Chapter 17: Chapter 16: Mirror Mirror

“You are speaking of Jehsha’s Window,” Tiarraluna confessed. “It does accomplish all that you say.” At his surprised expression, she continued. “The window is used to gauge the abilities of new apprentices as they begin their journeys along their chosen paths of adventure. And later, to grant them additional skills or traits when earned.”

“And why am I only just now hearing about this?” he wondered.

“You are not twelve years old, Jack san,” she replied with some chagrin and a glance to the guildmaster, who was now speaking. “And,” she added, “the device imprints upon a life crystal, which you do not have. It simply did not occur to either of us.”

“Still,” he said. “Worth a shot, no?”

She spoke to the guildmaster. Back to Jack. “We are already indebted to the guild for over one hundred-seventy gold rondels, Jack san,” she told him, voice low. “For the tests you have already undergone, the issuance of a guild token, and the damage you did to the demon trap. Are you prepared to add an additional ten gold rondels to that debt on something that stands almost no chance of working?”

“One hundred and seventy rondels?” he asked, his voice raising.

The guildmaster chucked a thumb over his shoulder and groused for a bit. Tiarraluna translated this as, “he says that you are getting a bargain, and asks if you have the slightest notion how expensive the dolls are to repair.”

“Fine,” he supposed.

He gave it some further thought. “I’d know better whether I was willing to incur additional debt if I had any idea of what sorts of bounties we’re looking at per job,” he said.

More back and forth with the guildmaster, before she informed him, “it is impossible to say before we know what sorts of bounties we might qualify for,” she told him. “He says that, in this area, they range from fifteen or twenty silver reals for lower level quests to upwards of a thousand gold rondels for grand quests.”

Okay. “And, say, I’m at least close in level —rank— to you. Where would that put us?”

She arched an eyebrow, but turned to the guildmaster to convey the question.

Back to Jack, and,“a small party of two rank tens might be able to garner in the range of eighty silver rondels at the low end to forty gold rondels at the high end,” she sighed. “Not as much as I am used to earning, but Mokkelton is in a very low ranked area with, one presumes, lesser threats.”

So they were probably already underwater for their first four or five quests, and possibly their next three as well. He paused to consider how easily he’d fallen into that ‘we’ territory in his thinking. Then he shook his head to clear it. It wasn’t like he had a real choice. “Let’s hook me up,” he said. “Worst case, we come home broke an extra couple of times. Best case, we rate for higher level quests and break even on our first.”

“So cavalier,” she sighed. “Grandmother was right about you, was she not?” But she translated to the guildmaster, who nodded reluctantly and promised to give the device a shot. After they’d put everything away, of course.

* * *

He has night terrors, you know. She was looking off into the wood again.

“I did not,” he replied. “They must be quiet ones. Or perhaps my walls are thicker than I’d given them credit for.”

Oh, she shook her head slowly. Not so quiet as all that. And not every night. There are nights, however, when he is quite vocal. Early on, I was forced to render him limp more than a few times when his thrashing about threatened to undo my hard work.

He nodded without immediately answering, waiting for her to continue on her own.

He isn’t like the others, she mentioned after awhile. Beyond his size, his skin and hair and eyes. Beyond even his lack of a crystal. Despite coming from the same world.

“And how is that?” he prompted as though reading lines in a play.

The others, she sighed. Save perhaps my Kenji and that poor haunted boy. They were innocents. Prior to their arrival here, they lived lives of peace and relative safety. Their land was very civilized, and no longer engaged in war.

“I see.”

Do you? She wondered. Jack san’s land is different. He is from a place called America. Kenji told me about them. Savages, he called them, with no honor. Barbarians. They had only just finished conquering their own lands, and were setting out to intimidate the whole of the world with their so-called Great White Fleet of battleships.

Their world was marching to war, and these Americans seemed eager to be a part of it. Japan was still an empire then, and so she studied them. In the case that they were drawn into that war. Kenji was summoned to Mund scarcely a month after ‘the first shots of that war were fired’, as he described the initiation of conflict, and so he never learned of its outcome or whether Japan had been drawn in.

And yet by the time the third hero. the haunted boy, came through, that war had been over for some decades, and yet another had been fought. And Japan had found herself a conquered and occupied nation. I’ll leave it for you to gather by whom.

“I suppose I might work it out,” he told her. “Given your clues."

I wonder, Mohrdrand, she posed Did you ever have opportunity to speak to the haunted boy?

He shook his head, wondering where she was going with this line of discourse. “I was barely Tiarraluna’s rank back then,” he confessed. “Little time would a hero have for the likes of me.”

America played a large part in that war, Mohrdrand, she told him. Towards the end, when Japan refused to surrender, they used flying machines against her, blackening the skies like vast murders of crows over a carcass. Night after night, they dropped fire upon her cities, in great sheets, burning whole populations alive.

And in the end, when still she opposed them, they created weapons such as should not exist. Two of them, at the least, Mohrdrand. Each of them for a city. Do you understand me, Mohrdrand? A city! And they used them. Two infernal devices, two cities filled with people utterly destroyed. She snapped her fingers. Like that.

That is what the haunted boy told me, she sighed raggedly. Among other tales. He himself bore the scars of horrible burns suffered in those last days before the American soldiers set foot on the home islands.

You see, perhaps, why I might not want a weapon created by such a people loose in the world?

Even now, her jaw tightened and her eyes hardened. America is fresh from her latest war, although her foes were different. According to Jack san, as I have it through what he’s told Button, she has been at war for most of his lifetime. Oh, they are far off wars, against those who rule and conquer through terror. Nor do these wars discomfit overmuch the majority of those who live within her borders.

But him? She grunted in lieu of a chuckle. He volunteered to fight in them. You see, Mohrdrand, he was a warrior before ever he set foot on Mund.

“And that fact is what causes his terrors?” he asked.

No, she replied. Not exactly. And yet, wholly.

“I’m not sure whether you expect me to understand,” he chuckled, “or are merely building drama.”

She shot him an eye, but clarified. He is not only different from the others, Mohrdrand but would seem to be as different from his own people, if what Kenji and the haunted boy told me was the truth.

“How so?” he asked.

Far from being a soulless barbarian, Mohrdrand, she sent, he is... He is mortally terrified of not being where he is needed. That he will be late, or not strong enough. That others will suffer or die due to his shortcomings or his absence. That innocents will suffer.

He clucked his tongue. “That sort of guilt can burn a man dry,” he observed. “It’s not rational.”

Rational? She shrugged. My old friend, I suppose the measure of rationality is a matter of how many children you’ve had die in your arms. How many friends. How many atrocities you’ve seen. For some, the acceptable number is surprisingly small.

“So?” he asked, frowning.

I did not count, she hastened. Grief enough of my own, have I, without borrowing from others. But enough. For good or ill, he is driven. And the gods, in their wisdom, have given him to us. Given him a new war to fight. Many more people to save.

“Many more opportunities to be late,” Mohrdrand grumbled. “He is only one man, Rosaluna, and Mund is vast. He will not be able to save everyone.”

He will save many, she sent. Perhaps that will be enough for him. Certainly, each of those saved will be happy enough for it, don’t you imagine?

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He is very strong, I think, in many ways, she nodded slowly to herself. Perhaps strong enough. Particularly if they take him to the window and Jehsha chooses to see him. Oh, but would that I could be there to see the look on Master Jonkins’ face should that happen.

“You say that as though you already know his class,” Mohrdrand chuckled.

But of course I do, my old friend, she smiled grimly back, eyes still hard. Now that I know him truly to be gifted in a way that Mund recognizes? How long was he in my care, after all?

* * *

Finally. Something that looked like it was supposed to. This Jehsha’s Window appeared to be an extravagantly elaborate full length mirror consisting of the standard isekai fantasy world reflectionless black glass. Its thick frame was all gilt and filigree, inset with jewels, slathered with glowing symbols and arcane script. He couldn’t wait to try it!

“So,” he held up a hand. "I just press my hand against the glass and the mirror does its thing?”

“Both hands, Jack san,” Tiarraluna corrected. “And your forehead, although I am still more than a little unsure whether the window will be able to produce any viable result without a life crystal to interact with.”

The guildmaster moved around her and removed what had appeared to be a jeweled ornament from the mirror’s frame. Turning to Jack, he motioned for him to hold out his hands, palms up. Two quick jabs from the thick pin protruding from its reverse side and blood began to flow from the punctures on the balls of Jack’s palms. Another jab to his forehead, almost too quick to follow, and the guildmaster stepped back.

“Now, Jack san,” Tiarraluna prompted. “Quickly. Palms out at chest height and to either side. Face the mirror close enough that your nose nearly touches the glass without stretching. Close your eyes, and concentrate on opening yourself up to Jehsha. Then place your palms flat against the glass and touch your forehead to it as well.”

“And then what?” he asked as he closed on the mirror.

“And then we wait to see if anything happens.”

The glass felt icy cold at first, but warmed quickly, becoming uncomfortably hot within a few heartbeats. He tried to ignore it as he strove to ‘open himself up’ without really knowing what that felt like.

“Is it working?” he asked tightly after a few moments had passed.

“Shhh!” she scolded. “I do not know. I do not think—”

“Oh,” the guildmaster interrupted. “It’s working alright. I’m not sure how, but it’s working. It just isn’t doing so in any way I’ve ever seen it work before.”

The glass had grown smokey, its surface roiling slowly, flecks of grey-green light flashing as if from some deep cavern beyond the smoke. A soft keening grew up from beneath the audible range, faint, yet clear. Lightning seemed to be arcing from beneath Jack’s fingertips, tracing deep into the dark field; an odd sort of blue-white, fractious display. His forehead felt as though somebody was going at it with a diesel powered tattoo pen.

Above, and deep within the field, wavering text seemed to be trying to form, shifting and sliding away even as it manifested. The whole process was taking longer than the guildmaster thought it should, and he said so.

“Should we stop?” Tiarraluna asked nervously.

“Not yet,” he cautioned. “As I said, it’s working, just not normally. We’ll give it a chance. You pay either way, right?”

“Jack?” she asked after translating.

His teeth were clenched at this point, his palms on fire. The tattoo pen had been replaced with a fiery jackhammer. Faintly, through the pounding, he could swear he heard a gruff voice. As though someone were standing before and above him, within the mirror. Endure, lost child, it ordered. You must endure.

“Give it a bit more,” he winced without opening his eyes. “I’m good.”

She didn’t believe him, but she nodded to the guildmaster.

They could hear his teeth grinding before the mirror gave up its secrets and formed a mostly coherent message within its depths. His head came away from the surface with an audible pop the instant Tiarraluna gave him the news and the guildmaster’s permission. His hands took a bit longer, and came away with less skin than when he’d laid them against the glass. His forehead was bright red and blistered. The burns on his hands were worse.

“You put kids through this?” he growled, irritated and dizzy.

Tiarraluna gasped at the sight of his injuries and moved quickly to his side. “This is not normal behavior, Jack san,” she explained taughtly as she began a healing incantation. “I have never seen a window harm anyone before.” He merely stood with his hands held out, swaying on his feet, panting and glaring at the tale of the trial as it slowly vanished from the glass.

“Well?” he grated after Tiarraluna had done what she could.

The guildmaster was scratching at his beard and squinting hard at the displayed text, widening first one eye and then the other, as though changing focus might alter what he was seeing. “Well, it kind of worked,” he said, hesitantly. “Sort of. I suppose.”

“What does that even mean?” Tiarraluna demanded without bothering to translate.

“It means," Battler Borea Jonkins, the guildmaster of the Mokkelton Adventurers Guild replied stiffly, “that it seems to have worked, but that the results make no damned sense.”

“How so?” she asked, at least translating his response for Jack this time.

“Three classes?” Jonkins demanded. “Three? Nobody is three class. And this first one?” he pointed broadly.

* * *

“Surely not!” Mohrdrand’s eyes went wide. “There hasn’t been a sentinel walk the face of Mund in nearly a thousand years. I know you don’t like to hear this, Rosaluna,” he shook his head. “But you must be mistaken.”

Look with your inner eye, Mohrdrand, she urged. What were the forces that drove the old sentinels? What was it sent them out from their castles and cities into the wilderness? Sent them forth from lives of wealth and potential ease and onto paths that more often than not led to early and painful death? I submit to you, my good wizard, that they were the same forces which drive our young Jackson today.

No, friend Mohrdrand, she waved a finger at him. Jehsha will not so much grant him the class as see within him that he has already been a sentinel for most of his life.

* * *

“Sentinel?” Jonkins lowered his gaze to Jack, narrowing his eyes. “Sentinel. Him.”

“And what is wrong with that?” Tiarraluna demanded. “Is there something wrong with being a sentinel?”

He cut short his bark of laughter to answer. “Nothing at all, little miss,” he grated. “If it was a thousand years ago and he a first rank nobleman.

“Sentinels,” he explained more slowly, as if giving a lecture. “Were the wardens —the guardians— of the frontiers when the world was wild. More sparsely populated with humans or demihumans than it is today. More heavily populated with manifestations of the dark. And before the gifted were as common as they are these days, and able to hold the darkness in check. They traveled the world, mostly alone, righting wrongs, battling monsters, freeing princesses, defending villages. Bringing hope to the downtrodden....

"They were the heroes ordinary heroes revered. Storybook legends. Almost exclusively,” he went on, “they were royals. Kings and princes who gave up everything to protect the land.”

She looked to Jack, slowly rubbing his forehead with the back of a hand while he glared accusingly at the once more pristine glass of Jehsha’s Window. She giggled. “Alright, Lord Jonkins,” she allowed. “I will grant you that he does not look the part just yet. But his heart is true. He will grow into the title, I think.”

She forcefully pushed away the image that popped into her mind of the dark thing in the iron cage. That was not him. It could not be him.

“Yes, well...” he grumbled. “Not the greatest of the those who came before him pretended to be a sentinel. Even our esteemed new king whatsisname was no more than a battle mage.”

“Pretend, Lord guildmaster?” she asked. “Is this what you call the pronouncement of the window? The recognition by our Lord Jehsha?”

His scowl freshened, but he scrubbed it away with a hand. “I suppose not,” he conceded. “It’s just... I’d always thought of sentinels as the province of our people is all. Mundans. Not these imported heroes.”

“And the next?” she turned the subject away from this sore spot. "Do my eyes deceive? That truly says artificer? As a secondary class? I do not believe I have ever heard of such a thing.”

“I suppose once you’ve been granted... sentinel...” he grated with ill humor, “everything else must be. Though where it came from I no more know than his being.... Certainly not from carving a staff, despite what you lot have done with it after the fact.”

“The books!” Tiarraluna clapped her hands together.

“Books?” both men asked at once.

“When grandmother found him... you,” she spoke to them both. “Your —his— feet were tangled in the straps of some sort of knapsack. Filled with books and papers it was, and strange devices. That must be it.”

My textbooks! Jack realized. My notes! My homework!

Hard upon that realization, came another. He had his explanation now for why his leap away from the path of the onrushing bus had been so spectacularly unsuccessful. After eight hours of work, three hours of class, and a couple of hours using the trade school’s machine shop, he’d stumped into the living room dead beat, tossed his backpack full of school gear onto the floor beside his easy chair, tossed his jacket onto the couch, and flopped down to try and relax with some gaming. When he’d jumped, he must’ve gotten his legs caught in the rigging of the heavy pack. Wait a minute!

“My pack?” he demanded of Tiarraluna, catching her arms in his still stinging grip. “My pack is here? My books? My tools?”

“Jack san!” she squeaked. “Jack san, release me this instant!

“Yes,” she said somewhat agitatedly once he’d released her and stepped back. “Your books, in any case. I am not sure about tools, though. Grandmother said that there were some strange contraptions in there, but nothing about any tools.”

He was grinning so hard it was painful. Then his face fell. “Where are they?” he demanded. “Why didn’t any of you tell me about this?”

She was frowning now as well. “I saw no need,” she sniffed. “I had assumed you already knew. Why grandmother did not tell you I cannot say.

“As to their location, I should imagine they are still in the pack we brought from grandmother’s cottage.”

“Are we finished with our little drama yet?” the guildmaster broke in.

They left off staring at one another and returned their regard to him, faces stern.

“An artificer,” he began, but stopped. “There’s no need for me to explain,” he told the girl. “You know what they are as well as I do.”

She nodded and gave it to Jack in her own words. “Artificers are... builders, I suppose,” she told him. “Engineers, perhaps. They design and build engines, tools, weapons. Devices with magical properties, mostly.” She pointed to the mirror. “This device was crafted by an artificer, in fact.”

“I see,” he mused. “So I do have magical abilities, then.”

She tilted her head. “As I have indicated, Jack san,” she clarified. “You have mana. As Uncle Mohrdrand has said, you have the ability to infuse a thing with that mana, and perhaps affect its properties. Whether you have magical abilities, however, remains to be seen. Considering how you interact with FoeSmite, it is probable but by no means certain.”

“Oh, it’s certain, alright,” Jonkins informed her.

She turned questioningly.

“Part of being a sentinel,” he told her. “Sort of baked into the class.”

“Ah,” she nodded. Then back to Jack. “You see, Jack san,” she went on. “Magical ability is not a hard and fast trait of artificers. Most of them have it, but not all.”

“But you’ve already told me—” he began.

“Do not fret, Jack san,” she soothed. "Apparently it is a hard and fast trait of sentinels. You will simply require training in its use.”

“Ehem,” the guildmaster reminded them that they weren’t alone. Again, they turned to him.

“This final class,” he said a bit worriedly. “I can’t begin to say. I can’t read it, nor is it solid enough to say that it’s an active class or merely a potential. That alone is strange beyond anything I’ve seen before. Even given the rest of today’s events and revelations.”

“But...?” Tiarraluna started.

“As I said,” he cautioned. “Not normal. It shouldn’t be there, and yet it is. It should be comprehensible, and yet it isn’t. I don’t even recognize the script or language.”

Tiarraluna translated. Jack gave the mirror his full attention. Yeah, he could see where they’d have trouble. The script was indeed strange, and the translucent quality of it made it more difficult yet. But the language? Yeah, he could read it.

“It says rifleman,” he chuckled dryly. “Rank twenty-four. In English.”

It took the mundans awhile to absorb that information.

“Ryfl-man?” Tiarraluna wondered.

“The way my people wage war,” he reminded her. “Our primary personal weapons, remember?”

“The bullet things, yes.” the guildmaster acknowledged. “But we don’t have those here.”

Jack smiled dryly. “That’s why it’s funny.”