An Arsonist and a Necromancer Walk into a Bar

Chapter 31 – Thirty Blind Mice

Crystal ears twitched in an empty room. Then a nose, and then a tail. Ruby eyes glinted, reflecting the dim light of distant lava as it took in its surroundings. For a moment it remained still, listening for even the slightest hint of movement.

It was not quiet. This building was never quiet, a hive of activity no matter day or time. But the noise was distant, and the tinkling of crystalline paws was consumed by plush carpet and silken tapestries.

A diamond mouse skittered across the desk, scampering across the room without a sound. Sharp claws dug into ornate drapery as it climbed up to the windowsill. It slowed down as it reached the glass, pausing to stare at its own distorted reflection.

There was a pulse that ran through it, that ran through the mouse on the other side of the glass. Its Mistress ran a transparent finger across its edges, pulling beyond the mirror and into reality. Hushed words spoke into false ears, and with a whisper a spell was cast.

Crystals naturally mirrored themselves. Structural lattices repeating endlessly in simple geometric shapes, strength born from the same lines they shattered along. With each shattering they grew smaller, and with each reflection less precise, their value dropping with their rarity. Each new gemstone worse than the last. Darker, cloudier, smaller, until all that remained was mere fragments of glass.

But a diamond is a diamond, regardless of size or shape.

Mirrors of the original mouse pulled themselves from beyond the glass, cloudy crystal mice pouring down from the windowsill to the floor below, hiding their miniscule bodies in shadowy corners and beneath ornate furniture. The strongest dug into the stone, carving new paths to hide within the walls, while the weakest copies fled beneath the doors, skittering into new rooms, where they cloned worse copies of themselves to spread even further. Some jumped into pools of perpetually molten lava to hide, only their ears or eyes or noses poking out, while others jumped onto chandeliers to hide among the ornate crystals.

The moon rose high in the sky as reflections of diamond mice spread throughout the fortress, slipping into cracks long forgotten and hiding in rooms long thought safe. Countless tiny spies, near worthless alone, but together an unending legion.

With its work done, the original jumped down from the windowsill. With muffled skittering it leaped back onto the desk, returning to its original spot amongst the other trinkets. There it settled back into its original position, its eyes growing once more dull and its limbs falling stiff and unresponsive. And there, it began to wait.

After all, where better for a spy to hide than in plain sight?

--

Palmira and Lorenzo sat across from Chiara as she stared off into nothingness, her eyes wide and glassy.

“Is she okay?” Palmira muttered the question, not taking her eyes off her friend. When they’d finally explained to her what they’d done, she’d been annoyed they hadn’t told her. But apparently she’d been too distracted talking with the dragon to listen to them plot, and they didn’t have time after to explain the plan to her. “She hasn’t said anything in a while.”

“Let me check,” Lorenzo leaned forward, quickly snapping his fingers in front of her face. She jumped, giving him a glare, before leaning back to zone out again. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

“Shut up. It’s just a bit hard to understand what’s going on,” she muttered, fingers twitching erratically and eyes darting in two different directions. “I think I made too many copies.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m good,” she whispered. “Just… be quiet for a bit. I need to focus. The copies aren’t as good as the original, but I think I’m… I can focus on a couple at a time. They aren’t that complex, there’s just a lot of them.”

Palmira wanted to push further, but Lorenzo pulled her away gently, giving their friend some space. Far enough away that they couldn’t distract her, he sighed, running a hand through his leafy dreadlocks. “I don’t think she’s going to be of much more use tonight. She hasn’t done this in a long time, it’s not surprising she’s struggling.”

“What, exactly, is she doing?” Palmira asked, frowning worriedly at her slumped form.

“You know she makes those crystal animals?” At her nod, he continued. “Well, the way her magic works, she’s not actually ‘creating’ those constructs. Her family all practices crystal magic, but they don’t… I don’t know how to explain this right. It’s like, just because they all use crystal magic, that doesn’t mean they all practice it the same way. Does that make sense?”

“I get it, it’s her Philosophy,” Palmira nodded, remembering Morte’s first lesson. “Like how I see ‘Fire’ as ‘Movement,’ she sees her crystals as something else?”

“…Huh,” he muttered, rubbing his chin. “That’s a surprisingly simple way of describing it. But yeah, that works. The way Chiara sees crystals… I guess you could say it’s like a ‘mirror.’”

“It’s not a mirror,” Chiara’s strained voice called out to them from across the room. “It’s a ‘Reflection.’ A mirror is too clean, too simple. Crystals are thousands of tiny mirrors, reflecting everything in every direction. You don’t see yourself in them—you see what the crystal sees, and though that’s not total truth it is individual truth. And that has power all its own.”

“…Right, what she said,” Lorenzo nodded as she fell quiet once again, concentrating back on her mice. “It’s complex, but when she calls forth her crystal animals, she’s not ‘creating’ them, she’s pulling up a ‘Reflection’ of that animal through the lens of a crystal. It’s why they’re so weird, but still recognizably animals. And then if she can get them in front of some kind of reflective surface—like, say, a window—she can pull up another copy, ad infinitum until the power runs too thin and it all shatters.”

“Fascinating,” Morte spoke up, surprise coloring his voice. “I’m shocked there was something so complex behind her magic. I assumed she was a brute who was simply animating fancy golems.”

“Yeah, well, don’t let her hear you say that. Apparently that’s exactly what one of her brothers started doing after she figured it out, and she’s had a chip on her shoulder ever since.”

“Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

‘Correction. You do not have lips.’

“Figure of speech, kid. Don’t take everything so literally.”

“Is there anyway to help her, exactly?” Palmira asked, watching as Chiara suddenly twitched, turning to stare at something only she could see.

“Probably not,” Lorenzo shrugged. “She kind of brought this on herself, making so many copies. Maybe if you could somehow see what she sees, but neither of us have that power.”

Palmira frowned, anxiously tapping her fingers on Morte’s staff. Her brow furrowed, before she slowly turned to the window, and the night sky beyond it. “…I have an idea. But I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get it to work.”

“Wait, really?”

“Oh ho! Are you thinking what I’m thinking, my apprentice?”

“I think I am,” she muttered, practically running over to the window. Throwing the blinds open wide, she squinted up at the smog filled sky. More stars stood out this time, and the waning moon hung low above the buildings. It wasn’t a perfect night, but it was better than she could have hoped in this city.

With a calming breath she held up her staff and began to focus. Staring at the largest cluster of stars, she lit a tiny flame, forcing it to give off as much smoke as it could. Watching as it mixed with the natural smog, she thought on what she wanted.

She wanted to see into the future. She wanted to help Chiara. She wanted to help her with whatever she was doing with her reflections. She wanted…

Slowly, the stars above began to twist and shudder as their light was warped by the smoke. Lines were drawn across the sky, morphing until they formed…

“Um,” she called out behind her, not taking her eyes off the sky. “Chiara? Is there anything that looks like a spider over there?”

“What?” There was a moment of silence, before the sound of quiet cursing echoed behind her. “How did you see that?”

“I’m preforming divination!” she called back, her heart pounding in her chest as she wondered if this skill would finally be able to do something worthwhile. “I can see into the future! I can help you with… um, whatever you’re doing!”

“Well, can you see any further? I almost got caught!”

“…Uh, no. That’s as far as I can. Also, it looks like there’s now an eye? Wait, no, that’s a spiral, not an eye! …Does that help?”

“Yeah, barely!” There was another round of swearing, before she managed to get herself back under control. “What else do you see?”

The smoke flickered suddenly, starlight shifting. “Three… men? It looks like they’re beneath a circle. Wait, that’s the moon!”

“I see it! Wow. I didn’t need to see that. What next?”

The stars were now shifting almost too quickly to keep up, images forming and warping with each second. “Um… it looks like a cat? No, a snake with a cat’s head!”

“What? …Oh, I see. Faster, if you can, I just lost one.”

“Crap. Uh, a woman dancing!”

“Found her. Next?”

“Two mice and a dogs head!”

“See it, next!”

“A mountain! No, wait, a volcano!”

“No shit, I didn’t need divination for that. Next!”

“A dwarf falling over!”

“Dodged. Next!”

“A dragon!”

“A dragon…? Shit. I just lost several mice. And—there’s three more. I think we’ve been found out—I’m shattering all active copies. Ending—fuck!”

Chiara suddenly flinched, rocking back in her seat and slapping her hands over her eyes.

“Are you okay!?” Lorenzo rushed over to her, stopping her from completely falling over. “What happened?”

“I’m… fine…” Chiara grunted, rubbing her eyes with a scowl. “I just didn’t expect for the connection to be cut so suddenly. I had to shatter most of the visible copies, but I kept enough hidden that they shouldn’t be able to find. I’m more worried about the main one—it’s acting as a relay between me and the copies. If whoever smashed them knows where it is, I’ll lose everything I planted.”

“Do you need to hide it?” he asked worriedly. “Do you think they knew it was us?”

“I don’t think so,” Palmira called back, having never taken her eyes off the sky. “The dragon’s turned around and slunk away. I… don’t think it cares enough to follow through. Maybe. Hopefully.”

“That doesn’t comfort me as much as you might think it does,” Chiara grumbled, pushing stiff strands of hair away from her face. With a grunt she moved over to the bed, falling heavily onto it. “Not that we can do much right now. We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose.”

Palmira grimaced, but with Chiara stopping the stars seemed to settle back into their normal patterns, leaving her with nothing else to go off of. “I guess so.”

“What did you see,” Lorenzo pressed, coming up to sit on the side of the bed. “Anything important?”

“Nothing yet,” she grunted, rubbing her eyes. “This was mostly just getting them into position. I don’t know if we’ll even learn anything useful from this, but if anyone says anything incriminating over there, I’ll catch it. Probably. So long as they say it near my mice, at least.”

“Can you handle keeping that up for days?”

“Of course!” she scoffed, before wincing. “I mean, I’m not moving them anymore. The only sensory information I’m getting from them anymore is sight and sound, so it’s no longer as overwhelming. So long as I don’t fall asleep, I won’t miss anything.”

Lorenzo gave her a flat look. “The trial is in three—two days. Are you really saying you’re not planning to sleep for two days straight?”

“It won’t be that long,” she waved him off with a confidence she obviously didn’t feel. “Only until someone says something incriminating. …Well, incriminating in regards to the case. It hasn’t even been an hour yet and I’ve already seen enough stuff to blackmail half the aristocracy. Heh, maybe that can be our backup plan. What do you think?”

“I think that’s the kind of thing that’ll get us a shallow grave, not a court case,” he sighed, before standing up. “That said, I know you well enough to know when you’re being stubborn. I’ll head downstairs and grab you some coffee. If they have any, at least.”

“They’d better,” Chiara mumbled, further pressing both palms into her eyes. “With what we’re paying… ow…”

“Do you need anymore help?” Palmira fretted, shuffling over to her friend.

The other girl just waved her off, shaking her head as slowly as she could. “You’ve helped enough tonight. Just… ugh… stay quiet and let me concentrate…”

Palmira frowned, but nodded, awkwardly settling down on the edge of the bed. It was times like this she wished she was something other than a fire mage, if only to help ease the pain her friend was in.

Well, that’s what the Cosmology was for. And despite herself, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought. It had taken a while, and she still wasn’t all that good at it, but her first spell had finally been useful!

It probably wasn’t going to be any more use for a while after this, but she’d long since learned to take what wins she could. And, for all that it barely accomplished anything, she still counted this as a win. Step one of freeing the guildmaster was complete.

Now to figure out what step two was.