Nikolas and the Labyrinth of Deceit: A Faith the Sightless Dragon Short Story (abridged to suit prompt requirements)

“A magic mirror?” Nikolas peered into the reflective surface that seemed to glow softly of its own accord.

“Simply put, yes. Will you take it?”

Nikolas took a breath to respond, but remembered the old woman’s previous warning. “What must I do? Or rather, what will happen if I do?”

Suzanna nodded in approval. “You were paying attention. Come, sit here.” She guided the young man to a stool near a smoldering fire, and his tiny dragon companion gilded gently down before the embers to stretch out, basking in the warmth.

“I trust,” Suzanna began, “that you’ve heard the story about the King’s wizard magicking the castle into a horrifying labyrinth. It is really much more complex than that, but all you need to know is this: the castle has truly not changed at all; it is mere illusion, but even a simple illusion can be made deadly.” She lifted the small mirror from the box, running her fingers around the gilded frame. “This mirror will pierce through the illusions woven throughout the castle, so that you will be able to navigate the castle, rather than falling into the traps of the labyrinth. I also suspect that she will help you a great deal besides.”

“‘She’?”

“I forget that you know nothing of such things. However, you must accept the mirror before things are made clear.” She raised the mirror to face Nikolas, and he gasped when he saw nothing reflected in the surface at all; all that was visible was dark, silvery light. The tiny dragon spoke excitedly into Nikolas’ mind.

I can sense her! There is someone in the mirror!

“Forgive me, Suzanna, but your words from before make me hesitant. What are the consequences of accepting this mirror from you?”

“In binding yourself to the mirror, you will lose your sight as you know it. You will see all things as the mirror sees them.”

Nikolas knew that there had to be more to this than what was said, but also knew that he would never forgive himself if he gave in to confusion and doubt.

“Very well. I do not have much to exchange for such an artifact–”

“I need no payment. My only stipulation is that you return the mirror to me when your quest is completed.” Suzanna set the box containing the mirror in Nikolas’ hands as she rose to stand next to him. From somewhere amidst the many pockets of her skirts, Suzanna withdrew a pair of small scissors and clipped a lock of Nikolas’ auburn hair, holding the clipping just above the mirror. A silvery hand the same size as the dragon’s own tiny paws reached up from within the pane and drew the clipping in. “Now the mirror’s images will be clear to you.” Suzanna gestured for Nikolas to look at the mirror’s surface. 

The image was hazy for a moment, but a figure quickly materialized through the fog. To Nikolas’ eyes, her image took up his whole field of vision. She was dressed all in white with a multi-layered skirt cinched at her waist with a rope and ending at her ankles, and a simple blouse with slightly puffed sleeves. Around her neck was Nikolas’ lock of hair, bound together with a thin silver cord that made up her necklace. Her hair shone gold against her white attire, and it was wrapped in a loose braid intertwined with silver ribbons. Nikolas registered these things about the mirror maiden in the back of his mind, for her vibrant green eyes held his gaze. He could feel a change within him as the maiden looked at him, a feeling that was at once both illuminating and disquieting. Nikolas knew that he held the mirror at least two feet away from his face, but when the maiden raised her hand to pass over his eyes, he swore that he felt her light touch brush his eyelashes. There was a dull pain behind his eyes when she lowered her hand, but Nikolas barely noticed, so caught up in the intensity of her eyes he was.

Friend? Nikolas? Hello~!

Nikolas turned his mind, but not his eyes, to the tiny dragon calling faintly to him.

Um, Aya says that you’re alright now. You don’t have to keep staring.

It took a moment, but Nikolas registered what his dragon companion meant, and he felt his face warm in embarrassment before his eyes lowered. Suzanna rested her hand on Nikolas’ shoulder as he rubbed his eyes. It seemed so much harder to focus now. The young man looked over to the tiny dragon before the simmering coals, and he noticed that she now seemed to glow with a light he recognized as pure, unadulterated love and childlike innocence. He had thought her a magical though simple creature, totally reliant on others to see for her since she herself had no eyes at all. Now, he could see her for what she truly was.

“Faith…” The tiny dragon padded over to the young man’s leg, where he offered her his arm. She touched her snout to his cheek in affection before settling down on Nikolas’ shoulder once more.

Oo your eyes aren’t brown anymore, friend! I can see you through friend Suzanna’s eyes!

“Really?” Nikolas touched his face, but he felt no different other than his difficulty focusing on things. “My eyes have changed?”

They’re all silvery and pretty, like Aya’s mirror!

“It is an effect of the binding.” Suzanna said, lifting the mirror from Nikolas’ hands and looping a durable cord through a slot in the frame. “You no longer see with your own eyes, but through the mirror’s perception. Most magic has some side effect to the user, so it is not unexpected. Now tell me, what do you see?” She finished a complicated knot and placed the mirror-made-necklace over his head.

Nikolas looked up at the old woman, straining to focus his vision on her. His eyes were guided, however, by the maiden within the mirror, and after a few moments Nikolas could see.

“You created the mirror. You know the same man Faith and I met at our journey’s start, and he is the one who told you to watch for our coming, just as he told us to find you.” Suzanna’s truth danced before Nikolas’ eyes. He saw that she was allowing him to read what was most relevant. He saw what she knew about what had happened in the castle between the King and his wizard. “The King is made powerless, and his servants are ensorceled and caught up in the enchantment. The Queen, who has small skill with magic, is bound in the dungeons below, and her children are trapped in their own illusions. I feel…I…” The storm of truth mixed with emotions moved Nikolas to tears. He saw Suzanna’s grief in all of its forms.

“Now you see.” Suzanna took the young man into her arms and held her hand over his eyes. Faith sniffled as she comforted her friend - small tears that fell from her tiny nostrils, since she had no eyes at all. She felt all that Nikolas felt as she connected to the young man’s mind, though she could see through his normal sight, not his “mirror-sight”, as she called it.

After a few minutes, Nikolas recollected himself, keeping his eyes closed to prevent the barrage of truths from flooding his heart again. “I think I begin to see what you meant by consequences, Lady Suzanna.” A Lady indeed she was, for Suzanna had been, before the sorcery, the guardian of the King’s children and a trusted friend to the royal family. “Truth is a heavy burden to bear,” Nikolas laughed, “and I haven’t even reached the castle yet.”

“It is both a blessing and a curse to know the truth, Nikolas..” Lady Suzanna took a semi-transparent strip of cloth and tied it around his eyes. “This will help block your sight, but it cannot do so completely. We are in the lower parts of the city around the castle, so you have a few hours walk to the castle, and you will undoubtedly encounter others along your way. Let Faith guide you with her sight through you.”

Thus armed with magicked sight, a blindfold, a magic mirror, and a tiny sightless dragon, Nikolas bid Lady Suzanna farewell - not goodbye, since he did promise to return the mirror to her when his quest was over - and set out for the castle.

---

Aya guided Nikolas through vestibules, down hallways, and up staircases with complete certainty, drawing Nikolas away when the body of a servant or knight lay along their path. To learn the truth of their deaths, Aya warned, would drag Nikolas into the illusion, and it would be inconvenient for him to succumb. Faith, on the other hand, buried herself tight against Nikolas’ neck, drawing reassurance from his steady breathing and his heartbeat as she battled her fears. She had very little protection from the illusion, and all that she heard was most frightening for the tiny dragon.

It did not take long to reach the doors of the throne room; perhaps a half an hour at most had passed. No sorcery barred the intricate engraved oak doors, and Nikolas had no trouble opening one side to enter the Sanctuary. The sight made Nikolas cry out in fear and shock. His quest had seemed so simple, but the reality of what he was to do was now before him.

An enormous oval mirror in a wicked obsidian frame hung over the Thrones of Airden. Roiling darkness with streaks of red and purple lightning danced in the chaos of the reflection, and tendrils of black light spread from the mirror and pulsed in the walls of the Sanctuary. The three Princesses and four Princes were laid out on the roundtable in the center of the room; each seemed to be asleep, save for the erratic movement of their eyes behind their eyelids and sounds of fear. It broke Nikolas’ heart to see that the youngest of them was a Princess, and she was no older than five. His gaze rested on the child Princess for a mere seconds, and he saw a tiny sliver of what illusion she was experiencing. 

Above all of this was Veneer, seated in the King’s Throne and looking down at Nikolas.

The wizard laughed at the young man before him. “This is all? This is what was sent against me? Honestly, I feel insulted.” Nikolas stared up at the wizard as Veneer descended the steps from the dias. Rage simmered in Nikolas’ heart, but the longer he looked at the wizard, the more his anger changed to understanding and something like pity. The young man was vaguely aware of the wizard continuing to speak, but he heard nothing except the wizard’s truth - the horrifying, painful, lamentable truth.

“Ah I see now.” Veneer smirked. “You read my truth and think that’s all you need to best me. Well, I hate to break it to you, boy, but truth is my weapon, too.” He spread his arms wide in an all encompassing gesture. “Just as you now know so much about me at a glance, so too do I know everything about you.”

“Ignore this boy-wizard. His magic rests in illusions and twistings of truth. Lift me up before his mirror and your quest will be finished.”

Nikolas spared one last look at the wizard standing before him. Aya was right; Veneer was all smoke and mirrors. He was such an expert when it came to deception that Veneer had succeeded in deceiving himself.

Nikolas adjusted Aya’s mirror in his palm, carried little Faith in the crook of his arm, and strode past Veneer. The young man was halfway up the stairs to the dais before Veneer noticed.

“Going to destroy my mirror using yours, are you? Tell me, boy, did old Suzanna tell you what will happen to you when that happens?” Nikolas wavered for a moment, and Veneer caught his hesitation. “Oh, she didn’t, did she? Of course not, why would she want to risk her hopes and dreams crumbling to nothing? Well I will tell you - and truthfully too, just look at me and you will see!”

Nikolas stopped just before the top of the stairs but he did not turn around.

Don’t stop now, friend! It’s only a few more steps!

Faith’s voice was drowned out by Veneer. “You recall the part of yourself that you gave to the mirror to bind it to you. You and your mirror made a magical contract - it gave you sight, and you gave it a conduit. Think about it: if a part of you is that essential to harnessing magic, what do you think will happen to you when you destroy the artifact holding that part?”

Doubt crept into Nikolas’ heart. Was there some law of magic that would kill him just as he completed his quest? It wouldn’t have mattered if Nikolas was alone, but his family…

“Are you really going to sacrifice yourself for strangers rather than live for your family? Your little sister? My my, are you going to break your promise to her? Aw, and you swore so sincerely that you would return home to her before your village’s harvest festival.”

Tears stung Nikolas’ eyes, obscuring his vision and his sight so that, for a heartstopping moment, he thought that he was standing in empty space. Faith cried out his name in his mind, bringing Nikolas back before the illusion could ensnare him. He blinked the tears from his eyes and climbed the last three stairs in a single bound.

“I know what I promised Kateri.” Nikolas’ voice was hoarse. “But what kind of brother would I be if I returned to her a coward? If I die, so be it. At least she will remember me fondly.”

“You think that you are strong enough to break me!? Take a look at your truth!”

Veneer’s mirror dropped to the space right in front of Nikolas, startling the young man so that Aya and her mirror dropped on the thick cord and landed against his chest. Nikolas locked eyes with his reflection, the piercing silver of his magicked irises catching his attention, but then he was unable to look away. As Nikolas looked at his reflection, he saw his own truth. His entire life played before his eyes; every truth behind every action was laid bare before him. Petty sins gained new gravity. Meanings behind feelings and thoughts became painfully clear. Vices and shortcomings were shown in their entirety. All things seemed to lead to one conclusion - he was nothing, would always be nothing, no matter what he did.

Then a warmth spread over his heart, and the truths coalesced into a coherent whole. Each truth cut deeply, but each cut chipped away at the falsehoods Nikolas had constructed within himself until Nikolas saw himself for exactly who and what he was - flawed and sinful and capable of great wrongs, yes, but he was more than that.

His full self laid bare before him, Nikolas bowed his head and closed his eyes. Faith perched atop Nikolas’ head as the young man raised the magic mirror once more. Once again, Aya manifested on the mirror’s surface, and Nikolas looked into her green eyes, a wordless truth passing between them.

Nikolas raised Aya before the roiling darkness of Veneer’s mirror.

Aya’s small hand pressed against the surface of the sorcerous mirror, and immediately the room was flooded with her silvery light. Strands of color replaced the tendrils of black light; the sound of torment emanating from the illusion were replaced with wild cheers as minds were freed from the sorcery. Veneer cried out of terror, realizing the truth of the situation - he was finished, and his own magic would devour him, as was the agreed price. When every last soul was freed from the mirror’s clutches, Veneer’s mirror shattered in its frame before the entire artifact, and Veneer himself, dissolved into dust. 

---

Several weeks later, Nikolas and Faith returned to Lady Suzanna’s antique shop. After Veneer’s sorcery had been broken, Nikolas and Faith had remained at the castle to explain all that had happened and to help set things back to their proper order. Overall, however, he realized that he was not much help - the Airdenian royal family needed good food and better care to restore them to health, and he was just a farm boy. Nikolas and Faith spent most of the time finding men and women to replace the castle staff that had died, and assisting those that yet lived in their tasks. His favorite part, however, was playing with the child Princess, Cecily, in the overgrown castle gardens. It was bittersweet. In that time Aya had not manifested at all, and Nikolas suspected that the magic of his sight was un-magicking in a way that would leave him totally blind. And so, he wanted to make good on his promise to Lady Suzanna and return the mirror before that happened.

Lady Suzanna was waiting for them when Nikolas and Faith walked in, and she caught the young man tightly in an embrace. “I am glad that you have returned. You have done well, Nikolas. And you, little Faith.”

The tiny dragon nuzzled Suzanna’s cheek and thanked her before Nikolas withdrew. “I wanted to make good on my promise. Here is your mirror back, but Aya is…”

Suzanna took the small mirror from Nikolas and left the room, calling back to him to “wait there a moment”. After a few minutes, Suzanna returned and beckoned Nikolas and Faith to follow her. She guided Nikolas to the thick, deeply colored curtains concealing the back room and led him through…

Where his near-blind eyes were illuminated once more in the light of a beautifully familiar pair of vibrant green eyes.