Chapter 1: Ten Thousand Reasons
Dorian swore. Dirty, but still quite elegant, keeping his good manners up to Steamhollow nobility standards.
“My tutors should be quite proud of me,” he murmured to himself, trying to fold and pack his Lucky, a handmade brass-and-steam flying motorbike, into a storage capsule.
It didn’t fit, and one of its wings stuck outside, making the capsule shake and showing a warning message on its small monitor with his every attempt:
Error in resizing the item. Please try again.
After several tries, Dorian gave up, extracted the Lucky from the capsule’s compression field, and restored its size. His thoughts were too far from the problem, so he stopped fighting it. He left the Lucky behind and pushed open the door to The Suite of Discreet Delights, one of the dozens of brothels in Brassville, Steamhollow’s rusty capital.
He liked this place. It was somehow cosy and lacked “the splendour and misery.” His dear friend Coyote once described The Suite of Discreet Delights as “just like a friendly neighbour’s house.” Dorian grinned. Exactly like that.
He stepped into the brothel’s dark hall, and the smells of expensive cigars, cheap perfume, and machine oil wrapped around him. Strangely enough, it was quiet inside. Only the birds’ theatrical moans came through the private-room doors, mingling with the less convincing efforts of their clients.
He needed to clear his head, and this place usually did the job. The envelope from the Great Council still lay sealed in his pocket. Procrastination was not one of Dorian’s finer qualities, but tonight he was giving it his full attention.
Ruby and Jun, two of Madam Vox’s birds, waited by the doors at the end of the corridor. Dorian nodded to them. They returned it with professional calm, as if his arrival had been expected.
As Ruby and Jun led him towards the private room, Dorian noticed Madam Vox sitting on the sofa in the hall. He bowed to her. She smiled slightly, as though approving his choice. Her skin caught the dim light, and a wave of gold hair rested over one bare shoulder. Full-figured and composed, she seemed entirely aware of her effect on the room. Dorian regretted that she was retired.
Madam Vox looked no older than her birds. Either desire preserved her, or wealth did. Possibly both, working overtime.
Ruby and Jun gently pushed Dorian into a dim private room. The door shut behind them with a firm click.
The room smelled of sandalwood incense and industrial-grade disinfectant. Holographic fish swam lazily across the ceiling, casting blue ripples over antique furniture, all reproduction pieces from Old Mireth’s forgotten dynasties.
Jun’s cigar smoke lingered over everything. She picked up a long amber cigarette holder with her bionic arm and exhaled, elegant and unhurried. The smoke curled around her shiny black hair.
Expensive taste, Dorian thought.
Red-haired Ruby set the timer, a neat little brass box with numbers blinking on a narrow display, then gave Dorian a professional smile.
One hour.
He removed his brass cuff, shrugged off his coat, and lowered himself onto the bed. The old sheets were questionably clean and stiff at the edges.
Sterilised for your protection, no doubt.
The birds undressed him with practised precision. Ruby slipped on her latex gloves with the clinical efficiency of someone preparing for surgery rather than intimacy, then went to work.
Jun set her cigarette holder aside and leaned back against the bumpy mattress. She began unbuttoning her silk shirt, baring herself with calm efficiency. It should have been a useful addition to Ruby’s skilful hands and mouth.
Unfortunately, Dorian’s body, showing rather more sense than its owner, refused to cooperate with the evening’s planned activities.
The Mirrorwalker Dorian Corvell, defeated by the most basic of human functions. How terribly poetic.
Nothing could lift his penis. Not Ruby’s expertise. Not Jun’s body pressed against him.
I cannot believe that a bloody envelope could cost me my erection.
Ruby’s hands paused. She tilted her head with a touch of kindness. Sincere, perhaps, or professional enough to pass for it.
“Lost in thought, love?”
Dorian straightened and gave a strained smile.
“You were beyond all praise.” His knuckles whitened as he buttoned his shirt and corset with brisk efficiency. “But nothing enhances an evening like an invitation from the Great Council. Should I bring a cake, or is showing up with my face enough?”
He deposited his gearwallet on the dresser. Credits pulsed, ghost-blue, an afterimage of payment still in transit. No negotiations, no regrets. He doubled the rate, as always, the city’s only honest generosity.
He navigated the corridor back to the bar and collapsed onto a stool. The wood beneath his elbows was worn and sticky.
He gestured at the cheapest bottle behind the bar because, clearly, more alcohol was the solution to his problems. He would have preferred bud, but his gearwallet was too slim for that kind of mercy. This month, he had only managed a couple of commercial Walks. He was not broke. Not yet. But he was approaching it with impressive consistency.
A gloomy, tight-lipped bartender with little sense of hospitality poured a measure of what they called whiskey here. Dorian took the glass out of habit and sipped. The bartender glanced at him, then silently left the bottle on the bar.
Dorian grabbed the bottle and moved to a quiet corner table. There, he finally retrieved the envelope from his inner pocket, where it had been burning against his chest all day.
The Council’s polished emblem caught the bar’s light and reflected it back. Dorian’s fingers hesitated at the seal before breaking it with a quick, decisive snap.
The words in the letter swam before him with bureaucratic indifference:
To Dorian Corvell
Client: House Of The Great Sun
Initial Location: Tavra Sol, Steppe Loteri Lands
Request: Mirrorwalker / Reflector
Mission: Drommala
Compensation: 10,000 Credits
In case of accepting the offer, inform the Great Council office within 24 hours of receiving this envelope.
Failure to comply will result in immediate withdrawal of the offer.
Dorian checked his wristwatch, the mechanical one, not the digital implant.
Three hours left.
The Council, never late, never early; always at that one perfect moment when a man found himself flinching.
He folded the letter with care and placed it on the table in front of him. He didn’t let the first flicker of relief fool him. He really needed to think about it first, but the timer’s relentless ticking drowned out his thoughts.
Coyote dropped into the chair opposite Dorian before being invited. His pupils were still dilated from whatever chemical cocktail he had shared with the birds upstairs. His shirt hung open, revealing a leather harness beneath.
“Corvell, mate. Is it really you? Or your freaking hologram?” Coyote was in a suspiciously good mood, to the point that he couldn’t contain it.
Probably I should have chosen his birds instead, Dorian thought wistfully.
Dorian slid the envelope to Coyote. He examined the text with surgical precision, as if he expected a trick but found none.
“Ten thousand,” Coyote whistled low, returning the envelope to Dorian. “Plus whatever the Steppe Loteri throw in. Those prairie mystics practically bleed gratitude when a Mirrorwalker shows up.”
He leaned forward, the scent of sex and expensive cologne still clinging to his collar. “They’ll give you their firstborn if you fix whatever’s wrong with their precious Drommala.”
Dorian swirled the unclear liquid, watching light struggle to refract through the glass. “I don’t need a child. I need a reason.”
“Money isn’t reason enough?” Coyote’s laugh was sharp. “Since when did you become so philosophical about Council work?”
Since I started wondering if any of it matters. Dorian let the thought drift away, dissolving into the air between them.
Coyote produced an identical envelope and slid it across the table. “For Ophelia Rialt,” he said.
Dorian frowned. “She got the same offer?”
“Yes. She showed me the envelope proudly. Thought it meant they wanted her to prove she’s still got her spiritual mirror nonsense in working order. She actually believes they care.”
Dorian pictured Ophelia. Sharp laughter, sharper mind. The only woman in Steamhollow who could outdrink the nobility and still quote philosophy between rounds. Ironically, he found her spirituality and purity more appealing than the cynicism of most Mirrorwalkers.
“She never mentioned the Council mistreats her…”
“She did,” Coyote interrupted. “You were too busy trying to drown yourself in whiskey.”
He paused, looking at Dorian in slight disbelief. “Mate, really? How did you manage to annoy the Great Council badly enough to get yourself banned from government contracts for several months? That takes talent.”
Dorian stared into his glass. Let’s pretend I didn’t hear your last remark. Not the right place or time to discuss it.
“However. But why isn’t she running this one?”
“Because she’s missing,” Coyote said, voice low and almost unwilling. The words struck the air like glass hitting stone, and the silence that followed cracked wide open.
Dorian looked at him in surprise. He couldn’t remember when Coyote actually cared about someone except himself that much.
Then Dorian’s voice sharpened. “How’d you get her letter?”
“She crashed at my place for a while. Debts, bad luck, the usual. She’s too pure for this city.” Coyote tried for indifference and missed. “Don’t give me that look. You’re not exactly the moral compass of Brassville. Yes, I went through her stuff. She never left for the Loteri Lands. Her backpack is still in my apartment. I was worried, alright? She’s my friend.”
He leaned back, the mask slipping just enough to show the raw edge of panic beneath. “The Council wants you now. If they can’t find Ophelia, they’ll take the next available lunatic.”
A short, bitter laugh escaped Dorian. “So I’m the understudy to a ghost.”
“Congratulations,” Coyote said. “If you’re serious about taking this job, talk to the Keeper. That old mirror-hound knows more about the Drommala and maybe Ophelia.”
Dorian drummed his fingers against the table, tracing a faint scratch. “Drommala,” he muttered, his voice slipping between irony and curiosity. “Still the same old tale? Sacred creature of the Steppe Loteri?”
He leaned back. “I’ve never met one. I’ve dealt with smaller things, fluffy, adorable, and generally edible, but not the legendary one. I’ve seen a real Drommala once in my life; the Loteri didn’t even let a fly near it without their permission.”
The letter to Ophelia lay sprawled between them like a challenge.
“Did you read it?” Dorian asked, though Coyote’s look answered for him.
He drew Ophelia’s letter from its envelope with the delicacy of a man handling stolen evidence. Same pompous heading, same bureaucratic vagueness, different only in name and deadline.
“Forty-eight hours,” Dorian murmured, tracing the number with his thumb. “And I got twenty-four. Actually…” He checked his watch, mechanical hands slicing his future into fractions. “…make those two hours left to decide.” His gaze sharpened. “Why the rush? What aren’t they telling me?”
Coyote grew serious. “The rumour is, Loteri’s Drommala is extremely sick. Maybe already dead. Steppe and Desert Loteri are panicking. No Drommala means no water, no crops, no mercy.”
Dorian exhaled, the sound halfway between a sigh and a curse. A Reflector’s job then: to converse with a dying god. He finished his drink and braced for destiny’s next insult.
Before leaving, Coyote threw out the words, “You know the deal. I can pay you for Loteri artifacts far better than the Council.”
Dorian pushed through the brothel’s murky hallway. The air outside was a mixture of fog and something burning.
He found his stubborn machine exactly where he had left it. He reached into his coat, fingers brushing the envelope.
Ten thousand credits.
For Dorian Corvell, that almost qualified as hope.