The Mirror After the Cavern

by Jeffrey Quyle

  That night, the caravan settled in for the night near a small city. After his sparring with Ruten was finished, but before dinner, Silas slipped away from the caravan and jogged into the city, towards the small temple of Kai, the goddess of the air.

  She was the logical deity to talk to, he decided.

  “My goddess, tell me if I moved the paper through the air today, and tell me please, how should I do it again?” he prayed at the railing in the small sanctum in the interior of the temple. Kai was the goddess relied upon by the Wind Word Guild members who were out in the world, even though her mate, Krusima, the god of earth, was responsible for granting the Speakers their powers. Because the words traveled through the air, she always appeared to be the logical god to pray to for successful flights of messages.

  “What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to be?” he asked the deeper questions that had begun to percolate within his soul. He didn’t know if he was supposed to be satisfied with riding across the lands as a caravan employee, or if he was now destined to become a Speaker, and to return to Heathrin so that he could have a formal entry into the Guild, with a career to follow. Or was there something else – should he embark upon an adventure and ship back to Amenozume sometime soon to visit with Mata, and to try to connect with Jade?

  There was no answer from the goddess, though he knelt in the quiet chapel and listened. A handful of other worshippers shuffled in and out of the heart of the temple, and Silas concluded that there was no answer forthcoming. He obediently gestured towards the altar, then rose, and walked back to the caravan.

  He arrived in time to share in the dinner, and had to explain again why he had been running through the caravan earlier in the day. That night, as he slept, he dreamed that Kai spoke to him.

  “You have so many questions,” he dreamed he was sitting on the bench of the wagon, as Hron pulled it along some featureless road. Suddenly, a woman of luminous beauty was sitting beside him, and she spoke.

  The woman was the goddess. He knew that, sensed her presence, her extraordinary sense of command. The air around the wagon suddenly was scented as though it were a bright spring day, with blooming flowers and growing things noticeable in the wafting breeze that had risen.

  “Beginnings are always so full of questions. The road ahead is long, or, as in your case, the road hasn’t even been defined yet. I know that good heart of yours can do much to make you a worthy champion,” she told him comfortingly.

  “My lady, thank you,” he stuttered over his first words to the deity. “I don’t even know that I am to be a champion, or what I’ll be the champion for.”

  “Just wait,” Kai comforted him. “You are Krusima’s chosen aide, and he will reveal more to you when circumstances call. In the meantime, simply do the good deeds you find you need to do, and wait for his call to action.”

  She placed a warm hand upon his back, and he felt a wave of confident energy sweep through him. Then, she was gone.

  Silas had no other dreams all night long, and when he awoke in the morning, he believed the dream was a true visitation from the goddess. She had told him that he had been chosen by Krusima; the god himself had said something similar when he had spoken to Silas in his own Heathrin temple, just before the whole caravan adventure had begun. But she had not answered his question about whether he had the power to move physical objects, the question that had so interested him.

  Ruten took him for sword practice soon after he awoke, and then the caravan moved a mile to the other side of the neighboring small city, and set up camp to trade until midday.

  “We’re going to fill up that empty wagon of yours,” Prima told him an hour into the business-oriented visit. “You’ve hardly got any mirrors left, so we’ll be filling your wagon with the woven rush baskets this city produces. Rearrange your mirrors to open up more space.”

  Silas obligingly moved the mirrors to the corner of the wagon bed, and soon was told to take his wagon to a craftsman’s factory on the edge of town, where a number of baskets, large and small nested within one another as much as possible, soon were stacked high in his wagon, and tied into place with ropes. When Silas returned to the caravan trading field, the others were packed up and ready to depart.

  They rode during the day, entering a rain shower in the afternoon and enduring its gentle downpour until after nightfall. Ruten insisted on practicing with the sticks, regardless of the weather.

  “You’ll have to fight to protect yourself in all types of conditions – threats don’t only happen during pretty spring days,” the guard said matter-of-factly.

  Silas realized that his grip slipped and his feet couldn’t plant as firmly, and Ruten showed him how to adjust after the boy complained.

  The following day, while Silas was driving his wagon through a damp, peaceful countryside, he received a shocking message.

  “This is the Master of the Guild of the Wind Word Speakers, sending a message to Silas the wayfarer, located in the Barnesnob countryside,” a voice boomed in Silas’s ears unexpectedly, making him jump in surprise.

  “As the Master of the Air that carries the Words of the Speakers, I announce that you are prohibited from sending any message to any Speaker, whether a member of our Guild or not. You are not incorporated into our arts through the ceremony of Krusima’s temple,” the commanding voice spoke. It spoke in plain language, without any code to hide or confuse the message.

  “You shall report to our headquarters in Heathrin, where you shall be judged, and an appropriate decision passed. Proceed to travel here directly with the greatest expediency, or suffer the consequences,” the Master blustered.

  The message was repeated in its entirety once, and then a final message was appended.

  “Ignore this at your own peril. Ivaric’s leaders have told us that your words are an insult to their nation,” the master spoke his last word.

  Silas sat on the bench, stunned, so absorbed by the shocking message that he was unaware of the countryside passing by. A man on a horse went riding by, passing the caravan at a steady clip, though Silas barely knew that someone had been nearby.

  He was being portrayed as an outcast, practically a criminal. The leaders of his own Guild – and he did consider it to be his Guild, despite their treatment – were prohibiting him from exercising his own talents.

  He thought and pondered. The Guild should have no control over his ability to Speak Wind Words, he told himself self-righteously, after minutes of stewing. The Guild had played no part in his receipt of the power to Speak. It had been an accident, or perhaps the work of Krusima himself. But in no case could the Guild claim the right to intervene in what he did.

  He began to compose a response to the Master of the Guild. Silas would tell him directly that his powers were his own, not the Guild’s. He was busy at the moment, but would agree to travel back to Heathrin, provided the Master agreed that he deserved no punishment, but ought to in fact be heralded. Silas had after all, only sought to prevent a bloody war from overtaking an innocent and unprepared nation.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t reply. His father had always told him to let his heat cool before he spoke in cases where he was angry. This seemed to be such a case, he told himself grimly. But he was justified in putting the Guild in its place, he argued with himself.

  “Silas! Wake up Silas,” Ruten’s voice was practically next to him. He woke from his self-absorption and discovered that Ruten was on a horse next to his wagon, and another man, a seedy one dressed in ragged and mismatched clothing, rode a beautiful animal next to Ruten.

  “Silas, a messenger is looking for you,” Ruten nodded towards the seedy man. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the likes of this before.”

  “Are you Silas, the Speaker, who was lately in Barnesnob?” the messenger spoke in a guttural tone. “Can you tell me who you spoke to in Barnesnob, in a meeting in a morning?” he asked.

  “I met with,” Silas had to stop and collect his wits, surprised once again by an unexpected turn o
f events.

  “Why do you want to know?” he asked. He suddenly recalled the Ivaric threat against him. The man might be an assassin. Silas put his hand on the hilt of his deadly knife, ready for the worst.

  “Whoa tiger cub,” Ruten intervened as he saw Silas’s hand motion. “This seems unusual, but not harmful. Let’s play this straight, shall we?”

  “I met with Vertuco, Grecco, and Charms,” Silas recalled.

  “And did you deliver anything to anyone before you left the city?” the messenger asked.

  “I delivered a mirror to the lady of the Healer Guild,” Silas asked. “How did you know? Who are you?”

  “Here,” the man reached inside his vest and pulled out a folded note, which he handed to Silas, leaning across to hand the note to Ruten to pass to the recipient. “This is from Charms. He told me to question you to make sure I was delivering to the right person.”

  “How did you know about the mirror delivery?” Silas asked. Charms had had no involvement in that at all.

  “We have ears and eyes all over the city. I hear you and the lady had a very close encounter; was she a cuddly bit to have lying atop you? I’ve thought of her many a time and thought she’d be a treat,” the man laughed coarsely.

  “My mission is done. Charms said to just ride east and ask if a caravan of traders had passed through each city, and sure enough, here you are. Best wishes,” the man nodded, turned is horse, and started to trot away.

  “Well, aren’t you something!?” Ruten was surprised by the delivery and the exchange. “Having special messages delivered. And what’s this about you and some lady in the city?” he asked quizzically.

  Silas held the folded note, eager to open it, but wanted to assure Ruten that he hadn’t done anything untoward with Dianu, the lady of the Healers Guild.

  “I was delivering the mirror, and the lady tried to help me, but then she fell, and when I reached out to help her, she fell down on top of me,” Silas explained. He didn’t mention the balanced mirror, which would only add to his reputation for oddity at that point, he knew.

  “Let me read this,” he abruptly interrupted before Ruten could ask more, and he broke the seal to open the note.

  “Friend Silas, your message was quite a dramatic one – a bold move of which I heartily approve. It was close but not correct. My sources in the world I delve into say that the true target of the coming Ivaric war is Avaleen, not Shouldteen.

  “I’m no friend of Ivaric. If you could direct a new message to warn the correct target, and help the folks of Avaleen better prepare to fight and bloody the Ivaric invasion, I’d be happy to think I played a small role in helping.

  The Master of the Speakers Guild will not allow me to communicate with more legal and proper Speakers who work for palaces and honorable employers, so I must rely on you to spread the word. And my math is not so good as yours, so I cannot find the direction I need to Speak my messages directly to you, though I would if I could. With best wishes, your humble servant, Charms.”

  “What does it say?” Ruten asked after thirty seconds.

  “I’ve made a mistake,” Silas answered softly, speaking more to himself than to Ruten. “A very big mistake.”

  “What is it?” Ruten asked, though Silas could tell by his tone that he didn’t believe any mistake Silas made could prove to be a bad one. But then, Ruten didn’t know that Silas had dabbled in international relations, and the imminent unleashing of war.

  “I sent warnings to people that Ivaric was planning for war,” Silas began. He saw the uncomprehending look on Ruten’s face. “You know, as a Speaker, to people far away, using the Wind Words.

  “But this note tells me that Ivaric is planning war against Avaleen, not Shouldteen. I sent the wrong warning out,” Silas explained.

  “And I made the Wind Word Guild mad at me for using the talent without their permission,” he added. “But I don’t think I need their permission, because they didn’t give me the power,” he added defensively. “They have no right to control.”

  “So the Master of the Wind Word Guild is against me, Ivaric is mad that I revealed something about them, and the information I sent is wrong, so if anyone listened to me, the wrong people are panicked while the other wrong people are not preparing for war.

  “It’s a mess,” he sighed.

  “You did all of this, on your own?” Ruten asked, in a voice that hovered between annoyance and sympathy.

  “I thought it was the right thing to do,” the words burst out of Silas. “And I wanted to hurt Ivaric,” he added in a lower tone.

  “Don’t do anything else impulsive; let me think about this,” Ruten directed. He sighed and shook his head, then rode his horse away, up along the line of wagons.

  Silas felt depressed, but relieved to have told his troubles to someone. He needed a distraction, something pleasant. He pulled his mirror out of his pack and looked at it, eager to see if Jade was available for conversation.

  He was extremely fortunate when he looked in his mirror, and the first thing he saw was Jade, leaning at an angle, providing a three-quarters profile that Silas admired for a moment. He wanted to tap on his mirror, as though the sound of the tapping would resonate in the mirror that Jade was next to. Perhaps it would, he told himself speculatively. He reached a pair of fingers to the top of his piece of glass and then tapped tentatively.

  Jade had no reaction to his tentative tapping. He tapped again, harder, and watched intently as Jade failed to react.

  He should have known, he chided himself.

  Then Jade turned slightly, her eyes flickered, and then her head swiveled. A smile creased her face, lighting it up, and making Silas laugh and grin with pleasure at the sight of her delight in seeing him. He smiled and waved.

  Jade extravagantly lifted her hand to her lips, before she blew a kiss at him. He laughed with real pleasure; her friendship was a wonderful relief, a refuge from the stress of his life at that moment.

  Silas picked up his pad and dashed a note upon it.

  “I’m so glad to see you! I’ve missed you!” he flipped the pad around for her to see.

  She was just finishing writing a note of her own, and displayed it in the mirror. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I’m glad you’re alive. How are you?”

  “Things are so-so. Seeing you is the best part of the day,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she scribbled her answer so rapidly that he had to take a moment to decipher her handwriting. “We’re facing some troubles too.”

  “What are they?” Silas asked.

  And so Jade spelled out a story that shocked and disturbed him.

  Ivaric was aggressively attempting to negotiate a trading treaty with Queen Gracious of Amenozume, seeking favorable treatment of its ships and the right to maintain its own guards on some docks. Although Princess Lumene was opposed to any concessions to Ivaric, and held sway with the queen, the pearl traders guild was in favor of the arrangement, and continued to voice support for the negotiations. They were frustrated with the Princess for her opposition, and the palace had an air of tension from the struggle over the Ivaric treaty.

  After explaining all of that in a series of notes, Jade turned to other topics, and they continued to write notes about matters that grew less and less consequential, until Silas saw the wagons begin to leave the road and set up in formation for the night.

  “Tell Mata I said hello,” he asked Jade, and he promised to look in the mirror again soon, before he put the mirror away, then prepared his wagon for the evening. He was pleased to have seen the girl again, and to have let her tell of the woes in the palace. Once she had begun to describe her problems, he hadn’t felt any need to speak about his own problems any more. Just listening to another person – listening in a sense, anyway – had been calming.

  He and Ruten practiced their sword work with sticks. “I’d like to get you in an armory sometime to try practicing with padded real blades,” the guard ventured. “You seem to be getting the
hang of this.”

  “I wonder how Sareen’s doing?” Silas pondered. He hadn’t thought of the former member of the caravan in some time. The girl had practiced just as much as Silas had under Ruten’s tutelage before her departure.

  “She’s probably practicing fencing of a different kind,” Ruten chuckled wryly. “But the question ought to be, what are you going to do about your predicament?”

  “I don’t know,” Silas misjudged one of Ruten’s feints as he tried to answer the difficult question. “I don’t have to do anything immediately.”

  “Maybe you ought to talk to Prima,” Ruten suggested. “He’s more than he seems, Silas,” the sword teacher said confidentially. “He has a deep understanding of things in the world,” Ruten tapped his temple with a finger to signify his respect for Prima.

  “Maybe I will,” Silas nodded his willingness to consider such a conversation, and they continued to fence for another half hour, until their practice ended.

  They were in the country that night. The next morning, they rode to a small city where they set up for trading.

  “Would you watch my goods and sell them if buyers are interested?” Silas asked Treemor, the wagon driver who was parked next to him. “I want to go to the temple in town for a quick visit.”

  “Suit yourself; I’ve never gone to a temple, and it’s never hurt me,” the caravan roustabout shrugged, letting Silas go jogging off to find the tiny storefront temple to Krusima he had noticed when passing through town.

  Kai had told him in his dream that Krusima was preparing Silas, and the goddess advised Silas to speak to Krusima for advice and instruction. Silas had no doubt that if ever there was a time when he needed instruction, that time had arrived.

  The temple was small, without a priest even evident, and without any worshippers in attendance in the middle of the morning. Silas walked in and squinted in the dim interior, then quickly fell to his knees along the prayer railing, and he began to ask for advice.