Through the Ancient Mirror
The village disappeared before Kaylor completed his first step.
Sunlight vanished.
The road beneath him became glass.
A voice entered his mind with enough force to drive every other thought away.
Do you believe you have ruined my plans?
The threat did not come from any direction. It spoke from inside his skull, beneath his memories and behind his eyes.
You shall pay.
The mirror closed behind him.
Kaylor turned.
The doorway to Krinrith was gone.
In its place stood another seamless wall of polished crystal, reflecting the six heroes in perfect detail.
No Telmari.
No wizards.
No damaged Sanctum.
No way back.
The chamber surrounding them was enormous.
Its floor was a single dark mirror stretching from wall to wall. Jagged crystal formations rose from it like frozen waves, every surface reflecting another surface until the room seemed to continue forever.
The ceiling was mirrored as well.
Kaylor looked up and saw himself standing beneath his own boots.
Beyond that reflection appeared another Kaylor, and another, receding upward through an impossible distance.
Each carried his axe.
Each lacked the Sanctum insignia.
Each stared back with the same anger.
Nethnarel turned slowly.
Hundreds of tieflings turned with her.
“This is not the village.”
“No,” Grazim said.
His voice returned from every wall.
No.
No.
No.
The echoes continued after he had stopped speaking.
Isamu tested the floor with one foot.
It held his weight.
The surface was not merely polished stone. Beneath the glass lay depth without any visible bottom.
“This is becoming a habit,” he said.
Hexen crouched and pressed one hand against the floor.
“What is?”
“Entering something that shows us one place and delivers us somewhere considerably worse.”
“The door beneath Joraya did not show us anything.”
“It showed us a door.”
“That is what doors do.”
Fendor turned toward the wall where the portal had vanished.
The Oathbow remained in his hand.
“Can it be reopened?”
Nethnarel approached the smooth surface.
Magic moved through it, but not in any pattern she understood. The entire room seemed to be part of the same enchantment.
“I do not know.”
Kaylor looked into his nearest reflection.
The image copied him perfectly.
No delay.
No distortion.
Nothing hidden beneath the face.
“Whoever spoke believes we interfered with its plans.”
“Craven’s ally?” Grazim asked.
“Or the power behind the mirror,” Nethnarel said.
“Craven found this object,” Fendor replied. “That does not mean he controlled it.”
The voice had said my plans.
Not Craven’s.
Whatever waited inside the mirror regarded the fallen wizard as a servant, partner or inconvenience.
Kaylor raised his axe.
“Show yourself and prepare to meet my wrath.”
His challenge crossed the chamber.
The reflections repeated the movement.
A hundred Kaylors lifted a hundred axes.
Nothing answered.
Isamu looked toward him.
“That usually works?”
“Sometimes.”
A flicker moved beneath the floor.
Fendor saw it first.
His bow rose.
Something passed below them.
Not a reflection.
A shape moved through the depth beneath the glass as easily as a fish beneath water. It traveled too quickly for Fendor to follow, leaving only a brief distortion in the mirrored surface.
“There,” he said.
The others spread apart.
Another shape moved beneath Hexen.
The druid stepped away.
It turned beneath the glass and followed him.
Nethnarel looked down.
For one heartbeat, she saw a humanoid face staring upward from below her feet.
Then it vanished.
Kaylor lifted one hand.
“No magic until we know what they are.”
The floor erupted.
A humanoid figure rose directly in front of him.
It did not break the glass.
The creature passed through it.
Its body resembled a man sculpted from mirrored shards. Every surface reflected Kaylor’s armor in fragments. It possessed no clothing and no visible weapon.
The creature raised one arm.
Splinters tore themselves from its body and launched toward Kaylor.
He brought up his shield.
Several shattered against it.
Others passed around the edge and struck his armor. Thin glass blades entered through joints in the plates and broke inside the wounds.
Before Kaylor could answer, the creature dropped through the floor.
It disappeared beneath the mirrored surface.
Another rose near Fendor.
Shards crossed the room.
Fendor twisted away from the first volley. The second caught him across the shoulder and side, cutting through cloak and armor.
A third creature appeared behind Isamu.
Its body opened in dozens of places.
Glass fragments fired from it like arrows.
Isamu moved both hands.
One shard struck his bracer and changed direction.
Another passed close enough to cut a line across his cheek.
He turned with it, caught the fragment between two fingers and released it behind him.
It shattered against the floor.
Hexen had less warning.
A mirror creature surfaced beside him and launched its shards at nearly touching distance.
One struck with enough force to drive the druid backward.
Blood ran down his side.
More shapes moved beneath the floor.
Not four.
Many.
Kaylor struck the creature nearest him before it could submerge.
The Dancing Sword attacked from one side.
His Sword of Sharpness came from the other.
The larger blade opened a bright fracture across the creature’s chest.
Power flowed through Kaylor’s attack.
The mirror answered.
Pain cut across Kaylor’s own body.
The same force he had driven into the creature returned through the sword and entered him.
He staggered.
The mirror creature had suffered the wound.
So had he.
Nethnarel saw it.
“Your magic reflected.”
“Not all of it.”
Kaylor looked at the cut across the creature.
The physical blow remained.
The extra power surrounding it had returned to him.
The mirror man raised its arm.
Kaylor hit it again before it could fire.
He held back the darker force of his Vicious Smite.
Steel struck glass.
The damage did not return.
“Their bodies reflect enchantment,” he said. “Not ordinary force.”
Hexen raised both hands.
A churning mass of insects appeared among three creatures.
The swarm filled a wide section of the chamber, covering mirrored bodies in biting wings and dark shapes.
The creatures had nowhere to retreat except beneath the floor.
They tried.
The insects followed the parts of their bodies that remained above the surface.
The spell tore through them.
Hexen cried out.
Invisible bites opened across his own body.
Blood appeared along his arms and face.
Every part of the spell that harmed the mirror creatures returned to its caster.
The insect cloud remained.
So did the pain.
Hexen’s body expanded.
Skin became stone.
Within moments, an earth elemental stood where the druid had been, broad enough to block much of the chamber.
The wounds remained carved into his stony form.
“Perhaps,” Isamu said, “we should stop attacking them with magic.”
The earth elemental looked down at him.
“That would have been useful sooner.”
“You cast the spell very quickly.”
A mirror man surfaced near Nethnarel.
She moved before it could fire.
Telekinesis seized the creature and tore it from the floor.
For the first time, one of the creatures appeared surprised.
It struggled in the air.
Nethnarel lifted it thirty feet.
Then higher.
Its body reflected the entire chamber as it rose, becoming a moving fragment of the mirrored ceiling.
“It cannot swim through air,” she said.
Another creature appeared below her.
Kaylor intercepted it.
Its shards struck his shield and scattered.
Fendor fired.
Three arrows crossed the chamber.
Two entered the mirrored creature’s chest.
The third missed, curved in flight and struck another creature rising behind Grazim.
Fendor felt only a faint sting of returned force.
Most of the Oathbow’s damage came from the arrows themselves, not the enchantment surrounding them.
“That is tolerable,” he said.
Grazim charged the mirror man struck by Fendor.
The war-priest led with his shield.
Its edge hit the creature squarely and threw it onto its back.
The mirror man struck the floor without passing through.
For an instant, it appeared trapped upon its own surface.
Grazim lifted his hammer.
He hesitated.
The Warhammer of Disruption was one of the most strongly enchanted weapons among them.
The creature began to rise.
Grazim swung.
The hammer struck the mirrored chest.
Cracks spread through the creature.
The force returned through the weapon and slammed into Grazim.
He remained standing.
The mirror man did not.
Its body shattered into hundreds of pieces.
The fragments struck the floor, melted into the glass and vanished.
Grazim looked at the blood running beneath his armor.
“Effective.”
Isamu glanced at him.
“Do you have more of those?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
More mirror men surfaced.
One rose from the wall rather than the floor.
It emerged sideways, fired at Nethnarel and slipped back into the reflection before she could seize it.
Another swam beneath Kaylor.
He watched the shadow approaching.
When it surfaced, he opened his jaws.
Frost covered the creature.
The mirror man staggered as ice spread across its body.
Kaylor waited for the cold to return to him.
Nothing happened.
“Breath is safe.”
“Because it is part of you,” Nethnarel said.
“Most of my attacks are part of me,” Isamu replied.
He drew the plain rapier he had retained alongside his enchanted weapons.
The next mirror creature rose in front of him.
Isamu attacked.
The rapier entered its side.
His palm struck the cracked surface.
Then his elbow.
The creature tried to submerge.
Isamu drove a heel into its chest and forced it away from the floor.
No reflected force reached him.
The monk smiled.
“I prefer enemies that punish unnecessary complications.”
A volley of shards came from beneath the wall.
Isamu turned toward it.
He moved through the glittering fragments, allowing most to pass around him. One reached his chest.
He struck it aside with his bracer.
The redirected shard entered the mirror man that had fired it.
The creature looked down at the piece of itself embedded in its body.
Isamu attacked again.
Hexen’s insect plague continued grinding through two creatures.
Both tried to leave the spell.
One submerged and appeared beyond it.
The other remained too long.
Its body broke apart.
The reflected magic struck Hexen again.
A section of stone cracked from his elemental shoulder.
He held the spell.
“You may release it,” Grazim said.
“I am aware.”
“The creatures are nearly dead.”
“I am also aware.”
“Then why—”
“Because they are nearly dead.”
The remaining mirror man inside the swarm collapsed.
Hexen ended the spell.
The insects disappeared.
The sudden silence lasted less than a heartbeat.
Two more creatures rose behind Fendor.
One fired.
Glass struck his back.
The second emerged directly beneath him.
Fendor jumped aside and brought the Oathbow down like a staff, striking the creature across the face before gaining enough distance to fire.
His first arrow entered its throat.
The second shattered one shoulder.
The mirror creature fell apart.
Only a small fraction of the bow’s enchantment returned to him.
Fendor looked toward Kaylor.
“Use the steel. Avoid the power.”
Kaylor cut another creature down without calling upon a Smite.
It took longer.
It hurt less.
Nethnarel still held her captured mirror man above the chamber.
She raised it until the creature nearly touched the mirrored ceiling.
Eighty feet.
The mirror man struggled against the invisible force.
Its limbs moved as though trying to swim through air.
Nethnarel released it.
The creature fell.
Every reflection showed the descent.
A hundred identical bodies dropped from a hundred ceilings toward a hundred floors.
The real one struck the glass.
It shattered.
The pieces disappeared beneath the surface.
Isamu looked upward.
“That was excessive.”
“It was efficient.”
“You lifted it for a very long time.”
“I was making certain.”
A mirror man surfaced beside Kaylor and fired.
The first volley missed.
The second cut across his arm.
Kaylor returned with the axe.
The weapon’s frost enchantment flickered along the blade.
He stopped it before striking.
The ordinary edge bit into the creature.
The Dancing Sword followed, using only its sharpened steel.
The mirror man broke.
Another appeared near Grazim.
The cleric struck with his shield rather than the hammer.
The creature fell prone.
Fendor’s arrows entered it before it could recover.
Only two remained.
One swam beneath the mirrored floor toward Hexen.
The earth elemental waited.
When the creature rose, Hexen struck it with one stone fist.
The attack drove the mirror man backward.
He hit it again.
The glass body shattered without reflecting any magic.
The final creature appeared beside Isamu.
The monk’s first rapier attack missed.
His second passed across the mirror-smooth skin without finding purchase.
The creature fired at Grazim.
Shards struck the cleric’s shield and armor.
Isamu dropped the rapier.
He closed both hands.
One punch cracked the creature’s ribs.
The second widened the fracture.
The mirror man staggered.
Kaylor approached from behind it.
He lifted the Sword of Sharpness.
No Smite.
No aura.
No supernatural force.
Only the blade.
The strike divided the creature from shoulder to waist.
Fendor’s final arrow entered the opening.
The mirror man collapsed.
Its pieces sank into the floor.
The shadows moving beneath the chamber disappeared.
The room became still.
The heroes waited for another attack.
None came.
Isamu retrieved his rapier.
Nethnarel looked at the place where the last creature vanished.
“They reflected any magical force used against them.”
“Not the force that moved one,” Fendor said.
“The spell did not injure it.”
“The floor did.”
Nethnarel nodded.
Kaylor examined the cuts in his armor.
“Our enemy built a room that punishes the abilities we rely upon most.”
Grazim looked toward the wall.
“Then whoever controls this place has watched us.”
The mirrored surfaces reflected the six heroes.
No seventh figure appeared among them.
No sign of the speaker.
But the idea remained.
The chamber had not trapped random travelers.
It had been prepared for them.
They used what healing remained.
Kaylor placed his hands over his wounds and spent the last of the restorative strength he could easily call upon. Grazim divided his prayers among the others. Fendor released a quiet pulse from the Oathbow, easing the cuts opened by the flying shards.
Hexen returned to his natural form.
The reflected wounds remained, though the worst had closed.
“That was deeply unpleasant.”
“You kept the spell active,” Isamu said.
“It was effective.”
“So was dropping one.”
Nethnarel looked pleased.
They searched the chamber.
The crystal formations had no openings beneath them. Every wall reflected their approach. None contained a visible door.
Gygax ran along the base of the northern wall.
The mouse’s reflection followed.
Then another reflection appeared behind her.
Not another mouse.
A passage.
Gygax stopped.
Nethnarel crossed the room and placed one hand against the wall.
The reflection rippled.
Beyond it waited another chamber.
This mirror did not show their image. It looked through itself like a window.
Nethnarel closed her eyes and allowed Gygax to cross first.
The mouse slipped through the glass.
A new environment appeared through their connection.
The floor remained mirrored, but the chamber beyond rose through several levels. Narrow ramps and bridges climbed back and forth through open air, each one made from transparent glass.
The pathways had no rails.
No walls.
Nothing to prevent a traveler from sliding over the edge.
At the top of the distant ascent, darkness concealed whatever waited beyond.
Gygax returned.
“What did she see?” Kaylor asked.
“Glass ramps. Several levels. A long climb.”
“Enemies?”
“None visible.”
“Which means several,” Isamu said.
Kaylor approached the portal.
The first chamber had shown them enough of the mirror realm’s rules.
Surfaces were not barriers to its creatures.
Magic could become a weapon against its caster.
The doors showed places chosen to lure travelers onward.
Nothing in this realm could be trusted merely because it looked solid.
He stepped through.
The others followed.
The next chamber was colder.
The mirrored floor beneath their feet was almost perfectly smooth. Kaylor took one step and felt his boot slide farther than he intended.
Fendor caught a crystal formation beside him.
Grazim’s armor shifted dangerously as he tried to stop.
Isamu walked normally.
Hexen had cast Freedom of Movement upon him before they entered the mirror, and the magic still protected the monk from the treacherous surface.
Isamu turned.
The others were moving with slow, careful steps.
“Is there a problem?”
Kaylor glared at him.
“The floor.”
“It appears level.”
“It is glass.”
“Yes.”
Isamu moved several more steps without difficulty.
Nethnarel tested the first rising ramp.
It climbed at a steep angle, supported by nothing visible. The glass beneath it was transparent enough to see the floor far below.
Her boot slipped.
She caught herself with magic before falling.
“Ordinary movement will be difficult.”
Isamu stepped onto the incline and walked upward.
“I will scout.”
“No,” Kaylor said.
Isamu stopped.
“You are the only person who can move quickly,” Kaylor continued. “That makes you the person most likely to become separated.”
“That is an unexpectedly sensible observation.”
Fendor looked toward the ramps.
The pathways crossed above them in several switchbacks. Some sections vanished into darkness. Others reflected the heroes from below as they climbed, making it difficult to distinguish solid ground from open air.
Kaylor removed the frost-rimed axe.
He struck the edge of the nearest ramp.
The weapon rang against the glass.
No crack appeared.
He struck again.
Nothing.
“Solid,” he said.
“More solid than the mirror men?” Hexen asked.
“Considerably.”
A figure appeared higher upon the ramp.
Small.
Horned.
Wings folded behind its back.
It stood perhaps thirty feet above them, watching from the mirrored incline.
Another shape moved on the level beyond it.
Then another.
The first creature raised one hand.
Fire gathered.
Kaylor saw the ray coming.
It struck his chest.
Flame crossed his armor and rolled around him.
The old enchantment within the plate absorbed part of the heat, but not all.
More fire descended from the upper ramps.
One ray passed Grazim and exploded against the mirrored floor.
Another forced Hexen backward.
The little horned creature spread its wings.
A fiery spear appeared in its hands.
Kaylor lifted his axe.
The mirror realm had finished watching.
Now it intended to make them climb.