lightning. He could never manifest the power to create anything complicated, like Jessa’s rapier. Not that he needed to. He preferred his springblades.