Mirror Sight (45 page)

“Joff, your light, if you please.”

Joff joined her, and the two stared at the paper, then back at Karigan. They did this a few times before Chelsa asked, “Sir Karigan, would you please remove your cap?”

She wondered what they were looking at, but complied, her braid falling back into place between her shoulders.

Chelsa and Joff looked some more.

“What do you think?” Chelsa asked the Weapon.

“It is her.”

“I quite agree.”

“What is . . . what is that you are looking at?” Karigan asked.

“It is a drawing of you,” Chelsa said. “You, or your twin.”

She brought it over to Karigan, who understood as soon as she saw it. “Oh, Yates,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Chelsa said. “The Rider who made this drawing so long ago was Yates Cardell. Buried on the Wanda Plains was he, so far from home.” Her voice was wistful.

The pain of his loss lanced Karigan anew. The drawing was a page from the journal Yates had taken into Blackveil. She’d seen some of his other drawings—one of Hana, an Eletian who had not survived the expedition, and one of a
nythling
creature that had taken the life of Grant, another of their companions. She had not known Yates had drawn her. It was a good likeness, she thought. He’d caught her at some unguarded moment, perhaps by the campfire, maybe before they had even crossed over the wall into the forest. He had labeled it with her name, but no date.

“I cannot believe you have this,” Karigan said, “from so long ago. My understanding is that most everything from before the empire was destroyed.”

“The last king—
your king
—ensured it was preserved in the tombs.” Chelsa gave her a penetrating look with a slight cant of her head. Karigan did not know what to make of it. The king had preserved it? This picture of her?

“I—I wasn’t even sure the tombs remained intact.”

“They do. For now.” Chelsa’s features darkened.

She worries about Silk’s excavation,
Karigan thought,
as well she should.

“But if I may say,” Chelsa said more brightly, “we are probably more in awe that you are here in . . . in our time. I confess, I had my doubts about all this, with old messages and whatnot. It is a great honor to meet you, Sir Karigan. You are rather legendary.” She bowed, and so did the Weapons.

Karigan’s cheeks warmed. “Er, just call me Karigan, please. The ‘sir’ is not necessary. It is frankly a relief to see you all. You are not from my time, but you are
of
my time.”

“Aptly put,” Chelsa replied.

“I would like to know,” Cade said, apparently coming out of his daze, “what this place is and who these people are.” His eyes were full of questions, and he, too, now regarded Karigan with some awe.

Before Karigan could say a word, one of the Weapons, with a deft flick of his wrist, reversed the gun in his grip and struck the back of Cade’s head with the butt. Cade crumpled to the ground.

“Cade!” Karigan cried. She thrust Raven’s reins into Joff’s hands and raced to Cade’s side. She knelt, checking him, lightly patting his cheek, but he was unconscious.

“Was that necessary?” she demanded of the Weapon. “He has been studying the old ways, training to become one of you.”

The Weapon did not look remorseful. “He was not expected here. There are things he should not know. As it is, we shall have to keep him in the tombs or kill him.”

Karigan stood. “You will have to kill me first.”

“P
lease, Sir Karigan,” Chelsa said, already forgetting Karigan’s request not to use her title. “This is not necessary. No one will be killed.”

Karigan looked warily at the Weapons who now encircled her, but none made an aggressive move. Cloudy—no, Scruffy—rubbed against Joff’s leg and casually sauntered over to her, first rubbing her knee and purring loudly, then climbing onto Cade’s belly and kneading his coat.

“This man came armed,” said the Weapon who had struck Cade. “We cannot trust him.”

“He was just keeping watch over me,” Karigan replied, though she did not know exactly what he’d been up to. But why else would he have come? Whether he had followed her because he didn’t want her to come to harm or because the professor had decided he could not trust her, she did not know, but whatever the reason, Cade did not deserve such harsh treatment. She removed her jacket, rolled it up, and placed it gently under his head. Scruffy, curled up now, rose and fell with Cade’s deep, even breaths. At least the cat was content.

Karigan stood and placed her hands on her hips, giving the chief caretaker and the Weapons a good, assessing gaze. At first no one moved or said anything.

Eventually Chelsa broke the silence. “I shall ask a death surgeon to attend to your friend.”

This might have been an alarming statement had Karigan not been somewhat familiar with the ways of caretakers. In the royal tombs, death surgeons not only prepared the dead for interment but also served as menders among the caretakers. “Thank you,” she replied.

Another silence descended on the group. “I was summoned here,” Karigan reminded them.

Chelsa shook herself. “Yes, do forgive me. It is not every day we receive a visitor from the long ago past—alive, that is. Shall we go in?”

“You will permit it?” Karigan asked with some surprise. “And you will let me leave after?”

“Yes, of course. It is well documented in the past that you were permitted into the tombs and allowed to leave, although one occasion involved deceiving the chief caretaker of that time.”

Karigan nodded. She’d been dressed in the black of the Weapons, by the Weapons, so she could go into the tombs despite the taboo that forbade all from entering except royalty, caretakers, Weapons, and of course, the dead. Many Weapons spent their entire careers guarding the dead, and the other secrets buried in the tombs. Any other unauthorized soul who somehow stumbled his way into the tombs would not be allowed to leave and must spend the rest of his life as a caretaker.

“Come to think of it,” Chelsa mused, with a light, impish smile, “Agemon did complain in his log books quite a lot about the mess, as he put it, that you left behind.”

Karigan had played ghost, borrowing some royal raiment to scare the Second Empire thugs who had invaded the tombs. There had been a bit of spilled blood, too, that had required clean up. For all of Agemon’s complaints, much worse could have happened that night had she not made a “mess.”

“Shall we?” Chelsa asked, gesturing toward the Heroes Portal.

With one last look at Cade to ensure he would be all right, Karigan retrieved Raven’s reins from Joff and tethered the stallion to a nearby tree. She gave him a sound pat on the neck and told him to behave, then joined Chelsa at the door. Before they entered, Dash presented the bonewood to her with a bow.

“We have only heard about these,” he said. “None ever found their way below.”

Karigan took it with thanks, shortening it to cane length, and after the round door was opened, she followed Chelsa into the corridor she had never expected to enter again. Joff and the female Weapon accompanied them, leaving the rest to watch over Cade. Their steps thudded around them in the tubelike corridor, and when the iron door shut behind them, the rest of the world ceased to exist. There were no more sounds of small forest animals scurrying in the brush and leaf litter, no breezes rustling through the branches of the woods. Just their footsteps and breaths and the blanketing quiet of the tombs.

Chelsa let out a deep exhalation. “The air is so much better in here. It’s always a relief to come in. Outside is so—so fecund and disorderly.”

Orderliness appeared to be a desirable trait Chelsa shared with Agemon.

The corridor rose toward a round antechamber, its ceiling low. The top of Joff’s head brushed against it. Several corridors spoked off from the chamber, but only one was lit, just as on the night of Prince Amilton’s coup attempt. It was, Karigan knew, Heroes Avenue, which led to the resting places of Sacoridia’s long dead heroes, including the First Rider, Lil Ambrioth. In the chamber’s center, sat a coffin rest carved with funerary glyphs and runes. There was no coffin on it, but a pair of phosphorene lamps that lit the room.

Karigan hugged herself against the heavy cold that penetrated through her damp clothes. She hadn’t even her jacket, which remained outside pillowing Cade’s head. She shivered.

“Here,” Joff said, removing his own heavy cloak and draping it over her shoulders. “This will not be the first time you’ve worn our black.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It is not.” She wrapped the cloak around her, grateful for its warmth. Yes, she reflected, these people were not from her time, but of it. They knew the past in a way that the professor never would from the bits and pieces of artifacts he dug up. These people
lived
the past.

“Serena,” Chelsa said, and the female Weapon stepped forward. “Could you please fetch one of the surgeons to tend Sir Karigan’s friend?”

The Weapon nodded, and headed down the lit corridor at a trot. Joff, meanwhile, produced a pair of chairs from down the corridor and brought them to the coffin rest so Karigan and Chelsa could sit. He then posted himself by the wall.

Chelsa placed her portfolio on the coffin rest.

“How have you survived all these years?” Karigan asked as she seated herself.

Chelsa smiled, and when she pushed her hood back, it revealed that she was indeed young looking, and not just on account of the non-wrinkling properties of the tombs. There was a freshness of spirit to her that Karigan did not expect in a caretaker. Not that she was any judge—she’d only met a couple, but she’d expected them all to be like Agemon, every one of them sepulchral in disposition.

“Secrecy, of course,” Chelsa replied, “and we’ve always had Helpers on the outside. From the days of our very origins.”

“Even now with the empire?”

“Even so. The bonds with our Helpers are very close, and those who share our secret are very few. Now and then one of our Weapons will venture into the city seeking news and supplies. We watch for any who might come too close, or grow too curious. We have, on occasion, added to our population when we’ve had cause.”

Karigan did not know, even in her own time, how many caretakers lived in the tombs. She had been told there was a “village,” and that from time to time the Weapons had tried to transfer families to above, but it rarely proved successful. It went against everything the people had learned about not seeing the living light of day. She could well imagine the shock of moving from the quiet of the tombs to the hectic, thriving world above.

“We live as we always have,” Chelsa continued, “governing ourselves and caring for the dead. We are no more, and no less, than we ever were.”

“But how have you managed?”

“By honoring our traditions. Traditions allow us to maintain our culture, the stability of our society.”

“Yours is a world within a world,” Karigan said.

Chelsa nodded. “That is it exactly. We have our traditions and laws. Magicks set in place by the first caretakers ensure that our population remains diverse and at a manageable level, so we don’t exceed our capacity, our resources. With the advent of the empire, however, we have had to make some changes.”

Karigan, pleasantly warmed by Joff’s cloak, was intrigued. Caretaker society was usually as secretive as the tombs themselves. “Such as?”

“Well, we’ve received no new royal dead in many generations, our last being Prince Amilton from your time period. We were never able to locate King Zachary’s remains, and Queen Estora vanished from the world, so some of our people have turned from the funerary arts to other disciplines.”

Karigan closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. She kept forgetting that, in this time, Zachary was gone and should have been interred here, in the tombs, not so very far from where she sat. She shuddered, not from the penetrating chill of the tombs, but from her sudden image of him, lying dead, his flesh pale and cold. Before she could stop herself, she saw him, in her mind’s eye, laid out on this very slab of stone before her, prepared for interment in a sarcophagus long made ready for him.

But the caretakers had not received his remains. He was not here, his body likely desecrated by the enemy, forever lost. Would his death be more real to her if he was here? How could it be worse than her horrible visions of his desecrated corpse?

The difference was reality. A body would have been undeniable proof that he was gone. Dead. Lost to her. As terrible as the thought of desecration was, the absence of his remains made his death more abstract, intangible, left an edge of . . . of what? Hope? An increment of hope despite the damning record that was the diary of Seften, so lovingly preserved in the professor’s library?

She passed her hand over her eyes.
He is still alive to me. I can’t accept any of it.

“Sir Karigan, are you all right?” Chelsa asked.

Karigan nodded. She could not allow herself to get caught up in such thoughts and images, these questions of real and abstract. They would surely defeat her, submerge her in grief. No, she could not allow this to happen, she must go forward. Go forward to return to the past, so she could prevent Zachary’s death in battle and the rise of the empire. “I am fine,” she said at last. “Please go on.”

Chelsa did not appear entirely convinced, but she continued with her explanation of how the caretakers had been getting on. “As for the disciplines our people have been engaged in, history is, as you may guess, a natural. Others have taken on the black of the Weapons since we no longer receive them from the outside, though a Helper or two have joined their ranks through the years. They are trained from within, trained in the same exacting manner as taught to us by the Weapons who had been in the tombs with our people when Sacor City fell.”

It explained much, Karigan thought, about how they’d been able to carry on since the rise of the empire. “There are outsiders, archeologists,” she said, “who would like to find these tombs.”

“And so there are. But I suppose in its own way, the empire has helped keep our secret. Our history, the true history of Sacoridia, is denied. Few learn of it, and the empire restricts who has enough knowledge of it to do archeological work. We watch. We watch very closely, indeed. We, in fact, captured one archeologist who now lives among us. He was terribly excited and actually thanked us for allowing him in. A lifetime of discoveries, he said. A veritable treasure trove. It troubles him not that he can’t share it with anyone above. He’s too busy looking and discovering.” Chelsa chuckled.

“Will you induct Dr. Silk into your community?”

Chelsa’s smile faded. “Ezra Stirling Silk and his drill are a serious matter. One that must not be underestimated. But first things first, the matter which brought you here. On the day of my ascension to chief caretaker, just one week ago, I was given many objects in addition to my new responsibilities, among them documents, keys, tools, and secrets. It’s overwhelming even though I had apprenticed to my predecessor, Threllis, when I was only nine. She passed to me all her knowledge. She went to the heavens the day before my ascension.”

“I am sorry,” Karigan said.

“I do miss her, certainly I do, but she has the joy of dancing with the gods while the rest of us labor on in our daily toil.”

It was so lightly spoken that Karigan had to remind herself that Chelsa dealt with death constantly. Surrounded by its artifacts and iconography, as well as the husks of the dead, it was not surprising caretakers might have a different outlook on the passing of people important to them.

“Among the secrets revealed to me,” Chelsa continued, “was a message from—”

They were interrupted by the return of Serena with a companion darkly cloaked and hooded, a satchel across his shoulder. The death surgeon. The two swept through the chamber without pausing and headed down the entrance corridor.

“Good,” Chelsa said, watching after them. “Brunen will take good care of your friend.”

“The message,” Karigan urged.

“Of course.” Chelsa removed a piece of paper from her portfolio. It looked very much like the one Karigan had received—yellowed around the edges, folded the same way. “The instruction in this message read:
To be given to Chelsa, upon her ascension.
And so it, along with accompanying documents—one of which you received—was handed down the generations of chief caretakers and spoken of to no one else. They remained unopened until me. I am the first and only Chelsa to become chief. Since this was kept secret by the chiefs, there was no way my parents would have known that their daughter, whom they named Chelsa, would eventually become chief. It is . . . rather strange to be thought of long before your birth. Long before anyone else knows that you will ever exist.”