Mirrorworld

by Daniel Jordan

  She glanced blearily down at her desk again. The note was still lying there, clearly visible, offending with its mere presence. Some strategic re-arrangement of paperwork soon took care of that, but also bought another equally troublesome report to her attention. It concerned the confusing case of Lit Kai, a young Betyoullian recruit who had come to the Viaggiatori with some incredibly big thoughts. His theory had been a simple one; that, much as it was possible to enter a portal, travel through the Mirrorline and end up on a different planet, so should it be possible to enter a portal, travel through the Mirrorline and come out in a different location on the same planet. The essential groundwork for opening an Earth portal was the linking of two similar places, and there was nowhere more like the Mirrorworld than the Mirrorworld itself, so why shouldn’t that be plausible? Kai had been proposing a system of sidesteps that could span thousands of miles, and the Viaggiatori had been up in arms about it.. until Lit Kai had vanished, with all his ideas about how exactly such a system would work, and Eira at least had been left with a tremendous sense of missed opportunity. She’d been regularly pulling her contacts both in the city and elsewhere across Eurora, hoping to find the boy, but he had vanished in true style: completely and utterly without trace.

  The report fluttered back down to the desk as Eira dropped it with a sigh. Even the case of Lit Kai’s wild and dangerous ideas paled in insignificance to the looming problem of Keithus. There were plenty of reports coming back from the Northlands, since a large percentage of the people hardy enough to keep their lives out there were not foolish enough to stand in the path of an ever-growing army; every fleeing farmer bought word of the joining of yet another orc tribe or other hellish creature of the north to Keithus’s cause. Individual reports conflicted as to the exact size of the army, but all of them tended to agree it was more than equipped for the purpose Keithus had announced of it; the invasion and destruction of Portruss. This did not count amongst the most inspiring of intelligence.

  The wizard would not be stopped by reasoned debate. Eira had tried to calm him with words when he’d first crossed the threshold of the House of Viaggiatori, and it had only made him angrier. No, they were far past that, now; it seemed inevitable that the conflict would come to blows, and Portruss had very little to martial against Keithus’s hordes. Many Viaggiatori had picked up, as a result of their time on the Mirrorline, strange and unusual powers that could be bought to bear offensively, but without an actual army there was only so much they would be able to do, and Portruss’s own standing force was far to the south, embroiled in a bitter siege of Cape Town for no reason other than the talking heads at the Parliament of Rooks had taken a shine to it. Only a skeleton force remained in the barracks south of the river, and even if word did reach the army in time for it to turn and march for home, Keithus’s own forces would almost definitely beat them in a footrace across the continent.

  It would be easy to blame the government, should the city be overrun and there be anyone left to assign any blame. It would also be easy to blame the wizards for not containing Keithus when they had the chance, too. Most of the Viaggiatori tended towards these approaches, seemingly forgetting that it would be equally easy to lay the blame at their own feet for provoking the wizard’s wrath and turning him against the city at large. Eira didn’t believe that anyone from outside of her organisation was affected by such a convenient amnesia, unless it were directed at their own faction, but that was the way of things: the people who should have been working together to find a way to secure the safety of the city were instead descending into backbiting, mistrust and resentment. Such were the effects of living under the constant, grim shadow of a pointy-hat-wearing-headsman’s axe.

  All in all, things were looking bleak. What I really need, Eira thought, is my ace. She needed Tec to do his thing, to figure out what it was that was so important about Marcus, so that they could point him at Keithus and hope that somehow, everything would work out. It was kind of callous to use the man so, but there were no other choices. For better or worse, and no matter what he might think, Marcus was their best hope. A vain hope in the shape of a man who.. what? Her initial impression had left her thinking that he wasn’t quite a part of the world, that he was observing it but refusing to be a part of it. But then again, he wasn’t a part of this world, was he? Maybe that didn’t mean anything..

  It was at this point that her tired mind finally gave up, and her thoughts shattered into a world-shaking yawn. Someday soon, came a lonely thought, I might actually own a bed again.

  As she was blearily looking around for something that could be a pillow in a pinch, her secretary poked her head around the door. Eira wondered how the woman always managed to look so neat when she worked the same hours as Eira herself, who suddenly became aware that her hair was once again doing a remarkable impression of a snake pit. “Yes?” she asked, affecting an attitude as if this was exactly what she had planned for her hairstyle that morning.

  “Sorry, Master. I wasn’t sure if you were awake but thought you’d want to hear about this straight away; Eustace is back, with Lilac and Helm.”

  Eira stared. “There was a name conspicuously absent from that list, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes, there was,” her secretary replied. One day, Eira thought to herself, I’ll learn the damn woman’s name.

  “You’d better send them in,” she said aloud.

  They shuffled in, Helm first, although in his case it was more of a stagger. He was being supported by Lilac, the Viaggiatori Eira had sent to track him, and looked a total mess. Eustace wandered in after them and quietly shut the doors with a loud bang. As Lilac shoved Helm over to the nearest chair and dumped him unceremoniously in it, Eira didn’t say anything. Instead, she waited for Helm to realise where he was, whilst Lilac stood next to him twitching like she was on trial. Eustace leant back against the door and started picking dirt out of his fingernails. Eira made a mental note to threaten to cut his fingers off if he ever did that in her office again.

  With all the effervescent speed of a retreating glacier, Helm’s eyes un-blurred into focus, and he look up at Eira with an expression of pure woe. “I can explain,” he said.

  Eira leant over and popped the kettle on. “Go on, then,” she said in a cheerful tone that a less drunken person might have recognised as extremely dangerous.

  “It might be better if I offer the explanation,” Lilac interjected, diving in to save the day, “since Helm’s level of coherency is somewhat reduced at this time.” Eira had to grin at this understatement.

  “I followed Helm and the immigrant as you commanded,” Lilac continued, “and although asking him right now won’t get you a straight answer, I’m certain Helm didn’t see me. And if he didn’t, Marcus certainly didn’t. They wandered around Central Plaza for a while before heading down Rice Street and having some food. At this point, two freelancers attempted to mug them after the lady from the stall tipped them off, but they made a bit of a hash of it. In the resulting kerfuffle, our two actually managed to get away from me,” and here she paused to shoot a sharp look at Helm, who grinned back sickly. Lilac did not like to admit that people had gotten away from her. From her time exposed to the Mirrorline she had developed an affinity for other travellers, and often spoke of the aura that she could see around anyone who had wandered between worlds. It made her an invaluable stalker, usually set to the task of ensuring new travellers had orientated themselves effectively after permanently relocating from one world to the other.

  “Once I’d lost them, I couldn’t find them again. I wandered through the city for hours, until I chanced upon a hint of Viaggiatori in Industrial, and followed it to find Helm here, unconscious in the wreckage of what might once have been a bar. As you can see, he was, and is, completely sozzled.”

  “And Marcus? Nowhere to be found?” Eira suppressed a hint of panic.

  “No.”

  “No trail? Nothing?”

  “Nothing. I thought I noticed a
t first, when I was following them earlier, that his.. aura.. is fainter than most. It’s like something else is blocking the signal. There is something odd about him.”

  Eira could have sighed in relief at this more-or-less confirmation that there was definitely something going on with Marcus, were it not for the fact that he was still very much missing. Instead, she retained her dignity as the Master by gulping down the cup of coffee she’d just poured and feeling tired brain cells begin to spark back into life.

  “Right,” she said, cracking her neck. “Our first priority is to find Marcus. Eustace?” The old scholar looked up from his now meticulously clean nails. “Get your people on the lookout again. Helm, did he take that odd staff of his out with him yesterday?” A half-nod, half-slurred ‘yes’. “Okay, make sure that’s part of the description, there can’t be many people wandering around with something so distinctive. Make sure to actually describe him as well, though, in case he trashed it to be more inconspicuous.” She turned to Lilac. “I need you to get his description out to the gate guards, and make sure they don’t let him out of the city. Right now we’re working under the assumption that he is trying to get away from us, so we need to get a step ahead of him. He has a head start, but he doesn’t know the city; if we don’t waste time, we can catch him, so let’s get to it.”

  They stood there, blinking at the sudden influx of plans. “Gooooo!” Eira yelled, waving her arms and blowing them hurriedly out of the room with the breeze from her sleeves.

  That just left Helm, sitting still in his seat looking sorry for himself. “Oi,” she said, lobbing her empty cup at him. He jerked up. “Are you with us, Viaggiatori?”

  “Urghle.. Yes, Master.”

  “Well, report, then. How did he manage to ditch you? No, I know that one, he got you drunk. How did he manage to convince you to do something so silly?”

  “It was only going to be a couple.. phleah. I thought it wouldn’t matter because he’d get just as drunk as.. I.. did. Yeah. That.. there were nice ladies and I don’t remem..em..em...ember much else. Hey, we were in Ron’s – and get this – he didn’t fall off a stool all night! Maybe,” and here Helm leant forward with the air of one about to divulge a great secret, “he wasn’t drunk at all?”

  Luckily, the kettle was still warm. Eira silently poured another coffee and handed it to Helm. “Whoa,” he said after taking a sip. “Whassis stuff?”

  “I had it imported,” Eira said conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve started throwing away the stuff my secretary keeps buying, it’s got no oomph. This stuff, they grow it in the dark fields of Cittascura, so it’s got bite. Feeling better?”

  “Aha. Magic coffee. I guess so.”

  “Good..” Eira murmured, feeling the insta-buzz from her own cup beginning to fade away. Best to get as much out of the man as possible before he reverted to the same level of coherency as a sack of potatoes. “Report, Helm. I asked you to get inside his mind for me. What did you find?”

  “He’s..” Helm paused. “He’s not unintelligent. Stuff I told him, he caught on pretty quick. I think he thinks a lot. Overthinks, maybe, trips himself up on his own thoughts.. either way he has a lot of defences up, guards his thoughts well. With me, I think he was playing a part, seeming cheerful enough, but there was more going on behind his eyes. Especially after this morning in the labs.”

  “That was yesterday morning,” Eira said patiently. That had been an interesting report. Tec had been a bit more excited about the implications of Marcus breaking his program, but she had managed to gather from bits and pieces of what he had mentioned seeing in Marcus’s memory that the man had been given a kind of duff deal in life. She itched to know more, but that was Tec’s job; there was no point paying the man to do stuff if she was just going to be there, when he could do it equally well alone and report to her later, leaving her free to catch up on several months of lost sleep. Word always found its way back to her eventually, even if she did have to set Eustace on it.

  “So what happened after the labs?”

  “Who can say?” Helm shrugged. “What effect does it have on a person to be presented with the entirety of their life? Sure, it’s filtered through our own biases, because they are our own memories, but there are always things we’d rather forget, and reminders hurt. Tec doesn’t think about that kind of thing, does he? But it sure went to Marcus’s head. He asked me all sorts of things about the city, but it felt like it was for distraction more so than genuine interest. But then, after Rice Street.. there was.. a strange way about him. He seemed all the more real after smashing that poor bastard’s head in. Make of that what you will. I let him take point, and I swear he must have spiked my drink or.. or something.. because.. uh.. usually I am good at.. the drink.. thing. What?”

  “Final opinion, Helm?” Eira asked hurriedly, aware that the coffee was rapidly wearing off.

  “Hmm,” Helm paused to think for a second, with visible effort. “All in.. er, oh yes, all, I should say Marcus is a man who lost sight of what he lives for, and might not care to remember it, but remembers that he forgot it, and the thought of it is one of rage, and pain. Does that make sense?”

  “Perhaps he lives for the manifestation of a destiny that will save us from Keithus?” Eira felt almost ashamed at the unabashed hope in her voice, but Helm was in no state to notice it.

  “I don’t think.. so,” he said sleepily, his eyes beginning to redden again. “To be honest.. I think if the Grim Reaper came for him today, he’d greet him with open arms.”

  Consciousness came gunning for Marcus in tandem with the rising sun, the former wedging itself rudely between his eyes and forcing them open so that the latter might burn away the spider webs that alcohol had weaved behind his retinas. Cursing the heady hangover that had found him where he’d left himself atop a pile of bin bags, collapsed from exhaustion following a wild, directionless flight through the city the night before, he rolled away and pulled himself up to a sitting position, where he waited quietly for the pain of waking to slink off and bother somebody else.

  The aftermath of a night with Ron’s numbers was a potent one, and Marcus cherished every instant of it. He had not forgotten the encounter that had informed his flight, not forgotten a word of the conversation he had shared with the Grim Reaper. The sense of fear and dread rang yet through his head, lightning bolts riding the recollection of Death’s promises of inevitability. His number was up, his cards were marked, his time borrowed and rapidly accumulating interest. He was a problem to be solved, a boat to be brought in, and all of that didn’t matter a damn against the deep bass thud of a killer headache that was solid, undeniable proof that right now, he was still alive. Those pounding drums shattered the image of Death’s leering skull every time it tried to form in his mind, forcing Marcus’s thoughts away from the murky gloom of his lost and found life and over to more immediate, primal concerns like painkillers, now!

  Full of lethargic urgency, he dug Death’s scythe out of the pile of trash and used it to lever himself upright. He’d considered throwing it aside again many times during his wild flight, but as he understood it, the scythe itself wasn’t the problem. He, Marcus Chiallion, was the problem, at least in Death’s eyes. Somehow, whatever wild voodoo the Viaggiatori had worked to bring him to the Mirrorworld had interfered with Death’s business and turned Marcus into a dead man walking, and that was what Death, quite reasonably really, found objectionable. But if that was what Marcus was to be, then damn it if he couldn’t use Death’s staff to support himself. He did so now, leaning heavily on it as he hobbled out of his alley and back to civilisation, or more accurately, Rice Street.

  Early as it was – Marcus checked his watch, which he’d kept meaning to adjust and had never got around to, so it only ever lied to him – the street was a hive of activity. Stalls that had serviced the people of Portruss’s night were being closed up and wheeled away, or else outright converted into an entirely different stall that might better ser
ve the day shift. Collected piles of bin bags had been swept to the sides of the road; Marcus presumed that whoever had the unenviable job of collecting the rubbish would be along soon to clear it up, cleaning the slate for another day in the big city.

  In spite of the ongoing war between his headache and soul-ache, Marcus had to smile as he wandered the length of Rice Street. The weather was pensive, the sun rising through the clear skies, not quite succeeding at piercing the wintery chill and summoning the spring, but giving it its best shot. All around, jovial traders bade Marcus good morning, lending him instead their warmth along with promises of delicious food from lots of places with odd-sounding names that he didn’t quite recognise. Despite the fear of literal imminent Death, Marcus found himself enjoying the atmosphere. It would be a nice day, he now held in his free hand a steaming cup of coffee, and were those the scents of fresh baking that he smelt in the air?

  They were. Since what with one thing and another he’d never gotten around to paying his tab the previous night, he still had plenty of money, so he expunged on a croissant the size of his face and went to sit at a rickety table nearby and decide what he was going to do with his afterlife.

  What I need to do, he thought, is to get out of this city. That was the plan last night, and it should still be my plan. If I can put some distance between myself and all this madness, maybe it’ll all make a little more sense. For the most part, it was working out pretty well so far; here he sat, alone and unfettered, enjoying an al fresco breakfast as he soaked up the sounds and sights – the stalls, the passers-by, the ghost, the food, the drink..

  Oh, but you can’t run from me, growled the thought of Death, no longer cowed by the receding beat of headache. Wherever you go, I told you, I will find you, and I know you believed me. Marcus shivered. The fact that Death had also admitted to being rather busy and that it might take a while was of little comfort; was he to stare down every shadow as a potential lurking place for his doom, sidestepping every patch of darkness until one of them finally rose up to take his soul? A life of ignobility, capped by a brief glimpse of another way, instantly poisoned by the inevitability of death. Maybe he’d been wrong; maybe the future would be just like the past after all.