The Mirror of Worlds-ARC Page 14

  "I have my duties!" the boy said.

  "Right, and they're going to include getting a clout over the ear if you don't take yourself off, sonny," said the other guard. He wasn't being particularly unkind, but he sounded like he meant it.

  Sharina grinned wryly as she climbed the steps. She too found the boy irritating at the end of a long day. It wasn't completely beyond possibility that she'd have clouted him herself if she had to listen to much more of his piercing self-importance.

  Diora, her maid, opened the door holding a candle lantern; there were several lamps burning inside as well. A princess didn't have to skimp on lamp oil the way servants in a rural inn did; or at any rate, a princess' servants were of that opinion.

  Diora made a deep curtsey. The formality was for the soldiers; she knew Sharina didn't care for it, but they were both actors for so long as there was an audience. "Master Cashel isn't back yet, your highness," she said.

  Sharina felt her heart fall; she hadn't realized till Diora spoke how much she'd been counting on hugging Cashel and feeling his calm strength. Cashel made people feel safe. It was more than the reality of what his muscles and other powers could accomplish: his very presence seemed to drive back Evil better than walls of stone or any other device could do. He was a good man, good to the core, and around him you couldn't help but believe Good would triumph.

  Diora closed the door. Sharina spread her arms to allow the maid to begin undoing the tucks and ties that bound Princess Sharina into her robes. "Would you like something to eat, your highness?" she asked as she worked.

  Diora'd been Sharina's maid for as long as she'd been princess. They weren't precisely friends, less because of social status than differing interests, but they got along well with one another. Sharina had other people to discuss Old Kingdom literature with, and Diora no doubt knew folks who shared her passion for association horse-racing; but the maid didn't mind doing all the jobs for which another noblewoman would expect a whole phalanx of specialists, and Sharina didn't scream curses or slash her maid across the face with a hairpin because she'd tugged a curl a little too hard.

  "No, no," Sharina said. "There's a pitcher and mug on the washstand, isn't there? I just want sleep."

  I just want Cashel to hold me, but she wouldn't put that in words to anyone but Cashel himself.

  "Oh, yes, your highness," Diora said, sounding—probably feeling—shocked at the question. That was like asking the maid if she thought Sharina should wear clothing when she went out in the morning.

  Sharina chuckled. So that Diora wouldn't think she was being mocked, she said aloud, "The Pool below the city's turning into a large lake now that the Beltis doesn't have the Inner Sea to drain into. That means the sewers will shortly begin to back up every time it rains."

  "Really?" the maid said. "I never imagined that!"

  Neither had Sharina, but now the government was in her hands. The best solution to the problem was probably to abandon Valles; the site wasn't suitable for a large city since the Change.

  They couldn't do that now, however. The Change had already worked too much disruption. To tear up the capital and displace the government on top of it would probably bring the kingdom down. In the short term, Commissioner Faries and a pair of army engineers seconded to her department said that the Beltis River could be diverted upstream of the city, though that would require many men—perhaps the former oarsmen of the fleet?—and also a rerouting of supplies to the city. Lord Hauk, Lord Royhas, and both Waldron and Zettin would have to be involved.

  But that was for another day.

  "Now, arms straight up, your highness," Diora said. Sharina obediently raised her arms; the maid swept the heavy robes up and off her with a single motion. So neat a job took considerable strength as well as skill. Sharina was very well served, and she knew it.

  "What now, your highness?" Diora asked as she hung the garment on its wicker form. "Shall I wait till Master Cashel arrives?"

  "No, no," said Sharina. "Just go home, Diora. You can take a lamp with you."

  The maid laughed. "You think I can't find my way to the barracks with the moon so near full?" she said. "Well, have a good night, your highness. I'll be back in the morning."

  Ordinarily at least one servant would sleep in the anteroom of a bungalow occupied by members of the royal entourage. Sharina didn't need or want that, and Diora had an arrangement with a pleasant young under-captain of the Blood Eagles. The guard officers slept with their men, but they had separate apartments in the barracks blocks. The situation benefited both mistress and maid.

  Sharina left the lamp burning in the anteroom but she snuffed the lantern's wick between her thumb and forefinger before walking through the drawing room to the bedroom beyond. She didn't know when Cashel would be coming in; clouds might've covered the moon by then.

  She'd have liked to go with him and Tenoctris, both because they were her friends and because she would so much rather be helping the wizard than making decisions about sewers—which she knew nothing about, but which would affect the health and comfort of tens of thousands of people.

  What Tenoctris did affected all mankind, today and forever, but it was Tenoctris rather than Sharina who made those decisions. No matter how much the older woman denigrated her abilities, Sharina and everyone else trusted her completely.

  A set of hair implements was neatly arranged on the dressing table against the outside wall. Sharina took a coarse comb and worked it slowly through her hair. There was a silver mirror, its back embossed in the same pattern as the brushes and other combs, but she left it where it was. Combing her hair was just a way to settle her mind; she wasn't tired after all, now that she was truly alone for the first time all day.

  She stepped to the side and looked up at the huge moon. Diora had slid the upper halves of the casements down, leaving the windows open to the height of Sharina's chin.

  She pulled at the comb, working it back and forth on snarls, as she thought about the life she was living now. Wealth and power hadn't made her happier; but Cashel made her happy. If they'd all stayed in Barca's Hamlet, the innkeeper's daughter wouldn't have been allowed to wed the poor orphan boy. Cashel wouldn't have asked her! Sometimes the things you gain from your choices aren't the obvious ones.

  The panes of the casement were diamonds the size of Sharina's palm, set in lead. The glass had been blown and rolled out flat before being cut. It was as clear as expert craftsmen could make it, so in daylight she could've looked out with only slight distortion on the boxwood hedge separating this bungalow from the nearest building.

  At night and doubled, the casements were at best translucent. When Sharina glanced down, she saw her blurred reflection. Except—

  She stepped back and stared at the image. The images. She could see herself, but there was someone else with her.

  Sharina glanced over her shoulder, raising the comb to strike. She was alone in the room. She peered again at the reflection, wondering if she saw herself in both casements simultaneously. But though she moved, the hazy other seemed to remain steady. She squinted, trying to make out the face of the second figure—

  And she was hanging in space. She shouted, dropping the comb as she tried to fling herself back.

  Her shoulders hit a wall that wasn't in her bedroom. She was in an apartment with high, peacock-patterned walls and swags of gold cloth. Smiling at her was an androgynous-looking man in a long crimson robe; behind him were two man-seeming creatures of featureless, silvery metal.

  "Greetings, darling Sharina," the man said in a voice as smoothly pleasant as his face. "I've brought you here to save you."

  Chapter 5

  "Fine," said Sharina, twisting for a quick glance behind her. She was in a rotunda and had backed into one of the eight fluted gold pillars supporting a dome of crystal and gold above her. From the smooth coolness to the touch of her hand, the pillar might've been real gold. "Then take me back. I don't need to be saved, by you or by anyone else."

  "Please,
Sharina," the stranger said, spreading his hands palm-upward at waist level. "You're free to go back any time you wish, but I hope you'll first listen to what I have to say."

  Sharina considered. She didn't have even the comb for a weapon because she'd dropped it when she began toppling here. She often wore the Pewle knife as a talisman under her outer robe, but a meeting with the commissioner of sewers was tiresome rather than being stressful. She'd have taken off the knife and its heavy sealskin belt as soon as she entered the safety of her bungalow anyway.

  "Quickly, then," Sharina said, darting glances to either side without seeing anything that seemed to offer a better solution than taking the fellow at his word.

  "Of course," the man said. "And I do apologize for my presumption, but I had no choice. I'm Prince Vorsan, by the way."

  "Quickly, I said!" Sharina repeated. The shrillness of her voice warned her that she was nearing the limits of her control. Vorsan was her height and a bit heavier, but he didn't look muscular. She wasn't sure she could throttle him with her bare hands, but she'd try if she had to.

  "I built this asylum because I saw that my world was going to be destroyed," he said, gesturing with his left hand. "Your world in turn is about to be destroyed, so I'm offering you safety and immortality. I've never granted this to anyone else in all the ages in which I've lived here, dear Sharina. Won't you sit down while I explain?"

  The outer wall of the rotunda was four double-paces beyond the ring of pillars. There were eight doors in the gorgeously painted wall and two impossibly perfect mirrors. Beneath each mirror was a low couch, seemingly upholstered with peacocks' tail feathers to match the walls. The floor was a translucent blue-green. It shone and shifted, suggesting onyx chips or possibly real ocean beneath a smooth, invisible barrier.

  "I don't care to sit," Sharina said. She spoke harshly because otherwise her voice might've trembled. It was as much fatigue as fear working on her; in fact, she wondered if this might all be a dream or a hallucination. "Send me back to where I belong, if you will!"

  "Please, a moment only, Sharina," Vorsan said, frowning in frustration. "The Last will wash over your world as the seas did mine. There's no way to stop them. Your only hope is to save yourself, and I offer you that safety. You will have food, wine, books."

  At each word, he pointed to a different door. The valves had the same golden sheen as the pillars and were molded in high relief. The figures on them were delicate and so perfect they seemed to move.

  "And we'll have all eternity to enjoy them," Vorsan continued. "There's no age or sickness or infirmity in this sanctuary which my genius has created."

  He smiled. "Try a glass of wine, why don't you?" he said. "I have a thousand vintages, all bottled at the perfect moment."

  A faceless silver statue stepped solemnly toward Sharina. On a salver that appeared to grow from its hand rested a squat bottle of green-glazed earthenware.

  "No!" Sharina said, reaching behind her for the Pewle knife which of course she wasn't carrying. With careful calm she continued, "Prince Vorsan, you've convinced me that you're a great wizard, but I don't want your wine or food. I want to go home."

  On the salver which the other metal figure—they weren't statues, clearly—was holding were a round loaf and a slab of cheese the color of old ivory. That figure hadn't moved, and Sharina'd be just as happy if it didn't.

  "As you wish, Sharina," Vorsan said. He didn't give a noticeable signal, but the figure with the wine stepped back and froze again into metallic stasis. "Please don't call me a wizard, though; wizardry is mummery or madness. I am a philosopher of natural science, achieving my triumphs by knowledge and application rather than whimsical thrusts with powers I don't understand and can't really control."

  "Oh," said Sharina, startled and not fully able to comprehend what she'd just heard. Her opinion of most wizards—all wizards except Tenoctris—was in complete agreement with Vorsan's, but she didn't see the difference between wizardry and making statues walk.

  After clearing her throat and still not coming up with a useful way to continue that discussion, she said, "Well, I thank you for your concern, your highness, but as you noticed, my kingdom—my world, if you prefer—is being threatened by invaders. I have duties, especially in such a crisis, and I need to get back to them."

  "Sharina, there's nothing to be done," Vorsan said forcefully. "Will you watch my projections of the end of your world? I've calculated all the factors, just as I did with the Flood. Others tried to stem the waters, but I knew the only hope was to create a cyst in the fabric of the cosmos. I can show you!"

  "I'm not interested in seeing your fancies!" Sharina said. "I have duties and I have friends, and I'm away from both of them so long as I'm here! I want to go home, Prince Vorsan."

  "Sharina, please try to understand," Vorsan said, opening his hands toward her. "My studies have generally been enough for me, but I've occasionally sought other companions. Never, though, never have I offered what I'm offering you. I want you to be my eternal consort, immortal and immaculately safe."

  His crimson robes moved easily as though they were tissue thin, but bronze plates couldn't have concealed his body more completely. She wondered if he was heavier than she'd thought at first.

  "Prince Vorsan, I'm asking for the last time," Sharina said, stepping toward her host. The stoneware wine bottle would make a satisfactory weapon, though striking Vorsan down wouldn't in itself get her home. And would the living statues take a hand if she attacked their master?

  "Wait!" Vorsan said, holding his left palm up in bar. "Go back, then; I've never wished to keep you against your will."

  "How—"

  "Stand where you were when you came," he said sharply. The anger furrowing Vorsan's high forehead was the first emotion to break through the mask of waxen good-humor he'd been wearing. "Yes, that's right."

  She glanced behind her to make sure all was as she remembered it being, then stepped almost against the pillar.

  "Now look into the mirror."

  "Which—" Sharina said.

  "Either mirror!" said Vorsan. "It doesn't matter. Just concentrate. As you did when I brought you here."

  The mirror on the far wall of the rotunda was so clear that Sharina had half believed it was really an opening. She saw herself against the gleaming pillar, her face composed and regal. What am I supposed to concentrate on? she thought, glaring at her own fierce eyes—

  And she was back in her bedroom, its mooncast shadows muted after the bright rotunda. The silver comb she'd dropped when she fell toward Vorsan rang on the floor like a bell.

  * * *

  The crowd inside the gate must be half the palace clerks and servants besides all the high officials, and judging from the noise coming over the high brick walls there were more people than that in the street outside. Cashel felt a trifle itchy, though the line of Blood Eagles between the spectators and Garric's immediate friends meant he didn't have to use his weight and quarterstaff to keep folks from squeezing against Sharina. It felt like he might have to, though.

  He had on a pair of tunics which his sister'd woven. They were simpler than the clothes that just about everybody else present wore to see Garric off, but Ilna's work always impressed the people who saw it.

  Sometimes Cashel wondered what he'd do when he ran out of her tunics, but the other thing about Ilna's cloth was that it wore like iron. He'd make do. Mainly he hoped that Ilna was all right. She'd had a hard time, what with Chalcus being killed and just the problem of being Ilna. There wasn't much anybody could do about either one.

  "Garric didn't want anything like this," said Sharina. She sounded worn and looked worn too, though the first thing anybody thought when they saw Sharina was that she was beautiful. "Word must've gotten out, and people are so afraid of the Prince leaving now when everything's happening."

  Sharina hugged Cashel's arm and gave him a wan smile. "And they're right," she added. "I dread to think what'll happen to the kingdom if he doesn't come back."


  She'd still been awake when Cashel returned with Tenoctris from the Temple of the Mighty Shepherd. That wasn't uncommon—they liked to wait up for one another when they'd had to spend the day apart—but Cashel didn't think Sharina slept during the rest of the night either.

  He didn't know what was wrong since she hadn't told him. He hadn't asked, of course. Sharina'd let him know when she was ready to. He was sorry to see her looking so tired, though.

  "I guess Garric'll come back fine from this trip to see the Yellow King," Cashel said. "He's done harder things. And you'll run things till he comes back just the same as you've done before, with Liane helping and all the other people. There won't be any difference this time."

  What he was saying was the simple truth. Somebody as smart as Sharina ought to be able to see it: everybody else, Garric especially, did. But Cashel'd learned that Sharina needed him to say that sort of thing, which was easy enough to do.