David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

Sure, most folks were scared of a wizard, but there'd always be a few, kids especially, who weren't or were more curious than scared. A girl stepped into the temple from the front. She looked at Cashel when she passed, though she didn't say anything or even look interested. She was heading toward Tenoctris. Isn't that just what you get when you tell yourself things are going fine! Cashel thought as he scrambled to his feet. "Ma'am?" he said. "I wish you wouldn't go any closer to my friend. She's busy with, well, a thing that she's got to think about really hard." The girl stopped in her tracks and turned to stare. She was older than he'd thought, but still not very old; sixteen, maybe, was all. She had flowing dark hair that spread like a cape over the thin shift that seemed to be all she was wearing. "You cansee me?" she said. Her voice was as thin and high as the trilling of chorus frogs.

"Yes, ma'am," Cashel said. She had very fine bones; that and the way her legs moved made him think of a bird. "I know I'm not from around here, but I'd really be grateful if you didn't talk to Tenoctris till she's done." If the girl didn't listen to him when he was being polite, he guessed he'd hold her. It wasn't something he wanted to do, grab a stranger and make her do something because he was stronger, but Tenoctris was depending on him. The girl just stared. Had he done something wrong? "Ah, my name's Cashel or-Kenset," he said. "I'm just here with my friend Tenoctris, Lady Tenoctris, that is. I carry things for her." "You see me!" the girl cried. She touched her hands to her face, covering her open mouth. "It's been… why, nobody's ever been able to see me! Not since the flood." "Ah, flood, ma'am?" Cashel said. "I'm not from Ornifal; I mean, I'm from Haft. I hadn't heard about a flood here, I guess." "No, theFlood," the girl said. "When the waters covered everything and everyone died." Her tongue touched her lips; Cashel couldn't begin to read her expression. "I died then, but I didn't go away like the rest of them. I've stayed here for ever so long. I don't know why." "Ma'am, you're a ghost?" Cashel said. She didn't look like a ghost. He wondered if he could touch her if he stretched out his arm, but he didn't try. It'd be impolite, and anyway it didn't matter. "Am I?" said the girl. "Perhaps I am." She licked her lips again. "Your name is Cashel," she said wonderingly. "I used to have a name too. I don't remember what it was, though. It was ever so long ago." "Do you live around here?" Cashel said. "Stay, I mean, if you're not…" "I think I came here after the Flood," the girl said. He couldn't believe that she was a ghost; she seemed just as real as real. "I don't think I lived here before, but I don't really remember." She shook her head, then gave him a rueful smile. "I don't remember anything from when I was alive," she said, "except that I had a name. I'm sure I had a name." A thread of ruby sparks trickled out of the sky to vanish again above Tenoctris' head. She didn't move or even notice it as best as Cashel could tell. From what the old wizard'd said on the drive here, she wasn't making things happen any more than the flume makes the water that turns the mill. She just put herself where things would happen and maybe pushed them a bit to one side or the other. The girl was staring at Tenoctris. "Can she see me too, Cashel?" she said suddenly, turning to face him. Her eyes were very dark, but they seemed like real eyes. "Ma'am," Cashel said, "I don't know. When she's done we can ask her, I guess." "Oh, it doesn't matter," the girl said, brushing the thought away with a sweep of her hand. "Nothing matters really, not if you take the time to look at it.

Do you-" She raised a hand and traced the line of Cashel's cheek without quite touching him. "Do you have feelings, Cashel?" she said coquettishly. "Love and hate, things like that?" "I wouldn't say I hated anybody, ma'am," he said, feeling a little uncomfortable. Still, the girl wasn't bothering Tenoctris and that was all that mattered.

"I've fought people and I guess I will again. People and other things.

But I don't know about hate." "I used to feel things," she said, turning away again. Whatever'd possessed her for a moment was gone now; thank Duzi. "I remember that too. When I'm around people I sometimes imagine I can feel again, but mostly I'm alone." The ground trembled, though the motion was so faint that afterwards Cashel wasn't sure he'd felt anything more than a distant wagon with a heavy load.

"Now I feel sadness," the girl said, her eyes fixed on Tenoctris.

"Everyone in this world is going to be killed the way the Flood killed everyone in my world." She looked at him abruptly. "That's right, isn't it?" she said. "Ishould feel sad about that? Or should I feel something else?" Cashel's lips felt dry. "Ma'am," he said, "that'd be sad, but Tenoctris and the rest of us aren't going to let that happen.

It'll be all right." The girl trilled golden laughter. "Yes," she said, "I remember now. There were scholars in my day who were going to stop the Flood, but the Flood came anyway. You'll see that it doesn't really matter, Cashel. When you look back as far as I do, nothing matters. And you feel nothing." There was a pop near Tenoctris, a dull sound. The air was suddenly clearer, though Cashel hadn't noticed a haze beforehand. The old woman slumped, barely managing to catch herself on her arms. Cashel trotted to her, holding his staff crosswise before him. Tenoctris looked up and smiled when she heard his feet thumping on the turf. She stayed where she was until he was there to help her up. "Tenoctris?" he said when he was sure she was all right and firm on her feet. "There's somebody who'd like to meet you." Cashel looked toward where he'd been standing, but the girl wasn't there any more. For a moment he thought she might've hidden behind one of the pillars, but that probably wasn't it. "I guess she's gone," he said in embarrassment. "We were talking while you sat here, is all." Tenoctris nodded and started toward the gig. She touched Cashel's wrist but didn't really lean on him. "The girl was local, then?" she asked. Cashel grinned. Tenoctris wanted to know more, but she didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. "I don't know if she was," he said. "She said she drowned in a flood so long ago that she couldn't remember her name. She looked just like a girl, though. A pretty one." "Indeed?" Tenoctris said in delight. "The Primal Flood, then? My, that's quite interesting, Cashel. And she'd become the spirit of this place, agenius loci." She smiled. "Agenia loci, I suppose, since you say she was still a girl to look at." Cashel shrugged; the words didn't mean anything to him. Not even "spirit of this place." "She couldn't remember much," he said, looking to both sides as they passed between the pair of pillars that were still standing. "She told me-" He stopped and took a moment to reframe his words. He said, "I told her that you were going to stop the trouble that was coming now. Like her flood." "I see," said Tenoctris, looking at him sharply. He guessed she really did see what he hadn't said.

"Well, while I myself can't stop the Last, I think I've learned how to get the ally we need." She paused, still watching him as they neared the gig. "I'll need your help again tomorrow, Cashel," she said. "If you're willing." "Yes ma'am, I am," Cashel said. "When will you want me?" He took the horse's reins in his left hand and gripped the frame of the light vehicle in his right so that it wouldn't skitter forward while Tenoctris climbed aboard. She didn't need his help for that, though. Tenoctris took the reins. "Around midday, I'd judge," she said as he walked around the back of the gig to get in on the other side.

"There are a number of things I'll need, and they aren't all in my apartments. We'll be going to the old tombs in the palace grounds." "I didn't think people were buried inside Valles, ma'am," Cashel said, mounting with the care his weight required. He was a good load for one horse to pull, though the roads back to the palace were smooth enough and flat so he wouldn't have to get out and walk. "The palace wasn't part of the city when the tombs were built," Tenoctris said. "The family, the bor-Torials, weren't even Dukes of Ornifal at the time."