Doppelganger

26 Starfall

Miryo’s knowledge told her which way to go; Mirage’s kept her hidden and quiet as she moved. She passed a group of unarmed Cousins, off on some errand; Mirei concealed herself and waited until they were some distance away before continuing on. It couldn’t hurt to be careful.

That same thought provoked her, when she came to the mountain’s peak, to not declare herself to the guards.

The two women flanking the road were more of a formality than anything else. They existed to welcome and guide the infrequent visitors to Starfall, not to keep anyone out. And there was no wall around the buildings, which took up the space of a small town. There was one small ward, more a strengthened version of a sentry spell than anything else; Mirei, having learned from her past mistake, managed to soothe it into tranquility without setting off any ripples of unfamiliarity. It was accustomed to letting witches through, and it recognized her as one of them.

Which, technically, I am. Satomi gave me the pendant, although I imagine she’d like to take it back.

Full dark had descended by the time she reached the cluster of buildings that was the heart of Starfall. Mirei was just as happy; it made sneaking in much easier. She eyed the place from the shadow of a tree and put together her strategy, based on Miryo’s knowledge and Mirage’s skill.

Now, the question is, where are the Primes right now? I probably won’t find them all in one place. Satomi might be in her office; I should start there. If I can get her to listen to me, she can call the others to a formal audience or something.

But how to get to Satomi, without going through everyone else first?

Mirei studied the buildings. The answer was quite obvious, and didn’t even require a spell. At least years of climbing the roof will be good for something. If I can get onto the well house, that support they built across to the students’ hall when the wall started to weaken will get me to that line of sculptures. From there, the roof should be no problem.

Good. Now do it.

She slipped through the shadows to the well house’s side. There she paused; a pair of Cousins were chatting inside, and she didn’t want to risk them hearing her. Before long they left, and she lifted herself up to the well house roof.

One side sported the lower end of a buttress that ran the short distance to the students’ hall. Now it became Mirei’s road. She reached the shadow of the wall and found easy climbing there; it was one of the sections with sculpture, which made for good handholds. It took only a moment, and then she was on the familiar terrain of the roof.

She arrived at the building’s far side and considered her next options. A series of shallow scissor arches connected the students’ hall to the main building where much of Starfall’s administrative work went on. Satomi should be there. Mirei walked along the edge of the roof, trying to remember the layout of the interior, until she came to the arch that would likely bring her closest to the Void Prime’s office. Then, checking first to ensure that no one was looking, she ran across.

Halfway across, she again experienced that strange dichotomy. Mirage thought nothing of this stunt; Miryo was amazed at the casual attitude she took toward it.

With that thought, one foot slipped.

Mirei caught her balance, exhaled once, and ran onward to the safety of the other side. I need to stop doing that. What if I find myself distracted in the middle of a spell? That wouldn’t be good at all. I need to stop thinking about what I’m doing, and just do it.

She gave herself a moment to rest, then searched for an open window. When she found one and slipped through, she found herself in the exact hallway she had hoped for.

From here she proceeded carefully, listening for voices or footsteps. The administrative hall was generally a busy place, filled with Heart and Head witches going about their various tasks.

Now, however, it was dead quiet.

In fact, Mirei saw no one at all in the halls.

Her confusion was completed when she peered around a corner to the door of Satomi’s office and found no one there. She had expected the Void Prime to be working; she usually was, at this time of night. But the customary guard of two Cousins was absent from her door.

So where in the Maiden’s name is she?

The realization smacked her, and Mirei felt extremely silly. Tonight, if she was counting the days right, was one of the nights when the Primes held court in the ruling hall. There they made announcements, heard cases, and dealt with the affairs of Starfall itself. All students were required to attend, and many witches currently at Starfall did as well.

You should have remembered that, idiot. Start thinking more clearly, or you’ll not have a snowflake’s chance in a bonfire of convincing the Primes of anything.

At least, she reflected wildly, this would save her some trouble. All the Primes would be in one place, and she’d get her formal audience.

She took a moment to quell the absurd laughter welling up inside her. It was nerves, and nothing more. She couldn’t let them interfere.

When she felt calm, she set out again, this time to the adjoining building where court was in progress.

Two Cousins stood on guard outside the hall’s door.

Mirei eyed them and wondered what to do. Present herself to them, and ask to be announced? Freeze them with a spell? No, the Primes would sense that. Void, every witch in there would sense that.

The question was, then, did she want to be announced or not?

I think not.

Applause from inside the hall gave her the cover she needed. Mirei put on a burst of speed, and before the clapping died down, both of the guards were unconscious, without any magic at all. She took a moment to lay them to one side before facing the door.

Deep breath. Straighten your uniform; you want to look good.

She had never done anything quite like this, in either of her lives. Adrenaline raced through her, making her muscles tingle. She had to consciously stop her hands from trembling, and keep them away from the hilt of Eclipse’s borrowed sword.

Let’s go.

She sang, and the doors, carved with the symbols of the Elements, swung open.

The voices inside the hall died down as she began the long walk down the aisle. Witches and students filled the benches to either side of her; heads turned to look as those in front realized something was happening. Before Mirei had passed the second rank of grave slabs, there was silence. She stepped evenly, deliberately, her heels tapping on the stone in the silence of the hall.

Whispers rose and fell in her wake as women recognized her.

The Primes, at the far end of the hall, rose from their chairs. Mirei kept her eyes on Satomi, standing dead center, outlined by the unadorned blackness of her Elemental banner. To their credit and her relief, they waited until she had reached the front before saying anything.

She stopped in front of their dais and bowed.

“What are you doing, Miryo?” Satomi asked in an icy voice.

Mirei smiled at her, trying to fight down the whirlwind of nerves and exhilaration inside her. “Wrong.”

The Void Prime’s eyes narrowed, and in them was a touch of fear. “The doppelganger, then. You have no right to wear that pendant.”

She grinned again. “Not that, either. Can’t you guess?”

Murmurs from behind her. Mirei spread her arms wide. “Miryo, And Mirage. And proof that we’ve been doing things wrong for all these centuries.”

The murmurs rose. Satomi gestured sharply, and the assembled witches and students fell silent. “What have you done?” the Void Prime whispered, almost spitting the words out. “Combined yourself with an outsider—a Hunter? This is an abomination!”

“No worse than you’ve done,” Mirei shot back. She tried to stay restrained, but failed; her voice grew louder. “Would you like me to start listing the actions you’ve taken? Would you like me to tell these women about Wraith?”

“We need not listen to your lies,” Arinei snapped above the rising noise.

“Lies? I am Mirage and Miryo. I know what you have done.”

She was ready to say it, to expose the Primes’ assassination of Tari before the listening witches, and damn the consequences. Before she could, though, Satomi stepped forward, green eyes glittering with hard fire. “We have done what we must, for the safety of all. There is no choice. ‘The doppelganger is anathema to us. It is destruction and oblivion, the undoing of all magic. It is the ruin of our work, and the bane of our being. It and our magic will never coexist, and its presence threatens all that our powers can do.’ So wrote Misetsu—”

“Five days before she died. Yes, you told me that before. And I believed it then, but now I know it’s wrong. Misetsu ought to have listened better when the Goddess spoke to her.” Mirei pitched her voice to cut through the air of the hall. “Destruction. Oblivion. Undoing. Void.

“That is what we are lacking. That is why the clergy call us unbalanced. That is why we have no sons. We are crippled in our ignorance, and yet we think that ignorance is power. For centuries now, we’ve turned our faces from the rest of the power that should be ours.”

“The Void is untouchable,” Koika said. “It is nothingness. You cannot work with nothing!”

“You can’t,” Mirei said, with a reckless grin. “I can.” She looked up and around, eyeing the ruling hall with calculated distaste. If she had to do this publicly, then she’d better exploit the theatrics of it. “I’ve never liked this place. So why don’t we go elsewhere? Let’s adjourn to Star Hall, and I’ll show you just what I can do.” She directed her smile right at Satomi, let it widen slightly. “Follow me however you can.”

Then she sang herself out.

Mirei staggered when she appeared on the center dais, breath ragged in her chest.

Goddess, I hope the Primes don’t realize how hard that is. I can’t afford to let them think I’m tired.

She waited, slowing her breathing, for the others to arrive. It would take a few minutes; they, unlike her, would have to walk. Adrenaline still flooded her body, but she was grateful for it. Without it, she might fall over.

Noise outside the hall alerted her. Mirei spared one last glance upward, into the unfathomable blackness of the hall’s crossing, imagining the stars above. I’ve come this far. Please, Goddess, don’t desert me now.

The Primes led the way. Satomi, Mirei saw, chose to enter from the branch of the hall dedicated to Fire; she wondered briefly if that meant anything. At least she wasn’t entering with Shimi. The look in the Air Prime’s eye was murderous.

As the other four raised themselves onto columns of Elemental light, just as they had during Miryo’s test, the Void Prime stalked up onto the dais and opened her mouth to speak.

Mirei sang two quick notes and twisted one hand through the air, and the witchlights in the hall went out.

She heard involuntary gasps from the Primes, lit from beneath by their shining columns. Then Koika’s voice sounded, and the lights came back up, giving her a better look at the absolute shock on the five women’s faces.

“This is what I mean,” Mirei said, hoping her own surprise wasn’t visible. She hadn’t known she was going to do that. In fact, she hadn’t known she could. It seemed the Goddess was still with her. “Void magic is the undoing of magic.”

She had hardly any warning before Shimi began to sing. Mirei had just enough time to identify the spell as an immobilizing one; then words were flying out of her mouth and her body was in motion, slightly different this time, canceling the Air Prime’s spell.

That was a different phrase. So they don’t all cancel the same.

Shimi’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out of her skull. It was a fundamental truth that magic could be counteracted, but never canceled. And Mirei had just turned that on its head.

“This is what Misetsu didn’t understand,” Mirei said. The branches of the hall were filling up. She couldn’t spare the attention to be sure, but it looked like all the witches from the ruling hall were entering the branches for their Rays. The Void witches made a ring around the Primes, and the students were packing in at the back of each branch, eyes wide. There were even Cousins, squeezing into the spaces behind the columns. “Doppelgangers are the undoing of magic. As you have just seen.”

The reaction was not what she had hoped.

It was even worse than she had feared.

Miryo had never been in a true battle of any kind, physical or magical. So it was purely Mirage’s instincts that guided Mirei when terror possessed the Primes’ faces and the spells began to sound.

She flew into motion, singing frantically, body twisting, slashing through spells right and left. They came only from the Primes, and for that she was grateful; had any other witches joined in, she would have been dead. As it was, only the power of the Void and the other women’s fear of it saved her from the Primes’ spells. Ordinarily she would never have stood a chance against the five of them, not together and probably not alone, but she had canceling magic, which they had never seen before and did not know how to react to. A spell that took them twenty pitches to construct, she could cut through in four.

Her canceling could overpower any one of them. But only barely, and they soon realized that just as well as she did.

They began to sing together.

Mirei didn’t even recognize what they were constructing. That made things worse; if she didn’t know what it was, she couldn’t cut it effectively. And the odds of her managing to outmuscle all five Primes in concert were beyond bad.

She saw the look in Shimi’s eyes, and knew she wasn’t likely to survive whatever they were building.

I can’t stop them.

But I can try to turn them.

Mirei didn’t let herself consider what she was about to do. She took a deep breath, prayed to the Goddess, and threw her voice into their spell.

She did not seek to cancel it; she didn’t have the strength. Instead, she did something even more reckless: she wove herself and her power into the spell they were building. Satomi was at its head, and so she found herself in direct competition with the Void Prime for control of the energy.

She and Satomi faced off across the central dais. Electricity surged up Mirei’s spine; her movements had closed in to nearly nothing, but the energy she was channeling lived in them just the same, suffusing her body until she knew she might well die of it. The two witches stood at the heart of a vortex of power that was spinning wildly out of control; Mirei couldn’t take it from the Void Prime, but her efforts threatened Satomi’s grip.

If this goes on, Mirei realized, we are all going to die.

Any of the witches in the hall could stop her. Mirei could not see them through the lightning swirl of energy that surrounded her, but she heard no voices beyond the six of them, and felt no interference. No one was going to risk touching this maelstrom.

She could not take it, and Satomi could not hold it.

Mirei looked the Void Prime directly in the eye. The anguish she saw there struck her like a physical blow.

She wants to believe. She wants to admit I’m right, and that she was right to doubt. But she also wants me to be wrong, because if this is truly the way, then she failed the Goddess when she killed her doppelganger.

She could not spare a single instant to speak. All of her voice, all of her energy, was bound up in the spell cracking the air around them. She could only communicate with her eyes.

Give it to me, Satomi. Give me the power, and let go of the past.

Please.

PLEASE.

The power slipped into her control.

Mirei acted with the instantaneous decisiveness of a warrior in battle, with the educated instinct of a witch. The moment the power slammed into her body, she hurled it in the only direction still safe.

Up.

And the top of Star Hall shattered.

With a scream of magic, Mirei summoned what energy she had left and threw a barrier over the dais.