Mirror Sight

by Kristen Britain

  Where was this? Was he about to go into battle? Had war with Second Empire progressed so much since she’d been gone? She could not see the force with the king or how they were arrayed. She could not see the enemy. She wished she could hear what he was saying. He sat his horse with calm assurance, his face determined, so earnest, so much the man she knew. Unlike many who led, he would personally fight for his own country like the warrior kings of old. She knew this about him. He would not hide behind the ranks, but stand before them, and great fear grew in her, not just for the safety of her king, but for the man.

  The image moved and blurred as if time itself passed before her eyes, and solidified once more into a confusing mass of steel clashing, blood smearing across shields and armor. In the center of it all she saw him, missing both his horse and his helm, his sword hacking, sweeping, thrusting. The elegance of the swordmaster’s technique became exquisite butchery in the reality of battle. Graceful, deft, merciless.

  An enemy broke through those who guarded him. Karigan emitted a strangled cry as a sword descended toward Zachary’s unprotected head.

  No! she cried within, unable to speak aloud. No! She wanted to press through the shard, be there to protect him, but she was helpless. She could not pass.

  Before the sword fell, the scene clouded up and vanished.

  No! Tears splattered on the surface of the mirror shard. What had happened? Her insides felt flayed apart with fear, grief. She willed the shard to show her more, to show the outcome. She had to know if Zachary lived, if he was all right. At first there was nothing, then the mirror shimmered and thrust her through images so quickly that she had only impressions streaming before her eyes, of people and places she could not identify. It was like flipping the pages of a book to get to the end.

  Finally the motion ceased, but all she saw at first was vibrant color, like paints running together. The images then resolved into geometric patterns, like pieces of stained glass bound together with lead. It took her a moment to realize that was exactly what she was seeing.

  Please show me that he is all right.

  Her point of view pulled out so that the dome of the First Rider opened up like an umbrella above her. She could not tell how, but three figures appeared to hover in the air within the dome, silhouetted by the lights that shone behind the glass to illuminate it.

  She recognized Captain Mapstone’s slight form in between two men. With a quickening of her pulse, she also recognized the shape of Zachary, his broad shoulders and the posture of a warrior. Thank the gods, she said over and over in her mind. Thank the gods. He was alive. He was all right. The mirror had moved her ahead in time. Yet doubt gnawed at her. Was it truly so? Did the shard necessarily show her scenes in their correct sequence? The mirror man who had given her the looking mask had been a trickster. Was the shard playing tricks on her now? No. She must believe the sequence was correct. Zachary had to be all right. He had to have survived that battle.

  Then she remembered that he must have, only to die in the final battle before Sacor City. She recalled the account in the diary of Seften, which the professor had shown her. King Zachary rode out to support his troops, only to be overcome by Amberhill’s great weapon. Even remembering this, however, was a relief. She had time, time to get back to him, time to change outcomes.

  Unless time was really speeding away from her.

  The other man with the king and captain appeared to be gesturing at the glass. There was something familiar about him and about the way he moved, but she could not place him. Her eyes were drawn to the king, anyway. He, like the captain, gazed where the unknown man pointed. She could not see much of the king’s face, his expression, only the hint of colored light shining on his hair and glancing off his cheek.

  Have you forgotten me? she wondered.

  Had they all resigned themselves to the fact she was never returning from Blackveil? That she was dead? But the captain had left that odd message, passed down through generations of chief caretakers in the tombs. The captain, at least, must have had some hope, some idea, that Karigan might return. If only she could pass through the mirror shard itself and be there. If only a whisper from her lips would reach their ears. Zachary’s ears.

  There is no one, she had told Cade. Truth or lie? Perhaps only Captain Mapstone’s ability could tell her for sure. When—if—she reached home, she’d be tested when once again in Zachary’s presence. It was too easy now with her so far away to believe one thing or another. She knew, rationally, that he and she could not be together, but what had to be did not necessarily govern how she felt deep within.

  Was she being fair to Cade who had expressed his desire to travel back with her, to be with her? One thing she was glad of was that he slept and did not witness her reaction to seeing Zachary. Her feelings about the two men twisted up inside her, so she tried to do what she was getting so very good at and locked away her feelings, her uncertainties. It was the safest course. To set aside the issue, to mute her feelings, not think about it, go on with life. At the moment, that meant trying to absorb this gift, this vision of home she had been granted, and puzzling over what it was about the stained glass that was so interesting.

  “What are you looking at?” she murmured. It was vexing to not be able to hear what they were discussing.

  She brought the shard close to her face, but it was a mistake, for when she did so, the mirror flashed intensely into her right eye with a sharp, searing pain. She cried out and dropped the shard on the bed, and clapped her hand over her eye.

  “Wha—what is it?” Cade was up immediately, came over to her.

  “My eye! The shard flashed and—”

  “Let me see.” He carefully pried her hand away from it. “You must have gotten something in it.”

  She blinked against the sting, but it was quickly dissipating. Cade placed his hand against her temple to lift her eyelid, and she squirmed.

  “Hold still,” he commanded. She did her best as he peered into her eye.

  “I don’t see anything.” He let her go. “How does it feel now?”

  Karigan blinked rapidly, but the sting had faded. There was an afterflash, like a mote of silver in her eye. “It’s all right. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “What happened?”

  She explained her vision, and she could tell he was still struggling with the whole idea that it was real, but he did not interrupt her. She told him about the flash of light, as he sat wearily on his bed.

  “I—I don’t understand how that little piece of mirror did all that,” Cade said. “Magic is all but a myth, except to the Adherents and the most Preferred.”

  “To be honest,” Karigan replied, smiling but exhausted from all the visions the shard had put her through, “I don’t understand it much myself. The looking mask was an object of unknown power—the fact that I’m here proves it, and even its broken remnants retain a certain amount of power.” She picked up the shard once more. It showed her no new images, but counter-reflected in her right eye, turning her iris silver. She blinked, and the illusion was gone.

  All at once her reserve of energy drained away. The morphia was not entirely done with her yet, and her exertions left her shaking. She lay down, right across her Rider uniform, and slid quickly into a deep slumber, never knowing that Cade carefully pried the mirror shard from her fingers and placed it on the table next to her bed, and covered her with a blanket.

  “Good night, Green Rider,” he whispered, and he kissed her forehead.

  In the present: Captain Mapstone

  “So as you can see,” Master Goodgrave explained, pointing at the glass, “we have cleaned the entire panel, and it has clarified some of the details with remarkable results.”

  It was, Laren thought, astonishing to be so high up above the floor of the records room on the scaffolding of the glass craftsmen, virtually surrounded by the intense colors of the stained glass dome.
Lit from behind by lanterns, it was breathtaking, really, the subtle shades and details that had come to life with cleaning. She wondered what it had been like, before the dome had been built over, when bright sunlight shone through the glass. She could only imagine that it was brilliant, and the clouds and changes of weather only lent drama and movement to the scenes.

  By Zachary’s stillness, she could sense that he, too, was overwhelmed by this new view of the dome.

  Master Goodgrave and his helpers had only just finished their meticulous cleaning of the panel that depicted the triumph of the First Rider after the Long War. She saw ripples in banners and cloaks she had not noticed before, the emerald of the First Rider’s eyes, and the gleam of sunlight on armor and swords. The cleaning had added depth and dimension to the scene. And there was more . . .

  “We had taken these to be horsemen in the distance,” Master Goodgrave was saying, “but we thought it odd they were slightly out of proportion when the rest of the scene was so masterfully crafted. As we cleaned, we realized they weren’t horsemen at all.”

  Laren gasped when she saw what he was talking about. No, those were not men at all, nor were those horses. They were p’ehdrose, part man, part moose. The size of the moose bodies compared to horses would account for the odd proportions the glass craftsmen had perceived.

  Zachary laughed softly behind her. “There you are, Captain, your mystery solved. The fourth member of the League.”

  She groaned. P’ehdrose? They were more myth than fact. They certainly had not been seen in modern times. If they had ever existed, they were quite extinct. Had they once existed? The legend was that the horn now in her keeping had once belonged to Lil Ambrioth, and it had been given to her by a p’ehdrose. So, why wasn’t there more proof of their existence from that long ago time?

  Zachary placed his hand on her shoulder. “In solving one mystery, it appears you’ve opened another.”

  “The only mystery is why I pinned my hopes on a fourth member of the League to help us when no one has ever claimed that part in history in the first place.”

  “Perhaps they had their reasons,” Zachary replied.

  “They must have died out by the end of the war.”

  “Perhaps, or they went into hiding when the Scourge began. Keep in mind that the Eletians had become no more than legend until just a few short years ago.”

  “You’re not saying there could still be p’ehdrose out there, are you?”

  Zachary shrugged. “There have been stranger things.”

  A pause in their conversation allowed Master Goodgrave to start rattling off the techniques he and his assistants had used to clean the glass. Laren did not listen, but wondered about Zachary’s words. It was true, the Eletians had receded into myth until they chose to reveal themselves and become part of the world again. The Scourge had been a terrible time after the Long War, a reaction of hate toward magic after all the terrible uses Mornhavon the Black had made of it. There’d been no distinction of good users from evil. To those who wanted to suppress magic, it was all corrupt. Even the Green Riders had been forced to hide their brooches—with spells, ironically—to preserve them.

  Could it be the p’ehdrose had hidden themselves to avoid persecution? Any documentation of their existence could have been destroyed during the Scourge, along with any other objects or writings that had anything to do with the p’ehdrose.

  Master Goodgrave cleared his throat and was about to resume his lecture, when they were buffeted by a cry come from some far distance, a cry of pain that made Laren’s brooch pulse against her chest. She staggered and grabbed a railing. A great gust swirled up from below blowing documents in a vortex. The one cry was followed by the hushed echo of ghostly voices, and Laren glimpsed ragged, transparent forms flying around them. The scaffolding swayed and groaned.

  “Hold on,” Zachary said.

  She was already holding the railing with a deathly grip that left her knuckles white, but he wrapped his arm around her as if it would be enough to protect her from the structure’s collapse.

  “Your Majesty?” the Weapon, Travis, called from below.

  “We’re all right,” Zachary replied.

  He could speak for himself, Laren thought, but the phantom wind had ceased and the scaffolding was already settling.

  Master Goodgrave scratched his head. “Well, the scream was new. The spirits have been quiet of late, so I certainly was not expecting such an outburst.” His complexion was decidedly pasty, and beads of sweat dribbled down his cheek.

  “Felt like it came across all the layers of the world.” Laren shuddered as her ability whispered a faint, True, and her brooch punctuated it with a twinge. She did not particularly like it when her ability cast random judgments. She also did not like the implication of its confirming that the voice had come through the layers of the world.

  “Voice sounded familiar.” Zachary spoke so faintly, Laren was not sure she actually heard him. He looked thoughtful as he gazed off into space.

  She would question him, but later. The sway of the scaffolding had made her more than a little queasy, and she wanted off as soon as possible. “I think it time we climbed down. Your Majesty?” She valiantly gestured at the ladder indicating Zachary should descend first.

  “After you, Captain. I insist.”

  He did not have to insist, or even ask twice. She got the feeling he regarded the whole climbing of the scaffolding as a great game, like when he’d climbed trees as a boy. He appeared unfazed by the ghostly display and shifting scaffolding. As she made her way down, she overheard him instructing Master Goodgrave to inspect the structure to ensure its safety before it was used again.

  When they were both on ground level, with the solid stone floor beneath their feet, Laren and the king headed for the door. Zachary glanced back over his shoulder, and she followed his gaze to see Master Goodgrave’s assistants already scrambling to check the stability of the scaffolding. The dome still shone with brilliant light down into the room.

  “Do not tell my wife the queen about this,” he said. “She worries about me enough as it is.”

  “She isn’t the only one,” Laren muttered.

  He heard her and scowled, slowing his stride as they made their way down the corridor. An almost healed scar cut down from the edge of his scalp through his eyebrow. He’d received the wound in a skirmish with Second Empire on the northern border.

  “You think a king should not rally his troops in battle?” he demanded. “Why should I send them into a battle I’m not willing to fight myself?”

  “There is a difference between rallying the troops and almost getting oneself killed on the front line.”

  “I tried leading from behind. I did not like it.”

  She halted.

  “Captain?” He paused, and behind them Travis took up a watchful posture at a respectful distance.

  She had been through this with him on more than one occasion, as had his other advisors. He knew that he put others at risk when he rode to the front line, and was a distraction to those who must not only fight, but protect him. He’d heard and understood that if they lost him, so much else would be lost. He countered, however, that so much was gained by his being present for the troops, lifting their spirits, leading by example, just as had the kings of old.

  While this was all true, Laren knew there was more to it. She knew he was testing himself, proving he was whole and not afraid to face death after the assassin’s arrow had almost taken his life. He needed to prove he commanded his own destiny, that no one else held that power over him.

  Compelling as that was, Laren knew it was not the only reason. When it had become clear that Karigan was not returning from Blackveil, he’d decided to travel to the north to observe the troops, only to get himself caught up in the fighting. She’d heard the reports of his courage and fighting skill, and of how resounding a victory it h
ad been.

  Despite their defeat, Second Empire had to be salivating for another opportunity to face Sacoridia’s king on the battlefield, to take him down. All arrows would be aimed at him. All swords would be harrowing the field of battle to reach him.

  “Laren,” he said, “you have that look.”

  “Look? What look?”

  “That pensive look you get when you have something unpleasant to tell me. You might as well get on with it.”

  If this had not been so serious a subject, she might have been amused. “All right,” she said. “Karigan and the others did not go into Blackveil just so you could get your head lopped off in a minor skirmish.”

  He did not reply, but his eyes blazed.

  “Furthermore, she would not have wanted you in harm’s way.” Laren could’ve heard a feather alight on the floor, the corridor had grown so silent. “Zachary, she is gone, but she’d want you to live on. She loved Sacoridia, and she loved you, and not just as her king.”

  He looked away from her then. She could not imagine the intolerable weight of the crown he wore, all that it represented.

  “I do not . . .” he began then shook his head. “She is resilient. I cannot accept she is gone.”

  “Then,” Laren said, “why try to get yourself killed off before she comes back?” Because, she told herself, as much as he could not accept that Karigan was gone, he knew deep inside that she was.

  He’d rallied after the visit of Somial, the Eletian, but nothing had come of the messages she’d entrusted to Agemon in the tombs, and she didn’t think anything ever would.