The Mirrored City

by Michael J. Bode

  Keltis reached his hand out, and shards of glass spread from his palm, growing like branches of a crystalline tree until he held something resembling a sword crowned with gleaming points and razor sharp dendrites.

  The Harrower launched himself at Sword. He was incredibly strong and quick, and Sword stumbled back a step when their blades clashed. The Harrower was clumsy, however. Like Sword, it used the body and memories it had, but it didn’t seem to hold onto knowledge between hosts.

  Keltis lunged, and Sword brought her pommel down on the blade, shattering the Harrower’s glass sword before it struck.

  The pieces reassembled quickly, and Keltis pressed the attack. He was poised with one hand behind his back, like some pretentious dandy in a court duel. Awkward flourishes and effeminate slashes.

  Sword batted them aside easily but still kept giving ground, leading the pretentious fuck on a merry chase around the mirrored room.

  One of the walls rippled, and Heath stumbled out, eyes glowing with silver. He looked like shit but was still standing. He wasted no time unleashing a torrent of lightning into Keltis.

  The Harrower raised his palm and caught the stream of energy. His arm trembled as he fought it back. “You brought a Stormlord. That’s hardly sporting.”

  Sword brought her blade in a low wide slash while Keltis was distracted, landing a blow in the man’s side. Black ichor dripped from the wound. “I’ve always been a bit of a bastard.” Sword whirled her blade and moved to flank.

  Keltis was caught between them: Heath on one side with lightning, Sword on the other sparring against the glass blade.

  Keltis grinned. On the ruined half of his face, teeth showed through the cheek. “I think the Stormlord has his own problems to deal with.”

  Heath fell to his hands and knees, dry heaves wracking his gut. It pained Sword to see her friend in agony, but she pressed her attack, shattering the Harrower’s blade and striking him in the chest. Keltis reeled back but recovered and launched a counterattack, the riposte slashing Sword’s leg. It stung like a motherfucker, and she could feel broken shards of mirror grinding in the open cut.

  Heath moaned. “You… have… to… sacrifice… me… I’m dead anyway.”

  Keltis pouted. “I think your friend misunderstands. I’m curing him of his affliction. Look.”

  Heath gagged on blood and convulsed with nausea. Sword tried to go to him, but Keltis blocked her attempt with a series of well-executed thrusts. He was improving by the minute.

  Something purple and covered in throbbing veins came out of Heath’s mouth. It had tentacles and what looked like beady black eyes dotting its flesh. As it crawled out of his mouth, it thrashed and emitted a high-pitched noise. Keltis giggled.

  The wall rippled again, and Lyta stepped out. Her eyes fell on Heath, and she charged to his side. Keltis sliced at her with his sword, bringing the sharp edges up through her face. Lyta didn’t stop, even as the blade broke into millions of pieces. She was already healing when she got to Heath. The thing emerging from his throat lunged at her and wrapped around her neck.

  Keltis looked down at his sword. “I think I’ll need a better weapon. Maybe I’ll just make the cancer demon stronger, you know, to make it more interesting.”

  The pulsing tumor beast thickened and slithered out of Heath’s mouth with alarming speed. More tentacles, coated in greenish slime, lashed at Lyta. Her skin burned where they touched.

  Sword slashed at Keltis’s neck, a killing blow. The Harrower ducked just in time, and Sword only managed to clip the top of his head. Black blood mixed with the charred half of his face.

  The walls rippled again. This time Maddox emerged, with Soren’s arm draped over his shoulder. They both stopped in their tracks and in near unison said, “Keltis?”

  The Harrower waved. “Soren! So good to see you. I told you if you stuck with me great things could happen. Now look at us—I’m a god and you’re… well, you’re still the same. Tell you what—if you kill your friends, I’ll keep you as one of my pets.”

  Soren pleaded, “You need to stop this.”

  Keltis laughed and took a swing at Sword.

  Sword parried, but Keltis hooked his razor-like blade under Sword’s wrist as he pulled back, severing her tendons. The Sword clattered to the ground.

  Keltis grinned. “It seems the student has become the master.” He raised his blade above his head and prepared to bring it down. It grew larger, encrusted with gleaming angry spikes of glass.

  Keltis brought it down as Sword rolled out of the way. Sword wasn’t fast enough, and Keltis predicted the evasion. This was going to hurt.

  Instead, Keltis’s sword exploded in a shower of pieces. Sword saw her own blade floating in the air, defending her.

  The broken shards of Keltis’s weapon swarmed and dove into his face and chest. Two of them jammed in his eyes, and he screamed as rivers of black blood poured down his body, soaking his clothes. A pool of blood formed on the floor.

  “You’re welcome.” Maddox crossed his arms. “Do the ritual.”

  “Soren—help Lyta,” Sword snapped as she marched over to Keltis. “I need to weaken it some more.”

  She snatched her sword from Maddox’s invisible grip and brought the flat of her blade against the back of Keltis’s legs as he struggled to remove the pieces from his eyes. His tall-heeled shoes, which would have cost a small fortune, slipped in the blood, and Keltis fell to his back.

  Sword raised her blade for the killing blow.

  Keltis screamed, and a stream of black bile shot out of his nose and mouth, knocking her back against the wall. It covered her, flowing in her eyes and mouth. It tasted like… ink. She slammed against the wall and slumped to the floor, the wind knocked out of her. She pressed her fingers to her chest and used her Light to heal her broken ribs.

  The cancer demon had started to swallow Lyta, like a python squeezing her as it pulled her into its head and shoulders.

  Maddox had the thrashing body of the Harrower pinned face first against one of the mirrored walls. Hand aimed at Keltis, Maddox made his way slowly across the slippery floor. The geysers of ink blood sprayed and splattered everywhere, filling the room with a dark mist. “I don’t know how long I can hold him.”

  Soren grappled the cancer demon, trying to pull it off Lyta, but it was no use. Lyta grabbed his arm. Soren’s muscles swelled. He was drawing on her strength. Together they wrestled the monstrosity and began pulling.

  A soggy ripping sound cut the air as the creature was yanked from Heath’s mouth. They fell back; the cancer demon shuddered and fell still. Lyta tore through the skin and emerged, burned and coated in slime, but alive.

  “Soren!” Maddox called, gaze indicating the Harrower.

  Keltis had pushed himself off the glass and was crawling like a spider toward the ceiling. Soren joined with Maddox to keep the Harrower pinned.

  Heath moaned and coughed. He struggled to his feet and yelled at Sword, “You have to kill me. If Maddox dies in here, it’s permanent.”

  “What?” Maddox asked.

  Sword brushed the black bile off her body and wiped her blade on her leathers. “Fuck.” She couldn’t kill Heath. Daphne wanted to, but she also wanted to fail even if she couldn’t admit it to herself. She easily could have used the century orchid in the middle of the night, and he’d have been none the wiser.

  Sword looked at Soren. He was nothing more than a kid who’d had a short but shitty life. It hardly seemed fair, but he was a true Patrean and the world wasn’t ready for that kind of magic.

  Maddox seemed to get what she was thinking. “No way. It should be me. I’m not even supposed to be alive. I don’t want to live for thousands of years and end up so crazy I become the next Achelon.”

  His green eyes didn’t blink or waver.

  “No,” Sword insisted. “I’ve worked too hard to get you where you are right now. We’ll find another way.”

  “I don’t want to die,” Soren said. “I have a kid on the way.”<
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  “You’re all going to fucking die!” the Harrower taunted in a deep metallic voice as it chuckled.

  “I offer myself,” a silky woman’s voice emerged from nowhere.

  Sword spun around, blade ready.

  The air shimmered for a moment. Sybil appeared, looking stately in her long gown, with folded hands. “My people caused this atrocity. My people should end it.”

  “The fuck are you doing here?” Maddox asked. “And exactly how long have you been standing there, doing nothing?”

  “Long enough,” Sybil said. “After my encounter with the one you call Sword, I was curious. I had abandoned my path because it led only toward darkness. I needed a light to guide my way to a new path. My journey may be at an end, but my sacrifice may buy redemption for my people and our place in this world.”

  She looked to Lyta. “Do not abandon us. You are a paragon of our kind now.”

  Lyta stared at Sybil with cold blue eyes. “I am not your kind.”

  “As high votary of the Orthodoxy and in the name of Ohan,” Sword began, “I accept your offer of life so that life may continue. Praise to the All Father, may his glory shine eternally.”

  “Praise be,” Heath and Lyta echoed softly.

  Sword slashed Sybil’s head off in one clean arc, drawing forth the Light.

  Transfiguration was one of the best kept secrets of the Orthodoxy. Healers knew how to infuse Light into wounded tissue, but it could also be extracted. Young children were particularly powerful sources—enough to reverse the ageing process. Naturally, it was in no one’s best interest if this information got out.

  Sybil’s body glowed like a sun, filling the chamber with blinding radiance. The others covered their eyes, except Soren, who still had some of her Light from earlier. Sword realized if Heath could no longer stare into the sun, it meant he had lost his Light completely. That would be a huge relief to the Inquisition.

  Sword raised her hands, and the ball of Light slammed into Keltis. It healed his flesh, stitching the burnt skin together and leaving it smooth.

  “Drop him,” Sword said.

  Maddox blinked. The Harrower fell to the floor, smacking into the black ink.

  “Wait!” Keltis shouted desperately. He struggled to stand, but his hands slipped. “I’m me again. It’s gone.”

  Sword drew her mouth into a thin line. This was always the hard part. “No it isn’t, son. It will be back as long as it has a vessel to anchor it to Creation. It’s bound to you for all eternity. I’m sorry.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” Soren protested. “He’s not the best friend in the world, but he did try to help me.”

  “To become worm food in a cultish brothel for depraved rich people,” Maddox appended. “You owe him exactly nothing.”

  Keltis sobbed. His tears washed away streaks of black bile on his face. “Please… have mercy.”

  Heath put his hand on Soren’s shoulder. “He died the moment he accepted that thing into himself. That’s just a hollow shell that doesn’t know it’s a shell.”

  “I’m right here!” Keltis protested. “Soren, please… help me.”

  Sword gave Soren a look, not a threat, but a strong incentive to reconsider charity. The boy turned away.

  Lyta stood, arms folded. Her gaze was cold as ice. No wonder Heath likes her so much. She’s ruthless and impressionable. Much like Heath was…

  Sword said, “If you pray to your Host, or whatever you believe, perhaps they can take your soul before it falls into the damnation of the Harrower’s maw. A few moments is all I can offer. Do you understand?”

  Keltis nodded and shut his eyes. Under his breath, he muttered a prayer. Sword hoped at least some of the ten thousand gods heard Keltis. The Harrowers of old were corrupt, evil people who visited suffering upon millions. Keltis wasn’t even a mage, just a vain boy trying to survive. That made it all the worse.

  She brought the blade down and cleanly took off his head. Like the passing of a mirage, the mirror room vanished.

  FORTY-THREE

  The Short Night

  LYTA

  The Rule of Three: A working can only be attempted three times before it can never be done again. Not even the Guides can ask more than thrice.

  The Rule of Seven: Seven is a holy number. There are seven Arch Saints, seventy-seven named Saints, and seven hundred seventy-seven unnamed Saints. Seven is the number of light and the elements.

  The Rule of Thirteen: Thirteen is the number of magic, which always has at least thirteen forms. There are thirteen Guides, thirteen Harrowers, and thirteen constellations of the Ecliptic.

  The Rule of Twenty-Three: A man will see twenty-three signs throughout his life. When he sees the twenty-third, he will die. Twenty-three is the number of humankind, representing her potential, her destiny, and her legacy. Twenty-three is the number of blood magic.

  —THE PRINCIPIA ARCANA, CHAPTER SEVEN: NUMEROLOGY

  LYTA’S VISION SNAPPED back into hard focus as she stood in the atrium of the Baash asylum. The place was intact but in total disarray with inmates wandering amid the broken detritus of smashed furniture and bleeding bodies. It looked like all of the caretakers had secured themselves in the cells. Everyone looked around in confusion, followed by a collective cheer of relief.

  It was over. Lyta exhaled a long deep breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

  “Where are we?” Maddox asked, turning and trying to get his bearings.

  “A nut house,” Heath said. His clothes were streaked with blood, but he held himself upright.

  “Your cancer…” Lyta said hesitantly.

  Heath shrugged. “I think you and Soren ripped it out. I haven’t felt this good in years. Is everyone else okay?”

  Soren nodded. “I feel fine, but I can’t sense Shannon. It’s weird; since we bonded I’d been able to share her ability.”

  Maddox frowned. “I’m out of alcohol.”

  Lyta turned toward the door. “I just want to get out of here.”

  She marched to the exit. This place reminded her of Shannon. Something in her gut told her Shannon was dead. The girl had always been reckless. There was no saving her this time.

  The exit was barred with a heavy plank of timber. Lyta stepped forward and kicked the reinforced doors open with a satisfying crash. At this point, she didn’t care. She needed air. The sun was just beginning to crest as she hurried onto the street.

  Her jaw hung open. The others slowly joined her in a moment of silent appreciation for the scene in front of them.

  The white marble of Baash and the black marble of Dessim were mingled, with buildings of each side mixed together. Befuddled citizens of both cities gaped in confusion as they walked over a mixed checker-like pavement of cobblestones and tiles from each side of the city.

  “That’s unexpected,” Maddox said after a while.

  They started the walk in silence. It was as if someone had jumbled the architecture, trading one building for another but keeping the placement the same. Temples sat next to bookstores and diviners’ salons. Artifacts and the bodies from each side littered the streets.

  “Everyone please move to the auditorium!” a stentorian voice shouted over the streets. “We are setting up triage stations, collecting provisions, and working to get people to their homes. The city is under martial law until further notice. Looters and trespassers will be killed.”

  A Patrean captain in white armor was shouting, directing people to help the injured. Behind him was a motley assortment of soldiers from Dessim, templar guards, and a few Fodders who looked like pit fighters. They acted with organized precision.

  The captain spotted Lyta and her companions and rushed over to them. His eyes were wide as he looked at Soren. He saluted and bowed his head solemnly. “You are the brother. Your sister died with honor and will be remembered as long as the Children of Patrea walk the face of Creation. But we must get you to the forward encampment.”

  Lyta couldn’t form words in res
ponse. Neither could Soren.

  Heath stepped forward. “It is most unfortunate news. We are in need of fresh clothes and seal mages to communicate with Thrycea. Do you have these at your forward encampment?”

  “Anything you require, Stormlord.” The captain snapped at two guards, one from Dessim and one from Baash, “Fox, Tyrus—escort them through the city and let any patrols know our guests have the right of free passage.”

  The men fell in line on either side and marched alongside the group. The Fodders all stopped to regard them as they passed, raising a salute, before going back to their business. Some of them broke down, turning to a companion’s shoulder for comfort.

  Lyta could not meet their gaze, nor could she look at Soren, her only true connection to her dead lover. Their last painful moments replayed themselves in her mind. If I’d been more understanding, would Shannon have followed into the Cyst? She focused only on the steps in front of her. She’d spent her life hiding and scheming to survive. Now all eyes were on her. As strong as she was, the burden felt heavier with each step.

  “This is fucking bizarre,” Maddox whispered. “Martial law… Patreans running the city…”

  “She united us,” the one named Fox said. “She showed us a glimmer of our true heritage. Now I know why you humans are always going on about your religious experiences.”

  Maddox sighed. “Your people’s atheism was one of your more admirable traits.”

  “Even so,” Fox said.

  The rest of their walk through the city was solemn, but the Patreans were doing a good job clearing the streets. The group saw a few fights, but they ended quickly when people realized the soldiers were willing to kill to maintain order. Some offered a salute when they saw Soren. A few broke rank to join their procession, marching in unison behind them.

  They paused briefly under the wreckage of the Archean sky ship. The massive dreadnaught had been shattered into three chunks that tumbled slowly above the street. The only sign of a crew was the motionless bodies suspended in the rigging. She wondered what would become of it—would it remain as a monument? To what, though?