Mirror Sight

by Kristen Britain

  Silk tapped the tip of his walking stick on the stone floor. Very fast, he thought. He’d have to assign more slaves to clearing the site and building the road. “You exceed expectations, Mr. Moody.”

  Moody doffed his cap and bowed. “My pleasure to serve the empire. Now if I could have me one of those etherea engines, I’m sure the work could be completed even faster.”

  “You know that is the province of the Capital and cannot be . . . exported to the out regions.” Indeed not. There was not enough etherea in the world to execute mundane functions outside the Capital. It must be protected and sustained for the Preferred. After all, it was a precious resource that did not renew itself fast enough for the empire’s needs, and supplies were dwindling steadily.

  His waistcoat pocket chimed. Well-aware of Moody’s scrutiny, Silk pulled out his chronosphere, attached to his waistcoat by a gold chain and fob of carved ivory. The sphere split in half and delicate leaves of metal unfolded into a miniature emerald hummingbird with a ruby throat. The other sphere half contained two circles of glyphs carved from mother-of-pearl. The outer ring of larger glyphs represented the hours of the day, while the inner ring designated the minutes. The tiny mechanical chirped, then cocked its head, tapping first the hour with its beak tip, and then the minute. With a final chirp, it folded back up and withdrew into its own half of the sphere. Silk snapped the device shut and deposited it in his pocket. He smiled. Only those closest to the emperor possessed time pieces. Owning time was not just a perk of power, it was power, power he held over those beneath him.

  Alas, the chronosphere would not continue to work outside the Capital without its daily winding and an infusion of etherea, but it was worth using just to taunt people like Moody, and remind them of just who ranked over them.

  “I will return on the morrow to inspect your progress,” Silk said. “But now I’ve another appointment to attend.” He turned on his heel and twirled his walking stick into a neat tuck beneath his arm, strolling past the magnificent drill without another glance.

  He did not really have another appointment but it was tea time, and he had a dinner party to plan, during which he’d extract the second part of his payment from Bryce Lowell Josston for the stallion. Long ago an accident had left Silk’s sight less than adequate, and bright light caused his eyes pain. But the accident had also enhanced his vision in some ways, allowed him to see more, and what he saw of Miss Kari Goodgrave indicated there was more to her than ordinary sight might perceive.

  IN THE SHARD OF THE LOOKING MASK

  Mirriam stormed into the stable, and Luke and his stable lads slunk into the shadows like chastened cats. She glowered at Karigan, who was in the center aisle of the stable currying Raven’s neck, but Mirriam directed her fury at the professor. “Professor Josston! You know better.”

  “I—I do?” He stepped backward and fiddled with the brim of his hat, which he held in his hands.

  “The stable is not a suitable place for a young lady.”

  “Oh, well, I—”

  “And Miss Goodgrave!”

  Karigan paused her currying.

  “Step away from the horse,” Mirriam commanded.

  Karigan did no such thing, but thrust her veil out of her face to glare back at Mirriam. “Why? This is my new horse.”

  Mirriam’s gaze flashed again to the professor, who took another step back. “New horse?”

  “It’s . . . it’s true. We, uh, acquired him on our outing.”

  Mirriam gazed hard in turn at Raven, who perked his ears at her.

  “You bought the young lady an . . . an . . . intact stallion?”

  The professor glanced at Raven’s nether regions as if to confirm Mirriam’s observation. “It does appear that way,” he replied.

  “His name is Raven,” Karigan said.

  “It’s unseemly. Thoroughly unseemly. Young lady, you come to the house this instant before you ruin that fine dress. Or your shoes. Mind the droppings.” Mirriam turned and marched from the stables, apparently expecting Karigan to obediently follow behind her.

  “You’d best go, my dear,” the professor said anxiously. “Best not to incur Mirriam’s wrath, or she will not allow you out of her sight ever again.”

  “Don’t worry, miss,” Luke said, coming out of hiding. “We’ll settle Raven in. I think he’ll let us handle him now.”

  Karigan ran her hand down the stallion’s nose, and he nickered. “You behave. I’ll be back, no matter what Mirriam says.”

  He bowed his head as if to acquiesce, and Karigan departed. Once out of the stable and in the sunlight, she gazed in guilt at the horse sweat, dirt, and hair soiling her fine gloves. The front of her dress had not fared much better. Mirriam was definitely going to be displeased.

  When Karigan reached the house, Mirriam was that and more. She paced about Karigan’s room and snatched parts of the outing dress as they came off.

  “What was the professor thinking?” she demanded. “A horse! A stallion, no less!”

  “I will need clothes suitable for riding,” Karigan said quietly.

  “Riding? Proper young ladies do not ride. They especially do not ride stallions. Proper young ladies are conveyed in a carriage with an appropriate chaperone in attendance.”

  Karigan sighed. The professor had said as much. With Mirriam around, getting to spend time with Raven was going to be a more difficult challenge than she had anticipated.

  “I know you are from the country where people are . . . different, so I don’t really blame you, Miss Goodgrave. But here where young ladies are under the scrutiny of fashionable society, it’s just not acceptable. It would cause a scandalous stir here in the city. I’m afraid your station is above the crassness of such things as riding.”

  Above the crassness? Well then, Karigan would have to cause a stir, which was not a good plan if she didn’t wish to draw the notice of the imperial authorities. Such a strange world she’d stumbled into. She tried to imagine Mirriam’s reaction if the housekeeper could travel to the past, Karigan’s own time, with women on horseback and doing so many things that would not be considered ladylike in Mill City. Mirriam would be appalled, Karigan decided. Ironically, for all of her bluster, Mirriam was strong in nature the way she reigned over the household and commanded all who dwelled there, including the professor. She was the antithesis of the delicate, wilting flower the empire appeared to desire of its women. Karigan decided not to point it out and considered that perhaps the delicate, wilting flower thing did not apply to servants anyway.

  Karigan wrapped herself in a puffy robe, and Mirriam propelled her down the corridor toward the bathing room.

  “What could he have been thinking?” Mirriam muttered for the nth time.

  Karigan made no attempt to answer but entered the bathing room, closed Mirriam on the other side of the door, and headed for the tub, eager to wash away the grime of the city that clung to her like a second skin. Just having been out in the open air had made it so, and if this was a good day, she was not anxious to find out what a bad day would be like.

  As she soaked, her cast-bound wrist safely on the edge of the tub, she heard a flurry of movement in the hallway. A furious sounding Arhys proclaimed, “I want a horse, too! If she gets one, I get one, too!” This was followed by stomping and the slamming of a door, and an exasperated cry of, “Arhys!” that sounded like it came from Lorine. Karigan winced. She was sorry that by rescuing Raven she caused Arhys to become even more jealous and difficult, but better that than allowing the stallion to be given over to the knackers.

  Afterward, attired in a “day dress” of creamy yellow, she joined the professor in the parlor for tea and the midday meal. The professor had changed as well, into less formal tweed and boots.

  “I must check on the dig,” he explained, “and make sure the boys are not slacking off.”

  “What are you digging up?” K
arigan asked, looking over a cranberry-nut muffin before taking a bite.

  “We’ve come upon the ruins of a modest house in the lower regions of the Old City. Nothing we haven’t seen before—shards of crockery, buttons, clay pipes, and the like. Gives us a good idea of how people lived.”

  Karigan yearned to discuss what had become of her city, but though she sat with her back to the doorway she observed the professor’s eyes tracking the comings and goings of servants. They could not speak freely.

  “Have you ever found remains? Human?” she asked.

  “Not much were left behind, though a few of my colleagues have uncovered cemeteries. Unfortunately, the sites are usually quickly looted for burial goods. People back then placed valuables like amulets and coins and jewelry with the dead.”

  Karigan nodded. She knew, for she was from back then. It was the custom to bury the dead with something to offer the gods for safe deliverance into the heavens. Even the poor usually managed a coin or two. The professor grimaced. He must have forgotten her origins and just realized what he’d said.

  He cleared his throat. “After a while the graves weren’t looted solely for burial goods, but entire caskets with their remains inside started disappearing, and sometimes whole sarcophagi from wealthier sites.” He snorted. “I’d like to see how the Ghouls manage that. The best sarcophagi are made of stone! What a job it would be to remove one of those from the Old City.” Then he sighed. “But they’ve managed it somehow.

  “Usually the remains have been sold to that despicable circus, or to the Preferred set for parties. Remove the shroud and see what’s inside.” He shook his head. “A shame we’ll never know what valuable pieces of the historical record have been lost as a result, not to mention the distasteful desecration of the dead.” He leaned forward over his tea and said in conspiratorial tones, “When I die, I aim to be cremated. No digging up my old bones!”

  Karigan thought it a curious sentiment from an archeologist who reveled in finding clues to the past. Wouldn’t he rather be exhumed with all kinds of objects that would benefit future archeologists?

  She didn’t have the opportunity to ask more because he then said in a very low voice, “Meet me in the library tonight once the household is abed.” He set his teacup aside and rose. Without another word to her, he strode from the parlor calling for Grott to bring him his hat and coat. “It is time I checked on those sluggard students of mine,” he declared.

  Karigan contemplated her muffin once more. She had to admit the professor had a point about the desecration aspect of being buried as opposed to cremated. She had been, after all, revealed in a tomb before a large audience at the circus. Happily, she was alive when it occurred, but she would have hated for her own Earthly remains to have become part of some macabre entertainment to be stared at and giggled over. Violated.

  Tombs, burials, and cremations aside, it was not going to be easy to remain patient until late night when she was to meet the professor in the library. He must be planning to take her to the old mill to answer her questions.

  The afternoon did draw long for Karigan, forbidden as she was to go to the stables and visit Raven. That was something else she needed to address with the professor—how she was going to get to spend time with the stallion. So, she did as she was accustomed. She returned to her room where she worked with her bonewood, fully extended to staff length, to practice forms and keep herself limber. It was not so easy in her dress, but she considered it useful practice, too. Chances were, if she needed to fight with the staff in this world, she’d be in a dress, not her more practical Rider uniform.

  Sometime later she spilled onto her bed puffing and sweating. Her left arm was getting a good amount of work, but when the cast came off her right wrist, it would be alarmingly weak. Well, she’d just have to work it till it was back to its old strength. That’s what Arms Master Drent would make her do.

  Arms Master Drent. She was riddled with sudden pangs of homesickness.

  Of all the people to miss. She shook her head.

  Yes, she actually missed Drent with his abrasive manner and the abuse he heaped on his trainees. She would welcome seeing even a glimpse of him in her shard of the looking mask.

  Thinking of it, she sprang from the bed and retrieved it from its hiding place behind the headboard. Sitting once more on the bed, with pillows propped up behind her, she unwrapped the mirror fragment and gazed into it. When no visions immediately appeared, she flipped it over, but saw only her own reflection.

  Maybe she just needed to be patient. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the time. She’d hours till supper. So she settled in, gazing at the mirror shard, occasionally turning it over to see if it made a difference which side she looked at. It did not. She yawned and nodded off, the piece of looking mask loosely cradled in her hand.

  She dreamed of her friend Estral scribbling madly on a slate with a piece of chalk. Or was it a dream? She shook her muzzy head and the dream, or vision, or whatever it was, continued. In it, Estral held the slate up for someone—Alton?—to see. At first Karigan could not read the writing, as if it was formed in arcane symbols her dreaming eye forbade her to understand, but she concentrated, and the words blurred and came into focus: Have they found my father yet?

  After a pause, Estral lowered her slate to the table, gazing as if listening to a speaker Karigan could not see or hear. Then Estral wiped the slate clean with a rag and started writing madly again, worry creased across her forehead. When she raised the slate once more, Karigan had no trouble reading the words, and it was then she realized she was no longer dreaming and that the scene was playing out on the mirror shard.

  Yes, he wanders, Estral had written, but he always returns to Selium in time for the spring convocation. Estral seemed to listen to some response, then dropped the slate and turned away, placing her face in her hands. The scene vanished, leaving Karigan staring slack-jawed at her own reflection.

  She shook herself to make sure she was awake. What was that scene about? Why was Estral writing on a slate to communicate? It couldn’t have been for Karigan’s benefit, because Estral seemed unaware of her looking in. Some singers went to great lengths to protect their voices, but Estral wasn’t like that. Perhaps she simply had a sore throat or laryngitis. And why did she seem to need her father, the Golden Guardian of Selium, so urgently? She had looked so worried. And she was right, he never missed the spring convocation when journeymen minstrels were raised to masters and awarded their gold knots.

  Karigan was happy the looking mask shard had finally revealed one of her friends to her, but the scene had not been at all reassuring.

  In the present: Alton D’Yer

  Alton slipped out of his tent, fists clenched and ready to batter something hard, like the D’Yer Wall, but he didn’t do that anymore and hadn’t for a long while. But how was he to vent his frustration on Estral’s behalf? For the loss of her voice, the voice that had begun to mend the cracks in the wall? He, himself, tried to coax the guardians of the wall along with song, but his voice lacked the magic Estral’s held. Or had held.

  The guardians had grown dispirited without her. The cracks stopped mending. Thank the gods the established repairs hadn’t reversed themselves.

  The worst part was how powerless he felt in the face of Estral’s despair. Voice, song, music were as integral to her as the blood flowing in her veins. He did his best to soothe her, hold her, love her. Estral had once written out on her slate for him, that without music, she’d rather die. The spell that had stolen her voice had taken more: her very musicality. She no longer knew how to play her lute, and reading musical notation was like trying to read a foreign language.

  If he ever found the caster of that spell, he’d crush the life out of him with his bare hands. He balled his fists compulsively and scowled at nothing but the air in front of him. The other tents, the trees, were all a blur, the sounds of the encampment far away.
He had very strong hands, a stoneworker’s hands. He smiled grimly, savoring what he’d do to that spellcaster.

  It did not help that Estral’s father, Lord Aaron Fiori, the Golden Guardian, seemed to have gone missing. He was known for his penchant for traveling anonymously, as an ordinary minstrel, but Estral insisted he was actually missing, that it was not like him to overlook certain events. They’d sent messages hoping to call him down to the wall so he could help Estral, and perhaps his voice would revive the interest of the guardians and the mending could continue, but the only word they’d received was that no one knew the whereabouts of the Golden Guardian. Last that was heard of him was that he’d been somewhere in the north of Adolind Province. The north was dangerous, what with all the Second Empire activity in that general direction.

  “I promised to write the king,” Alton murmured. He’d promised Estral he would ask King Zachary to investigate the Golden Guardian’s disappearance. From what Alton gathered from some of Estral’s scribblings, Lord Fiori, along with some of his capable master minstrels, often made informal observations of what was happening in the realm and shared that information with the king as necessary. It did not take much imagination to conclude he’d gotten into trouble. Alton would also request that Captain Mapstone alert her Riders for any sign of the Golden Guardian.

  The tent flap rustled open behind him, and he stepped aside so Leese, the encampment’s chief mender, could stand beside him.

  “I’ve given Estral a draught to help her sleep,” Leese said. “But we can’t just keep dosing her.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Alton replied, gazing at his feet.

  “Keep doing what you’ve been doing. Be with her, comfort her. She needs you right now. But, for all that love is a miraculous thing, you need to persuade her to eat when she wakes up, even if it’s a weak broth. I don’t like seeing her grow so thin so fast.”

  “I know, I know.”