Book 5, Chapter 46: The Mirror
They took me to another building, behind the first I’d been in. It was circular, five stories high, with a round dome atop. It felt much larger inside as the space was mostly open, the high vaulted ceiling visible once from the center, where we stopped. A long slope circled this open space, and bookshelves lined every available wall. Around us where we stood, along the slope, even beside the tall windows spaced evenly around the dome.
Candles were lit and flickered, shadows dancing on the walls and books. Tye must have prepared this place even as his army battered down the doors of the keep. The sun was setting outside, its red glow cast an eerie atmosphere into the room, mixing with the yellow candlelight and spinning dust in the air.
The abbess and several of her nuns stood, waiting. She appeared to have made it to her forties. I guess they were too important to simply kill. Behind them, drawing my eyes, a black curtain about the size of a door. It stole my attention. I felt a yearning in my chest and I wanted, desperately, to tear the curtain aside, see what was behind.
The soldiers pulled me back as I walked toward it.
“Princess!” Irons bound his arms and soldiers were holding him on his knees.
“Morry!” I struggled against the guards. “Let me go, you bastards!”
Then the wizard spoke, “Let the princess attend her general.”
I rushed over to him, knelt down, placed my hands on his. He had a black eye and bruising all over his face. “They’re beating you?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. And you?”
I scowled up at the guards. “I’m fine.” And that’s when I noticed. He no longer had a scar down his face. I couldn’t help but run my hand from his ear to his jaw. Less wrinkles. Morry had gotten younger, too. “Your scar is gone. You’ll heal, as long as I’m here, in this temple.”
“My scar? Princess, I failed to rescue you. I apologize. It’s my fault you are here.”
“Nonsense. We are here, there’s nothing for it. What happened with Carlisele and the army?”
“After you . . . the Laemacians were no match for us, after. They had no weapons, nor armor, nor any fight left in them. We rounded them up, but there were simply too many to take as bounty.”
“Tell me you didn’t execute hundreds of thousands of men.”
“We sent them home. Carlisele’s troops are probably still scrounging all that melted iron. And he confiscated the surviving rhinos and handlers.”
“Oh. I guess the kingdom is intact, then.”
“He or Hafthon may try to become king with you here.”
“I think we’re facing bigger problems.”
A soft hand on my shoulder, the abbess said, “It’s time.”
Rising, I directed my attention to the wizard, “Let him stand.”
He nodded, and the soldiers relented, the big man stood.
The abbess walked back to where the nuns were gathered, beside the oddly compelling dark curtain. She put her hand on it, saying, “Wizard.”
Again, he nodded.
The abbess pulled aside the curtain and behind it was a space the size of a door, or perhaps a large painting so dark it seemed like an absence in the wall, like the creator had forgotten to fill in this patch of spacetime.
It was captivating. Shining silver and grey. Clouds of black pushing up from its depths, twinkling stars peeking through now and again. Then a landscape under dusk, a giant tree behind a tiny farmhouse and barn, the tree reaching up into the clouds high and higher again, snow atop its topmost heights, two ravens sitting on a lower branch, the entire scene vanishing again behind the clouds.
Everything I ever wanted, I could feel it. Power, position, wealth, none of that mattered. Love lay within. Happiness. Fulfillment. Actualization. Knowledge. Answers. Beckoning, singing to me, praising, offering everything. Understanding. Family. Longevity. Truth. Comfort. Joy. Fulfillment. What I needed. Inside that door.
Me. I was through it, inside, waiting. Me. My true self. Memories. Healing. Wholeness. Selfhood. I’d finally learn why I was here, in this world.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It was made for you, Princess Cayce.”
“Don’t go in there!”
“Morry,” I looked back. “I have to. I must.” I turned toward the mirror – no! It was a doorway. I walked forward, hand reaching to touch it.
“Princess! Please. This is not a good thing. It will kill you!”
I stopped.
Cognitively, he was right. I knew this was off. No way these awful people were nice enough to bring me answers, take me where I needed to go. No mirrored doorway hiding in a cursed library led to paradise. I could think this through, and Morry was right.
Yet it was heroin to an addict. Alcohol for the drunkard. Sugar, cocaine, fentanyl. I wanted it. Needed. Needed badly. I didn’t stop, couldn’t, but paused. To listen to a friend’s concerns.
“Shut him up.”
They hit Morry in the stomach. Again. Again. I heard his knees thump against the floor before I turned around. “Morry.” I shook my head. Tried to clear it. “Morry!”
“Look at the mirror. Look into the mirror.”
I stepped toward them and, briefly, they didn’t move back so much as flinch. “I will not!” I lied. Nothing could stop me from entering that doorway. It was no mirror. It was everything and anything and I could naught but enter. “Release him outside or I will not.” Folded my arms, wishing I could blast everyone here, save the big man. I needed these people to listen to me quickly, to let the big man go. Then I’d go through the doorway.
“Stab him.”
The abbess spoke up, “This drama is unnecessary, Wizard. She will enter.”
One of the guards drew his sword and pushed it through Morry’s stomach. He didn’t scream but held his stomach with both hands. Then doubled over, fell to his knees. The blade remained inside him. Morry took hold of the blade, took a deep breath.
“No!” I tried to rush over to him, but soldiers grabbed my arms, stopping me. “You bastards!”
“If you enter, we’ll give him medical care. Healing.”
“Morry!”
“Princess,” he spit blood on the stone floor, “don’t.”
“I promise you, we’ll heal him. Enter the mirror.” He said to the soldiers, “Release the princess.”
“Go to hell!” Never before have I wanted my powers so badly. I raised my hand, trying and trying to blast him.
He looked over at Morry, who was kneeling and barely holding himself up, and said, “You don’t have much time, Your Highness. We have a healer.”
Every step away from the doorway was excruciating, but I reached the big man, touched his face, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Then looked at Tye and said, “If you don’t heal him, I will find you and I will not be kind.”
He shook his head, as if in apology, “The mirror, if you please.”
My powers were out of reach, they did not come, and I did not kill the grand magister, nor the guards. Yet I turned around, to face my hope, my future, my everything. And happiness. Joy. Its silver and grey colors swirling, comforting, assuring. Peace was in there. No death, nor pain. Only fulfillment, knowledge, even kindness.
Maybe, I told myself, going in would help Morry. Save his life.
And I would find answers. Walking toward it, I didn’t want to look back, couldn’t look back, eyes fixated, though a part of me knew Morry was losing blood by the second, running past his hand, down the sword and into the ground, and the wizard was lying.
I walked through the frame.
Author's Note
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