The Mirror Empire

by Kameron Hurley

  The assassin grabbed the lock on the door. Ghrasia tried to watch the sequence of pins and knobs he manipulated, but he stood in front of the lock, his back to her. The lock clicked. He opened the door, and shut it behind him. Ghrasia waited a breath, long enough to hear his footsteps on the stairs leading to one of the other houses – she wasn’t sure which level she was on – and then she crept across the room to Halimey’s butchered body.

  The things behind the fence snarled at her. One flung itself at the fence. Ghrasia worked quickly. She grabbed two fistfuls of the scorch pods from Halimey’s pocket and smashed them against the floor with all her strength. The heat was nothing, at first – an inconvenience.

  She heard the assassin’s footsteps on the stairs.

  Ghrasia murmured a prayer to Oma.

  The scorch pods burst into flame beneath her hands. She smelled burning flesh and clothing, and rolled away, fearing she was on fire. But when she looked up, she saw it was Halimey’s coat that was on fire.

  The creatures on the other side of the fence bayed and howled.

  Ghrasia threw herself against the door, fingers seeking the padlock.

  The assassin’s steps on the porch quickened. He pushed against the door.

  Ghrasia clicked the padlock into place.

  The fire licked at Halimey’s coat, warming the collection of pods inside. They began to crack and hiss. Flaming pods popped from the pile, arching across the room. The creatures were screaming now. Smoke began to fill the room. The floor caught fire. One pod landed in a creature’s hair. It began to smoke. They screamed and screamed.

  The assassin pounded on the door. Ghrasia scurried back into the far corner of the room, away from the fire. She kicked at the fence.

  The door blew off its hinges with such force that it burst apart the fence for her. Ragged splinters knifed into her right side. She cringed away.

  The assassin’s burst of air and shower of kindling only fueled the fire. Ghrasia choked on smoke. His captives were running around in mad circles, squealing.

  The assassin turned toward Ghrasia. He carried an awl in his hand.

  One of the creatures bounded onto the top of the door and across the broken fence. It leapt onto the assassin’s back and clamped onto his throat. He cried out and flailed. The second creature came after the first. They began to tear him apart.

  Ghrasia crawled past him and pushed herself out the door. She came up short, reeling at the drop off the porch. They were in the topmost of the three buildings that wound up the tree. She inhaled a gasp of fresh air. With her hands tied behind her, she couldn’t mount the ladder. She looked down at the roof of the building below. Ten feet. Her ankle was still sore, possibly only twisted. If she landed on it again, it was possible she’d break it.

  The assassin roared behind her over the sound of the flames.

  Ghrasia saw more fire licking up the outside of the building. She put her back to the building and thrust her hands against it. She smelled burning flesh as the flames seared her hands – and her bonds. She twisted her burning hands until the rope came free.

  The assassin fell out the door, clawing his way toward her. His creatures were still hooked into him, bloody and beaten. One’s arm looked dislocated.

  Ghrasia jumped onto the ladder and climbed down. She slid the last few feet, and stumbled onto the porch of the second house. She pushed inside and saw the room was dominated by a large table. Various types of plants lay dissected on its surface. She smelled rotting flesh, too, and found various birds and rodents mortifying in cages hung from the ceiling. She heard a rustling sound and saw a line of twelve tiny cages set along the floor. She saw a single Dhai character painted on the outside of each – initials. Inside the cages were sparrows. Tirajista-trained sparrows could be compelled to return to the same locations – or even the same person – time and again.

  What had he said about his brothers and being a messenger?

  She heard the assassin screaming. Heard him trampling down the ladder.

  Ghrasia bolted from the room, favoring her injured ankle, and slid into the lowest house. She banged open the door. So long as she stayed out of the assassin’s sight, it would be harder for him to net her in some cone of air.

  She hopped down the front stairs and rolled onto the bare ground. She kissed it. Looked up at the long lines of grub cages running up and down the big trees. Under the cover of the bonsa trees, it was almost full dark, but she could see their outlines in the dappled shadows.

  Ghrasia climbed onto the vine at the base of the bonsa tree and began kicking over the worm cages. They dropped to the ground and burst. She followed the long line of the vine, spiraling up and around the tree, staying out of sight of the assassin. She could hear him screaming at her from the ground.

  Then she heard another sound.

  Ghrasia pressed her back to the tree behind her and held her breath. Her injured hands burned as if they were still on fire.

  A crashing, keening cry came from the woods. She felt a blast of air nearby. She clung to the tree and prayed the assassin was too injured to concentrate properly.

  Hungry walking trees burst onto the sea of wriggling grubs like a sentient tide. Their limbs moaned and creaked. A lashing tendril whipped the tree she hid up on, narrowly missing her face.

  The assassin screamed. The air felt heavy. Ghrasia heard bursting trunks. Shattered branches.

  The air pressure normalized.

  The massive tide of walking trees continued to pour into the homestead, greedily snapping up the grubs with sappy tendrils and dropping them into the toxic bladders that hung from their crowns.

  Ghrasia let out a single agonized sob.

  She lay there all through the night while the walking trees fed. A few hours before dawn, the walking trees moved on. Ghrasia waited until there was enough light to see by, and then gazed down into the wrecked clearing. She saw dozens of trampled grubs, and the remains of a bloody, smashed body.

  Ghrasia made her way back down the vine. She approached the body hesitantly, until she saw that its entire torso had been mashed in by the feet of the trees. She was bolder, then. She stood beside the assassin’s pulverized body. Then she went over to the house and picked up a rock. She wanted to mash his face in. His yellow eyes, shot through with blood now, stared blankly out at the tree she had spent the night in.

  She lowered the rock. If she mutilated him now, was she any better than him?

  Ghrasia looked back up at the house. The topmost house had burned down to its foundation. The bonsa tree it clung to had fared much better. It was scorched and the nearest leaves had turned black, but the fire had burned itself out after that.

  She made the painful walk back up into the second house, the one with the cages. She opened the door and held her breath.

  The sparrows were still alive.

  Ahkio was speaking with Clan Leader Talisa of Clan Raona in her private quarters when Caisa burst in.

  “Ghrasia Madah to see you, Kai.”

  “Where has she been?” Ahkio said. He half expected to hear Clan Leader Talisa had shuttered her up in some gaol for two days while she completed her tax-free trading. Ahkio had never seen a clan openly thwart so many national prohibitions.

  “You see,” Talisa said, “she’s quite fine. Ghrasia Madah can handle herself quite –”

  Ahkio didn’t wait for her to finish. He followed Caisa outside, pulling on his coat as he went. He saw Ghrasia limping into the town square alone. He came up short. She was covered in soot and blood, and there was some kind of… creature following a hundred yards behind her. It almost looked human.

  “Ghrasia?” Ahkio said.

  Her face was grim, but otherwise unreadable. Her hands looked raw, burned, and his stomach clenched. He knew what that felt like.

  “Oma, Ghrasia, what’s happened?” Ahkio said. “I arrived yesterday and they told me you’d be back by dark. And what’s… what’s that?”

  Ghrasia glanced back at the creature f
ollowing her. “It’s a long story,” she said.

  “I’ll get you a doctor,” he said, and glanced back at Caisa. “Can you call someone?”

  Caisa ran off.

  Ahkio held out his hands to her. He wanted to touch her, but was terrified to ask. He dropped his hands. “Gods, what happened?”

  “I know where they are,” Ghrasia said, “every last one of them. But you need to tell me who we’re fighting, Ahkio.”

  38.

  Roh and Kihin met Luna out in the chilly courtyard of Kuonrada. They borrowed bears from the kennel boys with a note from Ora Dasai, marked by Keeper Takanaa. The bears were bigger than Roh was used to, and didn’t have the forked tongues of the bears in Dhai. Their feet were broader, and their coats were shaggier.

  The little party traversed the slippery ways of Kuonrada, through the walls of the keep, to the threshold of the massive city wall. As the bears stepped onto the road, Roh gazed over the broken, craggy landscape of snow and ice. He hadn’t been outside the hold since he entered it many weeks before.

  Kihin had the book Dasai had tasked them with delivering bundled up on the saddle behind him. “Fresh air, at least?”

  “And fun,” Luna said. “You’ll like the Bone Festival.”

  “It sounds… different,” Kihin said.

  “You don’t kill people during it, do you?” Roh said.

  “Roh, that’s very rude,” Kihin said.

  “It’s a fair question,” Luna said. “Did you know that when the Dhai ruled here” – he made a sweeping gesture across the wintry landscape – “they used to feed the Saiduan to bears during ascendance ceremonies?”

  “I get it, all right,” Roh said.

  “Let’s go,” Kihin said. He hung back with Roh as Luna urged his bear forward and said, “Try, just this once, to not talk so much. I’m surprised none of those dancers killed you.”

  “We got along very well,” Roh said.

  “I bet,” Kihin said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, just… try and be nice.”

  “I’m always nice!”

  “Politic, then.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Kihin sighed. “Just… let me do the talking this one time.”

  “I’m not sure you’re a very strong speaker.”

  “Roh…” Kihin made a sound of distress. “Just… be quiet.”

  “Are you coming?” Luna called back at them.

  “Yes!” Kihin said, and patted his bear forward.

  The cold outside was vicious, even bundled up as Roh was. His eyes stung, and he could have used another layer over his ears. He slowed his pace after a while, and Luna slowed next to him. Kihin took longer to catch up. They came up on the village a few hours later, and left their dogs with a stir of others in a broad pen. Luna led them to a bowled half-theatre dug into one of the hills. The circular space in front of the theatre was penned and gated. Blood colored the snow.

  The three of them sat shoulder to shoulder, pressed close to the other spectators. Roh stood up when the wolves were brought in, muzzled and hobbled, growling. He had never seen a real wolf before. The three in the ring were big brutes, thick in the shoulders. Their eyes were unsettling, not yellow but a peculiar sort of gold that made Roh shiver. Unlike dogs, the wolves were a uniform black from nose to tail tip. They were physically bigger than dogs, more muscular, not sleek enough to saddle, even allowing for the shoulder-saddles used on all dogs.

  “That’s Shodav,” Luna said. He pointed to a stir of brightly colored figures approaching the pen from the sidelines. There were five men, Shodav the tallest and oldest. The others looked like children or adolescents, thin and young. They were not dressed for the cold. The headbands and short trousers, ornate belts and streamers of ribbons at their elbows were ornamental, not practical.

  “Aren’t they cold?” Roh asked.

  “It’s like a battle frenzy, Shodav says. Keeps them warm,” Luna said.

  The dancers leapt up on top of the wall ringing the circle, and raised their arms to the crowd. The audience stamped their feet and hollered at the dancers. Roh strained to see around them. Luna elbowed someone.

  The dancers jumped into the ring as a purple-clad man hit a gong. The sound reverberated in the cold air. The wolf handlers pulled off the wolves’ muzzles and jumped out of the ring.

  The wolves snarled and leapt, and so did the dancers. The wolves paced the five dancers as a pack. The dancers leapt clear of them. A small boy gave leverage to his companion, who jumped up over the back of one of the wolves, spun, and landed neatly on his feet as the smaller boy sprung out of the path of the wolf.

  The wolves snapped at the dancers careening over their heads, and snarled at the tumbling boys. When one boy caught too much attention, Shodav jumped forward to call away the wolf.

  After the dance, Luna brought them around the back of the stage and introduced them to Shodav. Shodav, despite the cold, was covered in sweat. His hair hung down his back in a spiral of braids twisted through with tiny bells and brightly colored string. He grinned at Luna. He was missing his front teeth.

  “Hello, maggot,” Shodav said. He collected Luna up into an embrace.

  “Hey, stop!” Luna said, laughing. “I’m not that little.”

  “Only just,” Shodav said, returning him to the snow. He took in Roh and Kihin. “What, are you collecting a set?”

  “These are my friends,” Luna said. “Roh and Kihin. They’re from Dhai. They brought a book to translate, from Ora Dasai.”

  “Ah, Ora Dasai. Business.”

  Shodav led the party back to his house. There were only three rooms in the house, and one hair-stuffed mattress on the floor.

  They sat around a low table on cushions, like Dorinahs. The little stone house was well furnished with intricate hangings and rich carpets. It stank of sod and incense. Shodav made them tea.

  “I know you haven’t worked in a while,” Luna said, “but these Dhai say you know Ora Dasai.”

  “I do,” Shodav said. “I expected him to come himself.”

  “He told us to bring you this,” Kihin said, pulling the book from the bag at his hip.

  Shodav unwrapped the book from its cloth binding. Turned the first page. Roh saw a blank piece of green paper inside, the sort that official messages in Dhai were written on. But it was blank.

  “Ah,” Shodav said, considering the page. “You’re to take this, then.” He went back into the bedroom and returned with another book. He pushed it across the low table toward Roh.

  Roh looked at the characters on the front. They weren’t any language he knew. He opened it. The script was unintelligible.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  “Talamynii,” Shodav said.

  Roh glanced over at Luna. “You know how to read this?”

  “Some,” Luna said. “But this is different.”

  “Ora Dasai will know where to find the proper translator for it,” Shodav said.

  “So what’s in here?” Roh asked.

  “A record of the talamynii in your country, I believe,” Shodav said. “To be honest, that’s only a guess. It was the best match for the criteria Ora Dasai gave me.”

  When all the tea was drunk, Shodav and Kojij bid them farewell. They rode back out of town, and came to the river crossing at dusk. Kihin and Luna rode up onto the glittering ice together ahead of Roh, heads bent toward one another. Roh lingered behind, watching them talk. The wind picked up, pelting him with icy snow. He shielded his eyes.

  Roh heard a noise and pulled his hands away from his face.

  Luna wasn’t there anymore.

  Kihin was off his mount, bending toward a splashing form in the dark water. A jagged hole had opened in the ice.

  Kihin’s bear roared and let loose toward the other side of the river.

  Roh urged his bear forward. He dismounted, and ran to the river’s edge. The crack opened up from the riverside to the gash where L
una and his mount had disappeared.

  Roh slid out onto the ice on his belly. He reached the edge of the hole as Luna’s hands lost their grip on the ice.

  Luna was carried under.

  Kihin screamed. “He’s gone under! He’s gone under!”

  Roh looked at the great sheet of dark ice. He saw nothing of Luna. He edged closer to the riverbank and stood up. He began sliding along the surface.

  “The current has him,” Kihin said. Roh heard despair in his voice.

  Roh slid farther along the ice. A face pressed up at him from beneath the ice. A bubble of air had formed between the ice and the river. Luna’s blue fingers clutched the underside of the depression.

  “Here!” Roh said.

  He pounded at the ice.

  Kihin slid next to him. He hit at the ice. Flakes splintered away.

  Roh saw Luna’s fingers slipping. His face disappeared back under the water.

  Roh yanked off his gloves, and spread out his fingers. He concentrated on the ice, and the air beneath it. He murmured the litany for an explosive air burst. Blue mist suffused his fingers.

  He ruptured the ice with a great exhale.

  The circle of ice blew apart, revealing Luna’s face to the sky.

  Kihin caught Luna by the collar. Roh pressed and pounded out the ice until Kihin could pull Luna’s limp form from the hole. Roh was dizzy, and his breath came hard, as if he had run a great distance.

  They grabbed hold of Luna and pulled him back onto the bank, into the snow. His face was blue. He lay limp.

  Kihin turned Luna onto his side. They pounded his chest, and tried to push the water from him.

  “He’s too cold, it’s not –” Roh started.

  Luna vomited water.

  “Luna!” Kihin said.

  Luna began to shiver. His eyes rolled.

  “Make a fire,” Roh said.

  “With what?” Kihin said.

  Roh gazed toward Kuonrada. The darkness was deep now.

  “I’ll go for help,” Roh said.

  “He’s going to freeze,” Kihin said. He cradled Luna in his arms.

  Roh looked back at Luna, then again at Kuonrada. “Here, get his feet dry, wrap him in blankets. I’ll take him up on my bear and carry him back. I can try to keep him warm.”