Chapter Twenty Three

  Pariahs of The Mind's Mirror

  “Who knows the current primary Pariah of the Mind’s Mirror?” Vaelin, the dark skinned elf professor asked.

  Everyone in the lecture hall raised their hands, this class was nothing like her last. There were dozens of other students, thankfully there were a few familiar faces this time. She sat next to Molly and Lorin. The hall was situated in the back corner of Esselem Castle, there were large stained glass windows lining two of the walls. The sun shining through the glass filled the room with warm multicolored light.

  “Nice to know you all haven’t been living under a rock for the last ten years. H.A. Sulivar, formerly known as The Latvian, and the Soviet. Currently known as Tsar of the Bluffs. This class will begin with him, and then look at all of the known instances where you Fable-Walkers have gone insane and wrecked the place. Sounds good?” Vaelin waited for a fraction of second before continuing. “Good!”

  Molly muttered something under her breath. Whatever it was, Freya was pretty sure she agreed. This guy was kind of an asshole.

  “Now, for the duration of this class I will be referring to dear Holland as The Soviet, this seems to be the title that aggravates him off the most. So it is what we will be using. Anyone who fills out his name as anything but that, will be immediately dropped from this class.” Vaelin brushed his loose black hair back over his ears. “Let’s start with The Soviet’s conquest of the Bluffs. Even before the Breaking of Oldport, he was known as troublemaker, being expelled from this very institute with his group of like minded fools. The Articulate Wretches they called themselves. After an insult the Minister once leveled at them.”

  A young woman in the front rose her hand. Vaelin hissed, a forked tongue slipping through his lips like a damn lizard. “I do not take questions. If you need to know something, I will explain it.”

  What kind of crap was that? Why in the world would anyone suggest someone take this class, let alone marking it as essential. Vaelin was the worst kind of teacher. A bully with little care for his students.

  Vaelin straightened his open-chested tunic and continued. “In their early days after being expelled from the Institute, the Wretches spent their time as little more than common bandits. For all that can be said of The Soviet’s ruinous ambition, there was one who even he was second to. The Wasp, so named for her tendency to attack anyone who so much as looked at her the wrong way. Their banishment from the Mind’s Mirror was a result of her transgressions, not his. It was the Soviet who was the moderating influence on The Wasp.”

  Freya perked up. Maybe she could use this next time the Tsar decided to trade barbs with her.

  “The pair made for a fearsome sight on the road. He in his otherworldly military coat. She as the embodiment of death, with cloak and scythe. But all changed upon the Breaking of Oldport. The Wasp disappeared, and The Soviet lost his restraint. In a few short years all the city-states of the Bluffs were conquered under his banner.”

  The rest of the lesson continued like that. Vaelin launching into long-winded explanations on parts of Sulivar’s life, sprinkling a few insults in along the way. He spent a depressing amount of time recounting how he had known that Sulivar was bad news and begged the Minister to expel him and anyone associated with him. But he was ignored.

  It was only after The Wasp had crippled another student that the Minister pulled the trigger and kicked all of the Articulate Wretches out. After going on that tangent Vaelin abruptly stopped talking and left the lecture hall. A few students got up and followed him out, while the rest of them simply looked around for direction.

  One of the students making for the door turned back toward the rest of the class. He was a middle-aged man with milky white eyes. A small series of soft clay balls skittered around in whatever direction he was moving. “Lecture’s over, Vaelin will talk until time’s up, then cut himself off mid-sentence. You’ll want to take notes on what he said, because next time he will start up exactly where he left off.”

  Freya leaned toward Molly, she was still a bit uneasy about the woman, but she was part of the Vanguard. It was important to at least be on decent terms with her. “So he is always like that?”

  Molly’s face flashed between a few different emotions, none hung on long enough for Freya to figure what she was feeling. “Guess so.” Molly closed her note pad and gathered up her things.

  “Did you want to spend some time training in Roman’s room? I could use a hand with my swordplay.”

  “You are thrice the swordsman I am. What help could I be?”

  Freya’s forehead began to throb. “Working together could be good for both of us. Sparring is better than exercises on my own, and I could tell you some of what I know.”

  “Wow. You are so generous.”

  “Be nice,” Lorin said.

  “Are you sure you want me to come? Wouldn’t you rather train privately with Lorin, we all know how much your private sessions.”

  “Molly, stop.”

  “No it’s fine,” Freya said. “You go on, I think I just need a minute with her.”

  Lorin simply shook his head and walked out of the hall, leaving the two alone. She raised a suggestive eyebrow at Lorin taking her instruction so well. The urge to kick Molly’s teeth down her throat grew dangerously strong.

  “Alright, what’s your issue?”

  “Let me see. You waltzed into our group, immediately tore down one of our most sacred requirements for entry, then slept your way into Lorin’s favor.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “That’s fucking ridiculous.”

  “We all know about your night together in Esselem’s crown.”

  “Why would you even care what Lorin and I are up to?”

  “I prefer to keep my best friend away from conniving bitches.”

  Her best friend? That would have been great to know. Freya couldn’t believe this was happening. She wasn’t even allowed to sleep in the same room as a man without accused of this crap? They were supposed to be better than this. Did Zora and Roman think the same thing?

  “You hate Zora this much too?”

  “Mainly just you.”

  This probably had a lot less to do with Freya getting Zora in without spilling her name, and more to do with her feeling protective over Lorin. Of course Molly couldn’t just say that or she would look like a possessive psycho. Which she obviously was.

  “Lorin likes me, couldn’t you give me a shot too?”

  Molly stood up, pushed Freya’s notepad onto the floor, and left. She sighed, wrong thing to say apparently? Though Freya suspected there wasn’t much she could do to change Molly’s mind. So many times when an opinion was that powerful, it was hard to change.

  If Freya was destined to be Molly’s punching bag maybe she would screw Lorin just for some payback.

  #

  Zora screamed as her body broke and reknit itself. Her already impressive six-foot height ballooned to well over seven feet, her hair went white and her pupils constricted into cat-like slits. Roman, Zora, and Freya all looked at her slack jawed.

  “Since when can you do that?” Freya asked.

  “Three months.” Zora’s voice deepened and lost any resemblance to her previously smooth tone. When she spoke it sounded as if her throat was doubling as a rock tumbler.

  “Why leave this out of demonstrations we did?” Roman asked.

  “It is enormously painful, and I don’t trust your friends.”

  Roman took a step forward, looking her up and down. “How does that even…” He shook his head. “Alright, so your outfit isn’t just a pointless cosplay, can do you all the Witcher stuff? Signs, poison immunity, the whole thing.”

  “In terms of physical ability, I’m mostly there, minus the healing factor. I can do a number of the signs, but I am not immune to poison or disease. I also don’t feel the need to fuck everything in sight.”

  Freya laughed. “You are breaking my immersion Zora.”

  “I thought you didn’t have many pages,” Roman said.

  “I don’t. By changing one small set of pages I can shift the meaning of all the others. It’s like flipping a switch. My fireball shifts into the Igni sign, my magic missile into the Aard sign.”

  That didn’t make any sense to Freya. All the more reason she was desperate to start her magic classes. But even then, she feared she wouldn’t be as good as Zora. The way she manipulates her limited number of pages seemed to be a rare skill.

  Roman, Freya, and Lorin each took up positions opposite Zora. With magically blunted weapons they were free to go at each other hard. They all drew their weapons, Roman and Freya their swords, a short spear materialized in Lorin’s hand.

  Zora moved first, so fast that she didn’t register the movement until after Roman was lying flat on his back. The toy soldiers shot out from Freya’s chest, circling Zora and striking at her at odd intervals. Lorin and Freya drove in hard from opposite sides, the soldiers kept her off-balance enough for Freya to land a glancing blow on her leg.

  Lorin wasn’t so lucky, he slid across the smooth wooden floor with a black boot print on his face. Zora spun and sunk low, advancing on Freya with terrifying speed. The stone soldiers blitzed for her head but were thrown back by a telekinetic blast.

  “Shit.” Freya fell into a fencing stance, she needed to keep Zora at bay to have a shot. Lorin was out cold, Roman was just beginning to stir.

  Zora remained stone-faced as Freya landed a touch on her shoulder. She grimaced, pushing forward, testing the limits of the magical blunting. One of the toy soldiers smashed Zora in the small of the back, she yelped but didn’t stop her advance. She swung on Freya, the blow landed on the arm she raised to protect her face. The magical protection around the sword glowed red, signifying at minimum a broken bone had the hit not been softened.

  “You’re crippled, good as dead.”

  Freya tried to catch her breath. “And-“ It was proving difficult. “And you are definitely dead.”

  Roman pressed his dagger against the base of Zora’s skull. “Sorry.”

  Zora’s hand massaged the divot the dagger left behind. “That was good.”

  To the side Lorin was just clearing from his daze. Freya stepped to help him up, but stopped herself once she noticed Zora watching her.

  “Is there a reason you didn’t do that when Sulivar’s soldiers attacked?” Freya asked.

  “The energy in the pages can’t regenerate fast enough for me to stay in this form long term.”

  “How long can you keep it up if you are going full tilt?”

  “Seven minutes thirty seconds.”

  So she had a pretty good idea. “And what happens when you run out of energy?”

  “I return to my normal form, minus the ability to use my other magic.”

  “That’ll be useful.” Lorin rubbed at the boot print on his face. “I assume you have accounted for this in your plans Roman?”

  “I did, we are almost ready. We will use the Travel Agents to get to Caire, then Isleview is just a half-days walk.”

  Isleview, this was the first time he had mentioned the name of the town they were after. She knew next to nothing about it. Outside of the fact Sulivar didn’t care enough about it to make even a token effort to stop them. The meeting with him still tugged at her, she hadn’t told anyone yet. And she wasn’t going to.

  He knew her name. Only five people in this whole realm could know her name. Roman, Zora, Molly, Lorin, and Athena. Either Sulivar had some mind reading ability, or there was a traitor amongst them. Distrusting Zora felt so profoundly wrong, but Sulivar recounted the fight with the soldiers in detail. She would be stupid not to suspect her.

  Molly was an obvious choice, she was hostile from the start. But was it too obvious? The only person Freya was confident in was Roman, he had started the Unbound Vanguard, and the passion he spoke with would have been difficult to fake. But she wasn’t yet sure enough to confide in him. This whole group could be a front to lure in Sulivar’s enemies. Molly and Athena were the most likely culprits. Both fairly reserved, both wielded a massive amount of power. And neither had said more than a handful of words to her. If Freya were sent to spy on a group of malcontents, that’s how she would do it.

  “When are we doing this?” Lorin asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Freya’s attention snapped to Roman. “Are you insane? We haven’t done enough training as a group. Hell, Molly and Athena don’t even know the name of the place we are attacking.”

  “It is a little fast,” Zora said.

  “Every time people join the group they leave before we can make meaningful progress. We need to show the rest of the Harbor that we mean business. If word gets out about us landing a blow against the Tsar we could build a serious fighting force.”

  “If word gets out Sulivar might just have us killed.” Lorin shared a quick look with Freya.

  He didn’t know how right he was.

  “Roman. These are our lives, we aren’t just going to throw them away on an obvious suicide mission.” Freya understood why he was desperate to do something of consequence, but they needed to be smart.

  “Isleview is a glorified mining town. Six Fable-Walkers will be more than enough to steal some gold from their dusty treasury.”

  “How good is your intel on the place?” Freya asked.

  “I was there myself about a year ago.”

  Zora winced at that, evidently still not over his deception.

  “There are no other magic users?”

  “One at the prison. But Athena will be more than enough to handle him.”

  It was still hard to grasp that so few people held the magic Freya and her friends did. The idea of living in this place without her abilities was downright horrifying. Was this what it was like to grow up rich, surrounded by other rich families? The outside world felt like a bad dream?

  Freya was able to single-handedly kill well over ten of Sulivar’s soldiers. With access to Roman’s armory she would be better equipped. This time they wouldn’t be catching her off guard. If the town had a reasonable number of soldiers she might be able to tear down the place herself.

  Maybe they could do this.

  Sulivar’s words from the previous night sounded like a bell in her head. Would you like to know the names of the children…