Mirrored Time (A Time Archivist Novel Book 1)

by J. D. Faulkner

  She had seen this face before. Lost too soon. Never forgotten. The boy in front of her was the statue in the mausoleum brought to life. And that wasn’t the first time she had seen the little boy. My nightmares. The boy played a central role in each one.

  Something cried out in the distance, a desolate broken sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. With another laugh, the boy vanished around the corner.

  “No, wait!” She rushed after him, following his laughing form as he weaved through the walled pathways. This time she knew she needed to save him. She couldn’t fail again. A dead end loomed in front of her. She must have lost him.

  With a frustrated cry, she slammed her hand into the wall. It was as if she could hear the clock ticking in her mind, feel the time slipping away from her as the danger to Alistair grew. And she was stuck in this damned maze chasing ghosts and getting herself more lost.

  A soft sound drew her attention, and she turned around to see the boy looking at her. “You don’t belong here.” His soft child’s voice was overlaid with something deeper and older.

  “You don’t either.” Not here.

  Those green eyes, so familiar, watched her. An ancient creature that had been alone for far too long. The boy shrugged, now acting his age. He touched the wall next to him, watching his fingers streak over the crumbling wall. His childlike shyness after the earlier look was startling. “Can I show you a secret?”

  Gwen bit back an automatic yes. Although what stood in front of her looked like a child, she remembered Cassian. He may look like a child too, and his appearance had caused her to underestimate the hatred and rage that had been boiling inside of him. And because of him, Rafe was locked up when she could use his help. The little face may look innocent, but things were not always what they seemed.

  “What is it?”

  He sneaked a look at her from underneath his hair. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  Another gust of wind came blowing down the path, brushing at his hair and curling around her feet. The sound of the wind was so heartbreaking, she took a subconscious step forward. She thought of the mausoleum, the little boy’s mirror image, and her own name carved into the rock. For better or worse, she was connected to him.

  She took another small step, raising her hands up to show she meant no harm, when the little boy looked as if was about to run. “What’s your name?”

  He eyed her, and, in the mercurial moods of a child, was no longer plagued by shyness. “Ben.”

  She smiled. “Hello, Ben; my name is Gwendolyn.”

  He wrinkled his nose and stepped closer to her. “That’s a silly name.”

  “I know, isn’t it?” His words reminded her so much of Rafe it hurt. So much was depending on her actions. She kneeled down on the ground to bring herself closer to eye level with the boy. “Do you think—” Her words were interrupted by a loud rushing wind, no longer the gentle sad thing. It slammed through the paths of the maze, rocking her back on her heels. She found her arms full of a shaking little body, and she hugged Ben without conscious thought. “What was that?”

  She felt more than saw his head shake against her shoulder. “Please, Ben?”

  Scared green eyes met hers. I know why they look familiar. They were the same shape and shade as hers. That it was her name in the mausoleum no longer seemed so implausible.

  “He’s angry. I’m not supposed to show people the way out.” His little body quivered in her arms.

  “My friend is in trouble, and I need to get out of this maze. If you could be very brave, do you think you can show me how?” She took hold of his shoulders. “I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  His tiny shoulders squared, and his eyes once again looked older than his years. “This way.” His voice was whisper soft as he darted from her arms and around the corner, peering back around the corner when she didn’t follow him. “Come on!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE MAZE WAS immense in size, and the rough-hewn ceiling towered high above them. From Alistair’s position on the ground, he could make out a swirling pattern on the ceiling, and he realized where he was. He had stood on the other side of that swirling pattern begging the Council to help him prevent this very event. Alistair stumbled but managed to right himself, wincing as hard metal dug into his side.

  “Careful, Archiver, wouldn’t want to make the wrong move.” The voice was soft and manic, sending a shiver down Alistair’s spine. He kept his eyes on Gwen’s slight form. Until he knew what was happening to her, he couldn’t risk making any move to try to stop Seymour. The gun dug into his side again, and his jaw clenched. He couldn’t risk it, regardless of how much the madman was annoying him.

  Gwen darted around a corner, and he sped up to follow her, marveling at her unhesitating pace through the labyrinth. She rushed through the maze as if she had been there before. Yet when Alistair caught sight of her eyes, they were blank. Whatever Seymour’s touch had done to her, she wasn’t quite conscious.

  His gaze shifted to where Seymour shuffled next to him. Luckily, the man had chosen to stand beside him instead of behind, and he stumbled again to distract the man, ignoring the pain of the metal digging into his side once more. The ropes were loose on his wrists, and his hands would be free for whenever he decided to act.

  It was no act when his steps faltered again. The path was widening in front of them to reveal a large circular room. It wasn’t the room that had caused him to stumble, it was what hung on the wall in front of them. It reflected Gwen’s blank face as she mouthed silent words. A large black mirror, its frame as beautiful as it was horrible.

  Gwen froze at the edge of the room Ben had brought her to, gaze riveted on the large black mirror. The frame was beautiful, although the haunted, twisted figures of its subject matter made her skin crawl. Her reflection in the mirror looked warped and distorted.

  The circular room was bare, save for a single book lying on the floor. Ben had continued into the room without her and stood in front of the book paying no attention to the mirror.

  The book’s pale leather cover was free from any writing, and the curled and scuffed edges spoke to its age. A soft crying wind whispered into the room, fluttering the pages so the book lay open. Gwen leaned forward to read the words written in a feminine script. Today, I learned that I could not die.

  She turned to ask Ben what the book was. He was no longer ignoring the mirror behind him. The silver of the mirror had liquefied and was bleeding down the wall. Gwen stared into a dark murky blackness. And with a sick feeling in her stomach, she knew what would happen next.

  Her feet took an automatic step back. It wasn’t a surprise when a shadow-hand slunk out of the darkness and wrapped itself around the frame. Another soon joined it, and a harsh angry wind rushed out of the blackness. Ben had bolted away from the book and stood behind her, hands wrapped around her leg in a painful grip.

  The smoke figure struggled to pull itself out of the mirror, and a loud roaring scream of rushing air filled the room. Ben buried his head into her t-shirt, and she could barely hear him crying over the sound of the wind.

  “I wasn’t supposed to show you.”

  Her promise to the boy rang like a bell in her mind, and she turned to block him from the horrible thing on the wall. Its edges were obscured and hazy. The smoke creature had pulled itself halfway out of the mirror, and it didn’t look to be stopping.

  Gwen struggled to come up with a plan, wrapping her hand around her compass and praying it would warm. It stayed cool, and she closed her eyes, crying out in frustration. Come on!

  Then her free hand closed over something cool and hard, and she looked down in surprise. Her fingers were wrapped around the blade from the mausoleum, its silver blade giving off a faint glow. The Kronos blade—powerful enough to kill a traveler and maybe powerful enough to kill the thing struggling to escape the mirror.

  She untangled Ben from her legs. “It’ll be okay, I promise.” Her words were bare
ly audible over the shrieking air. She hoped Ben heard them.

  The figure had stopped its struggling, and she stared into what would have been its eyes. It reached an oozing hand towards her, the scream of the wind growling louder in her ears.

  Her fingers tightened around the blade, and she rushed at the mirror dodging the wet silver trailing along the floor. The figure swung its arm at her, and she ducked. With an angry shout, she plunged the blade into the thing’s chest.

  Where blade met shadow, a bright light began to grow. And under the shrieking of the wind, there was the crackling rumble of breaking ice. The light grew blinding, and with an explosion, Gwen flew backward. She felt herself hit the ground with a heavy thud. In her ears, she heard the whispering laughter of a silken voice, and then everything went black.

  Alistair looked around the circular room with growing horror. The black mirror started to pulse with a sickly light as Gwen entered the room. She stood in front of it, swaying back and forth, the shadows dancing in harsh planes across her still-blank face.

  The last time Alistair had been in this room, his wife died in his arms, having sacrificed herself to make sure the mirrored prison would stay secure. He watched in sick fascination as the mirror’s surface warped out with the shape of a hand trying to claw itself out of the silver prison. A rushing wind swirled through the room, tearing at his clothes and whipping Gwen’s hair into disarray. She still didn’t move, and Alistair saw her lips form unheard words.

  The mirror surface warped again, and the wind blew harder, now filling up the room with a howling cry. He shifted his feet into a more secure stance, eyeing the smaller man next to him from the corner of his eyes. Seymour had ceased to pay him any attention, instead riveted to the scene unfolding in front of him. In the eerie light of the mirror, his eyes gleamed with manic energy. The gun was limp in Seymour’s hand. And pointing at the ground.

  Alistair moved as if sagging to his left, triumphant when Seymour’s attention swung back to him. Alistair jerked towards Seymour, his now free hands grabbing for the gun and shoving it to the sky as he slammed his weight into Seymour’s smaller body.

  They fell to the ground and the gun skittered away. They struggled. After a lucky strike of Seymour’s fist, Alistair could taste the coppery tang of blood on his tongue. But, as the bigger and stronger man, it wasn’t long before he held Seymour face down on the ground, his knee digging into the whimpering man’s back.

  Threat eliminated. Alistair looked back up at Gwen, and his whole body went cold. Her hand now clutched a dagger he knew all too well. The details from Gwen’s experience in the mausoleum clicked into place, and he felt a mounting horror grow in his chest.

  Although he was locked behind the mirror, Aeon had tricked them all with the small amount of influence he still had. Seymour forgotten, Alistair lunged for Gwen, trying to grab her and force the horrible knife from her grip. She moved too quickly. Alistair’s yell fell on deaf ears, and she rushed toward the mirror and stabbed the knife into its distorted surface.

  A bright light filled the room, and the wind screamed around them. Squinting against the glare, Alistair could see Gwen where she stood in front of the mirror. With a deep reverberating crack, the mirror burst outward in an explosion of light and sound, sending Gwen flying backward.

  The wind of the explosion hit him, and he braced himself, fighting to stay upright. The glare faded. And when his eyes adjusted from the light, he backed away from the dark smoke snaking its way out of the mirror and along the floor. He rushed towards Gwen, standing in front of her and trying to think of a way to protect her from the force inching towards her.

  Then the sound of clattering glass filled the air. And in a reversal of the earlier explosion, wind began rushing towards the mirror. The frame was now an empty black hole, howling as wind rushed into it.

  He fell backward, digging his heels into the ground to fight the pull. The black smoke gave an angry shriek and rushed upwards in an inky black column. The smoke slammed into the ceiling, and a large fissure broke through the rocky surface. The darkness slipped through the crack and was gone.

  The mirror still howled, pulling the contents of the room towards it in a loud rushing maelstrom of wind. Seymour had screamed when the blackness had disappeared, falling to his knees and pulling at his hair.

  Alistair saw the knife just as Seymour did, its silver length sliding along the floor towards the gaping hole of the mirror. They lunged for it at the same time, clawing and tearing at each other in an effort to grab hold of the hilt. An echoing crash filled the room as the ceiling began to cave in on itself, and in the distraction, Seymour grabbed the hilt.

  Alistair didn’t feel the blade as it slid into his stomach. Then the power of the blade erupted and a burning fire filled his body. Seymour staggered back from him, the knife leaving Alistair’s body with a sickening noise, staring at the bloody dagger with wild eyes.

  With a strength born out of desperation, Alistair staggered to his feet, one hand gripping his gut. Seymour didn’t move as he rushed him, and Alistair shoved Seymour into the vortex of the mirror. With a thunderclap of sound, the boiling black surface solidified and exploded out in shards of glass. Alistair covered his head with his free arm, turning his face away from the explosion.

  When he turned back, he dropped to his knees in relief. The black mirror was quiet, the glass blown outward, only the wooden backing of the mirror remained. A moan turned his attention to Gwen, who was struggling into a sitting position, rubbing the back of her head as she looked around. Her gaze snapped to his when she heard his wet cough.

  It’s becoming quite the chore to breath, Miss Conway. He tried to smile at her, except his body wasn’t listening to his commands. His vision began to darken at the edges. And before everything went black, the last thing he saw was Gwen rushing towards him, her mouth open in a scream he couldn’t hear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  IT MADE HIS ARM CRAMP, but Rafe could just reach the lock on the cell. The thin piece of metal he had hidden in his shirt was a difficult tool to work with. He had survived with worse, although the lock was proving to be particularly tricky. It was an old rusted thing that probably wouldn’t open easily with a key. He twisted. If he could just …

  The piece of metal snapped in his hand and clattered to the floor. With a loud curse, he pulled back his arm and slammed his palm into the iron bars. In response to the loud bang, a guard’s faraway voice told him to settle down. In less than polite terms, Rafe told him where he could stick such sentiments.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong, and here he was stuck in this stupid cell. He slammed the iron bars again, not for any practical reason, but the pain in his hand was at least some strange form of accomplishment.

  He walked over to the floor and slouched down. Leaning against the wall with his long legs splayed in front of him, he tried to think of a plan. The Guardians had taken everything from him before they locked him up, which meant he had no mirror to use to escape.

  A look around his dismal cell was not inspiring. Although the air was dank and musty and he could hear the dripping of faraway water, there wasn’t the smallest puddle to use as a gateway. It was times like this that he remembered how hopeless he felt as a child before he had discovered he had the power to escape into time.

  Sending out a quick prayer to whatever gods were listening that they look after Gwen and Alistair, he closed his eyes and settled in for a long wait. He couldn’t say it was the first time he had ever been locked up to await a decision about his fate, although perhaps this was the time where he had least deserved imprisonment. Give it to the Guardians for locking up a thief for being honest.

  He wasn’t sure how long he sat there before he had the feeling of being watched. Opening his eyes, he saw a thin slip of a girl standing in front of him. With her red hair and wide hazel eyes, she looked familiar, although he couldn’t place where he knew her from. The soft scent of spring teased his nose, just as it tea
sed his memory.

  When she continued to stare at him, he gave her an annoyed look. “Something I can help you with?”

  She blinked and gave him a sad smile. “More something I can help you with.” She pulled a bundle from behind her back. It was his folded coat. She eased it through the bars and handed it to him.

  As he reached to take it, her now empty hands clasped around his wrists. Where her skin touched his, it was searing hot. “What …?”

  She no longer looked like a slip of a girl. Instead, her eyes burned with wisdom far beyond her years. “I wish I could do more to help, but this pushes the current limits of my powers. We’re awakening, and soon we will be back to our old selves.”

  She wasn’t making much sense. He tried to pull his arms away, and her grip tightened. She was strong for someone so little. “There’s no more time for games. Gwendolyn needs you …” Her head tilted as if listening, and then she continued in her soft lilting soft. “… now more than ever.”

  “How?” The heavy bars of the cell closed in on him. “I’m stuck here.”

  “All hope is not lost yet, Archiver.” Again, her sad smile spread across her face. “Good luck.” She brushed her fingertips across his forehead, and the cell disappeared from view.

  The absence of sound woke her. She lay flat on her back, head throbbing. At first, the memories were slow to surface in her dazed mind. Then it all came rushing back. The maze; the boy; the mirror. The knife.

  Her eyes snapped open, and she sat up, muscles protesting. Had she spared much attention to the room, she would have recognized it as the one she had just left. A weak cough drew her attention, and any thought of looking around the room vanished when she saw the figure lying prone on the ground. A cry left her lips as she jumped to her feet and ran over to Alistair—any pain in her own body forgotten.