Reckless (Mirrorworld #1)

Reckless (Mirrorworld #1) Page 16

And he listened to the rock again, let it paint pictures and turn to stone what was soft in him.

19

Valiant

Terpevas was the largest city of the Dwarfs. It was more than twelve hundred years old, if their records were to be believed. And yet the large hoardings on the city walls, advertising anything from beer and eyeglasses to patented gas lamps, made it clear to any visitor that no one took the modern times more seriously than the Dwarfs. They were restless, traditional, grouchy, and inventive, and their trading posts could be found in every corner of this world, though the Dwarfs themselves barely reached the hips of most of their customers. In addition, their reputation as spies was unrivaled.

The traffic in front of the gates of Terpevas was nearly as congested as it was on the other side of the mirror, though here the noise came from carts, carriages, and horses vying for space on the gray cobblestones. The Dwarfs' customers came from everywhere, and the war had only increased business. They had been trading with the Goyl for a long time, and the Stone King had made many of them his chief purveyors. Evenaugh Valiant, the Dwarf whom Jacob had come to see, had also been trading with the Goyl for years, staying true to his motto of always getting on the winning side in time.

Let's just hope the devious little bastard is still alive! Jacob thought to himself as he steered his mare past coaches and chaises and toward the city's southern gate. After all, it was perfectly possible that by now some cheated customer had bludgeoned Valiant to death.

It would have taken three Dwarfs standing on top of one another to look into the eyes of one of the sentries by the gate. Only those men who could prove their direct descent from the extinct race of Giants were hired to guard Terpevas's gates. The Giantlings, as they were referred to, were highly sought after as guards and mercenaries, even though they were generally not thought to be very bright. The Dwarfs paid them so well that they even squeezed themselves into the old-fashioned uniforms used by their employers' army. Not even the imperial cavalry wore helmets plumed with swan feathers anymore, but the Dwarfs liked to decorate the modern era with the reassuring uniforms of more traditional times.

As Jacob rode past the Giantlings, he fell in behind two Goyl. One of them had a skin of moonstone; the other's was onyx. Their attire was not any different from that of the human factory owners whose carriage the Giantlings waved through behind them — though their tailcoats revealed distinct bulges of pistol handles. Their wide lapels were embroidered with jade and moonstone, and the dark glasses with which they shielded their sensitive eyes were made of onyx, cut thinner than any human stonecutter could have ever achieved.

The two Goyl ignored the fear and disgust their presence clearly elicited in all the human visitors to the Dwarf city. Their faces said it quite clearly: This world belonged to them now. Their King had plucked it like a ripe fruit, and all those who, until a few years ago, had hunted them like animals were now burying their soldiers in mass graves and begging for peace.

The onyx-skinned Goyl removed his glasses, and his gold-drenched glance so resembled Will's that Jacob reined in his horse and stared after them until the angry shouts of a Dwarf woman with two tiny children whose path he was blocking brought him back to his senses.

Dwarf city. Shrunken world.

Jacob left the mare in one of the stables by the city wall. Terpevas's main roads were as wide as the streets of the humans, but beyond those there was no denying that the city's inhabitants were barely larger than a six-year-old child, and some of the alleyways were so narrow that Jacob could barely pass through them even on foot. All the cities of Mirrorworld were spreading like fungi, and Terpevas was no exception. Smoke from countless coal furnaces blackened the windows and the walls, and the cold autumn air certainly did not smell of damp leaves, even though the Dwarf's sewer system was vastly superior to that of the Empress. With every year Jacob spent in it, the world behind the mirror seemed more desperate to catch up with its sister on the other side.

Jacob could barely decipher the street signs, for he had acquired only a very scant knowledge of the Dwarf alphabet, and soon enough he was hopelessly lost. After the third time Jacob hit his head on the same barber's sign, he finally stopped a messenger boy and asked him for directions to the house of Evenaugh Valiant, Importer and Exporter of Rare Objects of Any Kind. The boy barely reached his knee, but his demeanor immediately became more friendly as Jacob counted two copper coins into his tiny hand. His diminutive guide darted through the crowded alleys so quickly that Jacob had trouble keeping up with him, but finally they stopped in front of the same entrance Jacob had squeezed himself through three years earlier.

Valiant's name was etched in golden letters on the frosted glass, and just as before Jacob had to duck his head to fit through the doorframe. Valiant's reception room was just tall enough for his human clients to be able to stand upright in it. The walls were decorated with photographs of his most influential customers. Even in the Mirrorworld people no longer had themselves painted but photographed, and nothing attested to Valiant's business acumen better than the fact that the portrait of the Empress was hanging right next to that of a Goyl officer. The frames were made of moon-silver, and the chandelier hanging from the ceiling was inlaid with the glass hairs of a Djinn, which must have cost the Dwarf a fortune. Everything indicated that business was good. There were two secretaries instead of the one grumpy Dwarf woman who had greeted Jacob on his first visit.

The smaller of the two didn't even lift his head as Jacob stood in front of his barely knee-high desk. The other one eyed him with the customary disdain Dwarfs displayed toward all humans, including those they were doing business with.

Jacob gave him his friendliest smile.

"I take it Mr. Valiant still does business with the Fairies?"

"Indeed. But we don't have any moth cocoons in stock at the moment." The secretary's voice, like that of most Dwarfs, was surprisingly deep. "Try us again in three months."

With that, he turned his attention back to his papers, but his head shot up again as Jacob cocked his pistol with a soft click.

"I'm not here for moth cocoons. Would you both be kind enough to step into that wardrobe over there?"

The strength of Dwarfs was legendary, but those two were rather scrawny specimens, and Valiant obviously didn't pay them enough to risk being shot by some passing human. They let themselves be locked up in the wardrobe without any resistance. It looked solid enough to ensure that they couldn't call Dwarf police while Jacob had a chat with their employer.

The crest that was proudly displayed on Valiant's office door showed, above the Fairy lily, the heraldic animal of the Valiants, the badger, sitting on a mound of gold coins.

The door on which it hung was made of rosewood, a material known not only for its high price but also for its superior soundproofing qualities, which meant that Valiant hadn't noticed any of what had been going on in his front office.

He was sitting behind a human-sized desk, the legs of which had been shortened. His eyes were closed, and he was puffing on a cigar that would have looked huge even in the mouth of a Giantling. Evenaugh Valiant had shaved his beard, as was now the fashion among Dwarfs. The eyebrows, usually as bushy as those of all his race, had been carefully trimmed, and his bespoke suit was made of velvet, a material rich Dwarfs coveted more than any other. Jacob would have loved to pluck him out of his wolf-leather chair and toss him through the window behind him, but the memory of Will's petrified face held him back.