Shadespire: The Mirrored City

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘And what of the Katophrane himself?’

  Khord grunted. ‘Well, we’d failed, hadn’t we? No patience for failure, these dead royals of Shadespire. Every time, they go a little madder. Lose a little more of themselves.’ He looked at Reynar. ‘It’s a game with no end, manling. There is no way out, whatever she says. There is no escaping this place.’

  ‘Then why bother with any of this?’

  Khord sighed. In that moment, he seemed impossibly weary. ‘Because I am of the Vostarg Lodge, and I swore an oath. That it is hopeless matters not. Indeed, the oath which cannot be fulfilled burns twice as strong. I must do this thing, or die in the attempt. And if I do not die, then I must continue to try. Even unto the falling of the last star.’ He clapped Reynar on the shoulder. ‘I know your kind don’t understand such things, but my word is fyresteel. I will break before it does.’

  Reynar couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’ve heard it said your folk hold their grudges as close as their oaths,’ he said after a moment. Khord peered at him.

  ‘Aye. It differs between lodges. My own folk are pragmatic sorts – break an oath to us, we’ll break your skull. Cheat us, we’ll take what we’re owed out of your hide. That is only sensible, after all.’ He smiled. ‘Not planning to cheat me, are you, manling?’

  Reynar laughed. ‘No. I doubt I could, even if I tried.’

  Khord roared with laughter and slapped him on the back. ‘Hold fast to those doubts and you’ll never go wrong.’ He lifted the jug. ‘Drink? It’s mostly vinegar and backwash, but it still has taste.’

  ‘Where did you even find that?’

  ‘These palaces have deep cellars. Some of them are even stocked. You can find all sorts of things if you’re willing to brave the vermin.’ Khord patted one of the fyresteel axes in his bandolier. ‘Which I am.’

  ‘Cellars? Do they go out of here?’ Reynar asked, with real interest.

  ‘They go everywhere.’

  Reynar turned. Ilesha stood at the end of the causeway. She’d come upon them so silently he hadn’t noticed. She smiled thinly and gestured. Amethyst fire danced briefly on her palm, casting her face in a strange light, before it took on the shape of a crow and flapped out over the causeway.

  ‘This city is riddled with secret paths and mysterious tunnels,’ she said, watching the crow until it dissipated. ‘I think it adds new ones just to toy with us. I need to borrow your friend, Khord.’

  ‘Take him,’ Khord said, shoving Reynar forward.

  Reynar stumbled slightly, and Ilesha reached out to help steady him. ‘What do you need?’ he asked as he stepped back.

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  He followed her down the spiral steps, wondering what it was. Behind them, Khord began to sing again. They passed Stormcasts on guard, including Ilesha’s usual guard dog, Darras. The Stormcast glared at him as the sorceress led him up to her chambers. ‘I heard things got rather exciting today,’ she said.

  ‘Too exciting for my taste.’

  ‘Angharad mentioned that you were instrumental in preventing things from being worse.’ Ilesha glanced at him over the top of her spectacles. ‘It seems you have hidden depths.’

  Reynar shook his head. ‘Someone had to do something.’

  ‘Khord thinks you were a natural. He likes you.’

  Reynar frowned. ‘Did he say that?’

  ‘No, but I’ve known him long enough to know that he considers you an ally. More so than Severin or the others.’ She looked at him. ‘He is lonely. We all are. A new face is like coming across an oasis in the desert.’

  ‘Is that why you brought me up here?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Suddenly uncomfortable, he went to one of the piles of books scattered about her chambers and picked one up. There was a stylised rune stamped on the cover. ‘What is all this? Are these grimoires? Those fetch a pretty penny in Hammerhal.’

  Ilesha took the book from him and set it carefully back on its tottering stack. ‘Histories, mostly. Some poetry. A few cartographic compilations.’

  Reynar picked up another book from a smaller pile. ‘Ogwell Mancini?’ he sounded out. Reading and writing were skills he’d picked up haphazardly, and his grasp of them was somewhat tenuous.

  ‘An artist and student of architecture,’ Ilesha said. ‘This is his incomplete history of the city of Helstone.’ She took it from him and flipped through the yellowed, crackling pages. ‘There’s an entire chapter on trade between the great cities of Shyish. Helstone, Nulahmia, Caddow, Shadespire… even Nagashizzar.’

  ‘All those cities have been ruins longer than memory.’

  ‘Whose memory? Yours?’ Ilesha looked at him. ‘The past is an undiscovered country, and there are many who seek to explore it.’ She glanced down at the book. ‘There are many books on Shadespire, most of them absolute rubbish – collections of anecdotes and stories gleaned from traders and exiles. Palento Herst wrote a three-volume exculpation of the Katophranes, painting them as benevolent mercantile adventurers struck low by fate. Hans Wath wrote extensively about their advances in the art of automata and engineering, but it was mostly guesswork.’

  ‘And you have all these books here?’

  ‘Those and more. I didn’t come alone, you know. I was part of an expedition.’ She sighed and turned. ‘Most of them died before we came here. In the ruins.’

  Reynar nodded in understanding. ‘And the rest?’

  She didn’t look at him. Reynar didn’t press her. She lacked the arrogance he associated with her sort – that sense of superiority that came of learning the secrets of magics. He thought of what she’d said about the gloom, and wondered if maybe this place had beaten all the arrogance out of her.

  ‘Why come here?’ he asked after a moment. ‘What did you hope to find?’

  ‘I told you before – knowledge.’

  ‘What sort of knowledge?’

  ‘A good question.’ She set the book aside and turned to drag the cloth away from one of the objects on her workbench, a plate of shadeglass resting on a stand. ‘I meant to show you this earlier.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  She shrugged.

  Reynar restrained a smile. She wanted someone to talk to, even if that someone was him. He hesitated, but curiosity compelled him to peer at the glass. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just another piece of shadeglass, or so I thought. But look.’ ­Ilesha gestured.

  Reynar squinted, trying to see what she wanted him to see. After a moment, the cloudy surface of the plate cleared somewhat, revealing a room – not a reflection, but a different place entirely.

  ‘Where is that?’ He glanced at her.

  She frowned. ‘Glymmsforge, I think, going by the heraldry on the account books.’ She adjusted her spectacles. ‘It’s a scribe’s offices, I suspect. Ah – and there he is.’ A little man wandered into view, wearing dark robes. His fingers were stained with ink, and his tonsure was uneven. A spill of tattooed sigils fell across his cheek, and he carried a stack of account books.

  ‘How are we seeing this?’ Reynar asked softly.

  Ilesha smiled. ‘No need to whisper. He can’t hear us. Or see us.’ She frowned. ‘Shadeglass has a multitude of properties, only some of which I understand. And the Katophranes aren’t forthcoming.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ The scribe had opened one of his books and begun to scribble. ‘So we’re watching him through a shard of shadeglass?’

  ‘Or a statue, maybe an amulet… something like that. He likely thinks it no more than a bit of decorative piffle.’ She paused. ‘But for us, it’s a window to a world we cannot reach. Sometimes, I think if I could just catch his eye, something might happen.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Progress.’

  Reynar moved up beside her. Without thinking, he reached out to the plate. As his fingers
touched it, the scribe looked up. The man’s face paled and he fell back from his desk, his mouth wide in a silent scream. Reynar jerked his hand back, startled, and the image blurred and faded. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. How did he see you?’ Ilesha leaned forward, her face taut. ‘Why did he see you?’ She ran her hands along the plate then looked at him. ‘What did you do?’ Her tone was almost accusing.

  ‘You saw – I just… touched it.’

  ‘Touch it again,’ she said, suddenly intent.

  ‘I don’t think I want to.’

  She picked up the plate and thrust it into his hands. He took it, more to keep it from falling than out of any desire to hold it. It felt cold, and his fingertips went numb. Soft things like bunches of cloth swam into view, and he heard a murmuring like water running over smooth stones. Slowly, something took shape – a face. Not some unknown scribe this time.

  Ilesha saw his expression and put a hand on his arm. ‘You know them.’

  ‘Bellam Gund,’ he whispered, staring at the glass. The round face was cheerful, a boy with a bought commission, but not arrogant, no. Too kind, too kind by half for a soldier’s life, but getting less kind every day.

  Until he stopped being anything at all. The voice – his voice – hissed through the back of his head. He closed his eyes, trying not to hear. Failing.

  ‘Who’s Bellam Gund?’

  ‘He was… a friend. We came through the ranks together. Made captain at the same time. Posted together.’ He turned away, his stomach churning. The image began to fade, only to be replaced by his own reflection. It was smiling at him. ‘He’s dead.’

  And who killed him? Who put the knife in?

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I.’ He thrust the plate into her hands, not wanting to hold it anymore. He didn’t want to see Gund’s face, or his own. Especially not his own. He could feel her eyes on him, and knew she was going to ask questions he had no answers to.

  ‘These tunnels,’ he said flatly, hoping to distract her. He cast his gaze quickly about the chamber. He spotted the maps she’d made. Maps of the city. Maps of the palaces. Useful things. ‘Can you show them to me?’

  She hesitated, peering at the plate. She sighed and set it aside. ‘Yes. Why do you want to see them?’

  He looked away. ‘It’s always good to know where all the exits are.’

  Isengrim was not in the mood to celebrate, despite their victory. He stood, glaring into the darkness beyond the broken walls of the keep, waiting for the next challenge to present itself. His axe felt heavy – sated. But it would be hungry again soon. Khorne would call out, and Isengrim would answer.

  His quarry was somewhere out there. He could feel it, like an itch. It preoccupied him, and made him impatient. His warriors, on the other hand, were busy carousing. Celebrations were rare here. But there was orruk meat cooking on a spit, and blood-wine squeezed from the pulped veins of the fallen and spiced with the dregs of something found in a stagnant fountain. They needed neither to eat nor drink, but it would do them no harm.

  Isengrim turned, watching as his bloodreavers celebrated. Nomads from the Caldera danced in wild circles, screaming out their victory song. Reavers from the Bitter Sea slapped together their weapons, keeping time. All had been drawn here by the Blood God’s will.

  Warriors from a dozen tribes, from across the width and breadth of the realms, joined together in Khorne’s shadow. Freshly flayed skulls hung from makeshift trophy poles scattered about the keep’s courtyard – not all of them belonging to orruks.

  Zuvass sat away from the fires, in leisurely consultation with a hooded, cloaked figure that Isengrim suspected was one of the Horned Rat’s duplicitous followers. The creature had skulked into the keep as if it had been there a hundred times before. Maybe it had. Zuvass had allies everywhere, it seemed.

  As he watched them, fingering the edge of his axe, Hygaletes joined him. He had only rarely spoken to the little sellsword since Zuvass had introduced them. Isengrim had little time for pleasantries, and something about the small man annoyed him.

  ‘A great victory,’ Hygaletes said.

  Isengrim grunted. Hygaletes nodded, as if he’d replied.

  ‘Yes, very great. The Sepulchral Warden is well pleased.’ Hygaletes gestured, and Isengrim saw the dead gathering beyond the bonfires of his warriors. He watched as the Sepulchral Warden and his coterie moved through the courtyard. Corpse-people fell onto their knees about them, clasping at tattered vestments and moaning entreaties. Something that might once have been a child wailed in a broken voice, and the Warden stopped. The dead man sank to one knee, leaning on his spear. His jaw clicked as he spoke softly to the huddled thing. A bony claw stroked the hooded head, and the child-thing’s wails quietened.

  ‘You are wondering what he says to them,’ Hygaletes said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He tells them that this too shall pass. That their suffering will end. That Nagash cares for them, and that their punishment is just, and finite.’ Hygaletes bowed his head. ‘He tells them that though they pay for our sins, they will be redeemed in the eyes of the Undying King, eventually. Purged of the weaknesses of flesh and made one with death.’

  ‘They are weak.’

  ‘Yes.’ Hygaletes sighed. ‘They are as the Katophranes made them. And now, Nagash remakes them in his image. When the last piece of flesh has fallen from the last bone of the last citizen of Shadespire, then they will know peace. But the Katophranes will not.’

  ‘Then why serve one?’ Isengrim looked at the little man. ‘Why serve a fool damned by your god? What is in it for you?’

  ‘Hope,’ Hygaletes said. ‘Hope that Nagash will relent and forgive those who ought to have been the greatest of his servants. Hope that those who stray might return, and yet find solace in the black fields of Stygxx.’ He looked at Isengrim. ‘Even as you might, brother.’

  ‘Hope is for the weak,’ Isengrim said. ‘I am not weak. My solace is in rage.’

  Hygaletes smiled genially. ‘Nagash has seen you, brother. He has set his mark upon you. And that is no easy thing. I know, for I bear it as well.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Every death I die is a gift and a burden. To see the glory of what awaits only to have it snatched away is maddening. But it is all in his name. I die and return so that I might lead others to holy death. That is my duty.’

  Isengrim peered at him. The little man was infuriatingly placid. But the hilt of his blade was well worn, and he had a fighter’s scars beneath his mask of char and ashes. Perhaps his deaths had drained the ferocity from him, the way it had the skeletal warriors. Isengrim frowned at the thought.

  ‘If Nagash wishes to claim me, he may try at any time. I am no milk blood to fear his gaze. Let him test the edge of my axe, if he has the courage.’

  Hygaletes grinned. ‘He comes for us all. He is the reaper, and we, the harvest. He collects us when our season is done. Have no fear – he will not miss you.’

  Isengrim stared at him. ‘You are a strange little man.’

  ‘And you stink of blood and offal, brother. We are but as the gods have made us.’ Hygaletes patted him on the arm in an almost paternal gesture. ‘Come, I am about to read aloud to the others from the Canticles of Arkhan, so that we might discuss the philosophies of the Black One and find comfort in them.’

  Isengrim shrugged him off. ‘No,’ he said curtly. He hesitated, and then inclined his head. ‘But may the Blood God accept your offerings when they come to him.’ He strode towards the fire where Ylac and the others sat, feasting on orruk flesh despite not needing to eat.

  Ylac offered him a bone still heavy with green meat. ‘Hungry, my chieftain?’

  ‘No.’ Isengrim waved the bone aside. ‘Neither are you.’

  ‘No. But it tastes good, and tomorrow I may die. So why not eat?’ Ylac shrugged, and bit into the meat. Mouth full, he asked,
‘What did the carrion crow have to say?’

  ‘He is mad. They are all mad.’

  ‘I could have told you that.’

  Isengrim grunted. ‘Good allies, though.’

  ‘Strong enough to fight, weak enough to kill?’

  Isengrim nodded. In the smoky air, shapes took form, twisting and bleeding into one another. Sometimes they had faces, other times only an absence. They seemed to reach for him with stretched-out fingers that were the merest wisps of talons. He could hear them whispering, high and thin like the murmur of night insects.

  Ylac glared at them. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Ghosts. They press close, here, like moths to a flame.’ Isengrim slashed out with his axe, and the closest phantasm dissipated like mist. ‘What do they want?’

  ‘To see one whom Nagash has marked with his attentions,’ Mekesh said, startling him.

  Isengrim tensed, and Ylac turned, his glaive pointed at the Katophrane’s reflection in a jagged shard that jutted from the ground nearby.

  Isengrim pushed his follower’s blade down and turned. Mekesh stared at him from yet another shard. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come. Walk with me.’

  ‘Why?’

  Mekesh stared at him, unblinking. ‘Do you fear me, bloodreaver?’

  ‘I fear nothing.’

  ‘Then walk with me.’

  He followed Mekesh’s reflection through the broken mirrors that dangled from pillars and crumbled plinths to an open patch of waste ground near the inner wall. More fragments littered the ground here, like stalks of wheat. Embedded in the stones, they rose higher than Isengrim’s head. The splintered ends seemed to be sprouting new shoots of glass that would grow and spread in time. As Mekesh walked through them, his image bent and stretched to fill them. ‘You are impatient,’ the Katophrane said. ‘Vakul was as well.’

  ‘Vakul is dead.’

  ‘For the moment.’

  Isengrim stopped. Mekesh turned, smiling slightly. ‘You didn’t think of that, did you?’

  Isengrim grunted. ‘It doesn’t matter. I will kill him again if he comes for me.’ He looked around. They had come farther than he’d thought. The courtyard had not seemed so large, earlier. But the fires were far and the sound of revelry was muted, as if the night had swallowed them up. ‘You wish to speak, then speak.’