Shadespire: The Mirrored City

by Josh Reynolds

  For a moment, the memory overwhelmed him. He could smell the cooking fires and unwashed bodies, hear the whimpering of children and the whispers of their parents. He felt the uncertainty, the tension… the fear of what the future held. He felt the same tension here as well, but subdued. As if things had been bad for so long that fear had turned to resignation.

  ‘Once, there would not have been this many,’ Khord said. The fyreslayer was the only member of his escort to remain with him. Severin had entered the palaces proper, ostensibly to announce that Reynar had been recovered. Reynar did not know where the others had gone. Nor did he care. ‘But of late, their numbers have increased tenfold. Some, like you, come from the ruins. Others by stranger means.’

  As he spoke, he glowered at a nearby duardin clad in threadbare robes and filthy scale armour. The duardin’s beard and hair looked to have been coated in dust or ash. His face had been marked in similar fashion, giving him a skull-like aspect. The duardin made a surreptitious gesture, and Khord took a threatening step towards him. The other duardin hurried away, casting hard glances over one broad shoulder.

  ‘Friend of yours?’

  ‘Are all humans friends?’

  ‘Not even most.’

  Khord sneered. ‘It is much the same among us. There are old grudges between lodges and clans, and aye, between individuals as well.’

  ‘And which is the case here?’

  Khord frowned. ‘None of your concern, manling.’ He stepped back hastily as a hunched, hooded figure shuffled past, holding its robes tight about itself. Reynar caught a sickly-sweet whiff of decay, and his hand dropped to his sword. Khord caught his arm.

  ‘He’s no threat to you, manling. Are you, Gubzes?’ he asked loudly.

  The hood tilted to the side, exposing a mutilated countenance. ‘Eh? What’s that?’ Gubzes’ voice was akin to the sound of mud being poured into a bucket. ‘Marta?’

  Khord frowned. ‘No, old man. Not Marta.’

  Gubzes twitched, his single eye rolling in a ragged socket. ‘I’ve lost her again,’ he mumbled. With trembling fingers, he pulled an amulet of shadeglass from his robes and looked at it. ‘She won’t answer me. She won’t…’ He cocked his head, like a dog catching a scent. ‘Marta?’ He shuffled off, still mumbling.

  Reynar watched him go in horrified fascination. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He’s rotting on the bone, like all of them – the original inhabitants of the city.’ Khord leaned over and spat. ‘They’re dead, but they don’t die. They’re trapped in their own meat – or worse. Most of them have gone a little mad. Not that I blame them.’

  Reynar looked around. There were many like the unfortunate Gubzes, wandering about the courtyard or slumped beside the central fountain. ‘Why are they here?’

  ‘Familiarity. Self-preservation. Perhaps they simply have nowhere else to go.’ Khord glanced back towards the gates. The Stormcasts had dragged them shut after Reynar and the others entered. ‘They cannot die, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t suffer in other ways.’

  Reynar shook his head and watched as Stormcasts and mortals worked to reinforce the broken walls. It reminded him of his days in a war camp. Busy work meant to keep minds and hands of mortals occupied.

  ‘Do they offend you so much?’

  He turned. The speaker was a small, round woman, clad in bedraggled robes of amethyst and cerulean and wearing a pair of spectacles with lenses of what looked like smoked glass. Her silver hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and her cheeks were tattooed with strange glyphs. She was young, despite the hair, he thought. Maybe his age, or a few years younger. ‘What?’

  ‘The Stormcasts. You were frowning as if they’d insulted you somehow.’

  ‘They didn’t,’ he said, though he didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. He glanced at Khord, who was smiling at the newcomer.

  ‘Ilesha,’ Khord said with a curt nod. He hiked a thumb at Reynar. ‘This is Reynar.’

  ‘You’re the new boy,’ Ilesha said, pushing her spectacles up onto the top of her head. ‘I am Ilesha Dune. Welcome to the last moment of your life.’

  ‘New boy?’ he asked.

  ‘A joke. Not a very good one, I’m afraid. But if you’d been a classmate, it’d have been hilarious.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Reynar could tell from her robes that she was a sorcerer – one of those taught and employed by the Collegiate Arcane. Only they wore that sort of get up, covered in astrological sigils and too much gold thread. He could smell the magic on her as well – it was like standing next to a lightning rod after a storm. He studied her warily. He’d seen sorcerers set whole battle lines aflame and conjure monsters from shadows and dust. ‘You’re a battle-mage.’

  ‘And you’re a soldier.’

  ‘I was.’

  She adjusted her spectacles and peered at him. ‘Too young to retire. Mustered out? Or did you desert?’ She waved a hand. ‘Never mind. Not my business.’ She turned, watching the Stormcasts work. ‘I thought they were automatons, the first time I saw one.’

  ‘It’d be better if they were,’ Reynar said.

  ‘Some might call them heroes,’ she said.

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘No, I expect not.’ She looked at Khord. ‘He’s the one she wanted?’

  ‘Aye.’

  She studied Reynar for a moment, then turned back to Khord. ‘Well, I’m sure she has her reasons. Brought me anything new?’

  Khord shook his head. ‘Not today, lass. But we’ll go out again soon enough, I have no doubt. How do your labours proceed?’

  Ilesha frowned. ‘Slowly.’ She glanced back towards the palace. ‘She either won’t explain the process, or doesn’t know. I’m having to figure it out as I go. Luckily, we have nothing but time.’

  ‘Process?’ Reynar asked, looking back and forth between them. Ilesha frowned, as if realising she’d said too much. Khord shook his head.

  ‘You’ll know soon enough, manling. Not our place to tell you.’ He gestured to the edge of the fountain. ‘Sit, until Severin gets back.’ Reynar was about to press his question, but a look from Khord made him think twice. He had no doubt that the fyreslayer had been given the task of keeping him out of trouble.

  At a loss for anything else to do, Reynar sat. He could be patient when he had to be. The ability to sit still was as much a valuable skill for a soldier as moving quickly. He pulled his amulet out and ran his thumb along its curves.

  He watched the heavy, armoured shapes of the Stormcasts at their labours and thought back to Hammerhal. He’d shed blood alongside the Hallowed Knights in the Hexwood, and during the Twelve Day War. He’d even received a commendation from the Steel Soul himself for valour in the face of the foe. He’d cadged drinks off that story for months afterwards, even if he hadn’t been able to meet the Lord-Celestant’s eyes at the time. He shifted his weight, suddenly uncomfortable.

  It was the Stormcast’s voice that had done it, he recalled. Softer than one might expect, and gentle, as he’d praised Reynar’s courage. Not like thunder, but like rain. Worse, he’d meant every word. Reynar closed his eyes.

  He didn’t like the Stormcasts very much. He never had. They were a constant reminder of everything he wasn’t, and while he wasn’t interested in playing the hero, it would have been nice to imagine doing so. But there was no need. Mortal men were nothing more than chattel in a game of gods and monsters. What good was Aqshian steel if your foe was clad in war-plate made from the ore of a dead world, or worse?

  Suddenly angry, he thrust his amulet back out of sight. He’d come to the conclusion early on that dying to spare some Stormcast’s armour the stroke that might have scratched it was a criminal misuse of his valuable time. Instead, he’d taken the lessons he’d learned in the Freeguild and applied them to a new career – that of sellsword.

  There wasn’t mu
ch difference, really. The Freeguilds of Azyr had always been mercenaries, working for whatever individual or conclave could pay their contract fee. He’d simply cut out the middle man.

  Reynar pushed the thought aside, and the guilt with it. If what Angharad had said was true, then Utrecht wasn’t as dead as he’d looked. He – some version of him – might even now be wandering the city, searching for a way out. He glanced towards the walls, hoping that was the case but not really wanting to find out. He’d seen Utrecht die. And the dead ought to stay dead.

  Behind him, someone laughed. A coarse sound, rough and tired. He turned, slowly, hand dropping to the hilt of the knife thrust through his sword belt, and came face-to-face with… himself. But not quite himself. A different him, bedraggled and bloody. A reflection, stretched and skewed through the shadeglass decorations of the fountain. The reflection laughed again, holding Reynar with his own eyes.

  Feeling guilty?

  Reynar frowned. His reflection smiled, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. His mouth was dry…

  …just like it was then, in Bellam Gund’s tent, knife in hand, making sure he couldn’t sound the alarm…

  Reynar closed his eyes. He heard a voice trying to catch his attention. He glanced around and saw Khord watching him. He turned back. His reflection was no longer laughing. It was him again, him as he was. He turned to Khord. ‘What?’

  ‘What were you staring at so intently just now?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He looked around but saw that Ilesha was gone. ‘Your friend has deserted you.’

  Khord laughed and stroked his beard. ‘Not my friend, manling. Just an acquaintance. We’re all just acquaintances here.’

  ‘Even the Stormcasts?’

  ‘Especially them.’ Khord studied the Stormcasts as they moved rocks or patrolled the gaps in the walls with inhuman diligence. ‘They’re good fighters, Steelheart’s lot and the others. But this place wears you down after a few decades.’

  ‘Is that how long you’ve been here?’

  Khord shrugged. ‘I stopped counting the days the last time I awoke.’ The way he said it made Reynar think he wasn’t talking about sleep.

  ‘So it’s true. You come back, then.’ Reynar looked around. ‘There’s no death here.’

  ‘Plenty of death, manling. It’s just not permanent.’ Khord smiled nastily. ‘You’ll see soon enough. It’s a wonder, the first time. Grimnir’s blessing, Fjul-Grimnir calls it.’ His smile faded. ‘It stops being a wonder very quickly, though.’ He rubbed his chest, as if it pained him. ‘You can still feel them – the death blows. No scars, but the pain is there, reminding you that you’re no more than the reflection of a dead man.’

  Reynar leaned forward. ‘Sounds unpleasant. And I have scars enough without phantom ones. How do I get out of here?’

  Khord laughed again and stood. ‘You don’t.’ He turned as Severin strode towards them, his footfalls echoing on the stones. The huddled shapes of the palaces’ half-dead inhabitants scattered before him, and he seemed to take no note of them. Stormcasts and mortals alike paused to watch him, and Reynar’s instinctive dislike of the Liberator-Prime increased. Severin was the sort to assume he was in command if no one told him different.

  ‘She is ready to speak to you now,’ Severin growled. Reynar pushed himself to his feet and joined the towering Stormcast.

  ‘Good. I am ready to speak to her as well. Whoever she is.’

  The dead brought Isengrim to the edge of the city, where the remains of mighty walls held back the sight of oblivion. Towering keeps were built into them at intervals – these were less defensive bastions and more akin to the palaces that dotted the rest of the city. Their semi-circular walls were carved to resemble giant warriors standing shoulder to shoulder behind readied shields.

  From where he stood atop the keep’s highest balcony, Isengrim could see many of these gargantuan phalanxes stretching north. The balcony was a wide half-circle of flat black stone looking out over the courtyard far below. Discs of shadeglass, each the height of a man and all mostly shattered, hung from the walls. Jagged crenulations lined the edge of the balcony, topped by the remains of what might once have been decorative statues.

  Far below him, skeletal warriors patrolled the top of the inner walls – whatever enemy they were watching for was inside the city. And not just the dead. There were living men and women there as well. But not many. All of them had the look of warriors, and some even bore signs that they served the Dark Gods.

  Some he recognised, if distantly – warriors who worshipped the Blood God, who’d gone missing. Not from his warband, but others. Champions and savages whose deeds rivalled his own. He wondered if they, like him, had been led into this place by some trickster spirit. He’d met the gazes of some as he’d been led through the courtyard. Though he’d felt a flicker of bloodlust, he’d refrained from bellowing a challenge.

  Isengrim was no blood-drunk fool. There was a reason they had not already fallen upon one another. A common foe was one of the few things that could unite the servants of the Blood God. He glanced towards Zuvass, who sat atop the crenulations of the balcony. ‘What is there to fear in a broken place such as this?’

  ‘Many things,’ the Chaos warrior said. ‘Shadespire has splintered into a hundred thousand fiefdoms, each with its own master or mistress. At any given moment, a dozen battles might be raging. We must be ever on guard.’

  ‘Are all those below like me?’

  ‘Some. Some are more like me. Strange bedfellows, I admit, but brought together by necessity.’ Zuvass linked his hands as if for emphasis. ‘Survival, mostly. There is safety in numbers.’

  ‘Safety,’ Isengrim growled, making the word a curse. He glared down at the warriors on the walls, wondering if Khorne had sent him here to claim not just one coward’s skull but many. He turned. The Sepulchral Warden had left them not long after they’d arrived. Where the dead man was now, Isengrim didn’t know. Only one of the skeletons – the one he’d fought earlier – remained, ostensibly as a guard.

  The undead warrior stood before the balcony’s entrance, his two-handed blade cradled in the crook of his arm. The warrior’s flickering gaze never left Isengrim, burning into him. Annoyed, he faced the dead man. ‘Do you want a rematch, fleshless one?’ he asked, spreading his arms in invitation. ‘If so, here I am. Face me if you dare.’

  The dead man twitched, as if considering the challenge. But Zuvass stepped between them. ‘The champion was once the foremost armsman in Shadespire, if others are to be believed. That you beat him once is a matter of good fortune. Twice might be testing the patience of the gods.’

  ‘And what would you know of gods?’ Isengrim said, transferring his glare to the Chaos warrior. ‘You, who stink of something I cannot name. Not lust or rot, not ambition or blood. But you serve the Dark Gods regardless. I can see their mark on you.’

  ‘There are more than four gods, my friend.’

  Isengrim snorted. ‘Then you serve the god of vermin?’

  Zuvass laughed. ‘No. I fear I serve a smaller god than even that. There are many such, creeping about the edges of a man’s soul. They cling unseen to the realms like remoras to a shark’s belly, battening on to the currents of emotion.’

  ‘Why serve a little god when greater ones might welcome you?’

  ‘Do we have a choice, then?’ Zuvass sounded amused.

  Isengrim paused, considering this. Then he grunted. ‘No. We are chosen.’

  ‘And Khorne chose you. He is a profligate god, casting blessings to the wind.’

  ‘Watch your tongue,’ Isengrim growled.

  ‘Be at peace, my friend. I meant no insult. There are many here who serve Khorne. Magore Redhand leads his warriors through the city, leaving gory tributes to the Blood God in his wake. Or the reaver Gorebeard, who I myself have slain on no fewer than three occasions.’ Zuvass gestured. ‘A
nd they are not the only slaves to darkness who roam these streets. But the Ruinous Powers themselves are barred from this nowhere place. Only one god rules here, and that is Nagash.’

  Isengrim frowned. ‘I do not fear him.’

  ‘Some might call such a boast foolish.’ Zuvass reached out and pushed a broken statue from its plinth. It fell away, plummeting to the courtyard below, where it shattered. ‘He hears every word spoken in this place. He is master and gaoler of all who are trapped here.’

  ‘Not my master,’ Isengrim spat. ‘I would crush his skull if it were within reach.’

  ‘Would you?’ Zuvass pointed to one of the still intact discs of shadeglass.

  Isengrim turned. His reflection stared past him, face pale with blood loss, twisted in a snarl. For a moment, he thought it nothing more than a memory. Then he saw the shadow of what might have been a great hand fall over him and felt something in him twist. He blinked. The image had changed. He stared at himself and traced the familiar lines of his face. ‘Sorcery,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes. This place is awash in portents. We are cast adrift between secret and mystery.’

  ‘Pretty words. Speak plainly or not at all.’

  Zuvass shrugged. ‘I can say it no plainer, my friend.’ He gestured. ‘Every moment casts its reflection, and that reflection is reflected from a hundred thousand mirrors, each one carving subtle differences – and some not so subtle – upon the moment. All that has, will or might yet occur plays out across the shattered surfaces of every mirror in this city.’

  Isengrim shook his head. ‘You speak madness.’

  ‘I met myself once,’ Zuvass said after a moment. ‘Not me as I am, but as I will be. Or was. It’s hard to tell in this place.’ He laughed. ‘For every death here, a mirror shatters. And in every fragment is a reflection of the one who died – not all of them the same. Those reflections rise and walk, and who is to say which is the real thing and which only an illusion?’ He looked at Isengrim. ‘That is not madness. That is simply the way of this place. You’ll see, sooner or later.’

  ‘You speak as if this place is beyond the reach of the gods.’