Mirror Sight (30 page)

F
rom a distance, Lhean had studied the craters created by the exploding powder. By the time dawn broke, lines of workers were shambling up the roadway. Far back in the procession was an object shrouded in cloth and carried in the bed of a wagon, modified to support its impossible length and apparent great weight. Lhean did not like the metallic feel that it all but radiated. It was, no doubt, another soul-destroying mechanical creation the people of this time seemed to worship.

The whole procession came to a halt when it encountered the first crater. The humans investigated and set slaves to work to repair the road.

Lhean watched it all from his perch on an outcrop, protected from view by a boulder and thicket of scrub oak. He massaged his forearm. It was tender, the flesh almost raw beneath the membrane cloth, which was sodden with ichor. The wrist guard of his armor had blackened, died, and shed itself during the night. Soon the other segments of the armor would follow, and he’d be completely exposed to the elements and to weapons. He would be unable to regenerate new armor unless he returned to his own time, to Eletia.

He glanced toward the city. The Galadheon was out there, somewhere, but so far he’d failed to penetrate the city. It repelled him, turned him around every time. But now time was running out.

Lhean watched the Important Man beneath the canopy take his leisure while others toiled. He saw the prisoner executed by the terrible long-legged mechanical. How could the humans allow mechanicals the power? The power to take lives? They were soulless fabrications only, falsely alive. He could see it was animated with etherea, a perversion of nature. That the people of this time had learned to manipulate etherea as Mornhavon had once done was more disturbing than surprising. That this world still contained some etherea should have given him hope, but it only sickened him to see it so defiled.

The Important Man down below had some peculiarities that suggested that small parts of him were not . . . real. Like the mechanical orb with the spindly legs, the man’s not-real parts—his hand, for instance—emitted a tainted ethereal gleam.

The man’s gaze turned in Lhean’s direction. It was difficult to determine what the man saw because of the dark specs he wore, but his sudden reaction, one of surprise, told Lhean he’d been spotted.

Lhean scrambled from the outcrop into deeper cover. If there was any time he needed to eat that last piece of chocolate he’d been holding in reserve, that time was now. He could not allow himself to be seen again. So far the people who had glimpsed him thought him a phantom. He couldn’t say why, but he suspected the Important Man saw him differently.

H
ard-soled shoes struck the white marble floor of the colonnaded great corridor, the sound echoing up into the vaulted heights of the ceiling where the life and greatness of the emperor was exalted in a series of fresco murals. They had been painted by the master, Adolfi Fyre, who had made the ceilings of the imperial palace his life’s work. He’d died well over a hundred years ago and a succession of artists had carried on the great endeavor, expanding into other areas of the palace. The current master was focusing on the ceiling of the ballroom.

But Webster Ezmund Silk’s goal was not the ballroom, nor did he seek to admire the art to which he’d become so accustomed over his long years. His goal, in fact, was not any of the great rooms or corridors found in the palace. At least, not those found above ground. No, he sought the dark places of the palace down below, untouched by art, beauty, or natural light.

Webster Ezmund Silk, Adherent Minister of the Interior, and personally highly favored by His Imperial Eminence the emperor, turned on his heel into a side corridor. While still lavishly ornamented and grand, the ceiling was perceptibly lower. His brisk stride unerring, he did not pause or even slow down as he perceived the rapid, uneven footfalls of someone hurrying to catch up with him. He did not have to look to know it was Paulson Gladstone, Minister of True Education in the emperor’s circle of Adherents.

“Is it true?” Gladstone gasped from a few strides behind. “Is it true the witch has spoken? The timing—it’s most irregular.”

Gladstone’s breathing was ragged as he fought to keep pace. He was a nervous man who had a habit of tugging at the cuffs of his coat as though the sleeves would roll up his arms of their own accord. Webster did not spare Gladstone a glance. He knew the man’s characteristics well, had watched him grow from a boy into an old man. He’d never borne enough favor with the emperor to receive the Gift.

Webster had. He was over a century old, but exactly how old he didn’t bother to remember. He let his secretary keep track of such tedious details. No matter his age, he would remain eternally a man in his early prime, strong, steady, his hair untouched by gray, his face unmarked by the years. At this point, his son, Ezra, looked more like his father.

Webster had married several times through the years and fathered many children. When his last wife died, he hadn’t bothered to remarry. All his children, except Ezra, had grown up, become old, and died. He’d gotten used to it, watching his children age and die. There was no need to rush into another marriage. If there was one thing he had, it was time.

Time.
The word echoed in his mind. Something was out of kilter with time. He felt it like an itch he could not reach, a tingle in his nerves.

“The witch!” Gladstone whined beside him. “Has she spoken?”

Webster halted at a tall oak door, ornately carved with a dragon. A soldier in the red of the palace guard drew it open for him. Without turning to Gladstone, he answered the old man’s question.

“The Scarlet Guard has said it is so. I am going down to confirm it.”

Without another pause, he strode through the door and into the lift that, through a series of flywheels, belts, cranks, and cables would lower him to the roots of the palace. As he turned to work the brass levers that would set the machinery in motion and initiate his descent, he finally looked upon Gladstone and saw the aged man’s pallor and how unbearably fragile and careworn he appeared.

For all of Webster Ezmund Silk’s enduring youth and vigor, he thought he knew how Gladstone felt.

 • • • 

Far below the palace there were no crypts, no tombs cared for in perpetuity to honor kings and queens as Ezra claimed there had been in the castle of the old realm. The emperor, immortal in name and body, had no use for tombs.

When the lift juddered to a stop and Webster opened the door, the contrast to the light, airy regions above couldn’t have been more stark. Bare phosphorene bulbs were strung along the ceiling of the corridor, their glow sickly against the dark that collected at these depths. The corridor was narrow, made of stone, some of it granite bedrock that served as rough, natural walls. They glistened with seepage, and somewhere in the distance he could hear the plink of dripping water.

At this low level, the churning of great turbines spinning beneath the palace, fifteen of them, each as large as a small house, throbbed through the floor and the soles of his feet. They pulsed, the empire’s heart of power, circulating water-borne etherea throughout the palace and into the Capital. The roar of water was muffled, but everpresent and unrelenting. He did not doubt the constant throbbing, pulsing, and roaring had contributed to the witch’s insanity as much as anything else.

He was greeted by two masked members of the Scarlet Guard, soldiers he’d handpicked, whose sole duty was to guard the witch. Even though he had chosen the men himself, he could not identify them behind the scarlet masks that hid their faces wholly. The masks had the unsettling effect of making the guards inhuman in demeanor. Webster almost caught himself in a shudder.

Silently they turned and led him down the corridor, their feet grinding on gravel and bedrock. The muffled sound of their footfalls seemed to come from all directions at once. Step by step they led him toward the prison. A prison with only one cell and one inmate.

The corridor ended in an antechamber where the Scarlet Guard stood watch. There were half a dozen on duty at any one time, so four waited at attention, not acknowledging him or their two brethren who escorted him. Behind a steel door with several locks to secure it lay the cell.

One of his escorts peered through the sliding peep hole, then proceeded to insert an array of keys into a series of locks, his movements almost ceremonial, rhythmic. The unlocking produced a cold musicality as tumblers rotated and internal mechanisms clicked, tripped, and sprang open. The door was several inches thick and mounted on reinforced hinges. When the unlocking was finished, it took both escorts to haul the door open.

Perhaps it was overkill, but the depth of the prison and the thickness of the door lessened the chance of any etherea present in the palace reaching the witch.

A fetid odor of damp, decay, and excrement oozed through the doorway. The cell was black within. They did not waste phosphorene on one who did not need light.

One of his escorts retrieved a taper, for
they
needed light, and led the way into the chamber of the witch. Webster followed next, and he was in turn followed by his second escort. The guards’ brethren shut the door behind them with a damning thud.

The taper was almost nothing in this black place. Shadow was layered upon shadow. He could see the pale grime of the witch’s naked flesh, the oily sheen of long, snarled hair that tumbled down her shoulders. The light glinted on the chains that held her upright in a spread-eagle position. But the rest of the details were lost to the dark. He knew them though, intimately, for he had overseen the creation of the cell and her imprisonment—the reinforced chains with cuffs that did not encircle her wrists, but ringed each finger with prongs that were buried into the flesh to the bone. A collar around her neck, also pronged, was attached with a taut length of chain to the ceiling, restraining her from moving her head or upper body much. Spikes had been driven through each foot and bolted to the floor.

Once in a while all the restraints were removed and she was cared for until she healed. It was not out of compassion they did this, however. They did it so she would not become inured to the pain. When she healed and they chained her once more, the pain was renewed.

The wretched creature snuffled, could shift her head just enough so that it seemed she looked right at him. Webster’s polished shoe scuffed on the edge of sawdust bedding that was thrown on the floor to absorb her waste. He should not be so disturbed for she could not see. He knew this well—he’d been the one who had burned out her eyes with a red hot poker.

“I smell you, Silk,” she croaked in a broken voice. They’d had to damage her vocal chords, too, for the sweetness of her song had snared many an unwary man in the past. No more. “You smell pretty, Silk, very pretty.”

The witch had been tortured, abused, and imprisoned for over a century, but she remained unbroken. She carried some internal fire that retained a modicum of power. It infuriated Webster he’d been unable to break her entirely, and even more so that she aroused a primal fear in him.

“Pretty perfume,” she grated. “Have you come to romance me, Silk? Have you come to sate yourself in me with your feeble prick?”

Webster frowned, his gorge rising. In the early years he and the guards used her, enjoyed doing to her whatever they wished, for having one chained and helpless was very sweet, very seductive, very gratifying. Like a tree carved with the initials of lovers, her body was etched with a spider web of scarred initials sliced into her flesh by the guards who had pleasured themselves with her over the years.

Shadows upon shadows, scars upon scars.

The filth of her disgusted him now, the sockets of burned out eyes, and her ravaged lips. Ribs and hip bones protruded. There were rarely fresh initials carved on her body nowadays. Even so, he felt a rising pressure against the crotch of his trousers.

The witch laughed as if she knew. It was a dry, breathy rasp.

“You know why I’m here,” he said, thankful his voice remained steady.

She made smooching noises at him and laughed again.

She was not, he had concluded long ago, quite sane.

“You know why I am here,” he repeated through gritted teeth. “Are you toying with us, or is it true? Ten years have not yet passed.”

She stilled and every muscle in Webster’s body tensed.

“I do not toy.” Her tone no longer mocked but was cold and full of menace.
“My beloved rises.”

Her pronouncement was like a thunderclap. Without another word, he turned to face the door, suddenly overwhelmed and claustrophobic, barely able to contain himself while he waited for the guards to open it. He could not escape her presence soon enough. When the door opened, he hastened out, not awaiting his escort, not pausing in the antechamber. He made straight for the corridor and the lift.

Before the great steel door could close behind him, however, her rasping voice reached him. “Webster Ezmund Silk! My beloved rises, and he will make you eat your own entrails!” The door slammed on her hysterical laughter.

Webster closed his eyes and clenched his fists at his side. No matter how many times he’d heard her repeat this threat, cold dread slid through his gut like a serpent.

He shook himself and entered the lift. He threw the appropriate levers and the car lurched upward, leaving behind the gloom and the constant drubbing of the turbines. Once he was above, he’d bathe and order the clothes he was wearing burned. He could not tolerate the stench of her that clung to him, so overpowering that it almost suffocated him in the small space of the lift. Afterward, he would meet with his fellow ministers and plan for the emperor’s awakening, whether it was time or not, for the witch had spoken.

No, he thought after some reflection, not just a witch, but a goddess. A goddess of a far more ancient and earthly pantheon than the ones the old realm had worshipped. As Aeryc and Aeryon and their cadre of fellow gods rose to primacy, the ancient goddess and her sisters fell and were denigrated to the level of mere witches, relics of a forgotten past. But to believe she was less than a goddess, and an insane one at that, was a fatal error that Webster did not intend to make. It was why he kept her so elaborately imprisoned. Not to mention that she was, unfortunately, inextricably linked to the emperor.

As the lift chugged upward, its mechanisms clacking and whining comfortingly, he recalled her name, somehow extracting it from the dusty regions of his mind among other discarded memories.
Yolandhe. Yolandhe of the sea.