by Jane Kindred
She’d given her word that she would obey. Whether her word had power after all or not, she opened her mouth obediently, not wanting to alert him that anything might be amiss. Pike placed it on her tongue, but he stood too far back for her to make the attempt with the knife. She would have only one opportunity. The pill was bitter and powdery, disintegrating on her tongue before she swallowed it, leaving an iron-like tang in her mouth.
Ra grimaced as she swallowed. “What’s in it? I need water.”
Pike dropped the pouch back into his bag. “It’s ground Meerheart.”
Ra’s stomach lurched, and she nearly expelled the pill, but couldn’t quite. The Meeric histories told stories of hunting Meer for sport, exacting a vetma and then consuming the Meer’s flesh to ensure the fulfillment of the “petitioner’s” desire. Meeric relics, made from the parts that weren’t eaten, had remained as a vile, black-market trade even during the Meeric Age when the Deltans had revered their gods. And Nesre had given parts of a long-dead Meer to Pearl to consume for his vile experiments.
Rage was building in her once more, but before she could do something foolish, Pike obliged her by taking a canteen of water from his bag and coming close to hold it for her while she drank. Ra tilted her head back, let him pour the water into her mouth and brought the knife swiftly out of its sheath. Pike was baffled, not comprehending what she’d done to him until he staggered back and stumbled off the blade.
He looked down in disbelief at the bloodstain spreading over his abdomen. She’d gotten him high, just under the ribs.
“You unbelievable bitch,” he wheezed, and collapsed on the ground, crumpling like an empty suit.
With Pike no longer a threat, the adrenaline that had been keeping Ra alert was vastly diminished. She needed to get to his key somehow and unlock her other wrist—or she could dislocate it as well, but she’d rather not.
Behind her, the glass began to shudder with a strange vibration, the sound of voices, but raised to such a pitch it was unrecognizable as language. Fractures formed in the glass, tiny cracks and little holes rattling out of it, until the panel disintegrated completely into pieces that, like Nesre’s cage when Pearl had shattered it, rained down in a single, tidy sheet like falling stardust. At the same moment, the glass in front of her rippled like a viscous fluid, revealing what lurked in the depths of the mirror, which was not her reflection at all. Pearl stood on the other side of it, his drawing implement in his hand. And beside him stood a broad-shouldered, bronze-skinned man with a golden queue of obviously Meeric hair. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him. His open mouth soundlessly formed a word she couldn’t make out.
“I told you she would have everything under control.” The voice swam toward her as though from a dream as Ra began to relinquish her grip on consciousness. She turned her head, making the swimming worse. Shiva stood in the darkened room beyond the shattered glass, with Ahr beside her.
“Meerrá!” With the whispered imprecation, Ahr ran to Ra’s side and dropped to her knees. “What has he done to you?”
Ra looked down at the blood and cuts, and the torn fabric of her clothes. “Just having a little game of cat and mouse,” she managed as the room went fuzzy. “Cat won.”
Twenty-eight: Impermanence
The veil between the mirror worlds was open, leaving this one once more vulnerable to the tricks and machinations of the Permanence. Shiva had to put a stop to Pearl’s magic at once.
“Take Ra to the inn,” she ordered Ahr, her eyes fixed on the hole in the veil.
“To the inn?” Ahr rose, indignant. “Can’t you see what he’s done to her? You have to help her!”
Shiva turned and gave Ahr an icy stare that shut her up. “You are not a child, you are Meer. You deal with her. I have other business to attend to.”
“Business? What business? Where?”
“Under the hill.” Without another word, Shiva walked through the mirror. Like gelatin, it gave with a thick wobble against her shape, snapping in around her as she came through on the other side. Beside the boy stood Hraethe, his eyes on her with fury and desire. He could say nothing to her. She ignored him. The other standing in the dancing light and shadow of Pearl’s glittery emanations was one she knew.
The woman smiled, with too much of a look of triumph to it for Shiva’s taste. “MeerShiva. How kind of you to come to see us after all these centuries.”
Shiva inclined her head as though they were polite acquaintances. “Mnemosyne. How did you manage to lure this boy here to do your dirty work? I suppose you induced someone to bring him to the brink of death.”
Mnemosyne’s smile dripped with disdain. “You might have felt the jeopardy he was in were you not preoccupied with your own narcissism. But when Pearl attempted to connect with your emanations in the flow, you cut him out. Who else did he have but us? The ones, after all, to whom you ought to be grateful for giving you our gift.”
“Your gift.” Shiva nearly spat the word at her. “You mean your game. You’re no better than the ordinary man who gave Pearl life for a game of his own. Stepping through the glass to spread your seed and then retreating to your safe little kingdom to watch and entertain yourselves as the ones you bred were hunted and slaughtered like animals.”
“It wasn’t our place to interfere. It was not our world.”
Shiva laughed with a pitch that threatened the mirrored walls around them. “Not your place. And yet you did nothing but interfere. Gifting humble peasants with magical children because it amused you. But it isn’t your world. You’re right about that. And you have no business trying to enter it.”
At Pearl’s side, Mnemosyne stroked the glossy lengths of the boy’s silvery hair, but he moved away from her, shuddering slightly at the touch. Little wonder, given touch was something the boy had never learned. Mnemosyne came closer to the glass where Shiva stood, the fabric of her flowing, tunic-like garment glittering with a multitude of glass sequins no larger than the head of a pin, as though she were a mirror herself.
She stretched her fingers past Shiva and wriggled them in the pliant substance through which Shiva had come. “As you see, our Pearl has rendered your vindictive curse null and void. His talents are unique, and they’ve come along nicely. We’re quite pleased.” She drew back her hand and held it up, as if to show that it was whole. “The mirror roads are once more passable. The Permanence can come and go as we please.”
Shiva casually widened her stance, resting a hand on her hip. “I think you’re mistaken.”
Mnemosyne laughed. “Your words no longer hold us. Do you think you can keep us in with a curse now that we have Pearl? His will shapes matter. His magic exceeds your word. The mirrors are permeable, and there is nothing you can do to seal us behind them.
Shiva tilted her head. “Where is your little trinket?”
Mnemosyne turned about, her feathery flaxen eyebrows drawing together in irritation as she came full circle. “Where’s he gone?” She paced toward the center of the mirrored hall, noticing at last that the other three walls were no longer glass, but instead ornately carved marble. Her demeanor was no longer amused. “Caretaker!” Her compatriot came hurrying at her call. “Where is Pearl?”
The Caretaker gaped at the solid walls. “But how can he have? I didn’t hear a thing.” She turned back, eyeing Shiva with outrage. “You! What have you done with him?”
“It is your job to know that,” Mnemosyne snapped at her, fuming.
Shiva shrugged. “I’ve done nothing at all. I believe he must have grown tired of you and has simply gone home. Which is what I intend to do.”
Mnemosyne’s colorless eyes were hard. “You can’t stop us using this mirror. Pearl has left it open.”
Shiva turned her attention at last to Hraethe, glaring daggers at her since her dismissive glance. He was truly a god of a man, just as hard and lovely as he’d been the first time she lai
d eyes on him. She grabbed him by the lapels of his robe and swung him with her in a parody of dance, hurtling through the mirror.
“Impermeable!” She flung the word out as they tumbled onto the snow outside the mill, and heard one last furious shriek from Mnemosyne before the glass solidified and then shattered around them, taking the portal with it.
Hraethe was on his hands and knees above her when they landed, fists digging into the shards of glass littering the hard packed snow beside the frozen river. Impotent rage boiled in the molten bronze of his eyes.
“Speak,” she said, and loosed his tongue.
“I ought to kill you,” he snarled, and kissed her instead, and she fell, tumbling, into the indescribable infinity of the Meeric embrace.
Twenty-nine: Emanation
Edging back into the shadows he’d painted while MeerShiva and Mnemosyne traded barbs, Pearl had heard his name whispered. Ra was safe—or as safe as she could be—and his instincts told him to retreat.
Someone he’d never seen before beckoned to him, her presentation that of a gentleman in morning trousers, shirtsleeves and a striped waistcoat, but her essence a woman’s. He approached her, wary, but too curious to resist finding out who she was and how she’d come to be there. She looked nothing like the Permanence, though he thought he must have seen her somewhere before.
“I’m Cree. A friend of Ume’s. She’s been searching for you.” Cree held out her hand. “I’ve come to take you to her.”
Ume hadn’t abandoned him. It was all Pearl needed to hear.
“I’m not quite sure how to get back,” Cree admitted as he came closer. She nodded toward the mirror where he’d drawn Hraethe under the hill. “But I came through here.”
Pearl took her hand, and with the crayon he still held, he filled in the edges of the bathing chamber that had begun to run in the steam, bringing it into focus once more. He tugged at Cree’s hand, jerking his head toward the glass.
“Just…step into it?” Cree looked dubious, but when Pearl nodded, she took a resolute breath and moved forward. In an instant, they were in the bathing chamber at Ludtaht Ra, but Cree had overstepped the mirror, and they tumbled into the bathwater, floundering in surprise.
Running footsteps sounded in the passageway, someone drawn by the noise they’d made.
“Cree! What on earth—?” Ume appeared in the arch, struck speechless at the sight of Pearl. After a moment of frozen inaction, she rushed forward to help him from the water and threw her arms around him, kneeling by the bath as Cree climbed out. “You dear, sweet boy. We’ve been trying to find a way back to you for ages. How did you get to him, Cree?”
“It was Merit.” Cree peeled out of her sodden waistcoat. “I mean, MeerHraethe. He opened a portal somehow, and I saw him go in, so I followed.”
Ume glanced up at her. “You followed Hraethe into the bath?”
Cree blushed furiously. “No! Into the mirror. I had a terrible feeling he’d try to get under the way…the way Pearl and I got under, and I came to stop him, and saw him disappear.” At their feet, the mirror lay shattered in pieces. Cree looked back at the water. The pastel crayon had dissolved into an oily glob, floating among the candles. The reflection of the other realm was gone. “I think we may have him trapped there. I should have called to him.”
Pearl shook his head. “Shiva.” It was the most he could manage.
“Was that who she was?” Cree gave a little shudder as though a mouse had run up her spine. “I suppose she has everything in hand.”
Pearl had begun to shiver, and Cree grabbed the plush towels from the bench and wrapped him in one before putting the other over her shoulders. Ume rubbed the towel over his arms, smiling as if she’d never been so happy to see anyone, her eyes a bit damp, though it was probably the steam. Having believed until now that she’d left him with the Permanence willingly, Pearl had to blink his own eyes against the humidity in the face of her obvious affection.
At the ribbons on his wrists, she hesitated, her brow furrowing. “Pearl, you hurt yourself before.”
Cree paused in running the towel over her dark curls. “It was my fault. My vetma.”
Pearl looked up at her. He remembered now where he’d seen her before—from his throne in Szofl, granting petitions. Hers had been the last one he’d answered: “Please take this burden from me.”
She regarded him with chestnut eyes heavy with remorse. “I’m so sorry.”
Pearl shook his head. He knew it hadn’t been her wish, that someone had sent her there to do something she wanted with all her heart not to do. Her sadness had been unbearable, and granting her vetma had been a way to solve his own predicament, to put a stop to the terrible visions he couldn’t escape.
Ume pressed his hand. “Pearl. I want to tell you about Cree—”
“Don’t.” Cree shook her head at Ume with a silent, adamant communication.
But the words in Ume’s head were already set loose on the tide of Meeric vision. Tears he couldn’t blink away blurred Pearl’s eyes. She’s your mother, the words promised. He had a mother. Pearl threw himself into Cree’s arms.
The walk back to town with Ra in her arms was like another time Ahr had carried her. Though now it was her Meeric strength that allowed her to carry Ra, before it had been Ahr’s male physique—and Ra had weighed little then, having spent weeks refusing food.
She’d tried to drown herself after destroying Prelate Vithius at Ludtaht Ra, stepping into the Anamnesis with a promise to Ahr that Ra’s second death would be atonement for the theft of Mila. Ahr hadn’t wanted Ra’s death on his head twice. That was what he’d told himself when he’d fished her from the river and breathed life back into her lungs. Now here they were again, Ra on the brink of death, and Ahr carrying her. And again, Ahr was the cause of it.
As Ahr had carried Ra up the steps to the temple, she carried her now up the steps of the tavern. Patrons at the bar gave her a wide berth. No one tried to help.
Jak sprang forward from a booth at the rear, asking no questions as they took Ra up to the rented room and laid her on the bed, but the anxiousness and worry on Jak’s face said everything. Ahr couldn’t look into the steel eyes.
She stepped back to let Jak tend to Ra after bringing water and a flannel from the basin. “She’s lost a great deal of blood. But the bleeding has stopped. She must be healing. Perhaps even if she isn’t consciously aware of her power, her body is. She’ll be all right.”
“No thanks to you.” So Jak had something to say after all.
“Jak—”
“No, I’m sorry. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that.”
Ahr twisted the damp flannel in her hands. “If I could undo—”
“Do you know how many times she’s said that to me?” Jak took the flannel and cleaned the blood from Ra’s face. Despite the cuts and bruises, Ra looked peaceful in her restorative sleep. “Your words—and your actions—can’t be taken back. You’re Meer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For soothsake, Ahr. Don’t be sorry you’re Meer. It’s like me being sorry about my lack of gender. And there’s no point in it. Shiva’s words and actions can’t be taken back either.” Jak glanced up before Ahr could look away. “And I wouldn’t have them taken back. She returned you to me.”
Ahr brushed away a bit of blood at the corner of her eye. “You should hate me.”
“Well, I’m pretty fucking angry with you, Ahr, I won’t deny it.” Jak wrung out the cloth with a sharp twist into the bowl Ahr held, turning the water pink. “But I don’t hate you. We’ll get through this. You kept Pike from killing her. You brought her back. That’s a start.”
Ahr lifted her shoulders in a self-deprecating shrug. “I didn’t stop Pike. Shiva and I shattered Pike’s box, but Ra had managed, even without magic. Pike was bleeding on the floor from her knife when we arrived.”
�
�Where is Shiva?” Jak moved on to the dried blood on Ra’s arms, apparently afraid to see what was under the blood-soaked sweater. “Isn’t she coming?”
“She said she had ‘business’ to attend to. She went through the mirror.”
Jak paused. “Through the mirror?”
“There were people there.” Ahr shrugged again. “She said she was going under the hill.”
The steel eyes widened. “Under the hill? You mean like…Hidden Folk?”
“I suppose so. I was more concerned with Ra.”
Jak gave a nod and a headshake in the same motion, looking overwhelmed. “As we should be now. I guess we’d better get her out of these.” Jak studied the tight fabric of the brown sweater and form-hugging trousers as though trying to figure out how to remove them. “I think we’re going to need—”
“Scissors.” Ahr handed them to Jak as they materialized, tucking the basin within the curve of one arm.
Jak gave her a wry smile. “Handy, that Meeric blood, isn’t it?”
Cutting the soaked fabric of the sweater up the middle with difficulty, Jak revealed what lay beneath the shredded wool with a gasp of surprise. There were multiple knife wounds, to be sure, and a great deal of blood, but the lacerations were all closed up and dry, and well on their way to healing. Ra had reclaimed her power after all.
Thirty: Rapprochement
Ra woke between the sheets of a tavern inn bed, her body protesting the event with a host of twinges and aches, but feeling on the whole a great deal better than she had the night before. Though the bedsheets were grayed and scratchy and patched, and the bed was hard and full of lumps, it was the most glorious bed in which Ra had ever woken. Ahr lay beside her, deep clove-colored hair in tiny waves against her head catching the subdued winter sunlight, the bare olive skin of one arm stretched across the covers.
Ra rolled over and breathed in the scent of her. Bergamot and black tea. She swore she could smell it, as if Ahr were still the girl at the teahouse who had come out to see the god go by in his golden litter.