The Mirror Empire

by Kameron Hurley

  “They say they don’t know her,” Isoail said, “but their eyes say differently. They also say there’s a sanisi in there.”

  “Dajians will say anything,” Zezili said, “especially to legionnaires.”

  “There’s only one more camp after this,” Isoail said. “If she isn’t there, then we’ve come –”

  Zezili shushed her, and pointed. A small group of dajians was moving toward them from the camp.

  Isoail sat a little straighter. Zezili felt the air shift. “Gifted are culled from the camps,” Zezili said, “and shipped off to your Seeker Sanctuary. The most they’ll do is throw stones.”

  “A well-thrown stone is equally deadly,” Isoail said.

  Zezili shrugged. She was cold, and tired, and more than a little sick of Isoail. They had spent all winter slaughtering dajians across Dorinah. Every public-owned dajian from here to the sea was dead. It was just this camp at the base of the Liona Mountains and another further south, close to the range that separated Dorinah from Aaldia. With every dead dajian, and every cold day, Zezili lost a little more hope. She had nightmares about Anavha being swallowed by a great winged beast, and Daorian burning.

  A short girl with a dragging walk led the group. With her were a tall, thin woman, a young boy, and a square-jawed old woman. It was one of the most pathetic groups of people Zezili had ever seen. They wore patched, worn clothing. As they approached, Zezili caught a whiff of them on the wind, and grimaced.

  But the limping girl’s face did indeed bear a resemblance to Isoail’s drawing. The girl at the front stopped abruptly a few paces from them. She looked up at them with a neutral, unreadable face. The scars were right, Zezili decided. It was the girl from the lake.

  “So today you decided you’re my mother,” the girl said to Isoail. “Do you even know my name?”

  “We don’t have a lot of time to catch up,” Zezili said. “You know what you are?”

  “I do,” the girl said. “Do you?”

  “We’re going to open a gate,” Zezili said, “to another world. Your world. I need you to come with us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this woman can’t,” Zezili said, gesturing to Isoail. “Her double, your real mother, is still alive on the other side. If your double lives, you can’t go across. Understand?”

  “My mother is dead.”

  “I wish that were so,” Zezili said. “It would have made this month a lot easier.”

  The girl knit her brows. “This is some trick,” she said.

  “Not a trick,” Isoail said. “There are people coming here. If you came through the lake, you know that. We’re asking for your help to stop them.”

  “It’s a very good joke,” said the old woman. “Who are you to these people, Lilia?”

  So she had a name. Zezili began to doubt her whole plan. A month of sweating out each night waiting for Monshara to find her out and killing squealing dajians all day might have impaired her judgment. What, she was just going to ask this girl to destroy the mirror from her own world? What if she was an agent?

  Zezili sighed. An agent looking for her mother, Zezili? She thought, and firmed her resolve.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Zezili said. “The people that want yours dead? They told me to murder this camp and all the other ones, from here to the Sagasarian Sea. And I can stop them. But for reasons that might get clearer later, you can help us delay them awhile. Your mother, your real one, built something in that other world that we need to destroy. Your fake mother here thinks you can dismantle it.”

  Lilia’s eyes widened. It was an expression, at least. Better than the grim neutrality she’d been fronting. The girl licked her lips, and glanced at the tall young woman beside her.

  “How do we get there?” Lilia said.

  Zezili let out her breath. She showed her teeth. “You can all come back here with me,” she said. “We need blood to power the gate.”

  “Whose blood?” Lilia asked. She took a step back.

  “Not you,” Zezili said. “You and your little friends here, we can spare them. We’ll just need a few hundred from the camp. They’d have died anyway. I have orders to kill them. What I’m offering you is a chance to live, and save the rest. Take it or leave it.”

  Zezili had never been a good negotiator.

  “You’re not going to hurt these people,” Lilia said.

  Isoail sighed. “I’m sorry, child, but sacrifices have to be made. It will take the blood of two hundred, at least, just to open a gate to the place we need to go, but you’ll find your mother. Your true one.”

  “Sometimes a few have to die,” Zezili said, “so a lot more can live. I like my country, little girl. I like having you all around to do the work. We saved you from yourselves. Now I can save you again, but only if you’ll cooperate.”

  “You’re not saving me,” Lilia said. “You’re saving your way of life. It has nothing to do with me, except in how much you can control my people.”

  “I tried to make this easy,” Zezili said. She nodded to Jasoi and the squad of women with her. “Take these ones out of the camp. I’ll call in the legion and clean out the rest.”

  “You need bodies?” Lilia said. I’ll give you bodies.” Zezili hardly heard her.

  But she certainly felt the blast of heat that knocked her from Dakar.

  “No,” Lilia said. Her rage had been bubbling since they crossed the camp to meet the legionnaires. Now it burned white-hot, so vicious and hungry that it blurred her vision. Beyond the little group of legionnaires was an entire legion. Row upon row of legionnaires. Thousands of them. Dorinahs who had been murdering her people forever, for a thousand years or more. They had cast out Gian, and made Emlee and many of the others so stupidly loyal that they preferred squalor here and regular meals to freedom. How many uprisings had there been over the centuries? Thousands, surely. But it was this legion, these women, who put them down. Who tried to make them docile.

  They would not touch one more.

  Something opened inside her. A blazing red haze cloaked her vision. Lilia gasped. Her lungs opened. Air rushed in, more than her poor asthmatic lungs had ever been able to draw – air and something more, something hot and vicious that burned beneath her skin like fire.

  Fire.

  “You need bodies?” Lilia rasped. “I’ll give you bodies.”

  She breathed out. Pressed her hands forward. She expelled the burst of bloody power from her body.

  For a moment, her vision cleared. She dropped her hands. Nothing was different. Was she having some kind of hallucination? Was she ill?

  The first line of legionnaires burst into flame.

  The wave of heat was so intense it blew Lilia back onto her rump. The legionnaires mounted next to them were blown off their dogs.

  Lilia gasped and clawed away from them. Her body twitched and jerked. The heat was intense. It felt like she was on fire. Then her vision went bloody again. Her lungs filled. The heat of some foreign thing, some other substance, some other breath, moved beneath her skin. She had to get rid of it. She didn’t know what to do with it. Sweat soaked her clothes. The muddy snow all around them had melted. It was a morass of warm, stinking mud. Where was Gian? Gian and Emlee and Emlee’s nephew Sorat needed to get away from her. Far, far away. She was going to explode, going to burn from the inside out.

  Lilia turned. Raised her hands. Focused on the line of screaming legionnaires. Breathed out.

  The burning air left her body. Her skin cooled. She huffed out another breath, a real one this time.

  Another burst of fire exploded inside the ranks of the legion. Women’s screams carried across the fence.

  Lilia gasped. She needed the safety of the camp. She needed to get away from the fire. Her body ached. She was shaking so hard her teeth rattled.

  “Oma protect me and guide me,” she muttered, an old prayer, something her mother had taught her. “Bring light when there is darkness, show me the shape of the new world, cleanse us
in fire and water, show us the –”

  “Lilia!”

  Taigan’s voice.

  She squinted. The bloody haze was coming again. Oma, Oma, please stop, she thought, please stop.

  Taigan slid off his bear and pressed his hand to Lilia’s chest. “The song, Lilia, the Song of One Breath, the one I taught you,” he said.

  Lilia’s teeth chattered.

  Taigan shook her. “You’re burning up, Lilia. You’ll murder everyone here.”

  “Let them burn,” she growled.

  Taigan slapped her.

  “You will not hurt me again!” Lilia pressed her hands forward.

  The air around her grew heavy. Mud splattered. She let forth a burst of power. It met Taigan’s misty red wall of air. Blew back at her, past her, toward the legionnaires who met them in the camp.

  The woman called Zezili had made her group lie in the mud and put their hands over their heads. Her wave of heat engulfed their mounts instead. The dogs yipped and shrieked.

  “You’ll burn us all up and yourself!” Taigan said. “The Song of One Breath. Say it. Feel it. You’ll burn yourself out right here and that will be the end of all this bright power. Do you understand?”

  “Lord Oma,” Lilia muttered, “Lord of mercy, lord of light…”

  “Heads down! Stay down!” Zezili yelled. She kept her hands over her head as the wave of heat moved over them. “Isoail! Get me my gate!”

  “Are you mad?” Isoail cried. “She’s going to burn out. She’ll turn us to pulp!”

  “Open the gate!”

  “You won’t get her in.”

  Zezili peered across the mud to where the girl lay with some tall Saiduan woman. Her companions had scattered.

  “Open it up right behind them!” Zezili yelled. She chanced a look over her shoulder. The air around them was heavy as spoilt milk. She saw the shimmering heat of her blazing legion begin to ebb. The cries faded. She heard the roar of a vortex. Monshara would be calling up her omajistas to retaliate, now. Zezili had every intention of annihilating this little girl when she was done with her.

  But she wasn’t done yet.

  “Zezili,” Jasoi said, “The legion –”

  “Keep your shit-soaked head down,” Zezili said. “If my women remembered anything, that second wave kept their blighted heads down.”

  Zezili had spent two decades fighting the gifted and mundane alike. When they went off, it was best to separate and stay low while the Seekers picked them off. It was easy to kill great groups, but destroying individuals took more time and concentration. Winning against magic required fast reflexes and stealth. Hitting hard and unexpectedly was the only way to keep breathing.

  She had guessed the girl’s ability was latent. She just hoped to keep it that way until she shoved her in front of the mirror. If she hit something hard enough, it was supposed to fall in line. So it was time to hit harder.

  “Isoail!”

  “Stupid woman,” Isoail spat.

  “We’ll all be dead in twenty minutes anyway,” Zezili said. “Open the fucking gate!”

  The air crackled. It got so thick Zezili gulped air like water; it was like trying to breathe molasses. A whirling vortex moved over her, carrying with it a bloody crimson mist that rained across Zezili’s body. She kept her head covered, for all the good it did, and kept her eyes on the space behind the girl and the sanisi.

  She needed a distraction.

  The whirling tornado of blood coalesced just behind the girl and the sanisi. The sanisi raised her head, her attention fixed on the swirling blood.

  Zezili tensed. “You have your dagger on you, Jasoi?”

  “Yes, Syre.”

  “When I say, you hit that sanisi’s neck. You understand?”

  “He’ll chop me in two!”

  “I’ll do worse if you don’t!’ Zezili said. “Throw the knife. I’ll take the girl through. You have the legion.”

  “Syre, this isn’t –”

  “Take the legion!” Zezili said. “They’re my women, and I’m giving them to you until I get back. You understand? Now throw the knife.”

  “Zezili!” Isoail called.

  “Just open it,” Zezili said, “and close it behind me.”

  “How are you going to get back?” Isoail said.

  “Let me deal with that. Jasoi?”

  Jasoi still hadn’t moved. The gate flickered into existence.

  “Curse you to Rhea’s seat!” Zezili said. She looked back at Jasoi. She was whispering what sounded like prayers, in Tordinian. “Now, Jasoi, or we’ve lost more than the legion!”

  Jasoi pulled her knife from her boot. Bared her teeth. She jumped up and threw the knife.

  Zezili hurled herself forward.

  The knife hit the sanisi in the neck.

  Zezili spread her arms. She was ten feet away.

  The sanisi clutched at his neck. Blood gushed. He yanked the knife out.

  Zezili scooped up the girl under her arms and hurled herself through the winking gateway.

  She landed hard on the other side. Looked back. The sanisi stood. The blood on his neck ceased to flow. As Zezili watched, the wound began to close. He didn’t look pleased.

  “Close the fucking gate!” Zezili yelled. “Isoail! Close it! Close it now!”

  The sanisi stepped forward –

  - and thumped into the invisible film between the worlds. He pressed her hands against the air and snarled. No, he did not look pleased at all.

  Zezili laughed so hard she began to hiccup. She rolled around in the charred dirt on the other side, snickering and hiccupping. “You’re still alive over here!” she crowed. “Still alive!”

  The gate winked out.

  Zezili’s mirth left with it. She stared across a blasted landscape of black hills. The sky was a ruddy rust-red along the horizon, and amber-gold above her. But she saw no tower, and no mirror. Fear seized her. She turned and looked across the body of the girl she’d drug to the other side. The landscape flattened out, shot through with old bones and bits of glittering armor. She stumbled past the girl to a nearby hill. She crawled to the top and gazed across the field. In the far distance, she saw a glint of blue.

  The tower. The same one she had described to Isoail. In the valley beyond the tower would be the mirror. Just to the east… east? of the tower, a massive black specter stained the sky, oozing black tendrils behind it. The sight of the thing made Zezili’s skin crawl. She went back down the hill.

  The girl was standing now. Zezili could hear her heavy breathing from almost ten feet away.

  “Welcome to the other side,” Zezili said. “Follow me.” She started toward the tower.

  “I’ll kill you,” the girl said.

  Zezili turned. She put her hands on her hips. The girl was hunched over and hollow-eyed. From the sound of her labored breath, it would be a good long time before she recovered.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve tangled with a burnout,” Zezili said. “It’ll be awhile before you can pull again, and when you do, there’s a good chance you’ll either burn out like a roaring scorch pod or lose that great gift of yours all together. Fried nerves, Tulana calls it.”

  “I’ll take you with me,” the girl said.

  “True,” Zezili said. “You might.” She pointed to the tower. “You crossed worlds to find the woman over there. You won’t give it up now, will you?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” the girl said, “and everyone like you.”

  “You’re not the first to tell me that,” Zezili said. “Are you coming?”

  Lilia limped after the legionnaire. Her lungs burned and her body ached. She could barely see straight. She kept seeing the bloody haze flit across her vision. The air here felt strange. She stopped after a few paces to vomit.

  The legionnaire urged her on.

  She wasn’t sure how long they walked until she realized they were following the scent of something. Maybe it wasn’t a scent, but a… breath. She saw a reddish haze floatin
g on the air. At first she thought it was her eyes again, but it was a trail of red, not a gauze across her vision. As they walked the trail got thicker, heavier. Lilia put out her hands, expecting to feel a damp mist, like the blood that had merged to form the gate. But she felt nothing. She even tasted the air.

  “What are you doing?” Zezili said.

  Lilia had stuck her tongue out. “The red mist,” she said. “Don’t you see it?”

  “No,” Zezili said. “That’s what gifted people see. When people use your star to make something.”

  Lilia shook her head. “I’m not… I… Oh.”

  “You murdered my women back there,” the legionnaire said, “and it wasn’t with air. You’ve got the dark star in your blood. It’s crept in, and it’s not going away.”

  Lilia could see a blue tower ahead of them, at the bottom of the charred rise, and something beyond it. The hazy red trail continued on past the tower, toward a glint of sliver-red metal that looked like some massive arch.

  “It leads to the arch,” Lilia said.

  “The mirror,” Zezili said. “Come and see what your mother made. It’s how I knew she was alive. Isoail said her gates all opened here.”

  They walked together to the tower. The legionnaire drew her blade and went inside. Lilia waited in the foyer. Blue and amber tiles glinted from the floor.

  Lilia turned away from the tower and walked around to the other side. In the valley below, she saw the full height of the mirror for the first time. It was at least as tall as the Temple of Oma. The border of the mirror glistened a startling ruby red. As Lilia stared at it, she couldn’t even think of it as a mirror. It was a looking glass, a window onto another world. Inside the face of the mirror was another sky, another place. She knew that lavender-tinged sky. It was her world. And it was where the swirling trail of red mist ended. The tails of red trailed off in every direction, breathy wisps leading out into the hills around the mirror.

  And stretching beyond the face of the massive mirror, back and back across the hills for as far as she could see, the ground bristled with thousands… tens of thousands… hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It was the most massive army Lilia had ever seen… the Dhai army. The army in the valley. High red flags flew among them.