The Maiden in the Mirror

by Scott Hamerton

  "Then it is my errand to complete. I will not risk any more men that are unwilling. The Phoenix will carry the survivors to the nearest port and I will send a ship to collect you."

  "What did he do, Captain? What was so bad that you would toss your whole fleet to ruin for revenge?"

  "He took something very important from me. I want him to suffer for it."

  "Is that it? Plunder? You risk life and limb for the sake of a trinket?"

  Captain Black's face reformed the scowl that most often graced it, and Captain Apples looked away under the realization that he had just crossed a line.

  "He took far more than a trinket, Apples. He took something that I cannot get back, and I will bring all the hells to his doorstep if I must. Get on the Phoenix. Your legs will mend. We can replace your ship. You will fly again."

  Black turned his back to his friend and walked away, but Apples didn't move to follow.

  "No, I don't think I will. I will go with you to port, but from there, we are finished. I hope luck finds you, sir. You're going to need it."

  Chapter 75

  Mirror Mirror

  Olbus eased open the door to his cabin, carrying a plate of hot food in his hand. The bowl from the morning still sat beside Minerva on the floor, untouched. For a time, he considered leaving without speaking, but the profound loneliness that suffused the space prompted him to act.

  "Is she still there?" he asked, standing beside Minerva and exchanging the old bowl for the new one.

  Minerva sat with her knees pulled in tight to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She stared blank-faced at the image of a weary girl in a full-length mirror. Sometimes she flicked her toes.

  "Is who still there?" she asked, speaking for the first time in three days.

  Olbus moved to her side, looking down at her reflection. "The scared little girl."

  "No. She's gone."

  Olbus lowered himself to the floor, sitting exactly as Minerva sat, adding his own solemn reflection to the mirror. "What do you see now?"

  "A murderer."

  It was a heavy word. A powerful word. Olbus gave it time to disperse, and then he stretched his arm out and pointed at the Olbus in the mirror. "He's a murderer, too, because he broke a promise."

  "What promise?" Minerva asked, looking only into her own eyes.

  "The promise to be a good man. He promised someone he loved very much that he would care for her, and never leave her. But he did leave her, and he lost her, because he broke that promise."

  "What did he do after that?"

  "He let anger consume him, and he became obsessed with revenge."

  "Is that why he became a pirate?"

  "No. He became a pirate because it was already too late to be anything else."

  "Why can't he go back? Why was it too late?"

  "Because it is too late to forgive. Too late to forget. For a long time, all he felt was regret. However, one day he met someone very special who taught him that it was not too late for some things. That if he wanted, he could still be a good man."

  Minerva leaned her head over onto Olbus' shoulder and he put his arm around her. "What does he feel now?"

  "Sadness. Fear. And always regret."

  "Why?"

  "Sadness, because he cannot give a very special girl everything that she deserves. Fear, because he knows that sometimes he cannot protect her. And regret, because he has learned far too late what it means to be a good man."

  "Is that all he feels?"

  "Sometimes, in rare moments when he is the most vulnerable, and only if he permits it, he feels hope."

  "What moments?"

  Olbus turned down to face her and waited for her to look him in the eyes. "When she smiles."

  Minerva felt a single ray of light pierce the complete darkness of her saddened heart, and she smiled back. "Does it ever go away? The regret."

  "No," he sighed. "Regret is like a scar on the minds of good people. It fades with time, but it never heals."

  Chapter 76

  Drawing a Line

  After four days, Olbus refused to bring Minerva food. He said, as kindly as he could, that the crew was very worried about her, and that hiding from them was only worrying them further. Therefore, she found herself in the galley, arriving late to a very quiet dinner.

  A suffocating silence overtook the galley as Minerva entered, stifling even the scent of the freshly cooked meal. Every sailor observed her intently, but indirectly, as she took her tin plate from the pile and went to get her food.

  Big Jim said nothing while he loaded it, and as she turned to seek a seat, she saw the twins at their table. They sat with a gap between them, beckoning her over with a friendly face and a warm hand. When she sat, they went back to eating. After a time, they all went back to eating. Nobody wanted to be the first to say anything, so no one said anything. In time, the dinner dispersed and the sailors went to the places that off-duty sailors go. Minerva went to the crow's nest.

  Nezzen gave Minerva a broad smile as she climbed into his home. She hadn't brought her hairbrush, and he didn't ask for it.

  "Thank you for your help," she said, after carefully considering how to start the conversation.

  Nezzen nodded. "You looked like you could use it."

  "Was it that obvious?"

  "No, but what kind of lookout would I be if I didn't see what others could not?" Nezzen always employed a totally deadpan delivery on his jokes, and they fit her mood just right.

  "I was really scared," she said. "I thought I was going to die. I don't know what I would have done without you."

  "You would have done everything you could think of because that is who you are. You are the type of person that suppresses their courage, rather than rallies it."

  "The more I hear about it, the more that courage sounds like a fancy explanation for a poorly executed plan that borders on stupidity."

  "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity."

  "Oh? What is it?"

  "Success."

  "Ha! So, the line is drawn only once you've crossed it?"

  "Precisely. And since you're still sitting here, I would say you haven't crossed it yet."

  "Is it not possible to be brave and still fail?"

  "It is. But that is a far harder line to find."

  "I think you're just making things up, now."

  "Maybe. Maybe I'm just saying whatever I think will make you happy."

  "Well, not to encourage you too much, but it might be working."

  Nezzen opened the belly of the tiny stove and eased another piece of wood into the coals. He really did have everything up here. Everything except his friends.

  "Here, I have something for you," Nezzen said, as he opened a sack and withdrew a large ball of thin strands, all wound together. It had a solid brown color to it.

  Minerva took the ball from his hand. It was soft, wiry and light. She recognized it immediately, but feared acknowledging the truth. "Where did you get this?" she asked.

  "From the sails, after the spiders were gone. I thought it was silk when I first found it, but it's not. Bundles of it streamed from the shrouds, and interspersed the threads of the sailcloth. It's in the wood around the helm. On the gun deck. In the galley. Jim says the men are finding it in the dark corners of the hold, between the layers of the hull and all throughout the boards. It is a completely new part of the ship, never seen before. Now it's everywhere, binding the Skyraker together. It's the only reason we are still able to fly."

  Minerva felt the strands carefully, caressing it and brushing it with her palms. "What would have happened if nobody came to rescue me?"

  "I don't know. But I know someone who does."

  Lintumen, she thought, and she sighed, fearful of how that conversation would go.

  "Have you spoken to him yet?" Nezzen asked.

  Minerva hung her head and tried to pretend that she didn't know what Nezzen meant. "I'm afraid to," she said, when her efforts failed to dodge his questi
on.

  "He will try to help you, Minerva. I promise."

  "I know. That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

  Minerva felt the fuzz in her hands a few more times, stretching and squeezing it between her fingers. There was no mistaking what she was holding. The color. The texture. It was a massive tangle of her own hair.

  Chapter 77

  The Navigator

  Lintumen beckoned Minerva into his cabin, motioning for her to sit at the table in the opposite chair. She could see that he had been waiting for her to arrive, possibly for quite some time. After she sat, he didn't immediately say anything. He merely held a triumphant expression, making her wish that she could crawl out of her own skin and hide behind it.

  "Good evening, my dear. You come seeking answers, of course. I must say, you have impressed me."

  Minerva felt her temper rise. He said it like it was a good thing.

  "Please, ask away, and I will gladly answer your inquiries."

  Minerva contemplated what she wanted to ask and considered the responses she might elicit. "How do I stop being a magician?" she finally said, in a very pointed way.

  Lintumen balked and stuttered on his words. "You don't want to be a magician?"

  "No. I don't want it."

  "You desire to be—less than you are?" he asked, and a profound confusion wrinkled his brow.

  "I don't want to know about magic," she said, a lump of regret choked her throat. "I don't want to be that kind of tailor. I don't want to be able to change the world on a whim. I don't want assassins of shadow trying to recruit me into their murderous councils. I don't want to fly ships with my mind, or kill sailors by only thinking about it! I don't want to know how any of this works! I don't! Want! Any of it!"

  With every word, Minerva's voice grew in strength and volume, until at last she was standing rather than sitting, and was screaming with all her might into Lintumen's startled face. Minerva breathed deeply, attempting to calm herself, but remained on her feet.

  "I just want to be ordinary," she begged.

  "I'm afraid that's not possible."

  "It is possible!" Minerva slammed her hands upon the table with enough force to bounce and scatter the contents. "You said I could do anything if I could imagine it! How do I go back?"

  Lintumen had never looked so defeated. "I suppose, if you can convince yourself—that is, truly convince yourself—then I suppose." Lintumen tapped his fingers idly on the table, following the grooves and avoiding her eyes. "Then I suppose you have."

  "That's it? Just like everything else, I just need to believe?"

  "That's all there ever is."

  Minerva eased back into her seat, awash with relief. "I'm scared, Lintumen."

  Lintumen didn't reply. Perhaps out of fear himself.

  "I killed those men because I couldn't control it. It felt like I was fading away. I could see and hear, but it was different. Everything far away was dull and grey, and everything close to me was bright and terrifying. I could move things without touching them, and do things without being there. But I couldn't control it. All I felt was anger, and it took me over. I've never been so scared." Minerva pulled out the weave of hair that Nezzen had given her and put it on the table. "I don't want to feel that way ever again. I never want to be able to do that."

  Lintumen lifted the hair from the table and held it thoughtfully in his hands, pulling it apart and poking a hole in its center before pushing it back together again. "Do you know what a bezoar is?"

  Minerva shook her head.

  "It's a collection of indigestible material that develops in the stomachs of many creatures. They can be composed of many things, although hair is certainly one of the most common. In many cultures, a bezoar is said to capture demonic spirits and absorb unwanted emotions."

  Lintumen ceased toying with the mass in his hands and turned it over to her.

  "Sometimes, a thing that is not a person can have a will of its own. Much like the magical sword stowed in your bun, this permits the object to perform its own kind of magic, in its own way. Rarely do we experience such a will directly, but it can manifest openly, if the will is strong enough. Often it is an obscure thing, such as a series of events that over time form a pattern. Those who witness the pattern are likely to label it a curse."

  Minerva recalled the way that Velvet could appear as different objects to different people, without any assistance.

  "Do you remember when you asked me about Velvet's ghost, and I told you about the equality of will?"

  Minerva nodded.

  "Usually this equality is a good thing, but as with most of the mystical arts, a darker side does exist. Objects with a will of their own are just like people, in that they have emotions of their own. They have fears and desires, just as we do. They can love and hate, just as strongly, and when those emotions align with the emotions of a nearby person, it becomes possible for the two to merge. When they are both afraid. When they are both angry. When they both have the same, single-minded, all-consuming desire for freedom. Eventually, one person, and one object, become a single being. In all cases, however, only one form can remain, and sometimes a whole new form is born, amalgamated from its predecessors. It becomes a question of who has the stronger will to persist."

  Minerva frowned, trying to understand his lesson. "Are you saying that the Skyraker was trying to eat me?"

  "In a sense, yes. Both of you were fighting for absolute control of the other."

  If not knowing something was frightening, then knowing the truth could be downright horrifying. Before her own imagination could run away from her, Lintumen interrupted her thoughts.

  "However, certain parts of you are apparently very difficult to digest." Lintumen gave her a wicked smile, tainted with glee, and pointed at the brown matted mess of hair on the table. "By my estimate, your troublesome mane has always carried an incredible will of its own, and that may very well be what saved you. The Skyraker, strong as it is, was trying to absorb two wills, not one."

  Minerva couldn't help but stare. For all the struggle and strife her own biology had inflicted upon her, when she really needed a savior, there it was.

  "I suggest that you keep that. Put it under your pillow and it should absorb your fears and regrets, and keep at bay any shadowy nightmares that come to call."

  Minerva stuffed the furry beast back into her pocket. It was the least she could do, if even half of what Lintumen was telling her was true.

  "I'm sorry I yelled at you," she said, wanting to apologize right away.

  "No room for more regrets, my dear?"

  "Please don't mock me when I'm being sincere."

  "Ah, now I am the one who is regretful. My apologies. I must ask, however, what are you planning to do? I have never known a magician that eliminated their own power. Admittedly, that could be because none have ever done it, or it could be because they were so successful that nobody knows they succeeded."

  "I don't know. I'm just scared, is all. What good is power if you can't control it?"

  Lintumen sat and pondered for a moment, and then stood up and walked over to the far wall. "You do what must be done. You learn to control it." At that, he pulled a large needle from his pocket and pushed it against the wall with a show of effort. "Come, look through here."

  Minerva went over to where he was standing, but couldn't see anything. He merely pointed at a tiny dot on the wall.

  "Nothing? Let me make it bigger." Lintumen pushed again with extraordinary effort, grunting and twisting his wrist like a drill. When he pulled back, a tiny pinprick of light shone through the wall. "Better?"

  Minerva put her eye to the hole, and was delighted to see a pinhole view of the mountains on the horizon.

  "Do you see that city in the distance?" he asked.

  Minerva shook her head.

  "An order of magnitude may improve that, then. One moment, my dear."

  Returning to his table, Lintumen retrieved his loupe—the small magnifying lens popular among
jewelers—and then placed the loupe against the wall, indicating for Minerva to look through. When she did, the landscape certainly appeared bigger, but no city came into view.

  "I see," Lintumen said with a sigh. "Perhaps it is best that I demonstrate the full apparatus. Hold this in place, please."

  Minerva held the small lens against the wall while Lintumen hammered two nails into the wood beside it, but only enough for them to stick. Then he tied the lens in place with a string that he wound around the nails. Next, he went to the opposite side of the cabin, where a patch of light glimmered on the opposing wall, and he pushed his clutter away to make room for a standing mirror that reflected the light into Minerva's eyes. From a case on a shelf, he acquired a crystal in the shape of a teardrop attached to a string. He then hung the crystal directly before the mirror, which caused rainbow patterns to dance and spin around the walls.

  "You're not afraid of heights, are you?" Lintumen asked, as he moved a waist-height wooden stand to the center of the room. In his other hand, he held an intricate magnifying glass that looked suspiciously like the one destroyed in the plummite incident.

  "Not really, I—" Minerva began to say, but failed to find the words when Lintumen clamped the magnifying glass into the stand in the path of the light.

  The walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the entirety of the Skyraker vanished as the landscape of the area washed across the walls with such absolute perfection that it was like standing on nothing. Minerva's heart leaped into her throat and the discomforting sense of falling gripped her body. She stumbled to the floor and kicked backwards on the hard, flat nothingness until she almost bowled Lintumen over.

  Lintumen retrieved a sextant from the table and turned his attention to the sky, although it looked to Minerva as though he reached into empty air and a sextant materialized in his hand. He flicked his wrists a few times, as if he was cleaning a dusty shelf, and the clouds in the sky were swept over the horizon and out of sight. The brightness of the sun flooded the cabin until Lintumen placed a darkened sheet of glass over the mirror against the wall; daylight transformed into nighttime, as the sun disappeared and all the twinkling stars came out.