The Soul Mirror

by Carol Berg

  “But why?” His stricken cry gave voice to my own distress.

  I’d been blind not to have seen it before now. Lianelle, who would squirm and wriggle and cheat to win a silly game. Lianelle, who adored living beyond reason. Lianelle, who would never, ever give up.

  “She must have been dead already. Whether poisoned or wounded or trapped with no possible escape. Believe me, nothing else would have driven her to such a thing. She must have learned something so dangerous, her enemy could not allow her to live, not even long enough to whisk her away and leech her blood. But she made it happen on her own terms.”

  She had needed to pass on what she’d learned from the Book of Greater Rites to people who could do something about it. Elsewise, she would have destroyed the book rather than sending it on to me. As to the hurry . . . She could not allow her enemy to discover what she’d deduced, or what she’d made, or who she’d told about it. Instead, she had left me this ciphered mess and trusted me to figure it out.

  “Angels’ mercy, Lianelle.” Whether Guerin or I or both of us said this, I could not have told.

  “Who is this enemy? Who was she so afraid of?” The young man spoke through gritted teeth, pressing clenched fists to his forehead. “If it’s the last thing I do in this life . . .”

  “You’ll help us expose and defeat him,” I said, clutching at my own murderous desires. “Tell me, was Dante, the queen’s mage, at Seravain on that day?”

  “He arrived a day later. Chancellor Kajetan believed someone from outside the school should investigate her death; elsewise we might be accused of hiding illicit practices again, reviving the scandal. We—my friends among the faculty members—were surprised when this Dante came. We expected a prefect.”

  “And did Dante investigate her death?” I needed to understand loyalties. Were Kajetan and Dante allies or rivals?

  “If you mean did he look at her and the place where she died . . . yes, certainly. If you mean did he question people, check the logbooks, and so forth, the answer is no. Chancellor Kajetan had gathered up your sister’s things, as I told you, and Vice Chancellor Charlot confiscated whatever papers, reports, or magical artifacts her tutors held. This Dante scarce spoke a word to anyone save the two of them and, I suppose, Master Kajetan’s friend who was staying over in his house. The chancellor—”

  “Is the vice chancellor a big man? Tall? Broad?”

  Guerin, frowning, studied me as if my reasoning might be written on my skin. “He’s broad abeam, but scarce taller than you.”

  Not the Aspirant, then. “And the chancellor’s friend?”

  “He was a good-sized fellow, near Kajetan’s height and sturdily built. Not that I saw him for more than an eyeblink for all the days he was there, as the chancellor bundled him off to the residence like a long-lost brother. I’m not sure when he left.”

  A fierce excitement brimmed. “So who was he? A mage?”

  Guerin stuffed his belongings back into his rucksack as he scoured his memory. “I’ve no idea. He wore no collar; I’m sure of that. But I never saw his hand. I judged him a scholar right off, or maybe a nobleman down at heels, but I’m trying to think why. It wasn’t just because he was close with the chancellor. His dress was fine enough, but plain. And his horse—a fine beast—was caparisoned in huntsman’s green and black, as if the man were a nobleman or his emissary come on a formal visit. But his regalia bore no device, and he’d no retainers or servants with him. I guess the green and black made me think he was from Delourre, as those are the colors of the Delourre demesne, and they’re forever short of coin up there. I just assumed the three of them were huddled up together. But as I think of it . . . I’ve no good reason for that. I’m not so good at logic or puzzles. Not with this, at least.”

  The bells rang another quarter. The mist had swallowed the city. Now its tendrils were claiming the downslope, reaching almost to the base of the rockfall.

  “You’ve done well, Adept.” Duplais might know of his mentor’s friends who wore the colors of Delourre. “Did they question you?”

  “Charlot asked me what Lianelle studied in my tutorial, but neither he nor Master Dante nor anyone else asked me what else she might be working on or why she might have been in the ravine that morning. As if they already knew.” His skin blazed. “For certain my own inquiries have left a trail a kilometre wide. I feel like a fool and a coward.”

  “No, you’re right to go. One hint from a student that you were fond of Lianelle, one suspicion that she confided in you or asked your help to decipher some encryption, and they’d have you on a rack or worse. You’ll do my sister no honor dead.”

  I fiddled with the oddments in my lap, begging them to tell me more as I dropped them one by one into the canvas bag. Eventually I was left with the one we had not fit into the deadly enchantment. “What could the keys signify?”

  “Base metal—”

  “Not as part of a formula, but as if she had chosen them particularly to weave something into the spellmaking, as you felt she did with your note.”

  A sun glint shot from the hills behind us, only to die a quick death in the encroaching gloom. Guerin removed his broad-brimmed hat and scraped fingers through damp, matted hair. “Unlocking, I suppose. Something to do with spellwork itself, perhaps, as any spell that’s not made active at the time of binding requires a verbal key. Honestly, damoselle, in a spell meant for self-murder, I can’t even guess. I’m sorry. I should have tried the keys around the collegia.”

  Faint thunder shivered the ground. In any other year, I’d have called it odd to hear northern thunder on a foggy morning in Merona, where storms customarily arrived in the afternoon from south and west. As it was, the sensation merely added to the anxious urgency of the day.

  “You’re not the only one who feels a fool,” I said, “trying to unravel this mystery while knowing so little of magic. All these years I could have been learning.”

  Guerin stretched his legs out in front of him. A fist-sized knob of granite tumbled down the rockfall apron toward the mist-veiled wasteland below. “She told me you—”

  The adept sprang to his feet, as if the question inspired him. He clapped his hat on his head and grabbed his rucksack. “Mayhap I was follow—”

  A thudding impact slammed the adept backward to the foundation wall. He slid downward, crumpling sidewise. His dislodged hat skittered down the rocks. Only my arms grabbing under his shoulders prevented him toppling after it.

  “Guerin!” Father Creator, was he dead? Slithering down beside the adept, I flinched as another bolt embedded itself—impossibly—in the stone just above my head. A length of thin black cord trailed from its shank.

  The adept grunted a breath and clutched the fletched base of the quarrel embedded in his shoulder. Black cord trailed from this one as well. His feet scrabbled weakly. I held him tight until he could wedge his boot in a crack.

  The air whined.

  “Stay down,” I cried, and threw myself across his slouched form as another bolt slammed into a rock to one side of us. Sparks flew, snapping and crackling. Invisible worms wriggled in my gut.

  Two horsemen barreled out of the mist from the north, joining the two crossbowmen who moved slowly upslope from the west. One of them whooped gleefully as a mechanical clatter signaled another rope-tailed bolt. The black cords, at least five of them now, each a few metres in length, had fallen slack across us. When I tried to throw them off, they coiled about my hand and arm—spidersilk the color of midnight and the thickness of my littlest finger, stiffening, tightening like live things. I kicked one aside as it curled about my ankle. But another quarrel struck the ancient foundation, showering us with sparks and shards of stone and laying a cord across Guerin’s neck. It writhed, snakelike, and I yanked it away before it could choke him. It twined up my left arm instead, tethering me to the bolt embedded in the stone.

  “Hold still, fair lady,” shouted one of the riders from below, “and you, young sorcerer, else you’ll find yourself choking unco
mfortable.” He knew exactly who we were. While the archers cranked their bows, he and his fellow dropped easily from their saddles and started climbing the rockfall. So they didn’t know about the stair.

  “Can you walk?” I said, wrenching unsuccessfully at the cord binding Guerin’s ankles, even as another twined itself about my leg. “Let me see your feet.”

  He didn’t answer, but clamped his teeth hard and squirmed to sitting, pulling his knees up.

  “Get back down the stair,” I said, slipping my zahkri blade under the cord hobbling his ankles. “Get away from the palace and out of Merona as soon as you can. I’ll hold them here.”

  “Give me the knife,” he croaked. Blue eyes filled with pain and dismay took in the black cords snaking about my arm. “I can’t let you—”

  “I’ll be all right. I think they’ve plans for me. But you”—growling, grunting, I sawed at the stubborn cords binding him—“you they’re going to kill.”

  Angels’ mercy, what was this material? The zahkri might have been dull as a twig. The two riders were already up the steepest part of the rockfall. The archers had dropped their bows and begun the climb as well.

  I hacked at the devilish rope, loathing and fury giving me strength. These people had hounded my mother to madness, my brother to despair, my sister to her death. They would not claim another victim, if I had to chew the cursed rope apart with my teeth. Anger surged from the smoldering fire in my gut into my veins, blinding, ferocious, devouring. The strand parted with a taut crack and white sparks. I attacked the next. And the next . . .

  “Just like hers,” Guerin whispered, awestruck.

  I’d no idea what he meant. But there was no time for talk. As the adept’s last bond snapped, I heard rocks shifting beneath the feet of the climbers. “You’re going to get out of here. Hurry!”

  Wrenching at the black cords that ensnared my arm, shoulder, and leg, I struggled to my feet, then helped Guerin up. He clutched his deadly limp arm, now bathed in sodden scarlet. The bone was surely shattered. His face was ashen, and the slightest jarring squeezed a choking noise from behind his clenched jaw. But I kept him moving.

  We stumbled over the rim of the foundation wall and halfway across the clearing. My tethers allowed no more. My left hand was already numb.

  “Saints guard you, and grace be with you forever,” I said, draping my gray shawl about his shoulders. “For your life, speak to no one until you’re well away. Now run.”

  “I’ll not forget,” he said. He vanished behind the massive boulder that hid the head of the stair.

  “Gah!” spat one of the climbers, whose dark hair bobbed just beyond the arc of foundation stone. “He said the rope was impervious to blades! But mayhap we’ve still got one carp on the line.” A tug on one cord jerked my ankle as if I were a puppet at a children’s feste.

  I backed into a shoulder-width niche formed by two tilted slabs—well away from the stair—just as the two riders clambered over the rim.

  “A nasty climb you pick for a morning outing, Damoselle de Vernase.” The dark-haired man wore a mask, not the Aspirant’s finely sculpted leather, but cruder, like those of the riders at Vradeu’s Crossing. The man that followed him into the clearing had tied a green-and-black-striped scarf over nose and mouth. It failed to hide a wispy beard or thin eyebrows the color of dried blood.

  “If you know my name, then you know the penalties for assaulting a woman of the royal household.” Behind my back I settled my grip on the zahkri as my Cazar uncles had taught me. The rocks felt comfortably close on either side of me. My body pulsed with heat.

  The red-bearded man now held the ends of the cords, twitching them as if they were reins and I his steed. “Assault? It might be we’ve spotted your fugitive brother up here with you. And you’ve blood on your skirt. Mayhap we’re rescuing you from assault.”

  “Rescuers don’t wear masks. Release these devilish cords and perhaps I won’t see you hanged.” But I would. I’d see them dead for what they’d done.

  “The lady’s not stupid, brother,” said the man in the leather mask, empty hands extended to either side as if he intended no harm. “We’ve been told that often enough. Step aside, damoselle, and we’ll undo the snaketether with no harm to ye. We just wish to speak to your friend there behind you. Ask a few questions. Hear news from the south.”

  “What kind of man allows a girl to stand for him?” said the red-bearded rider. He strolled toward me, shaking the cords as if it might make me run or scream. “We should whip ’em both.”

  Closer . . . closer . . . I allowed their nattering to recede. Only actions mattered. Only distance and movement. His left hand held the tether cords. His right, stained with soot, extended slightly out from his body, the fingers open and ready.

  Closer. Only a few fine hairs grew between the dried-blood wisps of beard and his ear tufts.

  His right hand shot up and grabbed at me.

  I struck.

  Blood blossomed from the deep gash on his arm. Howling, he bulled forward.

  Before he could grab hold of me, I struck again. The bloody rags of his mask sagged from the gaping crease in his jaw. He was no one I recognized.

  He fell back, body arched about his pain. “Witchfire! Devil spawn!”

  I waved the zahkri side to side slowly, silently. The dripping knife and my victim’s blood-sprayed curses could speak my warning.

  The two bowmen had climbed over the rim and were gaping at their bleeding comrade. The man in the leather mask snapped a finger at them. A stumpy fellow with a flat nose picked up the black tethers the wounded man had dropped. The ends were wound with white thread.

  “Your father’s daughter,” said the masked leader, peering into the dark behind me. “What is your magical friend hiding? We shall have him.”

  I willed Guerin strength, wiles, and speeding feet. It wouldn’t take long for these villains to realize that I defended naught but more rock. Wedging my shoulder behind one of the flanking slabs, I sawed furiously at the stretched tether cords, never taking my eyes from the leader. How dare these people murder at will? Maiming scholars. Leeching children. Rage surged through my arm like molten steel. The tether binding my shoulder snapped, spitting sparks.

  He snarled. “Drag her out of there. If she loses a limb, so be it.”

  Though the constricting cords felt as if they might sever my ankle or slice my arm into segments, they could not budge me. The man’s yanks merely ground my shoulder into the flanking slab. I didn’t care.

  While the leader taunted and threatened, the flat-nosed bowman circled, disappearing behind the slab of slate that protected my right flank. Sadly for him, he had to step around the rock and into the niche to get a straight pull at my leg. Well within my reach.

  The zahkri split flesh, grinding against the bones of his hand. A stalwart fellow, he bellowed and hauled with his other hand. I cut that one, too. Hard and deep.

  He staggered forward. And I whipped the blade across his throat.

  His convulsion dislodged my foot, which flew out from under me. I fell backward, wedged in the notch, my back grating on the stone. Another man rushed forward and grabbed for my wrist. I slashed at his arms, but my off-balance strike scarce grazed his sleeve.

  The zahkri went flying. As the attacker pinned my flailing arms, I kneed him in the groin. His face twisted. He groaned and curled forward. But his bruising grip on my arms grew tighter. The leather-masked leader shoved the two of us aside and stared into the niche. At nothing.

  Choking in the man’s stinking embrace, my arm on the verge of breaking, spite burst from me. “You’re a clever bully. Have I magicked a wall behind him? Or are you blind?”

  The leader backed away, yelling, “Do not let go of her! Find that belly-crawling little sorcerer!”

  “Stairs over here!” shouted the red-bearded man, blood and spittle flying from his mutilated face. Blood-soaked rags bound his shredded wrist. He’d never pull a bow again.

  “I’ve vanished h
im,” I said.

  My angry guard slammed me backward. My skull whacked stone, blurring my vision with pain and frustration. I’d not held long enough. Guerin couldn’t move fast with his shoulder in ruins.

  Surprised shouts broke out much sooner and much closer than I expected. And my whacked head played tricks. I was sure I heard the steely clamor of swordplay. Guerin had carried no such weapon.

  “You’ll die if you touch him!” I screamed. My head drummed. Blood welled from the lacerating cords about my arm.

  “What the devil?” My guard’s bleeding hand clamped my throat as he nearly twisted his own head off trying to see what was happening in the clearing.

  “Souleater’s servant!” He leapt up when a black blur closed off the gap. The dark shape retreated almost immediately, dragging my yelling captor by his hair.

  A brief clash of steel, a few grunts, and silence fell. And then a figure swathed in midnight was kneeling at my side.

  “Are you harmed, lady? ” he said, voice muffled by the black silk wrapped about his face. “I promise you don’t need this.” His hand gripped my wrist, forcing me to drop the sharp rock I held aimed at his face.

  “Or this.” He pinned my damaged arm to the ground with one knee, lest I continue using it as a bludgeon to his neck. “They’re all dead. None’s going to hurt you anymore. Honestly. I’m letting you loose now.”

  His voice quenched my fury as a squall damps fire. Entirely unlikely laughter welled up unbidden in its wake. Rescuers did sometimes wear masks.

  He sat back on his heels and offered a gloved hand. “Can you sit up?” I was shaking in such violent fashion that all I could do was extend my aching, bleeding arm in his direction. The black cord continued to constrict.

  “Perhaps unwinding it would work better,” I cried, gasping as he attempted to slip his knife blade under the cord without removing the swollen flesh.

  By the time we had removed the dreadful bindings and thrown them across the clearing, where they wouldn’t entangle either of us, a damp curl of flaxen hair had escaped his raked hat.