Dark Mirror (17 page)

The men could run faster than she could, and they were gaining on her. Panting, she shot into another tunnel, then bolted into another. She didn’t bother with the color codes. What mattered was losing the devils pursuing her. She could figure out where she was after she was safely away.

“There she is!” Once more they had her in their sights.

Desperate, she raced into another passage. She wished she could douse the dim mage light she carried, but without it she risked running into a wall and cracking her skull. They’d have her then.

Another turn—and to her horror, she saw that this passage came to a dead end. There was nowhere else to go.

She wanted to cry. Scream. Pray. She closed her eyes for an instant, trying not to think of spending the rest of her years at Lackland locked into a cell every night.

No!
She opened her eyes, and saw that the tunnel now ended in a full-length silver mirror. Where the devil had that come from? She would have sworn that it wasn’t there a moment ago. The mirror was almost as wide and tall as the passage, and the shining surface reflected her and the dim light in her hand as she pounded toward it.

“She must’ve turned down that one!” the hoarse voice shouted.

Tory slowed as she approached the mirror, reaching out in the hope she could move it to one side and hide behind it. She touched the surface, it turned black as an abyss …

… and she fell into hell.

CHAPTER 18

Lackland, WWII

Tory tumbled helplessly forward into darkness. She was falling, falling, being torn into screaming pieces.…

She slammed hard to the ground and the world turned dark.

*   *   *

Awareness returned with patchy slowness. Cold, damp stone under her belly. Absolute blackness. Shivering and disoriented, she tried to understand what had happened. Where the devil was she? She could no longer hear sounds of pursuit. There was only darkness and silence.

She must still be in the tunnel. The ground beneath her had the slightly irregular texture of chalk, and the air held a familiar damp coolness. So she must be in the Labyrinth. If she’d been unconscious for a while, the raiders might have left by now.

There had been a mirror, and touching the surface seemed to have transported her to this place. Was the mirror a magical portal to safety? Slowly she pushed herself to a sitting position and felt around. Her fingertips brushed a chalk wall, but she couldn’t find the mirror.

Her stomach was queasy, and she’d have some dramatic bruises in the morning, but no serious damage had been done despite those horrifying moments when she thought she was being ripped apart. She closed her eyes and pulled her jagged energy into her center. When she had her balance, she used the heat magic she’d learned from Alice Ripley to warm herself to a more comfortable temperature.

Since there was still no sound from the raiders, she created a mage lamp, keeping it dim just in case. The light confirmed that she was in a Labyrinth tunnel, though this one looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. Dust made a gritty layer on the floor and no footprints marked it. There was no sign of the mirror.

The portal must have moved her into a disused passage. She prayed it wasn’t sealed. No, she could feel a faint current of air moving through. She got to her feet and moved toward the source of the air, all senses at full alert.

She was relieved to come to a cross tunnel, but she couldn’t see a color code patch. This passage must not be part of the main Labyrinth.

She kept moving ahead. At the next intersection, she looked for the color code again. Nothing. This time she stretched up and touched the spot where the colors were usually found.

A glow appeared, so faint that she wasn’t sure of the color. It might be blue, gray, or even silver. The magic had faded to almost nothing, but even so, it was comforting. She sent power to the patch, renewing the color to a recognizable blue so she could find her way back later.

She turned into the cross passage since it had the color code. She was still moving through undisturbed dust, leaving small, neat tracks. If anyone followed, she would be easy to find. But she didn’t have the feeling there was anyone down here.

She was relieved again when the tunnel ended in a flight of dusty steps leading upward. The steps looked familiar, yet the dust proved it wasn’t a passage that her fellow magelings used regularly. She climbed to the landing and touched the color coding area.

There was a dim glow of color and the door creaked, but it didn’t open. Tory frowned. There had been mages among the raiders; they’d proved it by having mage lights. Could they have performed some great sorcery that sucked most of the magic out of the Labyrinth? She’d never heard of such a thing, but the early religious orders had managed to concentrate Lackland’s magic below the surface, so perhaps the process could have been reversed.

She touched the magical patch again, this time pouring her own power into it. Groaning horribly, the heavy door opened in a series of small jerks. She darted through as soon as the gap was wide enough. She didn’t want to be in the Labyrinth if the magic failed entirely and the door closed again.

She stepped into what seemed like a stone cellar, except there was no roof overhead. It was still night, so she hadn’t been unconscious for too long. Cool moonlight illuminated piles of rubble on the floor. The cellar didn’t look at all familiar. Perhaps she’d come up on the boys’ side.

She looked up into the sky and frowned. Wasn’t the moon only starting to wax? It should have been just a crescent, but the moon over her head was nearly full. She must have been so busy with school and the Irregulars that she’d lost track of the moon phases.

Still, it was convenient that the moon was bright enough to light her way out of the cellar. She let the mage lamp fade out. Since she didn’t know where she was, it was best not to draw attention.

Carefully, she picked her way around the fallen stones that cluttered the cellar. This building hadn’t been used in a very long time.

The steps on the other side were stone and solid, so she started to climb. The air was warmer than when she’d come down at the beginning of the evening.

Halfway up, she stopped in her tracks, her skin crawling with unease. The air didn’t smell or feel like October. The wind was scented with new growth, not the dying leaves of autumn. This night smelled of spring.

She remembered tales of fairyland, where mortals slept years away after being enchanted. But she hadn’t been enchanted, she’d been chased. Trying to keep her imagination in check, she resumed climbing. At the top of the steps, she looked around.

Lackland Abbey lay in ruins.

She caught her breath in disbelief. How could this have happened in a matter of hours? The general shape of the buildings was recognizable, including the tower of the chapel, but the roofs had caved in and walls had tumbled. It looked as if she’d come up through the cellar of the old refectory, though it was hard to say for sure.

Panic rose in her, swift and paralyzing. She forced it down. There was no obvious threat here. There was
nothing
here.

But the moon and the season and the ruins could not be denied. She was in a different time.

Fighting to master her fear, she headed toward the main gate. She would walk to the village. The school might have closed down and its stones been cannibalized for use elsewhere, but surely the village still existed. Even if years had passed, Jack Rainford or the other local Irregulars would remember her and offer help.

She almost stumbled into a jagged pit that had taken a huge bite out of the main drive. The moonlight saved her by revealing the danger just in time. She stared down, wondering what could have created such a large, raw hole. The scent of the earth was fresh.

Dear heaven, had the French invaded and this crater was from the impact of cannon? What had happened? Where in time was she?

Lackland village. She prayed she’d find answers there.

The long drive was mostly overgrown with grass and the lock on the small door set into the large front gates was broken, so it was easy to get out. The walls were still formidable, though the spikes looked rusty. Cautiously, she stepped outside.

The road was still there but was now covered with a hard, dark substance. In towns, main streets were paved with cobblestones or perhaps bricks, but country roads were usually grass and mud and ruts.

If enough years had passed for the abbey to crumble, there was also enough time for roads to change. She knelt and touched the surface. The texture was a little coarse but overall smooth and hard. Excellent for carriages, though not as good for horses’ hooves.

She stood, brushing off her hands. How many years had passed? Would there be anyone still alive who remembered her?

She almost leaped from her skin. Something white and ghostly was coming toward her with heavy feet. She clamped a hand over her mouth to smother a scream and backed toward the school gate, her gaze locked on the
thing.

It mooed at her. Weak with relief, she conjured a mage lamp bright enough to show a cow with broad white stripes down its side. The pattern looked too regular to be natural, but why would anyone paint stripes on a cow?

The cow gave her a bored glance as it clopped past. She swallowed hard and crossed to the footpath she’d taken with Miss Wheaton. The path was much more direct than the coast road, and a pleasant walk through what were certainly spring woods.

English footpaths were ancient, and it was comforting to learn that this one hadn’t changed much. Trees had grown, fallen, and new greenery had appeared, but the path was much the same as when she’d walked it before.

At the end of the path, she rejoined the road that ran down into the village. Nerves taut, she walked along the edge. Horses would be easy to hear on the hard surface, and one would expect travelers on a night with good moonlight. But she heard only the usual country sounds: the wind in the trees and shrubbery, the occasional rustling of animals, and the roll of the sea when she drew close enough to the shore to hear it.

She paused to listen to an unfamiliar low roar. It seemed to be coming closer.…

A huge beast with triple slits of light for eyes roared around a corner and straight at her. Tory gasped and dived off the side of the road to conceal herself in the bushes. The beast slowed for a moment, as if sensing her presence, then continued down the road, leaving an unpleasant scent that reminded her of burning lanterns.

She lay shaking on the ground for long minutes as she wondered what sort of world she’d fallen into. Another of the beasts rushed past. Had those smelly monsters killed all the people? She shuddered at the thought.

She must continue to the village and hope she would find people—and answers—there. Learning about this time and place might help her find her way home again.

She rose and brushed off the dirt and grass, then resumed walking. Now she stayed off the hard road surface. The beasts must have laid that dark strip of material for their convenience. They roared along as quickly as a horse at full gallop.

She reached the edge of the village sooner than she expected. New houses had been built using materials different from the usual stone. But all the buildings were dark. Not so much as a single flicker of candlelight showed in the windows.

Where were the people? If the rushing beasts hadn’t killed everyone, had a lethal plague swept through the area? She shivered and walked faster.

The harbor below looked reassuringly normal, with fishing boats moored for the night. The road beasts surely couldn’t use fishing boats.

A distant rumble was growing louder. The sound reminded her of the road beast, but the roar was even deeper and more ominous. Louder, louder,
louder,
the menacing growl boomed from the sky until it reverberated in her bones. She wanted to scream and run, but there was no place to run to.

A menacing creature like a huge, rigid bird flew high over her head and the sound dropped away quickly. The creature was following the coastline to the south.

She really had fallen into hell.

After the rumbling died away, she resumed walking because she didn’t know what else to do. She supposed it wasn’t unreasonable that all the villagers were in bed at this hour, but the unmitigated blackness was disturbing.

Ahead she saw one of the road beasts sleeping in a yard. Her first instinct was to flee, but it was motionless, with no glimmer of light from the monstrous eyes. Cautiously, she approached. Ah, the thing had wheels, so it was some sort of carriage.

She drew close enough to touch its hide, and found cool metal. Definitely some kind of carriage, one that didn’t need horses. Maybe a steam engine inside made it move? Her father owned mines in the north that used steam-powered carriages that ran along tracks to move the coal.

She circled the carriage, which had glass windows all around. What had looked like eyes were some sort of glass lanterns on the front of the machine. But why were the lamps masked so that only slits of lights came out? Maybe the lanterns were too small to send more than narrow lights.

It was another mystery, but at least she no longer thought these beasts had killed all the people. They were just a strange carriage that could move fearsomely fast. The seats inside were deep and comfortable-looking, like the seats in her father’s carriages. There was no coat of arms painted on the doors, though.