by K.N. Lee
“We don't need a speech,” Fa' muttered, hugging her. “We need a eulogy. And we need the old man's pension.”
“Of course, there's no other reason you're sniffing around my father's corpse like a vulture,” Ma said. “So what if I have mage talent? They would not dare harm the daughter of the Hero of Jerkum Pass.”
“He's dead, Miranda. He can't protect you anymore. I've heard gossip installing the cabinets in the mayor's house. Either they didn't realize I was back there or they just didn't care. There's going to be a new pogram. A government-sanctioned pogrom. It's not a few crazies with torches and pitchforks anymore. It's the law.”
“And what are you suggesting, oh mighty carpenter? That we leave before they say the rites for my father? Grab some filthy gold and run? And he was so looking forward to seeing his old friends again. Just when the emperor finally honors him as he deserves, this happens.”
I put my hands on my hips before glancing at my mother's red, puffy eyes and dropping them. I wanted my grandfather back as much as anyone in this family, but G'fa would be the first to harangue the lot of us for making such a fuss over something like this. He said the specter of death always rode on your shoulder, especially on campaigns. Grandfather would snort and tell me that life was just one long campaign. Everyone dies. Then he'd sigh and go quiet for awhile, staring into the distance, likely remembering all his fallen comrades.
Ma' looked at me. “Maybe you can accept the award in his place, dear.”
I imagined myself trying to squeeze into my grandfather's ceremonial armor. Worse than a corset. I could already feel my breasts squashing together and the metal digging into my ribs as I struggled to breathe. I described the image with broad gestures like G'fa used to do. Ma' laughed weakly.
“What about all the gold?” Fa asked, snorting at my crude pantomime. “They would never entrust the next pension installment to a child.”
“Stop fixating on money,” Ma said, pursing her lips. “Hmmm, what if she didn't look or sound like a child? I could perform a small charm . . .”
“Are you insane?” Fa' hugged me. “It's too dangerous. Why not send one of us disguised as the old man?” He stood. “I shall go. Prepare your magic, woman.”
“I suppose I should cast the spell here, now?” Ma' waved her arms. “While the whole village salivates outside our windows, mage detectors and knives held ready? Such a cunning strategy, husband mine. They would descend upon this house like wolves.”
In the midst of the revolution, mage detectors had become a big seller. They looked like large brass clocks with a bizarre backwards corkscrew dial and shrieked like a steam whistle whenever magic was being performed. After Ma' set off a few of these alarms, the neighbors started seething and investigating. Ma' didn't dare cast spells anymore.
“Obviously, not in the house . . .” my father began before Ma' held up her finger.
“Shush, Donus, I'm thinking. The village would get suspicious if I suddenly vanished in the night. And you? Masquerade as my father? Look at his face every morning in the mirror? Act like him? Think like him? You'd go crazy. Besides, Kelsa knew him best. He told her all those old stories I've half forgotten. She's the only one of us who could do it . . .” Ma' glanced at me and quirked her eyebrow again.
Can I really just become G'fa? Step into those big boots? I clenched the paper in my hand. Yes! The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. If he could live a little longer in me, how could I not? I look at Ma' and nodded once, sharply, as he used to do and smiled G'fa's crooked, little grin.
Fa' rolled his eyes.
Ma' laughed and clapped her hands. “You'll be perfect, dear. Hmmm, I would need to imbue something metal. Something that will remain in contact with your skin at all times. We can dress you in the armor, but it won't do for the spell. You'll have to take it off at some point and that would break the enchantment.”
“What about the ring G'fa always wore around his neck?” I asked. “I can tuck it under one of his poofy shirts. The bulge would hardly be noticeable.”
Ma twisted her own ring on her finger. It was the mate of the ring G'fa wore. “Father sold his commission and retired early when I was just a newborn. Everyone always said he returned home from his last campaign with three things: a baby girl in his arms and these rings around his neck. Yes, that's a wonderful idea, dear. It's something small and familiar, yet easily hidden.”
Fa' grinned and I wanted to slap him. Easily hidden magic was his favorite kind. If he had allowed Ma' to practice her magic properly and openly, exposing the villagers to the benefits and deflating their fears, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Then again, maybe we would. Hard to blame the villagers' ignorance on my father.
They were avoiding talking about important things in front of me again. I wanted to stamp my foot. I wasn't a child anymore, damn it. Nobody said anything, but I knew it wasn't really the skulking villagers that worried my parents so much as the emperor and his new, mysterious mage-hunting policy.
My mother sighed and closed here eyes. “Fine. I have the beginnings of a plan. Tomorrow, as loudly and flamboyantly as possible, Kelsa and I shall make preparations for an expedition. We are taking advantage of such a large, empty stasis box to venture into the world and collect rare ingredients, unguents, and perishable medical supplies for the village.”
Fa' chuckled. “My dear, you can't get indignant over an imagined perceived suspicion for a merciful aide expedition that is nothing more than a ruse.” His eyes narrowed. “Not when both the mercy and the expedition are fake.”
“I most certainly can,” Ma' cried. She was the village's resident doctor. Lately, everyone had begun to suspect that their local doctor was really a witch doctor. Which she was, but it's not like Ma' hadn't attended university at the capitol to learn her doctoring. But these days the mere whiff of magic was damning. What was once passed off as rumor had acquired an aura of heresy. “We will wrap Father's fancy dress armor and his good cloak, old saddle and tack, and supplies with our provisions in old burlap sacks, hook the old cart up to Krag, and head into the woods with Jena tied behind. We will loudly discuss sending Kelsa back on Jenna with medicines for my sick father and his sore throat after which I will continue alone. That should help explain why you two men aren't shouting the building down around your ears while the wiser, calmer female members of the household are gone. Those stupid mage detectors everyone's mounted on their walls have a limited range, thank the five gods.”
“And once you're deep into the woods, you'll magic our daughter to look like old Corbin?”
Ma' nodded.
He looked at me. “And you will deliver his speech and get the pension money?”
I nodded. My grandfather deserved to live again.
“But especially give his friends closure,” Ma' murmured.
“But especially get the money. So we can leave this prison,” Fa' said.
“Yes and yes,” I sighed. My parents' two goals weren't exactly mutually exclusive . . . except morally. “There's just one problem.” I waved the paper in their faces. “G'fa never finished his speech.”
They stared at me. Fa' glared at the paper and shrugged. He no doubt thought G'fa had died just to inconvenience him. Ma' smiled and clasped my hands, closing my fingers around the paper.
That night, Ma' prepared one of G'fa's favorite meals: honeyed pork jowls, mashed potatoes, and cider salad. This was the first night I didn't set flatware or silverware at G'fa's empty seat since he had died, which Fa' appreciated. I filled the hollow space my grandfather left behind from my seat instead, spending the whole evening practicing talking and eating like G'fa while my mother helped and reminisced. Fa' did not appreciate that and all his reminiscences were sarcastic.
My dreams that night were strange. I was trapped inside a mirror looking out and the face staring back at me was a vibrating blur. We were both wearing G'fa's old armor and nothing else. I squirmed, but didn't blush. Nobody could see me and modesty is a passing s
tranger. I used to swim naked as a baby born with all the boys in the village. Fa' put a stop to that years ago. I took to walking naked in the woods. Fa' didn't know about that.
But the experience was still physically awkward, as though G'fa's armor was punishing me for my lack of shame. Damn thing pinched and jabbed everywhere. The cuirass was squashing my breasts and digging into my hips. It felt like wearing two shovels strapped beneath my armpits while a wall of steel had collapsed across my chest. I struggled to breathe. The real me was trying to tell the mirror me something important, but neither of us could speak through the glass and I could not see her face as she mouthed the words. G'fa's old ring was nestled on a chain between my breasts. The ring was glowing and I could see an eerie blue light peeking out from the edges of the cuirass.
The armor was pressing the ring against my breasts. As the ring first indented and then slowly sank under my flesh, it burned, but pleasantly. Like a hot towel, rather than the scorching heat I was expecting. A soft, blue glow spread beneath my skin from the round spot at the center of my chest until it enveloped my entire body. I could feel my eyes glow and I could almost see that blurred face. My ears began to glow and I could almost hear beyond the mirror. My lips glowed. Would the other me hear the words, now?
“Unlace the damn armor,” I shouted at the glass. She nodded and fumbled with the straps of the cuirass while my mirror fingers followed suit. The ring sank deeper, puncturing the watery sac around my heart, and then plunging into the meat of the organ itself. I gasped and choked for a breath that would not come. The mirror shattered. My heart stopped.
I awoke panting, clutching my chest as it spasmed. I can breathe again! I ran my fingers down the chain, searching for the ring on the end, half expecting I'd need to pull that round, golden anchor from the depths of my heart. I yanked the chain off my neck and threw it across the room. The metal chimed when it hit the wall, but the thick, woolen carpet swallowed all sounds. Let the damn thing sink into a dead sheep's ass. I'll find it tomorrow. Then, punching my pillow, I fell asleep again and dreamed no more dreams of mirrors or magic rings.
2
KELSA, YEAR 198
I played with the ring while mother chatted next to me on the jostling cart seat as Krag trotted over every branch stretching across the pathway. Or maybe I was just more aware of my own quivering seat as we traveled into the dark woodland depths and closer to my coming transformation.
I glanced at the ring. There was no burning, no blue glow. The gold merely flashed and then dulled again as we passed beneath the dappled light shining through the canopy. G'fa always wore this ring around his neck, but unlike the rings on his fingers, this one didn't come with a story. How could an object owned by G'fa not be steeped in a history of cheerful fables, sad lies, or gritty half truths? Every time I asked, he would stare at my mother with wet, glistening eyes and then mope for the rest of the day.
My grandfather kept this one story locked inside and I never found the key to unlock it. I asked Ma' a few times, but she always shook her head and said it was G'fa's choice to share or not as he chose. And now he would never tell me. If I became G'fa, would I discover the secret of the ring? Would part of my mind transform along with my body? I was eager to find out.
Ma's brow furrowed as she turned to face me. “Are you certain you want to do this, Kelsa? I know what I said yesterday, but plenty of people at this event are NOT friends of your grandfather. And with fear of magic running so high, if you're discovered . . .”
I nodded and waved her concerns aside. It's not like I didn't recognize the danger. They would kill me . . . or worse. The granddaughter of Corbin Destrus was not foolish enough to wrestle with such a monstrous risk without care, but I could shake his clawed hand like the heroes of old. Greet that tight feeling in my gut as an old friend, not an adversary. A noble quest to save my mother? Who was I to shirk from such a challenge? The risk just added a certain spice to the affair. I heard G'fa's cheerful voice whisper in my mind, “Now death rides on your shoulder, my dear.”
“If you're certain, then we shall begin.” Ma' reached up and clasped my hands. G'fa always marveled how the five gods had crammed her huge spirit into such a tiny body. There was certainly nothing fragile about her grip.
I patted her small hand and in that moment it was easy to imagine I was a father comforting his worrisome daughter. “Hey, aren't some of my old army buddies mages?” I asked, deepening my voice to approximate G'fa's low, rolling tones. I asked this more for her benefit than for mine. I knew most of their names and certain hidden scars both internal and external, and could have recited a litany of intimate, embarrassing details of long forgotten escapades. I could even describe some of their faces: several of the characters from those stories had visited the house over the years. I remembered them all. And they remembered me as a squalling naked baby. Thanks, G'fa!
He told me every story multiple times with many different versions, but certain incidents always remained the same, allowing me to separate a bare, hazy truth from all the exaggerations. But none of his embellishments were to praise himself. Often the reverse occurred for all his bragging. According to G'fa, he stumbled across victory like a drunkard tripping over a half full wine bottle. I loved him all the more for his flamboyant humility. The bottle was always half full with G'fa. He was fond of cheerfully reminding me that the Hero of Jerkum Pass could be a jerk as well as a hero. He was just another character in his own tales. He told me all the stories . . . save the one about the ring.
“Yes, but all those mage friends are under the same dark cloud I am. Even safe in the bosom of the army, people likely aren't practicing much magic these days after the emperor's decree.” Ma' looked over her shoulder and pulled the reins. The path was deserted. The cart lolled to a stop and Krag stomped his hoof. Ma's white palfrey, Jena, tied to the back of the cart, whinnied in response.
I took a deep breath, watching my chest rise and fall as my ribcage expanded. Would breathing feel any different as a man? I swayed against the seat. Sitting? How do men shuffle all their dangly male bits when they sit? What would Fa' have said if I asked him that one? Slapped me. But he would hit a son just the same for daring to ask the reverse. Gender wouldn't matter. I slapped my own cheek gently. “I'm ready, Ma'.”
“You studied all the recent correspondence from your G'fa's desk last night after dinner?”
“Yes, Ma'. His friends sent letters and everyone is looking forward to the ceremony. They're all hale and hearty. Even the mages.”
“You mean plump and retired,” Ma laughed. “Didn't you read what they didn't write? 'Fill the gaps' as he used to say? Most of my father's living acquaintances are hardly any younger than he is. I doubt most of their commissions are still active.”
I pointed my trigger finger into the air and closed my eyes, reciting one of G'fa's favorite quotes: “An old soldier never stops soldiering though his helmet be a trough, his uniform a dust rag, or his weapon an ornament.”
“You've got the cadence right.” Ma stared past me towards the box in the bed of the cart and smiled a sad, little smile. “Let's take care of the rest of it.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Could you please open the box, dear? I need to see him one last time to get all the details right . . . and to say my goodbyes.”
I helped my mother pry the lid off the stasis box, a coffin in all but name. The ripe stench of a rotten privy gushed from the container and I swear I saw cloudy, black smoke fall to the floor of the cart and drift off the back. I shook my head and the sight vanished. Sadly, the smell remained.
I forced myself to look at his body. His cheerful face was placed. His expressive hands were still. Could I breathe life back into that face? Gesticulate with those hands? I looked at my own dirt-encrusted fingernails. My grandfather's hands had been washed, clean and unblemished. I started picking the dirt from under my nails and glanced at the sacks in the cart where the ceremonial armor lay waiting. G'fa always said he wanted to be interred in t
hat armor, but it would have to wait. Sir Corbin had one final quest to complete first.
Ma' stared at him for a long time and then looked at me. “I've seen enough for the enchantment. Every detail. Every scar. Every pimple. Let's get this done and then close the box before another traveler passes, dear. I prefer to remember your G'fa as the lively man he was, not this empty shell.”
He won't be an empty shell for long. I shall fill that shell in spirit and Sir Corbin will walk, speak, and breathe again.
My mother rummaged through one of the burlap sacks. “You'll need to strip your clothes before we begin. Here,” she said, tossing me a blanket. “Drape this over yourself to avoid a chill.”
I skinned off my clothes, kicked off my boots, and slung the blanket over one shoulder until I was only wearing the ring around my neck. “What chill?” I asked, wiggling my toes in the soft dirt, almost hoping some handsome prince came galloping over the ridge.
“I hope you're as comfortable in your new body,” my mother sighed. Surely after twenty years, she was used to my ways? “You're definitely his granddaughter. Surprised the pair of you never gave your poor father a heart attack.” Even Fa' was used to my special charm. He stopped interjecting the word 'husband' into every other sentence five years ago. It's not like I don't help support the family. The demand that I venture into the village to earn steady wages was the only thing Fa' and G'fa ever agreed upon. “Focus on me,” Ma' said. “Your mind is wandering.”
I braced myself against the side of the cart. “Will the transformation hurt?” I asked as my mother started glancing from G'fa to me and muttering.
“Do you want the answer I'd give my daughter or the answer I'd give my father? It may hurt . . . slightly,” Ma' said, laying her fingers on the ring. It began to pulse with a blue glow and all I could think about was mirrors.
“Do any of your patients ever believe that?” I asked