The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  Shannon cradled her belly protectively.

  Sword waved her blade. “I’ll tell you this—one scion of a forgotten empire to another—don’t. They were not pleasant people, and the knowledge they gained came at a terrible price. If you think the slave pits below this city are awful, just imagine what they must look like beneath Patrea.”

  “I’m still remembering things,” Soren said. “But now is not the time for talking. The shades could return at any moment.”

  Sword glanced at one of the mirrors. “You tried to break it, didn’t you?”

  “Something jumped out at us, like it was coming through the glass,” Lyta said.

  “Don’t do that unless something actually attacks you,” Sword said. “This Incursion reflects your actions. If you see something strange, just go with it naturally. The more you seem like part of the Rumination, the less likely it is to attack you.”

  “Incursion?” Maddox asked.

  “That’s what the Travelers called a zone where a Harrower could alter reality. The city you see is what they termed a ‘Rumination’—it’s a sort of symbolic dream of a particular geographic area. It reflects the collective anxieties and personalities of the people inhabiting it. Compared to the ones I saw during the Long Night, this one is amazingly benign.”

  Maddox added, “Well, it helps that there isn’t a population of millions of slaves tucked deep under the earth. That misery is what made the Harrowers bonkers in the first place.”

  “Where are all the people?” Heath groaned as he stood, wiping blood from his mouth.

  “Isolated,” Sword guessed. “This city is practically infinite in size, and direction doesn’t apply. These spaces will draw closer together as the Incursion grows stronger. We need to find the vessel.”

  “Destroyed,” Heath said.

  “Who was it?” Sword asked.

  Lyta said, “Quillian.”

  “I knew it was him before anyone else,” Maddox interjected.

  “There’s another vessel.” Sword shook her head. “We’d know if it was one of us. That’s a pretty hard thing to hide.”

  “How do we stop it?” Heath asked.

  Sword nodded. “We need a few things. First, we’re going to need to reach the Cyst. This city doesn’t have an edge anymore, but it has a center, and that’s where we’ll find the Harrower’s physical body. It will be well defended by hordes of the city’s most insane, so we’ll need an army. Then we’ll need to generate a massive amount of Light. We can get that by a performing a ritual human sacrifice—”

  “Ugh. Really?” Maddox groaned.

  “That’s usually the hard part.” Sword continued, “Then, when the thing is weakened, we kill it—provided the Travelers are off somewhere pooling their magic to suppress it, we might stand a chance. The good news is that we haven’t seen the Harbinger, so there’s a chance.”

  “We still need an army.” Heath gasped. He was leaning on Lyta’s shoulder.

  “You look awful,” Maddox said. “You’re still taking your treatments, right?”

  Heath winced. “We can discuss my health later.”

  Shannon said, “I think Soren and I can help with the army. But shouldn’t we try to leave and get help?”

  Sword sighed. “The help that’s coming is a weapon that will annihilate the city. There’s no guarantee we’d be able to navigate our way out of here before it comes. Time isn’t passing normally here.”

  “I can’t fight this thing,” Shannon protested.

  “You’re a Patrean biomancer,” Maddox snapped. “You and Soren may not be burning the brightest wicks on your candles, but you’re probably two of the most powerful mages in this city.”

  “Biomancy requires equipment,” Soren said. “And shades aren’t living things.”

  Heath spoke, “We should vote. Sword and I both swore an oath and trained to fight against Dark magic. I can’t let this stand, and I know Sword won’t.”

  Lyta said, “If I can help, I have to stay.”

  Maddox shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Soren and Shannon looked at each other.

  Sword said, “Look, I won’t ask you two to come with us. This is dangerous—physically and emotionally. But if you two decide to look for the exit, keep in mind you could spend months wandering these streets. The city is gone. There’s no food and no shelter. You would be in constant danger, and there’s no guarantee you’d survive with your minds intact. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you in here. The fastest way out is through the Cyst.”

  Soren gave a short grave nod. “We’ll stick with you.”

  “Fine,” Shannon huffed. “But I’ll need a lot more magic to reach out.” She looked at Maddox.

  Maddox held out his hand. Soren took it and gave a sheepish smile. “We need more than a handshake.”

  Before Maddox could protest, Soren’s lips were all over Maddox’s. He felt several sensations at once, all of them amazing. The kiss itself was warm and soft. The surge of magic generated by his seals awakened and flowed through his body like a rush of narcotic bliss. He felt like he could scale a building or run ten miles without tiring. Then there was the tightness against his trousers. Every worry he had melted away. He didn’t want anything else other than to live inside the kiss forever.

  And then it stopped, rudely returning him to his senses.

  Maddox wiped his mouth.

  The twins held hands. Their heads leaned back in unison, and Maddox watched with growing fascination as their eyes whitened and glanced around.

  “Merge with us,” they chanted. “Merge with us.”

  “Are you at all bothered by how powerful these two are?” Maddox whispered to Sword and Heath.

  “This whole situation is unsettling,” Lyta said.

  “Merge with us…” Heath had joined in the chant.

  “One more thing.” Sword reached into her belt and pulled out a metal flask, handing it to Maddox. “I grabbed this in case I ran into you.”

  He snatched it from her hand, swishing it. It was a quarter full. “I forgive you for every terrible thing you’ve ever done to me.”

  She smiled. “It’s not even poisoned.”

  “Mmmm. Guides, I’ve missed you…” It was honest Rivern firebrandy, strong enough to remove paint and utterly devoid of any pretentious dance of delicate flavors. It had one flavor, burn, and it came in hot and surly. The feeling was like reuniting with an old love, getting punched in the face, and falling into heated animal sex.

  “Merge with us…”

  They came in from the side streets and intersections of the alley, slowly at first. Mostly they were Patreans, but a few folks who looked like they’d be good in a fight joined the chorus, their eyes blank, expressions devoid of any emotion. Maddox idly wondered if that effect was put in place so the succubus’s creators could know whom she was controlling.

  “Merge with us…”

  “My eyes across the city have shown me the way to the Cyst. Follow us,” Shannon and Soren said in unison. Again, creepy.

  Soon they were walking with a small-sized army. They crossed impossible bridges and marched down an avenue that looked like a path through a foreboding ancient forest of dead blue trees. They crossed a town square seeming to have five sides despite its ninety-degree angles.

  A patchwork of black stone architecture loomed over them. Naked men and women with open books nailed over their faces huddled in circles, their whispers nothing more than the rustling of pages. A pair of child-shaped constellations, their bodies glowing points and lines, chased each other around a fountain frozen in time.

  Sword stuck close to Maddox, with Lyta helping Heath along. He seemed to be doing better although he was still under whatever spell the twins were invoking, so maybe he just couldn’t complain.

  It said something that being trapped in a Harrower’s domain was less disconcerting than the people around Maddox.

  If the reflection of Dessim was corrupted and chaotic, Baas
h was almost too orderly. Monolithic white buildings were all the same size and shape, arranged in a grid of streets. Even the placement of the mirrors was precise. With the oppressive monotony, it seemed like it would be very easy to get lost.

  They passed a few inhabitants lost in the reverie of whatever madness consumed them. Men in golden sun masks hovered, arms outstretched, eyes glowing like stars in the darkness beyond. A naked woman sensuously poured a decanter of oil over her body in the middle of the street while dogs watched. A preacher on a corner had a body covered in mouths all saying something different, like a murmur in a crowded tavern. A cadre of leprous pilgrims walked in a single-file line, holding candles and staves.

  “Why does Baash appear this way? Shouldn’t it be a mirror image of Dessim?” Lyta asked.

  “It’s a city with two souls,” Sword replied. “In this fucked-up sliver of reality, they appear as the people see them, taken to the extremes of anarchy and oppression.”

  Maddox said, “They both seem so intent on doing the opposite of the other, rather than focusing on what they have in common. The whole point of this inane dual government experiment was to prove one philosophy was better.”

  “So do you think they have equal merit or no merit?” Lyta asked. The conversation helped ward off the onerous silence of the streets.

  Maddox looked at one of the buildings—the edges were perfectly sharp as if it had been crafted from a single block of marble. “Hands down, I prefer anywhere that has a god specifically for pissing on the street. But I also see the value in having streets that aren’t pissed on when you need to pass out.”

  “Maybe they should just piss in bathrooms and sleep in beds,” Lyta said.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Sword asked. She stopped in her tracks and pointed her blade ahead. “Look up there.”

  Maddox could make out a massive structure like a shiny mirrored blob of glass, crisscrossed with a lattice of iron. The vast globular edifice was a mixture of organic curves and precise geometry. He’d hallucinated stuff like this before. “Is that Sarn architecture?”

  Sword nodded. “It’s an older memory of the city. That looks like the library.”

  “It’s massive,” Maddox said.

  “It’s the Cyst.”

  The sound of battle echoed down the desolate streets as their company neared. As they came closer, they could see total chaos breaking out on the foggy avenue. People fought in the streets, and fires burned. The smooth white marble facades of the buildings had been shattered, revealing maggot-infested meat beneath the stone crust.

  People ripped into each other with whatever weapons they could find, even their hands. Wild screams pierced the air, and crazed men and women ran frantically through the blood orgy of violence looking to murder everyone around them.

  An old woman with a meat cleaver in hand charged them. Her clothes were stained with blood, her eyes hateful and devoid of humanity.

  Sword stepped forward, drew her blade in a quick arc, and sheathed it in a single motion. The screaming head tumbled to the ground. Sword said over her shoulder, “This is more like it.”

  She may have even been smiling out of the corner of her mouth.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Into The Breach

  HEATH

  Everything meaningful that man has achieved is born out of tragedy. A man is not pulled to greatness by ability, but driven by his demons.

  —The Lesson Master, Traveler’s Proverbs

  HEATH WAS GOING to die.

  He realized this was Kondole’s plan all along. The Father Whale had given Heath new eyes but had not healed his affliction, giving him just enough time to fulfill the god’s plan, just to give that little bit of needed help to Jessa. Wherever she was, she no longer needed him. He sensed he had filled his purpose.

  He had stretched himself too far with his illness. He could barely stand on his own. How he got to the Cyst was a vague memory in the collective consciousness he’d shared through Shannon.

  He no longer felt that closeness, that sense of collective intelligence orchestrated through the young woman’s magic. Fighting was all around him. Not war, but more of a primal brawl of animal rage unleashed. The hatred on both sides of the city was palpable, and the air itself felt thick with it.

  Creation needed him. So did his friends.

  The Patrean twins stood tall and strong—Shannon had somehow regrown her hair—hands linked as they coordinated an assault through the melee. Soldiers fell to the bloody mob as new combatants joined their cause when they felt the touch of those Shannon controlled. Lyta joined in, an army in her own right, fighting alongside Sword in Daphne’s body.

  Maddox crouched next to Heath. “Heath, you’re awake.”

  “Barely,” he said, trying to steady himself. He felt like he’d been stabbed. “This cancer could kill me before we get to the Cyst. I can feel it growing.”

  Maddox helped Heath walk forward. “Don’t say that shit. You’ll be fine.”

  Heath smiled. “I know it’s been hard on you, Maddox. Ohan knows I don’t deserve your pity, and I don’t expect you to be my friend—”

  “Nope,” Maddox said.

  The battle pressed farther into a horde of rabid humans cutting each other to bits. Patrean soldiers formed a perimeter around them, with Maddox knocking back enraged citizens that came charging through.

  Heath continued, “You may look back on today and wish you’d said something different, something you didn’t have the chance to say because you’re not really good with talking about your feelings.”

  “Guides preserve, Heath!” Maddox grabbed Heath’s shoulders. “Shut the fuck up and help us.”

  “I just wanted you to know that it’s okay.” Heath forced a pained smile and stood tall.

  He raised his arms, and the sky responded with flashes of lightning. Not the illusory reflection of the city, but the real natural sky outside the Incursion. Columns of electric fury rained down the long, straight boulevard in this twisted version of Baash, shaking the ground with thundering explosions. The crowds didn’t scatter, but they fell. Each bolt advanced their beleaguered party farther into the thick of the riot around them.

  Heath had never seen the front lines of warfare, but the spectacle around him was chilling. The people weren’t fighting an enemy or defending the Cyst; they were fighting everyone with every ounce of anger they possessed. There were no sides, just a roiling blood bath. No wonder the streets were empty—everyone in the city was here.

  Sword was in rare form, leading the charge. Daphne’s body may have seen better days, but she was still a lethal fighter. The sword hacked through the crowd, chopping off heads and limbs. Sword loved battle, but this time her face was grim. These were women, children, and ordinary citizens, helpless in the throes of bloodlust. Heath took some consolation in the fact that the sooner he died, the less these images would haunt his dreams.

  Maddox looked shaken, his only concern keeping clear of the battle and protecting the twins. He was a difficult person, but when the chips were down, he protected the innocent without thought. He complained about it, vocally, but he did it. He was a better man than Heath ever gave Maddox credit for.

  And Lyta. If his daughter had lived, he’d like to imagine she’d look like Lyta when she hit that age. It was silly to think about the past as he brought a rain of destruction down from the sky, but his role was the easiest and afforded him time to reflect. He just needed to stay on his feet and keep moving forward; Kondole would do the rest.

  It was a slaughter of innocent people all around him. Taking life came easily to him, even before joining the Inquisition. He was fully a Stormlord now. The Light inside him was dead. The best he could do was make sure that when this was over, as much of the blood was on his hands as possible. He could carry it.

  They reached the Cyst, a colossal structure of curving glass and steel. It looked almost alive yet completely artificial at the same time. He hit it with a concentrated blast of fulmination
from the heavens. Kondole was a gentle god, but he despised the unnatural magic of the Harrowers. A shower of sparks and glass exploded onto the street. White light poured from the puncture.

  The remains of their group hurried through the smoking breach as the fighting continued outside.

  The curved inner chamber was completely white and sterile, with shiny tile walls and floor. He could see his breath in the air. Three central columns of glowing blue crystal pulsated with motes of light. The din of fighting remained behind them, but the enraged masses didn’t cross over into the Cyst. It was like his group had become invisible to the combatants outside.

  “What is this place?” Lyta asked.

  Sword approached one of the columns. “The people of Sarn collected their shared knowledge and art in these heartstone constructs. Most of it was pornography. No way to be sure though—these crystals are just an echo of something that used to be here.”

  “I can’t feel them outside that wall… our people.” Shannon cradled herself.

  Soren hugged her. “They did what they were born to do.”

  Heath dropped to his knees. He felt dizzy and sick. Lyta rushed to help him, grabbing his arm gently and lifting him to his feet.

  “Thank you, Lyta.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “No,” Heath declared, “I’m not. But I have some fight left in me.”

  Sword pointed toward a doorway in the wall. The surface was shiny like ceramic, the seams barely visible. “Once we go through there, we’ll enter the heart of the Cyst. The Harrower will split us up and plunge each of us into our own personal nightmare. There is no guarantee of making it to the other side.”

  Shannon stomped her foot. “I’m not going. You don’t need your army anymore.”

  Heath sighed. “It’s not much safer out there.”

  She thrust out her chin. “I think I can handle myself. Soren?”

  The boy hesitated for a while and shook his head. “The best way to protect our child is if I help defeat this Harrower.”

  “I just found out I have a real family,” Shannon pleaded.