Mirror

Dangerous Friend

For three days we trekked through fields of wheat and the same green grass that grew in the the field between Cantery and the river. Though there was little new about the vegetation, the terrain did change, becoming more irregular. Within an hour we would hike up over the crest of a small hill and back down nearly a dozen times.

At a steady pace the distance between ourselves and the Glasshard mountains shortened. We could see the Cyrai forest carpeting the steep slopes up until the the thin air choked out all but the hardiest of trees. Then all that was left was bare gray rock. Thousands of layers of stone, ending in tall jagged peaks that rose sometimes as high as three thousand meters. That was where we intended to go. The Loguneleo mountain pass began at the gap between two formidable mountain peaks, both of which were already clearly visible from the rolling plains.

Those nights, since it was a weekend and a holiday from school, I stayed up into the small hours on Mirror studying the material Geera had gifted me. It was then that I felt the presence of my would-be shadow assassin most strongly.

"Where are you from?" I whispered into the darkness on the third night and then repeated the same question in Navah for practice.

May and Danny were curled up on either side on my legs. Chris, usually insistent on keeping a watch, had finally dozed off against his pack.

The reply came almost immediately from high in the branches of the tree we had decided to camp by. "Martar," he said quietly, "city of monsters."

I thought of his large clawed hand. "Who would give the city a name like that?" I asked.

"Visitors," he said blankly. "It is a suitable name, but the monsters aren't us."

At first I thought he might be referring to less sentient creatures than himself, but the undercurrent of disgust and anger in his voice made me think differently. That perhaps he meant people. "You've been hurt," I said as an immense grief swelled in my chest. I bit hard into my bottom lip to keep back tears.

"No," he replied shortly.

"Tell me about it?" I asked and immediately bit my tongue, feeling that the question was too invasive. "Uh, about your city," I said slowly and then quickly added on, "but y-you don't have to. Just, you know, if you want to."

He snorted. "I don't want to."

I felt my face heat up. "Y-yeah," I stuttered. "Sorry. I-"

"But, I think you should hear about it. In this world there are times when violence is the only answer."

He didn't tell me anything more that night about himself or his city, perhaps because he intended for me to think on it or perhaps because he was tired and wanted to sleep. Either way, I stayed awake through the night in Mirror watching the grass bend and sway with the soft wind and thought about Martar, the city saved by violence.

There was a sudden spike in temperature after the sun rose that morning so Chris and I decided that dragging May and Danny along for full day of walking in the shadeless prairie hills was be a bad idea. Instead, we hung around the in the patches of shade that were available, those cast by small trees with broad leaves.

I stood up and look back in the direction we had come, then shook my canteen and listened to the water slosh inside. It was almost empty. I sighed.