Mirrorworld

by Daniel Jordan

  En route, Marcus learnt from Musk and Lucin some of what he should expect; Lucin had managed to slip his wandering vision behind the eyes of an orc, and had followed the creature’s patrol route along the heavy barricade that lay not far north of Fango’s inn, preventing any foolish travellers or would-be assassins from straying too far into the pass on foot. By sweeping the area with his bird, however, Lucin had discovered a system of smaller pathways that led to a high shelf across the western edge of the pass, completely unreachable by people who didn’t have psychic bubbles and home to some wonderful views of the plateau and castle that they were heading for. It was on this overlook that Marcus now found himself, staring out at Keithus’s amassed army.

  It was big. It was so big that he could barely see it. The majority of the plateau below appeared to be host not to an army but to a vast, writhing, thing, a formless shape of chaos that was somehow far greater and more distinct than the individual movements of the countless bodies that gave it its form. It squirmed against the many tall flagpoles that rose from it like pins in a map, tribal territory markers that forced it to submit to some level of order. Irritated, it roared into the silence of the mountains, the uncountable sounds of its heavy bustle echoing off the inclines alongside the terrible shrieks of its composite parts, as they churned together in the melting pot below. It was a grand and grievous sight, a concentrated force of destruction that stood ready to be unleashed on the world. And it was ready: as Marcus scanned through the crowds, attempting to trace the cruel cries back to the Jabberwocks who had made them, he saw that the flow of this army was not of one at ease, but of one that was preparing to move. Everywhere he looked, campsites were in a state of undress, camp followers packing rations and dismantling tents with the same military efficiency that powered the mobilising soldiers, who were forming up and running drills nearby.

  Grim though this gathering was, it was also incredible, in ways that hurt Marcus’s head. He’d slowly come around to the idea that strange and mythical creatures were a fact of the Mirrorworld, but there was a difference between allowing for the possibility of orcs and being confronted by the reality of several hundred of their hunched, hulking forms going about their business. And then there were the trolls, who hefted their large, angular selves about the construction site on the north side of the plateau with stone severity, caring not for the casual way in which they blew Marcus’s mind.

  Yet even they were not the most remarkable or unexpected part of this scene. Such an honour was reserved for the great upright frame of wood and stone that the trolls had built, which ran the width of the plateau and housed the largest mirror that Marcus had ever seen. It was difficult to comprehend at first, as the vastness of the armies and mountains that it unfocusedly reflected appeared more as a warp in the air than a tangible object, as if an artist had stumbled across this scene yet found a piece missing, and been inspired to fill in the gap from the suggestion of its surroundings. Trolls swarmed about this grand, twisted structure with slow urgency, hammering out routine maintenance as Marcus’s group stood, watched, and collectively got a bad feeling about it.

  “This is insane,” Lucin said bleakly.

  “Why would Keithus be building a giant mirror?” Fervesce asked.

  “I don’t know,” Musk said, “but I don’t like it.”

  “This is insane,” Lucin said again. “How are we meant to get from here to there?”

  The ‘there’ to which he referred was the large castle that loomed on the far side of the pass’s slopes, beyond the notable army of nightmare creatures. The crumbling building dominated the bleak landscape, angrily frowning down at the plateau from its position on high. It appeared almost completely unconnected to the world around it, with the only visible path to the entrance zigzagging up precariously from the far side of the plateau, and heavily guarded by a coalition of intimidating ant-sized shapes.

  “We need to move,” Musk said, “by the looks of it, we don’t have much time.”

  “Move how?” Lucin asked. “How do you expect us to get all the way over there? We climb around, everyone will be gone by the time we arrive. We go through the middle, we die.”

  “We’ll get over there the same way that we got up here,” Musk said. “Fervesce?”

  The old man was staring at the giant mirror; Marcus was sure that he hadn’t even spared a glance for the huge army, his attention instead being entirely diverted by the construction to the north. He gave no indication that he had even heard Musk until the latter repeated his name, at the sound of which he shook his head and relaxed as if coming out of a trance.

  “There’s something about that,” he said, “something unnerving. It.. speaks to me somehow, as if we’re kindred in a way. I don’t like the feeling. Sorry, what did you need?”

  “Could your Talent get us,” Musk asked, “from here,” he pointed down at the ground, then up and over in an arc, coming to rest with his finger squarely aimed at the distant castle, “to there?”

  Fervesce didn’t answer immediately, instead retracing Musk’s arc with his eyes and pawing at his beard thoughtfully. “I believe so. It would take a lot of effort to distract gravity enough to allow for full-on flight instead of gentle hovering, and you’d have to move fast.. but it could be done, I think. I do confess I’m a little bit disturbed as to why you just asked me that.”

  “Kendra,” Musk said quickly. “Do you recall my asking you if your Talent had any effect on inanimate objects?” She nodded. “Did you test it?” Another nod. “And?”

  “Ehh, it might have worked,” she said. “I don’t know, walls are hard to talk to. Tough to break them down and get them to reveal their feelings, y’know? But it may have been a bit wobblier, yes.”

  “Okay,” Musk said, clapping his hands together, “that was only a possible bonus anyway. Now listen up everyone, here’s the plan. We don’t have much time and we need to get to Keithus quickly, preferably maintaining the element of surprise if indeed we still have it. That rules out walking and taking the front door, so it’s going to go like this; Fervesce will put us in a bubble and fly us over towards the castle. I will stand at the edge of the bubble with my fists ready, and smash us a way in. Kendra, I want you to try to work your Talent on the walls, maybe make my job a bit easier. Everyone else.. you just make sure to stay behind me for now. The bubble should shield us from the impact, but still, this probably won’t be very pretty. Are we agreed?”

  There was silence. The assembled group stared blankly at Musk, except for Fervesce, who had been distracted by the mirror again. Eventually, Lucin stirred to say “this is the big plan you’ve been working on all this time? The clever scheme that gets us in?”

  “Yes,” Musk said. “I had to see the layout here for myself before I knew it would work for sure, but I’ve spent some time on this. It’s the best way to get there, and even if Keithus is expecting us, I doubt he’ll be expecting us to arrive quite like this. Also, we’re using Mirrorline-given power, so any magical defences he may have set up won’t have any effect. Different magic, see?”

  “You’ve gone completely mad,” Lucin said flatly. Stood next to him, the Assassin nodded slightly, as if some inner theory of his had just been confirmed. Even Kendra was looking slightly bemused at the suggestion that they throw themselves across open air and into a solid stone wall.

  “This will work,” Musk said almost desperately, but he had lost the attention of the group. A collective light bulb appeared to have gone off in their heads and they were all now looking at Marcus with very meaningful expressions. “What?” he asked. “Oh, you want me to veto him again. I don’t know, I thought that sounded like a pretty good plan. Well thought out and presented.”

  The Assassin groaned softly to himself. Lucin actually smacked himself in the face, prompting a surprised squawk from his bird, which had been settled again on his head and now flew off to perch on the nearest boulder and stare at him reproachfully. Kendra giggled quietly to herself
.

  “Thank you Marcus,” Musk said, looking very relieved. “We’re agreed, then?”

  “Assuming we don’t all end up as smears on the castle wall,” Lucin asked, with the manner of a horrified explorer set on plumbing the very depths of the heathen, haunted, death-trap-ridden tomb he found himself in, “what happens next?”

  “We regroup,” Musk said. “We get a feel for where we are, see what’s around, find our way to Keithus and do our best to defeat him. Between us, we have magical resilience, strength, a means of incapacitation that can’t be countered, eyes everywhere.. more than enough assembled talent to take down one wizard. Look,” he continued, standing erect, his figure outlined dramatically against a background of activity below, “we’ve come a long way, and it’s not been easy, but I’ve seen the extent of our good and bad sides on this journey, and despite whatever flaws we might claim to have, I know that we are strong enough to triumph here, today. The idea of Keithus is scary, but we’ve been feeding this idea for too long – when it comes down to it, he’s just one man, and we can stop him.”

  He paused. Everyone stared at him. Kendra applauded briefly. “Don’t get complacent, hero,” the Assassin murmured, just audibly.

  “I’m just trying to make you all feel a little better,” Musk said irritably. “We probably aren’t going to get another chance for navel-gazing.”

  “We’re fine,” Marcus said meaningfully. “Really, we are.”

  “Pah. Fine. But don’t come crying to me later. Everyone got everything? Ready for this?”

  “I am never going to be ready for this,” Lucin said to no-one in particular, his head in his hands, “but if we’re actually going to do this, go ahead, let’s get it over with. I’ll be right here, making peace with a god.”

  “Which one?” Kendra inquired interestedly.

  “What have you got?” Lucin asked bleakly.

  Musk ignored him, turning instead to Fervesce. “Might we have a bubble, please?”

  The old man blinked, coming out of his giant mirror-induced trance once again. “Yes, yes of course,” he said, and closed his eyes. After a moment, though nothing changed visibly, Marcus felt the difference in the air around him as the bubble sprung up, encapsulating them in pure psychic energy. It was a strange sensation even before you left the ground.

  “Can I see it?” Musk asked. “I need to position myself.” Fervesce nodded, and after a moment, white lines began to draw themselves in the air all around them, spinning and knotting together into an intricate pattern that at first resembled a giant, spherical snowflake, before the patterns intensified, doubling back over the blank spots and whiting themselves out. With a few moments, the group was contained within an eerily translucent pale sphere. “Good,” Musk said to himself, moving over to the side of the bubble that faced towards the distant castle, and reaching out his fists to touch against it. His hands slipped right through, however, and so he addressed Fervesce again; “could you solidify it here, for me? Just so I have something to brace myself against?”

  Fervesce nodded again, eyes now shut tightly and his fingers massaging his temples. The shape of the bubble flickered briefly, and Musk leant forward on the air, which shifted under his weight but otherwise held him up by his fists. Musk now also closed his eyes, concentrating, and his hands began to expand to a size far beyond any Marcus had previously seen.

  “Kendra,” Musk called, “be ready. Alright, Fervesce, when you can. Let’s do this.”

  Marcus looked around. Fervesce was stood in the very centre of the bubble, with Lucin and the Assassin on his far side. Lucin had closed his eyes, and for once probably didn’t have his vision in anyone else’s head, unless it was the head of someone far far away who wasn’t moving at all. The Assassin maintained his trademark cool, although his hand kept slipping to the hilt of his sword. Next to Marcus stood Kendra, whose eyes were alight with a terrified excitement. She caught his gaze, grinned nervously and slipped her hand into his, just as Fervesce exhaled deeply, and their small sphere lifted from the ground. They hovered there for a moment, half a metre removed from the ground level of their overlook, as Fervesce took several more deep breaths.

  “Fast,” he murmured. “Has to be fast.” He opened his eyes, and looked around. “I recommend holding on to something,” he said, “although I’m aware that there isn’t much to hold on to.” He smiled crookedly. “Thank you for travelling Viaggiatori airways. Passengers should we aware that we are prone to departing without warning, and also that the duty free cart will be making its way to-“

  Whoosh.

  Marcus’s memory of the flight to Keithus’s castle was one that he would later compare to the sensation of being both on fire and on a terrifying roller coaster at the same time. The speed with which they shot across the canyon almost burned, and everyone fell into a heap at the same instant, excepting Fervesce, who stood steadfast at the centre of their bubble, and Musk, who unflinchingly held his position. Marcus experienced a terrible feeling of weightlessness as he fell towards the far-off ground and bounced off a see-through nothingness before getting very far, a feeling that was instantly replaced by nausea as he watched that same ground shoot past at ridiculous speed. And suddenly the castle was looming before them, and Musk was yelling for Kendra, who had barely managed to pull herself into a sitting position but was nonetheless humming away, and Fervesce was sagging, as if the effort was going to cause him to come undone before they could make it..

  And then they arrived, with an unfathomably loud crash, and a blast of white light.

  26

  Marcus came to with a groan, and found himself lying in a prone position, with distant harpies screaming in his ears, miscellaneous shapes bouncing off his retinas, and a stonker of a headache gouging bass lines into his skull. He pulled himself upright, groping for his staff among the scattered shards of masonry that now lay about him, looming like icebergs in the faint fog of spiralling dust motes that the group’s explosive arrival had sent scattering from many years of restful slumber. Between clouds, the air was filled up by both the groaning of the others as they too came around, and the louder, more serious complaints of the castle as it angrily bemoaned the serious number they’d done on its structural integrity. Marcus made it to his feet, massaging his temples in time to the creaks, groans, and nearby sounds of further falling rubble, clawing free of the dust as his brain offered up half-formed lamentations for the newly wrecked state of his favourite jacket.

  Around him, the others were all staggering upright as well. The momentum of their magic missile appeared to have taken them further than just the outer wall of the castle; they were spread across the sad corpse of a room that was once removed from the outer corridor, their passage through which was marked by a stream of destruction that led back to the big, ugly rend they’d torn in the castle’s side. Marcus staggered over to the great gap, picking his way past all the bits of castle that were lying around, and looked down; far below, figures were reacting to the sudden explosion, with a contingent of creatures already on its way up the path towards the castle’s main entrance. As Marcus appeared in the chasm, several figures fired arrows up at him that fell pathetically short.

  “I think we may have used up our element of surprise,” he announced, stepping back into the room. The Assassin spun, sword drawn, only to relax when he saw who it was. Lucin and Kendra had picked themselves up and were brushing each other off, but Musk was crouched next to Fervesce, who lay still on the floor. Marcus felt his heart lurch at the sight of the old man, who looked broken and feeble, lying surrounded as he was by chaos of his own making.

  “Can you stand?” Musk asked him, attempting to tug him up by the arm. Fervesce got as far as a sitting position before slumping against the other man with a groan. “No,” he said.

  “Damnit,” Musk said, pounding his fist, which was visibly bruised, against the wall, which trembled. “We can’t leave you here. People will be heading for our position even now. We
have to move you.”

  “No you don’t,” Fervesce said sadly. “My work is done; I got you here. You can go on.”

  “This is no time to be noble,” Musk growled. “I won’t leave a man behind!”

  “I’m not being noble, Musk. I’m being realistic. I can barely stand, and I’ll be no use in a fight after that exertion. But you’re all here where you need to be, mostly safe. This is your only chance, and you don’t want me slowing you down. You don’t have a choice and you know it.”

  “Orcs coming!” the Assassin called, from where he had moved forwards to watch the corridor.

  Musk roared wordlessly, and pounded the wall again, dislodging more dust. “I won’t leave you, Fervesce. This would be a terrible place to die.”

  “We all understood the risks when we agreed to this,” the old man said weakly, “I won’t begrudge my circumstance now. Listen, I’ve lived long enough to not be too fazed by the thought of death, especially when I know I did all I could. So really, I’m okay. But hey, get me a spare blade from that young man over there. You wouldn’t leave an old man unarmed, would you?”

  “No,” Musk said with a sigh, and quickly negotiated the borrowing of a blade from the Assassin, who looked at him as if he’d gone mad before returning to his defensive pose, occasionally flipping his direction to guard the corridor from both directions. The sound of a large group of bodies moving rapidly in their direction echoed audibly as Musk handed the long knife to Fervesce, and stood regarding him sadly. “Good luck,” he said, and saluted.