Severed Empire: Wizard's War (21 page)

The mirror
called
Pendora. That was why the sorceress had hidden the mirror. It was in case the others needed her.

Others?

One thing at a time. Focus, focus.

She held the mirror in her hand. Had—had she been holding it the entire time?

***

The Mountain King stood over Galatia’s body. She was shackled ankles and wrists on the table. Ragged and tattered garments barely covered her body. Her skin was scarred with cuts and bruises. Infection had set in on her left leg. Curers worked the wounds, fighting the fever. They covered the gashes with a thick paste that smelled like dung and vomit, and then set palm leaves onto the paste. He had complete confidence in the royal curer. He knew if he failed it was his head hanging in the balance. Literally. He didn’t want Galatia dead, or worse, missing a limb.

He watched Ida do her magic. He wished he knew what was going on. Once she had explained the plan for summoning the wizards in hiding, he instructed her on how to guide Galatia from one talisman to the other. When Ida set the mirror in Galatia’s hand, he knew they were much, much closer. His mouth filled with saliva, and if he didn’t swallow it, he’d begin drooling with anticipation.

He wasn’t sure how, but Ida had placed Galatia under a simple enchantment. It wasn’t difficult. The sorcerer was mentally broken. The torturing had taken a toll on her spirits, and now she was spiritually dry. The limited food given left her physically weak, starving and unstable. The witch suggested Galatia sleep, and Galatia’s eyes closed. It was nearly instantaneous.

Once under Ida’s control, it was easy for the witch to maneuver through the woman’s mind. It came down to creating, or re-creating memories. Ida wanted Galatia to believe she was safe, somewhere far from Cordillera’s dungeons. That might prove the most difficult part of the magical challenge. However, once Galatia accepted her surroundings, Ida would give her the mirror, and have her summon a wizard. One by one, until all three were secured in cages Cordillera had specifically spell-casted, preventing the wizards from escaping, or using powers to harm either of them.

He wished he could be inside their heads, and see the dream Ida planted into Galatia’s reality. Her incoherent chanting meant nothing to him. Instead he was forced to use his imagination.

“Your Highness,” Ida said.

“Yeah, what?”

“I said, the first wizard is Pendora. The mirror was hers. I am convincing Galatia that she needs the other wizard’s help. This might take a little more doing. Her brain isn’t as mushy as I suspected. Her willpower is tougher than I thought,” Ida said.

Cordillera waved his hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you do this or not?”

Ida looked over Galatia’s body. Her eyes started at the toes and traveled up to the mirror in Galatia’s hand. “I can do it.”

“Then get to work. Do it.”

Ida lowered the hood on her cloak. It was like she knew the sight of her face unnerved the king. “I just want you ready. I have no idea how this will turn out. Pendora might show up right here next to us, or outside the castle, or over in the Grey Ashland for all I know.”

“You never said that. That’s a new wrinkle,” Cordillera said.

“It’s not a wrinkle. I think I can control it. I just want you ready.”

“I’m ready.”

She pulled back on her hood. “I’m going back in.”

***

Galatia sat in a corner with her knees at her chest. She held the mirror in one hand, and the other held her legs closed. She shivered. It was terribly cold below the trees. The roots draped over her shoulders like groping arms. The spiders dropped from above and skittered across her shoulder and down her back. Worms protruded from the dirt; the head whirled around, silent screams echoed inside her head. She closed her eyes and wished everything away.

Everything, except for the mirror.

There was no way out. The light around her kept fading. Soon she would be surrounded by darkness; trapped, she would become food for the grubs and night crawlers. They would eat her alive.

She looked into the mirror.

She couldn’t believe the reflection she saw was her. Her green hair had turned white, and most of it was missing. Her skin was riddled with thick, deep wrinkles. It was as if her face was filled with ruts. Her lips had become thin and grey, and cracked.

How was this possible?

Something bit the bottom of her bare feet. She screamed, and kicked at nothing.

Something else bit her on the back. She moved away from the dirt, and the roots. On all fours she scurried toward the center of the tunnel.

The unknown light source continued to diminish.

She couldn’t handle the dark. She was suddenly afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone. She did not want to die down under the trees.

Scraping noises came from behind her.

What made scraping noises like that? She didn’t want to turn and look. She had no idea what was back there. She didn’t want to know, either. She just wanted out of there. There had to be a way out, a way back to the surface.

The scraping was closer.

She cried, tears streamed down her cheeks. The teardrops fell onto the back of her hands. She turned the mirror over. In the reflection she saw the dangling straggles of her hair reach down toward the glass. Her eyes were like black balls inside knuckled sockets. “Help me, Pendora. Please. I’m afraid. I’m so afraid!”

Chapter 18

Mykal stumbled on the rocks, and fell.

“Don’t move,” Eadric said. “Stay perfectly still.”

They had been walking in a line ever since they left the valley and started on a trail through the lowlands of the Rames. To the southwest was the fjord, and to the southeast Cordillera’s castle. They were clearly inside the Osiris boundaries.

Daylight was hours away.

Basin insisted they move through the night, despite the dangerous drop-offs along the mountain trail, to prevent giving away their location. A line of torches, he warned, would look suspicious even to the most incompetent sentry.

Mykal laid flat on his belly, and held his breath. He couldn’t see the nose on the end of his face, it was that dark. Once his father warned him, he heard the danger.

Something hissed.

“It’s a spitting cobra,” Eadric said. “The venom is harmless enough if it hits your skin.”

“Keep your eyes closed,” Blodwyn said.

Mykal shut his eyes. If the venom sprayed his face, there was a chance he’d be blinded forever.

Even with his eyes closed, Mykal saw behind his eyelids a zap of brilliant light.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Quill said. “Magic will warn the Mountain King we’re close.”

“I wasn’t going to let my son go blind!” Anna said.

“You can open your eyes,” Blodwyn said.

Mykal felt rough hands grab his shoulders and pull him onto his feet. When he opened his eyes, Eadric was brushing crumbled rock dust off Mykal’s clothing. “You all right, boy?”

“I’m fine.” Mykal wouldn’t admit his heart hammered away inside his chest. Everyone was so silent he was certain they could hear it beating anyway. “How did you know it was there?”

“I could hear him,” Eadric said.

“I thought I sensed it slithering,” Quill said. “These things are a bit of a problem in the Cicade. Or were. Not big on killing wildlife, but the danger they possess outweighs the good they do, at least when it comes to the safety of my men.”

Mykal wasn’t sure what good a venomous snake did. He was on his feet, and could see, so it wasn’t worth discussing further. “Mom, are you okay?”

She hugged her son. He felt her hands tremble.

“I haven’t used magic in so long, I forgot what it felt like,” she said. Her voice was a whisper in his ear. “I didn’t think about it. I just did it. I could have put everyone in jeopardy, if the use of my magic was detected.”

She was right. They didn’t want the Mountain King tipped off about their arrival. “You saved me,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I should have been with you, Mykal. I didn’t know you had magic. If I had, I’d have taken you with me. I never would have left you,” she said.

Everyone was walking again. Basin led the way. Coil and Blodwyn were close behind him, and Quill and Eadric walked just behind Mykal and his mother. They all kept close. With the exception of Basin, no one was sure what to expect. The night was less than half over. The clouds kept the moon covered. The darkness was like an entity pressing its weight onto them from every direction.

“Until a few months ago,
I
didn’t know I was a wizard,” Mykal said. He almost cringed using the word. It was one of those things that still he still needed getting used to. As a kid he remembered thinking he’d do great things. Most kids did. Then, most kids worked family farms. Some became squires with the aspirations of becoming a knight. It was the long hours repairing fencing around grandfather’s property when his imagination tricked him into daydreaming. Of all the things he thought on, being a wizard never crossed his mind. The king’s decree, and the royal Watch, instilled in him an almost loathing for all things magic.

Mykal wished his mother’s response had been different, that she’d have said whether he was a wizard or not she wished she’d taken him with her.

He understood the dangers, and why she claimed she did what she did.

Those things didn’t matter to him.

It was the same blame he placed on his father.

“I miss grandfather,” Mykal said. “He’s been alone far too long. He must think I’m dead by now.”

She placed her hand on his arm. “I know how you feel.”

She didn’t, he thought. He kept his mouth shut. “I just wish there was a way I could tell him I’m all right. I wish I could see him, and know that he’s okay, too.”

“That you can do,” Anna said.

“What can I do?”

“Check on him, make sure he’s all right,” she said.

“How can I do that? We’re basically a world away. I was close to home when we went to see King Nabal, but I didn’t get a chance to stop. We were forced to run for our lives. That was right before we traveled to the islands,” Mykal said.

“All we need is water,” she said. “It is called
Scrying
. You can manipulate the water so that it becomes something of a portal. While you think of your grandfather, or anyone for that matter, it will allow you to see them.”

“Like an image?”

“No, as if you were right beside them, right then and there,” she said.

“So if he’s cooking dinner when I scry—”

“Then you can watch him make the meal, set the table, and eat the food,” she said.

Mykal couldn’t help smiling. The idea was so simple, and yet if filled his heart where it had been hollow for some time now.

The smile faltered, some. “Mom,” he said. “Did you ever do that? Did you ever watch me?”

He regretted asking the question immediately. He wasn’t sure he could take much more rejection. If she said no—

He heard her sniffle. Was she holding back a sob? “I couldn’t,” she said.

“That’s okay.” He knew his cheeks turned red, and for the first time that night was thankful for the darkness. His skin felt hot, too. “I understand,” he said.

“No,” Anna said. “I don’t think you do. If I could have, I would have. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about you. There wasn’t a single day that went by when I didn’t spend most of my waking hours just thinking about you, and all of my nights dreaming of you. Scrying is magic. I couldn’t risk it, I just couldn’t.”

“I know,” he said, but he didn’t.

“Not being with you, not seeing you was the most painful thing in the world, Mykal. At night I used to imagine you asleep, your face peaceful and angelic. It was the best I could do, and it was never enough, and it always just left me feeling empty and cold.” She took a deep breath. “I never knew Eadric came looking for me, that he never returned home to you. I always let myself be comforted thinking that at least you had your father to raise you. Part of me expected he’d moved on, met someone new, remarried. I actually took solace in those thoughts, that you had all become a happy family together. I let myself believe in and find faith in the fairytale I’d created.”

The line stopped moving.

“The caves are just ahead of us.” Basin removed a bag he’d worn over both shoulders. He set the bag on the ground, and knelt beside it. There was a small thumb-size lever he transitioned from one side to the other, over the top of the bag. It made an odd zzzzzzz sound. With the mouth of the bag open, he reached inside and pulled out three torches, and a few coils of rope.

“Will guards be stationed by the entrance?” Blodwyn said.

“Not usually,” Basin said. “If you think this path we’re on to the cave entrance is treacherous, you’ve not witnessed anything yet. Once we’re inside it only gets worse. This is not going to be easy. You’ve got to remember that most of Cordillera’s subjects just come and go by the front of the castle. The only reason someone would want to use some of these passages is to sneak in or out. It’s not likely a legion is going to attack the castle from the caves. It wouldn’t make sense. A man with a mallet could bop people on the head as they came up out of the floor, if you see what I’m saying. So no, I don’t think knights will be an issue, unless they are expecting all of you? We will have much more lethal concerns that are to be dealt with.”

“Lethal?” Quill said.

“Aye. There will be more snakes, and spiders—”

“Spiders?” Mykal recalled the giant, hairy arachnids he’d encountered under the Cicade Forest when searching for Pendora’s hand mirror. The memory of the bite that nearly killed him made the area on his skin itch.

“Spiders,” Basin said, as confirmation. “We’re gonna want these torches. It is so black inside there; the fire won’t even be visible much past our own faces. And as I’ve said, it is highly unlikely the king has any sentries posted.”

“The torches are okay, but not magic?” Anna said.

“Don’t ask me about any magic, ma’am. I haven’t the knowledge needed to answer the question. You want to use it, use it. Anything that will help us travel the bowels of the mountains easier is okay by me,” Basin said.