Mirror Sight (46 page)

“I think I can sort of understand,” Karigan said.

Chelsa laughed. “And so you, of anyone, could.” She unfolded the message. “I was instructed within to send you the summons. It reads,
Dear Chelsa, Please send this first message to summon Rider Sir Karigan G’ladheon to the Heroes Portal. The cat will find her. Expect Sir Karigan to arrive at midnight on the Hollow Moon.”

“The Hollow Moon?”

“We caretakers keep our own lunar calendar.” Chelsa smiled brightly and passed Karigan the paper. “I trust that is your captain’s signature?”

Karigan nodded as she looked the message over, a little thrill coursing through her. “Yes, this is her handwriting.”

“Good. My predecessors have vouched for its authenticity. Upon your arrival, the message instructs me to give you another. If not for the order to actually give you the message, I might have expected to be receiving your remains, considering the period of time that has elapsed since your disappearance. To tell the truth, we would be delighted to have them.”

Karigan was too disconcerted to know how to respond.

“That is not to say we are not very excited to have the living, breathing legend here with us, out of time as she is. It’s extraordinary. But do know, we would welcome your remains and care for them diligently.”

Karigan smiled weakly. “Er, thank you? I mean, wouldn’t that be for the king to decide?”

“Of course, and if he were here, I’m confident he’d want you on Heroes Avenue, at the very least.”

The very least?

While Karigan pondered that, Chelsa produced another folded piece of paper and silently offered it to her. It quavered in Karigan’s hand. Her name was written on it just like the other, in the captain’s style. This one was sealed with green wax imprinted by the winged horse. Just seeing it brought an onrush of emotion, a storm threatening to break. So homesick . . . She cleared her throat, forcing back tears, and broke the seal.

The captain had written:

Dear Karigan,

The scything moon is held captive in the prison of forgotten days. Seek it in the den of the three-faced reptile, for you are the blade of the shadow cast. Beware! The longer you linger, the faster we spin apart.

L. Mapstone, Capt., HMMS

Usually the captain was concise and to the point. But this . . . this was downright obscure. Even murky enough to make an Eletian proud. Karigan had hoped for some clear instruction to help her find her way home, but she’d gotten this instead. A riddle.

“Sir Karigan?” Chelsa said tentatively. “Is everything well? You’ve gone pale.”

Karigan wordlessly handed the message to Chelsa.

“Oh, my,” Chelsa murmured as she read it. “I take it this is not what you were expecting.”

Karigan gave a humorless laugh. “I was expecting explicit directions about how to get home. To my own time. But of course, nothing is ever that easy.”

Chelsa returned the message. “I am under the impression, from what I’ve read of her, your Captain Mapstone was never this cryptic.”

“No,” Karigan agreed. “This is not . . .” She struggled to find the right words. “This is not her voice.”

“But it is her handwriting, yes?”

Karigan nodded.

“In his log books, Agemon spoke of receiving the documents from the captain’s own hands. He described her as looking unhappy about it all as she instructed him to keep them secret until he was ready to pass his responsibilities on to his successor.”

The captain, Karigan thought, could have been unhappy about any number of things. It told her nothing about why the captain had written such a riddle.

“She obviously meant for you to find meaning in her words,” Chelsa said. “Somehow. I thought it remarkable that she knew you’d someday be here to read her words. I assume such precognition is one of the skills Riders are endowed with?”

“Perhaps, but it was not the captain’s. I’ve asked myself how she knew, but have no answers.” Karigan was not surprised Chelsa knew of Rider abilities. She shook her head. “All I know is that I just want to go home.”

Chelsa reached over and placed her hand on Karigan’s arm. The warmth of that touch helped.

“I do not know what it is like to be sundered from home,” Chelsa said, “for I was born and raised in these tombs, but I fear I may see its destruction.” Her face was clouded with worry.

“What will you do?”

Chelsa shrugged. “We shall do as anyone would do when their home is threatened—defend it. The Weapons wish to stop Silk directly, but they are few and stand no chance against the numbers that can be deployed by the empire.”

Karigan gave Joff a sideways glance. He had not left his station by the wall, and gave no indication he had listened to a word of their conversation. A true Weapon.

“If only I knew why Silk has started drilling now, and with such fervor,” Chelsa said.

“Do you know of an object called the dragonfly device?” Karigan asked. If Chelsa did, not only would it help the opposition in this time, but if Karigan could solve Captain Mapstone’s riddle and get home, she could find the artifact and prevent Amberhill’s empire from rising in the first place.

“Dragonfly device? I have not heard of it.”

Karigan tried to remember what the professor had said about it. “It was supposedly some sort of magical device used by a forerunner of the Sealender line to run off the sea kings. It disappeared afterward. The professor, the man who shelters me, thinks it may have been interred here with the first Sealender king.”

If Chelsa was shocked that some professor knew of the tombs, she did not show it. She gazed thoughtfully into space.

“The professor thinks,” Karigan said, “that this device has the power to stop whatever great weapon the emperor has at his disposal. He says Silk would like to get his hands on it to give to the emperor, to gain his esteem. Once in the emperor’s own hands, it would no longer be a threat to him. The opposition would like to prevent this from happening and use the device to their own advantage if they could.”

“There are many objects down here that have been interred with the royals, with all the heroes,” Chelsa said. “Much of it is just the ephemera of lives lived, some of it priceless jewels and gold, some of it not. There are other relics that have been kept secret down here for their more arcane properties. I have to say, your dragonfly device is not one. Or, at least, it is not one I’ve ever heard of, which is entirely possible. It could even go by another name. The sheer number of objects we keep under our care is more than one person, even the chief caretaker, can know.”

Nothing, Karigan thought once again, was ever easy.

“It appears,” Chelsa said, “we have both been presented with riddles this night.”

“D
id your professor happen to say what manner of object this dragonfly device was?” Chelsa asked.

Karigan felt a subtle change of air currents circulating the cool chamber, which she attributed to the Heroes Portal opening and closing. “He seemed to think it was a sword or rod or something. Maybe a spear.” She thought back to the drawing she’d seen in his journal. “All he had to go on was an ancient etching on stone that is being worn away by the sea.”

“Well, that is something.” Chelsa, however, did not sound optimistic and the two sat in heavy silence for some moments.

Soon the rap of boots on stone preceded the return of Serena, who strode across the chamber to Joff and whispered in his ear. When she finished, Joff stepped forward.

“What is it?” Chelsa asked.

“If you and Sir Karigan have concluded your business, then we should take up the matter of her companion.”

“One moment,” she told him. “Sir Karigan? Is there anything more we need to discuss?”

There was much more, and nothing. Karigan carried many secrets, not least of all the existence of a royal heir, and as tempted as she might be to unburden herself, to entrust Chelsa with such secrets, honor prevented her. They were not her secrets to tell, just as she had not told the professor what she knew of the tombs.

It was clear Chelsa could not help her understand the captain’s riddle, or otherwise tell her how to reach home, so she just said, “I would like a little time to commit the captain’s message to memory. I do not wish to chance taking it with me into the outside world.”

“Very wise of you,” Chelsa said with approval.

So Karigan sat there, snuggled in Joff’s cloak, memorizing every word just as she had been trained to do as a messenger. Already her tired mind was trying to unlock the puzzle of the words. Surely the “scything moon” meant the crescent moon that represented Sacoridia and the god Aeryc. But for now, she must put aside meaning and concentrate solely on remembering the words. When she was sure she had it, she returned the written message to Chelsa’s keeping.

“I would now ask that you return to the outer world,” Chelsa said. “Serena will escort you, and after I hear what she and Joff have to say, we will come out.”

Karigan nodded and rose, taking a hard grip on the bonewood. She hoped she would not have to use it in Cade’s defense.

Serena proved a silent escort, and when they reached the portal, Karigan unwrapped the cloak from her shoulders and handed it to Serena. “With my thanks to Joff.”

Serena accepted it with a bow and pushed the portal open so Karigan could exit the tombs into the damp world outside. Would it be her last time through the Heroes Portal? She glanced over her shoulder. Serena had already disappeared back into the corridor. Dash closed the door. Karigan may not care for the tombs, but being within had felt like the closest to home she’d been since being ejected from Blackveil.

Raven nickered, and she went over to give him a pat on the nose. From the looks of it, he had managed to behave. Nothing looked destroyed, at any rate.

“Miss Goodgrave?”

It was Cade, sitting on a log. A Weapon stood nearby speaking quietly with the death surgeon. The other Weapons must be keeping sentry duty in the woods. Karigan strode over to the log and sat beside Cade. Scruffy purred on his lap.

“How are you?” she asked him.

“Head throbs,” he said. Tentatively he touched the back of his head and winced. “I’ve got a nice lump. The mender gave me medicine for the nausea. I’ll live.”

“You have to be careful with knocks to the head.”

“I know.”

“Why were you following me tonight?” she asked.

“The professor asked that I keep watch on you. He was afraid you’d go after the Eletian on your own.”

“As you can see, I did not.”

“No . . .” An expression of awe came over his face once again. “You’re full of surprises. There have been rumors of such an entrance to the tombs, but no one has ever found it. You told the professor you did not know of another entrance.”

“It was not my right to tell him otherwise.”

“Not even to help the opposition?”

“It is not my place to entrust such knowledge to outsiders.”

Cade digested that for a moment, then tried another tack. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me what it’s like in there?”

“No.”

He nodded, and to her surprise, did not press her further. Perhaps he knew there was a very good chance he’d be forced to live out the rest of his days within—for however long that may be. And with Silk’s excavation delving ever deeper. She shivered, both from the damp chill and the likelihood of Silk’s breaching the tombs. She could only imagine what he’d do with all that he found inside.

“The cat is warming your jacket,” Cade said. He tugged it out from beneath the dead weight of the purring Scruffy.

Karigan drew it on. It was not nearly as nice as Joff’s cloak, but it would do. “Scruffy has certainly taken a liking to you.”

“The others,” and he nodded at Dash, “seem to think it has some significance.”

Karigan gazed at the content feline. Were tomb cats discerning about the humans they chose to commune with? All cats were, she conceded, but were tomb cats extra particular? If so, what did it mean that Ghost Kitty kept company with her, except that she provided a soft bed and warm body for him to sleep with?

“What was it that brought you here at this hour?” Cade asked. “This night?”

“I was summoned.”

“Summoned?”

“By my captain. She knew—or someone knew—I’d be here in this future.” Karigan explained how Scruffy had brought her the message, and about the riddle—though not its content—that had awaited her in the tombs.

“You were hoping it would tell you how to return to your own time,” Cade guessed.

She nodded. “At least some hint. Instead I’ve a puzzle to unravel.” She had thought it sounded obscure, something like what an Eletian would say, and now it occurred to her that maybe the one person who could help her figure it out was Lhean. If so, that meant it was more important than ever for her to retrieve him from the hands of Dr. Silk.

“Thank you,” Cade said.

“What? What for?”

“I am told that while I was unconscious, you were willing to defend me.”

Now that Karigan thought of it, it had been rather rash, challenging virtually all those Weapons when she hadn’t even the bonewood to hand. “You can return the favor some day,” she said, trying to sound light.

“I will,” he replied with a fervor that surprised her. He leaned closer to her, their shoulders almost touching. “If you cannot find your way home, I will do my utmost to see you comfortably settled and safe. Not that you can’t protect yourself, but our ways here are different, harder for a woman. You understand that a woman here is not allowed to own property?”

Karigan nodded. She had gathered as much.

“That means not even her clothes or any wages she might earn. It all goes to her nearest male relative. Here, you are practically owned by your uncle.”

“Who is not really my uncle, but I see your point.”

“And if you married—”

“I’d be owned by my husband.”

“It is a coarse way to look at it, yes, but it is the emperor’s law that it is so. It would be difficult for you on your own. I would see that you were not simply left to fend for yourself.”

What exactly was he saying? That he’d be willing to take her on as his property? “Won’t you have your hands full with Arhys?”

There was a fierce glint in his eyes. “Of anyone, you would understand that duty.”

“I suppose. But Cade, I intend to reach home or—die trying.” And she would not be owned by anyone, not even Cade.

He hung his head, trailing his fingers over Scruffy’s fur. “I selfishly wish you would stay. Or fail in your endeavor without dying.”

Karigan stared at her knees. “I’m afraid it would kill me to stay.” And, she wondered, would he even be allowed to leave the tombs this night? Would he even be there for her in the outside world if she couldn’t get home?

“I would hope that I could make it worth living for you.”

She gaped at him, but before she could gather her thoughts, the Heroes Portal swung open, and she stood hastily. Maybe too hastily. Cade rose more slowly, depositing Scruffy on the log. When Cade swayed on his feet, she grabbed his arm to steady him.

“I’m fine,” he said. Then he whispered, “It would look better to the Weapons if you weren’t holding me up.”

She let go, wondering if it would look better if he fell flat on his face, but he managed to remain upright. They met Chelsa, Serena, and Joff by the portal, the other Weapons returning from the misty woods to surround them.

Chelsa’s hood was up again, but Karigan detected a smile. “This has been a most extraordinary meeting,” the caretaker said, “and one that shall be recorded in our histories and be preserved for as long as . . . for as long as the tombs survive.” Her smile faltered. “If only the opposition could act to truly halt Silk’s excavation.” She shook her head.

“I will try to encourage Professor Josston to do so,” Cade said, “without giving you away, of course.”

Karigan glanced at him in surprise. He had told the Weapons the professor’s name, and of his link to the opposition?

“I trust that is so, Mr. Harlowe,” Chelsa said. “As a matter of fact, I have just been discussing you with Joff and Serena.”

Karigan shifted her grip on the bonewood. Just in case.

“They told me that you claimed some interesting things—that you are training in the arts of a Weapon under Professor Josston, and why.”

Karigan glanced again at Cade, now doubly surprised. He would share the secret of Arhys?

“We had lost hope and believed the royal line had succumbed,” Chelsa continued. “We lost track of the line after Queen Estora’s escape with her son. It gladdens us to hear that the line is not lost. I do wonder how it is you felt you could trust us with this information.”

Karigan wondered, too.

“Because.” Cade swept his hand through the air at the portal, at the Weapons. “Because you are who you are. You are of the old realm. The Weapons of the old realm would believe in protecting the royal heir.”

“As we discussed earlier,” Joff said, “it is more than the royal heir we protect.”

“Yes, I know.”

Karigan wondered what exactly she had missed while she was inside with Chelsa. She’d always had an inkling that Weapon loyalties were not necessarily tied to the sovereign, but to whatever other secrets they were sworn to keep and protect. From the bits and pieces she had picked up, it had to do with shielding the realm from the misuse of magic. The Order of the Black Shields had originated, after all, during the Long War when such terrible magicks had torn the land apart.

“You have gambled by trusting us,” Chelsa insisted.

“A gamble, perhaps, but one with excellent odds,” Cade replied. “Miss—Sir Karigan revealed her true identity to you. That, too, was a huge gamble, but you have not threatened her in any way, and you treat her as befitting her station. If you were worthy of her trust, you are worthy of mine. You are of the old realm. I see it, I believe it.”

“You are well spoken, Mr. Harlowe. I do not think your trust is misplaced, nor ours with you. Sir Karigan’s example goes both ways. If she trusts you, that counts for much, as does Scruffy’s regard of you. He is attuned, shall we say, to Black Shields. However, it is not necessarily enough proof for us to release you.”

“What will you do?” Karigan asked, stiffening.

“There is a brief test we can administer,” Joff said, “and it shall help us determine all is as Mr. Harlowe says.” The Weapon then gave what must have been a rare smile. “We’ve already tested his fighting skills and they are not bad. Not bad at all.”

“Let us do this test,” Cade said eagerly.

“We must enter the portal. If you fail the test, then you shall never see the outside world again.”

“I’m ready.”

Was he so keen to give up everything? “Cade,” Karigan said, touching his sleeve, “do you know what you are doing?”

“I know enough that if I don’t even try, I will have to stay in the tombs anyway. Forever. So it will hurt nothing to undergo this test.”

She nodded. He knew.

Joff gestured for Cade to precede him. Karigan moved to follow, but Dash blocked her way. “I am sorry, Sir Karigan, but you must stay back.”

“Open the Portal, Mr. Harlowe,” Joff instructed. The other Weapons stood in a semi-circle behind him, waiting.

Cade did not hesitate. He strode right up to the door. He must have observed it being opened and closed enough times that it was no mystery. His hands hovered almost reverently over the glyph of Westrion, and then again, without hesitation, he pushed it in. The door released and exposed a handle that rose from its flat iron façade. Cade pulled it open, the cool air of the tombs tumbling out and mixing with the moist world of outside, suffusing him in a vaporous cloud.

“Congratulations, Mr. Harlowe,” Joff said. “You have passed the test.”

“Opening the door? That’s it?” Cade actually sounded disappointed.

“If there were more time, there would be more rigorous testing of your knowledge and physical skills, but as far as ascertaining your suitability to be a Black Shield, thus deserving of our trust, this test was enough.”