Mirror Sight (69 page)

“Also,” she said, “breaking the mask prevented Mornhavon the Black from possessing it.” As bad as the empire was, she believed the world would be in far more dire straits had Mornhavon controlled the mask.

Dr. Silk looked thoughtful, but he gestured that she should go on with her tale, and so she recounted how she’d ended up as part of a circus performance in the current time period.

“Ah, so you were the ambulatory corpse Rudman Hadley complained so bitterly about,” Dr. Silk mused. “I don’t know why it upset him so much when it increased ticket sales thereafter. Well, that’s one mystery solved. In an effort to solve the mystery of you, I’ve my experts going over some very interesting items we’ve found in the secret compartments of your wagon. My experts will judge their authenticity, but I suspect they will corroborate your tale. I must admit, I have had questions about you for a while.” He leaned on his forearms on the desk. “You see, my eyes are not very good with ordinary sight. You probably find my office to be dark. My eyes are sensitive to light, even with my lenses.” He tapped the rim of his specs. “It was an accident some time ago, with an etherea engine. It altered my sight. Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”

Fascinated despite herself, she nodded.

Dr. Silk removed his specs. He gazed at her with nacreous eyes that gleamed in the low light. His pupils were tiny and gray, his eyelashes stark white. Karigan, who had seen many extraordinary things in her life, was not repulsed or taken aback but more curious.

He looked mildly disappointed by her lack of reaction. “I learned the hard way not to look directly into an etherea engine when one threatens to implode, which happens occasionally,” he said, “though I’ve never heard of anyone else being thus afflicted in such accidents. However, I believe . . . my altered sight is, in a way, a gift, for all that it pains me, and makes everyday vision different. For instance, here is what I see when I look at you. I see an aura of green clouding around you, and dark wings. Tell me, do you know what it means?”

D
ark wings. It was not the first time she had heard this. It was Fergal Duff, his Rider ability just emerging, who said he’d seen dark wings around her. She stared hard at Dr. Silk, his eyes agleam with pearlescent fire. Fergal was able to sometimes see auras around other magic users. What Dr. Silk had seen sounded very much like that. Could this accident of his have brought out the same sort of ability as Fergal’s? In her own time, might he have heard the Rider call? No, she thought. He was not Rider material.

“Well?” he asked. “Have you nothing to say?”

She shook her head. “No. I—I don’t know why you would see such a thing. I don’t know what it means.”

He appraised her a moment more with those disconcerting eyes of his before replacing his specs. “I believe you. It is how I see people—the aural energy around them. Sometimes there are patterns, but yours is different. It is why I first took an interest in Professor Josston’s supposed niece. You are . . . different. Josston was clever to come up with the story that you’d been in an asylum. How better to explain you? Here we have taken you prisoner, you were struck hard by the emperor’s Eternal Guardian, which was surely painful, you are in manacles, and yet you have not shed a single tear or begged to be let go. You bargained on behalf of Mr. Harlowe, not yourself. Most females would be making unseemly caterwauling nuisances of themselves in the same situation. You have exhibited no such normal female behavior, and you show no sign of shame at baring your face before strangers. I do not think you are mad, and these factors combined with the story of your arrival and the questions you have answered, lead me to surmise you are who you claim to be.” He paused then went on. “You mentioned you traveled into Blackveil with Eletians. We found on your person a small round crystal we associate with Eletians.”

“Yes. It was my mother’s, and it was only recently passed to me.”

“Your mother was an Eletian?”

“No. She was befriended by one who gave her the crystal.” Although Karigan had come to question how much she really knew about either of her parents, she was firm on at least that point: Her mother had not been Eletian.

“How did it come about, this friendship between your mother and an Eletian? At that time, Eletians were not prone to making appearances outside their forest.”

“I don’t know exactly.” That much was true, she thought. Somehow Laurelyn had sought out her mother and found her, but Karigan did not feel she needed to bring Laurelyn into this discussion with Dr. Silk. “My mother died when I was little, and I only found out about all this toward the end of winter.
My
winter.”

“So what are they used for, these crystals?”

“The Eletians, on the expedition, used them as a light source, like in the legends about how they collected silver moonbeams. Have you heard those?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But we can’t make the ones in our possession light up.”

“You have some?”

“Several, obtained from captives during the war.”

There was too much Karigan had failed to learn about the empire’s rise. Had the Eletians fought alongside the Sacoridians? Had the entire population been annihilated? What had become of them?

“I think they light up just for Eletians.” Some instinct prevented Karigan from admitting that she could illuminate her own with a touch. The less he thought she knew, the better.

“Magic?” Dr. Silk murmured.

Karigan shrugged. “Even in my time, we find Eletians to be very cryptic.”

Dr. Silk chuckled. “Can’t argue with that. This line of questioning is, of course, leading somewhere.” He stood unexpectedly and came around the desk. “Come with me, Miss G’ladheon.”

“
Rider
G’ladheon,” Karigan corrected. “Or Sir Karigan.”

“Come along.” Dr. Silk acted as though he hadn’t heard. “We haven’t all day.”

She held her tongue and followed him into a corridor. Accompanied by the guards who had brought her, they set off into the depths of the palace. This time she paid attention—not so much to the ornamentation, unless it provided a convenient landmark—but to their various turnings through the hushed corridors. When they came upon the fountain of the dragon this time, she stumbled to a halt and remembered. She remembered a dream that might have been more than a dream. Just like in the drawing shown her by the ghostly Yates, there were corridors to either side of the fountain. Yates had pointed to the one on the left. It led to the prison of forgotten days. She knew it with that inexplicable sense of knowing. Would Dr. Silk take her there? The scything moon was held captive there, whatever that meant.

For that matter, the riddle had gone on, telling her to
seek it in the den of the three-faced reptile.
Well, she was in Amberhill’s den, but she didn’t get the reference to three—

“Miss G’ladheon?” Dr. Silk glanced back at her in annoyance. A guard shoved her forward, and they were off once again.

“
Rider
G’ladheon,” Karigan muttered.

They did not enter the passage to the left of the fountain, as she had hoped, but they took the one right after it. Close, but not close enough. Some ways down the corridor, a guard unlocked a stout door and opened it for them. She followed Dr. Silk into a chamber quietly lit. At first all she made out were stacks of wooden crates, then tables and cabinets draped in sheets. Dusty, odd-shaped glassware and copper tubes glinted on shelves. In the very back of the chamber was a darkened cell.

“This is the emperor’s old laboratory where he once studied Eletians,” Dr. Silk explained. “As you can see, it has not been used in some time since there have been no specimens to study until now.”

Lhean.

“At my dinner party, you saw the one I captured. You knew him, didn’t you? He came with you through time. He was on the Blackveil expedition. It is the only explanation.”

Karigan had been peering into the distant darkness of the cell, but now she turned to Dr. Silk. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He won’t speak most of the time, and when he does, it is Eltish gibberish. I’d ask my father to pry information from him, but I want him to be pristine when I officially present him to the emperor.”

Karigan shuddered at the word “pristine.”

“So, was the Eletian you saw at my party one of your companions?”

“Yes.”

He looked jubilant. “Then let us reunite you. Perhaps he will deign to speak if he sees you.”

He led the way between crates and tables to the back of the room to the cell. He raised a lever in the wall and a ceiling fixture threw cold light into the cell. There, behind steel bars, on a scattering of straw strewn on the floor, sat Lhean, legs crossed, hands on his knees, eyes closed as though he slept in the awkward position. Nothing of his armor remained, just the black clothlike membrane clinging to his skin, stiff-looking with dried ichor. His face was thin and pale, the radiance she associated with Eletians faded or absent altogether. He appeared not to sense their arrival.

“He has spent most of his time in these trances to evade interacting with us,” Dr. Silk said.

More like he’s trying to preserve himself,
Karigan thought. He appeared barely to breathe.

“Make him talk,” Dr. Silk ordered her.

“
Make
him?”

“Or our agreement is off, and I’ll find ways to make you reveal your ability.”

“I told you—”

“That it can’t be coerced. I grant it may make it more difficult, but I don’t believe you for one moment. I am humoring you, Miss G’ladheon, because it’s easier. Unless you humor me, your situation, and Mr. Harlowe’s, will only grow more difficult.”

So he would use Cade as leverage after all, to manipulate her. She could not say she was surprised. His honorable word was not worth much, and better she learn it now rather than later.

“Remember, if you please me,” Dr. Silk said, “I have the influence to make the coming days easier on Mr. Harlowe.”

His lack of honor did not defeat her. After all, she’d come to Gossham wanting to find Lhean, and here Dr. Silk had delivered her right to him. The rescuing part, however, was going to be harder, much harder, especially since the list now included Cade, Lorine, and Arhys. Not to mention herself. In the meantime, she must keep Dr. Silk happy.

She sighed. “I can guarantee nothing, but I will try.”

“That is all I ask.”

She pressed right up against the bars of the cage, her manacles ringing against the steel. “Lhean?” she said.

“Is that the creature’s name?” Dr. Silk asked, excitement behind his words.

She ignored him. “Lhean, it’s me, Karigan. Er, the Galadheon.”

Slowly his eyes opened, and they were the startling blue she remembered.

“
A mien,
Galadheon.” Then he rattled off a whole stream of words in Eletian.

“What did he say?” Dr. Silk asked.

“I—I don’t speak Eletian,” Karigan replied, but she had gotten the impression that Lhean had insulted the company she kept. “Lhean, could you speak in the common, please? Dr. Silk knows how we came to be here in his time.”

Lhean deigned to gaze at Dr. Silk with a baleful glare and then spat more Eletian at him. The language was always lyrical, more music than mere words that made the glassware on the shelves chime, but even Dr. Silk could not possibly mistake the strains of venom in Lhean’s speech. The effort appeared to tax him, and he struggled to remain sitting up.

“Lhean?”

“This place,” he said, finally speaking in the common, “is killing me.”

Karigan turned to Dr. Silk. “Have you not been caring for him? Have you been offering him any food and water?”

“We have, but he refuses food.” Dr. Silk shrugged. “He has taken some water.”

“Lhean,” Karigan said, “what can we do to help you?”

“Take me home.”

It was so plaintively said, and expressed all that Karigan felt as well. “I do not know the way.”

Dr. Silk chuckled. “We would not let you go even if you did.”

“This place is poison,” Lhean said.

“The etherea? It is . . .” She recollected the way it had been explained to her. “It is from Blackveil, filtered.”

“The air, the land, everything,” Lhean replied. “The mechanicals destroy etherea.”

“That’s not true,” Dr. Silk said. “There is plenty of—”

“Not outside this place,” Lhean snapped. “It is dead. And what you have here, poison.”

Lhean was just stating fact, Karigan knew, but she could sense anger building in Dr. Silk. She did not know what would happen if Dr. Silk erupted in fury. He may wish to keep Lhean “pristine” for the emperor, but that would not necessarily forestall some rash act.

“Chocolate,” she interjected. Both Dr. Silk and Lhean glanced at her in surprise. “Chocolate,” she repeated. “It . . . it has some sustaining quality for Eletians.”

Dr. Silk raised an eyebrow but did not argue. When he turned to order his guards to locate some chocolate, Karigan whispered so very low she herself could not hear it, knowing how keen Eletian hearing was. “I will try to find a way home,” she said. “I will need your help.”

Lhean nodded his understanding and touched his chest in the spot where the winged horse brooch rested on hers. “Thresholds,” he whispered, but said no more as Dr. Silk turned his attention back to them.

In short order, several varieties of chocolate were brought in on a rolling tray and presented to Lhean—fudge, solid bars of dark chocolate, truffles, lighter chocolates oozing with cordial, chocolate molded into soldiers, turtles, and gold-dusted leaves. There was even a pitcher of warm, thick sipping chocolate and a tiny mug to drink it from. All of this, but no Dragon Droppings. Lhean chose the solid bar of dark chocolate. The scent of all of it concentrated right in front of Karigan almost made her swoon, and she realized they had probably passed suppertime quite a while ago. She was starving. Dr. Silk did not invite her to try any of the chocolate.

Lhean was delicate in his eating, and Dr. Silk watched closely. “Yes,” he murmured. “I can see it helps. There is improvement in the colors around you.”

Lhean glanced sharply at him but said nothing.

“What prizes you both are,” Dr. Silk said, “and the emperor will reward me greatly.” He left instructions with the guards that the Eletian should be given chocolate whenever he desired, or any other food at his request, then with a gesture, his other guards grabbed Karigan and dragged her away.

She got in one last glimpse of Lhean who had risen to his feet to watch after her.
Thresholds,
he had said. He must believe she had the power to take them home. As she was jerked and jostled out into the corridor, she wished fervently he was right, but at the moment, her hope was flagging.

“I am done with you for now,” Dr. Silk told her, “and must attend to other matters.”

He simply discarded her and went on his way, leaving her with the guards who shoved her in the opposite direction. He’d better be keeping his word, she thought, and use his influence to help Cade, but he’d already shown himself to be untrustworthy. If he did not keep his word, she would show him no mercy.