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By Charlie Emrys
To say the ruins of the Dark Enchanter’s castle dominated the skyline would be a kind overstatement. Rather, they slumped against the horizon like a hard-worked maidservant who, on her stumbling way to bed after a long day of toil, had instead collapsed into sleep against her chamber door.
The castle was once an impenetrable fortress, commanding unparalleled views across the coast of the queendom of Iriring. From here, it was said the Dark Enchanter had launched her decades-long reign of evil.
But, as reigns are wont to do, the Dark Enchanter’s ended, not with a bang, but with several controlled explosions. The aptly named Definitely Final Battle brought the Dark Enchanter, and her fortress, to rubble.
It was fear at first, in the aftermath, that kept most of the surrounding townsfolk away from the ruins. Time succeeded with the rest. Now, precious few set foot on the flagstones that had once borne the steps of the queendom’s most infamous tyrant. And even fewer still remembered the treasures buried within.
For deep in the ruins of the castle, sunk under moss and leaf rot and toppled stone, there lay a once-magnificent chamber. And in this chamber, the Dark Enchanter had kept all her artefacts of incredible magical power; the power-sapping basilisk staff; Chartra, the green-fire griffin, bane of lost travelers; the terrible formless hoard-beast. Yet not one of these came close to her most prized possession, the thing believed to be the source of all her power, the very item that had delivered her to the throne – the Mirror of Truth.
It rests there still. At least, that’s what the stories tell, if any cared to listen.
#
“BE NOT AFRAID, BRAVE little one. Come closer...”
The voice was sibylline, silky, silver. It seemed to come from nowhere in particular-yet commanded all attention. Young as fresh snow, ancient as glaciers, it called.
“It has been, oh, so long since I had visitors. Do you know what it is I can grant you, little adventurer?”
The chamber was cold. Here and there weak sunlight broke through tumbled earth and stone, like distant heatless stars. Ash, settled for decades, stirred by a footstep.
“I can grant you your most secret desire. That ache you keep locked in your heart, that wish you’d never spoken aloud, that dream that keeps you from sleep... come to me, and I will show it to you. I will make it true.”
A quiet sigh, perhaps wistful, broke the air. Footsteps, timid, then more certain. Upon the remains of a dais, pale light glinted on metal, sending dazzling sparks across the floor.
“That’s right, my new companion, now let me see your face—”
The stranger stepped into the light. And coo’ed.
“- oh not another bloody pigeon!”
Groans filled the chamber.
“Not again!”
“How do the damn things keep getting in?”
“RARAGHGHG!!”
“Yes. Well put, Dragor, it is a right nuisance.”
A torch flared alight with a burst of green sparks, throwing the shadows from the room. It was clutched in the weather-worn talons of a fierce stone griffin, with eyes the same unseemly green and a lower body fused to a collapsed wall. In front of the griffin, its light illuminated a half-burnt staff coiled about by a fearsome basilisk, which in turn, leant against a chest of age-dulled coins that shifted now and then, like something underneath was breathing.
The pigeon, startled by the sudden noise and movement, took flight, aiming for what seemed to be a patch of clear night sky- and promptly knocked itself out against the surface of a mirror.
“Ow!” the Mirror of Truth exclaimed. “Couldn’t it see I’m right here? I’m not exactly hard to miss.” Though it lacked limbs, the Mirror gave a sense that it was gesturing to itself.
Its huge gilt frame was as tall as an imposing woman, and though the silver was tarnished, it still shimmered impressively in the torchlight. It was etched with a filigree of tiny figures, marvelous in their detail, and there had been a time where mages and scholars the world over would beg to study those intricate pictograms, to trace the patterns of its metal.
Now the Mirror was studied only by spiderlings, looking to string a web and touched only by the greasy bodies of confused pigeons.
“I’m going to stink like a bird for a decade now,” the Mirror said.
“Now there’s no call for that,” said the griffin, shifting the torch in her claws. “I’m half-bird on my mother’s side, you know.”
The Mirror continued, ignoring her. “Not that there’s anyone here to notice how I smell.” All at once, its surface grew clouded and reflected the image of a miserable grey drizzle.
“Two centuries she’s been gone, leaving us all to rot down here.” The griffin complained. “And not a single soul has even bothered to pillage her most prized possessions! I mean, what? Do tools of immense arcane power mean nothing to people anymore?”
Coins scattered from the ancient chest. “I know. It’s almost like no one wants to be cursed.”
“We’re not cursed,” the Mirror snapped.
“And why else would we be left down here?” the griffin asked, picking her beak with a long talon.
The Mirror sighed.
“Perhaps we are forgotten.”
Rain pattered across its surface.
#
NADIM WAS BEGINNING to think he had the wrong address. He looked again at the parcel in his hands—carefully wrapped in cloth, embroidered with sweet smiling puppies and addressed to ‘dear little Roisin’—and out at the harsh wind-swept clifftop where he found himself. It didn’t look like the kind of place you’d expect to find the farrier’s cousin’s niece’s birthday party in full swing and, indeed, there didn’t appear to be another human soul for miles.
Perhaps it’s a surprise party, Nadim thought. A lone gull wailed above him.
Nadim had never got lost on a delivery before. Granted, that was because he’d never had to deliver a parcel further than a few streets down before, but he wasn’t about to ruin that streak on his first inter-village delivery gig. He’d even bought a compass for the occasion, though he hadn’t yet worked out how to use it.
So, he decided, he probably wasn’t lost. Little Roisin’s birthday party surely was happening here, if you broadened the sense of ‘here’ to mean ‘somewhere within six miles of Nadim’s current position’.
“Well, no harm in taking a little look around!” he said to no one in particular. “Who’s to say the farrier’s cousin doesn’t live just behind that suspiciously stone-like mound?” The gull agreed with a high keen, or perhaps disagreed vehemently; Nadim didn’t speak gull, but he was an optimist.
So, he made his way over the sparse, wind-blown grass, stone and rubble crunching beneath his boots. Somewhere far below and out of sight, the sea rumbled like a memory of a storm.
As he approached the mound, it became clear that it wasn’t alone. The crumbling forms of foundations, walls, and staircases began to emerge from the gloom. He rounded the side of the mound that faced seaward and almost tripped. The ground here sloped down into a wide, hollow depression littered with charred stone and wood that had been smoothed into strange forms by the wind and salt air. Crows, gulls, and pigeons clamored about the ruins looking for perches, and grass and lichen grew over everything in patches, creating the sense that the whole site was sinking into a boggy green marsh.
Nadim was almost certain little Roisin didn’t live here. Defeated, he was about to turn and begin the long march back to the main track when he heard a bird cry out in distress.
A pigeon had caught its foot in a crevice in the ground. It was a young one, with an absurdly oversized beak and downy feathers, and was squeaking forlornly as it tried and failed to free itself.
Nadim felt a certain kinship for pigeons. ‘Nature’s couriers’, his mum called them. ‘Weird-looking things,’ said everyone else. His heart went out to the little one, and so did his feet.
“It’s alright!” he called out to the forlorn bird as he picked his way down into the hollow. “I’m coming to rescue you!”
The ground beneath his feet was getting spongier as he got closer. He reached out his hand to the pigeon. Not quite close enough. He took another step, and this time he could grip the little animal gently in both hands.
“Easy does it,” he said, and stepped back.
The ground gave way beneath him.
The pigeon fluttered to safety.
Nadim fell.
#
“GREAT LORDS OF IRIRITH, what in the world is happening?”
“GRARGHH?!”
“It’s alright, Dragor, don’t cry!”
#
A GREAT PLUME OF DUST, mud and termites rained down into the Dark Enchanter’s secret chamber, shortly followed by a body, which landed with a winded -ough.
Chartri extended her torch towards the hole in the ceiling, then over the body on the floor.
“Well, would you look at that?” she exclaimed delightedly. “It’s raining corpses. Just like in the old days!”
“I should be so lucky,” said the hoard-beast. “What I wouldn’t do for a good old-fashioned corpse-feast.”
“Would everyone be quiet for a second?” the Mirror said. It reflected the glow from Chartri’s torch across the floor, brightening the scene. “I don’t think the creature’s dead yet.”
This was news to Nadim, who had been listening from the floor, convinced the demons of the next world surrounded him. He opened his eyes and flexed his legs a little, just to check they were still attached. One twinged painfully.
“You there, girl, get up!”
“I’m a man!” Nadim said automatically. He had, in fact, intended to say aargh, oh god, a talking statue! but in times of great mental stress, the brain does occasionally fall back on familiar scripts.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“I—yes, I’m sure. What a rude thing to ask!”
“If he says he’s a man, then he’s a man,” interrupted the Mirror, who wasn’t entirely sure what the difference was, either way. “I think there are more pressing questions here, like...” it adjusted itself, and an enigmatic, curved, delicate figure appeared in the glass. “What is your most secret desire? Your dream that keeps you awake? Your...”
“Your hidden truth, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before, you old schemer.” The hoard-beast shifted restlessly beneath his coins. “How come you get first dibs, eh? Just because you were the old girl’s favourite? We’re all starving for a soul down here. Speaking of which, boy! Come, take a coin!”
Nadim had been shakily pulling himself to his feet while trying—and largely failing — to ignore the pain in his leg. He now looked at the churning, roiling mass of stained metal that beckoned to him. “Um,” he said. “I think I’ll pass. Also, I’m 29, so not a boy.”
“What is wrong with today’s youth?” Chartri said. “No one comes down here for centuries, then when they do, they’re all, ‘oh, don’t call me this, don’t call me that! No, I don’t want a cursed coin from a befanged treasure chest!’.” She shook her head, and her torch-flames glinted off the hook of her beak. “Things have really gone downhill since the Dark Enchanter was in charge.”
“Grargghghg,” said Dragor, baring his fangs at Nadim.
“Yes, well put, darling.”
Nadim took a slow, calming, not at all hysterical breath, and channeled his best customer service voice. “I’m terribly sorry,” he picked up the package for little Roisin where he had dropped it, and dusted off several decades’ worth of cobwebs. “But I think I must have the wrong house. There’s a little girl nearby waiting for her birthday present, so I’d better get on and get it to her.” He backed away towards what he hoped was an exit. “It’s been lovely meeting you and all! Bye now!”
He turned and ran. Or at least, he took a couple of very fast steps before coming up short against a collapsed wall. He heard laughter behind him.
“Nice try, not-a-girl!” squawked Chartri. “But there’s no way out of this miserable place! Why do you think we’ve all been down here so long?”
“And here was me thinking it was because none of us had legs,” said the hoard-beast.
Nadim ignored them. This was, for the most part, because the Mirror was looking straight at him.
He couldn’t say how he knew that was the case. The Mirror did not, of course, possess any eyes. Nonetheless, he felt the weight of its attention on him, as if he had been wrapped within a heavy silver robe.
“Man,” said the Mirror as it regarded him. “I will let you out.”
Nadim looked back at it from across the room. He could see his reflection, tiny, surrounded by the silver frame like he was stepping into ornate open jaws. “I’m not sure I believe you,” he said honestly.
“I am the Mirror of Truth,” said the Mirror of Truth. “I do not lie. Come to me, and I will let you out.”
The rest of the artefacts gave a chorus of disapproval, to the tune of ‘that’s not fair’, and ‘we’re starving’ and ‘what sort of friend are you’.
Nadim looked around the chamber. He saw the hole he had fallen through, twice as far above him as he was tall. He saw many corners disappearing into darkness and who knew what else. He saw his leg, bloodied underneath his ripped trousers, and finally he saw the package, made out to little Roisin, clutched in his hand.
Nadim was, almost fatally, an optimist.
“Alright,” he said, and stumbled towards the Mirror.
#
AS SOON AS NADIM STEPPED upon the ruined dais, a heavy velvet curtain descended behind him, cutting off the dismayed cries of Chartri, Dragor and the hoard-beast.
“How did you do that?” he asked, touching the fabric. It seemed to disappear up into the ceiling as far as he could see, and further still beyond that.
A disembodied smile appeared on the surface of the Mirror. “Magic,” it said. “And that’s just a taste of what I can offer you. Come closer, brave adventurer.”
“Actually, just Nadim is fine,” he said, stepping towards the Mirror. “Or Nadim the Courier, I suppose, if we’re talking titles. Maybe Mr. Nadim? Um, should I call you Mrs. The Mirror of Truth?”
The Mirror went blank. Then it filled with faint images that Nadim had to squint at before he realised what they were; a dog with its head on one side, a human brow frowning, a blank signpost pointing in many directions. Images of confusion. Nadim laughed, and the images increased.
“That’s very clever!” he said. “Is that the sort of magic you meant?”
The Mirror recovered, though not before its surface turned a little rosy. “What? No!” it said. “This is the sort of magic I meant.”
And Nadim saw himself reflected in the Mirror, as one would expect, only his reflection’s face was suddenly overcome with an expression of relief, and there was no blood on his reflection’s leg, and no tear in his reflection’s trousers. Nadim looked down at his own leg and, sure enough, it was healed.
He stumbled backwards, then flexed his leg, then did a strange little hop and jig, just to test it. “Wow,” he concluded. “That really is a perfectly okay leg.”
“I showed you a reflection, and the reflection came true,” said the Mirror, somewhat smugly. “And I do that with your desires. Anything you wish.”
Nadim paused. “So, when you said before that you were called the Mirror of Truth because you never lie- “
“Forget about that,” the Mirror said. On its surface, a pair of hands made a placating gesture. “And think instead about what you want. What you want more than anything else. Riches, love, power... I can give you the throne, if you want it. I’ve done it before.”
Nadim watched as his mirror-self walked towards a mighty silver chair, preparing to sit upon it.
“Oh, no thank you!” he said. “That thing looks pretty uncomfortable. Plus, we don’t really have a monarchy here anymore.”
Mirror-Nadim vanished.
“Oh,” said the Mirror. “Really? What happened to Queen Miriam, second of her name, final vanquisher of the Dark Enchanter?”
Nadim bit his lip. “Ah, see, I always found the royals really boring at school, so I spent history lessons reading about the Dragon Treaties instead. Which are super interesting if you’d like a quick rundown on those-“
“I don’t care about Dragon Treaties,” the Mirror snapped, then paused. “Actually, they do sound fascinating, but that’s not what we’re here for right now.”
“What are we here for right now?”
The Mirror flashed red. It rattled in its frame, dislodging a dozen errant spiderlings. “Your greatest desire, Nadim the Courier! The truth you most ardently seek!”
“Oh,” Nadim said. “Oh, I see.” He frowned. He rubbed his lip. “Yes, that is a bit more important than Dragon Treaties, isn’t it?”
The Mirror sighed in relief, and once more upon its surface, a lithe, beautiful figure appeared. Its voice became waifish and whispery again.
“Then trust your desire to me, and I shall make it so.”
Nadim was still pensive. “Why?” he asked, finally.
The figure in the Mirror flickered and lost its form a little. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to ‘grant my greatest desire’, and all that? I mean, it’s very nice of you! But I seem to remember something back there about eating souls—”
“Oh that,” the Mirror snorted. Somewhere beyond the curtain came the faint sound of several cursed artefacts arguing. “None of us actually eat souls. That’s just what the stories say, you know, Chartri the wisp-torch who guides lost souls to their doom, Dragor the power-siphoning staff, the hoard-beast that offers gold then steals your spirit from out your eyeballs... all of it nonsense, of course.
“We don’t ‘eat’ souls. We thrive off human contact, is all. I suppose it depends on who our master is. Dragor can sap the power from a hundred mages, sure, but he can also store a generation’s magic for a whole community to share, if that’s what they ask of him. When she lived wild in the caverns, Chartri used to trick travelers for a laugh, but she’d always send them home again after she’d had her fun. And the hoard-beast- well, I don’t know exactly what he gets out of luring in greedy hands, but I don’t think he’d ever killed anyone before- well. Before.
“And then there’s me. But I’m sure you know that one.”
“I’ve never actually heard the stories,” Nadim admitted. “Honestly, I don’t even know who the Dark Enchanter is.” He hastily added, “but you all seem really into her, so I’m sure she’s great!”
The Mirror filled with a sudden buzzing white light.
“You don’t—you’ve never—!”
The buzzing rose to a crescendo, the already-crumbling ruins crumbling further under the strain.
“What’s going on in there?!” shouted Chartri, as Dragor howled something in panic amid the sound of coins scattering.
The noise faded abruptly. The mirror turned a deep, impenetrable black. Nadim couldn’t even see himself in it. There was silence for a while, and then-
“She wasn’t, actually... great.”
A scene appeared in the glass. An imposing woman, a little mirror glowing gold, eager, excited. The woman said something, and the mirror grew taller. The woman said something else, and the mirror became silver.
The woman built a windowless chamber. She placed the mirror inside it on a raised dais. The woman said something, and the mirror did nothing for a moment. Then it changed its reflection, became lithe, and curved, and beautiful, and not at all right. The woman brought many people to the mirror. One by one they greeted the mirror, and the woman said something, and one by one the people fell to the floor.
Now the woman sat atop a throne. But this image was different; fuzzy, unclear, as if viewed from afar or in a dream of a place you’ve never been. More images followed, loose, nonsensical; the woman on a ship at sea, the woman riding through a forest, the woman in valleys and mountains and deserts and tundra. And then, the mirror, clear as day, in the chamber still.
And finally, the woman in the chamber, screaming, her hands banging against the mirror’s surface. The room shaking, the woman gone, the chamber collapsing. The mirror, shifting with a sigh, from its wrong human shape to a cold edifice.
Nadim let out a breath. He hadn’t realised he’d been holding it.
“Okay,” he said. He squeezed little Roisin’s parcel between his hands. “I can’t say I understood all of that.”
The Mirror was carefully blank.
“But it looked... difficult. Thank you for showing me.”
The Mirror was still blank. Then it said, “I wanted to see the world. That was the deal. A partnership. I made her wishes come true, and in return she would show me... anything. It didn’t even have to be anything special. I would have settled for a fishpond at sunset.”
A grey-blue mist like a sigh travelled across the Mirror.
“All she had to do was look in another mirror. Any kind, anywhere. Travel, look to a mirror, and I would be with her in an instant, seeing what she saw.”
The Mirror quaked.
“But she never did. She never let me see anything but this room. She never let me show anything but her own reflection.”
The Mirror rattled, and then was still.
“Please don’t call me Mrs. The Mirror.”
Nadim chewed his lip, then walked to the Mirror. He put a hand on its surface, touching his mirrored palm, looked into his own eyes, then stood to the side. “The ones like us,” he said, “we can call ourselves whatever the hell we want.”
The Mirror of Truth turned bright gold.
“What are you two doing in there?!” Chartri called, followed by an accusatory squawk from Dragor. The Mirror’s golden hue took on a distinctly rose tone.
“Bonding!” Nadim called back cheerfully, just as the Mirror declared, “soul-eating!”
Nadim grinned. “You know I don’t believe that now, Dr. Mirror of Truth.”
“Doctor?” the Mirror asked. “I don’t know what led you to think I’m a qualified surgeon-“
“Well, you fixed my leg, Doc!” Nadim laughed. “And it’s a title that doesn’t have a gender, if that’s what you want. Or you don’t have to have a title at all! But you don’t have to rush into anything. Take your time. Try things out a bit, that’s what I did before I settled on plain old Mister!”
“Hm,” the Mirror said. “Well, I suppose I’ll have a lot of time to think about it down here.”
Nadim pursed his lips. “You know, I haven’t told you what my truest desire is yet.”
“Ah,” the Mirror lost some of its luster. “Yes. Ahem. What is the most enduring truth of your heart, Mr. Nadim the Courier?”
Nadim lifted up the little parcel for Roisin. “To deliver this on time!” he declared.
The Mirror was silent. Its companions were not.
“What sort of person wishes to deliver a parcel?” the muffled voice of the hoard-beast said, while a hissing groan that was hopefully something to do with Dragor permeated the chamber.
Nadim pointed to himself. “This kind of person,” and winked. After a second, his reflection winked back, a little exasperated.
“Very well, Nadim,” the Mirror began, and on its surface, the chamber began to change.
“Wait!” Nadim said, bringing the transformation to a halt. “I forgot to add something. Are you ready?”
He struck a pose, hands on his hips, like a man who had a flair for drama and few opportunities to exercise it.
“I wish that you could see through every mirror, everywhere!”
The Mirror made an audible gulping noise.
“What?” it said. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Nadim nodded. “That’s my truest, deepest desire that I just thought up. Oh,” he said again, “and I really wish and desire that your friends would also be able to see everything.”
“Fat lot of good that is, I don’t have any eyes,” said the hoard-beast, but was shushed by Chartri and Dragor.
“You don’t need to say ‘wish’ like that,” said the Mirror, weakly. Its surface began to spiral into a new reflection; Nadim was there, parcel in hand, but behind him the chamber broke apart and the landscape changed, grew wooded, showed a gathering of wooden lodgings, a table loaded with fruit and sweets, and a family gathering round it.
“Yes, that looks like the right place!” Nadim said. “Thank you, I’ll just-“
“Who are you talking to, son?” said a voice behind him. Nadim blinked. He was looking now not at the Mirror, but out into woodland. He turned around to see a crowd of curious faces; and among them, the farrier’s cousin.
“Oh,” he said. “Hello.” He collected himself. “Yes, hello! I’m Nadim the Courier, I’ve got a parcel for someone I’ve been told is a very special little girl...”
The family parted to show a shy child with curly black hair done up in ribbons. He took a seat next to her and handed her the parcel with his head bowed.
“To the most esteemed Roisin on her birthday,” he intoned. She took it, unwrapped it, and Nadim snorted.
Inside was a book. Its title was ‘Stories for Kids: The Mirror of Truth (And Other Arcane Artefacts)’.
#
SOMETIME LATER, WHEN the food was all gone and the farrier’s cousin had sent him back to town (with very detailed directions), Nadim stopped by a little fishpond. The sun hadn’t quite set, and the sky was a mix of salmon pink and gold. He knelt over ‘til he could see his reflection.
“Does this work as a mirror?” he said.
A second later, a green-eyed griffin, a toothy basilisk and the tarnished head of a coin glared back at him.
“You absolute fool, why didn’t you just wish us out of here?!” Chartri said.
Nadim blanched. “Ah.”
And the surface of the water was glowing gold, eager, excited.