“Forget it,” he muttered, sitting up. Better to accept that sleep wasn’t happening than toss and turn for another hour while waiting for daylight.
Does sleeping here give me the benefits of sleep in the real world? he wondered as he pushed aside his blanket. To his surprise, Cataloger did not immediately volunteer an answer, so he asked her directly in his mind. Hey, Cataloger, does it?
I cannot answer
Should have known. Cataloger was always cagey about the outer world and the way it interacted with Yensere and the Artifact. Nick sighed and rubbed his eyes. They’d camped in a thick stretch of woods that strongly resembled silver maple trees, their leaves a lovely shade of golden yellow though the land was locked into an early spring. He’d positioned his bedroll a decent ways’ away to escape Frost’s snoring. His gaze settled on the rucksack Violette had bought for him during their ill-fated trip into Greenborough. Worms squirmed in his belly, along with a tightening feeling around his throat.
Giving in, he leaned over, shoved his hand inside, and pulled out the Sinifel mirror.
Where did you get that? Sorrow immediately asked. Nick glanced at the blade. It lay next to him in the grass, and though it was not attached to his hip or held in his hand, it was apparently close enough to communicate with him. Perhaps ownership was all that mattered, as was implied by the sword’s statistical description.
Found it, Nick said, feeling strangely defensive.
So you pillaged it.
“Pillaged,” Nick muttered aloud. “The asshole tried to murder me. I think taking a hidden mirror is justified.”
What happened to him?
“He’s dead.”
Did you kill him before or after you took the mirror?
Nick bit back a groan.
“After,” he said, flinching as if expecting a punch.
Very well…pillager.
“Your name should be Stubborn, not Sorrow,” he grumbled. “Care to give me some privacy, or are you stuck in my head?”
My awareness is forced upon me by my nature, but I can also fall into memory. I will do so now. Enjoy basking in the reflection of your stolen relic.
“You’re too kind,” he muttered, lifting the mirror. As usual, it momentarily appeared to be a normal glass surface. He saw his tired self, eyes bloodshot and hair mussed from sleep, and found himself shocked by a fear that the surface would remain plain and the magic dormant. Then the fog came, and from its swirling gray his father’s visage returned, and Nick immediately felt relief.
“Good morning, son,” Lucien said. “You look unwell. Does something bother you?”
“It’s just early,” Nick said, then immediately retracted the lie. “Well. That, and what’s happening to Vasth.”
“Vasth? I vaguely recall the name. A planet, yes?”
“Yeah,” Nick said, shifting on his bedroll so he could hold the mirror with both hands. He kept his voice low, not wanting to be overheard by Frost and Violette, who he presumed to still be sleeping. “A hole opened in their sky, just before their world gate was destroyed and we lost all contact.”
The image of his father scratched at his chin, a tic that appeared when he was locked in deep thought. Seeing it again was a punch to Nick’s gut. He’d never realized how much he’d missed it until now.
“A hole,” Lucien said. “Does it perchance look like the black sun of Yensere?”
“It does.” Nick crouched closer. “Do you know what it is?”
Lucien sadly shook his head.
“I do not.” He dropped his hand. “Is that why you’re moping here in the early hours?”
Nick flinched as if struck. “I’m not moping.”
“Spare me. I recognize your habits well enough. Whenever you were troubled, instead of confronting the challenge, you fled to your room, locked the door, and blasted music to drown out your thoughts while you found something to read.” Lucien shrugged. “I hoped you’d grow out of it as you got older. I see you have not. Am I the book you seek to read, since you have no music with you?”
Nick struggled for words. It wasn’t that his father was wrong. When upset, he’d always sought privacy. He’d never liked to argue with his father, doubly so after their mother’s death.
“I was just trying to do the mature thing,” he told the mirror. “No fits, no shouting, just leaving and occupying myself until I calmed down. Is that so wrong?”
His father crossed his arms, and his eyes narrowed.
“You confuse timidity and avoidance with maturity. Conflict shapes every world, every nation, and every people. Do you remember when you asked to adopt a stray cat, and I refused? Despite how much you clearly desired a pet, you relented immediately. That was how I knew you did not possess the proper temperament to care for it.”
“I was ten years old!”
“Is this the argument you now wish to make?” his father asked. “That you still behave as if you were ten?”
Nick shoved the mirror into the rucksack. When he withdrew his hand, it was shaking.
“Why?” he asked himself. “Why do I do this to myself?”
The last thing he expected or desired was an answer from Cataloger, but she quickly gave it.
Because you still possess positive emotional attachment to whom the Mirror of Theft currently replicates
Thanks, Nick thought. I’d have never guessed.
Incorrect—observation strongly suggests you are emotionally aware of your own self and would reach this conclusion on your own
Nick was torn between laughing and screaming.
“Sarcasm,” he whispered. “You desperately need to learn how to detect sarcasm.”
If you are offering to instruct I am willing to accept educational input and examples
“That is not…” He sighed. It was so hard to stay mad at her, but he tried, damn it, he tried. He was tired and confused, and then there was that mirror in his rucksack, always weighing on his mind.
“I don’t want to teach you sarcasm, Cataloger. I don’t want anything from you except the occasional help I ask for. How about we try that for a while?”
Silence followed, long and uncomfortable in the gloomy morning.
You do not wish to know me?
“What?”
You said sharing knowledge leads to learning of one another—a situation you referenced as “small talk”
Nick wished he wasn’t so tired. It was hard to focus. Did…did Cataloger mean what he thought she meant?
“So you’re sharing information with me because…”
Because
Another long pause.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Because I dislike your current emotional state and wish for it to improve
Nick found himself surprisingly touched.
“Are you trying to be my friend, Cataloger?”
I provide information and guidance for unique visitors—there are few limitations to the manner of that guidance
“I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no,” Nick said.
Unfortunate
He laughed despite how poorly the morning had started. There was something strangely charming about hearing Cataloger trying, in her own specific way, to cheer him up. He tied up his bedroll, flung his supplies onto his back, and returned to the campfire, where Violette and Frost had slept. They were both awake, and Violette was busy using a bit of her fire magic to relight the dormant fire so she could cook their breakfast on an iron pan.
“Morning!” Violette said, as chipper as ever. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a baby,” he lied. “Now toss me that little slab of salted pork there, because I’m starving.”
*
“Just a quick detour, I promise,” Violette said as she led the way. They’d exited the maple forest and were skirting along its edge, where the trees gave way to a field thick with ryegrass. “I know you’re busy searching for your sister, but I promise, it’s not even that far from Castle Astarda.”
“I’ve already agreed,” Frost said, following just behind. “You don’t need to convince me twice.”
“Yes, but you sounded very hesitant about it,” Nick said, following last in line. His rucksack felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Sweat dripped from his forehead and neck to soak his fine shirt. “All these long marches, they’re killing me. I’m gaining some stats for this, right?”
Frost glanced over her shoulder and winked. “Probably.”
A concise report of statistical improvements is available every night if so desired
“Pass,” Nick said.
Half an hour later, they paused at the end of the meadow. A new forest loomed before them, only this time, something about the maple trees was wrong. The branches were barren despite the unchanging time of year, and the ground was awash in a layer of orange-and-yellow leaves.
“Is this it?” Nick asked. “Is this the entrance?”
Location: Rockgrave Forest
Description: A seventeen-acre forest of maple and ironwood trees, much of which has recently grown over the past century in the absence of prior human civilization efforts to curtail its growth
Before them, as if marking the edge of the forest, was an archway of gray stone about twice Nick’s height, its front decorated with runes Nick could not understand. It looked like a pathway to nothing, its surface cracked and covered with thorned vines. Brambles grew underneath. Beyond, Nick saw hints of what might have once been buildings but were now broken ruins.
“Fascinating,” Violette said, approaching the arch.
“Can you read it?” Nick asked.
“I can. It says…” She paused. During her pause, Cataloger helpfully chimed in.
I can translate old text as necessary
“The Winter Arch,” Violette concluded. “It was an entrance into a Majere city.”
She is correct
“Not much of a city left,” Frost said, following Violette with her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.
“What would you expect after thousands of years?” Violette asked.
“Then why are we here?” she shot back.
“In the hope that something survived.”
The trio walked underneath the arch, and upon their passage, Nick shivered. It felt like a cold breeze had swept through him. That, or someone had walked across his grave.
“Does the city have a name?” he asked.
“To the people who lived here, it was known as Constance,” Violette answered before her mouth dropped open. “Look!”
At first, Nick saw only a broken wall amid the trees, the weathered bricks barely reaching up to his waist. Then the air flickered, and a translucent blue image appeared, a ghost within his vision. Where bricks ended, the blue continued, rising in remembrance of the city’s former glory. A window split it, oval and lined with indented flowers carved into the stone itself. It ended at an arch, and atop it, the three-loop symbol Violette had earlier shown Nick as the Majere’s interpretation of infinity.
The wall shimmered, as if birthed by starlight despite the glow of the sun. Nick approached, and when he touched it with his hand, it passed right through.
“I think we’re in the right place,” he said.
They continued deeper into the forest, following an exuberant Violette. She was practically skipping, and her head was constantly on a swivel. More and more of the ruins surrounded them, shining faintly of their previous existence. With every step, the blue grew less translucent, starting to take on actual texture. What were scattered and broken walls became full buildings, pierced by the branches and trunks that coexisted alongside them.
“This was a flesh tanner,” Violette said, pointing to one building. “And that…I think that was where people brought bones to be washed after death.”
“Cheery,” Nick said, gazing upward. Was it him, or was the forest starting to…thin?
“The Majere didn’t consider death a grim affair,” Violette said, pulling out a book from her pack along with a slender piece of charcoal. “Why would they, when they possessed power to bring the dead back to life?”
Violette jotted notes as she went, and her joy was all that kept Nick going. Everything about Constance felt wrong, though he couldn’t say why.
“Look, a crossroad!” she shouted, and then pointed to a road sign. There was nothing shimmering or translucent about it. “Maybe we can find one of their cathedrals. Every drawing of them I’ve seen shows them as utterly magnificent.”
Nick paused in the crossroad center and spun in place. Everywhere he looked, he saw buildings and empty streets. A shiver ran through him. The style of their construction was odd. What was stone was painted white, but anything built of wood was a deep green. The tops of buildings had subtle shifts, so instead of ending blocky or square they thinned and curled. Nick couldn’t shake the feeling that they were walking through the world’s largest rib cage.
“Hey, Cataloger, care to explain why we can see a long-destroyed city?”
The city is clearly not destroyed
“Clearly,” Frost said as they walked the glowing streets, having also heard the answer. “It reminds me of the Swallowed City, only…that was like two cities stacked atop each other. This is…I feel like the city is itself a ghost, but the longer we stay here, the more real it becomes.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Nick asked, touching another wall. It held firm, unlike before.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Or Cataloger’s, I suppose.”
But Frost was right; the more they traveled, the more real everything became. The walls were beginning to lose their shimmer entirely. Most worrisome, when he looked to the sky, he saw stars. Even weirder was the haunting image of the sun amid the stars, starting to fade and lose color. The trees themselves were almost gone entirely, despite a belief deep in the pit of his stomach that, no, they were still very much in the middle of a forest.
But what did it mean if a city locked in the past was becoming more real? Was it melding into the present, or…?
“What time is it, Cataloger?” Nick asked aloud.
Morning/Midnight
Nick and Frost exchanged a look. The unsettling answer gave Nick an awful idea he had to confirm.
“Cataloger, what year is it?” he asked.
It is the current year
“And what year is that?”
The—the current year is—the current year—the current year is
“Shit,” Frost muttered. “I can’t imagine it’s a good thing for Cataloger to lose track of ‘when’ we are. We need out of here before we end up permanent residents in some weird forgotten memory of the past.”
“I’m not the one to convince.” Nick pointed to where Violette was copying a drawing of a bronze statue several hundred yards ahead. The statue was of a skeletal hand, its fingers half-curled, with each digit carefully wrapped in vines blooming with deep-cupped flowers. “Chase her down and tell her it’s time to go unless we want to be permanently trapped in a forgotten past.”
Frost bit her lower lip, then nodded.
“I’ll get her,” she said.
Nick waited in place, his arms crossed and his spine constantly shivering. It felt cold despite the spring weather. Then again, it might not actually be spring here, in whatever remnant of the past Constance still existed in.
A strained cough nearly sent Nick leaping off his feet, the sound stark and unnatural in the eerily silent city. He walked the road slowly in the direction he thought he heard it come from. Not far along, he paused. The pale tiles alongside the road shimmered in one particular spot. He leaned closer, and though it was white at first, it suddenly transitioned to reveal a bright red bloodstain. Nick saw several other spots, now properly colored, and followed them to the door of a nearby home.
It was absurd, but Nick paused to knock. The sound was louder than he anticipated, and he flinched. No answer.
“What were you expecting?” he muttered, then tested the handle, which was long and shaped of iron. Not locked. Holding Sorrow aloft, he pushed it open and stepped inside.
For one brief moment, Nick saw the home as it once was. A fire burned in the fireplace immediately ahead, a kettle bubbling above it. Bright sunlight shone through the glass window to his left. He saw a flash of children running, a boy and a girl, both with green ribbons tied in their hair. A mother stacking logs to keep the fire roaring. A rocking chair nearby covered with a white cloth, the three-ring infinity symbol sewn in silver across its center. In the middle of the floor, the skin of a black-furred bear.
Then ashen-white dust, brittle wood, and desolate emptiness.
Amid it lay a bleeding man with his back against the white brick of the fireplace.
“Stay back,” he said, one hand on his chest, the other holding a long knife. His curly black hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. A bow lay useless beside him. He could barely lift his knife, let alone wield a bow. Nick saw bone sticking out of the man’s stomach, and at angles he could not quite fathom. His clothes were quite different from those of the people Nick had met in Greenborough, the fabric a dark brown and flowing long, down past his knees. A flash of red above his head, and Nick saw the pitiful remnants of the man’s health bar.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Nick said, slowly lifting his hands as he stepped through the door. “I’m here to help.”
“Help?” the man said, and he winced as he spoke. “Are you mad? Who sent you here? Was it Ranu?”
“I don’t know who Ranu is. We came here because of a friend. She wanted to learn more about the Majere.”
That earned a pained wet laugh. “She’s about…to learn more…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. His eyes squeezed shut, and his jaw vibrated up and down from a choked-back scream from a sudden wave of pain. Nick immediately turned about and shouted.
“Frost! Violette! I need help here!”
He then returned to the wounded man, dropped to his knees, and assessed what had happened to him.
“Lie down, and keep still,” he said. “We…we’ll get you bandaged, all right?”
Frost burst through the door, her sword ready and ice swirling about her left hand.
“Nick?” she asked, baffled.
“He’s injured,” Nick said, gesturing toward the man. The ice vanished, and she approached while sheathing her sword.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“Kasra,” the man answered through gritted teeth. “And forget me. You need to run. It’s not safe. He’s hunting me.”
Outside, Violette shouted their names, and she sounded panicked.
“He?” Nick asked, his blood running cold.
“The lich.”
The wall to the home blasted inward, showering the three of them with brittle wood and brick that looked like it was made of chalk and bone rather than whatever stone it may have once been. Violette landed on the floor amid the wreckage. Her face was scraped in multiple places, and her red coat was torn at the waist. That she was alive at all was shocking, let alone that her health was barely scratched, as the red bar above her head immediately appeared in Nick’s vision.
Before the newly opened hole in the wall stood a furious withered man robed in white, burning green magic flaring about his hands.