Alt-Frieda looked up at her. “She’s a monster. And she’s unstoppable.”
Emily shook her head. “Why did she come to Heart’s Eye?”
“She intended to turn it into a base,” Alt-Frieda said. “And... she had something in mind, something she didn’t share with me. But people started having problems and...”
“Caleb,” Emily said. “Did my Caleb—and my Frieda—end up in your world?”
“Yes.” Alt-Frieda nodded. “It was obvious he wasn’t the real Caleb.”
“Yes. He was.” Emily sucked in her breath. “What happened to your Caleb?”
“He had second thoughts.” Alt-Frieda laughed, harshly. “He doesn’t have them anymore.”
Emily stared down at her hands. “What did she do to him?”
But she had the terrible feeling she already knew. She’d missed the signs... but, in hindsight, they were clear. The traces of magic were hers because they were hers, just an alternate version of her. Alt-Emily had brutalized him, ripped his mind to shreds... no wonder he’d been so scared of her. What the hell had she done to him? She’d left him in such a state that he was completely useless, unable to do anything. It was torture for the sake of torture, making someone hurt purely for the pleasure of it. Her stomach twisted, painfully. She would have thrown up—again—if there had been anything left in her stomach. How could Alt-Emily be her? How had she gone so very wrong?
“What happened?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Where did she go so wrong?”
“Alassa said you—she—changed at the end of her first year,” Alt-Frieda said. “Alassa was always trying to talk sense into her head, but... she didn’t listen and Alassa is now on the run.”
“With Jade?” Emily wondered, suddenly, if Alt-Alassa was pregnant too. “Where’s he?”
“Jade’s one of your enforcers,” Alt-Frieda said. “And your bed-toy. You did something to him—I don’t know what—and he’s completely devoted to you. He’d do anything for you.”
Emily shuddered. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Alt-Frieda looked down at her scarred hands. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It doesn’t feel that way,” Emily said. She forced herself to think. Where had her counterpart gone so wrong? “Is there no resistance?”
“Just Alassa, as far as I know.” Alt-Frieda shrugged. “She doesn’t let me out very much, not now. She doesn’t trust me.”
“The Grandmaster?” Emily tried to think. “Lady Barb? Melissa and Markus and Void...”
“The Grandmaster died in fourth year,” Alt-Frieda said. “It was supposed to be a natural death, but... I did wonder. Melissa’s one of your—her—agents. I don’t know Lady Barb or Void. Markus... he never paid any attention to me when we were both at Mountaintop. I just don’t know.”
“No,” Emily agreed. She couldn’t believe Lady Barb wouldn’t notice that something was wrong. She’d been suspicious of her when they’d first met and she hadn’t been a practicing necromancer. “What did she do to them?”
“I don’t know,” Alt-Frieda repeated. “I don’t even know why she kept me around.”
“And how is she hiding her necromancy?” Emily wasn’t sure that was even possible. “How did she get through the wards without being detected?”
“I don’t know.” Alt-Frieda shook her head. “She used a glamour to hide her eyes...”
That wouldn’t have fooled the wards, Emily thought. And people would have wondered why she was using a glamour in the first place...
She considered it for a long moment, but came up with nothing. It was supposed to be impossible. A powerful sorcerer could mask his power—and his presence—but a necromancer, bleeding power in all directions, would always be visible to those with eyes to see. His mere presence would taint the magic around him. There would certainly be no point in trying to sneak around. He might as well be playing loud music as he crept up on his target. And yet... somehow, her counterpart had done it. How?
I don’t think I want to know, Emily thought. A handful of possibilities ran through her head, all far too dangerous to test. She couldn’t research necromancy without becoming a necromancer and risking madness. No, she would go mad. Her counterpart had certainly gone mad. Someone who could torture a man to the brink of insanity was clearly mad. It was so pointless. Did she draw down her power reserves in the hopes nothing would bleed out...?
She remembered herself and swore. “What happened to Caleb? My Caleb?”
“She was... doing things with him,” Alt-Frieda said. “I don’t know what, but... she’s very good at getting inside someone’s mind and twisting it. Give her a few days and he’ll be hers, body and soul. I don’t know why she didn’t do it to me.”
Perhaps she felt sorry for you, Emily thought, grimly. It was why she’d befriended her Frieda. Her counterpart and she were the same person... emotionally, she didn’t want to believe it, but logically it was true. Their motives wouldn’t be that different. Alt-Emily had simply taken them too far. Or perhaps she liked your natural admiration too much to want to twist it into something fake.
“Then we have to get him back,” Emily said, firmly. “And if she’s got your counterpart...”
Alt-Frieda looked up, sharply. “You want to send me back?”
“I don’t want to,” Emily said. She knew she might have no choice. “But I do want to get my people back, before she twists them...”
“Then you’d better hurry.” Alt-Frieda swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “I don’t think you have much time left.”
She paused. “She—you, the other you—had a spell that cracked open necromantic wards, allowing the power to spill out. They exploded with terrific force. They... people who went nearby, afterwards, sickened and died. Do you know that spell?”
“It doesn’t do what she said,” Emily told her, grimly. The nuke-spell. It had to be the nuke-spell. Alt-Emily had walked up to the necromancers, activated the spell and teleported away before it went critical and detonated. The resulting blast had killed the necromancers without a fight. And she’d lied about what she’d done... of course she’d lied. There was nothing that kept others from using the same spell, save ignorance. Alt-Emily wouldn’t want her enemies using the spell on her. “I know what she did.”
“Teach me.” Alt-Frieda met her eyes, pleadingly. “Teach me and send me back.”
“You’ll kill yourself,” Emily said. “I...”
Alt-Frieda cut her off. “Do you think I care?”
She started to pace the room, her magic flaring as she grew angry. “Your counterpart holds the world in her hands. She’s butchered just about everyone who stood in her way. She’s warped and twisted good men until all they can think about is how to please her. She’s... she made me her servant, her willing servant. I have done terrible things in her name because I wanted to please her too. And now...
“There’s no hope left. She controls the magic, the armies, the kings... everything. Alassa is doomed. It’s just a matter of time before she gets dragged before your counterpart in chains or simply killed on the battlefield... if she’s lucky. If I can take her out... my life is nothing, if there’s a chance at her. Emily... I have to try.”
“And if she stops you,” Emily pointed out, “she’ll kill you.”
“Or worse. I’ve seen her do much worse.” Alt-Frieda stopped and turned to face her. “I have to do it. I have to try. And if it works... at least it’ll be quick.”
“I’ll be sending you to your death,” Emily said. “I can’t...”
“You don’t have a choice,” Alt-Frieda told her. “You—your counterpart—thought that two counterparts couldn’t exist in the same universe. Not for long. You have to send me back if you want your Frieda back. And Caleb too... you can put us all out of our misery if you show me how to cast the spell...”
And perhaps unleash a holocaust if the blast reacts badly with the nexus point, Emily thought, coldly. Alt-Emily had to have reignited the
nexus point too. The blast might crack the entire planet in half.
She looked away, unwilling to meet Alt-Frieda’s steady gaze. Alt-Frieda was right. Emily had seen her memories, the flickering images of another her. There was no way to solve the problem without sending Alt-Frieda back home... and, if she had to go back home, giving her the nuke-spell might solve a few other problems. There was no risk of the spell falling into the wrong hands. It wasn’t as if Alt-Emily didn’t already know how to cast the spell.
And I might be condemning millions of people to death, Emily thought. If the blast was only powerful enough to destroy a city, it would take out Alt-Emily and her supporters; if it was a great deal more powerful, it would take out a great deal more. I just don’t know...
“There’s nothing left for us back there.” Alt-Frieda’s voice was very calm. “Please. Let me put an end to it.”
Emily nodded, slowly. There was no good answer, as far as she could tell. She couldn’t break the link between the two dimensions... and, even if she did, Alt-Emily would still be out there somewhere. No, there would be millions upon millions of counterparts... she swallowed, hard. It was hard to believe that all of her counterparts—all of her potential counterparts—were real, yet she knew they were. In one universe, Alt-Frieda might succeed; in another, she might fail completely. It was hard to say if anything was truly worth doing when there was always a timeline where if failed or... she decided to do something completely different.
“Very well.” Emily took a long breath. “I’ll teach you the spell, on the sole condition that you don’t start making the preparations until we get into your world. I don’t want you blowing us up too.”
Alt-Frieda blinked. “We?”
“I’m coming too,” Emily said, firmly. It wasn’t something she wanted to debate. “I have to get my friends out of there.”
“They might not be yours any longer,” Alt-Frieda warned. Her hands shook. She clasped them. “She’s very good at twisting people.”
“So you said.” Emily winced. It was easy, very easy, for a magician to twist a person’s mind until they were prepared to swear that black was white, up was down and good was evil... to make them say or do or believe anything. Caleb and Frieda were tough, but... they had no mental defenses against her. They trusted her. Alt-Emily would have no trouble taking advantage of their trust to weaken their minds. “The sooner we start, the better.”
Alt-Frieda frowned. “How do you intend to get there?”
“Your blood should call you home,” Emily said. It was a guess, but... she’d need to check with Jayson, to see if he’d made any further progress with the books. Logically, she should be able to trace a path to the alternate world. “And I think we might be able to use the nexus point to track Caleb.”
Except it didn’t work last time, she thought. I ended up in the wrong world...
She glanced at Alt-Frieda. “What happened to your Dua Kepala? The necromancer who took and held Heart’s Eye?”
“She killed him at the end of fourth year,” Alt-Frieda said. “And she claimed the school for herself.”
“A year before I killed my Dua Kepala,” Emily mused, thoughtfully. No Master Highland in the alternate timeline? Or... no opportunity for Master Highland to try to press his claim to the school? “Did she pick the fight deliberately? Or did he launch his invasion ahead of schedule?”
“He was the closest target,” Alt-Frieda said. Her voice turned sour. “The New Model Army demonstrated in front of Farrakhan. Dua Kepala and his armies marched to confront her. She blew him up.”
“And that was that,” Emily said. A chill ran down her spine. The New Model Army... more proof, if any were needed, that she would face a counterpart of herself. There wasn’t anyone else on the Nameless World who’d instinctively use that term. “Did she reignite the nexus point?”
“Yes.” Alt-Frieda looked grim. “I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I,” Emily said. She’d dumped one of Dua Kepala’s bodies into the nexus point. Perhaps... perhaps Alt-Emily had done the same. Alt-Frieda didn’t seem to know that Dua Kepala had been one mind in two bodies. Or... if all it took was a massive infusion of magic, maybe she’d used a battery. It was something to consider, later. “Right now, we have other things to worry about.”
She took a breath. “I’m going to have to talk to the others. And then... we’ll go get my friends back.”
“Teach me the spell first,” Alt-Frieda said. “We’ll get your people and then I’ll trigger the spell. You’ll be gone by the time your counterpart dies.”
“Very well.” Emily wasn’t happy about it, but... she couldn’t think of an alternative. “But first, I have to talk to the others. My friends will look after you. Just... just don’t give them any reason to be worried. We’re all a bit jumpy right now.”
Alt-Frieda laughed, humorlessly. “You’re definitely not her,” she said. Her voice cracked, just slightly. She wiped her eyes as she spoke. “She never talks to anyone. She just gives orders.”
“I’m not her,” Emily said. She didn’t want to think about being the person she’d seen in Alt-Frieda’s memories. It wasn’t her. “And...”
She shook her head. It wasn’t true, was it? They were the same person. If things had been different, Emily could have become a monster too. If...
They were different for her, Emily thought, grimly. She wondered, again, what had gone differently. What had tipped her counterpart over the edge? What had convinced her that she had no choice but to embrace necromancy? Had she been desperate? Seduced? Tricked? Or... or what? And once she started going bad, she couldn’t stop...
In truth, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“ABSOLUTELY OUT OF THE QUESTION,” MASTER Highland said.
Emily gazed back at him evenly, then allowed her eyes to sweep the table. Yvonne looked unconcerned, as if she thought the matter was of no import, but everyone else looked unsure. Professor Wyle and Alchemist Dram refused to meet her eyes; Praxis looked torn between Master Highland and Yvonne. Cirroc stood against the wall, his face so blank she knew he was feeling awkward. Jayson was the only one who seemed to be on her side, and even he had his doubts. She reminded herself, firmly, that she had the final say, even if they didn’t know it. Master Highland didn’t know she’d kept super-administrator rights for herself.
Unless he guessed I pulled a fast one, she thought. He never tried to pry...
“Let me see if I understand you correctly,” Master Highland continued. “You have deduced that Caleb and Frieda are trapped in an alternate world, a world ruled by an alternate version of you. You intend to open the mirrors and force entry to this world, taking with you the alternate version of Frieda. And... you intend to risk being captured yourself.”
“I see no alternative,” Emily said, keeping her voice calm. “I am not going to abandon them to their fate...”
“And what,” Master Highland demanded, “if this results in you being swapped for your counterpart?”
“I wasn’t replaced when I entered the dead universe,” Emily pointed out. “There might have been no alternative version of myself...
She realized her mistake, too late, as Master Highland pounced. “There is an alternate version of yourself in their universe. And we don’t want her here.”
Yvonne snorted. “Don’t you think you can handle her?”
Master Highland looked concerned rather than angry. “If half of what Alt-Frieda told us is true, this alternate version of Emily has killed a number of necromancers and practically rules the Allied Lands. It’s quite reasonable to be concerned about our ability to handle her, particularly as she will logically have access to the nexus point. We might find out—too late—that we can’t handle her.”
“She has no reason to expect a switch,” Praxis rumbled.
“She’s Emily’s counterpart,” Master Highland pointed out. “And Emily has a long history of putting everything on the line to rescu
e her friends. Her counterpart presumably knows what she would do...”
“Maybe not,” Emily said. At some point, she and Alt-Emily had become very different people. “I wouldn’t set out to conquer the world.”
“You can’t take that for granted,” Master Highland said. “Even if your counterpart wouldn’t do what you would do, she’d still have the ability to predict what you would do.”
“Perhaps,” Emily said. She couldn’t pick holes in his logic. “However, the only other option is finding a way to close the mirrors completely... which would mean abandoning Caleb and Frieda to my counterpart’s tender mercies.”
“There are nearly two hundred people in Heart’s Eye alone,” Master Highland said, curtly. “Do you really want to put them all at risk?”
Yvonne lifted her eyebrows. “Do you care about the mundane lives?”
“I am concerned about the risks,” Master Highland said. “If Emily is replaced—or simply captured—we will be in some trouble. Even if we never see her again...”
“I am aware of the risks,” Emily said, icily. He had a point, damn him. She didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. “And we can take precautions.”
“We can’t even be sure you’d get into the right universe,” Dram pointed out. The alchemist had been very quiet since his apprentice’s death. “There might be millions of alternatives... what does it matter if you save two, when there are millions of others who will remain trapped?”
“That’s an excuse for doing nothing,” Jayson said, tartly. “If nothing we do matters, then why do anything? But... it does matter. We have to get our friends back.”
Master Highland looked at Emily. “How can you be sure you will find the right universe, this time?”
“We think we can use blood from Alt-Frieda and Alt-Caleb to locate the correct universe,” Emily said. She’d taken the time to review Jayson’s notes before calling the meeting. “It should be possible. And then we can use the nexus point’s link to Caleb to find him.”
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 31