Chapter 30: The World Behind the Rain
The mirror spat them into cold rain.
Dorian’s boots struck dark, wet sand, and the world lurched beneath him. He staggered, and Toren caught his arm before his knees reached the ground.
“I am fine,” Dorian muttered, though a dull ache had already begun crawling towards his temple.
Toren ignored him and tightened his grip until Dorian stood steadily.
Liana stepped through a heartbeat later. Behind her, the mirror collapsed into an ordinary puddle, its surface rippling violently.
Dorian tasted rain on his lips. The downpour hammered against his coat, cold enough to sting through the fabric, then softened into warm mist across his face. A moment later, a sharp gust drove icy drops against the back of his neck. He looked up. Low grey clouds rolled overhead, but the rain seemed to arrive from several directions at once. The Mirror Call pressed against him from everywhere. That is new.
The indicator panel on his brass arm flickered. Air safe. No toxins. The magic reading climbed and stayed there.
“We are safe enough here.” Dorian crouched beside the puddle and touched its surface. It was still a mirror.
“We should move,” Liana said.
They climbed only a short distance before pitching the tent, keeping the puddle within sight. None of them wanted to misplace the only route home.
As soon as the canvas stood, Liana ducked outside again. She walked a short distance from the tent, studying the low clouds and shifting fog. Warm air pressed against one cheek while cold rain struck the other, and the sparse grass bent first towards the shore, then away from it.
When she returned, water ran from her braids. “I’ve never seen weather behave like this.”
“That makes two of us,” Dorian said, removing his brass cuff.
Toren rubbed his palms together. Green light gathered between them.
Or attempted to. The magic fractured almost at once, thin strands of emerald light drifting apart like broken reflections.
Toren frowned. “It shouldn’t do that.”
He tried again. A weak current of warm air passed over them, carrying the scent of grass and sun-heated leaves. Liana felt it for half a second before the spell split into shimmering fragments and vanished.
“Well,” Dorian said, pulling off his soaked coat, “that was nearly useful.”
“I’ll try again.”
The third attempt held long enough to dry the worst of their clothes and hair.
Liana unpacked Nessa’s provisions: smoked fish and flatbread wrapped in cloth. They ate quickly while the tent ropes creaked with every change in the wind.
Then Liana looked at Dorian. “Can you tell where we are?”
“Not really. I’ve already checked.” He activated the holographic map anyway. Blue light unfolded above his palm, revealing the familiar web of registered mirrors. He enlarged the surrounding routes and pointed towards an empty space at the centre.
“No registered mirror. No registered world.”
Toren leaned closer. The blue glow sharpened the concern in his face. “So the Council doesn’t know this place exists?”
“No.” Dorian dismissed the hologram. “And I have absolutely no idea where we are.”
“But you feel it?” Liana asked.
Dorian rubbed his temple. “Everywhere. No centre. No direction. The whole world is saturated with reflective energy.”
“The same kind as along the raven’s path?”
“Yes. And beside the Drommala remains at the Pain Monastery.” A faint tingling moved beneath the skin of his forearms. “But never this strong.”
The headache pulsed again. Dorian had blamed the blood loss from opening the mirror. He pressed the ring to his skin and released another measure of stored energy into his blood.
The pain remained.
Toren and Liana exchanged a glance.
“So this is the world of the Drommala?” Toren asked.
“I can’t prove it,” Dorian replied. “But I am becoming increasingly confident.”
Neither of them smiled.
Liana reached into her pack and removed a tightly rolled bundle of papers. Toren produced another, then packed the pipe with sacred bud and lit it. The first draw warmed his throat. He held the smoke, passed the pipe to Liana and unrolled his pages across his knees.
“What are you doing?” Dorian asked.
“Preparing,” Liana said.
“My speech,” Toren added.
Dorian blinked. “You prepared speeches?”
Liana gave him a flat look. “We represent our people.”
“We speak for the Steppe and the Desert,” Toren added.
Liana took another pull from the pipe. The familiar bitterness settled her thoughts, and she began reading silently, her lips shaping each word. After several lines, she stopped, crossed one out and replaced it before beginning again. Her face hardened with determination. She looked ready to fight for every word she intended to place before the Drommala.
Beside her, Toren rehearsed beneath his breath. Whenever he stumbled, he checked the page and started again. His face looked unexpectedly young. Not the healer, but a schoolboy before an examination.
Dorian watched them with quiet fascination. The sacred creature might welcome them, ignore them, or kill them. Still, every word had been prepared.
Morning arrived without sunrise.
The rain had not stopped. Liana checked her knives and ducked outside to inspect the area. Dorian woke with the headache worse than before and sat up slowly. Dark shadows had deepened beneath his eyes. He pressed the ring to his skin. It barely helped.
Toren watched from across the cramped tent. “What hurts?”
“I’m fine.”
“That was not my question.”
Dorian tried to stand. Toren caught his shoulder. “Stay.”
“You have become remarkably authoritative.”
“And you look ill. Where?”
Dorian hesitated. “My head.”
Toren moved behind him, knees bracketing Dorian’s hips, chest against his damp back. He placed one hand at Dorian’s temple and the other against the cold ground.
A thin thread of green light reached Dorian and broke. The second attempt failed faster. Toren tried again. This time, the thread held. The pressure behind Dorian’s eyes eased. He exhaled before he could stop himself.
“How long?” Toren asked.
“Since we arrived.”
The hand against Dorian’s temple trembled.
Dorian shifted away. “You will make yourself ill.”
Toren tightened his hold. “If this is the world we came for, we need you able to translate.”
Dorian went still.
“Not only for that,” Toren said quietly, close to his ear. “I need you, Dorian.”
Dorian let him continue. Toren’s breath warmed his neck while the healing current held.
They ate a quick breakfast and packed. Visibility had shrunk to little more than twenty paces. Liana took out the painted pebbles and began leaving them along the route. Dorian opened the holographic map and set a tracker.
The map looked disturbingly clear. It marked their temporary entry point, but nothing else existed. No terrain. No paths. Only an impossible blank around the place where they had arrived.
The ground gave beneath their boots, soft with moss and water. Grey frogs scattered from the path in sudden, silent jumps.
Dorian checked the tracker again fifty paces later. “The route back should still hold.”
“Should?” Liana asked.
“The world may not exist on the map, but the tracker still knows where we entered.”
“And if the route changes?” Liana dropped another pebble.
“Then we have a larger problem.”
They continued. Rain ran from Dorian’s hair into his collar, soaked Toren’s cloak and dripped steadily from Liana’s braids. Their hands had gone stiff with cold.
The reflective pressure remained unchanged.
Liana glanced at him. “The mirror magic is still everywhere?”
“Exactly the same.”
Toren looked into the fog. “What does that mean?”
Dorian hesitated. “The entire world may be one enormous reflective system.”
They walked for hours through wet undergrowth and the same colourless trees. Rainwater dripped through the leaves.
Then Liana stopped. Fresh air scented with herbs filled her lungs. She dismissed it as imagination. But the mist ahead thinned.
For a few seconds, the world beyond changed. A clear lake shone beneath a cloudless sky. Bright flowers spilled along the shore, and beside the water stood an enormous tree, every branch warm with sunlight.
Then the opening vanished. Grey trees returned. Fog drifted between the trunks.
All three stood motionless.
“Did either of you see that?” Liana asked.
“The lake?” Dorian said quietly.
Toren nodded. “And the tree.”
They stared ahead as a nearly transparent snake slid between the wet trunks and vanished beneath the rotten roots.
“Maybe fungal spores in the fog,” Toren said. “Making us see things.”
“All three of us seeing the same thing?” Liana asked. For once, she sounded unsure.
“A reflective distortion affecting all three of us.” Dorian closed his eyes briefly against the headache. “Possible.”
“Likely?”
“No.”
That settled nothing, but they continued. Liana dropped another pebble, and Dorian set another tracker. This time, both of them looked back.
The fog thickened as they walked, swallowing the dull trees until only the nearest trunks remained visible. Wet leaves brushed against their clothes. Beneath the smell of rotten wood, Dorian caught something metallic. Then he tasted it. Another spike of pain had made him bite down hard enough to split his lip.
A branch snapped ahead.
Liana raised her spear.
Fog gathered between the trees. It thickened into the shape of a wolf, though it stood far too high through the shoulders. Vapour drifted from its back and curled around its paws without disturbing the mud.
As it moved, the muzzle shortened. Antlers formed above its skull. Within seconds, the wolf had become a stag.
“Watch out!” Dorian shouted, his voice rough and distant.
More shapes appeared. Bears, wolves and long-legged cats stepped from the mist, changing with every movement. Horns dissolved. Paws stretched into hooves. One creature lost its head before the fog shaped a new one.
None of them made a sound. There was no smell of fur or breath. Only damp soil and decay.
The fog surged between the travellers. The trees vanished. Toren’s orange cloak blurred, then disappeared. Liana caught one flash of Dorian’s pale hair before the mist swallowed him too.
“Everyone?” she called.
“Still here,” both men answered from different directions.
The stag charged. Liana planted her boots in the mud and drove her spear into its chest. The blade passed through without resistance. Cold vapour curled around the shaft, and the beast scattered before gathering behind her again.
Somewhere to her left, Toren threw a knife. Metal struck nothing. Green energy rose through the soaked moss. He thrust it towards an advancing bear, but the spell fragmented into rain.
Silver light flared between the trees. Dorian activated the cuff, but the shield broke into droplets and ribbons before it could form. His beam dissolved just as quickly.
More shapes closed around them.
A wolf cut between Liana and Dorian. A moose forced Toren farther away. Each time one of them moved towards a voice, another phantom crossed the path.
“Stay where you are!” Dorian shouted.
“That would be easier if I knew where that was!” Liana called back.
A long-legged cat lunged at her. She drove the spear through its mouth and stumbled through the vapour.
“Liana, on your right!”
She turned too late. A bear rushed towards her. Liana swung her spear, lost her balance and sprawled in the mud. The impact forced the air from her lungs.
“Liana!” Toren shouted.
“I’m all right!”
She rolled onto one knee and touched her ribs. No torn clothes. No blood.
The bear gathered in front of her again.
Liana lowered her spear slightly. “It didn’t touch me.”
Toren emerged through the mist, breathing hard. His cloak was soaked and filthy, but he was not injured either. A huge eagle swept towards him. Toren stepped back by instinct and slammed into a tree. The bird vanished before touching him.
Dorian appeared behind him with the cuff raised. His coat was intact. Apart from the blood on his lip, he was unhurt.
“They’re not hurting us.” Liana stared at the fog. “They’re making us fight.”
Dorian watched the circling shapes. Their bodies sharpened whenever someone raised a weapon and thinned again when no one moved.
Then he lowered his arm. “Stop.”
A boar rushed towards him.
Nobody moved.
It reached Dorian and dissolved against his body in a burst of cold vapour. Another phantom charged Toren, then disappeared before touching him.
The remaining shapes slowed. Antlers thinned into mist. Claws unravelled. One by one, the beasts returned to the fog that had made them.
The fight ended when Liana, Toren and Dorian refused to fight.
The rain stopped.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
The fog began to lift, revealing that they stood near the crest of a hill. The grey world melted into colour around them. Blue sky opened overhead. Sunlight poured across green forests, wide meadows and lakes shining below.
They watched in silence as colour returned to the smaller creatures. A frog beside Liana’s boot brightened from grey to vivid green. Tiny golden birds stirred among the branches. Their calls broke the silence, joined by insects rustling in the grass.
Fresh air carried the scent of blossom.
Something enormous stood farther along the hill among the flowers, motionless beneath the sunlight. Brilliant blue and copper scales gleamed across its broad body. Its long trunk hung over the emerald grass.
The Mother Drommala watched them quietly.