35. The Mirrored City
35
THE MIRRORED CITY
The moment their the equines reached the Road’s flaming golden surface, the cloud of rot and burning oil faded, replaced by a smoke-sweet, musky perfume.
Getting there, however, required threading between hills and piles of shattered robots or quick-rotting zombies; more than once Ari almost retched. Maybe some of the greater drink lingered, proofing her against the worst nausea. Darjeth swayed in the saddle, greenish-pale. Hannixe pressed her hand over mouth and nose, blinking furiously as her great dark eyes welled with tears.
Keners leaned aside a few times, his gorge plainly rising, but none of them outright vomited. Which was, so far as Ari was concerned, a victory as well.
And to think she’d been worried about the chained man facing all those monsters. Still, the Bright King could have something worse in reserve.
Her stomach didn’t settle as their weary equines trotted up the road, heading for the massive hole torn in the Mirrored City’s wall. She had no idea where so much glass could be found or made, but it coated every surface—mostly in giant sheets, though plenty of the buildings beyond were covered in mosaic-chips of variable size. On a clear summer day it probably glowed fit to give any onlooker a migraine, and she wondered who in the hell would want to live like this.
The rumble-thunder underground was so thick it was like silence. The moon was two-thirds across the sun’s face, every shadow scalloped, and though she knew not to look at any eclipse unless you wanted to lose your retinas the temptation was well-nigh unbearable. The Carcanet throbbed steadily, heat spreading through her a little further with each wave.
Her heart leapt into her throat as she counted her companions, none missing—Jazarl, his hair purplish in the red-dyed gloom; Alzarien with a makeshift bandage around his upper arm and his dark eyes gleaming furiously; Sarle’s brown equine hovering protectively close to Leshe’s new mount. The mahogany-skinned woman in the middle of the group brightened as she saw Hannixe and Ari, opened her mouth as if to greet them, but subsided, her hands tightening on the reins as she glanced at the black-armored man who faced the shattered gate, his back to the rest of the world and the chains draped on his frame moving slowly, seaweed fronds caught in a slow irresistible current.
Majan nodded at Keners, his pale hair taking on a cupric cast to match Alzarien’s. Naithor, leaning on his saddle-horn, studied Darjeth, and the relief crossing his tanned face was transparent.
Oh, thank God . Ari tried to pull the reins, but the white equine had ideas of its own. It paced through the group until it reached the black one, and the chains parted to let it through. Oh no. This… Wow. Good God.
Smoke rose in veils and eddies, columns and whale-spouts. There were hundreds of bodies and shattered robots piled against the walls on either side, spatters of effluvia and reddish oil-ichor painted nearly to the glass-sheathed battlements. Distorted reflections twisted in the mirrors’ depths.
It hadn’t taken very long at all. The wreckage was not nearly so terrifying as the fact that the one who made it had refrained until this particular moment.
What else could he do?
Ari’s pulse hammered. Her breath caught, her fingers trembled. The chained man’s profile, icy and remote, changed slightly. There were thready, leaden vein-fingers crawling up his throat, cupping his cheeks, but they cringed away from the sheer savage wrath burning behind his expression.
So he’d been infected after all. He turned his head, with terrible slowness. That feverish gaze finally met hers, each dark eye holding a bright silvery crescent as the Conjunction progressed.
The eclipse was nearly total.
“Ariadne,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
Uh, I should be asking you that . She shook her head. “N-no.” But you… you’re… The words trembled, locked behind her lips, and with them lurked the ghost of a name. Maybe it was his, remembered or newly found; it certainly suited him.
Her throat refused to work properly. So did her tongue. Ari simply watched him, holding that terrible gaze until it softened—not much, a few degrees.
Yet it was enough. The terrible threadlike branchings moving through his skin darkened briefly, gaining a millimeter, and halted.
“Come,” he said, finally. “One last matter, my lady. And then…”
Then what? She didn’t want to ask. He was probably going to send her home. After all this, a jail cell or court hearings might be a relief. At least he’d be cured, and Darjeth too.
Fine . Let’s get it over with .
As if she’d spoken, the prince gathered his reins and turned to face the gate. His equine stepped forward, and glass cracked all along the Mirrored City’s walls, rays of breakage spreading with small creak-flexing noises. The deep furious thunder muted somewhat, but did not cease.
He rode through the gate, and her mount kept pace. Behind them, the faithful followed.
Built in layers marching up a sharp slope, streets laid ruler-straight despite the nod to medieval defense, every lane and alley was cobbled with fist-sized dollops of clear glass. Mirrors clothed each wall and door, the entire pile a vitreous-coated mockery of Gaudi’s architectural genius. For all the glass there were no windows; nobody lived here. Bare and sterile, the Mirrored City mounted to a pile of glittering reflection in the shape of a castle, crouching just below the vast hill’s crown.
It would be easy to get lost in endless reflections, Ari thought, but the chained man’s shadow sent webbed cracks through every surface it touched, robbed shining sheets of the power to misdirect. The cobbled road sought to twist, but the black equine’s hooves radiated dark fractures as well.
In the smoking umbra of a prince’s passage, his companions were kept safe.
As full eclipse was reached, the citadel at the city’s crest loomed before them. It did not reflect their strained faces or Ari’s dishevelment, the chained man’s set expression or Leshe’s bright eyes, the stripe in Keners’s hair or Hannixe’s pale hands. Instead, the mirrors were full of racing stormclouds underlit by bright diamond seams of lightning, and Ari caught glimpses of tossing branches, a landslide scar on an overgrown hillside, a burst of white engine steam turning to gouts of oily smoke, the fierce orange and yellow smear of a burning black Oldsmobile.
Her throat ached fiercely. So did the rest of her.
The Bright King’s stronghold was a copy of the Keep, the moat a dry crevice lined with upthrusting shards of broken mirror, a drawbridge of clear glass shuddering as the chained man dismounted at its lip.
He paced to the side of Ari’s mount, and raised his gauntleted hands.
She could have fallen out of the saddle herself, she supposed. Yet she let him lift her down, gently, her slippers touching slick hard cobbles butterfly-soft. His gauntlets were warm even through her dress’s and mantle’s layers, releasing gently. He stepped away and paused, looking down at her as she turned from the white equine’s shadowed flank. The shadowy threads reaching up his cheeks had not moved, and the pale glowing crescents caught in his pupils blazed.
His name rose again, battering at the obstruction in her throat. She shook her head, and found she was trembling afresh. Waves of shivers passed through her, hot and cold.
He moved, but only to offer his arm. Ari took it, gazing steadily up at him—the last time she’d performed this particular motion had been at her wedding.
Oh, God . The sound of the others dismounting was lost in stillness, the vibration of rage withdrawn yet still vast, underlaying every thought.
The chained man said nothing, setting off over the drawbridge. Ari found she could keep up with him, leaning on warm steady metal. None of the others followed, nor did they speak. They stood with the equines and watched as Ari and their prince moved, step by step, into the Bright King’s fortress.