“I...” Helm had no response. He looked from the mirror, to Eira, to Keithus, to the business end of the wizard’s staff that yet hovered before his eyes, and to the smoking patch of dust that had so recently been one of his compatriots. A complicated series of expressions passed over his face, ending with haughty, stubborn resignation. He cleared his throat. “Very well,” he said, and then stoic dignity erupted into a ferocious leap forward, as if he were hoping to grasp Keithus and pull him through the mirror by means of nothing but his own hands and the element of surprise. But Keithus already had his staff up, and merely looked bored as he adjusted the aim for a moving target and blasted Helm square in the belly with a shock of light that hit home with an unexpectedly heavy thud, throwing the Viaggiatori back, across the room, and through the open portal in the mirror. The echo of a distant scream rippled out along its iridescence, and with a final, violent shudder, the portal closed.
“Well, that was fun,” Keithus said, with savage cheer, while his Jabberwocks tittered in the background. “People just don’t seem to get that they can’t just run at me like that and expect to accomplish anything. Look,” he said, pointing to his staff, then his hat. “Wizard. Yes?”
Eira, who was by coincidence sitting in the same direction that he was aiming his mania, shook her head, dismissing afterimages of Helm’s final trip across the worlds in an action he took for dissent.
“Ah, whatever,” Keithus said, waving a hand at her dismissively. “Doesn’t matter now. Well, better get on.” He turned back to the mirror, placed a hand against it, and, after a moment, it began to shimmer again, his hand briefly dipping into what lay beyond as surface lost substance and form.
“What.” Eira said. “You can do it yourself?!”
“Well I was hardly going to trust any of you lot with it, was I?” Keithus shot at her. “Look how that turned out. And it’s not like this is difficult. Your little genius idiot was a tolerable teacher.”
“But then what was the point?” Eira asked, aghast. “Why the sideshow?”
“Because it amused me,” Keithus said simply. “I do so adore the thought of you lot suffering. And that was the point, really. I could’ve gone to Earth any time, but it just didn’t feel right to not exact such tasty vengeance.” He bared his teeth in a cruel, broken impression of a genuine smile, and chuckled at his own thoughts. “But now, I really must be off. Got a world to run, you see. And hey, you’ll be pleased to hear that, since I am a merciful man, and in a good mood, I’ve decided that I won’t just kill you all. Instead, I’ll leave my Jabberwocks here to rip the lot of you to pieces, because that’s pretty much what you deserve. But hey, this way, you might even have an outside chance of defeating them, of maybe maintaining some modicum of choice over the way the rest of your life goes.” The wizard’s expression twisted viciously. “And that is more than you ever gave me.”
The Jabberwocks chattered with freakish laughter, hungrily eyeing the Viaggiatori. Eira felt a horrible hopelessness sliding in over her as Keithus called to his orcs and turned back to the mirror, which shimmered now again with the daring promise of a brave new world.
Marcus sailed out of the mirror into the Bedlam Palace, and crashed into a scene of nightmare. Bodies lay everywhere, some human, some not, almost all of them torn to pieces. The gilded ornamentation of the courtyard had given way to a run of blood, forming sickly images that were being trampled into paste by hordes of orcs, who seemed to have turned on the few trolls that were in the area. Bodies flew about as stone fists sent orcs flying. Across the courtyard, a troll toppled under the weight of all the orcs that had dived at it. On its back, being slowly smothered, it continued to tear at its attackers. A Jabberwock stood atop the ornamental fountain, which had been shattered, shrieking wildly as it presided over the chaos like a demented public speaker. In-between all this, the few surviving humans ran about wildly, attempting to reach safety.
A small band of orcs who happened to be in the area jumped in surprise as four humans and a troll came flying out of the mirror, but with a roar promptly dived at them. Marcus stepped up to meet them, forcing one back with a swing of his scythe. They hesitated, the smaller orcs glancing to their leader, the largest, who grinned a grin that contained an impossible number of teeth, and started towards Marcus again. Marcus held his ground, and, as the orc casually raised his weapon, he dropped to the floor and span the blade of the scythe out low, slicing at his attacker’s ankles. The orc fell to the floor with a howl, and his comrades leapt forward, but by that time Kendra had come up beside Marcus, and they moved into a whirl of blades and flying limbs.
“Trolls!” Kimberlite boomed, laying down the corpses she was carrying. “To me!”
Her subjects were revitalised by her appearance, and bludgeoned their way through the fray to form a circle around her. She rolled her eyes and reorganised them into a living barricade, which began to slowly advance through the courtyard, systematically taking out any resistance.
“What’s happening?” Marcus heard Musk ask Kimberlite, as he ducked behind the wall for cover. “Why are your trolls fighting the orcs?”
“Because I trained this army to occupy, not destroy,” the troll queen boomed, “in the face of Keithus’s request. He would have them destroy everything, but battles are won by subjugation, not domination, and as his general I did what I could to make an army that would fight well, and smart. I expected these other creatures to revert to their primal instincts in my absence, but I knew my trolls would not. We are not uncivilised creatures,” she added, crushing an orc’s head in her fist, “and these fools are giving us a bad name.“
“Ha!” Musk said. “See, Keithus never had you totally under his th-“
He cut off at a shriek from the Jabberwock, which had realised from its position on high that the tide of battle was shifting away from its favour. It leapt from the fountain to land in front of Kimberlite, baring its claws and teeth angrily. Musk stood forward to protect Kimberlite, who rolled her eyes again, shoved him back out of the way, and waited for the creature to make its move.
“You betray,” it said with a snarl.
“Yes I do,” Kimberlite said. “What are you going to do about it?”
The Jabberwock roared again, and dived at her, raking its claws through the air with intent to disembowel. Kimberlite stood with her arms folded, unimpressed, as the Jabberwock made contact. There was a horrible scraping sound, and the creature’s claws snapped off. It stepped back, eyes wide, shrieking with pain, but Kimberlite was on it, swinging her fist towards its face. With lightning fast reactions, the Jabberwock opened its impressive jaw and bit down hard on her hand. There was another shriek as its teeth shattered away, and Kimberlite bought her other fist around to knock the creature flying, bawling in pain as it crashed down on the far side of the courtyard, and moved no more.
Every smaller battle in the vicinity had stopped to observe the brutal takedown, and with this move the spell was broken. Marcus turned back to his current opponent, an orc who glanced from him to the advancing wall of trolls, did some mental arithmetic, dropped his weapon and ran for it. Behind him, Marcus saw a black-robed figure materialise near the remains of the Jabberwock, and engage it in polite conversation. Marcus fought the urge to dive for cover as Death turned to look around, and met his eyes. The small supernovas in the skeleton’s eyes blinked in surprise, and then flared wildly, but before either of them could act, the ground underneath them began to shake wildly. Battles across the courtyard upended as the ground cracked, and both Marcus and Death took advantage of the situation to make a move. When the dust cleared, neither of them were where they had been stood beforehand. Death appeared to have vanished, but Marcus kept his eyes on the crowds as he tried to make his way over to the others, almost falling over several times as aftershocks reverberated through the courtyard. The remains of the fountain collapsed in on itself as he passed, showering him with blood-soaked water. Blinking it out of his eyes, he saw the incoming
threat of an orc’s blade just in time to leap backwards awkwardly, and bring the length of his scythe round to rap the creature smartly on the back of the head. It fell face first into the fountain, unconscious.
Marcus turned to deal with his next opponent, but it was Kendra, who was ashen-faced and covered in blood that seemed, for the most part, to belong to other people. She was holding her side and limping slightly, but otherwise seemed unharmed. “What happened then?” Marcus asked her.
“I don’t know!” She had to yell to be heard, as at that moment a roar of thunder overhead announced the arrival of a huge storm over the city. Marcus shielded his face as rain began to pour down. “Where did that come from?!”
“I don’t know!!’ Kendra yelled again. “This isn’t natural! Something very bad has happened!”
Marcus had to agree. The clouds that made up the storm appeared to be duelling with each other in a battle for dominance of the sky, and in the light of the sudden lightning they appeared terrifyingly similar in composition to the crazy clouds of the Mirrorline. Beneath them, the ground felt as though it were still vibrating slightly. “We need to get to Keithus,” Marcus said.
Order was swiftly restored to the courtyard, and by extension the rest of the building, over the next few minutes. Kimberlite’s trolls quickly overcame the rest of the opposition, and a small group were left to guard over the captured and disarmed orcs as the rest made their way out into Central Plaza, which was another chaotic scene. Whereas the Bedlam Palace had not been afforded the luxury of time to deal with the sudden appearance of an army of monsters, the people who had been in the plaza had been luckier, and so the fighting was much less one sided. Trolls waded through the horde, indiscriminately batting aside all enemies, since both orcs and humans were aiming at them. A large group of pointy hats were streaming out from the wizarding tower, and illuminating the square in the sudden darkness of the storm with the blasts of lightning and fire. They weren’t being shy about the size of their blasts, either, which, combined with another shake from the ground underfoot, served to create the impression of a long, continuous and very wet explosion.
“This is kind of different to how I last saw it,” Marcus said dreamily, knocking out an orc with a twirl of his scythe. Next to him, Musk grunted and turned to punch out another orc. Marcus shrugged and concentrated on his goal; making it to the House of Viaggiatori. The building stood ominously across the plaza, wreathed in smoke from the still-burning edges of the gaping hole in the wall that had replaced the front doors. A flickering of distant lights that danced through the smoke suggested that the brawl had already spread far from Central Plaza, but Kimberlite and her turncoat force of trolls were already spreading out with intent to bring things under control; they seemed a pretty safe bet for saving the city. Keithus, however, was a different story, one that was almost definitely inside the House of Viaggiatori, and so that was where Marcus was heading.
He fought, ducked and span his way across the plaza, stumbled up the front steps, skirted his way around the remains of a fallen pillar where he had once had a quiet smoke, and reached the remains of the entrance, only to find himself face to face with a trio of tall, pale, well-dressed humans, who regarded him with quiet loathing.
“You want to come in here?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” Marcus said cautiously.
“Tough,” the three said together, and split into identical grins that showed off their noticeably inhuman fangs. Marcus sighed, but it had been a long shot to think he’d just be able to walk in. He moved into a stance from which he could get off a good swing and keep going, wishing not for the first time that the Grim Reaper’s signature weapon had been something a little less unwieldy. How to deal with Mirrorworld vampires? Did they simply reflect Earth’s stories of them? Or did they take them, run with them, make out with them behind the bushes and leave them pregnant with possibility? Come to think of it, what were the key points of Earth’s vampire physiology? Stake through the heart? Garlic to throw? Holy water? How much of the unreal translated into this world’s real?
Marcus’s train of thought was knocked slightly off track by one of the vampires, which attacked at that moment with blistering speed, standing one second a solid five metres away and the next right in front of his face, punching him in it. He staggered back from the foolishly forceful blow, almost falling down the steps and back into the melee. Head full of glitter, he tried to refocus, only to have his legs swept out from under him by another impossibly fast attack.
“Gotcha,” his attacker said, leaning over him, fangs bared, ready to do whatever it was that legend dictated he do. Marcus made to roll away, aware that his chances of being fast enough were unlikely, and then without warning a knife suddenly appeared sticking out of the vampire’s forehead, and its eyes rolled up into its head. Marcus pulled himself up and away, swinging the scythe and lopping the creature’s head clean off. The other two vampires, who hadn’t moved, dazedly followed their associate’s head as it flew through the sky, and so missed the opportunity to dodge the knives that suddenly hit them, right in the heart. With a shriek, they collapsed into piles of dust, and were instantly swept away by the growing wind.
Kendra limped the rest of the way up the steps and plunged a final knife into the heart of the first vampire, whose headless body was still flailing around blindly. “Aim for the heart,” she said, as it exploded into tiny bits of vampire around her. “Doesn’t have to be a stake, just get the heart.”
“You can throw knives too?” Marcus asked weakly.
“Come on!” she said, hobbling on into the House of the Viaggiatori, shortly followed by Fervesce, who came jogging and wheezing up the steps as Marcus turned to see what was happening in the plaza. The trolls has established order, and Kimberlite was moving amongst them, separating them into small groups and sending them off down the plaza’s many adjacent streets so that they might do the same there. Musk, who was strolling along beside her, caught Marcus’s eye and gave him a salute. Marcus returned it, and turned and dashed after Kendra and Fervesce.
They ran through the twisting corridors of the building, following the scorch marks. Their path led them to a pair of large, sealed double doors that Marcus hadn’t seen before. Kendra tugged at them, trying to open them, but to no avail.
“Magically sealed,” she said, panting, holding her side with one hand and sweeping her soaked hair out of her eyes with the other. “Can’t get in.”
“I got it,” Marcus said, stepping up and swinging his scythe. It hit the doors blade first and embedded itself, and Marcus felt the magical seal wither and die under its touch. With a heave, he pulled the blade out, and the doors swung open, with an accompanying groan of pain from the ground underfoot. A crack came running along the length of the corridor, and thunder boomed outside as Marcus, Kendra and Fervesce staggered into the Viaggiatori council chamber.
“Ah, Marcus,” came a voice, and he turned to see Eira climbing carefully down from the back benches. “About time you turned up.”
“Uh, it’s good to see you too,” Marcus said. “What happened here?”
“Keithus has gone,” the Master of the Viaggiatori said, slumping down onto a bench with a sigh. “He came, he saw, he messed with our heads, he opened a gate to Earth. He was quite terrifying. Almost convinced that nothing bad would happen.. it was as if he thought he could hold back the primal forces of existence from rising in rebellion through the sheer strength of his personality. He left us his Jabberwocks as a parting gift. Luckily, Arcade here has the Talent of boiling water at twenty paces. Since Jabberwock bodies are largely water like ours she dealt with them pretty good, but they took a long time to stop chasing us around.”
“Wait wait, back up,” Marcus said urgently. “What about primal forces?”
“Oh Marcus,” Eira said sadly. “Keithus was wrong. You think all of this is natural phenomena? Nope. This is the sound of the world ending.”
Beneath them, the Mirrorw
orld shuddered in pain.
32
The Mirrorworld is a world, and a mirror of worlds. It exists in the shadow of Earth, a separate entity but dependent on it for existence. The two spin through existence in a symbiotic relationship, each reflecting the other to some extent, and each allowing the other to survive. But as is the case with reflections, some things come out a little bit wonky. The planet Earth has things that the Mirrorworld does not, and the Mirrorworld boasts some things that Earth could only dream of. They are different, and they must remain so; a fragile balance keeps the two worlds functioning, a balance wherein each is able to develop by means of its own momentum. But then there is the Mirrorline, the formless dimension that connects the two. Through this place, it is possible to travel from one place to the other, but those who would wish to do so must take great care, because if they influence the alien world with elements of their own, then the balance may be lost. It is the job of the Viaggiatori to preserve this balance, their great responsibility to keep everything in place, lest both worlds begin to unfold, and everything that is cease to exist.
Of course, this can be debated. The ones who tell us this are the ones who do all of this stuff, after all. It’s quite possible that they’ve been making the whole thing up in order to make their meddling look good. Who’s to say otherwise?
“And then again,” Eira said, “when a powerful wizard travels to a world without magic, and we instantly begin to experience earthquakes – which we never do, here, by the way – I’m inclined to go along with the former explanation.”
Marcus looked around. Everything seemed the same as it had before, but there was something, a little niggling in the corner of his eye that he couldn’t quite spot, a flash of light and colour.. something that suggested that maybe everything wasn’t quite what it seemed. Add that to the sudden appearance of earthquakes and storms in his life and Eira had a good point.
Mirrorworld Page 41
