“Let’s go,” said Caina. “Sophia, keep your sensing spell up. Stay watchful. Hopefully, we won’t be surprised again.”
Chapter 12: Black Mirror
A short time later the Black Mirror loomed out of the gloom of the Artifel night.
The building rose on one side of a market square not far from the Motherhouse itself. The shops on the other three sides of the square catered to the specific needs of the magi – books, paper, parchment, metalworking tools, and so forth. When Ariadne had still been an initiate, she had come here often to purchase things, and she still had a standing order with a few of the merchants.
She had never gone to the Black Mirror as an initiate.
Even then, she had known the sort of things that went on there.
It looked a great deal like a normal Nighmarian tavern and inn. The Black Mirror was a large rectangular building, four stories tall, with a sloped roof to keep the rain and snow of an Artifel winter at bay. The common room filled the first two levels of the inn, and “guest” rooms occupied the top two floors. The similarities to a normal inn ended there. The building had been sheathed in spell-worked black stone, and it had been polished to a peculiar black luster, showing a distorted reflection of the surrounding city. Statues stood in niches between the inn’s windows, most of them of women garbed in sheer, clinging gowns, goblets in hand, their lips parted as if to invite a kiss.
“Is that why they call it the Black Mirror, Lady Ariadne?” said Sophia. “Because of the dark stone on the walls?”
“In part,” said Ariadne. “But the real reason is somewhat…more unpleasant. I’m afraid you’ll see it firsthand.”
“Tasteless sculptures,” said Markaine with a shake of his head. “But sculpture is an inferior art to painting.”
The door to the Black Mirror was closed, and two men in black coats and trousers stood by the door, cudgels in hand. They had the grizzled look of mercenaries, and the sleeves of their coats bulged with muscle. Cold hard eyes flicked over Markaine, rested with more interest on Caina and Sophia, and then settled with respect on Ariadne. But her black staff and purple sash commanded respect and a little fear anywhere in Artifel. After all these years she still found it a little unsettling.
“High magus,” said one of the guards. “How might we be of service?”
“I am Ariadne Maraeus,” said Ariadne. “My friends and I require a table to discuss business. Preferably on the balcony.”
“One moment, please,” said the guard, and he disappeared into the door behind him. A moment later he returned with a man wearing the black robe and crimson sash of a magus. The man had a gaunt, wasted appearance, with feverish black eyes. He had the look of someone in the thrall of, perhaps even enslaved to, powerful lusts.
“Greetings, high magus,” said the man with a bow. He glanced at Markaine and dismissed him, but his eyes kindled with a cold hunger as he looked at Ariadne and Caina and Sophia. Especially at Sophia – Ariadne resolved not to leave the girl alone in the Black Mirror. “How might I serve?”
“Greetings, Tyros,” said Ariadne to the owner of the Black Mirror. “I require a table, preferably on the balcony. Wine, a little food. I have business to discuss.”
“Of course, of course,” said Tyros. “Will you require any of our other…amenities, high magus? In exchange for a reasonable price…”
“No,” said Ariadne, keeping the disgust from her voice and expression. “Simply the table and the wine. And my business is my own.”
“Of course, high magus,” said Tyros. “Discretion is always valued at the Black Mirror.” That, at least, was no lie. Half the scheming in Artifel went on at the Black Mirror because of Tyros’s reputation for keeping secrets. It had never been proven that Tyros mind-wiped workers who talked too much, but the rumor persisted. “This way, please.” He looked at Sophia and licked his lips, and she made no effort to conceal her distaste. “I shall take you to your table at once.”
He opened the door and stepped inside.
“I’m afraid the anteroom is slightly unpleasant,” said Ariadne. “Brace yourselves.”
Caina frowned but nodded, and Ariadne led the way into the Black Mirror.
The anteroom was large and airy, with a polished floor, walls, and ceilings of black stone. More statues of women in diaphanous gowns stood in the corners, and light came from glass globes upon iron stands. The globes had a peculiar red tint of them, making it look as if the black room had been shaded in blood.
An enormous mirror of black glass covered the left-hand wall, showing a dark reflection of the room. Ariadne sighed and looked towards it, and as she did, Sophia flinched and took an alarmed step back.
“What?” she said.
The reflection in the mirror did not match the reality of the room.
Markaine’s and Tyros’s reflections showed in the mirror without change. But Ariadne’s reflection wore a skimpy costume of crimson silken strips that left most of her body exposed, and her image’s hair had been piled in an ornate crown, jewels glittering on her fingers and at her throat. She looked like the courtesan of some Anshani emir. Sophia’s reflection wore a translucent skirt of green silk that barely came to mid-thigh, and a band of similar silk wrapped around her chest, and nothing else. Sophia’s reflection also had a smoldering, hungry expression that Ariadne doubted the girl had ever worn in her life.
“That’s…that’s not…” said Sophia, looking at herself as if fearing the reflection had become a reality.
“The mirror’s enspelled,” said Caina, voice quiet. “A trick of illusion sorcery.”
“Yes,” said Tyros with a leering smirk. “It helps our female guests to relax, to embrace their inner pleasures, and…”
He trailed off in surprise. Ariadne had wondered when he would notice it.
Caina did not cast a reflection in the enspelled mirror. Likely her nature as a valikarion blocked the spells on the dark glass.
“What?” said Tyros, looking at Caina, and then back at the mirror. “That’s not possible.” He cast a spell, one to sense the thoughts of others, and his eyes went wider as the spell failed to detect Caina.
“Well,” said Caina, smiling. “Maybe I’m a demon. I’ve heard that demons don’t cast reflections in mirrors. Perhaps the high magus conjured me up to kill her enemies.” Sophia stifled a laugh. “Or maybe you should conduct the high magus and her guests to their table and mind your own business.”
“Wise counsel,” said Ariadne.
“Yes, of course,” said Tyros, recovering his poise, though he still gave Caina a suspicious look. “This way.”
He led the way into the common room of the Black Mirror. It was a large space, two stories tall, with a wide balcony encircling the room. Tables and chairs stood in rows on the floor, and booths lined the walls. The common room was only about a third full, and magi and lords sat at the tables, discussing their business in low voices. More enspelled mirrors stood along the walls. Some of them showed any woman in the room dressed in a scanty costume of silk and makeup and nothing more. Others displayed every man and woman in the room as misshapen beasts or distorted and twisted their reflections into grinning monsters.
Caina cast no reflection in any of the enspelled mirrors.
Women glided through the room, Tyros’s workers, carrying trays of food and drink. They wore costumes like those of the statues, diaphanous gowns of silk that left their arms, backs, and a considerable portion of their chests bare. Had the lighting been a little better the gowns would have been nearly translucent, but the common room was lit only by a dim red glow.
They climbed the stairs to the balcony, which was deserted. Tyros seated them at a table near the railing, and one of the serving women approached with a tray holding four cups of red wine and a loaf of bread.
“Should you require anything else, high magus, anything at all,” said Tyros, “you have but to simply summon me.”
“A question,” said Caina. Tyros gave her a frozen smile. Maybe he thoug
ht she really was a spirit of the netherworld. “Does the name Riona Canwyll mean anything to you?”
“I am afraid not,” said Tyros. “I would not betray the confidences of my guests, of course. But in this instance that is not a problem, for I do not know anyone by that name.” With that, he bowed and hurried away.
“What an odious man,” said Sophia.
“Brothel owners usually are,” said Ariadne.
“What is the point of those mirrors?” said Sophia, glaring at one. Her scantily-clad reflection leered back at her.
“The titillation of the Black Mirror’s guests,” said Ariadne. “Mostly for the men, I’m afraid, but more than a few women enjoy looking into the mirrors and seeing themselves in such a fashion. The public face of the Black Mirror is a tavern where guests can conduct business in privacy. But it is a widely known ‘secret’ that the Black Mirror is also an establishment where the darkest appetites of the flesh can be sated, in exchange for a large quantity of gold.”
“We had no such evil places back home in Kostiv,” said Sophia, scowling.
“No,” said Markaine, “you just had the Boyar’s Hunt.”
Ariadne hadn’t yet asked how Sophia had wound up traveling with Caina. She had heard of the ancient and barbarous custom of the Boyar’s Hunt. If Caina had rescued Sophia from a Hunt, that would explain how the girl had wound up swearing fealty to her.
Sophia opened her mouth, closed it. “That…is a good point, sir.” She sighed. “Are people evil everywhere?”
“Ah, that’s the problem,” said Ariadne. She tapped her breastbone. “Every human heart has wickedness and virtue inside it, side by side, and everywhere you go, people have the same hearts. Sometimes the wickedness wins, but sometimes the virtue prevails.”
“Oh,” said Sophia. “I think I understand. Like you and Talmania.”
Ariadne felt herself taken aback. “What?”
Her tone must have been sharper than she intended because Sophia reddened a little. “Well…when we met you at the Motherhouse, I could tell that Lady Caina and Lord Kylon were unsettled because you looked so much like Talmania Scorneus. But I don’t think you’re anything like her, my lady. Maybe you have the same hearts like you said, but wickedness won in hers and virtue in yours.”
Oh, Ariadne wished that were true. But she could not claim virtue, not after her failures.
The puddle of wine spreading by her husband’s dead hand…
“Thank you,” said Ariadne. “That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
She glanced at Caina, wondering how she would react to that, but her niece seemed distracted. Probably she was surveying the arcane auras in the room.
“Fortunately, we’re not here to slake the appetites of the flesh,” said Caina. “I want to sit here for a few moments and have a look at the sorcerous auras. Several of those magi have wrapped themselves in spells of illusion. Markaine, I’d like you to take Sophia and have a slow walk around the room. Pretend like you’re looking into the different mirrors.”
“Why?” said Markaine.
“I want you to look for anything strange,” said Caina. “You’ve been doing this kind of thing for a long time. You’ll know what to look for, how to look past disguises. You even realized I was a woman the first time we met.”
“What?” said Ariadne.
“She was disguised as a man,” said Markaine. “Very effectively, too.” He grinned that skull-like grin of his. “But I’m very old, and I know all the tricks. And then when she saw the Kyracian, her lips parted, her eyes started shining, and you could all but hear her heart speed up…”
“Very droll,” said Caina. “Sophia, I’d like you to keep your sensing spell up. Let Markaine know if you sense anything strange. Can you do that?”
The girl raised her chin. “Yes, my lady. But…won’t we look out of place?”
“No, we won’t,” said Markaine. “I’ll look like a dirty old man attempting to seduce a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.”
“Great-great-great-granddaughter,” said Caina.
“Very droll, indeed,” said Markaine, getting to his feet. “Come along, girl. Try to look like you’re interested in what I’m saying.”
Sophia gave him such a look of rapt, vacuous attention that Ariadne laughed despite herself.
“She’s picking up some of your bad habits,” said Markaine to Caina, and he walked with Sophia to the stairs.
“I am sorry we had to bring her here,” said Ariadne.
“Markaine will make sure no one bothers her,” said Caina, her eyes cold and focused as they scanned the room. “He talks too much, but he’s much more dangerous than he looks.”
“I gathered that,” said Ariadne, gazing into her wine. It was red wine. The crimson light made it look pitch black. “And I’m sorry you had to come here.”
Caina smiled a little. “I’ve been in worse places. Recently, in fact. This is still better than Sigilsoara, or the tomb of an ancient vyrkolak lord under Vagraastrad.”
“But I hate places like this,” said Ariadne. “I absolutely hate them. I…” Her voice caught, and to her mortification, she realized that she was crying a little. She took a deep breath, hoping Caina hadn’t noticed, but of course she had noticed. “I’m sorry. This is…”
“I understand,” said Caina. “I have a few bad memories myself.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” said Ariadne.
She looked at the younger woman. Caina would understand, wouldn’t she? She had known pain. Her mother had murdered her father, and then Caina had killed Laeria. That experience should have destroyed most people, but it seemed Caina had overcome it. For that matter, Ariadne didn’t know how Caina had acquired her abilities as a valikarion, but she doubted the experience had been pleasant.
In a way, Caina seemed like a kindred spirit. Ariadne hoped that even if they had not been related, they could have been friends.
“May I confess something to you?” said Ariadne, her voice soft. “Something I have told only a very few people.”
Caina nodded.
Ariadne took a deep breath. “Decius is right to call me the Widow.” She met Caina’s gaze. “I killed my first husband.”
Caina said nothing for a long, long moment.
“Why?” she said at last.
“I told you that my father insisted I marry Quartius Hegemonar,” said Ariadne. “I’m afraid the match was something of a disappointment for him. Quartius was twenty years older than I was, and already a high magus, but he had no appetite for further advancement. He was very rich, and he seemed more interested in making money than anything else. More interested in money than in me, for that matter. I didn’t mind. We got along well enough, and I had ample time to pursue my interests in engineering and architecture.” A brief smile went over her face as she recalled one of her few happy memories of that time in her life. “I wound up redesigning the sewer system of Artifel, and I bullied Decius Aberon into accepting the plan. There hasn’t been an outbreak of plague in the city since. But I’m straying from the point.”
“What happened?” said Caina.
“One day I returned home from a meeting at the Motherhouse,” said Ariadne. “I walked into the entry hall, and a girl was lying unconscious on the floor. She couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. Half-starved, and she had been beaten, the poor child. When she woke up, she was too terrified to speak, but I fed her and convinced her to come with me to the Temple of Hestia. The priestesses at the temple house orphans and I figured the girl was an orphan from the streets. Likely she had fled to our house to take shelter. It was quite cold that winter, after all.
“When I came home, Quartius was waiting for me. He was looking for the girl, and when I said I had taken her to the temple, he was furious. I had never seen him lose his temper before, but he was so angry I thought he might strike me. Then he pulled himself together and said that the girl was a thief, that I ought to be more cautious, and he had reacted that
way because he had been concerned about my safety.”
“A peculiar reaction,” said Caina.
“I thought so, too,” said Ariadne. “And it got me curious. I realized that I didn’t know all that much about Quartius. I knew he was rich, but I had no idea how he got his money. I assumed it was from forging and enspelling weapons and other sorcerous devices, but I had never seen him actually enspell anything. I began investigating, looking into his finances, trying to find how he had become so wealthy.”
“What did you find?” said Caina.
Ariadne frowned at her. “You look like you already know.”
“I’ve heard stories like this before,” said Caina, “but I think you should tell it.”
“There were a large number of orphaned children in Artifel at the time,” said Ariadne. “A severe plague had struck a few years earlier. That was one of the reasons I convinced the high magi to let me redesign the city’s sewers. Anyway, Quartius and some of his friends among the city’s merchants and nobles had purchased a warehouse in the Northern Quarter. They would lure orphaned children there with promises of food and warm clothing, and then keep the children captive.” Ariadne’s mouth twisted with the dark memory. “And then, Quartius Hegemonar, the man my father made me marry, would…sell the children. To those with twisted appetites. This had been going on for years, and I never knew. Never realized. Gods, what a blind fool I was.”
“A terrible thing to discover,” said Caina.
Ariadne barely heard her. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell my father. He wouldn’t care. I could try reporting Quartius to the council of the high magi. Slavery is illegal in the Empire, after all, but the high magi tend to overlook each other’s…hobbies. No matter how vile. I thought about contacting the Ghosts. Maybe that would have been the wisest course. But my father raised me to fear the Ghosts, and I thought they might kill me for approaching them. I was so frightened and sick with guilt. I wondered if it was why I had miscarried my first child, that the gods were punishing me for failing to realize the truth. Or maybe they didn’t want a man as evil as Quartius to have a child.”
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