The Mirror's Tale (Further Tales Adventures) (13 page)

I’ll feel better if you just shut up and leave,
Bert thought. He fought back a powerful urge to scream at her. Then
he took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.
Calm down, Bert. What’s the matter with you? She’s always been nice.

“You must be hungry. Here’s your dinner,” said Aunt Elaine. She uncovered the dish. There was a bowl of soup, teeming with green leaves, and a fat slab of bread with a gob of half-rnelted butter, “I get the feeling you want to be alone, Bert. But haven’t you had enough of solitude?”

Bert shrugged. “I really don’t mind. I prefer it, in fact.”

Aunt Elaine stared at him, frowning, for too long. “Is there anything else troubling you, Bert? This confinement is terrible enough, of course. But … you seem different somehow, Is there anything you want to tell me?” She reached out to pat his hand, but Bert jerked his arm away. Again he had to bite off an angry shout. It was infuriating, the way she seemed to look right into his mind.

“Why would I have anything to tell you? I’m fine, Aunt Elaine. I’ll stay all summer in this room if I have to.”

Aunt Elaine stood and smoothed the front of her dress. “All right, Bert. But I’ll talk to your uncle again. Can I at least tell him you’ll apologize for being rude?”

Bert ripped off a hunk of bread and popped it into his mouth. It had no flavor. “Tell him whatever you like,” he said without looking at her. His aunt left, not saying another word. He heard the bolt snap back into place on the other side of the door.

Finally,
Bert thought, exhaling loudly. He looked longingly at the tapestry that concealed the Tunnel of
Stars. He wanted badly to run down those stairs, right away. But he knew it wasn’t safe. He had to wait until everyone else had gone to bed. Two hours? Three? The minutes would feel like years.

At least, with the door bolted shut, he figured his uncle wouldn’t bother to check on him. As far as Lord Charmaigne knew, Bert had no way out.

He closed his eyes, hugged himself with his arms crossed, and rocked back and forth in his chair, no longer caring about the noise it made.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

“I’m here, Mirror,” Bert said, running to the throne. He wiped the perspiration from his brow. His teeth hurt from clenching his jaw.

I am glad you are here. I have been thinking about you.

Bert settled into the chair. A surge of pride warmed his veins.
The mirror was thinking about me!
“You have? What have you been thinking?”

How you must miss your brother.

Bert leaned to one side and rested his chin on one hand.
My brother.
In truth, he’d been feeling something toward Will that he’d never felt before. Resentment. Jealousy. It grew by the hour, consuming his thoughts.

Would you like to know what he is doing?
the mirror whispered.

“What he’s doing? Sleeping, probably,” said Bert, lifting his head from his palm.

I can tell you what he is doing.

“Tell me? How?”

You must ask.

“Ask?” Bert’s brow furrowed. He straightened from his slouch and gripped the arms of the chain “You mean, like ‘Tell me what Will is doing’?”

The mirror flickered, like lightning inside a distant cloud. Its surface took on that liquid appearance again. Ripples started from the center and disappeared under the frame. There was a humming, whining sound, like a moistened finger circling the rim of a crystal goblet.

The mirror spoke.

The hour is late. Most in Ambercrest are sleeping. But a man and a boy talk deep into the night, in a room filled with papers, lit by candles. They discuss the philosophy of war, the art of leadership. The man is a knight. The boy is your brother. The knight asks Will what sort of baron he would be. Will says he would be fair and honest, slow to anger…

“Enough!” cried Bert. He shot out of the chair and stomped about the chamber, clutching a handful of hair. “What’s Will talking about? He always said I’d be the one, not him! That should be me! I should be getting those lessons, not Will! Why didn’t Father just send Andreas back to wherever he came from when he found out I’d left?” He walked to the side of the chamber and bashed the wall with his fist. “Why is this happening?” he muttered. He remembered again what Father had said when he leaned into the carriage with that conspiratorial gleam in his eye,
thinking Bert was Will.
I know everyone believes that Bert will be baron one day. But I wouldn’t assume that if I were you.
And now Will was telling the knight what a great baron he’d be.

“Perfect,” Bert said in a voice like acid. He put his forehead on the cold stone. “Just perfect. Father must have been so happy that I switched places with Will. It worked out just right for both of them, didn’t it?”

Don’t lose hope, Bert,
the mirror whispered.
You may still get what you desire.

“No,” Bert said. “I’m losing everything. I’ll never get what I want.”

You will get what you desire. If you let me help you. If you use me.

Bert lifted his head and turned around to look at the mirror. “Use you?” A dark thought shadowed his mind. “Wait. Did the Witch-Queen use you?”

I do not know that name,
said the mirror.

“Rohesia, This was her secret place. She must have used you to see things too. The way you told me what Will was doing. Didn’t she?”

Ah, Rohesia. A dark time,
said the mirror.
Rohesia was vain. She was mad. She was not like you. She was born to relish her own beauty and envy those around her. She used me for wicked purposes, but you will not. She was weak, but you are strong. You were born to be a great leader, Bertram. A mighty ruler of men. A barony is not enough for you. Nor even a single kingdom.

“Yes,” said Bert. He could feel the truth of the words. His heart pounded like a gong of war. “I was born for that. I feel it.”

But a rival plots to take this from you. To steal your birthright.

“What?” Bert raised his chin and quivered with anger. “Who plots against me?
Who?”

You already know, the mirror said. The truth is plain to see, but you don’t wish to recognize it.

Bert lifted his hands. They were shaking. “Not … my brother?”

And now you understand. He tricked you into taking his place.

“But Will is … He wouldn’t …” Bert gasped. That strange feeling was back, stronger than before; something prodding and poking inside his mind. He thought about his brother, talking with the knight about war. Leadership. Being baron. And his blood steamed with rage. “It’s true, isn’t it? Will wanted me out of the way.”

He wanted you to believe he was afraid to leave. But that was a lie.

“Yes. Of course it was a lie. And now this great teacher is giving him the lessons that were meant for me.”

Lessons he will use against you.

“Against me!” Bert snapped. It was so obvious. How could he have been fooled so easily? All his life Will had lied to him. And yet… a small voice in his head cried out as if from a vast distance.
It can’t be true,
the voice said.
Will is my brother. He loves me.

Bert groaned and pressed his fingers against his temples. Again he felt something moving inside his skull, like fingers in his brain. But it wasn’t gently prodding now. It twisted and shoved and squeezed. The little voice that had piped up let out a strangled cry, and then fell silent. Bert closed his eyes and saw white sparks against his lids. He lurched and seized the back of the WitchQueens throne to keep from falling. Finally the strange probing ended. Had a minute passed? An hour? He couldn’t tell. He opened his eyes and blinked hard.

It was clear to him now, perfectly clear. The veil was torn away, the treachery revealed. He could feel it. He knew it. The wonderful mirror had helped him understand.

“Something must be done about my brother.” His voice rang out strong and echoed off the walls. “But what?”

I will help you,
the mirror said.

There was a sound, low and rumbling. At first Bert thought it might be a boom of thunder, with the noise sifting down through the tiny crevices in the ceiling. But as the noise grew he realized it was stone grinding against stone.

A crack appeared in the wall beside the mirror, and widened. Bert’s jaw slackened as he watched the wall of stone swing open. A second chamber, much larger than the first, was revealed. Bert’s candles cast a band of yellow light into the dark, new space, a band that grew wider as the wall continued to open.

The first thing Bert saw was a cauldron, squatting on three stubby legs over a circle of stones filled with ancient ashes.

Then shelves filled with pots and vessels and jars.

Then a chest-high table holding an enormous book and stacks of parchments.

Then tall, narrow boxes, big enough to stand inside, but not wide enough to sit.

Get away,
the little voice in Bert’s mind called out from a mile away.
This is a bad place.
Bert felt a pinch in his brain and a wet crunch—two fingers squeezing something between them—and the voice was gone.

“I … can’t believe it,” Bert said. He took a candlestick and walked into the new chamber. A papery flutter passed his ear. He looked up to see a bat with its jagged wings flapping madly by. It flew to the far end of the chamber and disappeared through a gap in the wall.

Another way out,
Bert thought.
I wonder where it leads?

A secret exit,
the mirror said behind him,
so you may leave unseen if you wish.

Bert walked to the cauldron. It was so big that his arms would only go halfway around, if he hugged it. Inside, it was empty, except for the frail skeleton of a rat that must have fallen in and gotten trapped.

There was a pile of wood behind the cauldron. It collapsed under the weight of his foot when he prodded it, rotted away after a hundred years. Next to the useless wood was a heap of shiny coal.

He turned to look at the tall boxes. Each one had a latch and a slit near the top, where the eyes would be if someone was locked inside. Where the flickering candlelight pierced the gloom of that tiny opening, he caught a glimpse of something pale and smooth, yellow-white.

Turning away from that grim sight, he walked to the table. His gaze landed on the tall stacks of parchment next to the ancient-looking book The papers were covered with hand-written notes. He looked through a few of them: “I have come to doubt the use of horehound to cure a wicked cough” … “Costmary may drive moths from a place” * … “A woman in the hills insisted that yarrow will heal the ghastliest wounds” …

Bert frowned as he realized what he’d found: The lost notes of Rohesia. The knowledge of healing that his aunt so desperately wanted. Well, he couldn’t give them to her now, not without raising questions about where they were discovered. He dropped the pages back on the table. And then his heart nearly exploded as a gruff, triumphant voice rang out behind him.

“So this is where you’ve disappeared to!”

CHAPTER 20

B
ert’s mind reeled as he watched Uncle Hugh step out of the Tunnel of Stars and into the chamber.

“Stupid boy,” his uncle said. “Did you think I wouldn’t find your secret? I went in to check on you. Then I heard a noise from behind the tapestry. What is this place?” Uncle Hughs darting eyes settled on the mirror. He stared and swallowed like a starving man who’d seen a roasted pig set before him. “And what is
this?”
he said, walking toward the glass.

Bert didn’t think. He just leaped between his uncle and the mirror. “Get away,” he snapped. A fleck of spit flew from his mouth. “It’s
mine!”

Uncle Hugh’s hand shot up, and his fingers clamped around Bert’s face, covering it nearly from ear to ear. His uncle threw him aside, and Bert tumbled across the cavern floor. There was a stab of pain in his back as he rolled over a loose stone the size of a brick.

He looked up and saw his uncle in front of the mirror. Uncle Hugh’s eyes went to the exquisite frame, and he brushed his fingers along the sculpted gold and silver. “Magnificent … worth more than all the treasure in
Ambercrest,” Uncle Hugh said. “And right under my nose, all these years.”

Bert snorted like a bull He pushed himself to his knees. His hand brushed against the rock that he’d rolled oven And then he heard the voice of the mirror—not through his ears, but echoing in his mind:
Others plot to steal this from you, your forthright.

“It’s mine” Bert said. The words came out in a hiss.

Uncle Hugh didn’t even turn to look at him. “Nonsense. Everything in this castle belongs to me. Everything.” He put his face so close to the mirror that his nose touched it.

His ugly, oily nose,
thought Bert. His fingers closed around the stone. He stood and crept slowly forward, careful to stay behind his uncles broad back, out of sight of his reflection.

Uncle Hugh reached out and brushed the perfect glass with his fingertips. “So cold,” he said. “Like ice!” He stared at his image, so engrossed that he never heard Bert come stealthily behind him.