Almare - The White Mirror

The cold wind swept through the trees overhead. Dark clouds hurried across the sky, but it was not about to rain. Spread out in front of her was the river. There were an uncanny amount of waves on the water’s surface, stirred by the cruel wind. If only it were a few degrees colder, she thought wistfully, and the river would possibly be iced over enough for her to cross on top; it wasn’t moving very fast. But, of course, it was freezing enough only to be a nuisance to her, and no help at all. Her job couldn’t be that easy.

Acrotis would have called up a cloud to carry her across the river, but her powers were so much weaker on the ground than they were in the sky. Hardly ever could she work the weather from anywhere in the Kingdoms, except perhaps the top of Dragon Mountain. Sometimes, though, when she was angry enough, she could call a bolt of lightning or a quick clap of thunder from level ground. She had been angered plenty at Cinderella’s palace, when those fools wouldn’t listen to her plans about going through the mirror. Her lightening and thunder had quieted them then, but not for long. Virginia had never trusted her, not for a minute, and now she never would. Lorelei would have more than enough time to convince the girl that Acrotis was the enemy and she was her friend.

But the really unfair part, Acrotis mused as she stood facing the river, was that she hadn’t been about to do anything terrible. All she wanted to do was unite the little family again- to give that Virginia back her baby. Acrotis wasn’t the one who had taken him in the first place, anyway. It was Lorelei, her self-righteous older sister, who had stolen Patrick. Why should Virginia feel anything but hatred toward her, and anything but gratitude toward Acrotis? And why would Lorelei force her to leave Welkin again, even threaten her? What she had done happened a long time ago, and Acrotis had even been about to apologize for it. But not now. Lorelei obviously wasn’t ready to hear any apologies from her.

Maybe killing the old Guardian wasn’t such a great idea after all, Acrotis thought to herself. Why did I do it in the first place anyway? After standing for a moment in the tall grass by the riverbank, Acrotis started to move upstream to look for a better place to cross the icy water. She tried to think back to that day long ago when she had murdered the old leader of her city, shooting him in the heart with her arrow. Honestly, she couldn’t remember why she did it, but she felt no remorse. Acrotis trusted herself and believed that it must have been a good thing to do at the time. Nothing horrible had ever come of it, unless you counted getting exiled from Welkin. Which she didn’t. She had never felt at home there, like she didn’t belong, and nothing that anyone said made any difference to her. The Nine Kingdoms offered her a better opportunity and a better life.

But none of that meant that she was going to let her sister and the Virginia girl get away with treating her like they did. After she had practically been thrown out of Welkin the second time, Acrotis had found herself again at the deepest spot in the ocean, by the White Mirror. She had felt the sudden urge to smash it right there. That would show them. Virginia, Wolf, Tony, and Patrick would never be able to get home then. But of course, only Nessie would ever be able to smash the mirror. The monster had only given Acrotis a sideways glance as the girl began her ascent to the shore.

Much later, Acrotis had climbed out of the ocean, exhausted but satisfied. She slipped the ring, which had again given her supernatural strength to swim the many miles from the bottom of the ocean, off her finger and threw it in the sand. Acrotis had looked high and low, all over the beach, for a flying carpet that they had left there, but none were to be found. They must have flown home, back to Cinderella’s palace, without her, she thought dejectedly. There was nothing else for her to do but continue on foot to the trolls’ camp in the north.

Because that was her destination: the troll army’s camp at the edge of the Northern lands. Not the troll army’s camp at the end of the beanstalk forest in the Third Kingdom. Not where Wendell, Virginia, Wolf, Tony, and the Governor of the Dwarf kingdom had seen the troll army’s camp, because that was not where it was.

When they had come out of the beanstalk forest on flying carpets, what everyone saw, and believed, was that there was an entire army of trolls and their allies camped out in the open field, oblivious to all the kingdom scouts and messengers and innocent passerby's who were bound to notice them. But Acrotis had seen something that the others hadn’t while flying over the trolls, Sasquash, elves, and giants on their way to the Sea. What she had noticed was... nothing. No heat, no smells, no smoke in the air from the cooking fires of the army, and very little noise. And she had noticed the dragons, too, the red dragons that could under no possible circumstances stay cooped in the tents that long. Quite simply, the camp was not real.

The camp and everything in it looked real, that was certain, but it couldn’t be. There was no doubt in her mind that it was all a very fancy hoax. The reason for the trolls to go through all that trouble to make it was clear. They wanted their enemies to be completely unaware of them so that they would have the element of surprise for an attack. Not that they really needed it much, Acrotis thought, since they vastly outnumbered the Kingdoms’ armies anyway. But perhaps they had figured out that they were not the only ones with dragon allies.

It had taken her a while to figure out how the trolls had done it, though. Acrotis knew of nothing that could make such a fantastic illusion that covered several acres and consisted of hundreds of moving images. Nothing except... It tortured her for a long time, as she was traveling with Virginia, Wolf, and Tony to the Sea. She knew the answer; she had heard of it before.

She remembered it as they swam to the bottom the ocean. It was a hologram! Of course, she thought to herself. Holograms were a relatively new invention, but they worked marvelously well. Little was known about them, really, and few cultures owned the magic and technology to create one. The trolls, unfortunately, were some of the lucky few.

Acrotis had been thinking that perhaps the trolls would need to be close by to carry out their hoax. But if it was a hologram, they probably weren’t anywhere near their supposed ‘camp’. They could be anywhere in all the Kingdoms. Actually, they could be very few other places, simply because most of the land in the Nine Kingdoms was either densely populated or dangerously magical. Certainly there wasn't enough room in many places to secretly house an entire army. Outside their own beanstalk forest in the Third Kingdom was indeed the most likely place for the troll army to be, and so that’s where they had set up their hologram.

But now that she had figured out this much, where the real troll army resided was no mystery to Acrotis. They needed someplace large and spacious because of the red dragons, who desperately needed room to fly to release their surplus of energy. It was just the nature of dragons to like wide open spaces, so they could never stay in the small tents portrayed in the hologram for so long. That also meant that the army’s actual station couldn’t be in a forest or underground.

Also, the trolls, Sasquash, pixies, and, of course, giants were far from inconspicuous. They needed someplace to stay that was not easily or often accessed by any type of life form. Or at least any life form that would feel the need to go and tell the council of the Nine Kingdoms exactly where they were. Acrotis knew of only one place like that in all the world: the Northern lands. The Northern lands weren’t part of the Nine Kingdoms at all, and no one ever went there. Only the Sasquash and the dragons lived in the forsaken wasteland, which made it even more convenient since those two species made up the bulk of the troll army.

There was no way for Acrotis to be completely sure about her assumption that the trolls were camped in the Northern lands, or even that their ‘camp’ near the beanstalk forest was a hoax. But she was more than fairly sure, and she had nothing else to go on.

The only reason she even cared at all about the whole war was that she was angry. She was angry at her family, her friends, her world. She wanted them to suffer. Welkin was allied, or would soon be allied, with the Kingdoms, that she was sure of. In her fevered mind, Acrotis was again devising a plan.

She would go to the trolls. She would tell them all she knew about the Kingdoms’ plans for their destruction. More importantly, she would tell them that there was Seer looking down on the army, about to learn all their secrets. The trolls would destroy them before anyone knew what was happening. Then she would sit back, watch the Kingdoms, Virginia, and Lorelei burn, and she would laugh.

Acrotis stepped into the gently rushing water of the river. Suddenly it didn’t feel cold at all.

After quite a bit of coaxing and negotiating, Nicholas the pixie agreed not to try to escape. He would stay in the Guardian’s house and basically stay out of the way if they let him out of his bottle. Lorelei had managed to convince the poor thing that the trolls and other pixies were indeed only using him for their own evil purposes, which was actually true. Nicholas was a very spirited character and was not at all gullible. But somehow Lorelei had struck a crucial nerve when she had mentioned the fairy’s eyes.

She explained the situation to Virginia later, in fuller detail. A pixie, when he or she reaches a certain age, will have his or her eyes changed in color from golden to black. It is a coming-of-age ritual which symbolizes the fairy’s responsibilities as a complete member of the Pixies’ society. It is, however, very possible to be denied this honor. If a fairy disobeys a serious law of some sort or offends the community in another way, it is up to the elders to decide whether or not that fairy will be “given their eyes”. In Nicholas's case, he did something dreadfully wrong when he didn’t go for help while Relish and his men were being murdered by the queen. So they didn’t change his eyes from gold to black, and he had been an outcast ever since.

Virginia would have tried to sympathize with Nicholas had there not been at least thirty thousand other issues on her mind at that moment. The thought had struck her the night before that the Loch Ness Monster was still waiting for them near the White Mirror at the bottom of the ocean. She strained her mind to remember what the queen’s conditions were... The monster would wait near the mirror until one of two things happened: they returned or there was a disappearance elsewhere. If there was a disappearance, it would smash the mirror. Virginia had been terrified for several seconds until she realized the Guardian hadn’t abducted anyone since they had been there. But she planned on going to him as soon as possible and telling him that he couldn’t take anyone from the Kingdoms through a mirror until they were safe and sound back underwater. Of course, it would be okay with her if he never took anyone through a mirror ever again, but she had a feeling there wasn’t much she could do about that.

Her next big worry was about Patrick. She was afraid, and not ashamed to admit it to the Guardian or anyone else who dared to challenge her. She was afraid about her son being a Seer. Maybe she didn’t even believe it yet, but what else could she do? She was at a loss, confused and scared.

Virginia sat in a corner of the Guardian’s house, holding a bottle up to a hungry Patrick’s mouth. He drank the milk greedily, and Virginia was again reminded of how much she had missed him. She held him tightly and was struck by the strange feeling that she was holding a power that was and would always be beyond her.

Lorelei walked up to them quietly, Wolf trailing behind her. Virginia looked up at him and gave him a quick smile, trying to let him know that everything was all right. Of course, it wasn’t, and they both knew it. But Wolf smiled back as confidently as he could.

“There you are,” Lorelei whispered. “I just went down to visit the Guardian, and he said that he was ready for Patrick now.” She nodded toward Virginia and motioned for her to follow her downstairs.

Virginia felt a sudden stab of anger. First of all, she didn’t know what he wanted to do with Patrick, and that made her nervous and subsequently angry. Also, since when did the Guardian have any right to order them around like that? As if it didn’t matter in the least whether Patrick was ready to see him or not. She took a deep breath. They were all just going to have to live with it.

Standing up, Virginia readjusted Patrick so that she could hold Wolf’s hand and carry the baby at the same time. Walking like that, they made their way downstairs by following Lorelei. When they reached the dark chamber, Virginia saw the Guardian in almost the exact same position he had been in yesterday; sitting hunched over on his rickety old stool. His eyes were still horribly blank, revealing nothing. Seeing him like that, always confined to his own lonely world, Virginia almost, almost felt sorry for him. Wolf had told her about how he had to stay in the small room, or else the trolls would be able to find him, and no one knew what he would or could do if that happened. Still, nothing could ever make her forgive him for stealing her son.

“It is time.”

The Guardian’s voice startled Virginia. She clung to Patrick even more tightly.

“Time for what?” Wolf asked.

The man took a shaky breath and let it out slowly, as if he was reluctant to let even this small part of himself go. “Time for little Patrick to See.”

“No.” Virginia said it automatically, without skipping a beat.

“We have no choice, Virginia.” He pronounced her name by accenting each syllable, and cast his terrible eyes on her. “It may be too late already. He needs to tell us about the trolls’ plans so that they can be defeated. That is the reason I took him in the first place, don’t you see? To save the Kingdoms.” Frowning, he stared at her. “There is no reason to fear for him.”

“Liar,” she hissed, and leaned into Wolf for support. “You told us yourself what happens to people who look into the future! It’s so horrible that they can never do it more than once. And those are grown people! Patrick is a baby, and you want to do this to him? You monster!” she screamed at him like she had wanted to ever since she had known that he was the one who had taken Patrick.

“You don’t understand,” the Guardian said with just as much venom. “If he doesn’t tell us about the troll army’s plans, all of the Kingdoms will be destroyed.”

“How do you know?” Wolf demanded. “Maybe Wendell’s armies will be able to defeat them. Why do you assume they can’t?”

“They are not powerful enough; they don’t have nearly enough men. The trolls and their allies will wipe them out simply by breathing on them if we do not know when, where, and how the trolls plan to attack.”

“But how will Patrick help them? It won’t matter if Wendell’s troops know when they‘re getting wiped out if there’s no question that they are,” Virginia pointed out angrily.

Lorelei interjected. “But if we know where the trolls are at a certain time, then we can help.”

Virginia and Wolf both froze. Virginia whispered, “You’re going to use your powers to kill the troll army.”

“Yes,” sighed the Guardian. “Nothing, no one can withstand all the forces of the sky working against them. But we can’t do that until we find out where they are. And the only way to find out where they are is...”

“By using Patrick.” Virginia bit her lip as tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back angrily. She was so confused! If it was completely true, what the Guardian said, then it didn’t seem as if they had much choice. How could she and Wolf write off thousands of lives to save their son from pain? Maybe it wasn’t true, though. What reason did they have to trust the Guardian? But if he was telling the truth...

Why me? she couldn’t help but think bitterly as Patrick wrapped a tiny fist around her finger. If he did what the Guardian wanted him to, he would never forget it. She couldn’t ruin his life for him. It would kill her as well.

The Guardian interrupted her thoughts. “We were both wrong, you know,” he said quietly, almost in a whisper. “About there being no reason to fear. You were right. I was lying.”

Virginia listened silently, not understanding what his point was.

“Of course it is frightening for one to See into the future, where no other human eyes have yet looked. And yes, for so many people, to look at the wars to come is not an experience that they want to, or indeed can repeat. No child should bear that weight. I am not asking him to.”

“Then what are you asking of us?” Wolf questioned. Virginia feared the answer, and could feel her heart racing.

“As I am sure you have realized, Patrick is not going to be able to tell us anything about what he Sees in the future. Obviously, he cannot speak. But I have, long ago, heard of a way to understand what a mute Seer is experiencing without having to make that person talk. Someone very close to him in blood, one of his parents, for example, could receive the images that Seer is finding and forming. That is why it was very important for me to have you here, because Patrick cannot help anyone if he cannot communicate what he Sees. I know you don’t understand that now, but listen.

“You have something in New York,” the Guardian continued, “I believe, called a radio. Basically, it picks up transmissions floating around in the air and changes them into something you can understand - music or words. Now, what I am saying is that Patrick would be like a radio. He would find the images of the troll army, wherever and whenever they are. To get those correct images of the future, the ones we want of the troll army, you would need to sort of tune him to the right frequency by making him think of trolls. Then, like a radio, he would pass the images right on to you without seeing or understanding them himself. He wouldn’t have to actually see what he is Seeing. It would be painless for him. One of you, however, will have to receive the images and be willing to see whatever happens. Or would happen, if we were not going to intervene. I know it’s confusing, but I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”

Virginia was surprised to find that she did understand and was unusually calm about the whole ordeal. If Patrick was not going to be permanently scarred by seeing the massacre of thousands of people, then she didn’t see anything stopping her from seeing it and thereby saving the Nine Kingdoms. Again.

“All right, I’ll do it,” she said with a confidence that was actually there.

“No!” Wolf cried. “I will. I don’t want you seeing that any more than I want Patrick to.”

“Please, Wolf,” Virginia implored him. “I can do it. I want to. I want to be there for him when he’s... when...” She didn’t know how to say it because she hadn’t known yet that it had become real to her. She did believe it now, but she didn’t know why. “When he Sees it.”

Wolf looked at her sideways, a pleading look in his eyes. He really only wanted what was right for her, she knew. But this was another thing that she felt she had to do.