Dark Mirror

by M. J. Putney

  Carefully, she picked her way around the fallen stones that cluttered the cellar. This building hadn’t been used in a very long time.

  The steps on the other side were stone and solid, so she started to climb. The air was warmer than when she’d come down at the beginning of the evening.

  Halfway up, she stopped in her tracks, her skin crawling with unease. The air didn’t smell or feel like October. The wind was scented with new growth, not the dying leaves of autumn. This night smelled of spring.

  She remembered tales of fairyland, where mortals slept years away after being enchanted. But she hadn’t been enchanted, she’d been chased. Trying to keep her imagination in check, she resumed climbing. At the top of the steps, she looked around.

  Lackland Abbey lay in ruins.

  She caught her breath in disbelief. How could this have happened in a matter of hours? The general shape of the buildings was recognizable, including the tower of the chapel, but the roofs had caved in and walls had tumbled. It looked as if she’d come up through the cellar of the old refectory, though it was hard to say for sure.

  Panic rose in her, swift and paralyzing. She forced it down. There was no obvious threat here. There was nothing here.

  But the moon and the season and the ruins could not be denied. She was in a different time.

  Fighting to master her fear, she headed toward the main gate. She would walk to the village. The school might have closed down and its stones been cannibalized for use elsewhere, but surely the village still existed. Even if years had passed, Jack Rainford or the other local Irregulars would remember her and offer help.

  She almost stumbled into a jagged pit that had taken a huge bite out of the main drive. The moonlight saved her by revealing the danger just in time. She stared down, wondering what could have created such a large, raw hole. The scent of the earth was fresh.

  Dear heaven, had the French invaded and this crater was from the impact of cannon? What had happened? Where in time was she?

  Lackland village. She prayed she’d find answers there.

  The long drive was mostly overgrown with grass and the lock on the small door set into the large front gates was broken, so it was easy to get out. The walls were still formidable, though the spikes looked rusty. Cautiously, she stepped outside.

  The road was still there but was now covered with a hard, dark substance. In towns, main streets were paved with cobblestones or perhaps bricks, but country roads were usually grass and mud and ruts.

  If enough years had passed for the abbey to crumble, there was also enough time for roads to change. She knelt and touched the surface. The texture was a little coarse but overall smooth and hard. Excellent for carriages, though not as good for horses’ hooves.

  She stood, brushing off her hands. How many years had passed? Would there be anyone still alive who remembered her?

  She almost leaped from her skin. Something white and ghostly was coming toward her with heavy feet. She clamped a hand over her mouth to smother a scream and backed toward the school gate, her gaze locked on the thing.

  It mooed at her. Weak with relief, she conjured a mage lamp bright enough to show a cow with broad white stripes down its side. The pattern looked too regular to be natural, but why would anyone paint stripes on a cow?

  The cow gave her a bored glance as it clopped past. She swallowed hard and crossed to the footpath she’d taken with Miss Wheaton. The path was much more direct than the coast road, and a pleasant walk through what were certainly spring woods.

  English footpaths were ancient, and it was comforting to learn that this one hadn’t changed much. Trees had grown, fallen, and new greenery had appeared, but the path was much the same as when she’d walked it before.

  At the end of the path, she rejoined the road that ran down into the village. Nerves taut, she walked along the edge. Horses would be easy to hear on the hard surface, and one would expect travelers on a night with good moonlight. But she heard only the usual country sounds: the wind in the trees and shrubbery, the occasional rustling of animals, and the roll of the sea when she drew close enough to the shore to hear it.

  She paused to listen to an unfamiliar low roar. It seemed to be coming closer.…

  A huge beast with triple slits of light for eyes roared around a corner and straight at her. Tory gasped and dived off the side of the road to conceal herself in the bushes. The beast slowed for a moment, as if sensing her presence, then continued down the road, leaving an unpleasant scent that reminded her of burning lanterns.

  She lay shaking on the ground for long minutes as she wondered what sort of world she’d fallen into. Another of the beasts rushed past. Had those smelly monsters killed all the people? She shuddered at the thought.

  She must continue to the village and hope she would find people—and answers—there. Learning about this time and place might help her find her way home again.

  She rose and brushed off the dirt and grass, then resumed walking. Now she stayed off the hard road surface. The beasts must have laid that dark strip of material for their convenience. They roared along as quickly as a horse at full gallop.

  She reached the edge of the village sooner than she expected. New houses had been built using materials different from the usual stone. But all the buildings were dark. Not so much as a single flicker of candlelight showed in the windows.

  Where were the people? If the rushing beasts hadn’t killed everyone, had a lethal plague swept through the area? She shivered and walked faster.

  The harbor below looked reassuringly normal, with fishing boats moored for the night. The road beasts surely couldn’t use fishing boats.

  A distant rumble was growing louder. The sound reminded her of the road beast, but the roar was even deeper and more ominous. Louder, louder, louder, the menacing growl boomed from the sky until it reverberated in her bones. She wanted to scream and run, but there was no place to run to.

  A menacing creature like a huge, rigid bird flew high over her head and the sound dropped away quickly. The creature was following the coastline to the south.

  She really had fallen into hell.

  After the rumbling died away, she resumed walking because she didn’t know what else to do. She supposed it wasn’t unreasonable that all the villagers were in bed at this hour, but the unmitigated blackness was disturbing.

  Ahead she saw one of the road beasts sleeping in a yard. Her first instinct was to flee, but it was motionless, with no glimmer of light from the monstrous eyes. Cautiously, she approached. Ah, the thing had wheels, so it was some sort of carriage.

  She drew close enough to touch its hide, and found cool metal. Definitely some kind of carriage, one that didn’t need horses. Maybe a steam engine inside made it move? Her father owned mines in the north that used steam-powered carriages that ran along tracks to move the coal.

  She circled the carriage, which had glass windows all around. What had looked like eyes were some sort of glass lanterns on the front of the machine. But why were the lamps masked so that only slits of lights came out? Maybe the lanterns were too small to send more than narrow lights.

  It was another mystery, but at least she no longer thought these beasts had killed all the people. They were just a strange carriage that could move fearsomely fast. The seats inside were deep and comfortable-looking, like the seats in her father’s carriages. There was no coat of arms painted on the doors, though.

  She bit her lip. She must have traveled into the future since nothing like this carriage existed in her day or in the past. But how far in the future? Surely many years had passed. Probably so many that none of the village Irregulars were still alive.

  She was heading down to the harbor when she passed the parish church, Saint Peter’s by the Sea. She felt a rush of relief at how solid and familiar it looked. Saint Peter might be the patron saint of fishermen, but maybe he would respond to prayers by a desperately lost student mage.

  She climbed the steps and found that the heavy oak door
opened smoothly under her hand. The interior was dark, but a surprising amount of light came through the stained glass windows.

  Except they weren’t stained glass anymore. The windows had been replaced with clear glass. They did a good job admitting moonlight, but they wouldn’t fill the interior with brilliantly colored light during the day.

  Even without the windows, the small church radiated peace. Feeling better than she had since the raid on the Labyrinth, she walked up the aisle to the altar. The very same cross, the same carved bench ends to the pews. She exhaled with pleasure. If the church had changed dramatically, she would have feared that God had died.

  Vases of fresh flowers were set beside the altar. She brushed them with her fingertips. The flowers of May, not October. If there were still flower guilds decorating churches, the world hadn’t changed beyond recognition.

  The vicar’s house had been right next door. Dare she knock on the door at this hour? Vicars were supposed to help people, and she certainly needed help. If she looked as young and confused as she knew how, he might not ask too many questions until she had a better sense of where she was. She suspected he’d be more cooperative if she didn’t wake him up in the wee hours, so she’d spend the rest of the night in the church.

  Before she could get settled, the door swung open and a narrow but fierce beam of light slashed across the church. A gruff male voice barked, “Who’s there?”

  CHAPTER 19

  Heart pounding, Tory dived under the front pew before the light could find her. As the man walked down the aisle toward the altar, she lay as still as a terrified rabbit, hoping the stealth stone would keep him from noticing her.

  The fellow muttered under his breath as he flicked the light about, keeping it low. It must be some form of mage light, though she’d never seen one that created such a narrow, powerful beam. As she opened her inner senses, she felt a soft buzz of magic.

  The man hunting her was a mage. She was doomed.

  He drew closer and closer, pacing back and forth as if he knew she was here. It took all her will to lie still when she desperately wanted to stand and run. But then he’d see her for sure.

  “You!” He stopped by her hiding place, his shoes directly in front of her face. “You come out from under there. And don’t try anything! I have a gun.”

  Looking as harmless as she knew how, Tory crawled out from under the bench and stood. The fellow’s light was so bright that she couldn’t see him clearly.

  He said with surprise, “You’re just a girl!”

  His voice became lighter, and she realized that he sounded young, as much boy as man. He must have been lowering his voice to sound older.

  She narrowed her eyes, trying to see him despite the glare. Tallish, broad-shouldered, fair hair. In fact, he looked rather familiar. “Jack?” she asked incredulously. “Jack Rainford?”

  “I’m Nick Rainford. My older brother is Joe. Do you know him?”

  His trousers and shirt and knit vest were unlike any garments she was familiar with, but he did look something like the Jack she knew in the Irregulars. Like a cousin, maybe. “I only know a Jack Rainford,” she said cautiously. “Does he live around here?”

  “I don’t know any Jacks. Joe is away training to be an RAF pilot.” Nick ran the light beam over her. “Who are you and why are you out in your nightgown?”

  What was the RAF? “I’m Victoria Mansfield, usually called Tory, and this dress is perfectly respectable,” she retorted. “Stop pointing that light in my eyes! What is it?”

  “Just an electric torch.” He pointed the beam down so it didn’t glare. “That dress might be respectable, but it still looks like a nightgown. Where do you live?”

  Irritated by his manner, she asked, “What business is it of yours?”

  “It’s my business because I’m part of the Lackland volunteer patrol. The local council formed it because we’re on the coast and would be the first to be invaded.”

  Too much had changed for this to be the war against Napoleon, so it must be a different war. The English and the French had been fighting for centuries. “Why can’t England and France learn to be friends instead of fighting all the time?”

  “We’re not fighting France,” he said with surprise. “The French are our allies. The enemy is Germany, just like it was in the Great War.” He shook his head. “How can you not know we’re fighting the Nazis? Have you been living in a cave? That would explain the dirt stains on your nightgown.”

  “It’s not a nightgown!” Exasperated, she plopped down on the pew. “Don’t girls wear dresses around here?”

  “Not ones that reach their ankles.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re a runaway. You can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. Shouldn’t you go home? Or maybe I should take you to the police station.”

  “I’m sixteen, and not a runaway,” she snapped. “Not that it’s your business.”

  “There’s a war on. Spies are everyone’s business. That’s why I’ve volunteered to patrol one night a week. I saw you come in here, so I followed, thinking you might be a Nazi spy.” He sounded disappointed that she wasn’t.

  “Is Nazi a nickname for a German?”

  He shook his head at her ignorance. “The Nazis are a political party. Their leader is Hitler, a tyrant who wants to conquer the world.”

  “He sounds like Napoleon, only German. Do you catch many spies?”

  He grinned. “You would have been the first.”

  “Do you really have a gun?”

  “I lied,” he said cheerfully as he sat down on the other end of the pew. “But a spy would be armed, so I wanted to scare you. You still haven’t said where you come from.” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe you really are a spy. A pretty little girl would be a great choice, actually. No one would suspect you. You’re probably really twenty-eight, a champion marksman, and you speak six languages flawlessly.”

  “You certainly have a good imagination! I speak French, but I’m no spy.” She scowled at him. “If you must know, I’ve been staying out at Lackland Abbey.”

  His voice hardened. “The abbey has been in ruins for donkey’s years. Just the sort of place a spy would hide.”

  “Would you stop this foolishness about spies!” But maybe this was a chance to learn more about the abbey. “How did the place get ruined?”

  “I don’t really know. It’s been abandoned since maybe my grandparents’ time. During the Great War, a German ship shelled it and that knocked down a lot of the buildings. Then a few weeks ago, an RAF plane dropped a bomb or two there by mistake.” His voice changed. “They say once it was a school for sorcerers.”

  He sounded wistful. And he did have that glow of power around him. “Do you believe in magic?” she asked experimentally.

  His expression turned wary. “Magic is just superstition. But … I’ve heard stories that once there was magic in the world.”

  He wished magic was real, she needed help and information, and because he was young, if he told everyone she was a lackwit, he might not be believed. It was time to take a risk. “Turn off that torch thing and I’ll show you something interesting.”

  “You’ll run away!”

  “How far do you think I’d get before you caught me?” She raised her hands. “See? No weapons. Nothing in my hands. You’d hear me if I tried to escape.”

  “Very well.” He turned off the torch with a small click.

  Thinking she wanted to look at the torch more closely later, she concentrated and created a ball of light in her right hand. “If you want to believe in magic and haven’t been able to, take a look at this mage lamp.”

  “What…!” In the gentle glow of the light, his face was startled. “It’s some kind of Nazi trick that we haven’t figured out yet!”

  Nick Rainford certainly had spies and Nazis on the brain. “It’s magic, Nicholas,” she said patiently. “Here, put out your hand and take it.”

  Warily, he extended one hand. Tory rolled the mage lamp onto his palm. The light didn’t
dim at all, confirming her guess that Nick had magical ability.

  He stared raptly at the ball of light. “It tingles.”

  “Brace yourself, Mr. Rainford,” Tory said. “Magic is real, and you have some power, though it’s undeveloped. Otherwise the mage lamp would fade out in your hand.”

  “This could be science, not magic.” His gaze remained fixed on the light.

  Tory took the lamp and brightened it to show his face better. “What is science?”

  He looked baffled for a moment. “It’s … it’s studying how the world works and using that knowledge in practical ways.”

  “That sounds like natural philosophy.” It was Tory’s turn to be baffled. “Give me an example of science. Is your torch science?”

  He nodded, raising the torch for her to see. “Electrical power is stored in batteries in the handle. When I turn the torch on, they send electricity into a little wire in the bulb. That makes the wire glow and give light. At least, until the batteries run out of power.” He shook the torch, which was dimming. It brightened a bit. “Science in action.”

  So the world had learned to harness electricity. In Tory’s time, it was mostly an intriguing novelty that didn’t do anything useful. “Very handy, especially for people who don’t have magic. Shall I give you another demonstration?”

  “It had better be something better than a light,” he said, still unconvinced.

  Floating might not be of much practical use, but it was showy. She stood, closed her eyes, and visualized herself moving upward. Her control was improving, because she glided upward at a reasonable speed, also drifting a dozen feet across the church to preserve her modesty. Then she created a fistful of tiny mage lights and tossed them into the air to float around her like candle flames. “Is this good enough?”

  “Hey!” His exclamation was a strangled squawk. “It’s … another Nazi trick!”

  “You really are the most pigheaded boy.” She floated down gracefully in front of the altar as the lights faded out above her. “Do you think your Nazis could have kept something like this secret? And if they could—why reveal it to you now?”