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Tower of Empty Mirrors – Extract

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THE ROAD OF THE HOLLOW KING:

TOWER OF EMPTY MIRRORS

By John French

‘Why do you hate us?

‘You want to answer me, Hollow King, even though you hold your tongue. Why is that? Do you think I will trick you? Do you think that I will steal your voice, or your memories, or your truth? I won’t. You can trust me. I do not lie, not with this face, not with this mouth. So when I ask you why you hate us, Cado Ezechiar, I genuinely want to know the answer… I want that truth. That is all I ask you to give me. One truth, one answer in exchange for another.

‘I am a sorcerer. I am a manipulator of reality. I am a servant of the great-truth that is magic and mutation. You are a king. These things do not change. All else does. Your throne is gone. My power is fleeing. A king without a throne, and a sorcerer without magic. Yet a sorcerer I will ever be, and king you always are.

‘So, sire, shall we sit in this falling tower and talk of truth?’

The daemon leaped from the steps to the wall. Blocks of stone crumbled to fragments of silver where its feet touched. Cado brought his sword around as it lunged at him. Its skin was bleached pink.

‘Bla… rarh… mul….’ The babble coming from its mouth became stars of blue fire.

He had been climbing the tower, up and up its inner spiral, up towards its top. Except he could not remember starting the climb or entering the tower. He remembered trying to find it. He remembered why. He just could not think exactly how he had got here. That was part of its defence. It was a place of sorcery, the bastion of a disciple of the dark god of lies and madness. It had been hidden on the edge of a city of mortals without any of them realising it, while its master sent out his followers to eat the people’s truths. Cado was here to reach that sorcerer and take from it the truth he would use to find an enemy he had hunted for many mortal lifetimes. He had entered the tower knowing that it was a trap, but its jaws had closed on him, and now he was lost in a tangle of endless stairs and corridors connecting different points in time. He knew this and recalled every step he had taken on the road to this point. But how it linked to where he was now was a mystery. The present felt as though the immediate past had been bitten off.

The edge of Cado’s sword hit the daemon between the teeth. The runes on the blade were red with heat. The sword sliced through the back of the creature’s mouth and through the sphere of its body to the back. The two halves fell onto the stairs at Cado’s feet. Pale pink skin flashed to blue. The teeth of each half of the split mouth curved into two new grins. Then there were two daemons spinning and wobbling towards him.

‘Te… hel… la… sa… ra…’ Their babbles were shrill. Cado lunged at the nearest one as it came at him. It spun aside, but the edge of the sword tore the skin beneath its grin. Yellow foam bubbled out. The steps under Cado’s feet lurched, and suddenly the walls and stairs were rolling over each other like cogwork. Blocks of blue marble fell, exploding as they hit walkways. Cado glanced behind him and saw that the stone he was standing on was melting into the wall. A door opened above him. The blue daemons flailed as they surged forward. He leapt for the door, caught the lintel, and pulled himself through onto–

‘The easternmost tower that sits on the highest crag without snow. You will find what you want and need there…’ the man called Byrazan had said. Except there was no tower there.

Cado looked across Glimmerheart as the sun rose to its apex. The wind breathed ice across his cheek. The mountaintops above the town gleamed silver-white. Plumes of smoke rose from chimneys. He had sat on the top of the broken temple since dawn, watching as the mist cleared and daylight moved across the crag where the tower should have been. But there was nothing, not even a fracture in the light or the fall of shadows to say that anything was here except empty air. A barrow-hawk, hunting for prey amidst the snow, passed over the tor and gave no sign that its surroundings were amiss.

He had come here on the trail of a sorcerer called the Burning Hand. He had found some of her acolytes hiding as priests. They had all died, but they had been lower acolytes. Somewhere in the city was their master, Cado was certain. He had looked, listened, and found nothing. Then, two days ago, Byrazan had told Cado to look here.

~He might have lied,~ said Solia from just behind Cado. The glow of her ghost-form was a pale presence at the edge of his sight.

‘He might have, but he didn’t,’ said Cado.

~Why are you so sure?~

‘There was no reason for him to lie.’

~There is always a reason to lie, my prince.~

Cado kept his gaze steady and did not reply. The barrow-hawk was turning into a gyre above the crag. The wind blew across his face. Ice crystals had gathered on his cheeks. Down in the streets, the few figures outside wore heavy cloaks, their faces hidden under fur-lined hoods. Winter in this underworld always bit deep, but in the last two days the skies had cleared and both stars and sun had seemed to want to drain the land of warmth. Crouched on the lintel of a broken arch thirty feet above the ground, Cado could feel the cold reaching into his flesh but finding no purchase. That was one of the things about the curse of his unlife: it did not eliminate discomfort or pain, it only allowed him to ignore them if he so chose.

He had tried for two days to reach the tower that Byrazan had said was on the crag. He had climbed up to its summit, but aside from the fact that the rocks were bare of snow, there was no sign of a tower ever having been there.

~No taste of sorcery in the air… no mark on the ground…~ said Solia as though pulling his thoughts into the light. ~The power to hide a structure from existence should leave traces in the world.~

Cado gave half a nod.

‘The cold,’ he said. ‘I learn of the tower and try to find it, and the cold begins to bite.’

~An arcanomorphic effect could be the cause… An alternative explanation that you should consider, my boy, is that this is midwinter in the mountains of an underworld where the snow only melts when spring is all but done…~ He imagined his tutor’s face creased in that frown she wore when she thought he was being needlessly obtuse. ~Besides, this tower has been absent since before we arrived. No one in this place thinks it has ever existed. If it is there, it has remained hidden for a lot longer than this two-day-old chill. Why would you learning of it cause a change?~

‘I don’t know.’ He lapsed into silence. She was right, of course. Even if Byrazan had spoken truthfully and the tower was there, without a way to find it the information was worthless. Cado watched the barrow-hawk turn in its gyre. He was running out of possibilities to explore. He was about to dismiss Solia’s shade when he stopped.

His head snapped around.

~What is it?~

Cado’s eyes moved over the crags and roofs and arch of sky.

~What–~

‘It was there.’

~I saw nothing.~

‘As I turned, it was there.’

~And now it is gone.~

‘Yes.’ He looked at the plumes of smoke winding into the empty air. Nothing. Just the barrow-hawk spinning its circle above the bare rock.

‘Why is the bird circling?’ he said aloud.

~Looking for prey, surely?~

‘The arc of its flight is wide and has not narrowed. It’s as though it is circling an obstacle, an object…’

~Like a tower…~

He looked at it closer. His eyes reached across the distance, picking out the violet-and-black plumage, the dots of eyes and white beak. He watched as its feathers caught a thermal and it rose higher. And as he watched, he saw something form in his sight. It was there in the space just behind where the bird had been.

A tower jabbing up into the air like a crooked finger. Sunlight broke into halos of colour as it struck walls of lapis and silver. Cado could suddenly see windows and doors, and flights of stairs kinking back on themselves in defiance of logic.

~It is there…~ Solia said, surprise clear in her voice. ~Go, before it vanishes.~

Cado was already swinging down from the ruins. He landed on a broken wooden spar, and pivoted through a window–

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