Mirror Sight (27 page)

She leaned her head against the window frame. Did she really wish to know what had become of her friends? Of her family?

It was too painful to contemplate, so she tried to dash those thoughts with a renewed determination to get home and prevent any of this from happening in the first place.

I
t wasn’t until the following day that Karigan was invited to return to the old Josston mill, although this time it was Cade who asked and not the professor. It was during breakfast, and the professor was busily going over schedules and duties with his students, all except for Cade who, it appeared, was senior in ranking to the others. Instead Cade finished his breakfast and stood to leave. On his way out he paused by her chair.

“Have a pleasant day, Miss Goodgrave,” he said, and then mouthed,
“Tonight.”

She took his meaning immediately and nodded. She didn’t think anyone else noticed their exchange, although Lorine watched Cade leave. Was that longing in her eyes? Briefly Lorine’s gaze met Karigan’s, and Karigan looked away, focusing on her plate of eggs.

The day could not pass quickly enough. Brownish-gray clouds still billowed overhead, and upon Karigan’s visit to Raven, Luke voiced his hope that they’d get some rain in the night and maybe that’d clear the air.

“The horses need a good run,” he told her, “but I won’t hurt their lungs out in that filth.” He jabbed his finger out the stable doorway at the sky.

Karigan tended Raven till once again he shone, and she even took to pulling his mane, which had grown bushy. He didn’t like it much and told her so with a trumpeting whinny and an authoritative stomp of his hoof. She settled for only minimal thinning. When she did all she could for Raven, she returned to the house and to her room.

What was keeping her, she wondered, from simply saddling up Raven and just leaving? From finding her way home? She’d amassed some significant information about how the world had turned out . . . She paced in front of her window, arms crossed. She only came to the same conclusion as she had on other occasions: Nothing was preventing her except the fact that the professor kept her safe, clothed, and fed. If she ventured out into the world without a plan, there would be no escaping the empire. It claimed the entire continent. How long could she hide? If she was busy hiding, how could she find a way back to her own time?

She needed to figure out how to get home while under the professor’s protection rather than while out in the world trying to fend for herself. The problem was, she had no idea how to proceed. She’d not done much to find her way home because she didn’t know what to do. It was almost as if she’d been awaiting some sign, some miraculous indication to direct her actions. She’d thought that, maybe, if the gods had put her here, they’d show her the way home, but nothing seemed forthcoming. Not even a hint. Maybe the gods intended for her to stay in this time forever, though she couldn’t imagine why, just as she could not fathom why they’d brought her here in the first place.

“Bloody damnation,” she muttered. She was supposed to have the ability to cross thresholds, to pass through the layers of the world, which somehow included time, but she could not do so in a world lacking magic, and there had always been something drawing her into the past, like wild magic and the First Rider, or Queen Laurelyn of lost Argenthyne. Would any of the “pieces of time” of the Eletians have survived? Even if she could find one of the moondial devices, either by re-entering Blackveil and searching for one, or by going to conquered Eletia, without knowing what remained of that country, she wouldn’t know how to use it. Not precisely, anyway. She could end up any
when.

She didn’t even have a looking mask to smash, and she didn’t think trying to crush the few remnant shards that had come with her would have the same effect of launching her through time.

Frustration made her feel like smashing
something,
her window, maybe. There had to be a way home. Thinking of the looking mask made her remember her shard hidden behind the headboard of her bed. This time she propped her chair against the door to prevent anyone from unexpectedly entering, then she retrieved the shard and settled atop her bed.

She expected her mirror gazing to prove fruitless. She was prepared to sit for a long time and see nothing but her own reflection, so she was surprised when an image appeared almost immediately. At first it was abstract—all mottled greens, all blurred—but slowly it focused, and she found herself looking through leaves at a path down below, as if she were a bird perched on a branch. She felt a throb rising through the fingers holding the shard, through her arm and pulsing through her blood, the rhythm of hoofbeats like the Rider call.

She nearly cried out when two horses and a Green Rider appeared trotting along the path. Her vision swooped down from the birches to keep pace with them. There was her friend Dale Littlepage riding her mare, Plover, and ponying Condor alongside.

“Condor,” Karigan whispered in a shaky voice.

The shard allowed her to examine him from nose to tail, the dullness of his chestnut coat, his ribs more prominent than they ought to be. It was not from neglect, she knew, for her friends would never disregard his care. She’d left Condor under Dale’s stewardship, and she appeared to be exercising him. Did Condor pine for his Rider? Was he off his feed because she’d gone missing? She wanted to run her hand down his neck, but her finger only tapped on mirror.

“Condor, I am here,” she said in an anguished whisper.

Condor stopped short, and whirled, snapping the lead out of Dale’s hand. He did not bolt, he looked. Dale wheeled Plover around, expression perplexed. She spoke words Karigan could not hear.

Condor kept looking until he seemed to fix her with his eye, staring back at her through time, through the mirror shard.

“Can you see me, boy?” Karigan asked, wishing it were true. Something she’d heard before more than once came to her now:
Sometimes the mirror goes both ways.

His eye filled the shard, the liquid brown, the pinpoint pupil. “Do you see me?” she asked again, but then the mirror reflected her own eyes as his melted away until he was entirely gone.

Karigan tried to summon back the vision, tried and tried but failed. She curled up atop the bed hugging a pillow and pressed her face into it, missing her horse and home terribly. Had he really seen her? Whether or not he had, she needed to believe it.

I
n the present: Dale and Condor

The lead rope snapped out of Dale’s hand. If not for her glove, it would have left a nasty rope burn across her palm. “Condor!” she cried.

She pivoted Plover around expecting to have to chase Karigan’s horse into the woods. She’d made a promise to care for Condor so he’d be in top condition for his Rider’s return, but Karigan’s fate remained unknown, and Condor was off his feed, his spirit discernibly low. He’d gotten thin, and no matter how much Dale groomed him, his coat repeatedly lost its usual vibrant chestnut sheen.

Normally he followed compliantly along on these exercise runs. Dale perceived that he did not care one way or another if he came along with her and Plover. She couldn’t make him care, but she could at least prevent him from declining into a worse state. So it surprised her, almost cheered her, that he was showing some sign of spunk.

She was further surprised when he hadn’t run off, and she and Plover didn’t have to chase him down. He whirled, and faced the opposite direction they’d been headed, his lead rope dangling from his halter to the path. He stared, angling his head this way and that, ears twitching. What did he see? Dale looked but identified only the usual forest sounds and signs—squirrels railing in the branches, a woodpecker chipping at a rotting tree. Insects clouded in the light, and on the forest floor, patches of sunshine wove patterns of golden green and shadow. Dale sensed nothing unusual or dangerous afoot or in the air.

“Something out there, Condor? What do you see?”

She knew animals sensed their surroundings differently than people, but Condor did not act alarmed—just vigilant. She was just glad he acted interested in
something.

Yates’ horse Phoebe was even worse off. She’d colicked, almost died. The Riders at the wall encampment gave her what attention they could, and it appeared to Dale the other Rider horses lent support as well. What Phoebe needed was to return to Sacor City to find a new Rider. Yates was gone. They’d received the news through Trace’s psychic rapport with Connly: Lynx had returned from Blackveil, but Yates had not survived. Humans mourned, and so did their horses. Phoebe needed a new Rider, and the Riders needed seasoned messenger horses. Conflict was brewing with Second Empire, and though Damian Frost was due to deliver new horses to Captain Mapstone, they’d be young, untried, and untrained, and definitely not ready for message errands much less battle.

Phoebe needed to return to Sacor City as much for her own sake as that of the Riders. And Lynx needed his horse, Owl, so Alton decided that tomorrow, Fergal would pony Phoebe, Owl, and Condor back to the city. It was all very depressing—a pall hung over the encampment at the news of Yates’ death, and hope dwindled daily with no word of Karigan. The mood did not help Estral any, who remained without her voice, and her father’s disappearance still a mystery.

Dale gently sidled Plover up alongside Condor and took up the dangling lead rope.

“What’s got your attention, boy?” Dale murmured.

Condor shook his mane and blew gently through his nostrils as though suddenly waking up. He allowed her to lead him away as docilely as ever.

The poor horse had lost his first Rider, F’ryan Coblebay, but Karigan had been right on the spot to claim him. Where was Karigan now? Had she died in Blackveil? It was difficult to tell from Condor’s demeanor if he knew. Perhaps, Dale thought morosely, it was time for Condor, like Phoebe, to claim a new Rider.

A
fter the house settled down for the night, Karigan, with bonewood in hand, met Cade in the library. He opened the bookcase and ushered her into the antechamber beyond. When the bookcase slid back into place, she noticed something new: a stool and a row of hooks on the wall. Hanging from the hooks was some clothing.

“The professor left these clothes for you,” Cade whispered. “You are to wear them when you come to the mill, so Mirriam doesn’t become irritated about the state of your nightgown.” He ignited one of the extra phosphorene tapers and pushed the door open to the stairway that led to the underground. “I’ll wait for you on the stairs.”

He stepped into the stairwell and shut the door behind him, leaving Karigan alone in the antechamber to examine the clothes: a pair of black trousers with a fine leather belt, and a black shirt with the billowing sleeves favored by swordfighters. There were also stockings and a pair of supple shoes, all black.

“I am not a Weapon,” Karigan murmured. She thought the professor was taking liberties, but she set aside the bonewood and changed. Everything fit well, even though the pieces were obviously made for men. The shirt buttons were on the wrong side, and the trousers gaped slightly at her waist. Tightening the belt more or less solved that problem. She wondered if the professor had gotten her measurements off an invoice from Mistress dela Enfande as he had for the Tam Ryder outfit.

She had no way of assessing how she looked, but when she stepped from the antechamber and into the stairwell, Cade’s raised eyebrows told her enough. Only after she closed the door to the antechamber did he speak.

“It is not proper, and yet it’s entirely appropriate.” He shook his head, and turned abruptly—too abruptly—to lead the way down the stairs.

Karigan thought she understood. She challenged Cade’s preconceptions of a proper woman as defined by the empire, leaving him conflicted. In the mindset of the empire, this garb on a female reeked of impropriety, yet he struggled to adjust his way of thinking because he opposed the empire.

The clothes felt good as she descended the stairs, much better than the nightgown that had always left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. The clothes made her feel more like her old self, for all they were not green. Her Tam Ryder outfit was comfortable enough, but it was a disguise, and she was not herself when wearing it.

Cade remained his reticent self even as they traversed the underground then climbed up into the bowels of the mill. It was just as well. Since seeing Condor in her mirror shard, Karigan had little desire to talk. She’d remained uncommunicative all through supper despite the professor’s efforts to engage her in conversation. Though she’d been looking forward to sparring with Cade, she would have been just as happy to stay in bed, alone with her morose thoughts.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Cade said as they climbed the final set of stairs.

“So are you.”

After a pause, Cade said, “I’m always quiet.”

True enough, Karigan thought, but was he also implying she was never quiet?

Finally they reached the floor with the professor’s secret library. Cade threw the lever for the lights and they crossed over to his practice area.

“I was wondering,” he said, as he removed his suit coat, “if your looking at the guns here would afflict you the same way as the Cobalt did at the Big Mounds.”

“I don’t think this sort of thing just goes away,” she replied, but she walked over to the cabinet displaying several of the weapons, including some that were as long as a sword. It was these Cade must have been referring to when he spoke of “longarms.”

She suffered no ill effects when looking from a distance, but then again, she couldn’t see the details. When she approached more closely, the glare of the weapons made her avert her gaze and step back from the cabinet as though physically repulsed.

Cade’s head was tilted as he watched her. “Curious,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to stick with swords.” He removed a longsword from its wall mount. He took up a relaxed stance and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply. It was as Karigan had seen him do the last time.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Centering myself,” he replied, without opening his eyes.

Karigan watched the rise and fall of his chest. There was something to that, she knew, and Arms Master Drent made sure his trainees learned how to use their breath while exerting themselves in a fight. It not only steadied their hearts and conserved energy, but allowed them to focus, or as Cade put it, center themselves. However, centering happened while
doing
in Drent’s world.

“So in a real combat situation you expect the enemy to politely wait around while you center yourself?” Karigan asked.

“I would not meditate when in combat.” Cade’s voice held an edge of irritation.

“Then why do you do so now? Combat can happen unexpectedly, with no time for . . . meditating. Practicing this centering thing could make you reliant on it and throw you when you don’t have time for it in an unexpected fight.”

Cade bristled and opened his eyes, plainly annoyed. “I’ll be using a gun on the battlefield.”

“Look,” Karigan said, “you wanted my help. I am trying to teach you as I’ve been taught, and I’ve been taught by a true swordmaster, the man who chooses who becomes the king’s Weapons. His way is common sense and practicality. We do not have guns. We use swords. These methods work for us.”

“Very well. I did agree to this.”

Agreed to it? He’d practically begged her to instruct him.

She ran him through some quick warm up exercises—much quicker than he would have done on his own—and she began to teach him how to use his breaths to maintain focus. She then had him go through the forms he’d worked on before. They were much improved.

“You’ve been practicing without me.” She wasn’t displeased he’d been practicing, just annoyed he hadn’t invited her along.

A blush colored Cade’s cheeks. “I did not wish to embarrass myself again.” That alleviated her annoyance some, until he added, “I learn fast and am getting quite good if I say so myself.” There was a certain amount of smugness in his voice that irritated her. She tapped the tip of the bonewood on the floor, thinking.

“Give me the Heron Stance,” she said.

He did, and she nudged his feet into better positions with the bonewood.

She then rattled off a series of forms that required intricate footwork, which was to conclude on Heron Stance. He stumbled over his own feet as he tried to make his way through the series.

She crossed her arms and shook her head.

“What?” Cade demanded.

“Your footwork,” she said.

“Yes?”

“You’re mincing about like you’re standing on hot coals. I’m guessing you are something of a clumsy dancer.”

“I am not!” he burst out.

“We need horse hobbles,” she murmured, recalling some memorable training sessions with Drent. Cade stared at her aghast. “I’m going to go through the same set of forms,” she announced. “Watch my feet.”

She was intentionally goading him so she could in turn humble him. Overconfidence was another path to an early demise when it came to swordfighting. She then started in surprise when she realized that was exactly what Drent had been doing to her all this time—mocking and criticizing her so she wouldn’t get too arrogant and be killed as a result. It was a good thing to keep in mind for herself: that by trying to prevent Cade from getting dangerously overconfident, she didn’t do so herself.

So, instead of going through the forms at full speed, as she had planned to do in order to impress him, she went very slowly. When she finished, she asked, “Did you watch my feet?”

He nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. “Your feet moved, but they didn’t.”

“Yes,” Karigan said. “Swordmasters are spare in their movement, using their feet only as necessary to maintain balance, position, rhythm, and to aid the force of their bladework.”

“Dancing without dancing,” he said thoughtfully.

She guided him slowly through the same forms, helping him with his footing, which meant adjustments to the rest of his body.

When they’d gone through it twice, he said, “I think I understand how it’s supposed to feel, how the power, the force, is connected through my whole body, from my feet to my sword hand.”

Karigan nodded, gratified he understood, maybe comprehending better than she ever had herself.

“Can you show me what it looks like at normal speed?” he asked.

Karigan smiled. She thought he’d never ask.