Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen (41 page)

"No person could have brought harm to my father; he is the Keystone! To harm him would be… unthinkable." She turned back to Aushlin's unmoving form and spoke gently to him.
 

"Father… can you hear me?" Then she startled, and looked around.

"Aazrio," she said, "where's Quade?"

"I'm sorry, Daughter Keystone. But it seems that Quade is gone."

The forest grew thinner again after awhile and Quade was surprised to see what appeared to be a cottage up ahead. He skirted along the trees as he drew closer to the little house where lights still burned warm in the windows even though it was deep into the night. He'd been running for what seemed like an hour but was probably more like fifteen minutes. He stopped for a minute to catch his breath and stared at the isolated dwelling, wondering to himself who would hold residence in such a remote place in the forest. As he drew closer, he saw some strange symbols over the door, carved into the old solid logs that made up the threshold. At first he couldn't read them but as he advanced their meaning became clear to him, and he vaguely wondered why it wasn't so strange to him at all when he realized that it was the language he'd heard in his vision. The language of a foreign tongue, of another galaxy that he'd understood in a manner of moments, existed here on Bethel, above the door of this mysterious little house.

"Seek here…" Quade mumbled under his breath, reading the symbols carved into the ancient wood that would look purely ornamental to the average eye. "Chosen…" He puzzled for a moment. Chosen? Why should it be that this is what it would say? A sign, he thought; perhaps a gift from the gods, perhaps a way out of this catastrophe. Seek here, he of the Chosen! There were more symbols after that but Quade didn't pause to read them. It was clear enough for him to understand he had found something that could help him, and in the recesses of his memory, Quade had a recollection of something he'd heard, a rumor from long ago.

He went to the door and peered inside the front window. This was no house he now knew, but was the Shoppe of Mirrors that was shrouded in secrecy by local lore and tales, a shop that he'd heard of once or twice in passing stories, but had never the need or desire to visit until just now. It was lit inside though he could see no proprietor within. Cautiously, he pressed the door latch with his thumb and it opened with a slight creak.
 

A chime rang lightly throughout the shop as Quade entered, and though it was very late there were still dim lights throughout the room and candles burning in every corner and along the walls in elaborate sconces. The entire shop was filled with mirrors, and in every direction that Quade looked he saw dozens of reflections of himself, and other reflections of the reflections, mimicking his moves in the opposite direction. Mirrors lined the wall behind the old oaken counter, the frames decorated in shining jewels and glittering varnishes, each one unique and ornate to the point of gaudiness. They graduated in shape and size, and these mirrors in particular seemed to be different among the others, and Quade wondered of the rumors he'd heard of the magic contained in some of the old crone's reflecting glasses. He walked up to the counter but before he could call out to ask if anyone was there, a voice sounded from behind a heavily beaded curtain.

"Who comes calling at such an hour?"

The curtain parted abruptly and an old woman with a hunched shoulder walked out. Her face was drawn and sour when she first appeared, but upon seeing who was standing at the counter, she brightened considerably.

"Apologies, fair lady," Quade said, fighting to keep his voice level. "I know that it's very late."

"Ahh," she said, walking from behind the counter to stand in front of Quade. "It's been many years since I've been addressed by such a title, boy. You make me long for those days again." She was short and perhaps had been petite in her youth, but now her body was an aged mockery of what she surely once was, uneven, dried and misshapen. "I know you, don't I?" she continued. As she stood before him, she reached out to grasp the seam of his shirt, appearing to examine the fabric, but smoothing her knotted fingers over Quade's ribs as she did.

"I don't think we've ever met," he replied, leaning away from her involuntarily. She looked up to his face, noticing his undulation at her touch. Her eyes squinted, and her mouth curled into an unreadable smirk.

"Met? No, we've never met." She turned away and shuffled behind her counter, her back to him as she moved to stare into one of the jeweled mirrors. "What is it that you want from me, in the middle of this night?"

"I've heard stories about this mirror shop," Quade said, walking toward the counter.

"Stories?" she rasped, her voice a higher octave at the question. "Pray, continue!"

"Stories that say some of your mirrors are more than what they seem." As Quade reached the counter he could see the reflection in the mirror that the old crone was staring into as she picked and twisted at her hair. The image that stared back was not the same face that Quade could see, but what appeared to be a much younger incarnation of the woman who stood before it. Just as Quade leaned to get a better glance, she turned around to face him and the image was gone.

"More than what they seem? Interesting words, these! Why would this be of importance to you?"

"Because," Quade said, deciding not to waste any time. "I need a portal, and it's said among the land that you might be the person who provides portals for sale."

"A portal? Well!" The old crone reached out to where Quade's hands rested on the counter and she grabbed one before he could stop her. She turned it over in her grasp and examined his palm. "What sort of portal do you need?"

"I need one to the Central hangar. Now, tonight."

"You seem rather…impatient to get this portal. Why would you need a portal to a place so close you could easily ride or commission a transport?"

"I've no time… no time for anything including these questions!" Quade pulled his hand away. "Can you sell me what it is that I need?"

The old woman seemed slightly bemused by his tone and his words and she leaned on the counter like she had all the time there was to have. "And what would you do, if I gave you a portal to the Central hangar? Where is it that you think you would go?"

Something in her inflection made Quade very uneasy. "What do you mean?"

The Crone reached her hand to a mirror that sat upon the counter, a large, swiveling vanity mirror. She touched her finger to its surface and an image faded into view, at first was cloudy, and then all at once became completely clear. What was reflected in the glass was the scene at Sigh City's hangar, and Quade saw Riley shouting into his com panel, his voice hollow and unreal. "All traffic is halted! No ships on or off the planet!" The mirror faded into a wide view, of chaos at the hangar, people shouting and the unimaginable sight of the hangar's yawning rooftop slowly closing shut. Quade looked angrily to the old crone.

"What's this nonsense! How do I know that what you show me is truth? It could be an illusion, some trick of this mirror!"

She looked up and for a measured moment, she said nothing, just watched him as he leaned over the counter. As she touched it again the mirror faded from the scene of the hangar and into something else, a moment serene and dark but for the presence of a bright and unworldly shaft of light. Then her eyes locked with his and the words that grumbled through her dry old lips made his blood run cold.

"Sometimes emotions travel faster than words, Quade Decairus, and the kingdom is astir. What mind were you in when you sought to kill the Keystone?"

The mirror's vantage point changed then, revealed a scene not so long ago when Quade had stood alone on the parapet walk, when he had plucked the floating lararium from midair where it floated. Before he saw anymore, he turned to run from the shop, fearing that she may accost him. But something caught the corner of his eye as he reached for the door.

In a mirror to his left he saw the thicket of the woods, saw himself as he rode on his horse toward what, he didn't know. He turned to the mirror to look straight at it and when he did he only saw himself reflected in its glass.

"What is it, Quade?" Her voice sounded from the front of the store, and Quade tried to calm his unraveling nerves. "Did my question frighten you so much that you no longer desire my help?"

Quade didn't move, tried to decide what to do. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of an image from another of the mirrors near to him. He saw a sunlit plain, tall grass blowing and majestic snow-capped mountains in the background. He gasped, turning toward the reflection, but when he looked at it, the image was gone. His brow knit together as he stared, waiting to see if the image would return when again in his sideways view he saw something else in a tall, narrow mirror; a stormy beach with a raging sea pounding against the darkened rocks and sand. He turned toward it but once again the image was gone when he looked directly into the reflecting glass.

"What was that?" he asked.
 

"What do you mean, Quade? Did you see something unusual?"

"I don't know… I thought I saw a place. A place within these mirrors." He walked closer to inspect one of the gleaming reflecting glasses, touched his finger to the cold surface.

"And you yourself seek salvation through my mirrors. Seek to escape that which you have done." Quade turned to look at the old crone, stared at her where she stood behind the counter again. His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke.

"Yes."

"What you ask from me comes with a high price, boy. How much are you willing to pay for something so valuable as an escape from that which you fear most?"

Something caught the corner of Quade's eye again, and he looked to the reflection that issued the movement. He saw the outside of the mirror shop, the door that he'd entered just a few minutes ago. And outside of that door was Aazrio. The guard reached to the door latch and squeezed it in his palm, then the reflection looked up at Quade, issued a glare that made him freeze in horror.

"What?" Quade looked away from the image, moved away from the door even though he realized that what he'd seen wasn't real.

"What do you have in offer to pay for this portal?" she asked.

He was usually better at haggling. But Quade was scared and he was tired and he forgot that in a barter, one never gives up one's final offer first.

"I'll pay anything, what will it take?" The crone looked at him hard then shrugged her old, humpy shoulder.

"Well, I might have said that I'd settle for your purity, if I thought that you still had it to give," she said, her eyes dropping to scan down the length of Quade's body. She looked back up to his face, and his expression puzzled and he shifted his weight uneasily at the personal insinuation she carried in her words. "Since that's not an option, I suppose I'd settle for cash."

"How much cash?" Quade asked hurriedly, beginning to sense a presence in the air that he recognized all too well. A presence that was coming closer by the minute.

"How much do you have?"

Quade didn't have to think long to remember that he'd left all his money, his identification and his chid discs back at the castle, that he'd not carried them with him during the Twilight Bloom. Then suddenly the orb inside his cloak lifted away from his body and he barely was able to conceal it before it floated up from under the cape and out into plain view.

"I've got none. Nothing on me, at the moment that is. But perhaps we could make another deal, a trade? Anything!"

The crone stared at where Quade's cape hummed and moved, at where he pushed it back behind his arm and tried to hold it.

"I don't know of any trade I'd be interested in, but whatever it is you're concealing beneath your cloak is something I might find need for."

"No," he said shortly.

"You have no money, no thing of value to offer in trade and you won't volunteer the one thing you do have that I find to be of interest?"

" I can't," he said, his panic beginning to rise. Closer, coming closer. He could feel Aazrio coming closer. "Not this one thing! I can get you money, plenty of money if you'll just trust me now! I can get you jewels, cash, unlimited passes for Vicarious Life, all the things that the most privileged of our galaxy desire if you can offer me your trust for just this night!"

The crone watched as Quade struggled with his cape again, finally stripped it from his shoulders and held it in a folded mass of fabric before him that hummed and held itself upright on its own.

"I shall offer you help and hindrance, the two come together; the price of one is the other." She walked out from behind the counter, seeming unaffected by the sense of panic that was rising inside of Quade.

"Help and hindrance? What do you mean? Explain! And quickly!"

"In your life you experience adventure, am I right? Travel to faraway places, see new worlds and new sights on a daily basis. Many travels I sense, in your simple existence."

"I travel for a living, I'm a courier… but if you know who I am then you know what I do! Hurry now! I must go! What is your offer?"