Author's Note: I will not be posting the whole of this book on Wattpad, at least not for the foreseeable future. I'll be going as far as chapter 10, which is about a fifth of the way through. If you like it enough to want to read the rest of it, you can buy it as an ebook or in print from Amazon or as an ebook from Smashwords, or see my website at http://www.pembers.net for a list of other retailers.

Chapter 1

The old man lit his pipe with a taper from the fire. He sucked on it until the glow in the bowl had faded, and then blew a long stream of sweet-smelling, blue-grey smoke between Uncle Tomaz and me. He smiled, revealing crooked yellow teeth. "Of course, you know I have to report this."

I tensed, ready to snatch the object we'd brought him. Uncle just smiled back, unperturbed. "But you're not going to, are you, Yindrath?"

"I might yet, just to see the look on your face." He sucked on his pipe again and blew a ring that ambled over Uncle's head. "But the Peace might start poking their noses into my business, and that would never do. And if they confiscate this trinket, I won't find out the truth behind it."

"You don't know what it is, then?" said Uncle, as though the man had insulted his mother.

Yindrath chuckled and sat back in his chair, adjusting his robe. "I have a good idea. I just don't believe your account of how you came by it."

"It's the truth," I said. "Dyareg's sons asked us to clear out his house, and they said we could keep half what we made."

Uncle scowled at me - he didn't like it when I tried to help him tell his stories.

Yindrath tutted, though apparently more because his pipe had gone out. He relit it with the taper. Uncle's jaw clenched, but we both knew there was no hurrying the fellow when he was doing this "smoking," as he called it. When I'd first heard the term as a boy, I'd thought he was setting himself on fire. The war had made the leaves that he burned hard to come by, so he made them last. After a few more puffs, he set the pipe on the little table by his chair and picked up the object we'd brought him.

It was a circular mirror, about a foot across. The size alone made it valuable, but Uncle was convinced there was more to it than that. Yindrath held it with the back to us, which was made of metal so blue that it was almost black. The colour was perfectly even, with no variations I could see, making it look more like a hole than anything solid. When we'd found the mirror, I'd touched the back and felt nothing - it was neither hot nor cold, rough nor smooth. It was as if I'd simply halted the movement of my hand without being aware of choosing to do so. Yindrath tilted the mirror this way and that, causing the firelight to play over his face. The shifting shadows made him look like a monster from my nightmares, and I repressed a shudder.

He laid the mirror on his lap. The glass and the silver - if it was silver - were smoother than any mirror I'd seen before. It had a surround of the same dark blue metal as the back, with six small rubies spaced equally. Between the rubies were inlays of gold lettering - at least, I assumed it was lettering. I could read Asdanundish, of course, and make sense of Brothric and had even started learning the Nuhysean alphabet, but these curling symbols were wholly strange to me. They also gave the only clue that the mirror might be the work of mortal hands, instead of having fallen out of Kashalbe's boudoir - a few of the curves had flecks of gold missing.

Yindrath took several slow, shallow breaths and cupped his hands together a foot above the mirror. His eyelids fluttered. I'd known he was good, but hadn't realised he didn't need words. He opened his hands.

Nothing was there. The old man frowned and cupped his hands again.

"I told you it screws with magic," said Uncle.

Yindrath lowered his hands and gave a smirk. "The wind blowing the wrong way screws with your magic."

Uncle snatched the mirror and stood up, carrying it to the other end of the room. "Try it now."

The old man shrugged and cast his spell again. When he opened his hands, the light that he revealed was weaker than a candle, and only the size of a pea. He gazed at it in mild annoyance, and then clapped his hands together, extinguishing it. "So there's a lot of magic bound up in that thing. That should make it easy for the Peace to find it. Which makes me wonder how it lay undetected in Dyareg's attic for so many years."

"I don't like being called a liar," said Uncle. He would never deny being a liar, just say he didn't like to be called one.

Yindrath sighed. To me, he said, "Fetch me the Elangic dictionary from the middle bookcase, third shelf."

Elangic? The mirror was in too good a condition to be that old, surely. I levered myself out of the chair's numerous cushions and went to the indicated spot. Several other dictionaries and glossaries were on that shelf, fat volumes that might break your toes if carelessly dropped. The Elangic dictionary was a pamphlet by comparison, barely the thickness of my thumb. I took it back to him. Uncle had propped the mirror against a vase on the table. Yindrath had transcribed the inscription around the mirror's edge onto a slate. He accepted the dictionary and started flipping through it.

Ten minutes passed, with the silence broken only by the sounds of Yindrath writing and turning pages, and the occasional pop from the fire.

"Can't we leave him to it and come back later?" I whispered.

"Come back tomorrow and I should've learned all its secrets," Yindrath said, not looking up.

"We don't mind waiting," Uncle said, grinding his teeth.

"Don't you trust me?" said Yindrath.

"I trust you like my cousin Tynan," said Uncle.

"Didn't he cheat you out of four thousand svara?"

"Like I said, I trust you like my cousin Tynan."

So we waited, as the fire burned low. At Yindrath's suggestion, I rebuilt it and set some red tea brewing. I preferred black, but most people couldn't afford to be choosy these days. When I'd poured it, Yindrath said, "I have a rough translation - nothing helpful, I'm afraid. It just identifies the mirror as the property of some long-dead person from some faraway place." He frowned. "Then again, he could've lived next door, seeing as hardly any of their place names survive. Fetch me the green box from the top of the right-hand bookcase."

The box was leather-bound, about a foot square, and much heavier than it looked. Yindrath unlocked it with a key from his pocket and leafed through a pile of loose papers. He pulled out a sheet with twelve circles drawn on it, in three columns of four. Each circle had the numbers one to six written around it in a different order. "If I'm right about what this thing is, one of these will unlock it."

I held my breath as Yindrath picked up the mirror and touched the rubies in the sequence indicated by the numbers around the top left circle.

Nothing happened.

He tried the next sequence. Still nothing happened. He muttered something that sounded rude and tried the next one. Still nothing. He tried all the rest, with the same result. He shrugged and offered the mirror back to Uncle. "Either it's broken, or it needs a sequence that's not on this list."

"What's supposed to happen when you have the right sequence?" said Uncle.

Yindrath shrugged.

"Couldn't you just try all possible sequences?" I said.

Yindrath scowled at me. "It'd take weeks. D'you think I've nothing better to do?"

I quailed. "A few hours, at the most. There are seven hundred and twenty possible ways of arranging six objects - seven hundred and eight, now that you've tried twelve that don't work."

Uncle held the mirror out to me. "Don't let me stop you."

It was much lighter than something with that much metal and glass had any right to be. I still found it unnerving how bright and detailed the reflection of myself was, and how closely it mimicked every detail of my expression. I could count the flecks in my irises, and the short hairs under my chin, where I didn't shave as thoroughly as I should. The rubies seemed to glow with a light not of the room, inviting my touch. Seven hundred and eight possible sequences might not take very long to test - but how would I be sure I'd tried all of them, and wasn't repeating myself? Or maybe...

I showed the mirror to both of them. "Would you say one of these rubies is bigger than the others?"

"That one," said Uncle, pointing to it, "but there isn't much to choose between them." Yindrath agreed.

"Then if it's the biggest, perhaps it's the most important, and should be at the top." I rotated the mirror accordingly. I asked Uncle to call out the first sequence. The rubies seemed to yield slightly under my touch. I got the impression this was deliberate, not a sign of age. Nothing happened. I tried the second sequence. Still nothing. I hesitated before trying the third.

A faint, high-pitched note came from the mirror, like a girl singing, and it vibrated like a beaten drum.

"Put it down," said Uncle, fear lining his face.

Before I could obey, a blinding white light sprang from the mirror's surface. The mirror slipped from my shaking hands and crashed to the floor.

"Goddess-damned idiot," Uncle growled, moving towards me. I couldn't bring myself to look at the floor - a priceless object, ruined by my carelessness. From the corner of my eye, I saw him bend to pick it up. He gasped.

"Look at this," he said, taking the mirror to Yindrath. It still glowed with a white light, stronger than the light from the fire.

Yindrath gasped and muttered what sounded like, "Mazor guard us." I hadn't marked him as the religious type. He motioned me to join them.

Curiosity edging out shame and fear, I came over to them. Now it was my turn to gasp. The mirror no longer showed a reflection. What I'd thought was a simple white glow was a picture - a landscape, but none like I'd ever seen. The ground was a sweeping white plain, with jagged hills to the left, also white. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue. On the right, cut off by the edge of the mirror, was a grey walled city, broad and squat.

"Whoever painted this was good," said Uncle, "though I don't think much of his choice of subject."

"It's not a painting," said Yindrath. "Somewhere, there's another mirror just like this one, and what we're seeing is what that mirror is looking at."

"Ridiculous," Uncle snorted. "Where would you find somewhere with white ground and white hills?"

"Far to the south," said Yindrath, "or farther to the north. That white stuff is called 'snow.' It falls out of the sky instead of rain in very cold places."

"And how would you know? You told me you'd never been further than Seltrakht."

"Do you believe in the existence of dragons?"

"Of course," said Uncle.

"Even though you've never seen one?"

I could see where this was heading, and grinned.

"Yes..." said Uncle.

"Then is it so hard to believe in the existence of something you've seen only in a magic mirror?"

Uncle scratched his beard. "I suppose not."

"So," I said, shifting from one foot to the other, "if we can see whatever that other mirror is looking at, does that mean someone who looks into the other mirror can see us?"

"Yes," said Yindrath.

"How do we stop it, then?"

"The same way you started it."

I took the mirror from Uncle. I'd expected it to be warm from his hands, but it still produced no sensation in my fingers, other than its weight. I touched the rubies in the same sequence I'd used to bring forth the picture, and it vanished as suddenly as if someone had slammed a door on it. I gazed again on my own reflection.

Uncle rubbed his chin and stared into the distance. I knew that look well - he was planning something. I just hoped this scheme wouldn't end with us in court. "How much do I owe you?" he asked Yindrath.

"Five svara."

"Five?!"

"If you can find another antiquary who even knows what that thing is, I'll refund my fee," Yindrath said.

Muttering, Uncle reached into his purse and handed over the coins.