by Holly Lisle
Hellish red light illuminated the treasure room; it poured up through the central soulwell of the Mirror of Souls in a tight, blindingly bright beam that seemed to cut into the ceiling.
"Oh, gods," Kait whispered.
Dùghall said, "This is the light you saw before?"
"Yes. When it summoned the Sabirs who hunted us, when we were escaping through the Thousand Dancers. It shattered the shield I'd cast around us and it."
"I would guess the structure of the House is of little consequence to it," Dùghall said. "No doubt a beacon burns from the top of the mountain now, letting all of Calimekka know someone is here."
"It isn't calling everyone," Kait said. She felt certain of this dark memories that had never belonged to her still lurked in the quiet corners of her mind. "It's calling Crispin Sabir. He has enough of the Dragon Dafril still inside of him to know how to use it and he is enough like Dafril to want what it has to offer."
"It's found us out," Alarista agreed.
Dùghall stood with his head bowed, adding to the shield he'd created around himself. "I'd hoped to take it by surprise."
"Well, we didn't. So now we fight it strength to strength," Alarista said. Kait looked at her, surprised. Suddenly she didn't look so old, or so weak. Her eyes burned with determination, her spine straightened, and in the garish red light, her color looked almost healthy.
Dùghall said, "The thathbund, then."
The three of them moved close together, and Dùghall extended his shield to embrace both Alarista and Kait. The shield would come down when they finished the binding spell that would call the power of all willing Falcons to them, and they would be vulnerable then to whatever evils the Mirror could throw at them, but while they cast the spell, they had some protection.
Dùghall, Kait, and Alarista, holding hands to form a ring, closed their eyes and sought to connect their souls within the space of the Veil. Bound by touch of flesh and soul, they then cried out the words of the spell enjoining thathbund words both ancient and fraught with need, testament to the great terrors and dangers that Falcons had faced from the first.
"Gombreyan enenches!
Inyan ha neith elleyari..."
The old tongue, lost except to Falcons, with power embedded in the words, from the thousands of souls that had spoken them, had heard them, had heeded them, in the thousand years of Falconry.
"Falcons, heed us!
Now in the station of our need,
Now as we stand in mortal danger,
Now as our enemies threaten
And death beckons,
We call thathbund.
We summon all willing souls,
We entreat all who would
Pit themselves against the
Reign of evil,
We call all who would hear and fight.
Come now!
Come now!
Come now!"
The entreaty was short, the response swift. Kait felt the river of souls that ran beneath her feet swell up to embrace her again. The shield that had protected her shattered, blown away like thinnest spun glass by the mighty upwelling. Her body felt hot and cold all at once; it seemed to vibrate; it seemed to float in a place with neither walls nor doors, floors nor ceilings. It was a place unmarked except for the red light that blazed like a flaming sword just ahead of her. She could see Dùghall, but though she knew him to be Dùghall, he looked nothing like the lean, dark-haired man who held her hand in the world of flesh. Dùghall stood like a fire-haired god to her left, a dark giant whose every step scattered sparks as he moved toward the Mirror's ghastly beacon. To her right Alarista stood, and she, too, was a giant, a glowing goddess formed of cold white light, youthful once more, taut-fleshed and unstoppable. Between them, Kait was a small creature, fragile, slow, and uncertain. Thus she discovered that in the realm of magic, she, who had feared Alarista would become the weak link in the chain, had herself become that weak link.
The souls of the other Falcons fed into them, and all of them grew bigger, stronger, brighter but Kait could not shape the magic that she received with the skill that her partners could. She could not accept everything that was offered to her. She remained smaller, weaker and she felt the mind of the Mirror drawn to her.
She would be the point of attack. If she failed, they would all fail.
In the world of flesh, the three of them had moved to surround the Mirror, their hands linked around it. They did not touch it, but its energy pressed against them, seeking weakness. Within the Veil, the Mirror's beacon changed form. It gathered itself into the shape of a winged man with eyes of fire and claws like knives. It grinned at them, and blue lightning struck it from a hundred different directions, and it began to expand. It fed itself from the lives of the Calimekkans, using their strength as its own. It stretched out a hand, and the knives of its claws glittered like diamonds, and it spoke directly to Kait. "Come, we have nothing to fight about, you and I. You have lost your love, your family, your past but you need not lose your life, and you need no longer be a monster. I can give you that which you most desire. I can give you humanity."
Dùghall said, "You can give nothing. You can only steal."
Alarista said nothing, but she shoved against the monstrous soul of the Mirror, trying to break the lines through which it sucked out the lives of the people in the city below.
Kait said, "I want nothing you have to offer."
But the pictures were in her head, brighter than the voices of the Falcons who held her up pictures of her soul inside the smooth curves and seductive lines of a perfect human body. A body that would never Shift to beast, would never dip a long muzzle into the raw gore of some still-twitching carcass and lap up its blood, a body that would never shame her with its crude desires, its crude wants, its crude form. She would not fly as a human, but neither would she crawl. She would not taste the heights of Karnee ecstasy, but neither would she bear the ugly dullness that weighted her down after Shift. Her Scars would be gone. Her pain, forgotten.
The threat of death that hung over her head... lifted.
Human.
She could be human.
The souls of the Falcons cried out, telling her that she was one of them, but though she was Falcon, she had set herself apart. No Falcon before her had ever been Scarred. No Falcon before her had ever borne the mark she bore, the mark that told her she was different even in the one place where she could have hoped to find complete acceptance.
Dafril's memories were in her head the simple task of switching bodies with the use of the Mirror came to her as clear as if she had done it herself. No one would die, no one would truly bear hurt she would give her body to a stranger, and the stranger would give her body to Kait. No loss simply... change. The press of a few glyphs and her pain would be a thing of the past.
"Stand with me," the Mirror's soul said. "No need for destruction. No need for suffering. I offer good things, good gifts, good magic. They are yours to take."
No voice could reach her through the powerful wall the Mirror's soul created. Dùghall was silenced. Alarista was silenced. The uncounted souls of Falcons living and dead could not touch her in the place where she stood, faced with the one dream she had never dared speak. She realized that what the Mirror offered her, she could truly have. She realized that the gift would be real not trickery. And she realized that no one could stop her from taking it if she chose to do so. She was free truly free free in a way that no other Falcon could ever have been, for no other Falcon had ever stood beyond the bonds of Falconry.
My difference is my strength, she thought. Strength to do what I want, to find new paths, to go where I choose free from the imposed guilt of uncountable ghosts.
She looked at what was offered, tempted beyond words. To be human, to be acceptable, to have a place in the world that was hers by birthright she would give anything to have that. Anything that truly belonged to her.
But she would not take what was not hers.
I am Falcon, she thought. Eve
n if I stand apart from all other Falcons, I am Falcon still, sworn by oath to give only what is mine to give, to take only that which is freely offered.
"Somewhere, dear girl," the soul of the Mirror said, "there is a woman who would give up her body willingly to have yours. Somewhere, there is a girl who does not appreciate what she has, who would relish the hunt, the gore, the rut, who would not care if she ate her meat raw and choked down the fur and dirt to get to the tender, stinking offal. I will help you find her, and then you will not have violated your Falcon oath."
But the pictures the Mirror's soul cast at her had lost their luster. The enchantment broke, and she saw how close she had come to falling, and she drew back.
Dùghall was calling to her. "Kait? Kait? Can you hear me?"
"I can."
"We have to force the Mirror's soul from the Mirror into the Veil, and we have to do it now. It's getting stronger we don't have much time."
They'd already prepared the spell the same spell that had drawn the souls of the Dragons from the bodies they had stolen and forced them to take residence in the tiny homemade soul-mirrors. They did not have a little mirror for the Mirror's soul, though they feared that if it were given any sort of physical form, it would draw people to it and use their lives to feed itself. It could grow strong again, even trapped within a simple gold ring. But if it were cast into the Veil, it would have to face the gods and the cycles of birth and death. It might become human. It might have a chance to leave behind the evil that it did the evil that it had been created to do.
They quickly chanted:
"Follow our souls, Vodor Imrish,
To the soul of the Mirror of Souls,
To the usurper of the lives of the Calimekkans,
Faithful children of Iberan gods,
And from its false metal body expel it.
Bring no harm to this made-soul,
The Mirror's soul,
But give it safe house and shelter
Within the cycle of birth and death
To teach it love and compassion
To guard its immortality, and to
Protect the essence of life and mind.
We offer our flesh all that we have given
And all that you will take,
Freely and with clear conscience,
As we do no wrong,
But reverse a wrong done."
Now, now, the magic of the Falcons poured into Kait faster and harder, and she grew stronger and brighter, keeping pace with Dùghall and Alarista but not with the soul of the Mirror. Its explosive growth outstripped the three of them it raced outward in all directions like a Ganjaday fireflower exploding silently in the sky.
Their spell hooked into the Mirror's soul, and Kait felt furious lines of power clawing into her, trying to drag soul from body, trying to eject her and claim her place within her flesh but though a line of blue fire arced between the three of them and the rogue soul, their spell did not do what they needed it to do. The Mirror's soul kept drawing power from the people of Calimekka, and it kept getting stronger.
"Why isn't it working?" Kait shouted.
"We don't have enough power," Dùghall said. "Throughout all of time there have not been as many Falcons as there are citizens in Calimekka at this moment. We can never be as strong as it is."
"We don't need to be," Alarista said. "We're trying to pull it from something and force it into nothing that requires brute force. If we channeled it into a ring, though, that would only take a little leverage."
Dùghall said, "But if it goes into a ring, we still have the same problem we have right now."
"We can destroy the ring physically," Alarista said.
"We don't have to." Kait focused on her body, standing with Dùghall's and Alarista's, the three of them holding hands around the Mirror of Souls, and she said, "We have a ring that will break the instant we step away from each other."
She felt Dùghall's horror. "You're saying we should use our bodies as the ring. No. It is so powerful it could take one of us over. With a flesh body, it would be more formidable than it is encased in the Mirror of Souls."
"We have to do something," Kait said.
A feeling of tremendous peace emanated from Alarista. "We have to do this. Thisthis is the thing that I must do and must succeed at. Dùghall, Kait, we have no more time. Repeat the spell with me, but offer our bodies as the ring."
The hooks the Mirror's soul dug into them dragged harder, pulling them away from flesh and life and toward death... or oblivion. It was a huge and burning light, a gruesome bloodred monster that filled the void of the Veil, grown so immense that they could no longer tell if it continued to expand. In the world of the flesh, people died to feed that obscenity. More would continue to die unless the Falcons succeeded in their task.
They chanted the spell of removal again, but, following Alarista's lead, changed the lines of destination.
"... But give it safe house and shelter
Within the unbroken circle of our three bodies
Unbroken that it may guard
This soul's immortality, and
Protect the essence of life and mind...."
The flow of energy changed. The fierce grip that the Mirror's soul had on them relaxed for just an instant; then, with a horrifying rush, the red wash of its fire poured toward them, enveloped them, consumed them. Kait felt the souls of uncounted hundreds of Falcons brace themselves against the assault, and then she felt only the howling darkness of alien fury within her veins, within her muscles, within her skull. She fought to keep from drowning in the assault thrown from the void of the Veil into the madness within her own body, she could only hang on to her identity and hope the others fared better against the monster that tried to consume them.
She was the weakest link she was the Falcon least experienced in magic, least experienced in the safe control of energy, least capable of fending off the attacker that fought to strip her soul from her flesh. She could feel Dùghall and Alarista fighting beside her, trying to help her, but the Mirror's soul was merciless, and like an ocean pouring through a single hole in the bottom of the sea, it was unstoppable.
She lost ground and panicked, despaired of ever seeing another day. Dùghall fought to hold on to her; Alarista fought to hold on to her; but she felt the triumph of the Mirror's soul and its glee and its certainty, and hope abandoned her.
"She's a mere child, and weak. Look at me. I have more to offer," Alarista said, and the Mirror's soul froze for half a heartbeat, and Kait could feel it evaluating her dull light, her slow responses and poorly shaped defenses, and then studying the brilliant purity of the light that poured through Alarista. It saw something that called to it some hidden weakness that it could exploit, for a spasm rippled through Kait, through Dùghall, through Alarista, and suddenly Alarista was under attack.
But unlike Kait, Alarista wasn't fighting. Kait could still see Alarista's brilliance and feel the unfathomable power of her soul, but that soul was merely watching Alarista let the Mirror's soul dig into her flesh and rip her soul's anchors one by one from the body that was rightfully hers. Dùghall and Kait fought the monster that consumed her, but without Alarista's help, they were losing the battle quickly.
Dùghall shouted, "Alarista! Hold on! Fight it!"
Her voice spoke into their minds. Let me go. I have now completed my final task.
And then her soul was gone and the thathbund shattered. Kait no longer had the strength and the wisdom of a thousand Falcons; she barely had the strength of one. Thrown back into the single limited reality of her own flesh, she toppled to the floor, weak and sick, her hands slipping free of Dùghall's and Alarista's.
Dùghall dropped to his knees as well, his hands splaying on the ground as he kept his face from smashing into the floor and scattering a pile of glittering metal dust to the four corners of the room. Nothing else remained of the Mirror of Souls but the soul of the Mirror was another thing entirely.
"I am flesh!" the monster in A
larista's body shrieked. "This is my flesh! I shall be a god!" Kait stared at Alarista's body dancing around the room. She saw the old bones leaping, the old muscles bunching and releasing. The old eyes turned to her, filled with a new and terrifying malevolence. "I shall... be a god, and you... shall be my first fodder." The monster began to laugh.
The laughter turned to coughing.
Alarista's lips turned blue and her skin blanched gray and waxy. The monster doubled over, wheezing, scrabbling at its chest with fingers turned to claws. Its knees gave way, and it toppled to the floor like a rag doll, limbs bouncing and flopping. It gasped, mouth opening and closing, trying to suck in air, spitting up frothy, bloody foam with every choking cough.
"No!" it managed to croak, but that was its last word. It glared at them and the red glow of its magic illuminated it but Alarista's body was too near death. It ran out of time before it could successfully repair all the ruined organs, all the damaged flesh. Its eyes burned red, but red dulling to embers in a dying fire; its fragile chest heaved like a broken bellows; it clawed at the floor, and twitched. And then, with a final, gurgling gasp, the light went out of its eyes and it died.
