The Fiend in the Mirror
Yan spoke.
"There are four of us and one of you. Priority belongs to us. Yield the Motaro, and the next treasure we find will be yours."
When Chris hesitated, Bianca said,
"You played the innocent, and now the sly heart underneath finally shows."
Chris's eyes went round.
"Me? Sly?"
"You pretended you didn't know what Motaro was, and suddenly you're greedy for it. If that isn't sly, what is?"
He could tell them the truth—that he truly hadn't known, that he'd only learned of it today—and they still wouldn't believe him.
Chris scratched his brow and weighed it. If ownership were settled by strength, he could sweep every one of them aside and take the Motaro. But he couldn't. Unlike the petty mages of the tower, Yan had kept his word, paid in gold, and petitioned the tower for leniency. Remembering that, Chris held out his open palm.
"All right. Take it."
Yan said,
"A wise decision."
Pleased, Yan stepped up to the marble table and reached for the glass bottle. Nuba warned him.
"Be careful. There will be a guardian protecting the treasure."
Yan froze, then searched the room from corner to corner.
"There's nothing here..."
"There has to be something guarding the Motaro."
The knights spread out, feeling along the floor and rapping the walls. The chamber was cramped, and aside from the marble table there was no furniture at all, so checking the bricks one by one took little time.
Chris watched the search, then strode toward the table. Yan's sword swung for his throat.
Chris raised both hands.
"I have no interest in the Motaro. Didn't you promise the next treasure would be mine?"
"Step away from the Motaro."
"The table is the only place you haven't examined. I'll take whatever is in the drawer."
Yan lowered the sword.
"Go ahead. You must not touch the bottle that holds the Motaro. Not under any circumstances."
Chris nodded and walked to the table. The knights' keen stares bored into his back.
The moment treasure is involved, mercy goes out the window.
Grumbling to himself, he closed a hand around the drawer's ring.
Let there be something in here that makes their eyes roll back in their heads.
Full of hope, he pulled the drawer open.
"What is this?"
The disappointment slipped out of him on its own.
Bianca came over.
"What's in it?"
Inside lay a single mirror of antique design, a hand mirror about the size of a person's face.
Bianca swallowed a laugh.
"This treasure is yours, Mage."
The other knights laughed as well.
"We kept our promise."
Seeing them so pleased that something worthless had turned up quietly rankled. So he put on a show, as if he had only just discovered its worth.
"No—this is—!"
He felt the knights go tense.
"What is it?"
Nuba cried.
Chris shut his mouth like a clam, glanced around, and quickly gathered the mirror against his chest.
"It's nothing special."
Hearing that it was nothing only made them more frantic. They closed in.
"Please, just let us see it once."
"No."
It had come from the drawer of the very table where the Motaro rested. It could not be an ordinary object. That was what Nuba believed.
"Please."
Nuba's voice shook.
Chris cut him off, cold.
"No. The Motaro is yours. The mirror is mine."
He even backed away.
"We can't even look at it?"
Nuba could not give it up. When the knights seemed to be growing greedy as well, Chris asked in a sly tone,
"Shall we trade? The Motaro for the mirror?"
Only then did the knights realize David was playing them.
Yan waved them off.
"As promised, the mirror is yours. Nuba, come here. We'll secure the Motaro."
Chris was disappointed.
Tch. They didn't bite.
Then his chest grew hot all at once. Heat was spilling from the mirror. No ordinary mirror gave off heat. Thinking it might be real treasure after all, Chris drew it out at once, and a low hum rose from the glass. The mirror was even wailing.
Nuba shouted,
"It wasn't an act!"
Chris looked into the mirror. His own face—David's face, to be exact—appeared, then suddenly warped. The distorted face spun round and round inside the glass, and then, without warning, burst out of the mirror and lunged at Chris's face.
"Aaagh!"
Startled, Chris screamed and dropped the mirror. It shattered across the floor.
Bianca cried out, rigid with terror.
"His face!"
Chris's face did worse than warp. Eyes, nose, and mouth slid down toward his chin.
"Aaagh!"
He screamed again and fled the tower. Michael started after him, but Nuba stopped him.
"Stop!"
White to the lips, Michael turned to Nuba.
"What in the world is that?"
"He's possessed."
"By what?"
"It could be an ancient curse. Or a ghost..."
Nuba let out a long sigh and went on.
"We're fortunate."
"Fortunate?"
"I believe that was the guardian protecting the Motaro."
Yan clapped his hands.
"Thanks to him, the guardian is gone."
All of them rejoiced.
Chris was tearing through the forest like a madman. The instant something had leapt from the mirror and covered his face, he had reflexively drawn up his mana to shield it.
He did not know what the monstrosity from the mirror truly was. He only felt that it was dank, clammy, and ill-omened. That alone was enough to tell him he was fucked.
His eyes burned as if they were being seared away. Whatever had sprung from the mirror was riding his optic nerves, trying to invade his brain. Instinct told him that if it reached his brain, he was finished.
Remembering the time Sheikh had attacked his Thought Space with wraiths, Chris compressed his mana and set it in place. The experience of fighting Sheikh's wraiths was an enormous help. Had he never fought wraiths then, he would have let the intrusion through.
His eyes were squeezed shut. By rights he should have seen nothing, and yet something was there: a human figure whose skull had split, the upper half of the head above the brow blown away, and between torn lips, teeth rotting black. The moment he saw it, a word rose in him.
A fiend!
The fiend was forcing its way in, ripping through his optic nerves.
No!
Chris compressed the mana still further and laid it down, raising a barricade that would not be breached.
"Graaaah!"
The fiend howled, and the shock shook Chris's entire skull. This was no ordinary fiend. It was an ancient one, a thing that had endured through long ages.
"Get out!"
He shouted it in his mind.
"Let's live together."
The fiend spoke.
Live together? What nonsense.
That thing would never be satisfied with mere cohabitation. It meant to take him.
"Get out!"
Chris snarled again.
In that instant the fiend split in two. One half kept tearing at the optic nerve. The other descended. Chris expected it to come in through his nose or his mouth. It didn't. It went lower still.
The Thought Space! The bastard is after my Klpandi.
He set compressed mana before the Thought Space as well, and while he did, he puzzled over how to deal with the fiend. Then a thought struck him, and he clenched his fist.
The mask!
What the fiend had seized was not his true face. The thing that had burst from the mirror had not known he was wearing one. It had taken advantage of a careless moment and claimed something—and that something was the mask.
Even under the fiend's assault, Chris let out a breath of relief. If he had not been wearing the mask, it would have latched straight onto his face, and he would have been possessed.
Thank you, mask.
He had never imagined that wearing it would save him like this. The moment he understood that the fiend occupied the mask, he had his answer. He only had to take the mask off.
The fiend realized at once what he meant to do. The half bound for the Thought Space moved into his left hand, severed the nerves that carried his commands, and moved the hand itself.
The left hand the fiend controlled blocked the right, which was reaching to strip the mask away.
"No!"
the fiend shouted. Chris shouted straight back.
"Yes!"
His right hand tore free of the left and reached his chin. The left came again, seized his right wrist, and hung on. The fingers of his right hand found the lower edge of the mask.
"Wait. Wait."
The fiend pleaded.
"Why?"
"I am a great being."
Teeth rotting black did not look great. Chris snorted.
"Hah."
"It's true."
"If you're so great, why were you locked in a mirror?"
The moment he said it, he knew it was true.
The mirror was sealing the fiend.
The fiend ground its teeth, and ground them so hard that a rotten tooth snapped clean off.
"I was betrayed."
Even as they spoke, Chris strained to tear the mask away, and the fiend strained to stop him.
"Not betrayed. Disposed of. A fiend like you ought to be killed."
"I am a great mage."
"I'm sure you are."
The mask lifted a little from his chin. Frantic, the fiend rushed on.
"I only fell because I was betrayed. You're Seed Cultivation, aren't you? I'll raise you all the way to the peak of Ring Binding. I'll make you an Ultimate Mage."
"I don't believe you."
"You've met the chance of a lifetime."
The mask came free of his chin. The gap between glass-smooth false face and true skin widened, until the mask caught on his nose. The fiend grew more desperate still.
"I know a place where there are ten Motaro. I'll tell you."
"And what do I have to give you for that?"
"Let me dwell inside you."
"You mean possess me?"
"Not possession. Symbiosis."
Chris pretended to consider. Then he ripped the mask off with everything he had.
"No!"
Split in two, the fiend howled—and retreated into the mask. It knew that once its stronghold came away, it could not endure inside Chris, and so it withdrew.
"Shit."
Chris swore and flung the mask aside. Then he swept mana through his body and took stock. No remnant of the fiend remained, but the wounds it had left did. His eyes were the worst of it. He treated them with a healing magic of his own devising, and still it was a long while before they recovered.
Where am I?
He looked around and did not know the place. He had been so far gone he hadn't even realized he was running. The need to get clear of the fiend had been so fierce that he had run without knowing it. Perhaps the Klpandi had steered him.
He stamped on the mask where it lay. Even that did not ease his anger.
I'll burn it.
He formed a fireball and dropped it onto the mask. Astonishingly, the mask did not burn.
It doesn't burn?
Only then did he understand that the mask was a truly precious magic tool.
Find the right owner, and I could sell it for a fortune.
But he couldn't. The fiend would attack whoever put the mask on and seize their body.
The mask is contaminated.
However precious the treasure, he could not turn loose upon the world a thing that harbored a monster so hideous.
Burn it.
He poured mana into the fire and drove the heat higher. A corner of the mask curled. Unable to endure any longer, the fiend burst through the flames. It wore white wings that did not suit it in the least—one torn away to half its span, and the comparatively whole wing riddled with holes.