Mirrorworld (30 page)

Marcus lit a cigarette and stared blankly into the clouds, thinking. He’d been warring with himself internally all morning, reflecting on what Kendra had suggested the previous night about who or what really controlled his life and how he might like to feel about it. It was annoying. The whole idea of trying to be positive because why the hell not had been so far out of left field that he’d never have considered it on his own, but now that she’d laid it out for him, he couldn’t stop it from flooding his pit of cynical malaise with quiet rainbows. It seemed that some part of him had realised that wanting to be left alone to hate everything was a pretty terrible way to go about doing stuff, and had seized upon this alternative view as a means of not letting him do so without a fight.

“And what does
that
mean, do you think?”

Good question,
Marcus thought, trying and failing to blow a smoke ring.

“It means that Keithus has Jabberwocks,” Kendra said, sounding confused.

“Yes, obviously,” Musk replied, his words wrapped in the exasperated tone that Marcus was getting used to hearing when people talked with Kendra for prolonged lengths of time. “But that doesn’t tell us much.”

“Au contraire, musky man. Legends say Jabberwocks are fiercely territorial, so the place where they’re hanging out is the place where Keithus is hanging out. Find the beasties, find the wizard.”

“We’re trusting legends now? If they’re so territorial, why is one ‘hanging out’ in Plumm? Also, don’t ever call me that again.”

“I don’t know. But it must mean something.. It’s just terribly frustrating to not know what. Especially since it went and died, the poor creature.”

“The poor creature that was wandering the town murdering people?”

“Don’t start that,” Kendra said in glum tones that surprised Marcus, accustomed as he was becoming to her usual jubilance. “It wasn’t its fault. It was out of its element, reacting in the only way it knew how, because of something Keithus did. Oh, don’t pull the it’s-not-our-problem-because-it-doesn’t-involve-the-Mirrorline face, I don’t like that face at all.”

“You don’t know that this was Keithus’s doing,” Musk pointed out. “Don’t look at me like that, you are probably right, but we don’t know for sure. Either way, I stand by my face; it’s not our problem. We have more pressing issues than habitation dilemmas, Kendra.”

“Do we?” Shadows flickered across Marcus’s vision as Kendra waved her arms in objection. “You know, sometimes, I think that we spend so much time concerned with the big picture, with preserving the great balance of worlds, that we risk losing sight of the worlds themselves. We were so wrapped up in that stuff that we forgot to remember how to level with Keithus, our preoccupation with big heavy concepts unwittingly antagonising a smaller figure that’s now come around to threaten the stuff we were trying to protect. It’s all connected, and all important. We shouldn’t forget that.”

Musk offered no response, so they sat in silence for a time, while Marcus finished his cigarette and flicked the stub of it away into the rolling scenery. Watching the last of the smoke curl away into the air, he heard Kendra murmur something about going to bother Lucin. There followed a series of thuds and clonks as she swung herself off the side of the coach and circumnavigated the obstacle of the door, which climaxed in a muffled yell from below as she succeeded and landed, presumably on the pile of coins that Lucin had so carefully and patiently been working his way through.

That left Musk sitting alone at the front of the coach, staring forlornly towards the horizon. He looked so morose that Marcus felt moved to pull himself up and go sit beside him. He stirred as Marcus joined him, but didn’t speak.

“She has a point, you know,” Marcus said after a moment.

Musk sighed. “Yes, I know. I used to think that she just cared too much. But.. I’ve known her for a while now, and now I think it’s rather the opposite, that maybe
we
don’t care enough. The Mirrorline is so important.. but it leaves us precious little time for anything else. We clean up after everyone else, but who cleans up after us?” He idly tapped his fingers along the side of the coach, dinting it slightly. “Right now though, I still think we need to concentrate on Keithus. We can’t afford to get distracted – I don’t think Kendra realises how serious this situation is, how much is riding on us.”

Marcus had to agree, but wasn’t convinced that this was entirely a bad thing. “And you do?”

“I’m in charge,” Musk said, “I have to.”

Marcus looked up as the sun’s light lessened. A big grey thundercloud was creeping in overhead with malice aforethought.

“I fear I may owe you an apology, Marcus,” Musk said after a moment. Surprised, Marcus glanced back at him, but the man was resolutely not meeting his eyes. “I’ve not exactly been.. civil towards you since we left Portruss. Did you know, that the Master appointed you second in command of our group? That, if anything happens to me, you’d be in charge?”

“Yeah, Lucin told me.”

“What a surprise.”

“Mm.. I don’t get why
Eira
didn’t tell me
,
though.”

“The Master works in mysterious ways, Marcus.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“Well..” Musk sighed. “I couldn’t help but see her appointing you as a snub to me. You are by no means a Viaggiatori, after all. I couldn’t help but think that she was intent on making this expedition as ridiculous as possible, given the rather ragtag bunch that make up our number. And sometimes.. it’s difficult for me, in ways I’m not sure I can really explain. As a Viaggiatori, I’ve been blessed with this incredible power, this strength, the limits of which only extend further the more I walk the Mirrorline. But, when you have the power to smash everything you can see into dust.. it can sometimes be difficult to see anything as any more than that. The world according to the Viaggiatori is so fragile, a world of malleable dimensions, silk sheets and tea parties, and I sometimes have trouble feeling like I can belong in something so.. insoluble. And someone like you, a foreign object, defined by possibility and not even of this world.. I find that even more difficult to have any faith in.” He ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “This apology isn’t going very well, is it?”

Marcus, who had been sat quietly taking all this in, shook his head, unsure what to say.

“Did I ever apologise for knocking you out, on that first day?”

“It was more of a verbal shrug, if memory serves.”

“Then I am sorry for that, as well. I’m aware you’ve not had the best of times since then.”

“That,” Marcus said with feeling, “I can agree with. But at the same time, it’s better than what I was doing before.”

“Really?”

“You have no idea.”

“Hmm.” Still staring out at the horizon, Musk smiled slightly. A signpost rolled past, informing them as it did that they wouldn’t be seeing another town for about thirty miles, a day’s ride. “Kendra at least appears to have some faith in you. She’s been quite interested in you, hasn’t she?”

“Oh yes,” Marcus nodded. “She could almost have me believe that I might save the world.”

“Ha. I can’t pretend I agree – and I don’t mean that personally. I just don’t really believe in destiny-approved saviour figures dropping into our lap just as we need them. It’s both too easy, and too unlikely. But.. if it comes to it, and something happens to me, I hope that you will at least try to do the right thing. Even if you don’t want to. In a situation like this, doing our duty has to hold higher priority than our personal feelings. That’s what I was trying to say to Kendra, I suppose.

“Sorry,” Musk added after a moment. “Again. I had to tell someone what I was thinking. I actually feel much better now. Did you catch the name of the town on that signpost?”

“No,” Marcus said. “I was too busy consolidating my inner turmoil.”

“To each their own,” Musk said.

Eira was annoyed to be constantly disturbed by an insistent banging sound.

She’d been awake since the early hours, clearing her desk of paperwork, and making contact with the team that had gone south a few days ago; they’d successfully closed the chasm that had appeared without any major event, as it had thankfully opened in the centre of a field and disturbed only a few cows, who were now orange but otherwise unharmed. With that dealt with, she’d victoriously poured another coffee and attacked the pile of reports from Viaggiatori outposts across the Mirrorworld that she’d left to stack up until she had at least one from each location. There were no major problems to report. The world was ticking over nicely. That only left the expedition to the north, and she wasn’t expecting to hear from Musk for a day or so yet. All in all, things had cleared up quite neatly, and she had just curled up on her chair to snooze for a few hours when the noise had started.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Thud. Occasionally, muffled curses drifted through the walls. The curiously repetitive sound had been reverberating around the study for about ten minutes now, and showed no signs of abating. With a resigned sigh, Eira staggered to her feet, spent a few minutes fiddling with her coffee machine, which was on the verge of breaking down, and came away with a steaming cup in hand and the determined intent to locate the source of the noise and beat the hell out of it. Her receptionist didn’t look up as Eira more or less fell through the door, which was a shame, as Eira felt like blowing a raspberry at the damn unflappable woman who showed no signs of being affected by the noise, which was now louder, and seemed to be coming from
this
direction..

A few corridors of stalking later, Eira discovered the source of the noise. She found herself outside the row of doorways that led into the Mirrorline simulation rooms, where new recruits got their first taste of the Mirrorline, and where she’d taken Marcus on his first day. That particular room had not come out of that event too well, and Eira vaguely remembered signing a paper leasing someone to get it repaired. The door to that room was open, although the only thing Eira could see through it was infinite space, a clear indication that either she really needed to get some more sleep, or that the simulation had been rebuilt. In any case, the constant banging seemed to be coming from inside, so she stepped through the boundary and into the not-quite-Mirrorline.

Immediately to her left, there was a tall ladder. At the impossible peak of its far end, someone was busily hammering a comically oversized nail into the wall’s infinite length, an act that could only possibly be doing whatever good the worker believed it was doing. As Eira watched, the perpetrator paused to inspect his work, nodded in satisfaction, and tugged himself to the side slightly. At this touch, the ladder glided a few metres further away from the door, before juddering to a sudden halt that produced a loud profanity from its occupant as he waved his arms desperately to preserve his balance, before pulling another nail from the air and setting about hammering away again.

Wincing, Eira hastened over to the foot of the ladder and gave it a little shake. This shake echoed up the ladder’s length, increasing in violence until it reached the top, where it summoned another curse from the occupant that it now forcefully dislodged. Wailing, they fell down to ground level, bounced back up from the soft floor and landed in front of Eira with a flourishing bow.

“Eustace?” she asked in disbelief.

“Hello Master,” the old scholar said, moving his beard back into place, “how may I help you?”

“What are you doing here?” Eira asked, half-heartedly wishing that she’d made herself a coffee strong enough to provide the mental agility needed to deal with this guy.

“Fixing up this simulation room, as per your orders. Strong fixing aids make the room itself stronger.”

“Yes, I know that. I meant, what are
you
doing here? I’m sure this organisation employs a few hundred people. Including people who specialise in this sort of thing. So how come whenever I seem to go anywhere to find out what’s happening, I keep running into you?”

“Well,” Eustace said, with the twinkly-eyed expression of pure innocence that always made Eira wary, “as much as I appreciate your keeping me incredibly busy with managing the affairs of our libraries and literature, as well as managing my network of contacts and whatever else you might throw my way, I do still sometimes find myself with spare time, and I like to help out wherever I can.”

“Wherever you can just so happening to be close enough to annoy me into coming here?” Eira asked, countering Eustace’s expression with her own narrow-eyed suspicious face.

“I assure you, that was not my intent,” the old man lied. “But hey, since you’re here, how about looking into that dream-walking phenomenon? It’s too good an opportunity to pass up!”

Eira sighed, wondering, not for the first time, how to split the difference between the blessing of a hyper-competent sidekick and the curse of a delinquent subordinate, when these disparate characterisations were in fact oppositional elements of the same single fusty old person. “Fine,” she said. “I don’t have the energy to argue. Just don’t start banging that hammer again. I assume you already had this all worked out, so what’s the plan?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Eustace said, cheekily endeavouring to seem hurt by the idea, “but okay here it is. I’ll transfer control over the simulation room to you, then you go lie in that bed over there that has mysteriously just appeared, get some sleep, and see if you can’t somehow control things around you when you start dreaming. It’s easy, really.”

“I’m sure it is. Give it to me, then.” Eira strove to relax her mind, which didn’t prove particularly difficult given that it was currently functioning at only the minimum capacity required to walk, talk and occasionally think, and felt, with a slight bump, control of the Mirrorline slide into her head. It was, as ever, a remarkable feeling. Infinite amounts of doors and windows had suddenly opened to her; away from a world of tangible realities, anything at all was now possible. Floating in that world of opportunity, she felt the brief temptation to abuse it, to take the raw potential of the Mirrorline and use it to build a life more perfect than her most comfortable dreams, but it was counterbalanced by the summoned ghost of the knowledge that none of it would be real, never more than a twisted shadow of true reality, and that the sheer effort of willpower required to hold such a huge implausibility together would ultimately destroy her mind. It had been attempted, of course; cautionary tales of the first Viaggiatori, whose attempts to use the Mirrorline to build better worlds than the one they were cursed to live in invariably ended badly, hung like talismans on hooks in her head. To die, or to give up the dream and return to reality as a wasted shadow of her former self, or to try so hard to establish false order that the Mirrorline itself rebelled, pining for its preferred state of chaos.. those were the fates recorded in the earliest pages of the Storie. It was unknown what had truly become of the latter, of those who had been caught up in the forceful unravelling of their fictional worlds, but considering the fates of those who suffered even the least hostile of Mirrorline takeovers, that was probably for the best. Nonetheless, it was in the wake of these unfinished tales that the Viaggiatori as they were now had been established, and tied forever to the task of understanding and safeguarding the sheer intoxicating power of a world that was not a world.