Mirrorworld (31 page)

All that in mind, Eira resisted the urge to build her own utopia, and walked over to the bed. To her, it appeared to be extremely comfortable, and because of that, it was. She dropped into it, nodded to Eustace, and closed her eyes. Despite the coffee still swirling within her, she felt herself drifting off within minutes, wondering all the while exactly how she was meant to control her dreams.

“Don’t stop,” Musk called down to the Assassin, as they pulled up on the main street of the small town whose existence had long since been promised by a fleeting glimpse of a passing signpost, “we aren’t staying here. Carry on for another mile or so, find a secluded spot, then take us off the road.” The Assassin cheekily tipped a non-existent hat to the man, and urged the horses onwards. Slowly, laboriously, the coach creaked into motion once more.

“We’re not staying?” Marcus asked, rising from his half-sleep in disappointment. The town around them had an endearing quaintness, like an image from a West Country postcard. Small, thatch-roofed houses spewed thin columns of smoke from their chimneys, as children danced on the village green and locals wassailed each other as they passed in the street, dimly lit by lamps in the rapidly approaching twilight. Marcus had been looking forward to ducking through the low door of the rustic inn, sitting by the fireplace and exploring their collection of locally-brewed ales.

“No,” Musk said, shattering the beautiful dream. “We don’t want to be spending the night in towns. You’ll see why later. I need to go and check on Fervesce. Don’t go anywhere!”

“Pfft,” Marcus said as Musk disappeared over the side of the coach. He sat and said a silent farewell to the town whose name it seemed he was destined to not know, watched it fade into a faint swarm of light and shape behind them as the Assassin moved the coach away along the road. A hefty bump shortly announced their departure from the beaten track, and sent Marcus sliding across the roof in a pile of luggage as the Assassin rattled the coach off the road and into a field, where it glided to an ungainly halt.

As the Assassin set about wiping down the steaming, snorting horses by whose grace they had gotten this far, Marcus surveyed the man’s choice of field. It was a nice enough location, shielded from view from the road by a line of trees whose wintery sparseness could do nothing to actually obstruct the sight of the monolithic coach lurking behind them, but who could at least cut the wind somewhat. The group was sufficiently inundated with sleeping materials that a night under the Mirrorworld’s stars wasn’t an entirely undesirable prospect, but a part of Marcus was still thinking of fireplaces and ales, low ceilings and the murmur of conversation, and so couldn’t help but feel robbed.

He dropped off the side of the coach, narrowly avoiding the door as it swung open. Kendra stepped out, followed by Musk and then Lucin, whose eyes surveyed the scene imperiously.

“Is this it?” the short man asked.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Marcus said with feeling.

“Ssh,” Musk said wearily. “This is the best thing. You know why.”

Lucin’s response was to turn around and go back in the coach. Marcus simply shrugged, because he didn’t know why, but was too tired to be particularly fazed about being again uninformed. A day of absolute inertia and half-sleep in the company of his own thoughts had
made for a poor fellow to the long walk and late night adventure of the day before, and since it was clear that this was the best bed he was going to be getting, he decided to just get in it. Wandering over to the coach to pull free a bedroll and a pillow from the great pile of soft things on which Fervesce’s sleeping form yet reclined, Marcus heard Musk gently requesting that they not stray too far from the
coach. That in mind, he rolled into the great space beneath it, fluffed up his pillow, and lay staring at the complex mechanisms of the coach’s underside that now loomed before him, searching for a sleep in which he might yet see the warm inn that still hung, flickering and homely, in the eye of his mind.

With a start, Eira woke from a lovely dream, in order to find that the room was on fire.

“Aahhhh,” said Eustace, running past with his beard in flames. Eira quickly conjured up a monsoon, and shortly the inferno had been washed away. The old scholar staggered up to the bed, gave her a dirty look, and fell backwards into a chair that she barely had time to form for him.

“What happened?” she asked, sitting up.

“Well,” Eustace said, wringing out his robes, “you were dreaming about some people sat around a campfire. I’d guess some sort of anticipatory dream about Musk and his group, unless you have some fond memories of other campfires. I couldn’t tell, because the fire was dim.”

“You saw it?”

“I was there, Eira. Whatever you were dreaming of became a fully realised scenario around me. First you were wandering the streets of Portruss, apparently looking for something, and then it all dissolved into some oblique shapes and colours that drained away into an abyss. I’d love to know what Helm would have made of that one. And then later there were a group of people sat around a campfire. I mean yeah there were lots of less distinct scenes that came and went before I could figure out what they even were, but d’you see? If these scenarios became real without you even having to make them so, without being aware that you were doing it, then that’s proof that unconscious thought has a far greater power over the Mirrorline than conscious Linewalking! I
knew
it. And if that’s on no practise at all – imagine what we could do with further study!”

“Right, right,” Eira said. “But what about the whole bit where everything was on fire? I feel like we should probably talk about that before we talk about further study.”

“I don’t really know what happened there,” Eustace admitted grudgingly. “I was walking about the campsite trying to see through the darkness and then suddenly the fire just exploded everywhere.”

“Hmm,” Eira said. “That might have been me. I seem to recall being annoyed that I couldn’t see, and willing the fire to burn bigger so I could make out what was happening.”

“You did that?” Eustace leant forward, forgetting the sorry remnant of his beard that he’d been forlornly stroking. “You actually consciously manipulated the dream?”

“I guess so. It didn’t feel like a dream, doing it, though. It was more like.. well, being here.”

“
Fascinating
,” Eustace said, leaning back again. “Well, whatever you did, it definitely worked. The fire flared up, and then all of the things were burning, and, yes, I must say I’m quite glad you woke up when you did, as that might have otherwise become a less than pleasant experience. Certainly my facial hair may never be the same again.”

Eira had to giggle, pulling a fresh coffee out of thin air as she did. “I think perhaps I may have overdone it slightly. Still, are you satisfied now? Can I go?”

“Satisfied? Eira – Master – this is a revelation. There’s so much more we can learn from this! We have to try it again!”

Eira groaned. “I thought the plan was that I let you check this out, then you stop bugging me.”

“Well, I don’t know what
your
plan was, but mine was to find out as much about this as possible. If you could learn to control this – it could be a whole new way to work the Mirrorline. And what you did when you tried to change something – the intensity of it! Manipulating the Mirrorline could be so much easier if we could do it unconsciously.. This could be something very, very huge.”

“Right. And I give you leave to drug as many other people as you want, so that you can wander around their minds while they sleep. Just stop doing it to me. Okay?”

Eustace’s face fell. “But you do it so well!”

Eira waved him away absently. “How long was I asleep?”

“It’s been a few hours. There was quite a long stretch of nothingness between the funny colours and the fireball of doom. Luckily, I bought a book. Which you burned.”

Eira groaned at the thought of all the things to do that would have filled up the space she had so recently cleared on her desk in the time she’d been away. There was only one thing a leader could do when confronted again with the responsibilities of their position.

“Go get some fireproof clothing, Eustace. Let’s go again.”

What a line that was.

Far, far away, where the air was thin, and jagged mountain peaks pierced the sky, a troll stood, leaning heavily against the open window ledge of the ancient, crumbling castle that was, for now, her home. Under the light of a fat, full moon whose light cast long shadows and echoed in her rhinestone eyes, the troll stood silent, listening to the night. Past the wails of the whistling winds that cut through the passes and crevasses of these broken hills, there was very little sound from below, and the troll couldn’t help but be slightly disturbed by this. Down there, where the pass opened out onto a wide plateau, thousands of creatures of the Northlands were stationed, rubbing shoulders in the limited space against mortal enemies from both their own species and others.. and yet it was quiet. Orc tribes who hated and raided each other at any given opportunity were camped within a stone’s throw of their nemeses, yet they were all sitting pretty, running drills and resolutely not killing each other. The coalition of vampires, far more used to their home comforts and preying on the weak in the night, were living quite happily in the shanty town they had built on the far side of the pass, feasting harmlessly off a rotating cycle of blood donors and mingling freely with all of the creatures they considered ‘lesser’ than themselves, which was all of the creatures that existed. The Jabberwocks, whose numbers could not claim to touch that of the orcs but who were none the less fearsome for their scarcity, were less easily satiated, but though they stalked through the pass angrily, resenting the agreements they had made to refrain from attacking their allies, they too kept their word, pacified by the thought of much food to come. Occasionally their shrieks pierced through the night and reached the ears of the listening troll, but though they were shrieks of rage, it was of a malevolence contained.

How had Keithus done it? The troll wondered this often. Even thought she had been at the wizard’s side during his many ventures into the natural domains of the Mirrorworld’s cruellest creatures and characters, there to watch him walk out again not only with his skin but with pledges of allegiance.. she still had trouble believing that he had actually pulled it off. More than once she’d wondered if he hadn’t somehow been using his magic to blinker his subjects, to pull their heartstrings in the directions that he wanted them to hang, but she tried not to think too long on that subject. Either way, for months the wizard had been recruiting the creatures and races of the Northlands, successfully amassing a force of incredible size that threatened to fall apart with every passing moment but somehow never seemed to get around to it. He wasn’t even actively involved; he had left the fairly important minutiae of actually constructing a coherent force to the troll and her subjects, and they’d performed well, given the natural advantage of a tough, bulky frame that even a Jabberwock would think twice about picking a fight with. As leader of the trolls of the Northlands, this troll had somehow found herself general of an army the likes of which had never been seen, living in the wizard’s castle, keeping an impossible peace and overseeing construction work on the magnificent wall of mirrored glass that her people were building at the north edge of the pass, a monstrosity that would, when complete, serve as their passage to a land they would destroy in vengeance.

Well, she would, at least. Most of Keithus’s army thought only of bloodlust, but this troll’s cause was a far more personal one. That, of course, had been how he’d gotten her on side, when he’d come to her early on..

“Queen of trolls,” the wizard said, bowing before her as she sat on her stone throne in the royal cave, and looking remarkably at ease for a man whose life depending on the whims of the monarch whom he now addressed. “It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Cease formalities, wizard. Why have you come before me?”

“As you wish. I have come, Kimberlite, to tell you a story, and ask something of you. In that order.”

“Really.” In spite of herself, she was piqued. The daring that this man had shown in coming before her was borderline suicidal, given that it had been made clear many years ago that any humans who dared to trespass in her domain would be taken for a prospector, and never seen again. She leaned forward, studying him carefully. Though she made no claims to be an expert in the subtleties that thrived beneath the skin of more squishy beings, she thought that she could see a hint of madness about this one’s eyes, which stood as portals to a vacant depth from which he had evicted his sanity. His demeanour said otherwise; he wore his self-possession like a shroud, not flinching from her granite stare, standing tall even as he was hemmed in by the heavily armoured trolls of her personal escort. Yes, perhaps he was mad, but since he’d come all this way, she could at least humour the antic.

“Very well,” she said, leaning back. “Tell your tale. But be warned; if I am not satisfied, it will not go well for you.”

“Fair enough,” the wizard said, unfazed. “Well then, to prologue.. this story is a tragic tale of star-crossed love.” He cleared his throat. “It is, of course, fairly common knowledge even amongst humans that the upper classes of troll culture are known by the rarity of their gemstone content. Those who have rare pigment protect their lineage fiercely, and none more so than the royal diamond line of the northern trolls, who have rarely taken a match outside of their own in their long history. But though the diamond comes with the royal seat, that is its only obligation; a troll’s love life remains entirely their own, and if a diamond troll were to fall in love with a troll of, shall we say, less shiny stock, then though it would be taboo, it would break no rules.”

“This, then, is the story of young king Diamond, and how he met a woman by the name of Kimberlite. Vivacious, intelligent, and generally quite remarkable, Kimberlite was marred only by her complete absence of rare gems. Yet she would come to hold Diamond, or at least his heart; the two were instantly smitten, in the best traditions of romance, and they married within the year. Kimberlite ascended to the position of queen of all trolls, officially becoming part of the royal family. But though Diamond, a caring and compassionate leader, had an infinite supply of love for his wife, his subjects did not; they initially considered her a usurped to the royal line, a seductive temptress of lowly stock whose corruption of the king might forever taint the precious nature of the royal line.