Mirror Sight

by Kristen Britain

  Karigan frowned. That didn’t sound like Amberhill, but she had not known him well. She suddenly felt very tired, the phosphorene lamps seemed barely able to hold the suffocating dark of night at bay. She watched as dust settled in the streams of light. She thought once again about why she’d been brought here, why the god of death had seen fit to intervene, and she couldn’t help but still believe that whatever had become of Sacoridia, and Amberhill’s involvement, was beneath Westrion’s notice. She’d been brought here for some other cause that had not yet been revealed to her.

  Regardless of the death god’s plans for her, she knew that if she was able to find a way home to her own time, she would do whatever it took to stop Amberhill, to stop him from using his weapons, whatever they were, to conquer Sacoridia. She could not allow him to destroy everything—and everyone—she loved.

  The professor stepped around his chair and sat with a creak. They gazed at one another, mirroring grim expressions.

  “I have opposed the emperor in my own small way for most of my adult years,” the professor said, “but never have I felt such hope as when I came to believe that you are what you say you are. By whatever the miracle wrought by this looking mask of yours, or the old gods, that brought you to me, it is like a sign, and now that you say you knew the emperor when he was just a mortal man, I can only feel that the time has come.”

  “For what?”

  “To resist in earnest. It is time. And you shall help.”

  Karigan shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She had not wanted to become involved in this world’s problems. Her duty was to get home with information. “How?”

  “There must be things you know about the castle complex, its grounds. How it was all laid out.”

  “Yes,” she said cautiously.

  The professor leaned forward, now eager. “Earlier today on the outing you asked about Silk’s excavation. What he’s up to. Well, I’ll tell you. He plans to excavate the castle to its very foundations.”

  Karigan stilled. A prickling ran up her arms.

  “He will make some pretense at finding artifacts along the way, but I believe I know what he is truly after.”

  “And that is?”

  The professor slowly grinned beneath his mustache. It was a feral grin. “He seeks objects of an arcane nature, of course, in the very lowest regions of the castle. One in particular.”

  Lowest regions of the castle. Karigan’s frown deepened.

  “It is said,” the professor continued, “that there were arcane devices, magical objects, stored in the royal tombs. Would you know anything about this?”

  Karigan kept still. Tried to keep her expression neutral. “No, not really,” she lied. She still felt that need, that desire, that obligation to protect that which one did not openly discuss in her own time. “One hears the occasional rumor. The tombs themselves aren’t talked about. I suppose the king’s Weapons don’t want to deal with thieves trying to break in to steal valuables.” It sounded like a plausible answer to her, and not that far from the truth. She just didn’t admit how much she really knew and that she’d actually been in the tombs.

  The professor stroked his mustache as if deciding how much to say and question. “There is a very good chance the tombs survived the destruction of the castle,” he said, “considering how deep beneath the ground they were placed. The only entrance we know of was through the royal chapel.”

  Karigan nodded. “That is what I’ve heard.” She did not tell him she’d actually been through those doors.

  “Have you ever heard of there being other entrances?”

  Karigan paused, pretending to consider the question, then shook her head, unwilling to divulge such secrets. The professor looked disappointed.

  “What is this arcane object Silk is after?”

  The professor did not answer for they both started at a thudding sound echoing from somewhere deep in the mill building.

  “I was not expecting Cade this evening,” the professor said tersely, and he slipped over to his desk and opened a drawer. From it he withdrew a gun weapon. Karigan shook her walking cane to staff length. In unspoken assent, they moved stealthily, but swiftly, across the floor to the entrance where they paused and listened. Footsteps clanged on the wrought iron steps as their intruder climbed.

  Karigan adjusted her grip on the bonewood, and the professor pulled back a mechanism on his gun with a quiet click. As Karigan gazed at the gun, her eyes blurred. She looked away, blinking rapidly, and everything fell back into focus, but when she looked directly at the gun, it blurred again. She found she could look at it in general, or see it on the periphery of her vision, but she could not see it clearly when she looked directly at it.

  She let the oddness pass as the footsteps grew nearer, louder, then paused.

  “Professor?” a voice called.

  “It is Cade,” the professor said in obvious relief, his hand that held the gun falling to his side. Karigan relaxed, but kept the bonewood at full length. “Come up, Old Button!”

  Cade did, blinking in the light as he joined them. He set aside his taper and raised an eyebrow when he noted their weapons.

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” Cade said. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come and do some training.”

  The professor chuckled. “We were not, as you can see, expecting you either. I would not have come tonight, but Miss Goodgrave needed some things explained to her, and I in turn have discovered some startling information from her. She knows—or knew—our emperor personally.”

  Cade glanced at Karigan in surprise, and the professor explained as the three of them strolled to the library sitting area. When they reached the big desk, Cade said, “It is difficult to envision the emperor as an ordinary, mortal man.”

  “Clearly not ordinary if he became our emperor,” the professor said.

  Karigan silently agreed. She’d known the swaggering nobleman, but there had to have been more to him that she hadn’t been able to see.

  “I was just about to tell our Miss Goodgrave about what Silk is after.”

  “I will make some tea.” Cade moved off to the kitchen area in the opposite corner, and Karigan resumed her seat, rolling the bonewood in her fingers, watching as Cade lit the tiny stove and placed a kettle of water on it, his movements calm, unhurried.

  The professor did not wait for tea, and after returning his gun to its drawer, he began to explain.

  ANSCHILDE’S HEIRLOOM

  “Naturally it comes back to the sea kings,” the professor said. “As you pointed out, they were long gone from here during your time, and one of the enduring historical mysteries is why they left, and why so suddenly. A major focus of my research was trying to figure out the answers, and I eventually discovered some tantalizing clues.”

  Cade joined them while he waited for the tea water to boil. “Perhaps, you should have asked why they came in the first place.”

  The professor waved his hand dismissively through the air. “Oh, the usual. Land, resources, the fishing. A people to dominate. Why they left is of more importance to the opposition so we may learn something from it. Did our ancient ancestors somehow banish the sea kings? Or did the sea kings leave of their own volition?”

  The professor gazed intently at Karigan like a storyteller relishing the build up to a dramatic point. “On the far east coast of what you knew as Coutre Province, I found a possible answer chipped into a rock ledge, submerged by the sea at high tide. It was almost worn away by the constant surf, and it was miraculous I found it. I would not have but for a local fisherman who knew the shore well. One of my finest discoveries!”

  “If the fisherman knew of it, it wasn’t precisely a discovery now, was it, Professor?” Cade asked. Karigan espied a mischievous glint in his eye.

  The professor harrumphed. “Semantics! To him it was nothing. To those of us searchin
g for the stories of the past, it was a breakthrough. Now make yourself useful, student, and fetch my journal.”

  “Yes, Professor. I am your obedient servant.” Cade bowed with an affectionate smile for his teacher and headed for the desk.

  “Cheeky lad,” the professor said good-naturedly.

  Cade rummaged through various drawers before producing a worn leather book tied with a string. The professor said nothing until Cade placed the journal in his hands, leaving Karigan to wait in suspense. The whistle of the tea kettle pierced the silence, and Cade sauntered off to attend to it.

  The professor untied the journal and rested it on his knees. As he flipped through the pages. Karigan caught images of diagrams and sketches, and copious writing. It brought to mind the memory of Yates’ sketching in his own journal as they sat in camp so many nights in Blackveil. His duty had been to map and document their journey, and she’d seen some of his beautiful drawings of other members of the company, as well as that of the flora and fauna there. She closed her eyes trying to push the images away, for they were suffused with sorrow and loss.

  By the time Cade returned with a tea tray and poured, the professor had found the page he was looking for. He turned the journal so Karigan could see it right side up. His drawing showed the figure of a man with some sort of helm or headdress who held a shield and an oblong object like a sword or rod. Three ships with triangular sails and curled bows and sterns, with lines dashed through the hulls that must have been oars, seemed to sail away on surging waves from the male figure. Beneath the picture the professor had written in a strange script.

  “This is what I found chipped into that rock ledge,” he said. “The script is a primitive form of Old Sacoridian and it says, Anschilde, son of Ansofil, chief of men, bearer of the erangol. Erangol roughly translates to ‘dragonfly.’ The rest of the inscription has weathered away.”

  Bearer of the dragonfly? Karigan wondered.

  “However,” the professor continued, “the Second Age historian, Havoness, relates the legend of Anschilde, who banished the sea kings by using his ‘dragonfly device,’ perhaps a weapon with arcane qualities. Anschilde was considered a great leader and was something of a king of his day after his defeat of the sea kings. The few historical references I can access disagree about whether or not armies and battles were involved or if it was just Anschilde and his dragonfly device. I was lucky to find that unpurged volume of Havoness.” He glanced fondly at his library of damaged books.

  “What does this have to do with the tombs?” she asked.

  The professor slapped his journal shut, and Karigan jumped, almost spilling her tea. “Patience, my dear, I am getting there. Now, there are other elusive references to this incident with Anschilde, but most interesting is what’s handed down orally in the east about him and his weapon. Stories are passed down, despite suppression by the empire, and tell how the dragonfly device became a revered heirloom of Anschilde’s line, later known as Clan Sealender. No one after Anschilde knew how to use it or even what it was capable of—if anything—besides sending away the sea kings.

  “Oral tradition holds that the heirloom was hidden away during the Scourge after the Long War so it would not be destroyed, and then brought to Sacor City when the Sealenders ascended the throne. Then it vanished altogether about the time the first Sealender king died. One concludes it was interred with him in the royal tombs.”

  “Ah,” she said, “so this is what Silk is after. This heirloom, this dragonfly device.” It seemed more than plausible to her such an object would be hidden in the tombs, if it really existed in the first place.

  “Yes,” the professor replied. “You see, he too, did much research into the sea kings, trying to excavate along the coast. Back then we were still on friendly terms, sharing in our discoveries, so he, too, knew of Anschilde’s device. In fact, I suspect he may know more.” He glowered. “Little did I realize he was just using me back then, on top of his access to a library of forbidden books hidden away in the emperor’s palace. Naturally, as the scion of one of the emperor’s inner circle, Silk would seek ways to further the empire for his own benefit, to be rewarded with immortality as his father had been. Finding the dragonfly device would be a coup because by handing it over to the emperor, Silk would insure that the emperor could not be threatened by it. We, the opposition, of course, desire it in case the old stories are true. We would like to banish the Sea King Reborn. You were my best hope, my dear, for helping us to find another way into the tombs, a way to get there before Silk.”

  She sat and stared at the steam rising from the teacup warming her hands. The vapor twisted and drifted in a ghostly dance, dissipating long before it reached the high ceiling. Was there a way to help the professor without giving away the secrets of the tombs? Could she do so while minimizing her entanglements in this world’s problems? If Silk was going to excavate his way into the tombs—and she could not imagine how he’d get through all the rubble and solid granite bedrock—wouldn’t she rather the professor reach them first? But if the tombs remained intact and contained powerful relics of the past, she preferred that no one enter them.

  She found it interesting how forcefully the taboo concerning the tombs kept her silence. Few were permitted entrance: only royalty, the Weapons who guarded the dead, and the caretakers who tended the tombs. Rules had been bent to allow Karigan to enter and then leave again. Interlopers were not usually permitted to see the living sun ever again, and were doomed to live out their lives in the tombs assisting the caretakers.

  If the tombs had survived the devastation of Sacor City, they were the last bastion of old Sacoridia remaining in this time, and she was reluctant to see them overrun and defeated as the rest of the realm had been.

  “How does Dr. Silk plan to reach the tombs?” she asked. “How can he excavate through all the rock?”

  Cade and the professor exchanged glances.

  “A drill,” the professor replied.

  “A drill?” Karigan was incredulous, trying to imagine workers pounding and pounding on iron hand drills. Even with a multitude of drills and workers, it would take decades to reach the tombs. The thought eased her mind until the professor explained.

  “My dear, do not forget this is the modern age, the age of machines. Silk’s drill is not the simple tool of your era, but a gigantic instrument powered by a steam engine. Once the site is made ready and all is set in place, it will take no time at all for the drill to work through the castle ruins and bedrock. Weeks. A couple of months at the most.”

  His words shook her, the idea of such inhuman power.

  “Which is another reason why,” the professor said, “it is time to step up the opposition.”

  “You must destroy the drill!” Karigan said.

  “Even if it can be destroyed,” Cade said, “it can be remade.”

  “Machines can be tampered with,” the professor said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, “and work sites compromised. Even if Silk can remake the drill, it would slow him down, buy us time. Unfortunately, the warehouse it resides in is too well guarded.”

  “The work site will be, too,” Cade said.

  “Perhaps, but Silk’s men can’t possibly secure the entire mount. We shall see, we shall see . . . I will have to consult with our brethren to find out what they know of such things, so we can prepare.”

  He left the armchair for his desk. He sat and searched through drawers, producing paper, pen, and ink, and then writing furiously and with such focus that Karigan and Cade might as well not have existed. Cade shrugged, collected the empty teacups on a tray, and carried them away to the kitchen.

  As Karigan watched the professor work, she wondered just exactly what had been set in motion.

  THE TRAINING OF CADE HARLOWE

  Neither Cade nor the professor paid Karigan any mind. The professor stayed at his desk scribbling away on papers, and after Cade dep
osited the tea tray in the kitchen, he proceeded to the training area without a glance in her direction.

  She switched chairs so she could watch Cade work. First he removed his suit coat, and then his waistcoat, hanging them on a brass hook on the wall. Perhaps conscious of her gaze, this time he did not remove his shirt. He next looked over the weapons arrayed before him on wall mounts, and after some consideration, chose a longsword. He stood with it at his side for some time, his eyes closed and head bowed, chest rising with slow, deep breaths.

  Karigan waited and waited, while he stood there breathing, wondering when he would begin. If he were one of Drent’s students, he’d have been pounded into the ground already, solely for standing there, with Drent screaming in his face. Sword fighting was not about peaceful contemplation but acting, and Drent never let his trainees forget it, for in a real-life fight, hesitation meant death. Enemies did not wait for an opponent to be ready.

  Finally, Cade moved slowly and deliberately into some warm-up exercises, stretching his limbs and torso. This, too, went on for far longer than Drent would have ever permitted, and Karigan found herself tapping her fingers on the armrest of her chair.

  She settled in when he finally, and swiftly, transitioned to forms, the sword arcing through the air with a bright silver gleam. He began with simple, beginner moves, gradually progressing to intermediate and more advanced forms. It was much as she had observed before—his posture and balance were very good, but his execution lacked finesse. Some of his transitions were rough, and a couple of the forms were plainly incorrect. Drent, she thought, would have enjoyed tearing Cade Harlowe apart.

  After he tried to sweep from Crayman’s Circle into Aspen Leaf—very advanced moves—and executed them so poorly, she could stand it no longer. Before she knew it, she was on her feet and crossing over to the training area with her bonewood in hand. She halted before him, but he seemed determined to ignore her, and she had to admire his focus, though the longer she stood there, the more his movements became jerky, less clean, her proximity having some effect on him. No, Drent would not approve.