The Mirror After the Cavern

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “You’re making a habit of this apparently; you’ve been to palaces in Amenozume, Barnesnob, and not to mention Ivaric under different circumstances,” she said. “Don’t get too accustomed to such a rich life; we rather fancy having you staying part of our family,” she tousled his hair affectionately.

  “And don’t try to charm the ladies of the court with those mystical eyes of yours either!” she called to him as he left the wagon on his way to the palace.

  Silas enjoyed his tour of the palace. It was a large, complex building, composed of five different sections for the families of the five traders/nobles who ruled the council that controlled the nation. In addition to those portions of the palace, there were a variety of outbuildings that housed the treasury and the chancellor, the army generals, the Speaker, and the various artisans who served the needs of the palace.

  Vertuco gave a leisurely long tour that lasted much of the day and included lunch in the palace’s own bakery. Silas and he discussed topics related to the Wind Word practices part of the time, and chatted about the palace and the city of Barnesnob much of the time. When the friendly tour ended, Silas thanked the senior man for his kindly visit.

  Back at the caravan, Ruten immediately sequestered Silas for a second round of sword practice for the day. Afterwards, hot and sticky from the active workout, Silas used his mirror to look for Jade. He observed other girls in the princess’s room, but not Jade, so he quickly put the mirror away.

  The following day was similar to the first full day in Barnesnob. Ruten and practice, followed by time with the mule, and then a visit to tell Prima he was leaving.

  “If you see the wife of the head Healer, offer her our mirror for two golds and five silvers, then take one gold eight silvers if you have to,” Prima directed, while Silas nodded his head affirmatively to show that he understood his mission.

  Grecco, his fellow Speaker and tour guide, took him around the headquarters of the Healers Guild, showing him the class rooms for the students who were learning the arts of medicine, and then visiting the clinics where the healing took place for the people of the city, and finally, they ate lunch with several leaders of the Guild, who were all very anxious to observe Silas’s eyes and question him about the experience that had given him his unique colors.

  Among those at the lunch was the head of the Guild, and Silas worked up the courage to mention the mirror.

  “My caravan master heard,” he briefly explained about the mirror, and found that the man was quite happy to purchase the mirror as a gift for his wife.

  “We can deliver it to you before the end of the day,” Silas promised happily, unable to believe he had carried out a sale completely unassisted.

  Grecco led Silas back to the gate of the Healer Guild campus after lunch.

  “He’ll be back later this afternoon,” Grecco told the guards. “Allow him to make a delivery to the Master’s home.” The two speakers shook hands then. “Let the rest of us know before you leave the city,” he urged, and received Silas’s nod.

  Silas hurried back to the caravan. Minnie was the first person he met.

  “I sold the mirror!” he crowed.

  “Good for you! Did he meet your price?” the woman asked with a kind smile.

  “He paid the full amount!” Silas replied excitedly.

  “Well, look at you!” Minnie took a theatrical step back in mock shock. “Prima may have to promote you to chief of sales, unless you plan to start your own trading caravan now.”

  “I, no!, I don’t plan to do that,” the excited Silas failed to immediately recognize the satire in her comments.

  “Of course you don’t,” Minnie agreed in a kindly tone. “Prima will be pleased. You’ll receive a commission, I’m sure.”

  “I have to deliver it today though,” Silas explained. “Should I just drive my wagon there now, with the mirror still in its shipping case?”

  “That’s a marvelous idea,” Minnie agreed sincerely.

  “And Hron will appreciate the chance to get out and take a walk around the city too. He gets bored staying cooped up in the corral all day,” Silas noted in a clinical tone.

  Minnie burst out laughing. “You’re the only driver I know who cares about his mule’s feelings! Hooves could learn from you!” she referred to the animal handler for the caravan.

  Silas shrugged and went to the corral to fetch Hron, then secured the mule in the traces for the wagon, and began the journey through the busy streets of the city.

  Because of the traffic that blocked the comparatively-wide wagon more than it had ever obstructed him as a pedestrian, his trip back to the Healers’ grounds took longer than expected, but he arrived and was allowed to proceed.

  When he reached the door of the home of the Master Healer, he tied Hron to the hitching post, then opened the back of the wagon and stared at the shipping crate that he needed to move. It was big and awkward; he could move it by himself, he told himself. But the movements would be clumsy, and perhaps would rattle the contents more than he wanted. He either needed an accomplice, or he needed tools to open the crate and carry the unencumbered mirror.

  As he stood and studied his dilemma, a voice called from an upper floor window.

  “Is that the mirror the Master ordered?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Silas looked up and saw a woman hanging out of a window overhead. She was watching him with great interest.

  “It is,” Silas affirmed. The woman clapped happily before he could even ask, “Is there a servant who can help me?”

  “I’m just the person you’re looking for. Wait a moment. Do you need anything?” the servant asked.

  “A prybar and a hammer to open the crate,” Silas suggested, skeptical that the maid was going to be useful in the task. He had expected to see a man come to his aid, and he anticipated that one would help him before the chore was finished.

  He fiddled with the seams of the crate, checking to see how securely it was fastened, until the maid came out of the front of the house with tools in her hands.

  “Will these do?” she asked in a sweet tone, clearly meaning to be helpful.

  “These should help open the crate, and we can get the mirror out to carry into the house. Is there someone available to help me carry it?” Silas asked as he took the tools and stepped up into the bed of the wagon.

  “I will, of course. Don’t you think I’m strong enough to help?” the maid asked with a clearly artificial pout, a lower lip that extended out and down to such an extent that Silas grinned in spite of himself.

  “There you go,” she laughed as she saw that she had succeeded in making him smile. “I’m your man, aren’t I?”

  Despite himself, Silas appraised her for a moment. She was far from being a man. She was a few years older than him, but still a youthful adult. Though she had a slender build, there was no denying her femininity, and her curly, dark hair, piled high atop her head only accentuated the lovely tilt of her eyes and the sparkle they contained. She wasn’t beautiful in an obvious way, but the vibrancy of life within her shone through in an immediately appealing manner.

  “Not in so many words,” he answered, making her grin in return.

  “Well, I’ll handle this with you, have no doubt. Let’s move it in,” the woman told him.

  Silas proceeded to gingerly pry the crate apart, then pulled out the straw that cushioned the mirror inside its protective case.

  “We’ll lower it from the wagon to the ground, then pause before we go in the house,” Silas decided, and received a nod of assent in agreement. They carefully pulled it free from the crate, then Silas let the woman hold the mirror in the wagon while he jumped down to the ground to help guide the delicate item to a safe landing.

  “It’s beautiful!” the maid exclaimed, as she studied the mirror. She ran her fingers over the ornate frame’s sculpted features, studying them intently, then she stepped back to see the full frame in context.

  And as she did, her heel slipped past the end of the
wagon board, and she shrieked as she began to fall to the ground. Silas reached out an arm to try to steady her, before he found her falling onto him as he wrapped his arm around her torso.

  Then he found himself falling backwards, and the maid was falling directly on top of him. When he hit the ground and found her weight instantly compressing him, the wind was knocked from his lungs, and he couldn’t catch his breath for a moment.

  Which was a good thing, for a shadow appeared above him. He looked upwards, past the face of the girl – just inches from his own and carrying a startled expression, while her piled hair began to unravel and cascade down upon Silas’s face. But before it blocked his eyes, he saw the large, heavy mirror begin to fall downwards towards the pair of accident-prone movers.

  Everything that could go wrong was about to. The mirror was going to break; the Guild leader’s wife was going to be furious; and more immediately, he and the maid were about to suffer serious injuries.

  His knife quivered on his hip. He couldn’t see because of the tangled mass in his eyes; he smelled the floral scent of the maid’s hair in his face, and he couldn’t breathe. And now the mirror was falling.

  His knife quivered again, so that suddenly his hand was summoned to grasp it, and before he could comprehend, his hand held the haft of the knife as it shot up above the girl and flipped the knife around somehow so that the haft lay flat atop his palm. And a moment later, the flat surface of the mirror landed upon his palm and the tips of his fingers all at once.

  His arm buckled. The girl grunted. Her hair flipped out of his eyes, and Silas saw the knife give a momentary purple glow; the light reflected off the mirrored surface and flooded downward upon the grounded, dusty couple. After a fraction of a second, the colorful light bath evaporated.

  His arm strengthened. The mirror miraculously stabilized itself, so that it was perfectly balanced atop his hand, a single point holding the large rectangular piece of furniture as if it were a tabletop, while they lay in its shadow.

  “Good gods!” a voice somewhere nearby screamed. “Help them! All of you!”

  “Why aren’t we dead?” the maid had her voice back, though she’d really only been silent for a fraction of a second. Everything had happened in an instant, yet he had seen it all happen in a series of distinct steps.

  “We’re here – hold on!” a voice shouted nearby, and Silas realized there were feet scuffling on the ground around them.

  The shadow of the mirror lightened, as the weight on his hand subsided, and a quartet of men lifted the mirror to the side.

  “My lady!” a maid from the house rushed in and grasped the shoulders of the woman on top of Silas. She looked at him in a last moment of astonishment, then winked, just before she was lifted away.

  “Are the two of you alright?” one of the men who had rescued them asked. “That was the neatest trick I ever saw, the way you held that mirror with the one hand!” he complemented Silas as he extended a brawny arm to grasp Silas’s still projected arm, and lift the boy to his feet with ease.

  “Is that why we weren’t crushed? You caught that mirror?” the woman who had been on him asked.

  “It was the neatest thing – it made me swallow my heart for a moment when I saw it happen, but then it was alright,” another of the men said.

  “Why in the world would you ever put her Ladyship is such a dangerous predicament?” asked the maid who had helped his companion to her feet.

  “Martha, the fault is mine, not the boy’s,” replied the woman who had fallen atop him. “I didn’t tell him I was the lady of the house, and I did tell him I’d help him move the mirror into the house – I was so anxious to see it, after dear Stout surprised me with it!

  “And it is a thing of beauty, absolutely a gorgeous piece of workmanship. You did us such a great favor by selling this to us, and then delivering it on the very same day! And you’re a Speaker on top of all that!” Silas felt lightheaded as he heard the commentary and realized that he had almost gotten the wife of the Guild head killed.

  “Where’d you get those eyes from?” one of the men who had lifted the mirror wanted to know.

  “I was in a cave with strange fumes, and they stained my eyes,” Silas answered quickly, not annoyed as he usually was by the question about his eyes. He was relieved to switch the conversational topic from the fact that he had nearly killed an important personage.

  She was young. That was why he hadn’t expected her to be the Headmaster’s lady. The Headmaster was not ancient or decrepit, but he was considerably older than his wife appeared to be.

  “Can’t we take it inside and put it in place?” the lady spoke up.

  “Lady Dianu, shouldn’t you rest?” the house maid asked earnestly.

  “When have you ever known me to rest?” Dianu asked with a light laugh, and she directed the men to take the mirror inside.

  “And what is your name, my hero with the colorful eyes?” she asked.

  “I’m Silas, my lady,” he answered respectfully.

  “Tut now Silas, we’ve just been nearly crushed together, and you’ve saved my life. There’s no reason to call me ‘my lady’ now,” she reprimanded him with a smile. “Now come in and see what you’ve given me.”

  The mirror was promptly carried into the house by a phalanx of brawny men and then up the stairs to a dressing room, where it was placed against the wall.

  “It’s a truly lovely piece,” Dianu repeated to Silas as the workmen who had carried it exited the house.

  As Silas stared at the mirror, he thought he saw a momentary swirling of yellow and purple in the glass. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but the apparition was gone.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were married to the head Healer,” Silas apologized.

  “And how would you?” she asked. “I know people think we’re an odd couple, but I love him so much. I was one of his students, and I fell in love with him when I listened to his passion for helping to cure people. It took me a very long time to convince him I wasn’t simply holding a school girl crush, and he suffered me courting him with great determination.”

  She spoke with animation, and Silas took her at her word.

  “Silas, let me walk you back down to your wagon. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do that listen to me prattle on,” she told him in a kindly manner as she walked him down the steps. “Here’s the payment for the mirror,” she handed him a small leather pouch.

  Will you come back and visit sometime?” she asked. “I’ll want to tell my husband about how you saved my life. How you caught that mirror, saved our lives, and saved the mirror too will forever be a wonder!” she exclaimed.

  Silas untied Hron’s rope. “We won’t be in Barnesnob very long, but if I ever pass through again, I’ll be sure to come visit,” he promised.

  He waved as he left, and drove the wagon back through the campus, then back through the city streets, back to the caravan camping spot. He turned over the bag of coins to Minnie, then was summoned to sword practice with Ruten, and finished the day taking the first shift of the watch after dinner.

  Chapter 25

  Prima announced that the caravan would leave Barnesnob three days after Silas’s mirror adventure. Silas spent the days touring the city, when he wasn’t carrying out his twice-daily sword practices with Ruten.

  Silas did manage to communicate with Jade during the slow days in Barnesnob. He had a pad and pencil ready, and so they were able to trade messages through the mirror. Neither of them had any news of any urgency but they enjoyed the exchange, and promised to do it again.

  On the day the caravan left Barnesnob, Silas used his Wind Word abilities to say farewell to his three new acquaintances among the Speakers in the city. He promised to stay in touch.

  “I’ll be due east of the city for a few days,” he reported to them. “Our caravan is going among the rural villages to trade goods, Prima told us.”

  And then the traveling grew simple and easy. The land was relatively flat,
the roads were relatively wide, and the towns were not too far apart, in a prosperous province where good farmlands produced bountiful crops and wealthy farmers.

  After the first day of traveling, Silas looked in his magical mirror, hoping to see Jade. But he found that his view was not the mirror in the palace room with the yellow wallpaper; instead, he saw the warehouse in Ivaric, a piece of cloth thrown partially over the mirror, but still allowing Silas to observe some of the interior of the building.

  Though it had been a densely filled building in past visions, the Ivaric warehouse had never appeared busy. As Silas looked at it while traveling east of Barnesnob, he saw it exhibit a new character, with an unceasing flow of men passing through the warehouse, men wearing uniforms, and being handed weapons out of the crates and bags that had been stored. The men were numerous, as were the weapons, and Silas worried that his vision signaled something ominous. It was frightening enough that he decided to reveal his vision to Ruten and ask what the warlike appearance might mean.

  “Your broken mirror lets you see things in other mirrors?” the man asked incredulously when Silas began to nervously explain the next morning, while the caravan was on the move through a pastoral countryside.

  “Every mirror?” the guard asked skeptically. “Any mirror, any time? What do you look at?”

  “No, only two mirrors,” Silas hastily defined the mirrors he was describing. “The two big mirrors I was carrying in the wagon when I crashed into the cave – the mirror at Ivaric and the mirror at the Amenozume palace.” He paused as he realized he had just sold another large mirror that had been in the cave and exposed to the colorful underground fumes as well. He hesitated with a momentary pause as he considered the possible implications of seeing Dianu’s dressing room someday, then tried to refocus.

  “The point is that one of those mirrors is at Ivaric, I think in a warehouse. The warehouse filled up with crates and bags and lots of goods in the time since the mirror was put there. Then yesterday, I saw lots of soldiers in the warehouse, getting weapons out of the bags – swords, arrows, shields,” he told Ruten.