“Damn you,” she said. She shoved her counterpart to the side, slamming magic into her with all the force she could muster. “You...”
A spell punched her, throwing her across the room. Alt-Emily was angry, angry beyond words. Magic swelled, beating around them. There was nothing beautiful about Alt-Emily now. She was a force of nature, her power stamping her presence on the air. Emily felt sad, in a way she could never have put into words. Her counterpart had truly fallen. She could never be redeemed.
Frieda half-carried, half-dragged Caleb to the mirror and threw him in. A spell struck the mirror a heartbeat after she vanished. Emily opened her mouth to mock her counterpart, a half-second before the mirror started to change. She blanched, realizing what was about to happen, and launched herself at the mirror. The Manavore was already taking shape and form. The gateway was closing...
“No,” Alt-Emily said. Her voice was very quiet, but Emily heard it. Her counterpart might as well have shouted. “No...”
Emily plunged through the gateway a second before it closed. Silver light flared around her. She heard a scream—she had no idea who’d screamed—before the howling slammed into her mind. She hit the floor hard enough to hurt, yet... the floor shifted under her hands and feet. It felt unreal, as if it wasn’t quite there.
“Emily.” The Gorgon sounded terrified. “I can’t focus!”
Emily opened her eyes, unsure of when she’d closed them. The mirror chamber was... twisted, the corners of the room steadily becoming something else. She could feel the entire building warping, twisting... no, the effects were spreading far beyond the school. And the nexus point... it was rolling and twisting, as if it was on the verge of being snuffed out. She saw it now; she saw what had happened. The Schoolmaster had snuffed the nexus point to save the school from the Manavores, only to give the necromancer a shot at the school...
“Let me.” She sat on the unsteady floor and threw her mind into the wards. They were on the verge of breaking, struggling against forces they hadn’t been designed to contain, but... they’d held themselves together. “Give me a second...”
The mirror dimension opened up in her mind. They’d built a house, she realized dully, without ever knowing what they were doing. No wonder mirror magic had been largely abandoned. They’d been toddlers paddling in the shadows, unaware of monsters lurking in the depths. She saw her reflections in her mind’s eye—hundreds of reflections, each one different and yet the same—as she touched the base of the mirror dimension itself. It was on the verge of breaking, of snapping under the strain. And, when it went, it would take everything with it.
No, she told herself. She wasn’t going to give in, not when there was one last card to play. Not this time.
She reached further, seeing the tiny strands that bound the Faerie to mundane reality. They were already breaking, one by one. Reality itself threatened to go with them. She braced herself, then shattered the mirror dimension. The Faerie vanished, as if it had never been. She hoped the recoil would throw it a good long way from her world, from every world... she knew, deep inside, that she would never know. The Faerie itself might not have known what it was doing. It had probably paid as little attention to humanity as humans paid to microscopic creatures in a glass of water...
Something shattered. She heard it... no, she felt it. The force of the impact was almost a physical blow, knocking her back into her body. Her eyes flew open. The universe dimmed, as if God Himself was about to sneeze, then snapped back into focus. Emily felt the shockwave as everything fell into place. Pieces of debris crashed down around her. She looked up, just in time to see the remains of the mirror hit the floor. It was nothing more than a pile of magicless shards.
“The mirrors!” Hoban shouted. “They’re all broken!”
“Good.” Emily pulled herself to her feet. “Caleb?”
“I’ve got him,” the Gorgon said. “He needs to go into stasis!”
“Do it,” Emily snapped. “Hurry!”
The Gorgon cast the spell, quickly. Emily watched, then turned her attention to Frieda. Her friend looked shaken, but alive. She was hugging Hoban, her naked body pressing against him... Emily had to smile, even though she knew they’d have to talk about what Frieda and Caleb had endured in the other dimension. It was a discussion she would be happy to postpone for a few days, if not longer. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it either.
“Emily,” Cirroc said. “He’s dead.”
Emily felt a flash of alarm. “Who’s dead?”
“Alt-Caleb,” Cirroc said. He sounded badly shaken. “His heart just stopped.”
“...Put the body in stasis,” Emily said, finally. She was too numb to feel grief or guilt or anything else. Caleb’s counterpart had died... it solved one problem, she supposed, but it created others. She kicked herself, a moment later, for thinking of his death as good. Alt-Caleb hadn’t deserved his torment. Or his death. “We’ll bury him properly, once we clear up the mess.”
“I’m taking Caleb to the dorms,” the Gorgon said. She levitated Caleb into the air and steered him towards the door. “He needs a proper healer.”
“I’ll come with you,” Cirroc said. He threw a glance at Frieda and Hoban. “Get a room, you two.”
Hoban laughed. “We’ll see you this evening,” he said, as he passed Frieda his jacket. “Bye.”
Emily nodded as they left the room, then turned her attention to where the mirror had been. There was nothing left now beyond a pile of dust. There was no hint of a doorway into the mirror dimension, let alone an alternate timeline. She couldn’t cross the dimensional barriers, not any longer. And...
She concentrated, recalling the last seconds before she’d thrown herself back into her own world. Alt-Emily had been facing a Manavore... had she survived? Or had she died? And Alt-Frieda had been casting the nuke-spell... had she managed to start the reaction before it was too late? Were they all dead? Or had she failed? Or... had their dimension been nothing more than a warped reflection of the real dimension, one that had snapped out of existence when the mirror dimension had vanished?
Emily took a long breath. She knew, in her heart, that she would never know.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT ALT-EMILY,” Caleb said. They stood together on the edge of the cemetery where Alt-Caleb had been buried, two days after his death. “She was... terrible.”
“I know,” Emily said, quietly. She wanted to reach out and take Caleb’s hand, but she didn’t dare. He’d been looking at her oddly over the past days, as if he was torn between friendship and utter terror. “I saw her mind.”
“I saw... her,” Caleb said. “She did... things... to me.”
“I understand,” Emily said. She wished, suddenly, there were therapists Caleb could talk to, but... there were none in the Nameless World. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Or yours,” Caleb said. The pain in his voice nearly broke her heart. It wasn’t just pain. It was something else, something terrible. “But...”
Emily looked away. She didn’t know what her counterpart had done, but she had a pretty good idea. She’d seen what her counterpart had done to Jade, after all, and Alt-Emily hadn’t needed to be subtle when Caleb had fallen into her hands. There were all kinds of ways to break someone’s mind, to manipulate them until they did your bidding without question. And Alt-Emily hadn’t cared about the long-term damage. It was probably something of a plus to her. A dull-witted person could never be a threat.
She silently cursed her counterpart under her breath. The damage went a lot further than physical scarring. Caleb had been healed, physically. He was in good condition, for a man of his age. But mentally... she reached out to touch his hand and saw him flinch. He knew, intellectually, that it hadn’t been her who’d tortured him. Emotionally, on the other hand, it was a different story.
“If you want to leave, I will understand,” Emily said. It hurt to say it, but there was no choice. If Caleb could no longer wo
rk with her... he could no longer work with her, and that was all there was to it. “Mistress Irene is here. She can take over your duties...”
“I won’t leave,” Caleb said. He turned to look at the castle as a gust of wind rippled their clothing. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Emily nodded. The mirrors—all of them—were gone, but the wards were still in a tangle. There were some sections that hadn’t been cleared at all. They were probably still booby-trapped... she shuddered at the thought of magicians laying traps that wouldn’t slow the Manavores down for more than a second or two. Or, perhaps, a necromancer.
She knew, now, that Dua Kepala hadn’t taken the school. He’d simply walked in, once the nexus point and the wards were gone. Anyone who’d survived the Manavores hadn’t survived him.
“Yes. We do.” Emily shuddered as the wind changed, blowing tainted sand towards them. She tasted twisted magic on her tongue. “We’d better go inside.”
She took one last look at the graveyard, shivering inwardly. Seventeen people were dead, fifteen of them magicians. Master Highland had died saving her life... she silently thanked him, even though she had no idea if he’d meant to save her or if he’d just been desperate. Perhaps he’d thought that her death would allow the wards to pass to him... if so, he’d given up his ambitions to save her life. Or maybe... she shook her head, reminding herself not to think ill of the dead. They’d held a brief ceremony, but there’d been nothing to bury. Master Highland’s body had never been found.
The storm grew stronger, gusts of sand pressing against the wards as they made their way back to the castle. A handful of carts and wagons had arrived from Farrakhan, bringing additional people from the city... oddly enough, the warped stories of just what had happened at Heart’s Eye had brought more people to the school. There were others moving into the ruined city. Emily had a feeling the city would be alive again once the university was up and running. Too many people wanted to get in on the ground floor.
Yvonne stood in the Great Hall, talking to Mistress Irene. “Lady Emily,” she said, as Caleb headed into the office. “A word?”
“Sure,” Emily said. She glanced at Mistress Irene. “If you’ll excuse us...?”
“Of course,” Mistress Irene said. The older woman’s voice was artfully flat. “But we do have to talk.”
Emily nodded. “I’ll come to your office,” she said. “I won’t be long.”
Mistress Irene nodded and swept up the stairs. Emily watched her go, feeling oddly discontented. Mistress Irene had taken command swiftly and efficiently, organizing the survivors and newcomers in a manner Emily could only envy. It helped, she supposed, that magicians and mundanes had been forced to fight back-to-back against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. Emily hadn’t heard any angry muttering about having to share their dorms, let alone witnessed anything worse, over the past two days. She hoped the peace would last. She wasn’t in the mood to handle petty problems.
“Lady Emily,” Yvonne said. She sounded pleased, although it was hard to be sure. “We’ve finished repairing most of the damage to the workshops."
“That’s good,” Emily said, for want of anything else to say. “You’ll be staying with us?”
“Of course.” Yvonne’s face twisted in dour amusement. “Master Highland gave his life for the dream. I could hardly dishonor that by running. Besides... who knows what other threats might materialize?”
“I don’t,” Emily said. It wasn’t entirely true. The mirrors were gone—and the threat of an interdimensional invasion seemed to have been averted, but there were more conventional threats. Heart’s Eye would become the center of a whole new world. Once the kings realized what might be born in the university, they might try to put the entire building to fire and sword. “But yes, there will be threats.”
“Praxis was pleased with his appointment,” Yvonne added. There was something in her tone that suggested she and the enchanter were more than just friends and colleagues. “Will he be staying on the board?”
“I think so,” Emily said. “The Old Boys League will have to nominate a replacement for Master Highland”—she’d had to inform them of Master Highland’s death—“but he deserves a seat in his own right.”
She met Yvonne’s eyes. “As do you.”
“I dislike politics,” Yvonne said. “I’d much sooner be working in the labs.”
“’You may have no interest in politics’,” Emily quoted Heinlein. “’But politics has an interest in you’.”
Yvonne snorted. “Six years ago, the idea that I would have any political influence would have been thoroughly absurd. Now...”
Emily nodded. Yvonne had been a girl in a world where powerless women had little formal voice or power... she hadn’t even been the firstborn, in line to inherit everything her family owned. And her family had had little wealth and power anyway... no, six years ago, Yvonne could never have hoped to better herself. Now... the sky was the limit. Emily just hoped Yvonne wouldn’t forget what it was like to be poor.
“I need sane and responsible voices on the board,” Emily said. “And I also need people who have actually seen and done things.”
She smiled. On Earth, it was perfectly true that those who didn’t know how to do it told other people how to do it. Bureaucracies tended to decay as careerism overrode common sense. But, on the Nameless World, someone had to display a certain degree of practical competence if they wanted power, authority and respect. They were never allowed to coast, or to claim competence when they had none. She hoped that would never change.
“We shall see.” Yvonne smiled. “I thank you for the opportunity, Lady Emily. We already have ideas for mixing more magic with science.”
“I look forward to seeing them,” Emily said. “And I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”
She hurried up the stairs. Cirroc stood at the top, using magic to sweep up the remains of the mirrors. “Emily?”
“Cirroc,” Emily said. She hadn’t had time to speak to him over the past two days. “Are you alright?”
“Well, Dram has agreed to take me as an apprentice,” Cirroc said. “He can give me the basics while I stay here. It could be worse.”
“Yeah.” Emily hadn’t given any thought to Cirroc’s apprenticeship, now his master was dead. She was glad that problem had solved itself without her pulling strings. “Will you and he get on?”
“Oh, probably.” Cirroc shrugged. “Dram lost his apprentice too, so... we’ll just have to cope. Somehow.”
Emily nodded. “Seth didn’t deserve to die.”
“Most people don’t,” Cirroc said. “But death is a part of life. It happens.”
“I know.” Emily looked at the dusty floor. “Will you be staying?”
“I think Dram wants to inherit Master Highland’s seat,” Cirroc said. “So yes, we’ll be staying. I couldn’t leave you all alone, anyway. You’d only mess it up without me.”
He lowered his voice. “Isn’t Frieda meant to be going back to school?”
“Two days,” Emily said. She’d barely seen anything of her friend. She certainly hadn’t had time to discuss what they’d seen on the other side of the looking glass. “I think she and Hoban are... busy.”
“Very busy,” Cirroc agreed. “Is he going to be staying?”
Emily shrugged. “Jayson will be staying,” she said. “Cabiria has been delayed, again. I don’t know about Hoban.”
“Better find out, before you start making plans that involve him,” Cirroc said. “He isn’t the kind of guy to let himself be tied down for very long.”
Emily nodded. She hoped Frieda knew that. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she said. She intended to hold a formal dinner before Frieda had to return to Whitehall. “Good luck with the mirrors.”
“They just crumbled to dust,” Cirroc said. “It’s just a matter of getting the dust out of the school.”
“True,” Emily said.
She smiled as she walked down the corridor to the Schoolmaster’s office and
tapped the door. The wards flickered into existence, decided she was permitted entry and faded into nothingness. Emily felt her smile grow wider—Mistress Irene hadn’t wasted any time setting up her own wards—and schooled her expression into impassivity as she opened the door. Inside, the office hadn’t changed that much. Mistress Irene was too practical to waste time personalizing her quarters when there was too much else that had to be done.
“Emily.” Mistress Irene rose to greet her. “Thank you for coming.”
Emily took the proffered chair gratefully. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “We wouldn’t have gotten so far without you.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Mistress Irene said. She looked tired. “I’ve only been here two days.”
“Yes, but everyone knows you,” Emily said. “And they know they were threatened by my counterpart.”
She sighed, inwardly. Too many people knew the truth—or a garbled version of the truth—for her to cover it up. They knew there had been interdimensional contact, from faint glimpses of alternate timelines to people actually moving from one universe to another. Many of the rumors were grossly exaggerated, as usual, but... there was a kernel of truth underpinning the lies. She had no idea what the long-term effects of that would be. She was living proof that it was possible to cross the dimensional barriers and take up long-term residence in another world. How many magicians would start experimenting with cross-dimensional magic now they knew it was possible?
And how many of them will start worrying about me, now they know I had an evil counterpart? She shuddered at the thought. There’s no way to stop those rumors either.
“I’ll keep everyone in line,” Mistress Irene said. “But it will be difficult to encourage research and development while, at the same time, keeping them from disagreeing.”
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 37