Epilogue: Mirror Face

April 9, somewhere in Double Eagle Commandery.

A slope of black earth, a solitary grave. The sun slants low; wild geese fly home.

When Gambling Snake arrived at his mentor's grave, someone was already standing there. Tall and athletic, he looked to be a man in his prime. He wore a black cloak with the hood pulled over his head, giving him a mysterious air, rather like a nineteenth-century alchemist.

The man had brought no flowers, only a bottle of spirits, Petrarch's favorite when he was alive. The bottle on the ground was now empty, and most of the gravestone was wet.

My guess is that he'd poured the liquor over the gravestone in a thoroughly romantic gesture, though we can't rule out the possibility that he'd needed a piss.

All right, just a joke. Back to the story.

Gambling Snake did not readily let down his guard around strangers. He slowed and approached cautiously, prepared for the other man to attack without warning.

“You're his pupil.” The man spoke suddenly, without turning around. His voice was extremely hoarse and muffled, as though it came from inside a jar.

Gambling Snake stopped just under two meters behind him and replied, “Were you a friend of my mentor's, sir?”

“We were friends as children.” He paused. “But we lost touch the day he joined Qianming. Decades passed, and when I next heard of him, my old acquaintance was dead, his bones long cold. Yet I felt nothing in particular. So I suppose we were merely old acquaintances. We could no longer be called friends.”

“Still, you remembered his favorite drink,” Gambling Snake said.

“Hmph... It's only an empty grave. I imagine Qianming disposed of the body elsewhere long ago. Besides, even if that old ghost really were lying down there, he couldn't taste this liquor anymore.” He sighed mournfully. “While you live, drink your fill of wine; what drop has ever reached the underworld? You so-called assassins who proclaim, ‘The person dies with the body, but the spirit lives forever’... how many of you ever escape this fate?”

Gambling Snake had no answer. Since taking his revenge, he had indeed been considering similar questions. Where was someone like him supposed to go from here? “If you don't believe in paying respects to the dead, why come here to visit this old acquaintance?”

The man turned around. His black cloak covered him completely. Only two-thirds of his face showed beneath the hood, but there was no human face to be seen, only a gleaming silver mirror mask.

The mask curved smoothly outward in a shallow arc, revealing neither facial contours nor the slightest patch of skin. Everything from the chin down was hidden behind his high collar.

“I came to see you, Gambling Snake,” Mirror Face said.

“What guidance might you have for me, sir?” Gambling Snake had grown more deferential. After all, practically anyone who saw that frightening getup would conclude that its wearer was no ordinary man.

“I'm no assassin. I hardly deserve such deference. As for the names our parents gave us, people like you and me have long since abandoned those, of course. Just call me Mirror Face, and there's no need to keep saying ‘sir.’ Being a few years older is nothing to trade on.” As he spoke, Mirror Face extended a hand from his black cloak. His clothes beneath it were also pitch-black, and he wore long black leather gloves. “First, take a look at this recording.”

Gambling Snake took the portable player from him and, somewhat dubious, pressed play. A cramped room appeared on the screen, filmed from a corner of the ceiling. A table stood in the middle, with two officers in standard HL uniforms seated on one side. Opposite them sat a familiar figure. Gambling Snake soon remembered who it was. He looked up at Mirror Face. “When was this recorded?”

Mirror Face said, “The night of the bank robbery. While you were still on your way home, HL's Maple Leaf Commandery headquarters secretly removed this surviving robber from that little police station in Winnipeg. Most of the information about him released to the public afterward had also been officially ‘edited.’”

The robber's shouts from the player drew Gambling Snake's attention back to the screen.

“You have to believe me! I'm not the mastermind! Someone forced me into it! It's a deal! Do you understand?!”

The two officers remained stern. “Answer the questions we ask you. Cut the rest of the nonsense.”

“Why don't you understand?! I was forced! I have to steal five hundred thousand in cash! Then take it to the designated place! I have to succeed! I should have finished the job hours ago! Why won't you listen to me?! Please! Let me go!” He was handcuffed to a chair bolted to the floor.

The robber struggled furiously and roared like a madman. He paid no attention even when the handcuffs cut into his wrists, drawing blood. His right leg, which Gambling Snake had blasted off earlier that day, had received special medical treatment from HL, but now blood was seeping heavily through the bandages again, pooling beneath the table.

The two officers seemed to lose patience. They murmured a few words into a communicator, and several people came in, injected the robber with an anesthetic, and dragged him out. The recording ended there.

Gambling Snake handed the player back to Mirror Face and asked, “How did you get this recording?”

“It's a useless recording, a piece of deleted junk data. That's why I could get it,” Mirror Face explained. “HL's systems are very difficult to breach. There are no more than ten people in the world who can hack into a network at that level. I'm not one of them, of course, but... I know of a flaw in their system. Every record they delete leaves a brief afterimage in the BIOS. If you're fast enough, you can extract it before the information disappears completely.”

Gambling Snake said, “Then why did you happen to steal that particular piece of information? Are you monitoring HL's Maple Leaf Commandery headquarters twenty-four hours a day? And why would HL be interested in a bank robbery like this? If it was because of me, arresting me first would have made more sense than interrogating that robber.”

Mirror Face gave a cold laugh. “They acted so quickly because that robber gave them a name.”

Thinking back over the recording, Gambling Snake said, “You mean the mastermind he mentioned?”

Mirror Face said, “Yes. Once that name is connected with a case, it immediately passes beyond the jurisdiction of the ordinary police. The case goes straight to HL's highest danger level. Forgive my bluntness, but with your abilities, what do you think your own danger level is? Two? Three, perhaps? Hmph... That's nowhere near enough to make an HL regional headquarters mobilize such a force.”

Gambling Snake said, “Are you telling me that the person who ordered that robber to rob the bank was the Steel Commandment's Mad-rank grand master and pope?” It was only an offhand question. As far as he knew, only a handful of people in the world qualified for danger level five.

Mirror Face merely replied coldly, “Do you think level five is the highest danger level?”

It did not sound like a joke, so Gambling Snake did not laugh. He was already bracing himself. He felt that what he was about to hear would overturn his understanding of the world.

But Mirror Face did not reveal what that highest level was called. Instead, he said, “There's only one person on the list for that level. I also have him to thank for the way I look today. So whenever there's a hint of something connected with him, HL isn't the only one paying close attention. Naturally, I am too. That's why I got hold of this footage.”

Mirror Face paused for a few seconds, then continued, “At first, I wasn't quite sure. I couldn't even be certain whether this really had anything to do with ‘that man.’ If he was behind it, then the matter was far from over. The bank robbery could only be a beginning, an opening he'd created so that subsequent events would unfold according to his wishes.

“Then some rather unusual people arrived in Winnipeg, and my attention gradually turned to you. After that, you killed your way onward, right up to the moment you finished off Gilson II five days ago. Then I understood. The bank robbery ‘that man’ had orchestrated was intended to expose your identity, to ‘guide’ you into taking revenge and coming out of retirement.”

Gambling Snake said, “Who exactly are you talking about?”

“Have you ever heard the name Tian Yi?”

Mirror Face's question left Gambling Snake speechless. Yet at that moment, the inexplicable fragments in his memory seemed to link together in an incredible but logical way, forming a complete chain.

Gambling Snake thought back... Tom Stall went to the bank on the same day every month. The time he left work on March 10 and the moment he drove past the bank could both be calculated. Yes! Through the Book of the Heart! Any passerby could have known his precise movements. It was the bank robbery that had put this habitually inconspicuous man on the front pages, brought his enemies to his door, and led to his subsequent acts of revenge.

At that thought, Gambling Snake could not help wondering. Even if he'd made the news, had Gilson II really just happened to see the coverage? Could it be... He too gave a cold laugh. Given what that “Tian Yi” was capable of, arranging for Gilson II to see the reports without leaving a trace would hardly have been difficult.

Gambling Snake ordinarily betrayed neither joy nor anger, but his expression had changed several times. Seeing this, Mirror Face guessed that he understood. He spoke again. “You've done well this past month, and you're my old acquaintance's pupil. I feel I can trust you. I've been looking for Tian Yi for years, to take revenge...”

The mirror on his face reflected Gambling Snake's features, cold and composed once more. “...Would you like to come and see him with me?”

Gambling Snake answered almost without thinking. “Nothing would please me more.”