1.08 – Mirror Match

“So, where do we go for dinner?” asked Carda. “It’s on me.”

The aftermath of the race, and the fire and excitement surrounding it, had left them all with an adrenaline buzz. Carda had spent an hour with the police, giving his statement about saving Shades from the wreck. The trouble was, while Carda and Shades’s stories matched, the other eyewitnesses had not seen Carda pull Shades from the car. The police finally put it down to post-race excitement and went with Carda and Shades’s story.

Carda finally rejoined Sera, Xironi and Lucas out in the parking lot, where they were sitting on the hood of Sera’s Firebird, waiting for him. It was nearly eight o’ clock, and they were all starving.

“Somewhere with steak,” said Xironi. “I could eat a horse right now.”

“I hope not literally,” said Carda. “Sera, where’s a good place to go?”

She shrugged. “You’ve got me. I don’t hang around Los Fuegos much.”

“Well, we’re not doing fast food again,” said Carda. “I want to celebrate!”

“Why not the Out Front Steakhouse?” said a voice. Carda turned to see the stranger who had warned him about the race limping across the parking lot toward him.

“Hi Indal,” said Xironi. “Where’ve you been?”

“Your name is Indal?” said Carda.

Indal offered a hand, and Carda shook it. “Indalrion, actually. I met your friends in the stands during the race. Mind if I join you for dinner?”

“You’ll have to ride in my car,” said Carda. “The Firebird’s full.”

“Fine, I’ll show you where to go,” said Indal.

They piled into their respective cars. Indal climbed carefully into the Roadster, wincing. “Fall off the grandstand?” Crada queried.

“I wish it were that simple,” said Indal, settling into the seat with a sigh and fiddling with the race harness. He was having trouble using his left hand, and Carda noticed a large bruise forming across the side of Indal’s face. Carda buckled himself in without saying anything, and pulled out into traffic, Sera following close behind.

“Take a left,” said Indal. “You know your buddy Rayn Mistral?”

“Yeah,” said Carda, fighting traffic.

“He jumped me,” said Indal, rolling up his left sleeve and displaying a long gash in his forearm. The wound was barely closed, and Indal studied it. “I turned back time on the worst of these, but my powers have stopped working. I’m afraid he’s damaged my time aura somehow.”

“Why did he jump you?” asked Carda, turning left.

“Right at the next light, and it’ll be on your left,” said Indal. “It’s not hard to figure out. I’m a chronomancer. He was annoyed that you and Shades didn’t blow up together, and he went for me when I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I didn’t notice a fight going on,” said Carda, waiting for traffic to clear so he could turn into the restaurant’s parking lot.

“Of course not,” said Indal. “I null-spaced us. That usually cuts down on a Strider’s powers enough to let us get away, but not this time. You have no idea how strong Mistral is.”

Carda pulled in and parked, and Sera parked next to him. “How’d you get away?”

“He hurt my aura spatially,” said Indal. “I’m not sure what he did and I’ve been afraid to look.”

They climbed out of the car and trooped into the restaurant, Carda watching Indal out of the corner of his eye. The chronomancer was hurt worse than he let on. His injuries must have started to stiffen, because he could hardly walk. They had to wait twenty minutes for a table, and Indal just stood facing the wall, not speaking. Carda relayed his story to the others in an undertone. As soon as Sera heard that he was hurt, she went to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Indal sighed and drooped as his wounds healed.

By the time they were seated at their table, Indal was ready to chatter. “An alchemist!” he exclaimed to Lucas. “I haven’t met an alchemist since grade school. Who’s your teacher?”

“Flamel,” said Lucas. “But I dropped out because my methods were too unconventional.”

“Hey Indal,” said Xironi, “you said you knew my grandfather.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Arthur’s a good man, one of the few Striders who doesn’t hate chronomancers. He put in a good word for me at the Institute when I applied. He gave quite a few lectures on the Strider of Chronos.”

Sera and Xironi stiffened, but Lucas and Carda looked blank. “What’s the Strider of Chronos?” asked Carda.

At that point their food arrived, and they set to work on their steaks. Between mouthfuls, Indal said, “The Strider of Chronos is a particular person who has the powers of both space and time. They’re born about once a generation, and their job is to make peace between the chronomancers and the Striders. Some have more luck with that than others.”

Indal met Carda’s eyes. “I think you’re the next one up to bat.”

A frozen silence settled on their table. Carda looked around and saw that every eye was fixed on him. “What, me?” He laughed. “You think I’m the Strider of Chronos?”

“Your second sight, Carda,” said Xironi. “It’s more than that. You’re actually manipulating time.”

“What? No!” said Carda. “That’s just—I never changed time. I just see things before they happen.”

“Today at the track,” said Indal. “We all saw Shades’s car catch fire and explode. Yet you somehow rescued him within the space of a few seconds.”

“There was a purple spark that jumped from your car to his,” said Sera, who had remained quiet this whole time. “Time energy always manifests as purple sparks.”

Carda turned to her. “What, you’re on their side, too?”

Sera smiled. “I’ve known for years, Carda. I just couldn’t tell you because you had to figure it out yourself.”

“But I haven’t figured anything out!” exclaimed Carda. “You guys are all telling me that I’m this once-a-generation super mage… guy. But I’m not! I can barely use my strider powers as it is!”

There was a moment of silence, and they all heard Lucas mutter, “So that’s why Rayn and Dimetrius wanted to kill you.”

Carda opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again. That was a chilling thought. He bent over his steak, and no one said anything else about the Strider of Chronos for the rest of the meal.

As they left the restaurant an hour later, Indal bade them goodnight. “I’ve done what I came to do, and I’d best be getting back to the Institute to report in. They’ll be interested to hear about your racing skills, Carda.” He winked.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” said Carda. He was unhappy at the thought of people spreading around his supposed “fame” when all he had ever done was see things before they happened. Although, come to think of it, that was an ability that dealt with time, not space. He almost looked forward to the long drive back to Sun Valley—it would give him time to think.

Rayn lifted his head and blinked.

He was sitting on the curb outside Sun Valley University, and it was dark. He slowly climbed to his feet, looking around. His head pounded, and his eyes felt puffy. What had happened? He thought back. The last thing he remembered was watching the race in Los Fuegos, and seeing Shades’s car catch fire… then nothing, until he woke up here.

What was he doing back in Sun Valley?

He looked up at the dark college buildings and the streetlights along the empty road. He must have teleported. But what could have happened to make him teleport without realizing it?

Wait. The chronomancer. He had done something strange with purple lightning at the very end of the race. Had he moved Rayn forward in time? Then why did Rayn feel so beaten up?

Rayn turned sideways, slipped through space, and stepped into Octavius’s office. Octavius was not there, but Dimetrius sat behind the desk, busy with a deck of Tarot cards. He looked up as Rayn appeared. “Hello Rayn. A bit late for a visit, isn’t it?”

He indicated the wall clock, which said five after midnight. Rayn stared at it. “What day is it?”

“Saturday, May thirteenth,” said Dimetrius. He smiled, showing too many teeth. “Lose track of time?”

“Six hours, gone,” said Rayn, rubbing his head. “A chronomancer at the race track ambushed me, and I don’t know what happened afterwards. I need to talk to Octavius.”

“Ah, but he’s in bed already,” said Dimetrius. “Why not talk to me instead?” He swept up his cards and shuffled them.

“Because I don’t trust you,” said Rayn flatly. “Octavius never leaves until one or two o’clock, anyway.” Rayn turned sideways again and peered down the corridors of compressed space. He spotted Octavius in the teacher’s lounge, and stepped through space to reach him.

Octavius rose as Rayn appeared. “Rayn. What happened?”

Rayn told him about the chronomancer at the track, and about waking up outside of Sun Valley University six hours later with no idea how he got there.

Octavius gazed at Rayn for a long moment without speaking. Finally he said, “The spirit within you grows more powerful. The chronomancer locked you into null-time. It’s what they do. Usually it breaks a Strider’s power, because they are suspended and cannot move or think. But your injuries lead me to believe that you fought him there. Fought him and, what is more, overpowered him. Because here you are.”

Rayn smiled. “You think I beat him?”

“I think your spirit beat him,” said Octavius. “Never underestimate its power, Rayn. The more you listen to it, feed it with your own power, the better a vessel you make yourself for its use.”

Rayn left the teacher’s lounge feeling reassured, yet at the same time, deeply unsettled.

It had been nearly three in the morning when Carda and company arrived back in Sun Valley. Sera had dropped off her passengers and headed home already, leaving Carda to say his goodbyes on Xironi’s front porch.

“Do you really think it’s true? What Indal said, I mean.”

“I’m going to do some research in Grandpa’s library tomorrow,” she replied. “The last Strider of Chronos was a friend of his, so I’m sure he’ll have something.”

“I’ll stop by in the morning to help,” Carda shook his head. “No, wait—that’s a lie. I probably won’t even wake up until the afternoon.”

Xironi giggled. “Well, whenever you happen to stop by, you’re more than welcome. I mean, your help is more than welcome.”

“You know what? We’re both tired, and I still have ten minutes of driving to do. Let’s leave it at that, tonight.”

“All right. Thanks for letting me tag along to your race. It was kind of fun, in a nerve-wracking sort of way.” Leaning forward, Xironi pecked his cheek, then turned and went inside.

Carda spent the drive home disappointed that she hadn’t kissed him on the lips.

A pounding on the door resonated through the house. Carda grumbled and rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head.

The pounding continued. Carda’s head shot up and he glared at the clock. Seven in the morning. Whoever was at the door was going to pay for their indiscretion by receiving a truckload of bad attitude. Carda slipped a pair of sweatpants on and tied his bathrobe around himself as he headed down the hallway. Passing Michelle’s room, he felt a pang of remorse for not working harder to find and rescue her, but with only four hours of sleep under his belt it was hard for Carda to plan anything beyond brusquely dismissing his unwelcome visitor and returning to bed.

More pounding on the door. Carda plopped his hat on his head before descending the stairs, to give added emphasis to the fact that he hadn’t had much sleep. Maybe if the early morning visitor thought he had fallen asleep with his clothes still on, they’d be more than a little apologetic for the rude awakening.

Carda reached the front door just as another fit of banging commenced. He yanked it open. “WHAT?!?”

A large creature resembling a Hollywood-style werewolf stood at his door, snarling at him.

There were few things, Carda would recount later, capable of waking you up so thoroughly after only four hours of sleep.

Carda leaped backwards as the wolf-thing charged at him. Carda knew he needed a weapon, and tried to summon the staff to his hand the way he had previously, but none appeared. How had he done it before?

No time to think about that now! Carda leaped aside as the wolf’s jaws clamped down where his head had been just a moment ago. Carda looked around for a weapon. Mom is going to kill me if any of her antiques get broken while she’s away, he thought.

His eyes locked onto the fireplace poker. Worth a shot.

He dashed toward the fireplace, only to find his path blocked by the wolf. Carda dove to the floor and flipped onto his back, sliding between the wolf’s legs. He swung one foot upwards and connected; the wolf’s breath left its lungs in a whoosh, and it staggered forward, hands reaching for a very tender spot just below the waist.

Carda’s hand shot out and snagged the poker. Rolling to a crouch, Carda took a moment to get a feel for the balance of the weapon he now held. Not quite balanced, but weighty on the pointy end. He could work with this.

The wolf-thing snarled and glared at Carda over its shoulder, but he could tell it was in pain. As it started to turn toward him, Carda swung the poker and connected with the creature’s head. It yelped and dropped to all fours, where it crouched, eyes glowing red.

Oh, crap. He had only made it mad.

It sprang at him, and in desperation Carda grabbed the living room’s space in both hands and squeezed. The wolf’s lunge merely launched it into the air, where it hung in a bubble of compressed space. But Carda couldn’t hold it there for long. It struggled, and he could feel it had some sort of innate spatial power that it was using against him. It broke his hold, and his hands flew apart. It dropped to the floor and reared up on its hind legs, jaws snapping.

“Think, Carda,” he said aloud. “Space won’t beat it…” As he thought of his time power, his right hand crackled with purple static. Maybe he could freeze it in time by punching it?

He jumped forward and swung at the wolf’s jaw. It dodged, and he hit its shoulder instead. Dang, this thing is tall. One of its clawed hands closed around his left hand. It dove forward, jaws reaching for his throat. Carda fisted its head to knock it aside.

To his amazement, the creature’s movements slowed to a crawl. He watched as it recoiled from his blow in slow motion, slowly toppling backward toward the carpet. Its fur glowed green at the ends. As it hit the floor, violet lightning arced over its body, and the wolf vanished. In its place lay Indal, his clothes tattered, unconscious.

Carda stood there, panting and staring. “Wow,” he muttered. “I’d try to think of a snappy one-liner, but I’m too tired.”

Xironi got up shortly before noon, showered, and made herself some cereal in the kitchen. She brought with her a thick book on the history of the Chrono-Xoromancer wars. It had taken her a minute to remember that xoromancer was the proper term for Striders, or space mages.

Long ago, time and space were the same branch of magic. But as the mages practicing them learned more and more about the different aspects of time and space, some devoted their energies to manipulating one, while some focused on the other. The Striders and the Chronomancers arose. In their infancy they were allies, and learned much from each other.

Xironi skipped to the first war between them. The battlefield had been the world of Jun, which was utterly destroyed in the conflict. Shortly afterward, the first Strider of Chronos stepped into history and struggled to make peace.

Xironi cross-indexed the term ‘Strider of Chronos’. She ate and read, skimming through oceans of fine print, absorbing information.

She had almost finished her cereal when Esca called from the front room, “Miss Xironi?”

“What, Esca?” said Xironi absently.

“Carda’s here.”

“Well, let him in.”

“I don’t know…”

“Why, what’s wrong?” Xironi lowered her book.

“He’s… carrying a body.”

“A body?” Xironi dropped the book and leaped out of her chair.

Esca unlocked the door as Xironi arrived, and Carda pushed it open. Over one shoulder he carried a figure with its feet tied together and its hands tied behind its back. “I gotta put him down,” Carda grunted, struggling into the room under his load. Xironi backed away, hands over her mouth, as Carda lugged his burden into the Hub and dumped it into a chair.

It was Indal, and he was unconscious. Carda had tied him securely with duct tape.

“What in the world?” asked Xironi faintly.

“Duct tape,” Carda quipped. “Fixes everything.”

“But why?”

“He attacked me this morning. Although it wasn’t really him. It was this big werewolfy thing. Woke me up at seven. Few things will clear the cobwebs out of your head so fast after four hours of sleep.”

“Werewolfy… thing?” Xironi blinked. “You mean a Lycan?”

“Whatever. Can they shapeshift into human form?”

“No, actually. They’re just big, mean, wolf-like people. Very territorial.”

“Territorial. So they don’t tend to travel much.”

“Right.”

“Then how did one end up on my front porch this morning? And then turn into our buddy Indal here when I knocked it out?”

“You knocked it out?”

“It was a challenge, but yeah.”

A muffled noise came from the pile of body in the chair. Indal was waking up, head rolling from side to side. He blinked up at them and mumbled behind the strip of tape over his mouth. Xironi glanced down. “I think he wants to tell you what happened.”

Carda rolled his eyes and reached towards the strip of duct tape over Indal’s mouth.

Xironi winced at the ripping sound that followed. Esca even bobbled a bit at the scream that came after it.

Then Indal sat panting and looking angry.

“I thought you wanted to say something,” said Carda.

“Sure I did,” said Indal, “before you ripped my lips off!” He licked his aggrieved lips, checking that they were still there. “You can untie me,” he added. “If I switched back, the tape would be on me, not the Lycan. All we do is trade places.”

Carda tore the tape off Indal’s wrists and ankles. The tape around his ankles was stuck to his pants, but sadly, the tape on his bare wrists took off a layer of hair. Indal yelled through clenched teeth and rubbed his wrists.

“So,” said Carda, finally sitting down in an opposite chair, “what brought you to my door so early this morning?”

“Seven is NOT early,” growled Indal. “I came to you for help, but I accidentally switched when I tried to use my chronomancy to check if you were home. Using any time power at all must flip the switch somehow.”

“So you switched places with a Lycan?” asked Xironi. “Like, spatially?”

“Sure seems that way,” said Indal. “Remember when I said yesterday that Rayn damaged my aura? That’s what he did. He tangled me up with the spatial aura of a random Lycan. The other chronomancers sent me to you for help. They said if I’d found the true Strider of Chronos, you’d be the only one who could help me.”

Carda raised his eyebrows. “Well, it was hitting the Lycan with my right hand that made you switch back…”

“Your right hand?” Indal inquired, confused. “So you used spatial power to trigger the reversion?”

“No, I think it was temporal,” Carda admitted. “Because when I decked the wolf it fell over all slow-motion-ish.” He mimed the fall to demonstrate.

“That’s odd,” Indal murmured, rubbing the day-old stubble on his chin.

“What, that I may actually be admitting that I can manipulate both time and space?”

“No, that you specifically recall hitting the Lycan with your right hand.”

“So?”

“So that triggered a temporal spell of some sort.”

“I fail to see what you’re getting at.” Carda threw his hands up in the air. “Can someone please just start TELLING me things instead of trying to clue me in slowly?”

Indal gazed at him. “That would mean that if you are this generation’s Strider of Chronos — which is hardly a question of verity at this point — your powers are backwards.”

“Backwards?”

Xironi cut in. “It’s true. I’ve been doing research all morning, and all the records I’ve found have been very clear: the Strider of Chronos holds the power of the Emerald Flame in his RIGHT hand and the power of the Amethyst Spark in his LEFT hand. But the way you’re explaining it, it’s the other way around.”

Carda looked down and opened his hands. “Well, when Arthur tried to have me channel spatial energy through my right hand, I felt like I was going to be ripped in half. I can only use strider abilities with my left hand.”

“Odd,” Indal repeated.

“I just wish we had some sort of test to prove once and for all whether you do have the power,” Xironi commented. “I wish Grandpa had left Joseph Planarre’s journal with me; that would probably give us a clue…”

“Journal?” Carda’s memory dredged up something Arthur had said the week before. “Actually…” He dashed off to the hub room and returned a moment later with a leather-bound book.

“That’s IT!” Xironi gasped. “Where did you get that?!”

“Your grandfather gave it to me last week, right before I came to rescue you.” Carda opened the book and thumbed through it. “Lots of diagrams in here… Looks like he wanted to be an artist.” Xironi peered over his shoulder with interest.

Seconds later, Esca chimed, “Miss Sera’s here,” and the front door banged open.

“Carda?” yelled Sera.

“In here, Sera,” he called without looking up from the book.

Sera burst into the hub, wings open and her shirt on backwards. “Carda, what happened?” she exclaimed. “Your living room was thrashed and the front door was left open!”

Carda glanced up briefly, took note of Sera’s agitation, and returned to skimming the journal. “Had a visitor this morning. I thought I closed the door, but it must not have latched. My hands were full.”

Sera began to calm down, as Carda was obviously unhurt and no one else was upset. Her wings folded in and disappeared. Indal’s eyes followed them. “Wow, I’m glad you didn’t show up earlier. I might’ve been killed.”

“Why?” said Sera, looking at him suspiciously.

“Indal’s a werewolf now,” said Xironi. Sera’s wings unfurled again and she stepped between Indal and Carda, and stood there while Xironi repeated the story of Indal’s attack.

“But it wasn’t me!” Indal concluded. “Tuck those wings away, missy. I’m not going to hurt anybody unless I try to use a temporal spell. And I’m sure as heck not doing that any time soon.”

Carda sat on the arm of a nearby chair, paying no attention to the conversation. “Hey, he tells how to make an extra-dimensional space in here. I could expand the inside of my car!”

Xironi smiled. “With all the new gear in there, it might be nice to have a few extra inches.”

Sera looked at the journal over Carda’s other shoulder as he traced the diagram with one finger. It looked like a Salvador Dali drawing, with too many lines going in too many directions, evidently indicating a network of dimensions.

Indal rose to his feet, wincing. “Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid. That’s a Strider thing.” He limped off in the direction of the kitchen, returning a moment later with an odd expression on his face. “That’s some coffee pot you have in there.”

“Oh, that’s Lucas’s,” said Xironi. “I don’t know how to use it, either.”

Carda flipped to the back of the journal. “Hey, here’s how to tell if a person’s powers are really both space and time! There’s this medallion…”

“Joseph wore a medallion,” said Xironi. “I remember that. Silver, with an hourglass thing on it.”

“Says it turns gold if a Strider of Chronos touches it,” said Carda. He read further along and his face fell. “Uh-oh. Apparently he hid it.”

“Hid it where?” said Sera.

“He left clues,” said Carda, reading quickly. “Two other journals from other Striders of Chronos. He says here that he hid them in different worlds, at different times, so only another Strider of Chronos could find them. Kind of a training course.”

“Sounds like you’re in for a trip,” said Lucas, entering the room in shorts and a faded Cardinals t-shirt. He greeted everyone with a wave. “You guys are up early.”

Indal glared. “Okay, one PM is NOT early.”

Lucas only grinned. “I’ll make the coffee.”

“Yes, please,” said Xironi. “I tried, but your coffee pot scares me.”

“Oh, that’s a still,” said Lucas. “I just make coffee on the stove.”

“A still?” said Carda, head jerking up. “What for?”

“To make potions with, of course,” said Lucas. “What, you thought I’d use a test tube over a hot burner? Please.” He vanished in the direction of the kitchen.

“Potions that give you a light buzz and a hangover afterwards,” said Indal softly. Everyone snorted with laughter.

A few minutes later, Lucas returned with five cups of coffee. Carda waved his away. “No thanks. I prefer my caffeine cold and carbonated.”

“Your loss,” Lucas countered. “So where do you have to go to find these journals?”

“Looks like libraries,” said Carda, squinting at the tiny, cramped handwriting. “The Library of Alexandria, present day, three distant. What’s that mean?”

“Three worlds removed from ours,” said Xironi. “It’s a measurement Striders use to move between worlds. Anything past five is non-human, usually.”

Carda nodded, hoping that he would understand this soon. “And it looks like Atlantis, 2020 AD, one distant,” read Carda.

“Hey, that’s my world!” said Lucas. “Take me when you go. I’ll finally get to go home!”

“Fine with me, although any alibis as to your long disappearance are entirely your responsibility,” smirked Carda. He closed the journal. “So how do we travel between worlds, exactly?”

“Imagine Earth at the center of a spiderweb,” said Xironi. “Radiating out from it are other worlds of all kinds. The first five worlds out from Earth are human worlds. Beyond that are non-human worlds. Lycans come from a six or seven, I think. The further out you go, the less human the inhabitants are.”

Carda nodded. “But how do you navigate?”

Xironi held up a hand, and Esca floated in and hovered over it. “I use Esca. Hardcore striders do all the math themselves, but I make mistakes sometimes, and you can’t afford to do that. So I let Esca make the calculations. Lots of physics and probability problems, then you have to calculate the strength of the wormhole necessary to bridge probabilities. Then you build your tesseract from that.”

A blank stare was his only response.

Xironi smiled. “We’ll have Esca help us; let’s leave it at that.”