Mirror Sight (2 page)

K
arigan fled from the big tent, her injured leg slowing her little in her desperation. She passed smaller, billowing tents, and cages filled with roaring lions. She dodged past performers and lingerers, and veered away from tough looking circus jacks and roustabouts. When she left the circus behind, she found herself skittering down unfamiliar streets of flagstone and brick paving, walled by faceless, brick buildings that rose sharply into the night sky.

Where am I?
she wondered not for the first time.

The circus boss had sounded Sacoridian, but she did not recognize this place. Steady, bright light welled beneath plain, wrought iron lampposts—much brighter than what she was accustomed to in her own Sacor City. She avoided the light, pausing in an alleyway to rest and think.

The air she inhaled tasted acrid, smoky, leaving an ache in the back of her throat. The moon above the tall buildings looked smudged by soot. She had not seen the moon since the eve of the spring equinox, before she and her companions had crossed over the D’Yer Wall and into Blackveil—unless one counted the silver full moon that had hung over Castle Argenthyne back through a piece of time.

And her companions, what of them? Had they survived the shattering of the looking mask? She prayed it was so, refused to consider the alternative. If they indeed survived, had the force of the mask’s destruction cast them from Blackveil, or did they remain, even now, in the nexus of Castle Argenthyne wondering where she was?

Her body trembled in exhaustion. If her friends had ended up here, wherever here was, she needed to help herself before she could help them. She did not know how much longer she could go on. In fact, taking a nap in the alley did not sound unappealing.

No, need help. Need to find out where I am.

She peered out into the street and when she saw no clowns in pursuit, she limped away from the alley. The only sign of life she spotted was a pale cat darting down another street. No lights shone in the tiny, regular windows lining the brick walls. She was alone.

She turned down another street. Each ran straight and precise—she’d never encountered anything like it, and it was a sharp contrast to the winding ways of the Eletian roads she’d so recently wandered along in the ruins of Argenthyne. This street ended at a smaller building, constructed not of brick but of clapboard, light spilling from windows and a pair of doors left open and welcoming.

Karigan proceeded cautiously. This city was strange, and not knowing the customs of the people here, she did not wish to rush headlong into trouble. Leaning heavily on the bonewood, she limped toward the lit building. As she approached, she heard voices within, mostly that of one man droning on and on. When Karigan reached the doors, she peered inside. On the far end a man stood on a stage pointing at a large map with a long slender stick. On a table next to him were a number of jumbled, dirt-encrusted items, including a rusty longsword and a cracked earthenware pitcher. There were several smaller objects she could not identify.

An audience of ladies and gentlemen filled the chairs in the large room watching the man intently. A few gentlemen stood along the walls, also watching. Like the circus boss, their clothing was of an unfamiliar cut, and mostly in conservative darks and grays. Arms and necks were not left bare. Most of the men wore beards, some with long drooping mustaches and bushy side whiskers. The ladies wore their hair tucked beneath hats and bonnets, and, most startling, gauzy veils draped their faces.

“So we have initiated our excavations in quadrant seven,” the man on the stage said in his monotonous voice as he tapped the map, “which has shown much promise.”

A man in the audience raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“It seems to me you shall only find more minor burials.”

“But there is much to learn from even minor burials about—”

“Like you learned from the Big Mounds?”

There was some snickering in the audience. The man on stage frowned, then jabbed his pointer at the map again. “We excavated those mounds east of the Old City to put to rest all speculation they were not the burial sites of ancient kings, but simply deposits of sand and gravel shaped by the glaciers thousands of years ago. We have wanted nothing but to be exacting in our methods.”

Could it be he was talking about the Scangly Mounds? Karigan wondered. She peered harder at the map. The bright hissing lamps helped her make out the lines and shadings. The landforms looked vaguely like the area around Sacor City, and the Big Mounds he pointed out certainly corresponded to where one would find the Scangly Mounds upon which she’d so enjoyed riding her Condor. The landmass in the center of the map, divided into a grid by precise intersecting lines, could very well be Sacor City, but . . .

Then a gentleman along the wall caught her eye. He stared at her. Karigan’s heart leaped. She realized she’d been drawn almost across the threshold of the building, to get a better view of the map, and could be plainly seen by anyone who bothered to look.

The gentleman, whose gray-speckled brown hair swept luxuriantly across his brow, twitched his mouth, which wiggled his bushy mustache. He had full side whiskers, too. He touched the shoulder of a younger man beside him. When the second man turned to look, Karigan ducked from the lit doorway, shaking.

She did not know these people, this place. She was not ready to trust anyone until she learned more. She ran-limped away. Did she hear footsteps running after her, or was it her own that echoed against the canyons of brick walls?

She turned into another alley, breathing hard, sweat slicking down her sides. She decided to call on her fading ability, and in this way she could survey the city, town, or whatever this place was, without being observed. But when she touched the winged horse brooch clasped to her greatcoat, she felt no change. She glanced at her hands and down at her body. She remained solid—she had not faded out. She tried again, and nothing.

“What . . . ?” What had the looking mask done to her?

A scent of putrid, decaying matter wafted to her. She glanced down the alley. She thought she detected movement, but the alley was too shrouded in darkness. Hesitating but a moment, she withdrew her moonstone from her pocket, but it emitted only a weak, dying glow as it had in the sarcophagus.

Magic does not work here,
Karigan thought.
At least not much.

The moonstone emitted enough light to sketch out a heap of rubbish at the other end of the alley. There was more movement. A cat? An oversized rat looking for food scraps?

But then the heap stood and the low gleam of the moonstone caught in the whites of its—his—eyes . . . and on the metallic sheen of a knife.

Karigan gasped and pocketed her moonstone, intending to flee, but when she turned, her escape was blocked by two hulking figures.

She found herself wishing, absurdly, she was back in Blackveil. She raised the bonewood staff to a defensive position, thankful it had made the journey with her, but regretting the loss of her saber, which had served her so well since she became a Green Rider, and F’ryan Coblebay before her. Lost forever, she suspected, in the deeps of Castle Argenthyne.

Even as the two at the open end of the alley rushed her, so did the one with the knife from behind. Karigan did not think, she moved. With her right hand all but useless, she swept the staff at the two forward assailants relying on the strength of her left. She smashed the closest one in the chin. As he staggered away, she rammed the butt of the staff backward catching the knife-bearing assailant in the gut. He fell back with a grunt of pain.

She thrust the staff forward again, battering the metal handle into the bridge of the third assailant’s nose. She felt warm splatters across her face, and he reeled away clutching at his bleeding nose.

Not bad,
Karigan thought, for being one-handed and pretty much one-legged.

She made to retreat from the alley, only to find half a dozen more figures blocking her way.

K
arigan backed away as the thugs advanced on her. One of her original assailants recovered enough to grab her from behind. She smashed the heel of her boot into his instep, and he hopped away howling. The others paused as one as if reassessing their prey, indistinct in their ragged cloaks. She held her staff in a defensive position, keeping an ear open to anyone creeping up on her from behind. Mostly she heard whimpering from that quarter.

Her limbs quivered from having expended so much of her energy in Blackveil, as well as in the streets of this nameless city. Her mauled leg was likely to give out at any time now, and truly she wanted nothing more than to drop where she stood, but that would mean worse consequences.

“Put down yer stick, girlie,” one of the thugs said, “and we won’t hurt ya. Real gentlemen we are, ain’t we, boys?”

The others answered with affirmative grunts.

“Let me go, and I won’t hurt
you,”
she said, her dry throat making her voice harsh.

“Got ya some sass, eh? There’s them that’d pay good for the likes of you.”

Karigan did not wait for them to make the first move. She charged into them with a guttural yell, staff humming as the metal handle thudded into the leader’s skull. She had hoped they’d scatter after that, but they grabbed for her, their rags rancid with filth. The staff became entangled in their arms, and when one kicked her injured leg, she sank with a moan, and they descended on her as predators on wounded prey.

Karigan momentarily blanked out beneath their vile stench as they tore at her greatcoat, tried to force the staff from her hand, groped her. It would be so easy to let go, to give up. . . .

In another moment they were inexplicably off her. She shook her head, the air freshened around her. The predators scattered as a new presence swung a club and threw them aside.

She couldn’t move. She lay on the paving only able to watch as the last thug loped away, the one who had fought them off looming over her, a man, she observed, from the silhouette of his profile. The shadows of his hood obscured his features, but she felt his gaze upon her. Was he her savior or a new danger?

He tossed the club aside, and it clattered loudly on the paving. He knelt beside her and helped her sit up. He produced a nondescript cloak from nowhere and tossed it around her shoulders.

“It is foolish to be out here at this hour unescorted,” he said.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He did not answer but helped her to stand. She’d kept a death grip on her staff and did not loosen it now.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“Not very well.”

“Lean on me, then.”

She did not. “Who are you, and where are we going?”

He made an impatient noise from beneath his hood. “I am the one who drove off your attackers. I am taking you to safety.”

Karigan wanted to trust him, to pass the responsibility of her safety on to someone else, but could she trust this man? Really, at this point, how much of a choice did she have? With all her injuries, the lapse in her ability to fade, and not knowing this city and its ways, her choices had diminished significantly. So far the man had only aided her. Coming to a decision, she allowed him to put his arm around her so he could bear some of her weight. At least he did not smell offensive.

He led her toward the alley’s outlet and paused to peer both ways down the street. He hissed and suddenly pulled her back into the concealment of the shadows.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Shhh. You ask too many questions.”

She had a sharp retort on her tongue but held it when she heard footsteps out on the street and a curious metallic
click-click-click
sound. When the footsteps paused so did the clicking, which was replaced by an odd purring hum. Light flowed down the alley, but Karigan and her rescuer were pressed hard enough against the brick wall that the light did not touch them. It focused on a trio of thugs left moaning on the pavement.

“What is it?” a man’s voice asked.

“Dregs is all,” another answered. “Rubbish collectors’ll pick ’em up later. C’mon.”

The footsteps continued on, and there was an odd toot, and the
click-click-click
started again.

Her rescuer waited at length before peeling away from the wall.

“Who were they?” she demanded.

The man sighed in irritation. “Inspectors. Now come. We don’t want to be caught out.”

Inspectors?
she wondered. What were they inspecting? They had not cared about the men lying in the alley, and her rescuer certainly did not like them.

Karigan hated relying on this stranger’s strength. He was not gentle, she thought, as they moved out into the empty street. It wasn’t, she suspected, that he was intentionally being rough, but that he was being more vigilant of their surroundings than of her comfort. And perhaps he did not realize the extent of her various hurts.

“Ow!” she cried, when he bumped her bad leg.

“Silence,” he whispered. “There could be more thugs about, or Inspectors.”

“Then be more careful,” she said.

“I am very sorry, but I’ve a job to do.”

Karigan halted, planted herself on the street. If he wanted to move forward, he’d have to drag her.

“What do you mean job?” she asked, darkening with suspicion. “Are you one of those clowns?”

“What? Clowns?” His voice held a tone of incredulity. She still could not see his face beneath the shadow of his hood, but his eyes glinted in the lamplight.

“Then who are you? Where in the name of the gods am I? You sound Sacoridian, but this is like no place in Sacoridia I’ve ever seen.”

He did not answer, just stared at her.

“I’m very sorry,” he said finally, “but you do ask too many questions, and this is not the time or place.”

Before Karigan could reply, he withdrew a cloth from beneath his cloak and thrust it into her face, pressing it over her mouth and nose, overpowering her with its sickly sweet stench. At first she fought, but he held her fast, and her strength, the little that remained to her, leaked out of her. Her knees gave way, the stranger supporting her as she spiraled into oblivion.

T
he face belonged to a balding man who peered down at her out of the haze. “Well, hello there, young lady. How are we feeling?”

At first she felt numb, but all her various pains were intensifying with every moment. She appeared to be, however, comfortably situated in a huge bed with a downy mattress and warm blankets pulled up to her chest.

“Who are you? Where am I?” It seemed to take a great deal of strength just to speak.

“I am Mender Samuels, and you are safe and sound in your uncle’s house.”

“Uncle?
What uncle?”

Mender Samuels turned away to address someone behind him. “A little disorientation is not unusual, considering what you said about her time in the asylum, which must have been most distressing.”

Asylum?
Karigan’s heart thudded. She tried to sit up, but the pain took her breath away, and she fell back into her pillows.

“There, there, young lady,” the mender cooed. “We’ve reset your broken wrist, pulled shards of a mirror from your flesh, and tended the ghastly wounds on your leg. You have been through quite an ordeal, it seems, and now you can rest.” To someone else he said, “The syringe, please.”

An assistant in the shadows handed him a long, sharp needle, which protruded from a glass tube filled with fluid.

This could not be good. “What—what is that?” Karigan asked, feeling like a trapped animal. She glanced around the dim room—too many people hovering in the shadows and standing between her and the door.

“It is only morphia,” the mender said. “It shall ease your pain and help you rest.” He pressed a plunger on the end of the tube and a small amount of fluid squirted out of the tip of the needle.

Karigan had to get away. She threw her blankets aside and lunged forward to leap out of bed, but she was caught by strong hands that pressed her back into the pillows and did not let her go. The needle descended and stabbed into the meat of her upper arm. She yelped.

“Why?” she asked plaintively. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Do not worry, my dear,” the mender replied with a shadowed smile. “It is for your own good.”