Reckless (Mirrorworld 1)

The field over which Hentzau and his soldiers were riding still reeked of blood. The rain had filled the trenches with a muddy sludge. Behind the walls both sides had built for their protection lay abandoned rifles and bullet-riddled helmets. Kami’en had the horse cadavers and the human corpses burnt before they began to rot, but the dead Goyl still lay where they had fallen. In just a few days, they would be all but indistinguishable from the rocks that protruded from the trampled earth, and the heads of those who had fought valiantly had already been sent to the main fortress, as was Goyl custom.

Another battle. Hentzau was tired of them, but he hoped that this would be the last one for a while. The Empress was finally ready to negotiate, and even Kami’en wanted peace. Hentzau covered his mouth as the wind blew the ash down from the hill where they had burnt the corpses. Six years aboveground, six years without the shelter of the rock between him and the sun. His eyes ached from all the light, and the air was again growing colder with every day, making his skin as brittle as chalk. Hentzau’s skin resembled brown jasper — not the finest color for a Goyl. Hentzau was the first jasper Goyl to have risen to the highest military ranks. But then again, before Kami’en the Goyl had never had a King, and Hentzau liked his skin. Jasper provided much better camouflage than onyx or moonstone.

Kami’en had set up camp not far from the battlefield, in the hunting lodge of an imperial general who, together with most of his officers, had died in the battle.

The sentries guarding the destroyed gate saluted as Hentzau rode past them. The King’s bloodhound. That’s what they called him. His jasper shadow. Hentzau had served under Kami’en since they had first challenged the other chiefs. It had taken two years for them to kill them all, and for the Goyl to get their first King.

The drive leading up to the lodge was lined with statues, and not for the first time did Hentzau note with amusement how humans immortalized their gods and heroes with stone effigies while loathing his kind for their skin. Even the Doughskins had to admit it: Stone was the only thing that lasted.

The windows of the lodge had been bricked up, just as in all the buildings the Goyl had occupied, but only when he descended the steps to the cellars did Hentzau finally feel the soothing darkness that could be found belowground. Just a few gas lamps lit the vaults that now housed, instead of supplies and dusty trophies, the general staff of the King of the Goyl.

Kami’en. In their language, it meant nothing more than “stone.” His father had governed one of the lower cities, but fathers did not count among the Goyl. It was the mothers who raised them, and by the age of nine Goyl were considered grown up and had to fend for themselves. At that age, most of them went to explore the Lower World, searching for undiscovered caves until the heat became too much even for their stone skins. Kami’en, however, had been interested only in the world above. For a long time, he had lived in one of the cave cities that had been built above-ground after the lower cities had become too crowded. There, he had survived two attacks by the humans, and that’s when he began to study their weapons and their tactics, snuck into their towns and military camps. He was nineteen when he conquered his first human city.

The guards waved Hentzau in. Kami’en was standing in front of a map showing his conquests and the positions of his enemies. The figurines representing their troops had been made to his specifications after he’d won his first battle. The Goyl were carved from carnelian, the imperials were cast in silver, Lotharaine wore gold, the eastern lords donned copper, and Albion’s troops marched in ivory. Soldiers, gunners, snipers, riders for the cavalry. Kami’en scrutinized them as if he were searching for a way to beat them all at once. He was wearing black, as he always did when he was out of uniform, and more than ever his pale red skin seemed to be made of fire. Never before had carnelian been the color of a leader. Onyx was the color of the Goyl elite.

Kami’en’s mistress was wearing green, as usual, layers of emerald velvet that enveloped her like the petals of a flower. Even the most beautiful Goyl woman would have paled next to her, like a pebble next to polished moonstone, but Hentzau always impressed upon his soldiers not to look at her for too long. Her beauty was like a spider’s venom, and not for nothing were there many stories of Fairies who, with a single glance, had turned men into thistles or helplessly wriggling fish. She and her sisters had been born of water, and Hentzau feared them as much as he feared the seas that gnawed at the rocks of his world.

The Fairy gave him a cursory glance as he entered. The Dark Fairy. The darkest of them all. Even her own sisters had cast her out. Many believed that she could read minds, but Hentzau didn’t think so. She would have long killed him for what he thought about her.

He turned his back on her and bowed his head to his King. “You summoned me.”

Kami’en took one of the silver figurines and weighed it in his hand. “I need you to find someone for me. A human who is growing petrified flesh.”

Hentzau cast a quick glance at the Fairy.

“Where should I start?” he replied. “There are already thousands of them.”

Man-Goyl. In the past, Hentzau had used his claws for killing, but now the spell of the Fairy let them sow petrified flesh. Like all Fairies, she could not bear children, so she gave Kami’en sons by letting every strike of his soldiers’ claws turn one of his human enemies into Goyl. Nobody fought with less mercy than a Man-Goyl fighting against his former race, but Hentzau despised them just as much as he despised the Fairy who had created them with her sorcery.

A smile had snuck onto Kami’en’s lips. No. The Fairy could not read Hentzau’s thoughts, but his King could.

“Don’t worry. The one I want you to find can be easily distinguished from the others.” Kami’en placed the silver figurine back on the map. “The skin he is growing is jade.”

The guards exchanged a quick look. Hentzau, however, just sneered. Lava-Men who boiled the blood of the earth, the eyeless bird that saw all, and the Goyl with the jade skin who gave invincibility to the King he served — stories told to children to fill the darkness underground.

“And which scout told you that?” Hentzau rubbed his aching skin. Soon the cold would have given it more cracks than fractured glass. “Have him executed. The Jade Goyl is a myth. Since when do you confuse myths with reality?”

The guards nervously ducked their heads. Any other Goyl would have paid for that remark with his life. Kami’en, however, just shrugged.

“Find him!” he said. “She dreamed of him.”

She. The Fairy smoothed the velvet of her dress. Six fingers on each hand. Each one for a different curse. Hentzau felt the rage rise in him. It was the rage they all bore in their stony flesh, like the heat in the depths of the earth. He would die for his King if necessary, but to have to search for the daydreams of his mistress was something else.

“You need no Jade Goyl to make yourself invincible!”

Kami’en eyed him like a stranger.

Your Majesty. Hentzau now often caught himself not wanting to call him by his name.

“Find him,” Kami’en repeated. “She says it’s important, and so far she’s always been right.”

The Fairy stepped to his side. Hentzau pictured himself squeezing her pale neck. But not even that gave him comfort. She was immortal, and one day she would watch him die. Him and the King. And Kami’en’s children and his children’s children. They all were nothing but her mortal stone toys. But the King loved her. More than his two Goyl wives, who had given him three daughters and a son.

Because she has hexed him! Hentzau heard a whisper inside him. But he bowed his head and pressed his fist over his heart. “Whatever you command!”

“I saw him in the black forest.” Even her voice sounded like water.

“That’s more than sixty square miles!”