by Daniel Huber
The Crone reached her hand to a mirror that sat upon the counter, a large, swiveling vanity mirror. She touched her finger to its surface and an image faded into view, at first was cloudy, and then all at once became completely clear. What was reflected in the glass was the scene at Sigh City's hangar, and Quade saw Riley shouting into his com panel, his voice hollow and unreal. "All traffic is halted! No ships on or off the planet!" The mirror faded into a wide view, of chaos at the hangar, people shouting and the unimaginable sight of the hangar's yawning rooftop slowly closing shut. Quade looked angrily to the old crone.
"What's this nonsense! How do I know that what you show me is truth? It could be an illusion, some trick of this mirror!"
She looked up and for a measured moment, she said nothing, just watched him as he leaned over the counter. As she touched it again the mirror faded from the scene of the hangar and into something else, a moment serene and dark but for the presence of a bright and unworldly shaft of light. Then her eyes locked with his and the words that grumbled through her dry old lips made his blood run cold.
"Sometimes emotions travel faster than words, Quade Decairus, and the kingdom is astir. What mind were you in when you sought to kill the Keystone?"
The mirror's vantage point changed then, revealed a scene not so long ago when Quade had stood alone on the parapet walk, when he had plucked the floating lararium from midair where it floated. Before he saw anymore, he turned to run from the shop, fearing that she may accost him. But something caught the corner of his eye as he reached for the door.
In a mirror to his left he saw the thicket of the woods, saw himself as he rode on his horse toward what, he didn't know. He turned to the mirror to look straight at it and when he did he only saw himself reflected in its glass.
"What is it, Quade?" Her voice sounded from the front of the store, and Quade tried to calm his unraveling nerves. "Did my question frighten you so much that you no longer desire my help?"
Quade didn't move, tried to decide what to do. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of an image from another of the mirrors near to him. He saw a sunlit plain, tall grass blowing and majestic snow-capped mountains in the background. He gasped, turning toward the reflection, but when he looked at it, the image was gone. His brow knit together as he stared, waiting to see if the image would return when again in his sideways view he saw something else in a tall, narrow mirror; a stormy beach with a raging sea pounding against the darkened rocks and sand. He turned toward it but once again the image was gone when he looked directly into the reflecting glass.
"What was that?" he asked.
"What do you mean, Quade? Did you see something unusual?"
"I don't know… I thought I saw a place. A place within these mirrors." He walked closer to inspect one of the gleaming reflecting glasses, touched his finger to the cold surface.
"And you yourself seek salvation through my mirrors. Seek to escape that which you have done." Quade turned to look at the old crone, stared at her where she stood behind the counter again. His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke.
"Yes."
"What you ask from me comes with a high price, boy. How much are you willing to pay for something so valuable as an escape from that which you fear most?"
Something caught the corner of Quade's eye again, and he looked to the reflection that issued the movement. He saw the outside of the mirror shop, the door that he'd entered just a few minutes ago. And outside of that door was Aazrio. The guard reached to the door latch and squeezed it in his palm, then the reflection looked up at Quade, issued a glare that made him freeze in horror.
"What?" Quade looked away from the image, moved away from the door even though he realized that what he'd seen wasn't real.
"What do you have in offer to pay for this portal?" she asked.
He was usually better at haggling. But Quade was scared and he was tired and he forgot that in a barter, one never gives up one's final offer first.
"I'll pay anything, what will it take?" The crone looked at him hard then shrugged her old, humpy shoulder.
"Well, I might have said that I'd settle for your purity, if I thought that you still had it to give," she said, her eyes dropping to scan down the length of Quade's body. She looked back up to his face, and his expression puzzled and he shifted his weight uneasily at the personal insinuation she carried in her words. "Since that's not an option, I suppose I'd settle for cash."
"How much cash?" Quade asked hurriedly, beginning to sense a presence in the air that he recognized all too well. A presence that was coming closer by the minute.
"How much do you have?"
Quade didn't have to think long to remember that he'd left all his money, his identification and his chid discs back at the castle, that he'd not carried them with him during the Twilight Bloom. Then suddenly the orb inside his cloak lifted away from his body and he barely was able to conceal it before it floated up from under the cape and out into plain view.
"I've got none. Nothing on me, at the moment that is. But perhaps we could make another deal, a trade? Anything!"
The crone stared at where Quade's cape hummed and moved, at where he pushed it back behind his arm and tried to hold it.
"I don't know of any trade I'd be interested in, but whatever it is you're concealing beneath your cloak is something I might find need for."
"No," he said shortly.
"You have no money, no thing of value to offer in trade and you won't volunteer the one thing you do have that I find to be of interest?"
" I can't," he said, his panic beginning to rise. Closer, coming closer. He could feel Aazrio coming closer. "Not this one thing! I can get you money, plenty of money if you'll just trust me now! I can get you jewels, cash, unlimited passes for Vicarious Life, all the things that the most privileged of our galaxy desire if you can offer me your trust for just this night!"
The crone watched as Quade struggled with his cape again, finally stripped it from his shoulders and held it in a folded mass of fabric before him that hummed and held itself upright on its own.
"I shall offer you help and hindrance, the two come together; the price of one is the other." She walked out from behind the counter, seeming unaffected by the sense of panic that was rising inside of Quade.
"Help and hindrance? What do you mean? Explain! And quickly!"
"In your life you experience adventure, am I right? Travel to faraway places, see new worlds and new sights on a daily basis. Many travels I sense, in your simple existence."
"I travel for a living, I'm a courier… but if you know who I am then you know what I do! Hurry now! I must go! What is your offer?"
The old crone reached from within her bosom and withdrew a long leather cord, on the end of which was a mirrored disk. Quade squinted his eyes in distaste at her motion, and tried not to seem uneasy as she looked at him from beyond the necklace.
"Wear this, Quade Decairus, and I shall see through your eyes. And with it, I give the power to transport you anywhere that you have been before. Simply look in the mirror and visualize where you want to go, and you will be taken there."
"And you'll see through my eyes? I told you I could offer you unlimited Vicarious Life and you could live through anyone's eyes! Why are you so interested in mine?"
"Because you have no choice but to give it. And you have no time to decide."
There was a racket outside in the close proximity to the cottage, and Quade knew that Aazrio had arrived. The crone shot a look in the direction of the door and Quade heard the bolt being thrown.
"The lock will not keep him out for long Quade. You must decide now."
"Why?" Quade looked at the necklace that she held before his eyes, half wild with panicked inclination to run away and half giving into the resolution that he had no other choice than to agree. "Why do you wish this from me, and why is it worth so much to you that I give it?"
"These portals in this mirror shop are conjured from places that I have been, wor
lds that I have touched. Through your eyes I will expand my inventory of portals, through your life, I will create the ability to travel to these places. And through your life I will live. I'm too old for Vicarious Life, too old to leave this shop on most days. But through this, I shall live as you live. I shall see things that I've never seen."
The door rattled noisily at the command of the guard's hand as he tried to open it and Quade nearly passed out from terror.
"Okay!" he whispered harshly. "Tell me again how to do it, how it works! But tell me now, before it's too late!"
The crone lifted the necklace over Quade's head and as the cold, smooth mirror rested atop his shirt, she flattened her hand against his chest and said the strangest words:
"From these words now spoken here, this power I decree
that through these portals travel you and through your eyes I see
twofold the price you pay to me, and hence requite this truth
twofold your debt becomes undone the essence of your youth."
The spot where her hand laid upon his chest felt cold and strange and when the crone looked up to him, she smiled a most peculiar smile.
"How does it work?" Quade took the pendant between his fingers, looked down at the thin alabaster frame of the mirror. Images began swimming across the smooth surface, images of places Quade had been; Clea's ship, the obelisk on Shescheri, the wall walk of the castle.
"Imagine the place and it will appear." The door began to give under the weight of Aazrio's pounding, then suddenly Quade heard silence but the door was still giving way. He had begun to use his magic to gain entrance.
"Just imagine it and It'll go there?" He stared at the disc tried to concentrate on Shescheri, on the image he'd seen a moment ago.
"Imagine it and when it appears, will yourself there. But you must be wearing the necklace; it must be around your neck for the portals to work."
"Thank you," Quade said, staring hard at the mirror and willing the barren terrain into his mind.
"I shall thank you as well, Quade. And because I'm fond of you I shall offer you something else, something for free. You will find it on your person, when you're looking for an answer. An answer to what it is you seek."
Something in her voice made Quade look up, but just as he did she faded from view and he realized it was not she that was fading but it was himself. Before he could ask or say anything else, he was gone.
The door flew open, a howl of the night air cutting through the shop, shuffling in leaves and clanging the bells that hung on the handhold.
"Where is he?”
"Aazrio, you dare take such a tone with me!" The crone turned her back to him and walked toward the counter.
"You were harboring a criminal old crone! Where did he go?"
"I harbor no one and you shall leave this place, esteemed guardian of the Keystone." Her tone was snide, held no respect or regard. She turned back to face him, gazed passively in his face of rage. Aazrio stalked fast toward the counter, seething.
"You do not wish to battle with me old crone, I would crush you in an instant! You will heed to my demands!" As he advanced she put up her hand and a powerful wind pushed him back and the front door slammed shut behind him.
"Avast! I shall do nothing of the sort! Make no demands on me, you non-being!" The tinkling sound of the wind chimes that hung throughout the shop glimmered from the breeze that blew through them. Aazrio caught his balance and stopped in his tracks, halted by her glittering eyes, by the threat in her stare. "Shall we speak of days of old, Aazrio? Of days in my youth when I was a force to be reckoned with?"
"I will not leave and you will heed!" Aazrio began to conjure a ball, a sphere of glimmering shards of white heat and fiery sun but with a roar the old crone threw forth her hands and the sphere was blown away from the guard and crashed through one of the mirrors, which glowed afterward. Aazrio began to conjure something else but his magic was failing him. Too hard; too hard to will himself the energy he needed, too hard when he was divided such that he was. The crone seemed to know this somehow and offered a threatening sneer in her tone as she spoke.
"Leave this place or I shall shatter every mirror around to transport you into oblivion, magic one. You go! Serve your purpose for what it's worth now." Aazrio was barely able to contain the seething rage of his inability to take control of this situation. He grasped the edges of his cape in his fists, and the swirling green pattern of his ring glowed like a tiny phosphorescent sun on his finger.
"What bargain did you strike with him to let him get away?" he demanded.
"What concern of yours is my business? I say one last time you go! Your life is protecting so proceed in your purpose! Now, the one you still have left, better guard her well. Or further show this kingdom how inept a protector you've proven to be!"
With a flourish of her hand the front door flew open again and the noise of the chimes tinkled riotously around him. Aazrio could feel the swell of her magic building around him, could see some of the mirror faces beginning to bulge from whatever it was she was threatening to do. Though he would normally never doubt himself Aazrio knew he could not risk battling her with his own powers this diminished, and in the whole of it all, Quade was gone and there was nothing else he could do. He turned from her then and stalked from the shop, and with a fierce gesture of his hand he slammed the door shut behind him and took just a little satisfaction that there was the sound of breaking glass inside as he walked away.
It didn't take long for Aazrio to find the horse; he could sense it as soon as he put his mind to his surroundings, and as he came closer he could also sense its pain and its fear. Shadduk backed away from him as he approached, but couldn't move far with his lame foreleg and the tight knot of the reins that were tied to a nearby tree. Aazrio bent to inspect the wound, placed his hand over it and repaired the damage. Shadduk was none the worse for wear; animals quickly forget any handicap they are afflicted with once they are free of it. The guard led the horse to a nearby stream and allowed him to drink before jumping onto his back and heading at a swift gallop back toward the castle.
"Safe journey to you, Clea."
Gannet paused at the hatch of Duplicity, let Delora exit in front of him to the docking module that connected Clea's ship to the hangar landing where he and Delora would find passage to their respective home planets.
"And to you, Gannet." She tried to remain composed but it was getting harder the more time that passed. Already, the celebration would have started on Bethel. Already, she should've been there to ready her horse and take her place before the crowd at the head of Sigh Castle. And all this for a run to Medius, a run that should've taken no more than a couple of hours, max. And then there was that nexus point… that nexus point that had been destroyed.
"I'll hear from you soon, then?"
"Hopefully not, Gannet. Right now you just need to go home. Go and be with your family." Gannet leaned over to where she stretched to an overhead compartment, replaced some equipment that had been left out after their run to Medius.
"Again Clea…be careful."
That exchange had been only two hours ago but it could've just as well been a week. Clea held her head between her hands, clutched her hair in anger and anxiety. How could she miss Twilight Bloom? And had Quade gone to P'cadia? The closer they came to the planet, the deeper her worries grew. Suddenly Duplicity dropped from the leyline and was released through the nexus and into open space. Immediately, their communication channels were overwhelmed with transmissions.
"What is all that?" Clea flipped a few levers, checked their course that would take them on home to Bethel. The travel time was only about ten minutes. Krisel was moving his fingers over the com panel, trying to sort out the layers of signals.
"Hard to tell, Clea. Lots of activity…transmissions are all overlapping."
She reached over, tried to omit the weaker signals, tried to decipher what anyone was saying with any level of clarity. The sound of the many voices talking over o
ne another was unsettling, and rubbed against her already raw nerves.
"There's a message coming through Clea. From Sigh City's central hangar. A general message being broadcast through all of the leylines and all open frequencies."
"What do you mean? A general message saying what?"
"I can't make it out. Here, I'll boost the signal, maybe you can make sense of it."
The transmission was weak and static, as if it were far away though the source was actually very close. A broken voice commanded sternly an order which seemed impossible.
"No ships incoming…. Or outgoing…. From the planet Bethel. All interplanetary travel is immediately ceased until further notice. All supply vessels may maintain orbit until instructions are given. All others… divert course…"
"Shut that off!" Clea lost her grip on the panic that was rising inside of her just long enough to bark that command, and as silence filled the cockpit she covered her face with her hands and spoke more calmly. "I'm sorry, Krisel. Activate subspace link, filter all but the strongest signals."
Krisel nodded, and took a moment to lock in on the nearby ships' communications. The channels were again jammed with activity as there was much confusion and many lines of communication open ship-to-ship. A few words began to jump through the garbled confusion however; words that made Clea's pulse turn to ice.
"Twilight Bloom was interrupted…"
"What happened to the Keystone?"
"Did you hear?"
"The Keystone…"
"No one knows how it happened…"
"But they said everyone saw him running from the grounds…"
"Who?"
"I heard it happened right at the start of Twilight Bloom…"
"There was a flash of light, someone told me, that's all I heard… then he collapsed."
"It was Quade Decairus… they saw him running…"
"Right in the middle of Twilight Bloom…"
"Have you heard about the Keystone… does anyone know if he's okay?"
