image [https://i.imgur.com/pMZm76y.png]

There are moments in life, as I have elucidated to you before, in which the material plane we walk seems to fall away, and you walk over the bared lay-lines of fate — not in a dream per se, but thoughtlessly and without any pretense of free will. You walk because of the path you are on, and the rest of the world appears a trivial thing. The morning of the ritual was not such a morning.

My eyes shot open with an accompanying feeling of overwhelm by the insanity of my plan. The astronomically large odds of it being fumbled and resulting in an absolute bloodbath that I would then be in the middle of — that Aiera and our unborn kittens would then be in the middle of. I was paralyzed until the churn of my stomach overwhelmed me and I was forced to reach into a pail — pouring out burning chunks sweetened with yesterday’s wine.

Keyes reclined on a chair across from me, reading by candlelight in the predawn glow as calm as you please. He shifted only when I eyed him between regurgitations. "Has my master over imbibed once more? How can this humble servant offer aid?"

"Water," I pleaded. And when he brought me a clean bowl and began dabbing my forehead I continued: "It's not booze this time. Today is the day. The moment of truth."

He squinted his sloped eye at me. "But is it not also the day you have been preparing for since you first wandered into my shop? You have been a seeker of wisdom of this land — it's history, it's people, it's women — for many months now. You survived the harshest waste, sailed her engorged jungle rivers, and advised both sides of a civil war — and prepared for nothing but this very moment since I’ve known you."

"I planned for someone to reach this moment. The man who had the courage to confront both the Northern Mane and my deviator brother… but now I am to be that man, and I'm afraid I'm highly liable to bungle it, or watch one of the Manes ruin it all for me. How well do I really know them?"

I wiped my mouth, falling back on my ass. Somewhere I heard the morning horns blow — the guard was changing.

"You don't know them well," said Keyes, "but they know themselves, and the brilliance of your plan lies in that assumption, just as it did in dealing with your deviator. Clean yourself up, Stranger, for I — of all people — know an end when I see one, and what an end you have wrought if you only would put pen to parchment."

He lifted me from under my armpits like a wetnurse before seeing me dressed. His Holiness would need me for his own preparations.

***

Magic filled the lakeside air, smelling of ozone and sparks, colors glinting off at odd angles before us as we walked as if within an invisible fire.

The magi, augurs, astropaths, and various wizards of both armies lay knee deep in water, hands raised in supplication as they faced the distant palace island — they had spent the entire morning in constant encantation to bring about the lunar gateway per my specifications. I was humbled by the sight just as my bowels were set to quivering by the thousands of onlookers. Footmen and nobles and mercenaries and the legion across the way, entire armies looked on at us, as if it were a once in a lifetime natural phenomenon. I suppose it was, considering man and cat-man are natural beings.

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Chevalier Rokash and I flanked His Holiness ahead of a procession of nobles and Vendrela down to the water's edge, past rows of chanting priests, armed soldiers huddled into their clan groups, and the braver camp followers who had faith the truce would hold — a faith I lacked. And each of them watched us.

His Holiness cut a laughable figure in any other situation. His lamellar armor cut into the form of a lizard, bulged wide about his gut and by its strain, and revealed a fairly good bit of bare flesh between the scales, like the white of oak fish's belly. The fat roll above his tail ruffled the armor up humorously; but there was only hate in the etched demon eyes of his kris'ir faceplate — hate that I knew was only etching deep.

As hush fell over the crowd as His Perfection arrived and came to our side. Vizier Rokash being still trapped on the island, it was Do'Qanar who bore the pillow on which two sabers rested. I saw my brother following, his head hanging, and my throat clenched to see Aiera behind him. She wore a face shroud but her eyes were on mine. More than anything I wanted to run to her, but swallowed the feeling queasily. It would only put her in risk, her dress hung a bit more to her stomach now, but not in a way any would notice but me.

They stopped a short distance from us, silence but for the chanting of the sorcerers. His Perfection's armor was in the form of a bird, long feathers running out of the shoulders by their quills and a beaked demon face-plate. Do'Qanar strode before me, presenting the dueling sabers for inspection. As the challenged they had been given the right to choose weapons.

I whispered an incantation of true sight to see if any enchantments were present before gripping both in turn, their handles cold on my palms, and taking a test swing at the air. They were wider at their middle, heftier to cut into the meat of someone's body, and each was shined to a mirror's brightness.

I waved Do'Qanar towards His Holiness. "Both fine and fair blades, sir."

His Holiness waddled forward and took one of the blades offered, looking up to me as he did so in case I signaled against his choice.

Do'Qanar hustled back to his own factio. His Perfection took the remaining blade in hand and I looked upon Aiera for a moment, intoxicated by her mere existence yet unnerved by the danger she was in just being here. Gathering myself, strode over to join my brother in the final ritual, splashing knee deep into the water.

He and I waded, Deviator and Stranger, into Lake Adego's warmth while wearing robes of crimson and bone-white respectively, avatars of Masser and Secunda. Our long robes blossomed up to the water’s surface. A circle of slender wooden stakes that could have been mistaken for fishing implements had they not borne crystal orbs mounted atop had already been planted for us in a perfect ritual circle.

My brother drew Eophicles' cursed mirror from his satchel and we took it up between us, face down our fingers atop. Slowly, we lowered the mirror against the surface, half submerged from the side. We released the clasp and began chanting.

We held it down for quite a long time. The water a flat reflection of the sky. Our words echoed pointlessly off the unsettled polish of the surface until my throat dried and I felt the eyes of the crowd hot on me.

And then, with the metal growing cold against my fingertips, I knew our work was done. My brother did too, and without any signal we simultaneously flipped the Miser's Mirror while keeping it just beneath the waters surface. Its face was white as the sun.

We rubbed it back and forth beneath the sloshing surface, the light lingering behind on the splashing surface like fresh paint running off a wall by rain. We waded together, rubbing the mirror across the water not unlike sailors scrubbing a deck, and in our wake the water remained liquid, splashing and sloshing but now without sound and opaque, the color of silver moonlight. It filled the entire space between the stakes, and leaked slowly out until it was quashed by some passing splash of water and scattered — it could only be sustained at the bridge point. We had created a lunar portal.

Never had I seen so many bodies in such total silence. I'm sure many had doubted the bridging was even possible — the stuff of legend.

The Manes came first, trudging through the water in their armor. His Holiness was already breathless.

I gave them a nod before stepping in and finding nothing below my feet. I sank, water flooding my nose and eyes. Blinding starlight. Arms thrown up in an attempt to swim but I felt myself being pulled down by some great force about my ankles.

I opened my mouth to scream and it was flooded with water.