The Truth of the Mirror

Van Michaels

He walked softly, his suede-slippered feet no louder on the stone than a cat's paws. Slow, measured steps brought him back to his own chambers, the one spot in the palace where the King's Advisor might have a few hours alone.

"Alone?" the sardonic voice whispered in his mind without sound.

Laen Six-Eyes ignored the unasked-for commentary and let himself into his rooms. As he secured the massive door behind him, he pressed his palms to the wood as if in benediction: a prayer to keep the outside world out, if only until morning. He had fulfilled his duties without complaint, shadowing the King since shortly after dawn. Soon the bells would sound midnight; it had been a very long day.

"You know how I feel about it," drawled that voice, uncurling within his thoughts in the manner that foretold a lecture.

"Keep it," Laen growled aloud. "I am weary, demon. Weary to the bone. I have no patience for your bitching this night--I want only a bottle of wine and a small book, and then my lonely and sorely-missed bed."

"Arqíen wine, perhaps? Or will you settle for the flaccid grape that grows outside these walls, a more patriotic choice to be sure, though far less--"

Laen pounded his fist against the wall, just missing the shrouded frame that hung beside the door. "I said be still!"

"You said, 'Keep it,' and I have," replied the demon amiably. "This is my opinion on a different matter altogether. You did not, most certainly, command me to silence. Not that I would obey such a command."

Laen sighed, shook his head, then paced resignedly toward his reading chair. As he neared the fireplace he found himself drawn, as always, to the covered mirror above the mantel. His right hand stretched toward it as though greeting a lover.

Before his fingers could brush the velvet cloth he cursed and yanked his hand back as if burned.

"Why do you resist so, sorcerer?" The demon's voice had become soft, almost gentle. "All this time, and you still have never seen my likeness outside of artists' fancy. And yet you torture yourself with the means to do so. Why?"

"Do not fuck with me," Laen muttered, dropping into his chair and scrubbing his hand across his face. "We both know what you could do were I to look into your eyes, or had you conveniently forgotten that part?"

A dry chuckle informed him that no, the demon had not forgotten.

"Balls!" Laen pushed himself out of the chair again, annoyed at having so easily mislaid his plans for the evening. He unlocked the chest he used as a footstool and retrieved a rusty-glazed jug from inside it, then cast about for his favorite vessel.

The dearthwood cup waited teasingly upon the mantel.

"Figures." The young sorcerer steeled himself to ignore the mirror and only reach for the cup. He had to force his hand back from the velvet cloth twice before he completed his task.

"And yet you flirt," the demon murmured. "Dearthwood, dreamsmoke, mirrors in every room--you have spent more gold on the purchase of mirrors and the drapes to cover them than some men spend on whores!"

Now it was Laen's turn to laugh, a sharp snort that sounded more like a sneeze than any form of mirth. "It's my gold, what's the problem?"

"I should rather prefer the whores…"

Declining further comment, Laen settled back into his chair, cup in one hand and wine jug in the other. He uncorked the jug with his teeth and poured out a steady stream of pale violet.

"You know that's illegal."

"For pity's sake, shut up!" Laen snarled around the cork before spitting the thing to the floor. "First I have to put up with His Royalness all gods'-damned day, and now you! What must I do to have some time to myself?"

"You wound me. Why don't you look me in the eyes and say that?"

Shaking his head by way of answer, Laen raised the cup to his lips and drank deeply. The dearthwood lent an acrid, almost smoky, tang as its venom mingled with the sweet wine. Soon he would sleep, and for those few hours, the demon could rave all he wished and Laen would not hear a word of it.

"Raving, am I? When you yourself said--"

"Enough! Or must I take a poker to my own skull to shut you up?"

"That is little enough to what they would do if they found out, you know. And you also know that I have the right of it."

Laen's hand shook as he raised the cup for another swallow. He willed the potion to erase his memory of that lapse, that slip, but he knew the futility of this: dearthwood brings dreams, not forgetfulness. Besides, the thrice-damned demon living in his spirit's shadow would never let it be forgotten. "I am not a Revisionist," he breathed, daring to speak the word aloud only here in the sanctuary of his sitting room.

"Then what are you? I know of no word that means 'to serve the thief who has stolen a kingdom'."

A low sob broke free from the sorcerer's throat, the sound one of mingled terror and despair. "If you push me to misspeak, demon, and any other than you should hear it, we shall both be executed. Do you understand me?"

"They can't destroy me."

"They can destroy me!" Cup in one hand, wine jug in the other, Laen rose and paced violently back and forth across his sitting room, the movement for all its silent intensity like a caged beast. "I should never have listened to you. I should never have allowed the bonding. Now I am caught so thoroughly, I may as well just slit my own throat as wait for them to do it for me."

"Laen."

The sorcerer paused; the demon rarely used his given name. "What?"

"Look into my eyes, and they will never lay a finger on you."

Laen reeled slightly as the implications of such a pact rolled through him--or was that the wine? Whatever it was left his rooms tilted at an off angle and his head feeling rather disconnected. "A bargain, demon? With dearthwood? You're mad."

"Am I? Fancy that, with you being the one to consider such a thing."

"Don't mock me," Laen hissed. "You know the covenant. It wouldn't be binding."

"Perhaps that," murmured the demon, his voice smooth as silk, "is the whole point."

"Madness," Laen grumbled, leaning his back against the stonework. He raised his cup in a flippant toast, then drained it. "Demons don't do charity."

"Hardly that. It's quite simple, really. There is something that I want, and it requires your continued safety," the demon stated blandly. "And your trust, but I don't expect that to be a quick thing."

"Right. Only that, then? My safety, which you will ensure, and my trust, which, what? I shall come to grant you once I realize how noble you're being?" The sorcerer debated refilling his wine cup, only to discover he had already done so. He frowned down at it before taking another cautious sip.

The demon's voice came soft as he replied, "Only that, Laen. My word, my bond. As it has always been."

Laen sighed into his cup, his breath stirring the heady scent of the envenomed wine. "Can't well argue with that. But what is it you want, that requires my safety?"

"That I cannot tell you at this time. It is not anything that you will have to participate in, only something that I wish to experience, and I do not wish to experience it from the Shadow Realms."

"Not something I have to do, only carry you to it, then? My safety is for the convenience of your conveyance?" He debated a moment longer before snorting a laugh and stating, "Very well, I'll take you at your word. It does seem the best offer I've had in years. Only, get on with it, demon. I shall soon be for my bed, and I doubt I shall even remember this conversation come morning."

When the demon spoke again, his voice rolled like distant thunder. "We will need a mirror…"

Laen tried to ignore a chill of excitement as he pushed himself away from the wall. "A mirror," he echoed, setting cup and wine jug carefully on the mantel. "Just one?"

Bare inches away, the small gilt-framed mirror waited patiently; its midnight velvet coat seemed to drink in the candle-light, casting itself in a deeper darkness. Laen regarded it a moment, then shook his head. "Too small."

The sorcerer padded counterclockwise around his sitting room, pausing at the bookshelf. Tucked between random pairs of books, three mirrors languished in their expensive bindings, looking for all the world like the spines of diaries. Laen dismissed them with barely a thought. "Still too small."

Hidden in the corner behind the door hinges, a tall, thin mirror hung alone, seemingly abandoned by the rest of Laen's effects. Its faded tapestry cover, bleached pale around the edges of the frame, attested to its age and disuse. "Too narrow."

Wandering dreamily through his apartment, Laen considered each hidden mirror only to pass by each one in turn. "Too dark; too blurry; cracked."

A dozen.

Two dozen.

Finally, palms damp with sweat, he stood before the silver-framed behemoth in his bed chamber, its worn leather jacket dim with dust. He had methodically ruled out all the other mirrors, postponing this moment for as long as he could manage, though he knew he had already decided when the offer was first made. "This one," Laen whispered, caressing the leather, unmindful of the grime. "Six years I have not seen my own reflection. Six years, demon. I will face you in my granddam's legacy, the only thing from my former life I have seen fit to keep."

"A wise choice. She was quite the powerful conjurer in her youth," purred the demon, so close behind his ear Laen swore he could feel the heat of his breath. "The bargain is this: look into my eyes, sorcerer; look without fear in your heart. Hear what I have to tell you, for it will be only the truth. Carry me with you for so long as you live, no matter what risks you may perceive, and I swear to you in blood: you will need fear no mirror, nor king, nor sword--save one. Is the bargain struck?"

Laen licked his lips; between his excitement and the dearthwood venom, they felt cold and dry. He raised his hand to grip the top edge of the leather sheath. "It is so struck."

He dragged the cover off and let it fall at his feet.

The massive mirror seemed at first to have fogged with age: the edges of the glass blended with the frame in a spatter of tarnish.

Laen breathed slowly, deeply. The dearthwood and wine were making his head spin. He fully expected to wake in his bed or his chair and find that the whole incident had been but a dream.

The mirror cleared.

A pale face framed with shaggy ginger hair peered out at him, eyes dark and distant. Laen's hand lifted to his own face, and he watched with wonder as the figure in the mirror neatly mimicked the movement in reverse. "That's me," he whispered stupidly. He studied his own reflection, taking in the deeply creased forehead, the downturned mouth, those haunted eyes. "This is what I look like?"

"Unjust service does that."

The voice sent chills through him, starting at the nape of his neck and scurrying down his limbs like mice. As Laen watched, a second image began to take shape behind his own.

Towering over his reflection, the demon stood with arms folded as though waiting to be noticed. Deep crimson silk rippled at his throat and along his arms, flowing from beneath dark scale armor like blood. A war skirt of hammered bronze covered his hips and thighs; the rest below was lost to shadow.

Laen forced his gaze upward again, over the armor and silk toward the face.

A strong, dark chin underscored the grinning mouth; yellow-ivory tusks jutted up from the lower jaw, denting the thick flesh of the upper lip where they pressed. Skin the color of slate bulged across broad cheekbones, wrinkled upon the wide brow and framed the whole of his face with deep, expressive creases.

On either side of a rather high-set and aquiline nose, two rows of amber eyes blinked slowly, top pair first.

Laen reeled slightly. He knew it was stupid of him to react at all to the demon's appearance, as he had been shown sketches of him at the time they had first bonded. Still, seeing him like this left the sorcerer feeling less than steady as all his instincts screamed that he had just done something incredibly stupid.

Powerful hands gripped his shoulders, and he startled. Seeing the action in the mirror and feeling it at the same time did not seem right for some reason Laen could no longer define. The hands holding him were a darker blue-gray, the fingers long and thick and tipped with gracefully curved talons of an almost translucent hue. The strength of their grasp was aided by a second thumb on each hand: the pictures had never shown that detail.

Something else about the touch unnerved Laen, though he still could not quite fathom what. "All right, I've done it. I am facing you through a mirror. I did not give you permission to touch me, demon."

A soft laugh told him more than words that he should have been more specific: "You did not forbid, either, and this is not something governed by the covenant."

The touch turned into a caress, talons grazing delicately across the sorcerer's collarbone. The sensation traveled cleanly through his shirt though the claws did not so much as scuff the fabric. Laen shivered; his eyes slipped shut.

"Open your eyes," the demon whispered. "No fear…"

Laen struggled against the narcotic pull of the drugged wine. Numb warmth seemed to fill him, starting in his fingertips and rolling up toward his head. He opened his eyes slowly and wondered momentarily why he couldn't seem to focus.

"Dearthwood is poison," stated the demon blandly. "I think my first task will have to be… yes, I'm afraid it will…"

Electric fire coursed through Laen's skin to sink deep into his bones. The pain struck so quickly he made no sound, only a startled grunt as the air rushed out of his lungs, leaving him faint. He sank to his knees, one hand reaching out to the mirror in supplication as agony raced through him.

As quickly as it had come, the pain stopped, replaced with the gentle coolness of a springtime glade.

"What--" Laen's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "What did you do to me?"

"I will not allow you to poison yourself, sorcerer. It is contrary to our bargain."

Laen blinked. The heavy fog had lifted from his sight, taking with it the fuzzy warmth that had hinted at lethal dosage. He had truly skirted the edge tonight, a territory all too familiar in these past months. "You… the dearthwood? It's gone?"

"You will not die this night."

"You did this to gain my trust?" Laen murmured, uncertain how he would receive the answer.

But the demon surprised him. "No. I did it to buy a little time."

Suspicion propelled the sorcerer to his feet. "Time? Time for what?"

"To sell the bargain, of course. And do not forget, from this point forward, all is binding."

Laen glanced reflexively at the demon's face in the mirror, though he instantly cursed himself for a fool.

The four golden eyes were closed, remained so for several heartbeats.

When they opened again, Laen met their gaze unflinching. "The truth, you said. You would tell me the truth, and presumably it would convince me to accept your offer. I'm listening."

The demon smiled. "Very well. Your truth, sorcerer Laen, is this: your vows came easy to you, for they hold no temptation. The women of court do not appeal to you, nor would they were you not of the brotherhood. Furthermore, you spend more time fantasizing about--"

"Wait!" Laen cried, blushing crimson with embarrassment and rage. "What truth is this?"

Tusks flashed as the demon grinned wide. "Ah, so it is a known truth. My mistake. And here I thought you were simply unaware of your own desires. Understandable, given how easy it is for you to cast them aside in the name of service."

"I said don't mock me!" Laen's hands balled into fists; his slender frame shook with fury. "You know the views of the king, of his cronies! The safest place to hide is right beside him, under the mantle of a bonded sorcerer!"

"Indeed, it is the safest place to hide many things."

Laen became quite still as the demon's words struck true. "Queer I may be," he whispered, "but again I say I am no Revisionist. I am not a traitor. I do not harbor rebellion in my breast."

"But you do. Surely you are not unaware of the true cost of Arqíen wine, sorcerer? The cost in blood that your gold secures with each bottle smuggled across the border?"

"No…"

Powerful arms wrapped around Laen from behind, embracing him tightly. "Yes. And I bless you for it."

Laen gasped softly. "You… what?"

Warm lips pressed just beneath his ear, the tusk surprisingly cool against his skin as the demon whispered, "My kind are slaves in this kingdom, captured and bonded to ambitious men, traded and sold for power. In Arqii, we are honored Princes, forces of nature that man was never meant to cage. That you share my heart in this war tells me that you, Laen, are worth saving."

The young sorcerer frowned, uncertain. "Your kind serve the enemy too?"

"Not serve. Protect. And they are not your enemy, only the enemy of this man who calls himself king." Talons tickled lightly down Laen's sides as the demon added, "As are you."

"You're trying to confuse me," Laen murmured. "I won't--"

"You confuse yourself with presumptions," replied the demon. "What do you want from me?"

Conflicting thoughts bounded through the sorcerer's mind, ricocheting off one another in a mad dash. He blinked and tried to sort out the reasonable from the hysterical.

Massive hands gently untied Laen's shirt, eased it open. "How can you think clearly, when you haven't even seen your own skin in half a cycle?"

Bemused, Laen allowed this touch. He watched his reflection as cloth fell away from his chest, baring smooth pale skin dusted with freckles. He still had the form of an older boy, the only sign of maturity a delicate trail of hair running downward from his navel over youth-soft flesh.

Laen's mind reeled in confusion. He knew that this situation had gotten entirely out of bounds, yet one of his wild thoughts insisted that this was precisely what he wanted.

Another of the thoughts reminded him that giving control to the demon in this manner was an invitation to disaster. "All right, stop," Laen gasped as the clawed hand began to drift lower. "You have gone too far, demon!"

"On the contrary. I have hardly gone far enough." Gripping Laen's jaw with his right hand, the demon tipped the sorcerer's head back and kissed him full on the mouth.

Memories flashed through Laen's mind, moments enshrined forever in his most secret musings: curiosity shared with another boy in the garden; moments stolen with his mentor beneath a model of the spheres; temptation answered at the border with a sheen of Arqíen sweat. Laen moaned against the kiss.

As quickly as it had come, the pressure upon his lips vanished. "Truth. You are more alone than you can bear. Truth. If things do not change in this kingdom, you will remain alone, except for me. Truth. You need not be alone."

"What are you offering me?"

"I can be your companion, until such time as we both are free. None will have to know, and your human heart will not continue to erode. Don't think I haven't noticed: dearthwood addiction, desperate fantasies, that gnawing sense of betrayal growing every single day." The demon held him tightly, gently, reassuringly. "You are not alone, Laen."

Body weary and yet so hungry for touch, Laen licked his lips and whispered, "Don't hurt me," though he had already consigned himself to whatever fate the demon had in mind: isolation had indeed taken its toll.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Those powerful hands brushed across the sorcerer's chest, then down over his belly, tickling ever so lightly. The left hand reversed direction to glide back up the chest, talons awakening the nerves to a fever pitch, while the right hand continued lower.

Laen gasped, his hips jerking forward to press him into the demon's palm.

A fine sharpness brought his attention back up to his left nipple, now caught between three deliberate claws; the moment the sorcerer focused on that sensation, the demon gripped Laen's hardness through his trousers and squeezed.

Laen cried out in mingled surprise and encouragement. He let his weight fall back against the demon's solidness--a solidness that should not be physically possible. For a moment he almost flailed before he realized he was actually being propped up from behind. "How can you--I mean, if I turn around, will I even see you?" he gasped.

The demon laughed softly. "That… is my secret." He unfastened Laen's trousers and eased him out, palming the length before wrapping his overlarge hand around it and tugging. "You don't want to turn around, do you?"

Laen briefly imagined turning and the demon dropping to his knees. "I might!"

"Perhaps another time," the demon said not unkindly. "We have yet to seal our bargain, after all." He stroked again, slowly. "Though, I don't mind if you entertain the thought."

Laen groaned and tried to thrust into that hand, to get more stimulation.

The demon kept on at a slow and steady pace.

Maddeningly slow.

"Gods!" Laen gasped. "Get me there, already!"

"Give me your hand," commanded the demon. "Up, toward my face. And, keep your eyes open."

Laen did as instructed, gripping the demon's arm with one hand and raising the other over his own head. He watched the demon's smile grow wider, mouth opening to take Laen's fingers in. Wet heat closed around his fingers; the tongue pressing and caressing them made its intentions quite plain, and Laen felt his knees go weak as he imagined that mouth sucking elsewhere.

The demon gripped the sorcerer's fingers gently with his teeth and chuckled. He let his strokes glide faster over heated flesh, urging him onward now; every time the demon's hand reached the head of Laen's cock, his tongue swept precisely across the trapped fingertips.

Images galloped through Laen's mind, memories and fantasies and a few fantastic mistakes. His body trembled under the rush of sensation as he tried to reconcile the feeling of tongue on fingers with his hard and aching cock.

"Open your eyes."

Laen again did as instructed.

In the mirror, a young Arqí smuggler knelt before him, mouth eager, tongue wet. Laen watched himself thrust into that mouth, felt the heat of it, felt the slick wetness and the suction and he groaned as he began to shoot down this stranger's throat, his body trembling with long-denied release. He felt the deliberate pressure milking him, sucking the last drops of pleasure from his flesh. He wondered briefly what it would be like if this could go on forever, suspending him in bliss, and for a few lost seconds he existed only as a heartbeat.

Then the solidness of the demon grounded him, anchoring him to the moment.

The air around him smelled of musk, sharp and distinct and not his own scent. Laen reclaimed his hand and wiped it absently on his shirt. "Thank you, demon," he murmured, suddenly quite unsure of the situation and his place in it.

"It was my pleasure," the demon replied, laughter in his voice. He raised his own hand to lick the sorcerer's seed from it.

Laen took the moment to tuck himself away and pull his shirt back into place, though he declined to fasten either it or his trousers. "What now?"

"Now?" echoed the demon. "All things. You have shown me your trust, as I asked you for, and so I consider the bargain sealed. Your life is my charge."

"Shall I cover the mirror, then?"

"Not quite yet… There is one more truth I wish to show you."

Laen considered the demon openly. "Another truth?"

"My truth."

The mirror's surface seemed to ripple and flow like water. As it slowly settled it shone silver, hinting at a depth not usually found in a simple reflection.

As though the viewer were moving swiftly backward, the image pulled away, revealing the silver as a man's hair: Gïordan Mathos, war mage and nephew of the king. He knelt, head bowed, hair falling in a curtain to either side of his neck.

Laen frowned. "General Mathos? Your truth? What are you telling me, demon?"

"Only this, sorcerer." The demon gestured once more at the mirror. "Behold the future."

Within the mirror, a flash of steel like lightning. Fine silver hair rippled with the breeze of its passing, lingered upon the shoulders until the weight of the severed head pulled it free like a falling banner.

"Dear gods!" Laen cried out, flinching away from the grisly image.

"Look again."

Again Gïordan Mathos knelt, hair falling across his shoulders like a priest's vestment. Slender hands lowered a crown to rest upon Gïordan's bowed head.

"The truth is this," whispered the demon. "Two futures. Two dreams. One is mine."

Outside, the bells rang midnight, marking the first thought of a new day.

Van Michaels lives in Michigan with his life-partner and their five feline children. When he's not parked at the computer, he can often be found behind a pair of birdwatching binoculars, and he can always be bribed with fudge. This is his second story for Thaneros, Heat of Battle being the first. They are set within the same world.