Mirrorworld

by Daniel Jordan

  And yet, Marcus mused, as the jukebox exploded and took out the entire framework of this memory with it, sending Marcus off to the Mirrorworld and the sequence of events that would bring him back here as a spectator, the story continues.

  Maybe the future didn’t have to be like the past. The Viaggiatori might have had their own reasons, and they surely hadn’t been expecting it, but they had saved him from Death, saved him from the ignoble capper that should have been his life’s finale. Now here he was, in a whole new world that he still knew very little about. Maybe he could find a purpose here. Not necessarily the purpose that the Viaggiatori were so keen to thrust upon him, either; at this time, anything might be possible. Given the choice between an uncertain future or the definite drudgery of the past, Marcus knew which he preferred, and it was the growth of that knowledge that had allowed him to break free of the influence of his younger selves. Tec had been right; this endless cloud of memory wasn’t reality. It was little more than a bad dream, and no place for a person to spend the rest of their days. So Marcus did as the old Viaggiatori had told him, and focused on his true self, ignoring the faint cries of protest from the last vestiges of his younger voices. They faded away with their respective memories as Marcus put them out of mind, slowly letting go of all thought and recollection, until he was left only with the darkness behind his eyelids. Then, just as with the passing of a nightmare comes blessed awakening, Marcus felt a solid, tangible reality begin to fold in around him, familiar voices chasing off the spectres of the night.

  “-Abandon him and get out of here, while we still can!” Helm was saying, as Marcus phased back into existence next to him.

  “Are you mad?” Tec roared. “What are we supposed to tell the Master? Sorry, the Mirrorline went a bit funny and we lost that person who you said was our only hope? Don’t be ridiculous. We either go back with him or not at all. Oh, hello Marcus,” he added cheerfully, spotting him.

  “Hi,” Marcus said. Helm yelped and leapt a foot into the air.

  “I must say,” Tec said, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief as Helm gently floated back down to ground level, or whatever passed for it in the Mirrorline, “I’m very happy to see you. I wasn’t sure if I’d managed to get through to you, and- well, it’s alright, you made it out. Jolly good.”

  “I relived my entire life,” Marcus told him. “It didn’t seem to take very long.”

  “Ah well, time’s a relative concept,” Tec said, slapping him on the back. “I’m just glad you made it out, that’s all. I understand how difficult it can be, that was the whole reason I installed the various safety barriers that for some reason completely broke down when you entered the program. Rest assured, I’ll look into that. For now you’ve managed to overcome them on your own..” he waved his hand, and the handkerchief that he was still holding suddenly became the strange handheld device that Marcus had seen him wielding in his memories. Tec now passed the device over Marcus a couple of times, before stopping to squint at the screen. “Yes, these readings should allow us to prevent that from happening again. Excellent.” He waved a hand again and the device disappeared up his sleeve. “This has been a most informative session,” he added. “From a technological point of view, at least.”

  “I was having memories like this before,” Marcus said, not really listening.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Tec said. “This was a pretty severe mess, I can see it reflecting back through time for a bit. Like I said, relative concept. Still, I’ve got my readings now, so you should be alright from here on out. I am truly sorry,” he added, more seriously. “I’m not sure if you realise how much trouble we were very nearly in. You could have been lost in the Mirrorline forever.”

  “Can we go now?” Helm interjected, sounding annoyed.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Tec said distractedly. “Sorry,” he said again to Marcus, “but we’re going to have to call it for a while. All the work I did, prepping the mirrors to give us the maximum amount of processing capacity for this, and amusingly enough we used it all up getting out of your memory rather than delving into it. Ah well, we live and learn. But yes, we should probably be leaving now.” He wiggled his fingers, and a shimmering mirror slalomed into existence next to them. “We’ll leave the Mirrorline to some nice therapeutic chaos, let it rest for a while, and re-adjourn this evening.”

  “This was a fun waste of time,” Helm said, ducking through the mirror.

  “Not so,” Tec called after him. “We might not have done what we set out to do, but we certainly learnt a lot.”

  Yes, thought a Marcus. We certainly did.

  They left the labs through the front exit, which turned out to be a well-lit elevator that was scary only in the efficiency with which it ran. Marcus stood staring at the closed doors, running back through what he had seen and heard, and so it took a moment for Helm’s wheedling tone to pierce through his reverie.

  “What?” Marcus asked.

  “I said,” Helm said, “what are we doing now?”

  “What are we doing now?”

  “I don’t know,” Helm said, visibly grappling with his patience. “That’s why I asked. Tec said come back in eight hours, so that time’s your own, and for better or worse it’s mine to pass with you. So I ask again; what’s the plan?”

  It was a good question. Marcus had, in the wake of his Mirrorline adventure, found himself in possession of a headful of half-formed plans and possibilities; none of them were yet tangible enough to be pinned down, studied and acted upon, but that would come in time. For now, he had the experience of his experiences to dwell on; there was surely more to see, and questions to be asked, but beyond that, and for the next eight hours.. nothing to be done.

  “Let’s go and get a drink,” he said.

  8

  They headed first back to Marcus’s rooms, where Marcus was surprised to discover a travelling trunk loaded with gold and silver coins of various denominations. Helm explained that the money was by way of compensation for the life from which Marcus had been uprooted, so that he might be able to exist in comfort until such time as he might be able to return to it. For his part, Marcus found the whole thing very bemusing.

  “I mean, how did they figure it out?” he asked aloud as he shovelled coins into a courier bag found in the bottom of his wardrobe. “Set amount for year? Did I get bonuses for good deeds? Who sat down and objectively worked out the net worth of my entire life?” And who severely overestimated it? he added, but only in his head, lest his benefactors readjust their spreadsheets.

  Helm offered no response beyond severely disinterested shrugs, so Marcus let the thought go, filled his satchel, shouldered his staff, and made for the front door.

  The large double doors that marked the main entrance to the House of Viaggiatori were propped open, and through them they could see that it was a wild and windy day, with a splattering of moisture in the air. That in mind, Helm directed them into a cloakroom off to the side. There hung within a large variety of coats and cloaks of various lengths, styles and colours that Helm explained were all basically owned by no one and for hire for anyone going out into the city. Most of them were in Viaggiatori colours – that is to say, horrendous shades of yellows, pinks and purples – but there were a fair few that wore a darker hue. Marcus made for a knee-length, high collared button-up affair that was either solid black or else so dark a purple that he couldn’t tell the difference. Shrugging it on, he was surprised to see Helm also pick out a dark jacket, and voiced this opinion aloud.

  “Yes, well,” the Viaggiatori muttered, “we’re not exactly popular in the city at large right now..”

  “Right, yeah, the Keithus thing,” Marcus reminded himself, buttoning up.

  “Yes. For some reason the good folks of Portruss find it objectionable that we provoked the wizard into becoming a threat to the city at large. Can’t think why. It’s not so bad out there yet, but time will come when someone out in the city flaunting Via
ggiatori colours will be asking to be mobbed. Now, a man in a dark cloak, even if it is a fine cloak, he could be anybody, and personally I’d rather be nobody than nobbled.”

  Marcus thought that this was the most sense Helm had made so far. Readjusting his bag and staff, he followed the man back through the entrance hall, and out into the city.

  From the outside, the House of Viaggiatori was all pillarwork and staircases, sitting slightly elevated from the wide plaza that it opened onto. This square was much wider and more open than the one Marcus had seen the previous day, and far busier with it; as he descended the stairs with Helm, they found themselves having to fight to not be swept away on a passing wave of people. Businessmen in sharp suits mingled with casually-dressed tourists, bellowing traders and occasional horse-drawn carriages, mixing together with those who shared their direction to create a constant ebb and flow of traffic. Every so often, small islands of calm would open up as the flowing feet receded, and it was by hopping across these physical reprieves that Marcus and Helm made their way to the centre of the square. Here they found a large ornamental fountain pool, where even in the blustery weather some locals were to be found taking their ease, watching the wind blow the world by.

  Marcus sat and joined them, drinking in the feel of a new place, running his eye over the various feats of architecture that ringed the square. Most notable was the ridiculously tall tower that he had seen the previous day, which stood directly opposite the House of Viaggiatori, splitting the overcast sky in defiance of all laws of possibility. Between the two stood a cathedral-like structure that, amongst almost any other company, Marcus would have described as ‘tall’, and an ominous, emphatically oblong stone building that put him in mind of an old castle keep that had been jury-rigged for hundreds of years and was in constant danger of falling to pieces at any moment. It lay in the shadow of its neighbours like a discarded brick, the final ingredient of a rather eclectic mix.

  “Where now?” Helm asked suddenly, derailing Marcus’s train of thought.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, inwardly marvelling at the man’s ability to annoy him so thoroughly with a mere two words. “My tour guide isn’t being very co-operative.”

  “Alright, alright,” Helm said grumpily. “What do you want to know?”

  “Ideally,” Marcus said, “you could start by telling me where we are, and what this square is, and what all of these buildings are. And I mean start big, because I don’t even remember what this city’s called.”

  “It’s Portruss,” Helm told him, and, with a sigh, resigned himself to his fate. “Named for the river Russ, which is in turn named for the blood that it ran red with when the tribes that settled the city fought over the land. But if a tourist asks, it’s named for the coppery glint that the river takes during the sunset, best viewed from the heights of Central Plaza. Which is here.”

  “With you so far,” Marcus said. “The buildings?”

  “Well, Central Plaza isn’t named for being central, that’s for sure. In fact, considering the placing of the city walls, the true centre of the city is probably somewhere just north of the river. But it’s the highest point, and, because power loves a view, it’s where all of the city’s important political forces and figures have made their home. Hence the fancy buildings.”

  “They are fancy. So who are these political forces?”

  “Well, obviously there’s us,” Helm said importantly. “The Viaggiatori are a major presence in the city, and we contribute a lot to its upkeep. That’s why even in troubled times no-one’s been throwing bricks through our windows. That and the windows are really high up.”

  “Yet you still won’t go out in a purple coat,” Marcus put in.

  “Well,” Helm began, pausing to tap again into his well-hidden pool of wisdom, “a single person creates a whole different image to a discreetly mysterious organisation. A mysterious organisation can go around being spooky all they want, but what can one person do? We’re not like wizards; bunch of hacks and cheats though they are, they could blow a man’s head off at ten paces given cause. We are, at heart, scientists, and there’s not much a scientist can do against a gang looking to mug him in a dark alley. So we don’t downplay the rumours, but we don’t confirm them, either.. hell, it’s just so I don’t get bothered in the street, really. And look, have we been bothered yet?

  Marcus had to admit, they hadn’t. But then, the people streaming past lacked the worried intensity of the people he’d seen listening to the preachers the day before. Presumably they had other things to think about.. After all, Eira had suggested that the threat of Keithus was quite a distant one. “Who else is around, then?”

  “The wizards,” Helm said, pointing at the tall tower. Though it was set back somewhat from the square proper, growing out of its well-groomed grounds like the world’s most tenacious weed, it still dominated the skyline. Unnerving as it was, this revelation about the tower’s occupants oddly made it much easier for Marcus to accept in his life; architectural impossibilities were much easier to swallow when they could be hand-waved away on account of ‘magic’.

  “The wizards have also taken a fair bit of damage to their reputation over the Keithus incident,” Helm was continuing, in a voice that silently added and I couldn’t be happier about that to the end of this utterance, “but to be honest, there’s not a lot they could have done. They keep quiet on how exactly they manage their levels of power, but it was obvious Keithus was the strongest of them by far. It took four of them to restrain him, the day he came to us, and they knew he’d escape, given time. I guess that’s why they threw him out of the city, rather than dealing with him..” he trailed off, and shrugged. “Well too late for that. In any case, I don’t like them. They sit in their tower with all their arcane knowledge, sharing but a trickle of it with the rest of us. Gets my back right up.”

  “As opposed to the Viaggiatori who freely tell everyone what they do?” Marcus asked, surprised at the hypocrisy.

  “Well, we’re doing the world a service,” Helm said, wearing his associative self-importance like a shroud. “We’re working with dangerous materials, trying to make sure tomorrow follows today with no hiccoughs. But magic.. that can be used in different ways. Exploited. Look at Keithus. By all accounts he raised an army in the north in only a couple of months. That’s not natural. Plus he’s killed people. That day he came over to us, demanding to be let through, it did not end well.”

  Marcus sighed, because every reminder of Keithus was a reminder that somehow, one man and his stolen scythe were supposed to be the key to stopping him, and that one man wasn’t entirely convinced that this was an idea he could get behind. That in mind, he moved on to the next building.

  “What’s that place?”

  He nodded towards the cathedral, which cut a spikily Gothic figure against the stoic, Roman face of the House of Viaggiatori. Before the square, pointed bell towers stretched skyward, feebly straining to seem relevant next to the wizard’s tower. Behind and around them, various arced and domed but no less spiky structures made up the bulk of the building. The overall effect was of a building that practically begged to be ominously illuminated by flashes of lightning during a thunderstorm, and would probably look conspicuously out of place on a sunny day.

  “That,” Helm said, “is Bedlam Palace, wherein you’ll find our representatives for our major religions. Usually too busy arguing with each other to make trouble for us, thankfully.”

  “Are they all united?” Marcus asked, surprised.

  “Not at all. Everyone believes something different. But they all believe in something. I understand the theory is that one day they’ll be able to decide on what it is. They might even get it right.”

  “You’re not a religious man, then, Helm?”

  “Pah,” the Viaggiatori spat. “In a world with magic of many kinds, who has any idea when something is the work of a god or not? Even if one materialised before me right now, I’d be looking for the str
ings and clockwork. But, this notion people get, this need to believe in something.. I don’t know if it’s just inherent to anyone who strides the universe, or if it’s leaked over from the people on your side. See, we have higher powers. Wizarding magic, and the entirety of the Mirrorline. There’s no need to believe in it, it just is. It doesn’t incarnate, it doesn’t think. It just is. And yet.. people believe.”

  Marcus didn’t say anything. He was impressed, though; when Helm wasn’t too busy spitting venom, or at least spitting it in a direction other than Marcus, the man said things that were quite interesting, especially to someone who had long since given up on any concept of belief. Then again, Marcus’s sojourn into memory had reminded him that he’d pretty much given up on every concept full stop at this point, so if there was a universal standard for knowing what to lose and what to keep hold of, he could hardly claim to adhere to it. It must be nice, he thought, to know what you believe.

  Helm was still talking, muttering something about a gigantic mirror that was part of the centrepiece in the temple and how it was a tragedy that they wouldn’t let the Viaggiatori make use of it, but at that moment, someone in the surrounding throng wandered by eating something out of a small container that smelt distractingly ravishing. “Where do we get food?” Marcus asked.

  “..for the last two hundred years. What?”