Mirrorworld (45 page)

“Oh,” Marcus said, looking out. Down below, the plateau that had so recently been swamped with creatures was now bare. What remained of Keithus’s army was moving slowly through the abandoned remains of their campsites, heading north towards the great mirror, where their reflections were lost in the distortion of the shimmer that now danced across its expanse. As Marcus watched, a troupe of orcs moved up to stand before it, hesitated briefly, and then pressed on, disappearing into whatever lay beyond. “They’re leaving.”

“Well spotted.” Kendra leant against the window frame, looking puzzled. “But where are they going? It doesn’t make sense. If Keithus has had the knowledge of how to use the Mirrorline all along, then why the need for this? I mean, this all started from him wanting to get to Earth, for some reason. Can’t he just cross straight over? Where is he going with these people? Aah, so many questions!”

“Portruss,” Marcus said, his stomach turning at the thought of such an army descending on the city. “That’s what he said. He’s going to the city.”

“But..” Kendra frowned. “From this side the Mirrorline only leads to Earth. That’s not how it works, you can’t use it to.. shortcut across the same world..”

“Are you sure?” Marcus asked. “He said he was.. using a trick you didn’t even know you had. What if.. he knows how to move from place to place in this world, but not how to move across? Then he can move his army to Portruss, kidnap an actual Viaggiatori.. I don’t know. He’s clearly mad, you said so yourself. He’s probably just making it up as he goes along.” With a sigh, Marcus slumped down from the window. “Either way, I guess we’re done.”

Kendra didn’t reply, as she had been staring at nothing ever since trailing off before. “There was one guy who thought..” she began, and suddenly her face lit up with understanding. “Marcus, we have to find the dungeons, or the prisons, or whatever, of this castle! I may have an idea..”

“About what?” a new voice interrupted, and they turned to see Musk stroll into the room somewhat unsteadily, massaging his heavily bruised hands and generally looking very much the worse for wear. He took in the general wreckage, and the dead man sticking out of it, and sighed heavily. “It feels almost trivial to ask if we won at this point, but.. I don’t suppose there’s any chance..”

“No,” Marcus said flatly, and Musk sighed again.

“Damnit. What happened? I should have been here, damn, damn, damn. I can’t believe it, knocked out right before the showdown. Some bloody leader I am - mission failed, man down.. Lucin was right to disdain me all this time. Where is the bastard? Left us to fend for ourselves? Dead?”

“Yes,” Kendra said carefully.

“Great,” Musk said, sinking to a sitting position on an abandoned rock. “Hey,” he said to Marcus, who had just lit a cigarette, “throw me one of those.” Marcus rolled his eyes at their sudden popularity, but tossed him the packet. “I may have mentioned that I don’t smoke, but right now I don’t see much point in
not
doing. So, what happened?” he asked, striking a match off his rock.

“We got curb-stomped,” Kendra said frankly. “He sent Lucin.. somewhere.. then he killed the Assassin, then he got me, then he got Marcus. Then he jumped in a mirror and left. That’s about the gist of it.”

“What? He jumped in a mirror?”

“Yes, and left.”

“But.. why? If he could do that..”

“That’s what we were saying. He said he was going to Portruss, not Earth.”

“But that’s not how it works!”

“Yeah I was saying that too. But then I thought – hey where are you going?”

This was addressed to Marcus, who had stood up and crossed between the conversation, heading for the back of the hall and the corridors beyond. “I’m going to look in Keithus’s crystal ball,” he explained.

“Why?” Kendra and Musk asked at the same time.

“Because he said I’d find out the truth there. Sounds like a great idea.”

“It’s probably just a trap!” Kendra protested. “Marcus, please, don’t.”

Marcus just waved over his shoulder, without slowing down. Kendra groaned.

“Musk,” she said, addressing the other man. “Can you, please, erm, I need you to find the dungeons or whatever, where the prisoners are kept. I think.. there’s someone important there. Could you do that?” Her eyes returned to Marcus’s departing form.

“Sure,” Musk said with a shrug. “Ain’t much else to do now. All the orcs have crawled off to die somewhere out there, the only one left is that big troll lady, still unconscious. I guess I can go check on Fervesce as well whilst I’m at it. Any idea which direction to head in, boss?”

“Down,” Kendra said absently, running off after Marcus.

“Of course,” Musk said, taking a drag from his cigarette.

Kendra caught up to Marcus halfway down a long corridor, walking towards a bright light. “I just gave orders to Musk,” she said with a giggle. “Oi,” she added, punching Marcus’s shoulder when he didn’t respond and probably causing more pain to herself than to him. “You listening?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marcus said, without slowing.

“Hey,” Kendra said, grabbing him and bringing him to a halt. “What’s up with you?”

Marcus made as it to shrug her off violently, but sighed and instead gently removed her hand. “All sorts of things are up with me,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess, somewhere along the line, I actually started believing in all that stupid stuff about being chosen and connected to Keithus, actually thought maybe I stood a chance, maybe I
was
destined to be able to stop him.” He laughed. “And well, look how that turned out. Another disappointment, but I don’t know what I expected, really. Either way, I’m right back where I started, with just as little idea what the hell this was all about. But he said that if I looked into his crystal ball, I’d find out, so why not? He also said some unpleasant things about the Viaggiatori, which right now I’m trying not to dwell on, lest I come to agree with him.”

“Come on, Marcus,” Kendra said weakly, “that’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Marcus shot back. “I’d love to know how it’s not fair to level criticism at the people who have had me dancing on their strings since the day they bought me here and filled up my freedom with a big stupid, abstract pile of steaming
destiny.
I know, I know,” he added, as Kendra opened her mouth, “it was only the freedom to die. But is that any worse than living as fate’s fool? That’s what really needles me, Kendra. If there ever was any greater cause behind all this, well it never bothered to clue me in. After everything we’ve done, we’re none the wiser. Keithus offered me an opportunity to find out what this was all about, so why not take it? I feel I’m owed an answer or two.”

He started walking again. “What if it’s a trap?” Kendra asked, following him.

“Keithus.. he wouldn’t have not killed me himself just so that he could point me towards a trap that he couldn’t know for sure that I would walk into. I know how his mind works because it’s the same way mine works. Whatever our connection is, he as good as told me that he’s been affected by it too, and he wanted to bring me up to speed. I’d have done the same thing. Especially if I’d just totally won and it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Seriously, at this point, what
do
we have to lose?”

“Pfft,” Kendra said. “I haven’t given up!”

Marcus didn’t reply, as at that moment they reached the end of the corridor, and the light exploded into Keithus’s private quarters. It was not subtle. The room they were in was overly decorated with purple wall hangings, twisted lamps and sketchy, spiky paintings that Marcus suspected were the wizard’s own work. Along one wall, a row of pegs held a series of identical pointy hats. Billowing curtains and soft pillows were everywhere. A four poster bed that rivalled the one Marcus had slept in in Portruss for sheer opulence languished against the back wall. And on the central table, over which was draped a blue tablecloth decorated with moons and stars, there sat a large, translucent glass sphere that teemed with whirling clouds. A crystal ball. Of course. Marcus couldn’t quite believe how much everything looked exactly like he’d expected it to. The only thing missing was a star map, the study of which would surely say that today was his lucky, lucky day.

He kneeled down by the crystal ball, peering into it curiously, then moved over as Kendra poked him, so that she could kneel down next to him. “How does it work, do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Kendra admitted. “Try touching it.”

“Okay..” He reached out and touched it. The clouds inside began to whirl around faster. Suddenly, they cleared, sweeping aside to reveal some words floating in the air inside. Marcus leant closer, to try and make them out. They were ‘Search’, ‘Archive’, and underneath, ‘Replay Last Video’.

He glanced at Kendra, who shrugged. Turning back, he poked at the crystal ball, aiming for the lowest option. Thrown off by the curved surface, he accidentally opened the archive, and the screen filled quickly with tiny renditions of landmarks he recognised from Earth, ranging from Stonehenge to New York and back via a great pyramid and a vaguely familiar mountaintop temple. He quickly found a curved arrow to poke, which took him back to the previous listing of options, and this time successfully managed to select ‘Replay Last Video’. The clouds whirled together once more, and the floating words dissolved into them. A new word appeared, very small, at the bottom of the ball’s visible spectrum.

Buffering…

After a few minutes, the clouds cleared again, and this time a scene was visible. Marcus and Kendra could just about make out large towers of machinery, and people buzzing around them like ants. They leant closer, but the image was still too small.

“Is there any way to make it bigger?” Kendra asked. Marcus frowned softly, then reached out and tapped the ball’s surface twice in quick succession. The effect was instantaneous; Marcus felt the image tug at him, and then it was getting much bigger very quickly as he felt himself lifted from his kneeling position and falling head-first into it. Voices and sound came from all around as the room vanished in a blur, and he fell forwards into a vision of the past.

Marcus hit the ground hard. Luckily, the ground was soft and bounced him back up, where after a moment of airborne confusion he sorted his limbs out and was able to land on his feet amidst the strange mists that curled all around. Only before him did they relent, scything apart like stage curtains to reveal a life-size enactment of the scene he had been viewing before. Ahead, there stood two rows of complex towers of machinery that reminded him of what he’d seen in the Viaggiatori labs, monstrous mechanisms that kept the Mirrorline in line. They in turn flanked an even taller central tower, a bulging mass of machinery that spat forth thick cabling that linked everything together. More cables ran off into the mist: brightly-dressed people ran back and forth along their lengths, checking their attachments. More people stood staring at their towers, seemingly reading from their output screens.

There was a strange warping sensation in the air next to Marcus, and Kendra dropped from the sky and bounced back up onto her feet just as he had. “Whoa,” she said. “Where are we?”

“Inside the recording, I think” Marcus said. “But what are we looking at?”

Kendra ran her eyes over the scene that was unfolding before them, taking it all in. When she spotted a certain figure strolling through the general bustle, she did a double take.

“Oh wow!” she trilled. “That’s Rashalamn! He’s a hero of the Viaggiatori! And he looks so young and dreamy – I mean, yes, so young. This must be, like, a long time ago.”

“Huh,” Marcus said, surprised. “He does look kind of familiar. But I never met him, did I?”

Kendra shrugged. “This.. it must be! This is the famous Rashalamn experiment!”

“And that is..”

“It’s a major,
major
thing. It was almost thirty years ago – there was meant to be a big celebration in the works for the anniversary next year, I guess it kinda got sidelined by all the Keithus stuff. Uhh.. basically, before this, the only way to travel between the Mirrorworld and Earth was by opening a portal and physically stepping into the Mirrorline, where you then shaped yourself a completely separate portal to exit out the other side by. Slow, dangerous, ungainly stuff. But then Rashalamn went and did his thing, and bam, suddenly we’re in a world of instant travel! We learnt so much in such a short while, had this huge burnout of creativity that basically informed everything about the way we travel between worlds today. It was a fascinating time. Before I was born, of course, but it’s all written in the Storie.” Kendra’s grin was as wide as Marcus had ever seen it.

“Yeah,” he said, “right. I think Eira mentioned this once. But what’s it got to do with me?”

“Ssh,” Kendra said, not really listening. “He’s about to start talking!”

Marcus sighed, and turned back to the scene, as the man known as Rashalamn cleared his throat.

“My dear fellows,” he began, and paused as something crazy happened in the sky. “My dear fellows... thank you all, for being here today. We are about to undertake an experiment which, if successful, will mark a momentous step forward. If we are able to successfully bridge a connection between the two places we have selected, then theoretically we can make travelling between Earth and our world
instantaneous
. I know many of us, myself included, have considered the possibility of this for some time. Today, we find out. Today, we make history.”

The man paused dramatically. Kendra made a gesture that was equal parts ‘see , told you’ and ‘damnit that’s what I was just saying’. Marcus wasn’t impressed.

“Let us begin!” Rashalamn roared. There was much whooping from the assembled Viaggiatori, and they all reached up to pull the big red levers that were attached to their every tower.

“Why are they always red?” Marcus asked. He wasn’t really expecting an answer and didn’t get one, as at that moment two towns coalesced into existence in the air above them, distracting the attention of both everyone in the recording and Kendra, who oohed and aahed at the sight of them.