“Who is not really my uncle, but I see your point.”
“And if you married—”
“I’d be owned by my husband.”
“It is a coarse way to look at it, yes, but it is the emperor’s law that it is so. It would be difficult for you on your own. I would see that you were not simply left to fend for yourself.”
What exactly was he saying? That he’d be willing to take her on as his property? “Won’t you have your hands full with Arhys?”
There was a fierce glint in his eyes. “Of anyone, you would understand that duty.”
“I suppose. But Cade, I intend to reach home or—die trying.” And she would not be owned by anyone, not even Cade.
He hung his head, trailing his fingers over Scruffy’s fur. “I selfishly wish you would stay. Or fail in your endeavor without dying.”
Karigan stared at her knees. “I’m afraid it would kill me to stay.” And, she wondered, would he even be allowed to leave the tombs this night? Would he even be there for her in the outside world if she couldn’t get home?
“I would hope that I could make it worth living for you.”
She gaped at him, but before she could gather her thoughts, the Heroes Portal swung open, and she stood hastily. Maybe too hastily. Cade rose more slowly, depositing Scruffy on the log. When Cade swayed on his feet, she grabbed his arm to steady him.
“I’m fine,” he said. Then he whispered, “It would look better to the Weapons if you weren’t holding me up.”
She let go, wondering if it would look better if he fell flat on his face, but he managed to remain upright. They met Chelsa, Serena, and Joff by the portal, the other Weapons returning from the misty woods to surround them.
Chelsa’s hood was up again, but Karigan detected a smile. “This has been a most extraordinary meeting,” the caretaker said, “and one that shall be recorded in our histories and be preserved for as long as . . . for as long as the tombs survive.” Her smile faltered. “If only the opposition could act to truly halt Silk’s excavation.” She shook her head.
“I will try to encourage Professor Josston to do so,” Cade said, “without giving you away, of course.”
Karigan glanced at him in surprise. He had told the Weapons the professor’s name, and of his link to the opposition?
“I trust that is so, Mr. Harlowe,” Chelsa said. “As a matter of fact, I have just been discussing you with Joff and Serena.”
Karigan shifted her grip on the bonewood. Just in case.
“They told me that you claimed some interesting things—that you are training in the arts of a Weapon under Professor Josston, and why.”
Karigan glanced again at Cade, now doubly surprised. He would share the secret of Arhys?
“We had lost hope and believed the royal line had succumbed,” Chelsa continued. “We lost track of the line after Queen Estora’s escape with her son. It gladdens us to hear that the line is not lost. I do wonder how it is you felt you could trust us with this information.”
Karigan wondered, too.
“Because.” Cade swept his hand through the air at the portal, at the Weapons. “Because you are who you are. You are of the old realm. The Weapons of the old realm would believe in protecting the royal heir.”
“As we discussed earlier,” Joff said, “it is more than the royal heir we protect.”
“Yes, I know.”
Karigan wondered what exactly she had missed while she was inside with Chelsa. She’d always had an inkling that Weapon loyalties were not necessarily tied to the sovereign, but to whatever other secrets they were sworn to keep and protect. From the bits and pieces she had picked up, it had to do with shielding the realm from the misuse of magic. The Order of the Black Shields had originated, after all, during the Long War when such terrible magicks had torn the land apart.
“You have gambled by trusting us,” Chelsa insisted.
“A gamble, perhaps, but one with excellent odds,” Cade replied. “Miss—Sir Karigan revealed her true identity to you. That, too, was a huge gamble, but you have not threatened her in any way, and you treat her as befitting her station. If you were worthy of her trust, you are worthy of mine. You are of the old realm. I see it, I believe it.”
“You are well spoken, Mr. Harlowe. I do not think your trust is misplaced, nor ours with you. Sir Karigan’s example goes both ways. If she trusts you, that counts for much, as does Scruffy’s regard of you. He is attuned, shall we say, to Black Shields. However, it is not necessarily enough proof for us to release you.”
“What will you do?” Karigan asked, stiffening.
“There is a brief test we can administer,” Joff said, “and it shall help us determine all is as Mr. Harlowe says.” The Weapon then gave what must have been a rare smile. “We’ve already tested his fighting skills and they are not bad. Not bad at all.”
“Let us do this test,” Cade said eagerly.
“We must enter the portal. If you fail the test, then you shall never see the outside world again.”
“I’m ready.”
Was he so keen to give up everything? “Cade,” Karigan said, touching his sleeve, “do you know what you are doing?”
“I know enough that if I don’t even try, I will have to stay in the tombs anyway. Forever. So it will hurt nothing to undergo this test.”
She nodded. He knew.
Joff gestured for Cade to precede him. Karigan moved to follow, but Dash blocked her way. “I am sorry, Sir Karigan, but you must stay back.”
“Open the Portal, Mr. Harlowe,” Joff instructed. The other Weapons stood in a semi-circle behind him, waiting.
Cade did not hesitate. He strode right up to the door. He must have observed it being opened and closed enough times that it was no mystery. His hands hovered almost reverently over the glyph of Westrion, and then again, without hesitation, he pushed it in. The door released and exposed a handle that rose from its flat iron façade. Cade pulled it open, the cool air of the tombs tumbling out and mixing with the moist world of outside, suffusing him in a vaporous cloud.
“Congratulations, Mr. Harlowe,” Joff said. “You have passed the test.”
“Opening the door? That’s it?” Cade actually sounded disappointed.
“If there were more time, there would be more rigorous testing of your knowledge and physical skills, but as far as ascertaining your suitability to be a Black Shield, thus deserving of our trust, this test was enough.”
“You see, Mr. Harlowe,” Chelsa explained, “it is usually only Weapons who can open the door. It is said the reigning monarch, and certain others attributed as worthy by the door, can open it. Always the Weapons can, but few others. It knows the Weapons.”
Attributed as worthy by the door? Karigan shook her head. Would the oddness of the world never end?
Cade glanced at his hands as though they belonged to someone else. “What would have happened if I could not open the door?”
Chelsa shrugged. “The door would have remained locked, exposing you as unworthy to the Order, and we would have had to welcome you into our caretaker community.”
“Come,” said Joff. “Let us go inside for a short while, and we shall talk a little more.”
Joff led Cade, Chelsa, the death surgeon, and most of the Weapons through the Portal. Even Scruffy abandoned Karigan and trotted inside after them. Dash, who remained outside, closed the door after them. Karigan could only stare at the portal in disbelief, feeling a little left out.
Raven whickered a query, and she went over to him and stroked his neck. She wondered what would happen if she tried the door, but she had a strong sense of foreboding, that this was not her time.
Time. It was all about time.
CADE VALIDATED
While Karigan waited for Cade to return from the tombs, she felt herself growing stiff where she sat on the log, so she
stood and paced and went through some exercises with the bonewood, the mist swirling around her as the staff arced through the air. She ran through the words of the captain’s riddle as she worked, again and again, ensuring they were committed to memory.
The scything moon is held captive in the prison of forgotten days. The bonewood hummed in a forceful downsweep that could break an opponent’s collar bone.
Seek it in the den of the three-faced reptile, for you are the blade of the shadow cast. She thrust and parried to the rhythm of the words.
Beware! The longer you linger, the faster we spin apart. She flowed through a series of forms, feeling free with the release of movement, and she ended with a backward thrust.
She paused after several repetitions, panting from the exertion, and planted the tip of the staff on the ground.
Dash said, “It is good to see the staff at work. I fear we have come to rely on firearms too much in this day and age.”
So deeply focused had Karigan been that she’d forgotten the Weapon at his post by the Heroes Portal. She wiped sweat from her brow with her sleeve.
“I also fear the day,” Dash continued, “when our firearms become so accurate that we no longer have to be at close range to see the faces of our foes, their eyes.” He shook his head. “Battle, I think, will become far less personal, a matter of business and efficiency, like the mills.”
Karigan’s cooling body, or perhaps Dash’s words, made her shiver. Soldiers as machines, efficient killers. I must get home. I do not belong here. I do not like it.
The Portal opened, and finally Cade, led by Chelsa, Joff, and Serena, returned. He appeared well, except for the bruises on his face and swollen lip that had developed from his initial tangle with the Weapons. She slid the bonewood to cane length, and joined them.
“It is time we bade you farewell, Sir Karigan,” Chelsa said. “The night grows old and dawn will be upon us all too soon.”
“It has been an honor to meet you, Sir Karigan,” Joff said. He bowed, and Serena and Dash did likewise. Karigan nodded in return. It felt odd having Weapons bow to her. The three stepped away, leaving just Chelsa with Karigan and Cade.
“I have a feeling your presence has heralded change,” Chelsa said.
“Change for the better, I hope,” Karigan replied. “I wish you and your people well.”
“Thank you. Dr. Silk will find that he will not take the tombs easily. No, he will not. Meanwhile, we shall search diligently for this dragonfly device you mentioned. If we find it, we shall send Scruffy with a message to Mr. Harlowe. From there we shall determine what to do with it.”
“Scruffy will find me?” Cade asked in surprise.
Chelsa smiled beneath her hood. “He found Sir Karigan before we knew she was here and needed to be found.”
“I wish,” Karigan said, “you would just call me Karigan.”
“I am sorry,” the caretaker replied, “I cannot. You are too . . . large in our history. So many things I would ask you about the old realm and times past, but so little time.” She hesitated, her head tilted at a thoughtful angle as though she were making up her mind about something. She said, “There is one question I desire to ask, if you would indulge me.”
“Yes?”
“It is impertinent of me to do so when there are much larger matters at stake, but . . . It is a personal curiosity.” Chelsa took a deep breath and asked, “In your time, is it so that you met the caretaker named Thursgad? He was not born into the community, but came into it in adulthood.”
Karigan stared incredulously at Chelsa. Thursgad? She wanted to know about Thursgad, the bumbling Mirwellian outlaw? He’d been among the Second Empire thugs she’d helped catch down in the Halls of Kings and Queens, when they sought the high king’s tomb. Karigan had not heard what became of him. Either he’d been executed or inducted into the caretaker community. Of course, if Chelsa was asking about him, it could be for only one reason.
“Are you descended from Thursgad?” Karigan asked.
Chelsa nodded. “My several greats grandfather.”
Who would have guessed that one of Thursgad’s descendents would one day become chief caretaker? Karigan barely refrained from laughing. “Yes, I knew him in passing, and not under the best of circumstances.”
“Ah! So you confirm it.” Chelsa clasped her hands before her, clearly delighted.
Cade simply watched the two of them with his own questions in his eyes, but he did not interrupt.
“It is so much more interesting having an ancestor with a, shall we say, colorful past, isn’t it?” Chelsa asked. “Now, when I have children, I can pass the story on to them with confidence, and then tell them I got to meet you in a later century.”
It felt very odd, Karigan thought, to be considered the stuff of stories.
“Oh, I do so hate to say good-bye,” Chelsa said, “but we must. Should you not find your way home, Sir Karigan, do know you are welcome among us in the tombs. We would keep you as safe as we can.”
Karigan suppressed a shudder at the idea of living in the tombs, but she was also grateful for the sincerity behind the offer. After the farewells were spoken, she watched with regret as Chelsa and the Weapons entered the Heroes Portal one last time and closed the door behind them.
Karigan blinked, trying to adjust to the absence of lantern light, and maybe also trying to clear the tears that had collected in her eyes. Chelsa and the Weapons were the closest to home she had felt in a long time.
Raven whickered softly, reminding her that she also had him. She went to him and stroked his neck. The sudden flare of light startled them both.
“Here we go,” Cade said. It turned out, that along with the various pistols and knives he’d brought with him—now restored to him by the Weapons—he’d also had the foresight to bring a phosphorene lantern that fit in his hand.
She was relieved, as they didn’t even have a cat to lead them out of the woods this time.
He held the light while she untethered Raven, and then lit the way as they walked into the woods. She glanced once more over her shoulder, but already the Heroes Portal had submerged into shadow.
“Did you walk all the way here?” Karigan asked, knowing he couldn’t have kept up with her if he had.
“I’ve one of Widow Hettle’s mules,” he said. “Tied him up a ways into the woods.”
“Widow Hettle?”
“I board at her house in exchange for chores and upkeep.”
“You have time for that?”
Cade chuckled. “I make time for it. I am a poor student, and it is a good arrangement. Not to mention, Widow Hettle is in her elder years and nearly blind and deaf, which makes it easier for me to come and go at odd hours.”
That, Karigan thought as she stepped through some brush, solved one mystery. They walked on in silence for a while, Cade scrutinizing the way ahead with his lantern.
“So what happened back there?” Karigan asked. “In the tombs?”
Cade paused, casting his light about, mist curling in its beam. “As you could not tell me about the tombs before, there is not much I can tell you now, except that what I saw there, even the little I saw, has left a great impression on me.”
The tombs had that effect, Karigan knew.
“Also, I learned more of my responsibilities to the Order of the Black Shields and how I must conduct myself. I am now subject to the justice of the Order should I prove disloyal.”
This all should have been quite grim, as Karigan knew how brutal Weapon justice could be, but she detected a frisson of excitement just below his calm exterior. He halted abruptly and turned toward her. Then, before she knew what he was about, he wrapped an arm around her, drew her into him, and kissed her soundly. When he let go, she staggered backward into Raven, who snorted in surprise. She had to throw her arm around the stallion’s neck to remain upright.
&n
bsp; “What—what was that for?” Not that she had minded.
Cade gingerly touched his swollen lip. “That hurt.” He grinned, then winced at the pain that caused.
“Well?” Karigan demanded.
“If not for you,” he replied in all seriousness, “I would not have met these other Weapons and had my calling answered. They validated the worth of what I am doing and the tradition behind it, all that I’ve given up to pursue this course. I mean, I know its worth, but now I know it truly. You led me to it.”
“Not on purpose,” she pointed out. “You followed me.”
“You led me in other ways, as well. You have awakened me to the fact there are other possibilities in this world than having to live with oppression. Without you, I would not have realized it, nor would I have come to the tombs and truly become a Black Shield. Thank you.” He gave her a courtly bow.
She wished people would stop bowing to her. “I think I preferred the kiss,” she murmured.
He smiled enigmatically, then turned back to their path, searching through the woods with his light. They soon came upon Widow Hettle’s mule, and Karigan held the light while Cade unbuckled hobbles and tightened the girth. From there they kept walking until the woods fell away and they reached the road. Cade extinguished the lantern.
“We will have to be very careful as we near the city,” he said. “It is after curfew. Well after, if I’m any judge.”
Karigan pulled her cap out of her jacket pocket and placed it on her head, tucking her braid back under. They waited for a few minutes for their eyes to adjust to the dark, then mounted up and rode back in the direction of Mill City.
They rode in companionable silence in the misty dark, Raven prancing in a decorous pirouette now and again to remind her of his stallion-ness. Soon the billowing glow of Dr. Silk’s excavation came into view atop the summit of the Old City, his slaves still hard at work in the deep of night. All too soon they came across signs of habitation, and not long after, the lights of Mill City wavered in the mist before them.
Mirror Sight Page 43
