“This, says the School of Phelsas, is the nature of the worlds, our world, the world of the gods, and others. They touch, they flow through each other, but they retain that which makes them what they are. They inhabit almost the same place, but they are not the same thing, and most of the time there is no crossing over from one to another. Most of the time, one cannot even perceive the other.”
Chert shook his head. “Strange. But where do mirrors fit into this?”
For once in the conversation, Opal did not seem to find him a waste of breath. “Yes, please, Doctor. What about the mirrors?”
Their guest shrugged in discomfort. Even after several days, it was still strange to see him here in their front room. Chert knew that Chaven was not particularly large for one of the big folk, but in this setting he loomed like a mountain. “You do not need to call me ‘Doctor,’ Mistress Blue Quartz.”
“Opal! Call me Opal.”
“Well. Chaven, then.” He smiled a little. “Very well. Ximander’s Book tells that mirror-lore is the third great gift because it allows men to glimpse these other worlds that travel as close to us as our own shadows. Just as an ordinary mirror bounces back the vision that is before it, so too can a special mirror be constructed and employed that will send back visions of...other places.” He paused for a moment, as if considering what he was about to say very carefully. In the silence, Opal spoke up. “It has to be a...special mirror?”
“In most cases and for most mirror-scrying, yes.” Chaven looked at her in surprise. “You have heard something of this?”
“No, no.” Opal shook her head. “Please go on. No, wait. Let me quickly look in on the boy.” She got up and left the room, leaving Chert and Chaven to sip their tea. The blueroot had helped a little: Chert no longer felt as though he might fall onto his face at any moment.
Opal returned and Chaven took a breath. “As I said, I will not bore you with too much mirror-lore, which is complicated and full of disputations—just learning and understanding some of the disagreements between the Phelsaians and the Captrosophist Order in Tessis could take years. And of course the Trigonate church has considered the whole science blasphemous for centuries. In bad times, men have burned for mirrors.” As he said this, Chaven faltered a little. “Perhaps now I know why.”
“What has your friend—your once-friend, I suppose—done to you, then?” Chert asked. “You said he stole something of yours. Was it a mirror?”
“Ah, you see where I am going,” Chaven said almost gratefully. “Yes, it was a very powerful, very old mirror. One that I think was made carefully in ancient days to see, and even talk, between worlds.”
“Where did you get it?”
Chaven’s look became even stranger, a mixture of shame and a sort of furtive, almost criminal, hunger. “I...I don’t know. There, I have said it. I do not know. I have traveled much, and I suppose I brought it back from one of my journeys, but with all the gods as my witnesses, I cannot say for sure.”
“But if it is such a powerful thing...” Chert began.
“I know! Do not task me with it. I told you I was ashamed. I do not know how it came to me, but I had it, and I used it. And I...reached out and...and touched something on the other side.”
It was the tortured expression on the physician’s face as much as his words that made the hairs prickle on the back of Chert’s neck. He almost thought he could sense movement in the room, as though the flames of the two lamps danced and flickered in an unfelt wind.
“Touched something...?” asked Opal, and her earlier interest seemed to have vanished into fear and distaste.
“Yes, but what it was...what it is...I cannot say. It is...” He shook his head and seemed almost ready to weep. “No. There are some things I cannot talk about. It is a thing beautiful and terrifying beyond all description, and it is mine alone—my discovery!” His voice grew harsh and he seemed to pull deeper into himself, as though prepared to strike or flee. “You cannot understand.”
“But what use is such a thing to Okros—or to Hendon Tolly, for that matter?” Chert thought they seemed to have tunneled a bit far from the seam of the matter.
“I don’t know,” said Chaven wretchedly. “I don’t even know what it is, myself! But I...woke it. And it has great power. Every time I touched it I felt things that no man can ever have felt before...” He let out a great, gasping sob. “I woke it! And now I have let Okros steal it! And I can never touch it again...!”
The sounds he was making began to alarm Chert, but to his relief Opal got up and went to the weeping physician, patting his hand and stroking his shoulder as though he were a child—as though he were not twice her size. “There, now. All will be well. You’ll see.”
“No, it won’t. Not as long...not as long...” Another spell of sobbing took him and he did not speak for a long time. Chert found the man’s weakness excruciatingly difficult to witness.
“Is there anything...would you...? Perhaps some more tea?” Opal asked at last.
“No. No, thank you.” Chaven tried to smile, but he sagged like a pennant on a windless day. “There is no cure for a shame like mine, not even your excellent tea.”
“What shame?” Opal scowled. “You had something stolen from you. That isn’t your fault!”
“Ah, but it meaning so much to me—that is my fault, without doubt. It has seized me—rooted itself in me like mistletoe on an oak. No, I could never be such a noble tree as Skyfather Perin’s oak.” He laughed brokenly. “It does not matter. I told no one. I made it my secret mistress, that mirror and what it contains, and I went to it afire with shame and joy. I spoke to no one because I was afraid I would have to give it up. Now it is too late. It’s gone.”
“Then it will be good for you,” said Chert. “If it is an illness, as you say, then you can be cured now.”
“You don’t understand!” Chaven turned to him, eyes wide and face pale. “Even if I survive its loss, it is a terrible, powerful thing. You do not think Hendon Tolly and that bastard traitor Okros stole it for no reason, do you? They want its power! And what they will do with it, the gods only know. In fact, it could be only the gods can help us.” He dropped his head, folded his bandaged hands on his chest —he was praying, Chert realized. “All-seeing Kupilas, lift me in your hands of bronze and ivory, preserve me from my folly. Holy Trigon, generous brothers, watch over us all...!” His voice dropped to a mumble.
“Doctor...Chaven,” Opal said at last, “do you...can you do things...with any mirror?”
Chert gaped at her in astonishment—what was she talking about?—but Chaven stirred and looked up, hollow-eyed but a little more composed. “I’m sorry, Mistress. What do you mean?”
“Could you help our Flint? Help him to find his wits again?”
“Opal, what is this nonsense?” Chert stood, feeling boneweary in every part of his body. “Can’t you see that the man is ready to drop?”
“It’s true I am too tired to be of any use just now,” said Chaven, “but it is also true that after abusing your hospitality in many ways, there are things I could...explore. But we have no mirror.”
“We have mine.” Opal revealed the small face-glass she had been holding in her palm. She had received it as a wedding present from Chert’s sisters, and now she held it out to Chaven, proud and anxious as a small child. “Could you use it to help our boy?”