The Emperor's Mirror

by Emily Holloway

  “How old was he when he left home?”

  “Twenty-six. He would have just had his thirtieth birthday not long ago.”

  “Did he have magic?”

  Hilliard’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he said, cautiously, and did not elaborate.

  Sienna spoke up. “We know he was never tested. That’s not of importance to our case. We’re well aware that noble families often don’t bring their children to be tested for fear of losing an heir to the Warders. We have no interest in bringing you before the law for that. It’s important that we know what Emory is capable of.”

  Hilliard shrugged, though the set of his shoulders relaxed. “I’m afraid I can’t help you much there. He was a secretive boy and an odd man. He rarely did magic where anybody else could see. If you’re looking for information on that topic, you’d best go see his tutor. Braden was the name, in Newcomb. It’s a town close by.”

  “We’ll look into it,” Tallis said. “Will you tell us why he left, and why he was stricken from your family record?”

  “That has nothing to do with this,” Hilliard said sharply.

  “It does,” Tallis said. “We need to know what sort of person he is, and what sort of lengths he’s willing to go to, to get what he wants.”

  Another shrug. “As far as I could ever tell, Emory never really wanted anything, other than to be left alone. He never had any goals, any dreams that any of us could discern. Here now,” he added suddenly, “if you’re looking for information on him, you should track down Owain of Sainsbury. He was really the only friend that Emory had.”

  Since he was clearly hoping to get rid of them with this, Tallis tried to let him down gently. “We’ve spoken with Owain. He’s been uncooperative.”

  Sienna sighed impatiently. “This would be easier if you would just cooperate, Lord Hilliard.”

  “I can’t tell you what you want to know,” he snapped back. “What was Emory like? I don’t really know, and he was my son. He was always holed up with books or with tutors. A stranger child I’ve never met. I don’t claim to have understood him for a minute.”

  “Why did he leave the family?” Sienna asked. “You were willing to risk being brought before the Warders for not having him tested, and yet twenty years later you’ve disowned him and scratched him from your family tree. It’s quite a turnaround. What did he do?”

  “I refuse to answer,” Hilliard said.

  Sienna and Tallis exchanged a look.

  “We’ll let that go for now,” Tallis said. “But if we decide it may be important, we’ll come back to speak to you again later.”

  “And remember,” Sienna said, “we are Warders. We don’t need to threaten in order to get information.”

  Hilliard said nothing to this.

  In a gentler tone, Tallis added, “And please have this son tested. If you’re worried about the Warders taking your only heir, submit a letter requesting that he be tutored privately. They’ll grant you that right.”

  “I’ll have the butler give you directions to Newcomb,” Hilliard said, obviously in a rush to get rid of them.

  “Thank you.” Tallis and Sienna rose to their feet, and Hilliard left the room through another door. A few minutes later, they were outside. “An interesting soul,” Tallis commented dryly, as they walked back to their carriage.

  “It leaves a bad taste,” Sienna said. “Whatever it is that Emory did, it must have been bad. Yet there are no records of it anywhere, from the Warders or the local law. It’s odd. Shall we go to Newcomb? I believe it’s on the way to the Sainsburys.”

  Tallis nodded. “I presume there’s no record because they took care of the matter themselves.”

  “Whatever that matter is,” Sienna agreed.

  They rode in silence to Newcomb, both of them thinking things over. It was late in the day, and Braden was in the middle of a lesson. They waited patiently until his class had finished, then knocked on the door of his office. “Good day to you,” he said, smiling at both of them. His eyes widened as he got a better look at them. “I was going to ask if you were looking for lessons, but the answer to that seems clear enough.”

  Tallis laughed. “We’re here on Warder business,” he said, showing the teacher his insignia.

  “Ah. Come in, come in.” He ushered them into his office, a small, crowded place, with overflowing bookshelves and stacks of papers on every flat surface. The window was open, letting in the autumn breeze. It took a few minutes to move enough things that Tallis and Sienna could sit down. “What is it that you need?” he asked, pouring them tea without asking. Tallis reflected that it seemed he had done nothing but drink tea for the past two days.

  “We’re inquiring about a former student of yours,” Sienna said crisply. “An Emory of Hilliard.”

  “I’ve never had any such student,” Braden said indifferently. “You must be mistaken.”

  Tallis sniffed slightly. When Braden had spoken those words, he had felt something peculiar, a little flare of magic activating around the older man. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Quite sure,” Braden said, sitting down behind his desk. “Feel free to look in my records if you doubt me.”

  “I can feel the magic forcing you to speak those words,” Tallis said quietly, and Braden stiffened, his gaze shifting towards the open window. “What has he done to you?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Braden said. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

  “Can you at least acknowledge that he put a spell on you?” Tallis asked, thinking that this was a very interesting bit of magic. It felt familiar in signature to the power that had been stalking the monastery, but not identical. He could not be absolutely sure that it had been done by the same mage, which frustrated him. If he had been, they would have known for sure that Emory was the culprit. Magical signatures were different for each person, like a fingerprint, but they could change over time. This magic would have been done years before. There was no way to be certain it had been done by the same person.

  Braden looked at him blankly and then repeated, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Sienna leaned forward and smiled disarmingly, resting her chin on her folded hands. “Can you build Gates, Braden?”

  “I – what?” Braden was taken off guard by this sudden change of topic. Sienna repeated the question. “Yes, I can,” Braden said. “Though not by myself.”

  “Can you teach others to Gate?” Sienna asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if there are any other tutors in the area that can Gate and teach others how to Gate?”

  “None that I know of,” Braden said.

  “Have any of your students ever been taught to Gate?”

  Braden looked away. “It’s a very difficult skill,” he said.

  Sienna smiled, satisfied. “That’s not a no.”

  Tallis cleared his throat. “Has anyone ever tried to help you with this problem?”

  “Problem?” Braden asked.

  Tallis sighed. “Do you mind if I take a look?” he asked, and Braden shrugged. Tallis traced a few glyphs in the air, and they lit for a moment before surrounding Braden’s body, shimmering gold as the hovered in midair. The magic that was wound around him was laid bare for both Sienna and Tallis to examine.

  “This is . . .” Sienna breathed out, looking at the complexity of the spell. “This is incredible magic. I don’t think it can be undone. It’s wrapped around his life threads. If we sever it . . .”

  Braden complacently took a sip of his tea.

  “You knew that already, didn’t you,” Tallis said, and Braden did not reply. “Some student,” Tallis said, shaking his head. He waved his hand and the magic disappeared. “Thank you for your hospitality,” Tallis said. “We’ll show ourselves out, and we’ll let you know what happens to Emory.”

  They got back in the carriage and headed for the Sainsbury estate. They were silent for the first few minutes.

>   “This is getting interesting, isn’t it,” Sienna said. “We have reasonable proof now that Emory is a very powerful mage, and one who’s bent on hiding his tracks. We can pretty much assume that he can Gate. His magical signature is similar, if not identical, to the presence in the forest by the monastery.”

  “I just can’t make the connection,” Tallis said, “between the Mirror and what he’s doing at his temple. He certainly is breaking laws right and left, isn’t he.” Tallis considered for a few moments. “That will give us the freedom to tear that temple apart, if we need to.”

  Sienna snorted. “We’re certainly not having much luck finding the Mirror any other way. But a man who seems to be as bright and powerful as Emory is would never hide the Mirror in the temple. He knows it’s the first place we’ll look. No, I’m sure it’s somewhere else.”

  “But where?” Tallis groaned, as their carriage rattled down the dirt road from Newcomb. “He can Gate. It seems that he can Gate by himself, which is an incredibly rare talent. The Mirror could be anywhere.”

  “If he wants it for something, it’ll be close by, at least,” Sienna said. “There’s that. If it’s ever been in the temple, we might be able to pick up its track again.”

  “What could he possibly want it for?” Tallis asked, frustrated.

  Sienna pushed her spectacles up her nose. “He’s starting a new religion,” she said, “so perhaps he needs religious artifacts.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Tallis said. “This is something that distinctly belongs to the old gods.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be twisted,” Sienna said.

  “I don’t think it can be. And he doesn’t seem stupid enough to believe something like that.”

  Sienna shrugged. “Maybe he has reason to believe.”

  They reached the Sainsbury family estate around nightfall. It was larger than the Hilliards’, though that made a certain amount of sense. The Hilliard family had one child; the Sainsbury family had had seven, most of whom were now married and living at the estate. Calessa’s research had indicated that Lord Sainsbury was a swordsmith of some repute, which explained Owain’s collection. The house was constructed much like the Hilliards’, but was larger, and there was an outlying guesthouse, stables, and a smithy.

  They were made to wait for quite some time in the parlor, as the family was at dinner when they arrived. The room was large, and in addition to the sitting furniture, there was also a small alcove for musicians, and a generous fireplace. It was decorated with another collection of swords. The man who eventually greeted them was much younger than Lord Hilliard had been. He did not sit, but stood behind one of the sofas with his hands resting on the back. “Good evening,” he said. “I am Lord Oliver of Sainsbury. My parents are not available at the moment. Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” Tallis said, suspecting that the parents simply didn’t want to talk to Warders. Oliver looked to be in his late thirties, so it was possible that he handled most of the day-to-day affairs of the estate. He introduced himself and Sienna, and then said, “We’re here on Warder business.”

  “Warders, really?” Oliver looked at Tallis in undisguised curiosity. “Aren’t you a bit young to be a Warder?”

  “They told me that I was gifted at the Academy,” Tallis said, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Of course. I’ll have to ask to see some identification.”

  Sienna and Tallis handed over their Warder badges, marked with the official seal at the bottom. Oliver studied them briefly before handing them back over. “What can I help you with?”

  “We’re investigating Emory of Hilliard,” Sienna said briskly, and Oliver looked somewhat startled at this proclamation. “What can you tell us?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Oliver said. “I never knew him particularly well. You’d be better off talking to my younger brother, Owain. Unfortunately, I don’t have his whereabouts at the moment.”

  Sienna decided against mentioning that they did. “Yes, well, could you please tell us anything you know?”

  Oliver went through a similar speech to Merrick of Hilliard about what an odd, secretive, intellectual type of person Emory had been. He finished with an extremely vague description of Emory having left town and not having been heard from since. Sienna tapped her fingers against the table, clearly becoming impatient.

  “Lord Oliver,” Tallis said, attempting to be polite, “could you tell us anything specific about why he left?”

  “I’ve heard the rumors, of course,” Oliver said with a shrug, “but I doubt if Warders would be interested in anything that is not factual information.”

  “Try us,” Sienna said.

  Oliver cleared his throat. “As I’ve heard, there was a local girl who was enamored of Emory. She was always following him around, attempting to maneuver herself into compromising positions with him so his only option would be to propose marriage.”

  “I take it he didn’t return the affection?”

  “No.” Oliver’s face was troubled for a moment. “To be honest, it seemed that Emory never really cared for anyone or anything except himself. In any case, it seemed for some time that he had enchanted the girl – to teach her a lesson, the rumor went. She absolutely fawned over him, couldn’t stand not being near him, pined after him. Things started to get ugly with the parents of the girl, but before the Warders could be called in to see if she had been put under a spell, she turned up dead. An apparent suicide. She had thrown herself in the river. There was a note stating that she could not live if Emory would not be hers. It was all very neat; some said too neat.”

  “What was her name?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t remember,” Oliver said. “If I ever knew at all. I was not close to the Hilliards; I have enough to do. Owain would know, most likely. In any case, as I said, this is mere rumor, speculation. Emory left before anything could ever become of it. His family erased him from their books and their money and their minds, before anyone could say that they had sired a murderer.”

  “Can you tell us anything about Owain?” Tallis asked.

  “Well, yes, of course. He was my brother. There are too many of us to be particularly close-knit, but Owain was . . .” Oliver shook his head, looking uncomfortable. “Owain was simply never involved much in the family. He has no magic, and never had a talent for business the way most of us do. He became friends with Emory back when he was still a child, and he left quite shortly after Emory did – chasing after him.”

  “No one tried to stop him?”

  “My parents tried to talk him out of it, but he was set on it. He’s the fourth son, the youngest son, out of seven children, and he was twenty-two years old. There was nothing we could do to keep him here. He formally resigned all lands and titles, and then he was gone. We haven’t heard from him since.”

  Sienna asked outright. “Did he love Emory?”

  Oliver’s eyes widened momentarily at her bluntness, but then he looked away. “We never spoke of it. I suppose his behavior could have been interpreted that way. I certainly don’t believe Emory ever meant to do anything about it, if he did.”

  Tallis couldn’t think of anything to say to that. They thanked Oliver for being so helpful, and took their leave.

  “This keeps getting darker,” Sienna said, pulling her cloak around herself as they rode to the Gate that they had come through. Now that the sun had set, the air was growing cold, and the horse stirred up mist as it made its way down the road. “You think he killed the poor girl?”

  “Yes. Do you?”

  “Most likely. Even if he didn’t, if she killed herself due to the enchantment, it amounts to the same thing.”

  “Not quite,” Tallis said. “One makes him a cruel person who did some magic that had unintended consequences. The other makes him a killer. Either way it was a crime that caused a death, but it was only a murder one way.”

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Calessa lis
tened to what they had learned and agreed to try to get more information out of Owain. The others returned to the monastery to continue attempts to track the chest. She went looking for Owain that night during the late service and found him reading in Emory’s study. He looked comfortable, at home there in Emory’s large cushioned chair. She tapped on the doorframe to get his attention, rather than enter the room. He looked up and smiled at her. “Come on in.”

  “Would you think me a terrible coward if I asked you to come out?” Calessa asked, eyeing the room apprehensively.

  “Not a terrible coward, no,” Owain said, his smile thinning slightly, “but I can assure you that what Emory did to you had nothing to do with the study. It’s quite comfortable here.”

  Calessa returned his smile, a charming expression on her beautiful face. “Yes, but I don’t know if he has any spells in place that allow him to know what was said while he isn’t here.”

  Owain snorted. “As if I wouldn’t tell him if he asked me,” he said, but he shut his book and stood up, heading towards the side door that led to the courtyard.

  “On occasion I like to have a few delusions,” Calessa said, following him.

  “What did you need?” Owain asked, settling on one of the stone benches by the fountain, shivering in the chill night air.

  “I actually had a few questions for you,” Calessa said. Her tone was cheerful and pleasant; she had already come to terms with the fact that he most likely would not answer any of her questions. “Warders Tallis and Sienna went and spoke to Emory’s family, as well as yours. Everyone seemed to agree that you were the best source of information.”

  Owain let out a snort of amusement. “How many people did you need to speak to in order to draw that stunning conclusion?”

  Calessa’s smile became a laugh. “It took all of our combined and considerable detective training to figure that out, I’ll have you know. Your brother mentioned a girl that he had enchanted, and that she had a bad end,” she continued. “Do you know anything about it that you’re willing to share?”

  “Silly little bitch, yes,” Owain said with another snort.