11. Doppleganger
“Mind if I share the buggy with you?” the girl asked.
Viktoria was lifting her luggage onto the back of the horse-drawn cab. She looked over her shoulder at the girl and nodded. “Sure thing, kid, hop in.”
Viktoria waited until Alyce was climbing in to add, “And while you’re at it, you can tell me why you’ve been following me.”
To her credit, Alyce barely skipped a beat, and climbed on up. “Only if you answer a few questions of mine, too.”
Viktoria smiled at the audacity of the girl as she followed Alyce into the coach.
“We’re waiting on one more passenger before we depart,” the coachman explained in passing.
Viktoria kept her sword with her at all times, and it was balanced on the floor of the cab, the grip resting against her shoulder.
Alyce nodded at it. “Is it really a Masamune?”
Viktoria slid her hand up underneath the sword’s tsuko, where the blade entered the scabbard. Extending her thumb, the blade slid up to reveal the polished metal. A shadow in the steel described a simple Nipponese glyph. “That’s what I’ve been told.” Viktoria responded, “What is your interest in Masamunes?”
“My interest? None. If a weapon’s not made by Smith or Wesson, I’m not interested. Our client, though, is very interested in antiques. She collects them.”
“If I’m going to make it easy on you and let you travel with me, you’re going to have to make yourself useful. I can’t have you plotting to rob me. I’ll have to kick you out and make you track me on foot. You’re familiar with Clover’s Pact?” the older woman asked.
Alyce responded from rote. Anyone that did mercenary work knew Clover’s Pact. It provided a framework that allowed mercenaries to work together with a commonly acknowledged set of guidelines. The pact was forged by placing one’s hand on the shoulder of the other, and doing so, Alyce stated, “My purpose will not injure your own.”
Viktoria seemed satisfied by the pledge and responded in kind, when the door of the coach opened, and a young woman stood there with her child. “Sorry I’m late.”
The woman appeared to be in her early twenties and had a thick mane of dark hair. In her arms she managed to hold a small boy, his teddy bear, and a small wooden box. She helped the child into the coach, and he clambered into the seat across from the two women. Viktoria couldn’t place it, but there was something unsettling about the child. The teddy bear had one of its button eyes missing, a tuft of stuffing peeking out the hole.
The coachman appeared at the woman’s side and held out his hand. “I can stow that box with the rest of the luggage.”
“No, this will stay with me.”
The coachman helped the young woman inside, and she sat beside her child. The coachman closed the door. “Alright, we’ll set off now. It’s a few hours to the Delta Six site.”
As the coach began to move, the young woman introduced herself. “My name’s Dora, and this young gentleman is Kade.”
“I’m Viktoria, and this is my sister, Alyce,” Viktoria lied smoothly.
“Oh, it’s very nice to meet you both.” Dora said, smiling warmly. "What sort of appointment do you have at Delta Six, if I may ask?”
“We are looking for someone,” Viktoria replied.
“And you Dora, what is your business at Delta Six? No offence, ma'am, but I wouldn't take you for the hardy explorer type.”
“Oh me?” Dora shook her head, and little Kade giggled at her side. “I don’t have any business at that place. I came here to meet you.”
Viktoria’s thumb eased the sword out of its scabbard just a fraction. There was something wrong with these two, and her eyes kept being drawn back to the box. Her breathing slowed, and her heart started to race. “Explain yourself.”
“She did say you were a bit rude. I’ve come to give you this.” Dora held out the box and opened it, as the child beside her giggled again. The laugh was different, this time. It sounded dry and dark.
“They’re Neverborn!” Alyce cried, drawing a massive clockwork revolver and firing a shot straight at the child in one fluid motion.
The shot could not possibly have missed at such close range, but other than a small black hole between its eyes, the child looked unharmed. Viktoria now saw the signs Alyce had picked up on. His flesh seemed almost translucent, the veins throughout his body clearly visible. His eyes, too, were bloodshot, tiny spidery veins radiating around red pupils. The child grinned as a trickle of black ichor leaked from the wound between its eyes.
Stunned, Viktoria hesitated, and in that brief moment of hesitation, Dora opened the box and a thick green vapor spilled forth to instantly fill the small carriage.
Too late, Viktoria drew her sword and thrust in one swift motion, but the blade passed harmlessly through the vapor. She could see nothing around her. The coach and passengers were gone. Then shapes appeared in the green fog. Slowly, the fog drew back and the shapes solidified into a forest of twisted, leafless trees, a sickly yellow sky showing through the spidery canopy. The coach was nowhere to be seen, and she found she was sitting not on a bench but a tree stump.
She sprang to her feet, the Masamune held ready. “Alyce!”
Her answer was the sound of a quick series of large calibre shots that must have been the heavy revolver Alyce had drawn from beneath her cloak. Viktoria set off in the direction of the sounds when she glimpsed the silhouette of a woman.
Viktoria sheathed her sword at her hip, though she positioned it for a quick draw. In its scabbard, the sword seemed less threatening, but in the hands of a skilled swordswoman this position offered the benefit of a lightning fast draw and slash. “Identify yourself or forfeit your life.”
The woman stepped forward and into the light. Standing across the clearing from Viktoria was a perfect doppelganger, an exact copy of herself.
“That's a better trick than the box, I'll give you that.” She circled, watching her footing, waiting for an opening. “Where were you when I was clothes shopping?”
The doppelganger spoke with Viktoria’s own voice. "The tapestry of fate weaves itself around you, Viktoria. You stand at the center of it. If I kill you here and take your place, I will realize the destiny that was meant for you. A human will not save this world. It belongs to us.”
“You certainly talk more than I do. So, are you the ally or the conspiracy? Ah, never mind. I'll work it out when you're dead.”
The doppelganger roared and charged, sword drawn. It was truly a monster now, mouth curled into a wide smile, showing a row of jagged, sharklike teeth. Its eyes were wide with maddened glee and its arms stretched overhead, raising the sword to strike.
Where the doppelganger was fire, rage, and passion, Viktoria was cool, fluid, and graceful. Her movements were lithe and controlled as she drew her sword, darted forward, and struck. Their swords clashed, leaving the Masamune ringing softly as Viktoria spun away. But the Doppelganger matched her for speed and was on her without pause, scything her sword onehanded towards Viktoria's neck. Time stretched, elastic. The sweeping sword blade slowed, and Viktoria could see the remnant wisps of the green vapor parting before the razored edge, like clouds drifting past some sharp mountain peak.
Held in a pocket at her hip, Viktoria could feel the Soulstone given to her by the old crone flare with a sudden heat. Warmth pulsed through her like a summer breeze. Looking at the Doppelganger, she could see a flickering green aura surrounding it. Superimposed over her duplicate was another creature, a spirit. Formless and featureless, she could nonetheless see eyes like embers floating in the aura. Her ancient sword stirred in her hand.
Viktoria dipped beneath the Doppelganger’s strike – time, so obliging in the Soulstone's heat – its sword cutting through the air above her. The Masamune swept through the body of the Doppelganger but left no wound, passing clean through but catching hold of the spirit and tearing it from the Doppelganger’s form. All but bisected by Viktoria’s sword, the spirit writhed in soundless agony. It blistered and blackened, and in an instant, the phantom boiled into nothingness.
Viktoria’s double fell to all fours and was violently sick. She coughed, and black ichor streamed from her mouth. The legend of the Masamune was true, and looking between the polished blade in her hand to the stricken creature on the ground, Viktoria realized she had slain the demon and spared the living.
The Doppelganger had recovered, and wiping the black mess from her chin, looked up. "Behind you!” it cried.
Viktoria, sensing the movement with such clarity it was as if she could see through her double's eyes, reversed the sword deftly and drove the naked blade behind her. There was a gasp as the point of the blade sank into her would-be attacker. She twisted the blade, snapped it free and turned, stepping back. The Neverborn woman Dora stood there, eyes wide with shock and pain. She held a dagger intended for Viktoria’s back. Viktoria’s blade had left a gaping wound in her belly from which black smoke coiled.
“Betrayed…?” Dora whispered, before her body burst into a cloud of green smoke. All around, the twisted forest blurred, as if in a dream, and reality asserted itself again. The coach stood nearby, though the coachman lay face down in the grass, a bloody wound at the back of his neck.
The Doppelganger remained. Viktoria kicked her fallen sword away, put the point of the Masamune to her throat and stood her up. The creature was still Neverborn, but it had clearly warned her, and against her own kind. What was happening here? “I should kill you now.”
The Doppelganger spoke softly, Viktoria's sword still pressing into the pale flesh of her throat. “I would if I were you.”
Viktoria paused, and then laughed. “You would, at that. Maybe you're a better copy of me than that Dora witch had planned. I think I'm going to let you live. For now.”
A succession of earthy swear words came rolling out a nearby stance of rhododendrons, and Alyce emerged, caked head to toe in a Neverborn’s black blood. “This stuff stings like a whore-poxed, flea-ridden, son-of-a...”
The girl’s eyes grew wide when she spotted the two Viktorias standing beside the wagon. ”Great!” She threw her hands up and started checking the damage to the carriage, huffing and puffing. “You're beautiful, have a magic sword and now you can make copies of yourself? This is so unfair. Why does everyone get to do cooler stuff than me?”