image [https://i.imgur.com/szLYoFG.jpeg]

It was late afternoon, and Henry Sinclair sat in a sunbeam with his back to the oak tree in his Auntie’s back yard. It grew at the top of a short hill, and he could see over the stone wall into the neighbors’ yards, or the ocean to the west. To the north, the Golden Gate Bridge, and floating above it, the Scholomance.

But he wasn’t looking at the view. He was reading a book. A plain old novel, not one of the hefty magic tomes he’d been studying. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t concentrate on the words; his eyes were too tired from days and days of study.

Then again, he felt that the book wasn’t really up to his standards. He closed it and saw his cousin Ruby walking up the slope toward him. She was twelve (two years younger than Henry), but small for her age. A clumsy girl, always with a colorful band-aid stuck somewhere on her person from tripping or bumping into something. Aunt Morgause kept Ruby’s orange hair in a blunt bob that was easy to comb. It made her look a bit like a pumpkin. Her wide, watery eyes were violet. She hugged herself as she made her careful way uphill. “It’s cold, Henry. Come back inside.”

Henry chuckled. “No it’s not. The sun is out.” It was a blustery day and big grey clouds were rolling in from the sea, but the sun was hot and bright; whether a person felt it was warm or cold mostly depended on if they were standing in the shade.

Ruby sat down beside him. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I drew you as a cat,” she said, holding up a sheet of white paper with shaky hands. There was indeed a crude but carefully sketched catboy wearing glasses on it.

Henry laughed. “Why am I a cat?”

“Because you’re loyal—”

“That’s dogs.”

“You’re smart—”

“Cats are actually really dumb.”

“You’re distracted by the laser pointer—”

“That was just the one time!” He took the picture from her. “And you drew me with round ears. Cats have pointy ears.”

“House cats,” said Ruby. “You’re more like a big cat. A panther.”

Henry chuckled.

“What are you reading?” she asked, peeking at the cover.

He tiled it toward her. “A Curse of Blood and Glass,” said Henry.

“Is it good?”

“Not really,” he gave the cover a disdainful smirk. “The protagonist is a crybaby, the love interest is mean, the villain makes me uncomfortable, and the descriptions of violence are overly indulgent. The prose is fine though. Two stars.”

Ruby giggled. “You should take a different book.”

“Take a different book?”

“When you leave.” Her face fell.

Henry frowned. He was going to leave soon, yes. He and his family were part of the Achlydes clan. All eligible members embarked on a quest when they came of age; a six day agon , a trek into another world, where they would steal a token, a focus for magic that would set them apart from other practitioners.

Normally this task would only fall to the heir of the household; in this case, it should be Ruby, Aunt Morgause’s only daughter.

But she had no inherent power, and couldn’t work any magic no matter how hard she tried. Morgause speculated that her weak spirit devoured small sparks of magic it came across, keeping her from using even magical objects that mortals could use. It was a wonder she could see magic at all; the Veil1 should have blinded her to anything supernatural she came across, even if she was raised to believe in it. Morgause speculated that her spirit fed off the Veil, too.

Ruby was looking at him expectantly, perhaps hoping he would say that he wasn’t going to leave at all. Instead he patted her head and said, “I’ll only be gone six days max. Most likely less. It could even be just a few hours.”

Ruby hemmed and hawed a bit. “You should still take a book.”

Henry raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ll need a book.”

“You’ll get bored,” she said.

“I really don’t think so.”

“If it takes more than a day, you’ll want to read something before bed,” she insisted.

He rubbed the back of his head. “I guess.”

“You should take Desert Reign,” said Ruby, pulling out a book from behind her back.

“That’s the book I gave you.” It was a dense fantasy book about a woman who brings rain to a desert world. The Reign in the title was meant to be a pun, as she eventually rises to reign over the desert.

“But you can read it, and then we can talk about it when you get back.” She put it on his lap.

“You know I have read it, right?” Henry laughed.

“Well, reading it makes me feel better, when I’m scared,” said Ruby, peeking over his shoulder, over the wall, at the ocean. It was so close, but she’d never been. “Ayane suffered a lot, but she won in the end. Like Jesus.”

“Everyone keeps telling me not to be scared,” Henry rolled his eyes. “Who said I was scared? I’m not scared.”

“But it’s scary,” said Ruby.

Henry put his hand on her shoulder. “You just be scared for me, so I can be brave. Then when I come back, I’ll be scared for you, so you can be brave.”

“Okay,” Ruby nodded slowly. “But take the book, so you can give it back to me.”

“Okay,” said Henry. After a moment he added, “she suffered like Jesus?”

“It’s like you haven’t even read the book.”

He chuckled, running his finger down the spine. He really had read it several times. “You know what my favorite thing about this book is?” he asked.

“Ayane,” said Ruby immediately.

“No.”

“The prince.”

“No. I don’t mean my favorite thing about the story,” said Henry. “The book itself . It’s the map.” He opened it to show the inside cover, with its gorgeous watercolor map. He’d traced the heroine Ayane's path on the map with his finger often enough that the dotted line had worn out.

“It’s a good map,” said Ruby.

“Really, I like most of the illustrations in this book except the cover,” said Henry, closing it again. It depicted Ayane standing in a red wasteland with a distant castle looming in the distance.

“What’s wrong with it?” asked Ruby.

“She looks too old, for one thing,” said Henry.

“She’s a grownup,” said Ruby, albeit tentatively.

“No, supposed to be close to my age,” said Henry. “Ayane’s considered an adult in their culture but she’s not done growing. She turns seventeen in the second book.” He looked at the image some more. Cover Ayane was a tad too…adult, in both face and proportions. “She’s…too old, yeah. Supposed to be a waif.”

“Ohhh,” said Ruby, leaning in. She seemed to understand.

He patted her shoulder. “Alright, let’s go inside. I’m getting thirsty.”

“But you'll take it right?” asked Ruby.

“Yes,” said Henry, stacking the two books together. “And I’ll give it back to you when I come back. And we’ll talk about it together. I promise.”

A relieved smile crossed Ruby’s lips. Together they went back down the hill.

A day later, Henry sat in his Aunt Morgause’s office, in a chair across from her desk. She stood in front of her big picture window, her ivory hair shimmering gold in the morning light. Morgause was his guardian, and had been educating him in witchcraft ever since he came into her care. “In a few weeks,” she said, “you’ll go away to the Scholomance.”

From her tone, she could have been talking about somewhere very far away, even though they could see it from the window. Morgause Reveur was a teacher there, so he would not be far from her protection. “The standards of the Scholomance are not the standards of the Achlydes. You will have to uphold both, hence your quest.”

Henry stood up a little straighter, even though she couldn’t see him. “Yes Auntie,” he said, running a hand through his thick, black hair.

“I am sending you to the Mirror Realm,” said Morguase. “Your affinity for Earth magic ties you to the ground, makes you metaphysically heavy, generally unsuitable for dream magic. Tell me why I am sending you there anyway.”

Henry coughed into his hand. “My elemental affinity skews towards metal. I can circumvent my lack of aptitude by finding a token made of dreamsilver.”

Morgause turned toward him, clasping her hands behind her back. She looked so much like Ruby in facial structure, and in nothing else. “What is dreamsilver?”

“The substance of the Mirror Realm,” he answered quickly. “Matter made of thought. Metal, but not. The Law of Equivalency2 will let me control it, and through it, dreams.”

She nodded once. “Now, Henry, what is the Mirror Realm?”

Henry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The Mirror Realm is a world much like ours. The people there are inversions of the people in the physical world. Their organs are reversed and they have no magic. They live lives much like our own and they coincide with us whenever we pass in front of a mirror.”

Morgause gestured at an orrery that sat upon her desk. Instead of planets, it depicted the planes of existence; blown glass balls in fantastical colors spiraling and orbiting around an invisible column. “The Mirror Realm is part of the Dreamlands,” she gestured, and one of the orbs floated towards Henry; a large, pink oblong of glass, with other glass spheres inside of it, or protruding like pustules. One of them was fully chromed. “The Dreamlands are less real than our world or the elemental realms, and their physical reality is subject to the thoughts and feelings of beings with a higher level of reality. You should be fairly safe in the Mirror Realm, but you must make sure to avoid one thing at all costs. What is it?”

Henry looked at his reflection in the mirror ball. He blinked, and the pink eyes looking back at him blinked just slightly too late. “I mustn’t run into my double.”

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“Why?”

He tore his gaze from the mirror ball and looked back at his Auntie. “The people of Mirror Realm have less free will than we do. They live life as though they were in a dream. But if I run into my double, he’ll awaken and become a doppelganger. Doppelgangers have the inverse ideals and personality of their doubles, whom they hate instinctively. They seek out their doubles, in order to kill them and take their magic.”

“Correct,” said Morgause. If she was pleased, she didn’t show it. “The final step before you depart will be to perform a cleansing ritual. It will disconnect you from him for a while. You will be desynced, but he will still be asleep. Thus, you will be able to enter his room and take his token.”

Henry nodded. “How can I be sure that he has a token though?”

“As you are a practitioner, so is your double,” she said simply. “He will be undergoing preparations to practice his people’s mirror magic, even though he is not awake and capable of using it. The token will exist, even if he never awakens, and it will be made of dreamsilver. You will be able to take it, because it is yours, and use it, because it matches your affinity.”

Henry nodded once more. “Will I be able to steal magic with it, then?”

“Yes, and more besides,” said Morgause. “I will continue to teach you when you return, of course, in the proper usage of the token, at home and at school.” She withdrew a long, chrome wand from within her sleeve. It ended in a sharp point like a stiletto, and was engraved with curls and swirls that evoked wind. “Do not be afraid, Henry. And do not think that I am sending you on this risky quest blindly. It is one I have undertaken myself, and the correct path for you.”

“I understand Auntie,” said Henry. “And I’m not afraid.” He furrowed his brow. “I do have a question though.”

“You may ask it.”

“You don’t have an affinity for metal,” said Henry. “So why did you go to the Mirror Realm for your quest?”

She smiled faintly. “Well spotted." Morgause was an air witch, and a powerful one at that, wielder of the Black Wind. "My quest was to the Land of Nod, the closest layer of the Dreamlands.” She tapped the orrery and the pink sphere rearranged itself, clouds forming in the liquid. “I was meant to forge my token from clouds and rainbow light. Then I was attacked by my doppelganger.” She raised a hand to her cheek, perhaps contemplating a scar that had long ago faded to nothing. “I never learned how she awakened. The confrontation drained all the pigment from my body, and she stole my token, absorbing it and adding it to her magic. She left me for dead, but I lived, I hunted her down, and I took back what was mine, and what was hers as well.”

“So you don’t have a counterpart in the Mirror Realm?” Henry tilted his head.

Aunt Morgause wagged her finger. “The function of the Mirror Realm is to mirror the material realm. The inherent chaos of being, the connection to the Dreamlands, and the occasional natural birth of a doppelganger, all cause changes in the Mirror Realm that accrue over time. But the Mirror Realm cannot ever become too different from the world it reflects. Once enough changes accumulate, the world is reset, everything wiped clean until it deviates too much again. That includes creating new reflections.” She sighed. “Happily, once you have slain your own doppelganger, another one can never come into existence again. So my mirror counterpart is as harmless as a kitten.”

Henry took a deep breath. “It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? I’d hate to be a mirror person or a doppelganger.” An ‘or whatever’ died on his lips; Aunt Morgause disapproved the youths’ “whateverisms” as she called them.

“Indeed,” said Morgause, arching her eyebrow just slightly, as if to say, ‘I almost caught you’. “But we digress. After my experience I did heavy research into the mechanics of the realms, and have constructed the ideal path for my heirs. Because of Ruby’s disability, that means you.” She walked around the desk, running her hand over the top of her chair, then came to Henry’s side and put her hands on his shoulders, pressing just a little too hard with her fingers. “I’ve planned for everything. You’ll be far safer than I was. And one day, by your own hand, you will become more powerful than I.” She smiled, her thin little smile. “Now that’s all sorted. Let’s get you something to eat.”

The cleansing ritual involved Henry staying in a specially prepared room for six days. It was a hexagon with mirrored walls. Even the door was mirrored, and flush with the wall so it couldn’t be seen when it was closed.

In that time, Henry got very acquainted with his own appearance. He was tall but not lanky, as his aunt ensured he was physically fit. His hair was very dark, with a bluish cast to it, and his skin was a warm brown. Both were hints to his heritage on his father’s side. He’d never known the man, only heard stories.

Henry’s eyes came from his mother; they were pink as carnations. All descendents of the Achlydes clan bore the mark of their founder in the color of their eyes. The core family all had blood red eyes, while more distant relatives, those who did not bear the clan’s name, had pinks and purples, and a few rare oranges.

Henry’s ritual room had little furniture, just an air mattress for sleeping. He was not allowed to leave, even to use the bathroom; he had an enchanted bedpan that whisked away his waste.

Fortunately, he was not in total seclusion. Aunt Morgause came to bring him food and clothes, and to keep him apprised of how her plans were progressing. She was drafting an intricate schedule for him. This too was part of the ritual; in time Henry’s doppelganger would start following the schedule instead of mirroring him, because the magicks baked into the room did not exist in the Mirror Realm. On the day of his quest, Henry was due to join a tour group going up to the Muir Woods, which would see his double somewhere far away, and him safe to raid the house.

On the second day, his aunt brought him a gift in a wooden box. It was a length of thick cable, and three silver wires. “It’s one of the suspender cables from the Golden Gate Bridge,” said Morgause. “That is, its mirror image on the other side. The wires are dreamsilver, taken from my doppelganger’s body. Craft them into a tool. Keep it on your person, so that your magic does not fail you in the Mirror Realm.”

Henry was grateful for the work, as it was boring here otherwise. He was no great craftsman, but he had the knack for shaping earthen elements. He urged the individual wires in the cable to loosen, so he could thread the dreamsilver throughout the cable’s length, then twisted them together again, forced them to tighten, tighter and tighter. The cable grew thinner and shorter, and over time began to heat up from the pressure. Using his will and his bare hands, Henry shaped it into a curved blade, about ten inches long. Its origin as a cable was apparent only from the crosshatched pattern along its length, which an untrained eye would mistake for damascus.

Henry was happy with it, but it wasn’t done. It took him another day to carve sigils into the blade, sigils that would amplify and control his magic, and then another day to mold a hilt into the blade from a piece of alabaster he asked his aunt for.

The end result was a proper arcane focus. Many used wands or staves, but daggers were not uncommon. This was especially true for the Achlydes clan, who were sometimes called the House of Knives. A focus allowed practitioners to channel, drawing magical energy into their bodies in order to effect reality with their will. As an earth witch, Henry could channel to control earthen objects. All practitioners could channel naturally with time and effort, but a focus made things easier, and allowed them to direct the channeled energy to greater effect.

And the knife he’d made would be good enough for most practitioners. But the Achlydes had higher standards, and he would be denied his inheritance and acceptance into the clan if he didn’t impress them. And so, he followed the path Auntie had laid out for him.

In the evenings, Ruby would come to see him. The first night she goggled at the infinite reflections all around her.

Henry snickered. “Sit down.” He fluffed a cushion for her and she practically collapsed onto it.

Ruby’s head swiveled back and forth slowly, eyes wide, overwhelmed. “It’s creepy in here.”

“A little,” Henry agreed. He waved at his reflection. It waved back, just slightly off beat. “Eventually that guy is gonna get up and leave,” he said.

Ruby winced, shutting her eyes. “That’s so scary.”

“You’ll have to do this too one day,” said Henry.

She yelped. It turned into a harsh cough that wracked her little body with enough force that she bent forward. He patted her back. “Sorry,” he said. He almost said that he was just joking and she’d never have to do it, but he hated reminding her that she wasn’t like the rest of the family. “Once you do it, you’ll be able to get better.” He had no idea if that was true. Probably not.

“Y-yeah…” Ruby breathed. She leaned against him and they sat in silence for a minute. “Just be safe.”

“I will be,” said Henry. “Your mom told me I’d be even safer than she was on her quest.”

Ruby knew the story too and narrowed her lips. “That bar is really low…”

Henry mussed her hair. “Everything is going to be fine. I’ll even bring you a souvenir.”

Ruby fidgeted and fixed her hair. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

----------------------------------------

It had been a year since Kar Zippar fell to the invaders. They were creatures Ayane had never seen or heard of before, entities made of earth and stone, wielding strange magic and strange weapons.

At first it had been frightening. They killed off most members of court, collared King Ordog as a slave. There was no love lost there; the king was a monster, in both spirit and body. He was addicted to akanite, a substance refined from the pink moss that grows from blood spilled on battlefields. Consuming it gave one magical powers, though it came at the price of one’s body and sanity.

That’s what the invaders were here for.

Many of the people of Kar Zippar were sent out into the wilds to harvest the pink moss, to be brought back to the city and processed. It was hard work, but no worse than the previous regime for many people, and indeed, some praised the new king as a savior.

For people like Ayane, life went on as it always had. She had been the court musician, and so she remained. She was a slave, albeit a privileged one. She outranked Ordog now, and that was the only consolation she took from the whole affair. When a city was conquered or a king died it was always just a transition from one tyrant to another. And while the new king was a strange creature, not of this world, at least he was more taken with humor than the old one.

Now, as she sat in court, she pondered that new king, Ghun Andam. He was as tall as the myoo statues that guarded the city gates, and while his flesh was smooth marble like theirs, he seemed far more exquisitely cut, as if flesh had been transformed to stone by magic. He wore robes made of metal wire; gold, silver, copper and bronze somehow spun as fine as silk. The only way to tell was to touch them, feel their coldness and their great weight.

Ghun’s head was perfectly inhuman. It was a huge, perfectly smooth sphere, with a serene expression molded into it. His expressions could change, but no one ever saw it happen. The pupils of his eyes, when he opened them (which was rare), were glittering gems.

Ayane warmed up her harp, an exquisitely carved piece made of bluewood and ivory, and began to play an exciting tune. As the song hit its stride, she sang out;

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

She had no idea what an Assyrian was, or a Galilee. It was a song from another world, taught to her by one of Ghun’s servants. They were called dwarves, and they too looked like marble statues, though their heads and proportions were closer to human, and they had fuzzy little ears and wooly white hair.

Ayane watched the king as he listened to her, looking up at the mosaic ceiling instead of any of his subjects. He held out his hand and a dwarf placed a long dry leaf in it, while another poured out a mixture of akanite and metal shavings on top of that. Ghun rolled it into a cigar as long as Ayane’s arm, and a third dwarf lit it for him. He brought it to his lips and began to smoke.

The smoke was pink mixed with blue, and it formed into strange shapes as it flowed. Monsters and warriors, gods and demons, fighting their way across the hall in time to her music. The scent of it was acrid and strong, and the humans in the hall held their breath, as not to be heard coughing.

“Ayane,” said Ghun. His voice was high and wheedling in contrast to his great bulk, but so loud it resonated through the hall. “Ayane my dear girl. Keep playing, but stop singing a moment, would you, my poppet?”

She did as asked. “Do you know why I smoke the akanite?” He asked.

“To strengthen your magic,” she said, keeping her eyes on the strings.

He chuckled. The smoke figures stopped fighting and started dancing to Ayane’s tune. “Yes and no. Not as you understand it. It gives your folk powers that they don’t have. The strength of dragons, searing lights, control of the weather. But for those from other worlds, realer worlds, it gives us the power to dream while waking.”

Ayane nodded, understanding that it was a hallucinogen. But, “realer, sir?”

Here he chuckled again, and several of his dwarves joined in. “This world is like a dream, you understand. For us from the real world, or one of the real worlds, to be more accurate, dream substances just get us high. But in a dream world, they give us power over the dream too. That’s how I do this,” he twirled his cigar in the air, tracing a figure in smoke that might have been a word in some strange script, though it immediately grew into a snake and began to devour its own tail.

“I…I see,” said Ayane. This was an insane thing that the king was saying, but he was also literally on drugs. Ghun Andam was never not high. His soldiers weren’t allowed to smoke akanite.3

“Are you disturbed?” he asked, sounding actually concerned. “Or…” his voice went raspy and harsh with anger, “do you not believe me?” The rest of the court grew still from the sudden tension.

Ayane bit her lip and transitioned into another song, with a gentle, calming tone. Almost a lullaby. “It’s immaterial if I believe you, your majesty,” she said.

He snorted twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “And why is that?”

“Because either way, I will continue to serve and obey as best I can, dream or no,” said Ayane.

After a pregnant pause, he laughed again, and the dwarves did too. “See Ayane, this is why I must keep you by my side. You always know what to say,” he replied. “You know, this world, this dream, it’s a very popular story. When I let slip that this is where I mine my pink dust, collectors kept offering to buy you from me. But I said no. Ayane is my little songbird, not your nasty little pretend wife. I was offended on your behalf, girl.”

Ayane’s throat dried up. Being sold was a fear that had always loomed over her. Better to live with the devil you know. “Thank you, your majesty.”

“You’re very welcome,” he said. “Just make sure you continue being a good little songbird. I wouldn’t want to have to cut you loose. Those were rather generous offers.” He took another long drag of his cigar. The conversation was over.

Ayane said nothing and kept right on playing. She didn’t believe what he said, not exactly. But if the invaders saw her as less real than themselves, that could justify anything. She had to be careful.

----------------------------------------

1. The Veil is an energy field that keeps most mortals from perceiving magic. It affects people in different ways, and can be circumvented with effort.

2. The law of magic that says “like may substitute for like.” Objects that are similar to each other, either in actual, physical composition, or in cultural and linguistic connotation, may substitute for each other in spells and rituals. Silver may be used to represent the moon, gold for the sun, an acorn for a tree, a tooth or piece of hair for the whole person they belong to.

3. He gave some of it to his slaves, the ones from this world, to keep them dependent and useful, but most of the stuff was shipped back to the invaders’ world.