Shield's Lady

cape.”
    “Good thing we’ve been through this place a lot and know what to expect,” one of the other teenagers observed with a nervous chuckle. “It’s kind of spooky, even now.”
    “You shouldn’t have offered to take this job if you were going to scare so easily,” chided one of the others.
    “I’m not scared, I just said it would be kind of weird trying to trail someone through here if you hadn’t been through it a lot of times before.”
    “I think Holt really is getting scared,” observed the first voice.
    “Well, you’re not exactly acting like a Shield, yourself,” Holt retorted angrily. “Look at you. Your hands are shaking.
    “They are not,” the other boy shouted back, his voice much too high. “Shut up, Holt, or I swear, I’ll smash you right into one of these dumb mirrors.”
    “Shut up, both of you,” the third voice snapped. “You’re going to ruin everything. Let’s get going. I think it’s time we closed in on her. That guy will be waiting.”
    Sariana moved into the center of the circular room and removed her cloak. Standing in the middle of the distorting chamber she no longer saw a giant version of herself. The image had disappeared when she moved into the heart of it. Lucky hissed softly as Sariana removed the lizard from her pocket. The crimson head swiveled quickly, jeweled eyes taking in the room, immediately dismissing the dazzling effect of light and mirrors.
    “Good,” Sariana murmured. “In some ways you’re a lot smarter than a human. You know how to tell the real from the false, don’t you?”
    Lucky tasted Sariana’s thumb with a tiny forked tongue. She placed the little lizard down on the mirrored floor and settled the edge of her cloak over it.
    “I want you to stay right here, Lucky. Don’t move. Do you understand?” Sariana swallowed a groan. “Of course you don’t understand. How could you? But you’re accustomed to my cloak so you shouldn’t mind spending a few minutes under it.”
    The lizard moved its head back and forth a few times and hissed questioningly as the edge of the cloak was draped over it, but it stayed put, as if it understood.
    “Good Lucky,” Sariana murmured as she edged to the far side of the room. She stretched out the fabric of the cloak, keeping a grasp on one corner but leaving the opposite end over the scarlet-toe. She had barely positioned herself when she heard the excited voices of the boys.
    “I’ll bet she went this way. Come on, hurry. This is going to be fun.”
    There was another burst of nervous laughter and then a thousand teenage males filled the corridor that led into the distortion chamber. Sariana could see three distinct versions of the countless images. Three young toughs reflected into an army. They raced toward the room in which she crouched.
    All three charged gleefully through the doorway. It was a tight fit.
    Sariana yanked the cloak off of the scarlet-toe. The little lizard raised its head to see what all the commotion was about and then it opened its tiny mouth.
    There were loud screams from the doorway as the young toughs confronted a giant image of Lucky Break. Sariana had a good idea of what the boys were seeing. The small, needle-sharp teeth of the lizard probably appeared as long as a man’s arm under the effects of the distorting mirrors. The mouth was big enough to swallow that same man. Giant claws and a nasty, whipping tail would complete the image. And the shock of it all would be reinforced by huge crimson eyes.
    The entire production was sufficient to send three already nervous and overly excited boys into a wild stampede back down the mirrored hall.
    Sariana didn’t hesitate. Given a few minutes to reconsider, all three were likely to come to the conclusion that they’d been had. She didn’t want to be trapped in the mirrored room when that happened. Sariana scooped up Lucky and her cloak and headed down the same mirrored corridor the boys had just used. She could hear their boots on the floor as they raced for an exit.
    “They seem to know their way out of here,” Sariana told the scarlet-toe. “We’ll try to follow them.” Some of the crazy landscape was slightly familiar, she realized as she started to retrace her steps. She recognized certain distortions and optical effects that she had seen when she had been trying to flee from the boys.
    Sariana was several meters down the corridor, feeling her way carefully so as not to run headlong into a sheet of mirrored