The Mirrored City (21 page)

She said, “Aside from the history lesson
, I
cannot use my power to get you out of here.
I
cannot bend or break the rules.” She put a strange emphasis on her wording.

Sword’s brain popped into action. He swaggered over to her and placed his hand on her exposed arm.

He immediately regretted it.

Maddox’s body offered a furious fountain of exhilarating power. The Libertine’s body, however, was like a tsunami. He felt his muscles swell as the relentless torrent of magic washed over him, like sandpaper rubbing against his flesh.

The room spun around him and visions of brutal anguish crowded his sight. Grinning mothers hugged dead children. Mirthful soldiers danced amid the bodies of their fallen comrades. Widows flashed their breasts from windswept balconies. Bards sang vulgar songs to indifferent patrons as the tavern burned around them.

He tumbled back, nose bleeding and body shaking. The convulsions came with dry heaving. He was vaguely aware that his torso had become so massive it ripped his vest open. He flopped like a fish on the ground. In the distance he heard Maddox and a female voice arguing.

The seizure stopped, and he lay panting on the ground. Maddox hovered above, worry etched across his face. The Libertine was gone.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Maddox asked.

Sword grabbed his blade and stood. His body surged with overwhelming power. He wiped frothy drool off his mouth and grabbed Maddox’s shoulder. “I’m getting us out of here.”

The space around them folded into a blurred, tumbling collage of scenery that tugged at the pits of their stomachs. The world in all its facets whizzed by and then came to a screeching halt. Sword doubled over. He’d already lost half his hulking size. Maddox stumbled and fell to the hardwood floor.

Sword glanced around and saw a familiar room: walls covered in overstuffed bookshelves, the prevalent reek of incense. Maddox groaned as he recovered his balance from the dizzying transportation. “Please tell me we’re close to a bar.”

“Aw, fuck,” Sword said, taking in the scenery of the Diviner’s parlor.

Diviner Quillian sat at his desk, murdered. The top of his skull had been removed, and his body was held in place by carefully tied strings. The empty head was filled with lacquered pages from books, folded and arranged into a scaled headdress that measured two feet in length. His head rested thoughtfully on the severed stump at the end of his left arm. A brain, pink and bloodless, sat on the pile of papers.

T
WENTY

Overserved

L
YTA

Dear Diary,

My first day in Dessim as a free woman has been everything I imagined. I bought fabulous new dresses, got a tattoo from a Patrean tattoo parlor to celebrate my newfound heritage, and purchased a leather garter with a dildo attached so I can try getting fucked. It’s all the rage among Dessim women according to the shopkeeper.

What genius thought of this? And what other wonders await?

But, as usual, Lyta seems hesitant. When she was brought to House Ibazz, she was little more than a slave… and would have been if the practice were still allowed. I knew she had come from an unfortunate background and sought desperately to elevate her status. I aided her to become the seventh daughter because she knew of the world outside. It was always our intent to escape. But now it’s like she resents me for having to leave.

She has her faults, but Lyta never struck me as so ungrateful and selfish. Is it too much to consider my needs? And why hide her abilities from me? It’s vexing, Diary. Does she really have anything to fear in Dessim or did she simply want to keep me to herself?

—
SHANNON’S DIARY

HALF-EMPTY GLASSES LITTERED
the table. Shannon, who had never had a sip of wine before today, decided she wanted to sample every one she could. The waiters brought glasses in an unending stream as she drunkenly sorted them in clusters, based on how much she liked the taste. She favored whites. Lyta worried about the cost—they had plenty of money from the jewels they sold, but it wouldn’t last and Shannon had no concept of money.

The restaurant was decorated in intimate alcoves with silk partitions and multicolored paper lanterns hung from the ceiling. The corpulent twin gods of bounty and digestion adorned their table in the form of ceramic salt and pepper shakers.

Shannon’s nose crinkled as she sipped a red glass. “Ew. That’s gross.”

“That was the most expensive one,” Lyta said.

Shannon shrugged. “I don’t know that I like wine. I do, however like how it makes me feel. Sure you don’t want just a sip?”

“It doesn’t affect me the same way it does your kind,” Lyta said.

Shannon purred. “And what is my kind exactly? Because until today I thought I was human.” She wore a newly bought evening samite dress trimmed with sable that exposed a generous view of her cleavage, another costly indulgence. She looked ravishing. Her hair was pulled tight in front, but the back gave way to beautiful wavy curls that framed her shoulders.

“Patreans are human,” Lyta said.

“No.” Shannon reached for one of the glasses in her favorites section. “They aren’t. They never get sick, for one. They give birth after three months of pregnancy, and children are fully mature at twelve. At least the regular ones do. I’m even more of a freak. That’s probably why we get along so well.”

Lyta leaned forward. “You’re more human than I am.”

“And I’m fine with it. Seriously. So your insides are disgusting. The same can be said for everyone’s. You’re beautiful on the outside, and that’s all that matters.”

Lyta sighed. “Thanks. I think.”

“You know what I mean.” Shannon continued, “Since coming here to Dessim, my abilities have been getting so much stronger. My senses are on fire, Lyta. I can hear what that couple over there are whispering. I can smell the cook’s spit on the lamb roast at the rude couple’s table next to us.”

Lyta pushed her own half-eaten plate of lamb away. “You heard what Ara said. If the Patreans find out about you, they will take you.”

“And you can rip their heads off when they try,” Shannon assured Lyta. “I can spy on anybody I touch. Do you think the Dessim Assembly would hand me over? For that matter, would Vyzad have ever let me leave the house if he knew of my gift? The old man would sell his own children.”

“Your power makes you dangerous,” Lyta warned. “You cannot reveal yourself.”

Shannon set down her glass. “Were you always this boring?”

Lyta slammed her fist on the table, rattling the glasses and drawing unwanted stares from the other tables. Quietly she whispered, “You have never known anything outside Vyzad’s compound. The world does not exist for your entertainment. It is a hard, dangerous place, full of people who will try to exploit you.”

“That’s the whole problem with Baash, isn’t it?” Shannon flapped her hands. “They have rules for how we’re supposed to live every second of our day. They keep us safe, locked away in family compounds like priceless treasures… away from temptation and danger. And once a month they take us over to Dessim on missionary work to see how dirty and horrible these people live. But, Lyta, life isn’t supposed to be safe. There aren’t supposed to be guarantees.”

Lyta shook her head. “You have no idea—”

“I’ve seen how people live here. I’ve felt it. Dessim is a city that embraces life. Would you rather live to be a hundred and never taste what life has to offer, or would you rather die knowing you experienced as much possibility as Creation has to offer?”

“You’re drunk.” Lyta smiled.

“And I love it. Why don’t people feel this way all the time?” Shannon caressed the sides of her delicate neck with the backs of her hands.

“The answer may come in the morning,” Lyta quipped.

“I’m really sleepy now,” Shannon said.

“Let’s get you home.”

Shannon was staggering through the streets, her head lolling back and forth as she leaned on Lyta’s shoulder. They would have made faster progress if Lyta just carried Shannon, but she staunchly refused to be carried, insisting she was not a child. She was in good company; as the sky darkened, more and more drunks poured onto the street, laughing, singing, and vomiting as they spilled out of restaurants and salons.

Dessim was a disgusting haven for reprobates and charlatans. The Diviners hawked trinkets on the street corners and preached a mangled mishmash of doctrine according to the gods and signs they supposedly saw in their visions. Unlike the healers of Baash, they had no real magic that Lyta could discern. She would have paid handsomely to have Shannon restored to sobriety.

Flimsy broadsheets depicting the Grand Patriarch in ridiculous caricature were plastered over the walls of the buildings declaring:
HE’S FINALLY DEAD; PRAISE HIS ASSASSIN
. She held no special admiration for Ibiq Qaadar, but she thought it in extremely poor taste to celebrate the death of a human being. It worried her that Shannon felt such a kinship with these kinds of people.

Lyta veered them to one of the shortcuts. In Baash, it was called the Alley of Truth; here it was named the Alley of Riddles. No doors or windows faced the long stretch of narrow stone cobbles. The walls were scrawled with graffiti, posing silly “philosophical” inquiries. “When you die, you become closer to god… because you no longer exist?” and “What if there were no hypothetical questions?”

Lyta sighed, thankful to be off the main streets. They made their way down the quiet alley.

Lyta felt a growing sense of unease as she made her way to the middle stretch of the alleyway, and the raucous sounds of nightlife faded behind them. Shannon, barely conscious, placed her head limply on Lyta’s shoulder, nuzzled it, and moaned something unintelligible.

Lyta glanced around and saw nothing, but a sharp sense of dread started to percolate in her stomach. She walked faster, carrying Shannon’s body like a ragdoll at her side. When Shannon didn’t protest, Lyta scooped up the girl and ran as fast as possible.

Lyta saw it, scuttling down the side of one of the buildings: a massive shape in a dirty, tattered robe with three hoods. It galloped along the wall, remaining just out of sight, and for such a massive thing, it moved with alarming speed as it shadowed her.

It leapt off one wall and landed on the other, scurried, and jumped out in front of her, landing in a crouch. Its body was fully covered, and it lacked any sort of recognizable anatomy under its billowing veil of stinking rags. It made no sound whatsoever.

Setting Shannon down, Lyta readied herself for a fight, raising her fists as she’d seen brawlers do. “Away with you, creature!” she commanded.

The three hoods tilted slowly in different directions, weaving back and forth.

Lyta charged the creature. It reared up menacingly, becoming a seven-foot wall of rags. Striking its chest with her fist, she broke through bone and tissue. Her hand emerged through the back, clutching something that felt like an intestine. The thing looked down on her, and in the dark of the hoods, she saw the gleam of eyes. Too many eyes.

She yanked her arm back, but it was stuck. The creature’s flesh closed around her arm, holding her fast. Lyta pummeled and kicked as the thing fell on top of her, scratching her skin and returning the blows. They tumbled in the alley, and the thing jumped against the walls, slamming her into the stone. She heard every bone in her body crunch, faster than she could heal.

They wrestled as the creature launched them in the air, rolling over dizzily as they hit another wall. The thing released her, and she tumbled to the ground, head first. Her neck snapped, numbing her entire body. Her limbs still flailed, but she had no direct control of them.

She tried to remain calm as the worms inside her dutifully restored her broken body. She saw Shannon, passed out on the cobblestones. Lyta tried to yell, but the thing had done something to her throat in the fighting. All she could do was rasp pathetically.

The monster came crashing down in front of her. She saw only the dirty multicolored robe and a few toes with cracked yellow nails protruding under the hem.

Then, in a flash, it leapt away. Her heart sank when she saw Shannon was no longer there. After what seemed an eternity, as her bones cracked into place and her flesh healed, Lyta was able to stand. Her dress was a shredded ruin of blood and black ichor hanging off her uninjured cocoa skin. She glanced everywhere, but the thing had vanished, along with Shannon.