“You know that Green Riders have special abilities, do you not?”
“Yes, I have heard this. The foundation stud of our enslaved true healers was a Green Rider, from before the emperor conquered your Sacoridia. We have carefully bred the line to maintain and enhance the healing ability.”
It was her turn to be shocked. He couldn’t mean Ben Simeon, could he? The only Green Rider known to fear horses? Poor Ben, enslaved and bred to produce more healers? She’d been cold ashes before when she thought Cade already dead, but now there were embers glowing within. They threatened to flare, but she subdued them. She needed Dr. Silk.
“You will tell me of your ability?” Dr. Silk asked eagerly.
“I will show you,” she said. “If you personally ensure I can see Mr. Harlowe.”
“I am a man of influence as you say, but alas, even my influence goes only so far. My father would not permit it. Besides, I could always use Mr. Harlowe’s welfare as leverage to force you to show me your ability.”
“My ability cannot be coerced. If I feel I am being threatened, or Mr. Harlowe is being used as leverage, it will not work.” It was pretty much a lie, and he’d probably see right through it, but she had to try. “Would your father necessarily have to know about my seeing Cade? It could be between you and me.”
He said nothing, weighing her words, no doubt.
“Look,” she continued, “we both want something, and we can both make it work to our mutual benefit.”
Dr. Silk laughed. It was a scratchy sound. “You did say you were born to merchants, did you not?”
“The very best.”
“Very well.” She could tell he was trying to sound indifferent, but she could hear the underlying eagerness in his voice. “As long as you remain cooperative and answer my questions, as well as show me your ability, I will find a way to let you see your lover. You will just have to trust me to keep my end of this . . . bargain.”
She nodded. “I will accept your word, on your honor, as you will have to accept mine.”
“Agreed.”
Karigan gave him the traditional merchant bow to seal it. “I am at your service.”
Dr. Silk nodded gravely in return. “Then let us begin with questions, shall we? About your ability—”
“Not until I see Cade.”
“That will take time to arrange.”
Karigan shrugged. “I will not show you, or talk about it, till I see him.” She imagined Dr. Silk glaring at her from behind his specs as the silence lengthened between them. She did not capitulate.
As though they had not spoken of her ability or Cade, he folded his hands upon the desk once again and began to speak. “I have a number of questions, which you have agreed to answer. As improbable as it sounds, the fact that a person from so long ago is sitting before me now, there is precedent for it. One only has to look to the emperor or my father for that. But unlike either of them, if you are who you say you are, I gather you have not been living among us for these two centuries but are only recently arrived. And if that is, in fact, the case, how is it you came to be here?”
The questioning, and her answering, were both very like what it had been with the professor. Dr. Silk listened avidly to the story of her journey into Blackveil.
“Some of the materials we’ve found and preserved make mention of a Green Rider named Karigan G’ladheon, and that she vanished into Blackveil and never returned,” he said.
Karigan had no idea what documents and artifacts he might have access to, so she could only shrug and continue, telling him of the looking mask, how she smashed it, and—
“You smashed it? An artifact of such amazing power?” He looked like he wanted to reach across the desk and shake her for her stupidity. The professor had not responded this way when he’d heard about the looking mask. “Why? Why did you give up such an opportunity? To hold the balance of the world in your hands?”
She shuddered. “I did not want the responsibility.” It had not been her place. It was the responsibility of the gods to wield such power, not some small, fallible mortal. She also had not wanted to be held captive by the power, forever separated from her world, her friends and family, to be its guardian. Is that why the mirror man had tried passing the mask on to her? Had he tired of his guardianship?
Dr. Silk shook his head, clearly aghast over the choice she had made. Men like him could never understand. They did not care about the responsibility, only the wielding of power over others, only power for power’s sake, so they could stand over other men and not be the one at the bottom of the heap, who is looked down upon by those above.
“Also,” she said, “breaking the mask prevented Mornhavon the Black from possessing it.” As bad as the empire was, she believed the world would be in far more dire straits had Mornhavon controlled the mask.
Dr. Silk looked thoughtful, but he gestured that she should go on with her tale, and so she recounted how she’d ended up as part of a circus performance in the current time period.
“Ah, so you were the ambulatory corpse Rudman Hadley complained so bitterly about,” Dr. Silk mused. “I don’t know why it upset him so much when it increased ticket sales thereafter. Well, that’s one mystery solved. In an effort to solve the mystery of you, I’ve my experts going over some very interesting items we’ve found in the secret compartments of your wagon. My experts will judge their authenticity, but I suspect they will corroborate your tale. I must admit, I have had questions about you for a while.” He leaned on his forearms on the desk. “You see, my eyes are not very good with ordinary sight. You probably find my office to be dark. My eyes are sensitive to light, even with my lenses.” He tapped the rim of his specs. “It was an accident some time ago, with an etherea engine. It altered my sight. Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”