Mirrorworld (22 page)

“Why do you hate to admit it?” Marcus asked automatically, trying to buy time in the hope that his world would somehow turn back from the upside-down position it once again occupied.

“Because it wasn’t originally my idea,” Eira said, “but I’m making it mine. The people who proposed this are fastidiously short-sighted; they thought they’d send a rogue to stop a rogue, and all would be well. I am less inclined to be idealistic; I’ve been out in the world lately. So, I’m sending these people because I trust them to stop the first rogue if he decides to fall in line with the bigger rogue, and I’m sending you because somehow, in some way, you’re important.

“Hey,” she added, “if the first rogue does his job, you might not even be needed. Think of it as a holiday!”

“This,” Marcus said flatly, “is absolutely mental. Do you have
any
reason to think that I’m going to suddenly manifest some incredible power and save the day?”

“I have more reason to think that,” Eira countered, “than I do to think that you’re going to be of any use to us here. Yes,” she continued, more solemnly, “it’s a long shot. A really long shot. But you are here now, and we need you, so it seems logical to make use of you. Maybe you won’t be needed. Maybe, your connection won’t turn out to be anything at all – don’t think I haven’t considered
that
possibility. But we can’t pass up the chance. Keithus has to be stopped before the situation gets any worse, and we can’t afford to squander any advantage we can scrape together.”

She grinned again. “Look at it this way - yesterday you were trying to run away; today I’m giving you leave to, provided you go in the direction I want. Is that so bad?”

“Yes,” Marcus said, vehemently, well aware of the irony of the situation. “I’m not going.”

“Fine.” Eira sighed. “Have fun living in a city with a large contingent of mercenaries for hire when there’s a huge bounty on your head, taken out by a premier organisation known for paying their debts, and the gate guards have your description and strict orders to not let you leave. Have you met them yet? They can be very persistent, you know. And immune to bribery, oddly enough.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Marcus said, meeting Eira’s eyes. She stared back, poker-faced. He turned to Musk. “Would she do that?” The man smiled, very faintly. Marcus turned back with a sigh. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Only if you force me to, Marcus. We didn’t bring you here for a holiday, but because somehow, we need you. And I will do everything I can to make use of you.”

“Including hiring people to kill me?” Marcus asked glumly.

“I’m rather hoping you won’t let it come to that. Please, Marcus?”

He thought he might have imagined it before – but now it was there for sure; a hint of hopeful desperation in Eira’s voice. She was taking a massive risk and hoping for the best, because there was nothing else she could do. For a moment, he thought he could almost appreciate the sheer difficulty of her life, and how she was working so hard to try and save everybody – even if everybody included the average man on the street, a man who held no love lost for the Viaggiatori for getting them into this situation in the first place. Was it such folly to want to fix your mistakes? Memories of his own dalliances with hindsight the previous evening told him no; it was far from it.

“Alright,” he said, relenting. “I’ll go. It’s not like I have anything else to do with my life, anyway. Might as well throw it away in pursuit of hopeless victory.”

“That’s more like it,” Eira said with an uncharacteristic giggle. “Well, it’s close enough.” She straightened up and locked eyes with him. “Thank you.”

Marcus merely shrugged again. “What now, then?”

“Preparations,” she said. She turned to Musk, who had been observing the exchange with silent interest. “Musk, you have the lead in this expedition. Officially, you are all leaving the city to investigate a possible disturbance caused by the Mirrorline a few miles north, then returning here. Except obviously you’re not; it’s a decent cover story that hopefully will allow you to get to Keithus without him knowing you’re coming. Supplies will be waiting in the next town; once you’re clear, ditch your colours and go incognito. Do everything you can to avoid drawing attention to yourselves, as he could have eyes anywhere.” Here, she glanced up at Lucin’s raven meaningfully. “It’s not unheard of. Find out where, exactly, Keithus is, and help the Assassin do his thing. I doubt he’ll be too hard to find, just look for the massive army.”

“Where
is
this bloody famous assassin?” Lucin interjected irritably.

“He has not deigned to join us here today,” Eira said, the complete absence of emotion in her voice betraying exactly what she thought of that, “but assures us he’ll be here by tomorrow when you all set out. Please try not to antagonise him, as he is technically a good guy now. Lucin?”

“Whatever,” the man said. In the chair beside him, Fervesce began to snore gently.

“Unless, of course, he looks to be going rogue himself,” Eira added. “Musk, since you’re in charge, you have official judgement on that. If he looks to be going off the rails, or even worse, joining up with Keithus, take him down. I appreciate that it won’t be easy, but I need..”

“Hang on,” Marcus interjected, hearing now what he had been too shocked to register before. “You’re sending this guy to kill Keithus, and you’re afraid he might
join up with him?”

“Yes,” Eira said gravely.

Marcus groaned. “Remind me, did I already agree to go?”

“Yes, you did.”

Marcus gently bashed his head against his staff. He had nothing more to add.

Time had passed. Of course it’d actually been passing for quite a while, but in the background, quietly and discreetly. Marcus had been considering the passage of days with little more than vague interest, but the sensation of seconds passing him by had been intensified by the abrupt intrusion of a looming deadline to his relatively comfortably existence in Portruss. Hours that had previously elapsed with little fanfare were now seen off with mourning appropriate to the loss of a close, dear friend.

Marcus was alone, now, properly and deliberately, for the first time since arriving in the Mirrorworld. The Master had adjourned her assembled group, recommending that they spend this day in preparation for their departure to the north tomorrow, and everyone had wandered off to do so. That had left Marcus alone and unguarded, free to float through this world as he saw fit. It was a reasonable facsimile of freedom, tempered by the silky noose that Eira had carefully dangled around his neck and could now pull taut at any point. He had to admit that the philosophical, theoretical trap was much more resource-friendly than the one where people followed him around all the time.

Still, his time was briefly his own, and given that his Viaggiatori-provided wardrobe had now more or less run out of shades that didn’t make him feel slightly sick, he’d loaded up his bag of gold and headed out into the city in search of more respectable shades. He’d never been a fan of bright colours, and wandering a strange city in a strange world while wearing such shades had left him feeling very conspicuous. He hid them now beneath the long black jacket that he had more or less stolen from the Viaggiatori cloakroom, and headed to the Eastgate district, which a local guidebook told him was a hub for shopping in the city. It also told him that the city was named for the coppery glint of the river at sunset, so he took it with a pinch, but it turned out to be correct in this instance, and so he wandered from shop to shop, purchasing their wares while his mind fizzled and bubbled.

The thoughts that kept rising in his head were far from pleasant, even by the fluctuating standards of the last few days. Uncertain future had now been stamped into the shape of an unenviable fate, and his peace of mind was shot. In reflection, he’d begun to think that maybe, just maybe, the Mirrorworld could be a new start for him. In his angry rejection of all that had come before he had washed his hands not just of the past, but of Earth, too – what had that planet ever done for him? He’d scoured its lengths looking for somewhere to belong, something that might explain the vagaries of his life and give him a hint as to the meaning of it all, and all that had led to was a cut-off existence that had culminated in bleak depression, drinking himself to death. Thanks for nothing.

But he had dodged Death, somehow, and left all that behind for a world that was briefly new and interesting again. Without really meaning to, he had invested himself in the Mirrorworld, and rediscovered – or perhaps more accurately, he allowed, discovered for the first time – what it might mean to truly control one’s life, to plough a path through existence rather than to exist purely on the tepid flotsam of things that happened to you. By that power had he stood up to his oppressors, both a man called Lambert and the Viaggiatori, and hope had lit his way towards a second chance, a life beyond what he had settled for over the entirety of his Earthly existence. Though Marcus Chiallion had not literally died, perhaps the person he had been could have laid at rest.

But no. That was all dust now; his jailors had caught up to him. The Viaggiatori had weighed him down under the weight of a responsibility that he hadn’t earned, a destiny of a saviour that he had little interest in; it was just another box, and he was sandwiched in it with them on one side and the primal force of Death on his other, constantly tapping on his shoulder to remind him that, sooner or later, he was going to pay for all this extra time with the life he had forfeit by right. New world though it might be, the Mirrorworld seemed to share Earth’s sense of raucously cruel divine humour.

Crossing the wide plaza at Eastgate, Marcus paused for a wistful look towards the gate proper. There was a constant flow of traffic in and out of the city, watched over by attentive, armoured guards who slowed the stream at the gate, checking paperwork seemingly at random. There were so many of them – his odds of somehow slipping past unseen seemed low. Maybe he would be less conspicuous without the scythe-staff, but there was no way he was parting with that now.

What could he do? Nothing. There was to be no free and daring Marcus of the Mirrorworld; his only course of action was to dance on the strings that had been tied to him, and hope for the best. That meant going north, into danger, Death’s domain. With luck he might be able to dodge around it, let the Assassin deal with Keithus, and be gifted again with freedom to settle his debts.. but that was a far, forlorn hope, a fledgling flame that even a weak wind could snuff out without doubt. It would need nurturing to survive, but all Marcus had to spare was the grim, stoic acceptance of his fate that he had succeeded in talking himself into.

Little could grow in that, but Marcus took it with him, and went to buy some boots.

More time passed; it was evening by the time Marcus finally found himself stood before the House of Viaggiatori again, fully loaded with bags of new clothes. Aware that going back would probably be the last time he would do so, he’d stayed out to experience some of the city, and enact an almost regretful goodbye to a place that had sheltered him and certainly given him some new experiences. He’d wandered the streets, seen the sights, and flinched at a few tall people in long black cloaks who he’d seen, but there’d been no sign of Death. Perhaps the Reaper really was busy; whatever the reason, for now it seemed to Marcus that he had been granted a temporary reprieve.

Central Plaza was quiet. Walking up Rice Street, Marcus had been surrounded by the hubbub of a city coming alive for the evening, a ghost walking unseen through the lights of the many eateries, bars and social clubs, and a whisper unheard amongst the sounds of dining, drinking, socialising and carousing that emanated from therein. But here on the summit, all was quiet. Flickering lights in the windows of the encircling buildings suggested hard work still in action, and there were yet people milling about the square on some errand or another, but for the most part the flow of the city seemed to have moved on. Here, Portruss slept, so that it might be all the more awake elsewhere.

Aside from the few passers-by, there was one other person of note in the square. Against a whitewashed pillar in the shadow of the House of Viaggiatori there leant a tall, hard-faced man with a worn complexion, marked by a variety of small scars that made a scribbling of his face. Dark-haired and casually dressed, the man seemed quite at ease staring out over the plaza with a cigarette in hand, but there was a certain lazy tension in his stance, and the way that his hand constantly strayed to the hilt of his sword – a heavy, two-handed piece that he wore strapped to his back – suggested a guarded nature. It made for a strange reading on his immediate appearance, watching smoke billow away in the air.

Marcus had invested in some cigarettes himself, under what seemed like a fairly logical assumption that he wasn’t so long for this world that the health issues would be a concern. Sadly, in the difficult moment between trying to choose between fifteen different brands that he knew nothing about and avoiding the shopkeeper’s stare of impatient weariness, he’d forgotten to buy anything to light them with. Right now, on this quiet evening, in the calm before his storm, he wanted a smoke, and so he carefully approached the tall man, whose eyes narrowed.

“Got a light?” Marcus asked.

The man grunted, and tossed a box of matches; Marcus hastily dropped his bags to snatch it from the air. He extracted his box of cigarettes, lit one, inhaled deeply, and handed the matches back to the man, who still leant against the pillar, studying him.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the man asked, his voice disarmingly deep and gruff.

Marcus blinked, taken by surprise. “You can tell?”

“Ha. The correct answer was ‘I don’t know what you mean’.” The man didn’t smile. “You wear the colours of the Viaggiatori, though you wisely try to hide it. And all the Viaggiatori know my face, and would never approach me asking for anything. You’re either new and uninformed, or just uninformed.”

Marcus leant back against the next pillar over, inhaling again. “I’m from Earth.”