Mirror Sight (74 page)

“Y
ap?” she asked.

From nearby, Silk hissed to silence her, but Amberhill seemed undisturbed by her speaking out of turn.

“Yes. He was . . .” Amberhill paused as if trying to remember. “A servant. Friend. My conscience. My enemy.” His voice changed as he spoke, uncertain, then wistful, then angry. “I keep him here because he reminds me . . .” His shoes retreated. “Rise,” he ordered.

Karigan scrambled to her feet and sidled away from the poor man trapped in ice beneath the floor.

“So, Doctor,” Amberhill said, “you have brought me one of your relics of the past.”

“Yes, Your Eminence, a Green Rider.”

“I know what she is.” Amberhill’s voice slithered out as he stared at her with darkened eyes. “I defeated your king, Green Rider. What do you think of that? And I defeated more. This continent is mine. All of it. Did you know that?”

Karigan was well aware of what he had done, but she knew better than to answer.

“How do we know she is of another time?” asked one of the Adherents. “Besides the distasteful display of her face and the wearing of trousers.”

“It is actually quite fas—” Dr. Silk began, but Amberhill cut him off.

“I knew her before. Back in the early days before I came into my power. A messenger of Zachary’s court lost in Blackveil, or so it was thought.” The intensity of his expression turned to one of befuddlement and he shook his head. “The disappearing lady. How did you come to be here?”

Dr. Silk answered for Karigan, explaining what she had admitted to him the previous day, while Amberhill paced muttering harshly about the interference of old gods. Karigan did not remember the Lord Amberhill of old being so erratic. In fact, she remembered him being intensely single-minded. He looked the same as she remembered, but he had changed. He was . . . a different man.

“Unbelievable,” the Adherent said when Silk finished his account, but none of them appeared shocked or, really, all that impressed. Having an emperor around for almost two centuries must have inured them to such an oddity.

“But very true.” Karigan recognized Silk’s father as he stepped forward. “Congratulations, my son, on your find. Well done.”

Dr. Silk looked stunned to hear such praise from his father.

“Not to mention, as I hear,” said another of the men, “coordinating the quashing of a rebellion in Mill City.” There was applause muffled by gloves and mittens. Dr. Silk nodded in acknowledgment.

Amberhill paid Silk scant attention, which couldn’t have pleased Silk since it was the emperor’s approval he desired above all else. Instead, Amberhill gazed at Karigan and she crossed her arms, chilled by the cold room and his regard. She could almost see some decision spinning in his mind, his lips moving with unheard words.

When the applause faded away, he spoke. “All I see is this useless, weak girl. No, no, a Green Rider. I’ve known her. They are not weak, I assure you. You did not know my Hilda. She makes this one look a scrawny infant.”

He was having a conversation with himself, was the only way Karigan could describe it. Who was Hilda? The Adherents looked on as if they were accustomed to their emperor’s digressions.

“Or Yolandhe. There was no one like Yolandhe, was there, Webster.”

“No, Your Eminence,” the elder Silk replied. There was something false about his answer, made to please the emperor only.

Then Amberhill’s more serpentlike voice hissed out: “The Green Rider is the blood of the betrayer, an old enemy, and avatar of a dead god.”

Avatar of a dead god? It sounded impressive, but she didn’t understand.

“You mean the stallion I saw that night in Teligmar was real?” Amberhill asked himself in surprise. The dark look in his eyes returned, and he nodded to himself.

It dawned on Karigan then that she was not dealing with Lord Xandis Pierce Amberhill alone. This was him, but not entirely. There was an aspect of his personality that was too familiar, one she had known intimately. The only one who would call her, “betrayer.”

Mornhavon.
She shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold of the room.

“The Green Rider recognizes me,” he whispered. Then he added, with a moderation of his voice, “But not all of me.”

Mornhavon inhabited Amberhill’s body, but there were nuances, words, traits, that did not fit either of them. Could it be there was a third personality, as well?
The three-faced reptile.
She recalled the riddle from Captain Mapstone. Karigan had found the scything moon in the prison of forgotten days, located within the den—or palace—of the three-faced reptile. The dragon symbol of the empire must represent the “reptile” part of the riddle.

Learning the meaning of this part of the riddle did little to reassure her. She’d seen Mornhavon inhabit the bodies of others before, including her own. The last had been poor Yates. It explained much about what Amberhill had done to his country, but who was the third aspect of his personality, and how and when had this all come about?

“You are our great and mighty emperor,” Webster Silk said, “and that is what she recognizes.”

Amberhill smiled. Or was it Mornhavon? “Yes, I’ve destroyed the world and the people she knew.” A blank look, the fluttering of his eyes, then a painful whisper, “I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about, Your Eminence,” Webster Silk said hastily. He placed a hand on the emperor’s arm, probably the only person who dared touch him. He led Amberhill back toward his throne chair. “You have created a great empire. We are strong.”

“Yes, yes, of course I have.” Amberhill sat, looking baffled for a moment. “We are strong, aren’t we?” he asked the elder Silk, with uncertainty in his voice.

“Very strong.”

Mornhavon, Karigan thought, was not fully potent. He must fight for dominance over the other two personalities. Mornhavon by himself would have been pure malevolence. In this state, he was . . . diluted. Was there a way to get through to Amberhill? To help him dominate? Or a way to get through to that other unknown personality? If Mornhavon felt threatened, compromised, he might flee to another body, one of the Silks, possibly. Not at all a comforting thought. Yet, he remained with Amberhill. Why would he?

“I am bored,” Amberhill said, though Karigan did not think it was Amberhill or Mornhavon who spoke this time. She noticed the Adherents shifting nervously. Dr. Silk darted a glance at her. It was apparently not good to let the emperor get bored.

His gaze was leveled right at her. “Very bored.”

At that moment, the Eternal Guardian, who had remained still as a statue until now, leaned toward Amberhill and spoke too low for her to make out words. Amberhill nodded, and the Guardian then spoke to one of the nearby guards. The guard hastened from the throne room.

“We shall have a contest,” Amberhill boomed, “and we will see what this weak girl is capable of. Wagers, gentlemen?”

A contest? What kind of contest?
she wondered, biting her bottom lip. She forced herself to stand tall, fought anxiety. Did not want them to see her fear.

The Adherents talked among themselves, making wagers, while Dr. Silk visibly fretted beside her. “This is not what I intended,” he said.

His words did not help. Any confidence Karigan’s uniform had brought her was waning, sapped by the cold, and Mornhavon’s presence, and now the threat of this contest. How did she ever get to be in this place? Well, she knew, but still . . .

Amberhill did not participate in the wagering. Instead, he seemed to derive pleasure from her uncertainty and fear, and fed off it.

The guard that had been sent away returned quickly, and what he carried with him took her by surprise.

“What?” Dr. Silk said. “We can’t use that, it’s a valuable artifact.”

“And your Green Rider is not?” Amberhill asked. “It all belongs to me anyway, and I can use it as I wish.”

Dr. Silk bowed. “Of course, Your Eminence. I forget myself.”

“Do not do so again.”

“I won’t, Your Eminence.”

What the guard carried in was Karigan’s bonewood staff, and a second staff of a lighter wood.

“It will be a contest of the Eternal Guardian against the Green Rider,” Amberhill announced. “With staves. But not to the death, as our living artifact may have other, future value.”

Karigan had no idea what “future value” she might represent to him, and she didn’t want to know, but she was glad to find out this was not to be a fight to the death. Still, though she had fought and trained with Weapons, she had no idea what the Eternal Guardian was capable of, or even if he was human.

The bonewood was brought to Karigan, and the guard told her, “Any use of this for anything other than your contest with the Eternal Guardian, and you will be shot. We will have guns trained on you at all times. Do you understand?”

Karigan nodded and took the bonewood into hands stiff with cold. The wood warmed, seemed to hum in her grip. Despite the circumstances, it was good to have a familiar object to hold. It had been her companion all the way through Blackveil. It was solid, reliable, and deadly. If not for all the guards with their guns, she bet she could take on almost anyone in this throne room.

“Don’t get too damaged,” Dr. Silk warned her, before clearing out of the way to give room for the bout.

“Thank you for your concern,” she mumbled.

The Eternal Guardian stood before her. Though he was no taller than an ordinary man, his bearing made him seem a giant. He did not remove helm or armor, but he’d handed his swordbelt over to one of the other guards. Karigan wondered only briefly why he did not carry a gun, like all the others.

“Where is
my
armor?” she asked. “It hardly seems fair not to have any.”

He did not answer, there was only the
hiss-sigh
of the mechanism on his back. She knew this contest was not about fairness, anyway. He raised his staff at the starting position and waited. If they did not mean for her to get killed in this bout, they meant to be entertained by the spectacle of the big, strong Guardian fighting the weak female from the past, who had the temerity not to wear a veil. Well, entertain them she would. Let them see she could wield a staff.

She flexed her hands around the staff and stepped up to the Guardian. His eyes flickered as he blinked behind his visor. They touched off and began.

The Guardian did not hesitate. He did not take time to size her up. He simply attacked. Karigan barely deflected the blow to her mid-section and found herself desperately parrying a series of sophisticated moves. She was cold, stiff, slow. The icy floor caused her to slip and slide when she tried to maneuver away from the attack. The Guardian appeared to have no problem with his footing. He was like a stout tree rooted in the floor, she a pebble skittering across ice.

Meanwhile, the Adherents jeered and laughed at her, calling her names and using words they, as proper gentlemen, would probably never use in the presence of their wives or daughters, or in polite society, but she was not part of their polite society. To them, she was not even a person. She was a captive, in their minds a slave.

She took a glancing blow to the hip and slid away, steam puffing from her mouth. For all that the Guardian’s moves were swift and well-executed, they were familiar to her. She willed herself to recall her training, and to allow it to overtake her. She must incorporate the uncertain footing into her fight, find her center, use it to her advantage. It was not easy, for the Guardian was relentless. He pounded on her bonewood, numbing her hands, the wrist that Silk had clenched so hard aching. But she was warming up.

Soon she found a rhythm, a desperate rhythm, but one she could work with. Still, she had to be ready when the Guardian made an unexpected move. Just as she had tried to teach Cade in swordplay, she must not become lulled by that rhythm.

The constant din of colliding staves filled the room, the raucous shouts of the Adherents falling into the background. The Guardian’s staff smashed into a mass of icicles hanging from a chandelier. Shards of ice pelted Karigan, bit into her hands and cheeks, but she managed to block another numbing blow.

She used the slick floor to move quickly out of the way, sliding here, then there. The Guardian’s armor slowed him down only a little. She skated among columns, using them as shields. She knocked a phosphorene sconce off the wall, a ball of flame hissing to the floor, a burning tail sizzling behind it in an arc.

When Karigan engaged in yet another punishing series of forms, she thought,
I am a king’s messenger. I have lived through worse. This is nothing.
Even if the Guardian defeated her, humiliated her, she could live with it. With that in mind, she decided to make a move that would likely be her last, but which was better than breaking a leg, or worse, her head, on the slippery floor. It was a move that was not part of any proper form, one that only the desperate and untrained would attempt. She took her staff by the end and swung it like an ax, bearing down on the Guardian’s. Wood splintered like a crack of thunder. Not hers, but his, for she wielded bonewood, which was the strongest of them all. She jerked her staff back, its hooked metal handle catching his staff and pulling it apart into two pieces that clattered onto the floor.