Mircea gasped, and several of the girls gave out little shrieks. Which turned into not-so-little ones as the scene abruptly turned and banked and rushed straight down again. Sending several of the girls tumbling to the floor, and Mircea himself clinging to the bed as if it had tilted, too.
“Oh, I hate it when they do that!” someone said.
“What is it?” Mircea demanded, looking about frantically, surprised to see that the room wasn’t moving, too.
“They put the spell on a bird,” Marte laughed. “Oh, I love it!”
“I don’t!” Zaneta said, looking through her fingers as the bird soared out over the lagoon. “It makes me seasick!”
“You can’t be seasick on land, silly,” Marte told her.
“I can if my stomach says I can!”
Mircea stopped listening, being too fascinated by the dips and turns of the bird. And by the size of the mirror and their closeness to it. And by the spell, which was so amazingly lifelike, that he almost felt like he was flying, too.
“It’s wonderful,” he said, and then he laughed. “It’s wonderful!”
And it was. A view he’d never thought to see opened up underneath him, truly a bird’s-eye view of brilliant water that shaded from deep indigo out at sea, to paler shades closer to shore, to sunlit aqua right on the beach; of the clouds, which seemed close enough to touch; and of tiny, tiny ships far below, which he knew to be huge barges. . . .
It was enough to take his breath away.
And then the bird dove, in a single, heart-stopping plummet that had girls clinging to him on every side and Bezio chuckling and Mircea having to clamp his teeth on a delighted scream. Only to land on the edge of a roofline, in a flutter of wings and small, reaching feet. And have the vast panorama suddenly replaced—
By a fat lizard?
The creature took off just as a flashing beak reached for it. Leaving the group on the bed treated to an up close, scurrying chase along the edge of the roofline for a few dizzying seconds, until the scene changed again. To a slightly harried-looking vampire waving his hands in the air.
Until he noticed that whoever was controlling the view was now looking at him.
He smiled a little weakly, and then the scene flashed to a view of the house that must have originated from near the end of the pier.
“There’s Mircea!” Zaneta squeaked, grabbing his shoulder. “Look! There you are!”
She was pointing at a small upper section of the mirror. Where, sure enough, Mircea saw himself standing next to the balcony railing. And thankfully not looking as gormless as he’d expected.
“Look at you!” Marte laughed, hugging him. “You look like a senator!”
“Standing in sunlight,” someone said from the door.
Mircea looked over to see Auria, wearing a beautiful blue satin robe. It was a good choice with her auburn hair, which had been allowed to tumble freely down her back. It didn’t do anything to help the expression on her face, however.
“She used some sort of shield,” Mircea said.
“Obviously.”
“It . . . must not have worked too well,” he added, gesturing at his face.
“It worked a little too well, if you ask me,” she said, and abruptly left.
“Don’t mind her,” Marte told him. “She’s just jealous.”
“Of what?” Mircea asked, confused.
“Of what, he asks,” Marte said, rolling her eyes.
“Shh, shh!” one of the other girls said. “It’s starting!”
Mircea looked back at the mirror, but it looked more like it was ending to him. Suddenly, there was a crowd of people at the end of the dock, the ships were out in the center of the lagoon, and the battle was well under way. What had taken perhaps an hour in real time had been sped up considerably.
Or shown intermittently, he supposed, because the next scene, along with more rapid talking, was of the blue team’s barge in the middle of capsizing. And then another jump, to things that Mircea had never seen, or at least not noticed. The blue barge sinking completely out of sight, the orange barge rocking madly back and forth, threatening to overturn as well with all the tumult now taking place on top of it. The orange team finally deciding to take the initiative and begin shoving the blues into the water, and then starting to row away.
This led to the slightly comical effect of a trail of blue, and some orange, combatants trying to swim to catch up to the fight. Or flailing about because they didn’t know how. Most of the latter soon began flailing toward shore instead, along with more and more of the former, as they realized that they’d been left behind.
The orange team’s shouts of triumph could be heard as far away as the pier, where the latest point of view seemed to be located. The cheers of the crowd only added fuel to their enthusiasm, and they began waving and shouting back. And then someone made the decision to do a victory lap around the lagoon.
“This is it,” Marte said, gripping Mircea’s arm, maybe because she realized that he couldn’t follow the increasingly rapid commentary coming from the mirror.
Only Mircea didn’t see what “this” could possibly be.
The fight was over. The orange team had won a decisive victory, and must have even succeeded in throwing the rest of their blue opponents overboard. Because they weren’t even fighting anymore.
They were lining up along the side of the boat, with more standing atop the covered section near one end of the ship, threatening to capsize their own craft as they sped about the lagoon. Only the rowers managed to keep it counterbalanced enough that the rest of the team could wave and call and lean precariously over the side, trying to catch the flowers being thrown at them by enthusiastic spectators, some of whom were running through the water, trying to catch up to the ship as it passed just outside the shallows.
“Idiots,” Marte murmured. “But then, who knew?”
“Who knew what?” Mircea asked.
“You really don’t remember, do you?” she asked, amazed.
Mircea shook his head mutely, barely able to hear her over the now truly deafening roar of the crowd. As the barge passed each clump of viewers, either on shore or in the flotilla of ships that had dropped anchor in the bay, the cheers grew louder, the jumping, waving crowd became more enthusiastic, and the victors turned more dramatic. Until someone among the latter brought down the flag they flew, a black standard with a coiled silver serpent in the middle, and sent up one fashioned from the team banner that had graced the side of their craft.
It had gotten soggy from the fighting and splashing and almost capsizing, but it didn’t matter. Not with the large amount of orange team members climbing up to join the crew on the covered area, and holding the banner out for all to see. It was a beautifully embroidered piece of orange silk, with fringe as long as a man’s forearm. The embroidery and the fringe were both gold and flashed blindingly bright in the sun, like the broad smiles on the victors’ faces.
And like something else, which suddenly gleamed in the sky overhead.
Mircea couldn’t see it clearly, couldn’t see much of anything, because the mirror abruptly whited out. As if the person guiding it had suddenly decided to stare straight into the sun. Which wasn’t far from the truth, he realized, when the image returned.
But with a very different scene.
The victorious barge was now gone. In its place was a gutted, smoking hull, still moving through momentum toward the flotilla of boats. Which were just sitting there, not even trying to get out of the way, the onlookers appearing frozen in place by shock.
They didn’t stay that way for long.
Some dots in the water surfaced, in some cases floating motionlessly on the waves, but in others screaming, pleading for help. Help which several of the ships made tentative motions toward giving. Until something gleamed against the clouds again, bright as a mirror in the heavens, or a diamond flashing in the sun.