Mirror Sight (28 page)

W
hen Karigan ended on the Heron Stance, she found Cade looking thoughtful. It was an improvement over the near worship he’d exhibited the first time she’d demonstrated what she could do, and in a way, it was not. At least some acknowledgment of her performance, with its speed and intricate footwork, wouldn’t be remiss.

Instead, Cade diligently paced himself through the forms again, trying to emulate her. He did well, much better than before, but he still stumbled.

“I suggest you keep practicing,” Karigan said. “Change up the order, as well, so your body doesn’t get too used to one particular flow. You want to be able to respond to change, according to whatever situation you’re in.”

He nodded. “What now?”

Karigan thought for a few moments, then asked, “Do you ever get to spar with the professor?”

“Rarely. Very rarely. He’s much too busy.”

That was unfortunate. In fact, it was downright unacceptable. Training by one’s self was in no way adequate. Learning the forms was important, but putting them into use by practicing with an opponent was imperative. Then she remembered he would not be depending on swords as his weapon. However, he’d asked for proper training, and he was going to get it.

“We’ll use practice swords,” she said, striding over to the weapons wall. The battered wooden swords were crudely made and piled on the floor, appearing rather neglected.

“You aren’t going to use a real sword?” Cade asked, surprised.

“Neither of us are. Only swordmasters train with steel, and you’re not a swordmaster. Nor am I.”

She searched through the wooden blades until she found one that felt adequately balanced. It was a poor substitute for a real sword, she admitted, but one could be more aggressive, truly work the forms, when there was no danger of killing one’s sparring partner. She leaned the bonewood against the wall and waited as Cade hung up his longsword and started sorting through wooden blades.

“Does the professor spar with steel?” Karigan asked.

“No, no. I just thought you probably did, being as well trained as you are.”

“I only use steel when necessary to—” She faltered.

Cade nodded. “When necessary to kill. That’s how it is with guns. Although there is no substitute for target practice with anything but an actual gun.”

When finally Cade chose a wooden sword to his satisfaction, they touched blades and began. Karigan kept the pace slow and steady, offering commentary as she went and pointing out his mistakes, as well as what he did correctly. Steadily, she increased speed and spoke less, enjoying the work and how her puffy sleeves billowed with each stroke and thrust.

Cade grew in confidence, turning on the offensive. Karigan let him, parrying and blocking in a steady rhythm as the clack of wooden swords echoed through the cavernous room. She let the rhythm lull him and gave him no reason to doubt his confidence. She even let him score a touch on her arm that normally, she’d deflect. When she saw the slight smile on his lips, felt the aggression increase in his attack, and saw he was about to go for kill point, she simply allowed him to put all his force into a single scything swing. Before his blow landed, she lithely pivoted out of the way. The momentum of his effort unbalanced him, and he stumbled forward. She jabbed the blunt tip of her blade into his back.

“You are dead,” she said, and explained where he had gone wrong. “Now again.”

She lulled and goaded him enough times like this that she could tell he was growing both frustrated and mistrustful. Being wary of an opponent was good. Not being able to trust oneself, not so good. When he fell for yet another trap, and she sent his sword flying across the floor, she could tell by his sharp movements and glower that he’d become angry. He stomped away to pick up his sword.

When he returned, she said, “A couple of important things—there must be balance between instinct and technique. Your technique is getting better. However, I’ve been tricking you, and it’s making you question yourself. I think you should assume that a genuine opponent will do whatever it takes to defeat you, including deception. Your instincts will grow with practice. You’ll be able to sniff out trickery. Also, if you’re angry, you are prone to make more mistakes.”

Her words did not appear to mollify him much. He still glowered. Karigan needed to be extra aware in their next bout, as fighting angry opponents could be dangerous. They became unpredictable, and trainees were apt to make painful errors in judgment.

In Cade, the anger worked to his advantage, sharpened his reactions and made him more calculating in his offensive moves. She thought she was goading him into another trap, but he pulled a reversal, and to her surprise he passed through her defenses and got kill point with a hard smack to her ribs.

“Bloody hell!” She doubled over in pain. When she caught her breath, she tentatively probed her rib cage to see if he’d broken or cracked something, but it didn’t seem like it. She’d have a good bruise, though.

Cade’s sword clattered to the floor, and he rushed to her side. “Did I—did I injure you?”

“I’m fine,” Karigan said breathlessly, gratified by his concern. “Just smarts.”

“Let me see—”

She pushed his hand away.

“I just want to see if I broke your ribs,” he said.

“With that technique? Not even close.”

“I do not trust your bold words,” he replied.

When he reached for her again, she slapped his hand away. He grabbed her wrist. She hooked her leg around his and swept him off his feet. He fell on his back, and his head thunked on the floor. He lay there unmoving.

“Hells!” Karigan knelt down beside him. “Cade? Are you all right?”

His eyes fluttered open. “What are all these stars I see?”

“Let me check the back of your head for—”

As she reached for him, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. “Not till I check your ribs.”

They were nearly nose to nose. The end of Karigan’s braid brushed his cheek. They glared at one another. Warmth rushed through Karigan’s body. Driven by some impulse she did not know she’d been harboring, she closed the gap between them and kissed him. He jerked beneath her. If he’d been standing and not on the floor he would have pulled back. But he couldn’t, and after the initial shock of the kiss, he relaxed and gave into it, and gave back.

What was she doing? Karigan’s blood rushed, and she shivered. His grip on her wrist had loosened, and his hand was traveling up her arm. She broke off the kiss and hopped to her feet.

“Ha!” she cried as if it had all been some grand joke. She was all at once giddy and triumphant for both kissing and besting him, and embarrassed she’d let her guard down, for revealing herself that way. And the sudden move had pulled painfully at her sore ribs. She embraced the pain, which edged out certain other sensations but not the regret for having broken off the kiss. Cade still lay down there looking bewildered. Perhaps . . . perhaps she should kiss him again?

He sat up, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. She knelt again beside him, concerned. His gaze was steady and clear, not unfocused the way it would be if he had a bad head injury. Definitely not unfocused. As he reached for her, she suddenly felt shy and looked away, only to glimpse the professor standing just a few paces away, watching them. They’d been so preoccupied with one another they hadn’t heard his entrance.

“Am I interrupting anything interesting?” the professor asked.

Cade staggered to his feet and swayed. Karigan leaped up to steady him, a small cry of pain escaping her lips before she could prevent it. The professor looked from one to the other.

“I’d rather the two of you be circumspect in the injuring of one another,” he said at last. “Makes it hard to explain away such things.” Giving Karigan a long, appraising look, he added, “You look stunning in black, my dear, and you have some very good moves.”

How long had he been watching? Karigan wondered. And he
was
referring to her sword work, right?

He strode off toward the library, and Cade and Karigan nearly tripped over themselves in their haste to follow.

“Don’t stop doing whatever it was you were doing on my account,” the professor said.

“Miss Goodgrave—I hurt her ribs,” Cade said.

“Cade banged his head,” Karigan said.

The professor turned on his heel to face them once more. “Are these life-threatening injuries?”

“Miss Goodgrave won’t allow me to see her ribs.”

The professor crooked a bushy eyebrow.

Cade blushed and started to stammer.

“I’m fine,” Karigan interrupted. “We both are. Really. I think . . .”

“Hmm.” With that, the professor continued on his way to the library.

Cade glanced at her, but Karigan could not meet his gaze.

K
arigan and Cade hovered just a little too anxiously over the professor’s desk as he searched through various drawers. He paused to give them an all-too-knowing look before reaching into a drawer with an, “Ah ha!” He withdrew a gold sphere with a delicate chain dangling from it. It was etched with decorative whorls and ornate script. Initials, perhaps? It fit neatly into the palm of his hand.

“What is that?” Karigan asked.

“This, my dear, is a very rare item. A chronosphere.”

“A what?”

“A timepiece,” Cade supplied. “Shows time down to the minute. The finest can show time to the second with great accuracy.”

“To the second?” she asked “In that little thing?” She thought of her world’s few huge water clocks, used to synchronize the bells in the chapels of the moon. There were other modes of time telling, of course: candles, sundials, hour glasses, and on the coast, posts that marked time with the rise and fall of the tides. But the general population listened for the bells if they needed to know the hour, just as they did here.

The professor thumbed open a clasp and the sphere sprang open on hinges, revealing two halves. Karigan peered closely. In the center of one half, a tiny mechanical figure of a man with a tall hat and cane straightened up from a bowed position. He was deftly detailed and colored with enamel paint, his elbow chipped. He pivoted on a rotating disk and extended his cane to the other half of the sphere, which contained two rings of numerical glyphs carved in yellowed ivory. The numbers of the outer ring were larger, and the mechanical man bowed so that the tip of his cane clicked on the glyph for the number one. Then he straightened and pivoted again with a distinct whirring noise and tapped on a glyph of the inner ring.

“It is ten till two hour in the morning,” the professor announced. When the mechanical man returned to his starting position, the professor snapped the chronosphere shut.

To Karigan, the device was almost as impressive as the plumbing, and the gods had permitted her to see it, which meant she probably couldn’t hope to understand how it worked. When the professor placed it back in his drawer, she asked, “Why do you leave it in your desk? If I had something like that to tell me the time, I’d carry it everywhere.”

“I’d like to do so,” he replied, “but only the emperor’s elite, his most favored, are allowed to have one. It’s one more thing that elevates them over everyone else. Having such immediate access to the time is a form of power. And of course, it is they who control when the bells ring.”

Karigan saw the advantage immediately. If someone wanted the mills to be more productive, they could stretch the hours by changing the time the bells rang. Ordinary people might feel something was off, but they’d have no other way of verifying it, and must rely on the bells—controlled by the empire’s leadership—for the time, correct or not.

“Fortunately the empire rarely manipulates the bells,” the professor said, “though it has happened. Another reason I don’t use the chronosphere regularly is that winding the mechanisms is not enough to make it function forever. They rely on etherea, and I fear this one is running very low, so I must be conservative in its use.”

“If only the most favored receive these timepieces,” Karigan said, “how did you get this one? Did you
acquire
it like you did the Cobalt gun?”

The professor chuckled. “No, my dear. This was different. It was my grandfather’s.”

“You inherited it.”

“No, they can’t be inherited as other goods can be. It’s not allowed. It was supposed to be buried with my grandfather when he passed. I’d been so fascinated by it, and he’d often show it to me to amuse me.”

“So you acquired it before he was buried.”

The professor paused. Then said, “After.”

“You . . . ?”

“You could call it my first archeological excavation.”

Karigan exchanged glances with Cade. She could not tell how he felt about that particular detail. Undoubtedly he’d known.

“Funny,” the professor murmured, “but I despise grave robbers and don’t hide the fact. Yet, it’s how I began. Stealing from the grave of my own grandfather.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve ten minutes—less now—to make it to the roof. Let us hurry.”

“What’s going on?” Cade asked.

The professor laughed. “The opposition is making its move.”

There was no time to ask questions. The professor sprinted off across the mill floor, and if she wanted answers, she had to follow. Cade looked just as perplexed as she felt.

They hurried after him, Karigan glad of the distraction the professor presented, a reprieve from dwelling on the . . . on the kiss. Just thinking of it warmed her cheeks. At the stairwell they each grabbed a taper and ran up the stairs, their feet clattering on the steps like a platoon of soldiers. They passed the landing that led to the artifact room, continued up past another landing with the door yawning open to who-knew-what. She had never explored beyond the third floor and was curious, but the professor’s pace did not waver. When they reached the fifth floor, the professor dove through the doorway, and Karigan found herself pursuing his shadow.

They emerged into another expansive mill floor, largely empty but for a few chests and crates piled in the center of the room. The professor walked over to a rope that dangled from the ceiling. He waited for Karigan and Cade to join him.

“We need to extinguish all but one of the tapers,” he said, “and the one will stay here on the floor at dimmest glow.”

When this was done, he said, “I don’t believe I need to remind you to remain silent, but I will anyway. Most likely we’d not be heard, but sound can carry in odd ways, and I’d rather not take a chance.”

He pulled down on the rope hanging from the ceiling and a ladder descended, unfolding to full length as it came. It must have been well-oiled for it did not make a single creak or groan. It seemed to Karigan another clever innovation of this time.

At the top of the ladder there was a trap door. The professor climbed, worked a mechanism in the door and carefully pushed it open. Again, it moved silently. Damp, cool air curled down through the opening. The professor beckoned Karigan and Cade to follow.

Karigan left behind the dim amber light pooling on the floor beneath her and climbed more by feel than sight. When she reached the opening and poked her head out, she saw the dirty skies had cleared enough to permit moonlight to guide her. She crawled onto the roof, rusted metal hard and rough on her hands and knees.

Rising to her feet, she patted dust off her trousers. Despite the professor’s urgency, all was quiet. What was supposed to happen at two hour? Karigan was distracted by the unusual vantage point the roof presented. She observed first not the sea of stars overhead, but the rivers of misty street lamps below, their glow spread and warped by the fog that snaked along at ground level. She was drawn toward the edge of the roof. At first she’d thought it flat, but it had a subtle slant, perhaps to shed rainfall and snowmelt into the canal below.

The reflection of street lamps glimmered in the canals. Other lights spread far out into the night and there was beauty in it. Beauty in a city where she’d found so little. The inventions of these people—her descendents—were almost like magic, able to do marvelous things, like the city streets lit up at night, or the mechanical man in the professor’s chronosphere. Some of it
was
magic. Harnessed etherea, as in the chronosphere. Somehow the empire had learned to meld magic and machine.

A dog bayed in the distance and Cade came up beside her. He took her arm and drew her away from the edge.

“Someone might see your silhouette against the stars,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing her ear. She trembled.

He released her. She steadied herself with a deep breath, and silently berated herself for her carelessness. She should know better, but the city seemed, for all its light, asleep, abandoned. Who would be up so late to chance sighting her?

Inspectors,
she answered herself, and the view of those hundreds of street lamps burning away the dark of night became much less enchanting than they had been just a moment ago.

The professor gazed off in the direction of what she guessed to be the Old City. There were few lights in that direction, only tiny dots of illumination that gleamed across the river, but mostly it was dark. She discerned the mount as a hulk rising against the starscape of the sky.

What was the professor waiting for? What did he expect to happen?

The clanging of bells made her jump. From the many towers of the mill complexes, the hour pealed out. Two tollings for two hour. Karigan yawned as the bells reminded her she was up well past bedtime.

Even after the resonance of the bells lingered on the air and then faded out, the professor waited, head cocked, but nothing changed. Eventually he shrugged and indicated they should climb back down into the mill. No one spoke until the professor, last on the ladder, closed the trap door after him and descended to the mill floor.

“What did you expect to see?” Cade asked, brightening each taper.

“I wasn’t sure I expected to see anything or hear anything. Actually, I hoped to hear nothing, because it was supposed to happen at two, right on the bell.”

“What was supposed to happen at two?” Cade asked, an edge to his voice.

Karigan thought it interesting the professor kept things even from Cade.

“Oh, we’ve done a little something—or at least I hope we have—to slow down Silk’s drill project. If we have succeeded, I am sure it will be the talk of town tomorrow. You’ll hear the rumors.”

“You know that whatever you’ve done, Silk will retaliate,” Cade said.

“I do know.”

“He’ll punish innocent people, unless your men were careless enough to get caught. What if they are and they give away secrets?”

“Sacrifice for the cause is necessary.” The professor’s voice had grown very quiet. The light accentuated the crags and lines on his face. “All involved know the dangers they face. They will not betray us in the unlikely circumstance they are captured.”

“And the innocents Silk will punish in their stead?”

“This is war, Cade. In every war there is collateral damage.”

A chill caught hold of Karigan. Every time she thought she knew the professor, some new facet of him surfaced. Every time she was lulled by his kindness and humor, she saw another side. This one was cold, dispassionate. One had to be willing to sacrifice for one’s ideals, but cold-bloodedly and willingly give up the lives of innocents? She averted her gaze, wondering how that made him any different from Silk or the emperor.

“If Silk or his cohorts should ever learn our secrets,” the professor continued, deadly calm, “you know what to do.”

“I do,” Cade said.

Hide and protect Arhys, Karigan thought. As a Weapon, that would be his primary objective. She studied his face. His expression was both determined and . . . disturbed. Was he as disturbed as she by the professor’s willingness to accept the deaths of innocents?

As if the world were once again daylit and sunny, the professor’s whole posture and demeanor changed, and he strode off before they could ask more questions. “Come, you two,” he called over his shoulder. “We must have a look at Cade’s social calendar.”

 • • • 

Back down in the library section of the second floor, the professor explained, his chair tilted back and his feet propped on his desk.

“Silk has scored a point against us,” he said. “He has skillfully found a way to cut me from attending his dinner party as Miss Goodgrave’s escort and chaperone.”

“What did he do?” Cade asked.

The professor tapped an ornate letter opener against his knee that looked like it could do much damage to more than just a letter. “He ensured a mandatory meeting with the board was called at the university, to review my projects and ensure they are worth funding. No funding and the opposition, I’m afraid to say, loses its front.” At Karigan’s quizzical expression, he explained, “The shield behind which the opposition hides much of its activities.”

Karigan thought she understood. The university gave the professor contacts through a range of societal levels, allowed him to keep watch on Dr. Silk and dabble in research and excavations, secretly, of course, that were outside the parameters of his official projects. Adding to his collection on the third floor, for instance.

“Dr. Silk will take Raven away if we don’t go,” Karigan said.

“I know, my dear, but that’s only if
you
don’t go. You are the important one. It’s you he wishes to see, not me. He thinks if he parts us, you are unprotected and vulnerable to his designs. That is why I’m sending Cade in my stead. You must prepare your best suit, Old Button.”

Cade gawped from his chair. “Me? B-but—!”

“You did not seem to object to being in Miss Goodgrave’s presence before.”

Cade’s cheeks flooded with red. Karigan felt herself warm again.

“Besides,” the professor said, “it’s about time you started delving into the social intrigues and not just your books and weapons, eh?”

Cade cast about himself as if looking for some excuse to present itself. “But I am nothing to those people—they will just look down on me.”