She forced herself to walk on, somehow. The wards were growing stronger, nastier... although they seemed to be having problems focusing on the intruder. Emily frowned, realizing that her counterpart appeared to have made a mistake. There were so many spells probing for intruders that they were actively interfering with each other, except... she frowned as she realized, again, just how paranoid her counterpart had become. There were spells designed to watch for footprints, spells designed to watch for heat signatures... she cursed, inwardly, at the reminder they were, at base, the same person. She was the only person she knew who’d thought to use motion-detection spells to watch for invisible intruders.
They passed through a pair of sealed doors, held closed by so many spells that it would have taken hours to break through if they hadn’t parted the moment Emily touched them. She had given herself permission to pass, yet... Emily felt her own paranoia start to deepen. Her counterpart might have rigged the doors to report when they were opened, even if they were opened by her. She glanced into the library—it was crammed with books, each one seemingly from the days before the printing press—then started to climb up to the dorms. The wards grew stronger, darker...
She glanced at Alt-Frieda. “How many people live here?”
“Not many,” Alt-Frieda told her. “Ten or so servants, people like me; fifty or so slaves.”
Emily gritted her teeth. Sixty people sounded like a crowd, but compared to the sheer size of Heart’s Eye... Alt-Emily, it seemed, had the same disdain for crowds as Emily herself. She didn’t need a small army of servants to tend to her needs, not when she didn’t have the ego or social background that demanded she hire a vast number of menials to sit around and do nothing. Emily had only hired servants when she needed them. Her counterpart clearly had the same idea.
“She brought you, Cat and Caleb here,” Emily said. “How many others...?”
Her voice trailed off as she realized what was missing. The mirrors had been removed. Or covered. The mirror she remembered seeing at the dorms was gone. Not hidden, removed... she wondered, sourly, how her counterpart had managed to do that. And her world wasn’t being torn apart by Manavores... Emily suspected it was just a matter of time. The timelines were continuing to tangle, knotting themselves up beyond repair... what was going to happen if the knot continued to tighten? Would it eventually break?
“She didn’t bring many people,” Alt-Frieda said. “She never wanted many people around her. Even when”—she hesitated, changing her mind—“she never let me stay.”
“I don’t want to know,” Emily repeated. She stopped in front of a door and braced herself, carefully feeling for the locking hexes. “They’re in here.”
“Get them out,” Alt-Frieda said. “Take them back to the mirror and go.”
“I understand,” Emily said. She had the nasty feeling that things were going far too well. She wasn’t sure where her counterpart actually was, but... she was nearby. Emily felt her mocking presence diffused throughout the school. “Give me a moment...”
She touched the door. This time, it didn’t open. Emily frowned. Her counterpart had charmed the lock, trying to exclude her... it worked, sort of. She must have found a way to identify timeline signatures... Emily considered her options. She didn’t have time to unlock the door, but if she blasted it... she didn’t know what was on the far side or who’d be hurt if she did. If Caleb and Frieda were there...
“Give me your hand,” she ordered. “Quickly.”
Alt-Frieda hesitated, then held out her hand. Emily pressed it against the door, hastily casting an unlocking charm. The door seemed to quiver uneasily, the hexes rustling as they realized they were being hacked, before the lock clicked and the spells faded into the ether. Emily gingerly pushed the door open, recoiling at the smell. The room was a chamber of horrors. Blood and shit and piss in the air...
She hastily cast a spell on her nose as she inched into the chamber, glancing from side to side. A Gorgon—not the Gorgon—lay on a bench, dead and half-dissected. A pale-skinned man stood in a tube, his face utterly blank and inhuman... a vampire, she realized dully. She felt sick, again, as she swept the room. It was madness, horror beyond imagination. She’d always been curious, she’d always wanted to know, but this... this was monstrous. A headless corpse—a child—lay on a bench, half-covered by a silver blanket. The head sat next to it, yammering madly. Emily had no idea what sort of spells were involved in keeping it alive. It was horrific.
“Hurry,” Alt-Frieda said. “I can feel her.”
Emily nodded. It was hard to sense her counterpart—in some sense, her presence was masking her counterpart’s—but she could tell where her counterpart wasn’t. The wards were twisting, as if her counterpart was trying to push Emily out. It was pointless, yet... it was working. Emily couldn’t devote all of her attention to the wards unless she wanted to forget her friends. It was no consolation to know her counterpart probably had the same problem.
She stepped into the next room and froze. Caleb was lying face-down on a bench, his back covered with welts; Frieda sat in a chair, blood dripping from a cut on her forehead. They were both naked. A man stood in front of them, holding a whip. He turned to face Emily, his lips twisting into a cruel smile. Emily realized, to her horror, that she recognized him. He’d been King Randor’s personal torturer, the man who’d tortured Imaiqah and threatened to do the same to her...
Magic surged. She blasted him across the room and straight into a stone wall, smashing his body to jelly. He had no time to scream before it was too late. The shattered mass fell to the ground, blood and gore splashing everywhere. She felt a moment of horror at what she’d done, mingled with a sense the bastard had finally got what he deserved. He’d tortured and raped and murdered dozens—perhaps hundreds—of people on the king’s command. And Alt-Emily’s. He’d deserved far worse than a quick death.
“Wow,” Alt-Frieda said. She was staring at Frieda. “She’s so... me.”
Frieda was staring back at her counterpart. “Who are you?”
“Your counterpart,” Emily said. She hastily undid Frieda’s bonds. Her friend stank of durian—someone had force-fed Frieda potion—but otherwise she seemed largely unharmed. “We have to get moving.”
“I saw you here,” Frieda said, dully. “You’re a monster. She’s a monster.”
Alt-Frieda flared. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
“Not now,” Emily said. She had to struggle to untie Caleb. He was so badly beaten, she wasn’t sure he could walk. Blood covered his back, staining her hands. “Caleb? Can you hear me?”
“...Emily?” Caleb shifted, awkwardly, as she tried to help him up. “What... a trick. A trick. I won’t be fooled again...”
“I’ve come to take you home,” Emily said. She helped him to turn over and sit up, then wrapped an arm around his shoulder and lifted him to his feet. Caleb wasn’t that big, compared to Jade or Cat, but he was still difficult to move. In hindsight, perhaps she should have brought Hoban too. “Do I have to levitate you?”
“I can walk,” Caleb managed. His entire body twitched violently as his bare feet touched the ground. He’d been beaten on the soles of his feet... savagely. Emily wondered if it was just another form of torture... or if the torturer had intended to make sure Caleb couldn’t escape even if he somehow got off the bench. Blood spilled from open wounds and pooled around his feet. “I...”
“Let me levitate you,” Emily said, grimly. She wanted to heal him, but she didn’t think she had time. Even smoothing the bruises would take time she didn’t have. She muttered a spell to clean the blood, closing the open wounds. “Where are your clothes?”
“It doesn’t matter,” a cool voice said. Emily looked up, sharply, as magic twisted around the newcomer. “Caleb will not be going anywhere. And neither will you.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
FOR A MOMENT, THE WORLD SEEMED to stand still.
Emily stared at her counterpart in utter disbelief. She looked
... normal. The face looking back at her now was the face she saw in the mirror every day. But... she looked closer, noting the glamour covering her counterpart’s eyes. It was a neat bit of magic, subtle enough to pass unnoticed unless someone knew to look for it. The glamour faded the moment she spotted it, revealing brilliant red eyes. The sense of tainted magic was overwhelming.
She felt sick. Caleb had told her, more than once, that she was beautiful. Emily hadn’t really believed him. She certainly hadn’t felt beautiful. But her counterpart had an unhealthy captivating beauty, a presence that drew Emily even though she knew Alt-Emily was a monster. Alt-Emily, like herself, was tall and willowy, with brown hair shading to black and a face so pale she was almost albino. There were no scars on her pale hands, no hint of injuries from the wars... she wore a long black dress that flattered her without showing a trace of flesh below the neckline. It was almost something Emily herself would wear.
“’Oh, would some power give us the gift,’” she quoted, “’To see ourselves as others see us...’”
“’It would from many a blunder free us,’” her counterpart agreed. “And foolish notion...”
Her eyes seemed to grow brighter. “Like the one where you thought you could walk into my territory without being caught?”
Emily took a breath. “What happened to you?”
Alt-Emily shrugged. “Why? What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Emily said, irked. She knew she was being mocked. “What did you do differently?”
“I embraced myself,” Alt-Emily said. She held up a hand. The magic grew stronger. “I decided I wanted to take complete control, and I did...”
“Alassa is still out there,” Alt-Frieda said. Her voice was quavering, but she held herself up. “She’ll finish you.”
“Her sole remaining army is trapped, starving to death,” Alt-Emily said. “It’s only a matter of time before she falls.”
“There must be a difference,” Emily said. She’d expected a maddened necromancer, not the cold monster in front of her. “What did you do that I didn’t do?”
“What didn’t you do that I did?” Alt-Emily shrugged. “You never took control, did you?”
Emily shivered. “What did you do to Caleb? Your Caleb?”
“When he was in me, I put a bit of myself in him.” Alt-Emily smiled, coldly. “It’s funny how vulnerable men get when they’re inside you. Took me a while to get the hang of it, I admit, but... it works.”
Emily felt even sicker. “You’re not me.”
“It would be more accurate to say that you’re not me,” Alt-Emily said. “Tell me, what have you done? You’ve had six years. What have you done?”
“Saved the world,” Emily said. She remembered the time limit and cursed herself for being drawn into conversation. “I don’t have time for this.”
Her counterpart smiled. “Do you remember when people would ignore us? When they didn’t have time for us? And when it was worse when they did have time for us? Now... you have time for me now.”
“Listen to me,” Emily snapped. “Back home, reality itself is breaking apart. I have to get Caleb and Frieda home before it’s too late...”
“So what?” Alt-Emily shrugged, again. “I don’t care.”
Emily stared at her in horror. “Billions of people will die...”
“An unimaginable number of men, women and alien creatures from worlds you and I will never visit will die, if your universe is ripped apart,” Alt-Emily said. “So what? They’re not me.”
“The devastation will spread,” Emily insisted, doggedly. She thought it was true, although she wasn’t sure. “Every timeline that touched mine will go too, including yours.”
“You don’t know that,” Alt-Emily said. “If you truly believed it, you would have abandoned your friends and cut the links between universes.”
She had a point. The scale of the devastation—of the possible devastation—was truly beyond comprehension. At some point, it was simply impossible to believe that each of the numbers represented a real person. There were people who denied the Holocaust because they couldn’t grasp how many people had died. And, if an entire universe was destroyed, it would be a far greater atrocity. It was just words. There was no way to make the connection between a destroyed universe and each individual life.
“We have never been afraid to make the hard decisions,” Alt-Emily said. “You would have abandoned your friends if you thought there was no other choice.”
“I’m not you,” Emily said.
“You were prepared to let Caleb’s sister die so you could take out the god-form,” Alt-Emily said. She nodded to Caleb as Emily stared at her, aghast. “Yes, I ransacked his brain. You and I have a lot in common. And I wouldn’t have risked everything to save two people if I thought everything was doomed anyway.”
“We’re the same person,” Emily said, numbly.
“No,” Alt-Emily corrected. “I’m nothing like you.”
She shrugged. “Cut the link to your universe. Open your mind to me. I’ll put controls in, just to make sure you can’t betray me, but otherwise... you can stay here. You can even keep them”—she waved a hand at Frieda, Caleb and Alt-Frieda—“as pets. You’ll survive, even if your universe dies. I could find a use for another me.”
“I can’t take the risk,” Emily said. She’d told the Gorgon what to do, but... would it be enough? “Let us go in peace. We don’t want a fight.”
“I’ve built too much to risk you tearing it down,” Alt-Emily said. Her face shifted, a flicker of madness. “And I will not let you go.”
“I won’t come after you,” Emily said, knowing her words were futile. “Once the mirror dimension is gone, there won’t be any more links between our universes...”
“You wouldn’t leave a threat behind you,” Alt-Emily said. “And neither will...”
She jabbed a finger at Emily, casting a spell. Something... a powerful something... crashed into Emily’s wards. Emily stumbled back, snapping off a pair of spells in response. Her counterpart’s magic was strong, scarily strong. She seemed to be mingling the sheer power of a necromancer with the training and skill of an experienced sorcerer. Void might have been able to match her, in skill if not raw power. Emily didn’t know anyone else who could.
Alt-Frieda cast a spell, something Emily didn’t recognize. It flickered around Alt-Emily, then snapped out of existence. Alt-Emily snorted, rudely. She’d woven additional protections into her wards, protections Emily could barely follow. She’d layered so many protective wards on herself that it would take hours to break them down by force, even if Alt-Emily just stood there and took it. Emily was morbidly impressed. She hadn’t thought it was possible to function as a magician while maintaining so many protective wards. Her counterpart was very good.
“Frieda, stay still and wait.” Alt-Emily’s voice thrummed with command. “I’ll deal with you afterwards.”
Alt-Frieda stopped. Her hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes flickered, filled with panic and fear and a nameless dread Emily knew all too well. She’d been beaten as casually as a man might step on a snail. Emily shot her a sympathetic glance, then knuckled down to some hard fighting. She had to beat her counterpart. Neither Caleb nor Frieda were in any state for a fight. There was no one else who could do it.
And if we don’t get back soon, the Gorgon will shatter the mirror dimension and close the doors forever, Emily thought. Her wards were starting to fray. She cast a disruption spell, hoping it would keep her counterpart busy for a few seconds, then hurled a blasting spell at the floor under Alt-Emily’s feet. We really don’t have time.
Her counterpart smirked, catching the blasting spell and snuffing it out before it could detonate. “Did you really think you could get me with that?”
Emily gritted her teeth. “Why didn’t they notice what you were becoming?”
“I imagine they didn’t want to look too closely, not at me.” Alt-Emily giggled. It was a chilling sound. “You know wha
t it’s like when someone is a great heroine. No one wants to look too closely for fear their heroine might have feet of clay. Think about how many people got away with their crimes because no one dared ask questions. I beat a necromancer, and they thought I was a heroine. They didn’t want to know how I’d done it.”
“I bet the Grandmaster knew,” Emily said, savagely. Alt-Emily had beaten a necromancer... which necromancer? Shadye? “I’m sure he guessed...”
“He did have his doubts.” Alt-Emily smirked. “He had to go. It was really easy. You should have tried it yourself.”
“The Grandmaster died saving my life,” Emily snarled. “You ungrateful bitch!”
Her counterpart’s eyes flashed murder. “What’s the point of gratitude when people just turn against you the moment—the very moment—you outlive your usefulness?”
Another spell crashed into Emily’s wards. “Oh, he was glad at first,” Alt-Emily said, as Emily deflected the curse. “He didn’t ask too many questions, thankfully. Gave me time to figure out how to control my new gifts, how to hide them... I wonder, sometimes, if he sent me to Mountaintop so he could interrogate my so-called friends in private. He must have said something to Alassa. She wouldn’t have turned on me if she hadn’t been pushed... still, he had to go. You can guess how I did it too.”
“No,” Emily lied. “I can’t.”
“Poison,” Alt-Emily said, bluntly. “A binary poison, both components as magicless as a Muggle. And that was that.”
“And now you rule the world,” Emily said, coldly. She tried to drive a spell through her counterpart’s wards, but failed. “Damn you.”
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 35