Mirror Sight (16 page)

Sunlight flickered across the professor’s haunted features. “Sometimes I suspect it was arson, someone who knew my leanings trying to tear me down, but there was never any evidence despite thorough investigations. Though the investigators were the emperor’s men, of course.”

They sat in silence for some time, the carriage rumbling along, and Karigan wondered how Raven fared as he followed behind.

“Where are we headed now?” Karigan asked to break the silence and the pall that had settled over them.

The professor gave her a bleak smile. “To see even more devastation.”

T
he carriage surged forward past more mill complexes before it turned north and crossed a bridge over the canal and then a second bridge, traversing the glistening strip of blue that was the north branch of the Amber River. Karigan shook her head not seeing anything that reminded her of her own Sacor City. If she hadn’t seen the section that lay underground, she might not believe this was the same place at all.

Even more devastation? She pondered the professor’s words as the carriage thudded and jolted over rougher ground. She shuddered with foreboding, beginning to guess what he was going to show her.

The carriage began to rise, the road growing more bumpy. Raven whinnied and snorted behind them as they climbed. Gradually the well-ordered city gave way to ramshackle wooden buildings, rundown houses, and shanties with squatters sitting outside on steps and old crates, watching their passage with hostile eyes. Was this the devastation he meant to show her?

“Dregs,” the professor muttered. “So low on the ladder they scavenge the city’s leavings but not low enough to be slaves. They exist in forgotten places, the abandoned buildings and hidden alleys, and here on the edge of devastation. The Inspectors round them up now and then, and there’s been talk of burning them out of here, but they always come back and find a place. A good many of them are the ones who dig up illicit artifacts and sell them off to the likes of Rudman Hadley for his circus. Ghouls, we call them, those who dig up the dead.”

As they continued to climb, all habitation fell away, and the landscape was strewn with rock and rubble, through which poked scrub brush and stunted trees. To one side of the carriage, a rocky escarpment sloped down until it met the river, and beyond it lay Mill City with its regular angles of buildings and streets and the shimmering network of canals, like veins of blue, stemming from the west branch of the river.

The professor pointed out gatehouses and dams along the river, and locks on the canals, and explained at great length how they controlled the force of water flowing into the mills to power the turbines, which in turn powered the machines. Karigan barely listened, her attention pulled to the view on the other side of the carriage, to the great immense mount of talus and scrub that rose high beyond what she could see through her window.

When the carriage halted, the professor stepped out and extended his hand to help her down. Her feet prickled when they touched ground. The sensation traveled up her legs and into her spine as if the land were trying to send her a message, or was screaming. Her sense of foreboding intensified. Her breath caught in her throat. Her mouth grew dry.

“Do you know what this is?” the professor asked, gesturing to the mount.

She could not see its summit even from outside the carriage. She was too close. The sloping uneven terrain was cluttered with . . . She looked closer to hand, just off the rutted track the carriage had followed. Rotted, half-burned timbers. Piles of rock shaped not by nature, but the tools of men. As her gaze sought details, she found patterns—the foundations of walls, a well hole, a half-toppled chimney. The land jabbed at her feet as though it knew her, reached out to her.

“Sacor City,” she whispered.

“Yes,” the professor replied. “What remains.”

Karigan wailed and dropped to her knees, oblivious to the professor at her side and Luke looking down in alarm from his perch on the carriage. On her many travels she’d seen the ruins of ancient habitations, not least of which had been the lands of lost Argenthyne. She’d seen what abandonment, time, and nature had done there, leaving a once-great civilization in ruin. She, however, never expected to see her own city in such a state.

Not just ruin, but purposeful destruction. This wasn’t just the work of time and nature on an abandoned city. Sacor City had been defeated and systematically obliterated. She could see it before her, walls being torn down by unimaginable forces, fires raging, people scrambling in terror. She closed her eyes, trembling. What forces could have leveled the city? Altered the landscape enough to divert a river? What of the people? Her friends? The king? Perhaps that is what the land remembered: the echo of all those souls.

As her own cries faded away, Raven’s whinnies broke through to her, resonating through her grief. He sensed her distress. She rose unsteadily to her feet, brushing away the professor’s solicitous hands. She staggered to where Raven stomped and tossed his head behind the carriage. Instinctively she threw her arms around his arched neck, pressed her cheek against the warmth of hide and muscle. He calmed with her contact. Her own breathing slowed, she stopped trembling. She could almost imagine it was her own Condor she hugged.

“She’s, er, just having a fit,” she heard the professor telling Luke in reassuring tones. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Then closer to her, speaking softly, he said, “I’m sorry, my dear. I wasn’t thinking of the shock this would give you. It’s abstract to me, you know, this history. I’m used to seeing these ruins, and it did not occur to me what it would do to you. I’ve been terribly callous, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Karigan pulled away from Raven and scrubbed a tear from her cheek. “You need to tell me what happened here. All that you know.”

The professor glanced from side to side as if to ensure no one eavesdropped. “Not here. I do not trust that no one can hear.”

The caw of a crow shattered the silence around them. It bobbed on a limb of crooked sumac, beak open, its cries raucous. But there hadn’t been true silence, Karigan realized. The mournful sigh of a breeze among the ruins brought to them the distant sounds of pounding and scraping, of tools thudding on rock. She gazed past the professor, up the side of the mount, and espied the movement of small figures hard at work, wielding tools that glinted in the sunlight.

“What’s going on up there?” she asked.

The professor followed her gaze. “Silk’s project, I daresay. Those aren’t archeologists on a dig, but a gang of slaves clearing a road.”

“A road?” Nothing of the old Winding Way or other streets of Sacor City was visible to her eye. It appeared the slaves were simply building over and through the ruins. It felt like a desecration. “Dr. Silk’s project is a road?”

“No,” the professor said. “The road will lead to the project site. An ambitious excavation.”

Karigan watched the laborers in the distance, their pickaxes rising and falling. The mount, the ruins of Sacor City, were draped in a dull gray gleam. She turned back to Raven, stroking his dark neck, and it occurred to her she was meant to come to this time, to see this. She’d been . . . brought? It was still all too hazy to her. Westrion, god of death . . . as she plummeted through the infinite universe after smashing the looking mask, had he really caught her and left her here? The only thing that would interest Westrion in what had become of Sacor City and the realm was the souls he could collect. He wouldn’t care about the politics of mortals or their strivings, so why bring her here? She could only wait for the answer to unfold on its own, for the ways of the gods were mysterious, but no matter what it was, no matter what the death god wanted of her, she would do what she could to reshape this future, and she would do it from the past. Somehow she would return home, to her own time, and make all this better.

“This was once a thriving city,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

“I know, my dear,” the professor replied. “I know. And I imagine you’ve seen enough for one day. A pot of Mirriam’s tea, or brandy if you prefer, would do us both good about now. Shall we return to the house?”

Karigan gave Raven one last pat and, as she prepared to enter the carriage, she glanced once more at the ruins. A glint of white high up caught the corner of her eye, and when she looked full on, it was gone. She blinked, wondering if she had imagined it. No doubt just the sun glancing off a piece of metal or broken glass.

M
oving about the ruins was dangerous, no matter how light-footed an Eletian was. Mostly Lhean kept still during the day, hiding in crevices and depressions, fearing discovery. He spent his long days of stillness meditating, trying to make sense of this world he’d ended up in. Periodically, however, he rose to scout and take stock of what was happening to his surroundings. He’d first been roused by the sounds of tools hammering on stone a few days ago. It was not difficult to espy the laborers down below, one chained to the other, thin, wretched creatures of humanity, in rags, flogged by those who supervised them when they lagged, or as whim struck.

As if to demonstrate the danger of moving among the ruins, on the first day the slaves began work, their efforts caused a small avalanche of rock and debris to tumble on them. Three did not survive, but they were replaced on the second day.

Another group worked on the summit where King Zachary’s castle once stood. They dug and dug as if seeking the very foundations of the Earth. It was an enormous challenge to move the rubble of the castle, and derricks and booms had been raised to lift the debris the slaves could not. Here, too, accidents happened; a slab crushed a pair of workers. It was as if the castle, even in its ruin, resisted the invaders.

Lhean did not know what they sought and assumed they dug for treasure. Mortals had an insatiable appetite for precious things, and certainly the castle would have contained many. It did not matter to him, only that he needed to see what was happening around him.

He was still undecided about what to do, stranded here in this harsh land, the silence of what had been Eletia grieved him. He slaked his thirst on the acrid runoff of dew or rain that trickled from unnaturally-shaped rocks, and ate sparingly of the stores that remained from his journey into Blackveil. Very shortly those would run out, and he would truly weaken. Already his armor had begun to dim, looking neglected, its inner light fading. He’d have to make a decision about what to do soon, but where in this blighted land would he be safe?

He was about to creep into a shadowed recess when something pulled at him, a twinge, something familiar that, like him, did not belong in this world. He took a great risk and hoisted himself up on a promontory of rock in naked sunlight. He was fairly high up on the mount, and the feeling came from down below. He took a quick look, his sharp, far-seeing eyes sweeping across the vista below him in an instant, then he dropped flat to reduce chances of his being spied.

Down near the base of the mount he’d spotted a carriage drawn by two white horses, with a bay tied to the back. The bay had its own special aura, but that was not what had caught his attention. There were three people with the carriage—the driver who sat on his bench, a man who held the door open, and the young woman to whom he gave his hand to help her climb in.

The young woman was out of place and time. Lhean had not arrived here alone after all.

D
r. Ezra Stirling Silk gazed at the large sheets of bridge schematics strewn across the drafting table while, outside the rough office, the machine shop clattered and rang with metallic resonance, the air dense with the fumes of oil and burning. Here the machines that made Mill City hum—the looms, turbines, governors, steam engines, and more—were designed and fabricated by skilled laborers. The work was not trusted to dull-witted slaves, who were suitable only for lift-and-carry work and other menial tasks.

Across the empire, engineers were revered for their genius, even if not of Preferred families. They opened the gates to the empire’s modernization, economy, and, most importantly, its power. Many of the engineers were descended from the First Empire’s artificers, but the great makers who long ago melded machines with etherea were long gone. Those few who retained such singular skills worked in the Capital, mainly in the emperor’s palace. Ordinary engineers must rely solely on their intellect and craftsmanship.

The chief of Mill City’s engineers now lumbered into the office. Large in girth and stature, he did not merely draw the designs for machines, but helped in their building and implementation. Heward Moody pulled off his goggles and carelessly tossed them atop the papers on his drafting table. Silk’s sight made it difficult for him to perceive the details of Moody’s appearance, though the aura of life outlining his body shone clearly. Silk’s mind painted in the stained leather apron, the heavy gloves that protected Moody’s hands up to his elbows, a cap covering sparse hair atop his head.

The engineer untied a scarf from around his neck and used it to mop sweat and soot off his face. “Well, Dr. Silk,” Moody said in his gravelly voice, “come to badger me about your drill again?”

“Badger you, Mr. Moody? Your shop is receiving exorbitant payment for the efficient production of the drill. I am here to see that the empire’s funds are not being misused.”

“As I’ve said time and again, you cannot rush precision. If it’s not precision you want, black powder would do the job for you some quick.”

Silk grimaced. Blasting was not an option. He needed that precision, the drill was to be a surgical instrument in his excavation. He had no wish to destroy that which he sought. “Let’s see it then.”

The partially assembled drill was too long to fit in any of the machine shop’s bays, so it was situated in a neighboring warehouse, laid on its side on supports. The steel gleam of its spiral contours burned in Silk’s eyes while all else in the warehouse’s depths fell into shadow. Moody polished it with a rag. Despite his grumbles about Silk’s badgering, he was justifiably proud of his creation. No drill of this length had ever been created before.

The bit, not yet attached, rested on its own table. It had the ridges of a molar, but unlike a tooth, these were angular, symmetrical, and perfect, and embedded with diamond dust. It would chew through granite bedrock with ease.

“We’ll check the calibration one more time,” Moody said, “then it’ll be ready for a test. If the test is successful, you can haul it up to the site, and we’ll connect the engine.”

“How long before you test?”

Moody’s face cracked into a grin. “Oh, a few days give or take. We’ll have to assemble the components here to see how she goes.” He indicated the steam engine, its valves, piston rod, and flywheel in shiny brass.

Not as elegant as an etherea engine, but it would do.

“In the meantime,” Moody continued, “you might want to speed up construction of the drill house. Fast enough for you?”

Silk tapped the tip of his walking stick on the stone floor. Very fast, he thought. He’d have to assign more slaves to clearing the site and building the road. “You exceed expectations, Mr. Moody.”

Moody doffed his cap and bowed. “My pleasure to serve the empire. Now if I could have me one of those etherea engines, I’m sure the work could be completed even faster.”

“You know that is the province of the Capital and cannot be . . . exported to the out regions.” Indeed not. There was not enough etherea in the world to execute mundane functions outside the Capital. It must be protected and sustained for the Preferred. After all, it was a precious resource that did not renew itself fast enough for the empire’s needs, and supplies were dwindling steadily.

His waistcoat pocket chimed. Well-aware of Moody’s scrutiny, Silk pulled out his chronosphere, attached to his waistcoat by a gold chain and fob of carved ivory. The sphere split in half and delicate leaves of metal unfolded into a miniature emerald hummingbird with a ruby throat. The other sphere half contained two circles of glyphs carved from mother-of-pearl. The outer ring of larger glyphs represented the hours of the day, while the inner ring designated the minutes. The tiny mechanical chirped, then cocked its head, tapping first the hour with its beak tip, and then the minute. With a final chirp, it folded back up and withdrew into its own half of the sphere. Silk snapped the device shut and deposited it in his pocket. He smiled. Only those closest to the emperor possessed time pieces. Owning time was not just a perk of power, it
was
power, power he held over those beneath him.

Alas, the chronosphere would not continue to work outside the Capital without its daily winding and an infusion of etherea, but it was worth using just to taunt people like Moody, and remind them of just who ranked over them.

“I will return on the morrow to inspect your progress,” Silk said. “But now I’ve another appointment to attend.” He turned on his heel and twirled his walking stick into a neat tuck beneath his arm, strolling past the magnificent drill without another glance.

He did not really have another appointment but it was tea time, and he had a dinner party to plan, during which he’d extract the second part of his payment from Bryce Lowell Josston for the stallion. Long ago an accident had left Silk’s sight less than adequate, and bright light caused his eyes pain. But the accident had also enhanced his vision in some ways, allowed him to see
more,
and what he saw of Miss Kari Goodgrave indicated there was more to her than ordinary sight might perceive.