A Rose-Red City

Fifteen

Jerry glanced at Ariadne, at the wary Carlo, the disapproving Maisie. “Can’t you guess?” he asked. “What you will find in there is a mirror.”

Killer trotted up the steps, walked into the circle of pillars— and vanished. Ariadne gasped with surprise and looked at Jerry, who nodded.

“He will come out soon,” he said. “It takes longer when you are in there than when you are waiting.” He was paler than usual, and his strange nervousness was increasing. “There is one rule— no, not a rule, just a kindness. Do not speak to him afterward until he is ready. The frivolous refer to this area as the recovery room.” As though to emphasize the magic, a pair of white gulls sailed down on the wind and flew through the circle of columns, turned momentarily blue as they crossed the center of faerie and then floated away toward the harbor.

Jerry put his arm around her again and led her away from the others; they leaned together on the rail.

“Ariadne,” he said. “I love you. I never say that lightly— you and maybe two others in my long life. I want you to stay. I want you to marry me. Here we can truly live happily ever after.” She had been afraid of this. She took a long time to find the words. “You have been showing me the kingdoms of the world, haven’t you, Jerry Howard? Maisie would say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ Oh, Jerry, no woman has ever been offered more, and yes, I could love you dearly… but you know what you are asking me to give up!” He nodded miserably.

“Graham as a father?” she said. “A kid like Maisie for a mother? I am not worthy either, Jerry, but I had licked the drink thing, I really had.” Was that true? She had thought that before. “I could be a better mother than Maisie, but Graham and his lawyer friends had tied me up in knots so I had to make an appointment and then sit there in his living room and drink tea and eat cookies and ask how school was going— like an unpopular aunt, not a mother… I am sorry, Jerry, truly sorry. I love your faerie city and I think I love you and I could even learn to put up with your strange friends, like Killer, but I have a duty…” Killer came slowly down the steps, his walk mechanical, his face wooden. He was pale under his tan, staring fixedly in her direction. Suddenly she saw him for the first time not as an over-sexed, muscle-bound juvenile, but as a man with experience beyond her imagining. She wondered what the Oracle had said to him to upset him so, and what dark shadow of guilt he carried from Thermopylae. Then he seemed to change his mind and headed towards the Gillises and Carlo, hesitated again and abruptly changed his destination once more. He walked to an empty stretch of the rail, leaned on it, and gazed out across the sea in silence.

Carlo jerked around, looked at Graham and Maisie, then went sauntering over to the house of the Oracle, slouching as usual. And he, too, vanished as he passed within the columns.

It reminded her of school, of waiting to be called into the principal’s office. Yet there could be no more beautiful place in the world to wait, here on the hilltop in this crystal-pure air with this incredible view. She could wait here happily forever.

Forever!

“Why?” she asked suddenly. “Why should Killer be scolded? Surely he is the conquering hero and the Oracle should be giving him praise? Is it always disapproving, never pleased?” Jerry smiled wanly. “It would be interesting to listen to a conversation between those two… but one always goes alone to the Oracle.” Carlo came rushing down the steps. “Hello!” Jerry muttered in surprise.

Carlo raced across to the rail, bent over it and threw up, then hung there, limp as a wet sock. Ariadne was horribly reminded of the prisoners’ gallery in the Labyrinth. But why? Jerry’s eyebrows had shot up into his yellow thatch.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“I’ve heard of that,” Jerry said, “but never seen it. Apparently the truth may sometimes be not merely unpalatable, but even intolerable. Our friend must have a remarkable past, for one so young.”

Carlo straightened and looked around to see who was watching, then turned away again. His face had healed.

Maisie had obviously been called next. She kissed Graham and strode across the court, holding her head up bravely.

Ariadne said, “When I am called, Jerry, I want you to come with me.” He shook his head and stammered.

“It would not be decent,” he protested. “I told you— you will have no clothes on.”

“I had none this morning in the Labyrinth, and neither had you,” she said, amused at his prudishness. “You want to marry me, you said. A little nudity usually helps a marriage.” He wiped his brow. “One always goes alone. When you have been there, you will understand.” So that was it. “Your past can be no worse than mine.”

“Yes it is.” He turned away, and there was a long silence.

Maisie came briskly down and smiled happily at Graham as he in turn headed for the steps.

“Ariadne,” Jerry said. “I am a coward and a murderer.”

“Jerry?” she said, but he did not look at her. “Jerry, we have been through hell together these last few days— literally. I know what sort of man you are. I won’t judge you on your past.”

“People don’t change in Mera,” he muttered.

More silence.

“Ariadne?” said a soft voice— her own voice, coming from the house of the Oracle. Her heart jumped, and she started to move… just as Jerry did, also.

“I was called,” she said. He blanched. “So was I.”

“Then we do go together,” she said firmly, and he nodded unhappily. They walked hand in hand toward the steps. Graham came slowly down, ignoring them, and headed for an empty stretch of rail, ignoring Maisie also. That would have been another interesting to conversation to listen to— Graham Gillis speaking the truth about himself? Most potent magic!

The columns were as polished as glass, pink and black crystals shining in the sun, and the space within was much, much larger than it had seemed from outside. They walked hand in hand across the floor, the granite slabs as shiny as the columns and warm beneath her bare feet. She had not even noticed her clothes vanish. Jerry’s palm was damp, and his grip uncomfortably tight.

As Jerry had said, their destination was a mirror— a very large, rectangular mirror, stark and free-standing in a gold frame. Before it stood a long, low table, like a coffee table. No black and white in Mera, but the table was shiny black and the wands lying across it— several dozen of them— were gleaming white. Here, then, was truth, untarnished gold, black and white. The glass of the mirror seemed very thick, and walking forward in it, alone, was her naked self. Two visitors and one reflection— an awesome demonstration of magic. As she and the reflection drew close, though, she saw that it was not accurate: no sag in the breasts, no stretch marks, a youthfully flat tummy. So that was how she would look if she stayed in Mera? She was being bribed— by whom or what? She felt suddenly angry and suspicious.

Then Jerry and she had reached the table and stopped.

Jerry, she noticed, was staring at a point above the reflection’s eyes, so he was seeing himself, not her. For a moment the two people and the one reflection stared without speaking; then her reflection suddenly folded its arms, and she jumped with surprise.

“Ariadne,” the reflection said, “I am Mera. Anything I ask, you will be compelled to answer. Anything spoken aloud here— by me or by you— is true. But if you are unable to speak a thought, that does not mean that it is necessarily false, for there are some truths which you are not allowed to know. Do you understand?” She nodded.

It looked at Jerry. “Gillis told you of her failures, but you will not tell her yours. Yet you just asked her to marry you. Is that fair?” Jerry’s lips moved in silence, and then he said, “No.” His hand was trembling.

She tried to say that it was not important— and she could not.

The reflection seemed to know; it glanced at her with amusement and then stared up at Jerry again, apparently quite unashamed by its nudity.

“So shall I tell her?” the reflection asked.

Jerry shuddered and nodded. Ariadne tried to say she did not want to hear. Again, the words would not come, so she did want to know.

Another shape whirled in the mirror beside the woman and then took form as a young man of middle height, dark-haired and sporting a very bushy moustache. He was wearing a World War II flying suit, goggles pushed up on his helmet. Jerry was staring down at the table of wands.

“Introduce me, old boy,” the newcomer said mockingly.

Jerry glanced up briefly, as though to confirm his fears, winced, and dropped his eyes again. “Lieutenant Smythe-Williams,” he muttered. “First name, Kevin.”

“Pleased to see you,” the airman said, running his gaze appraisingly up and down Ariadne. She felt herself blush, but her reflection did not. “And who was I, Jerry? Finish the story.”

“You were my tail gunner,” Jerry said, keeping his eyes on the floor.

“Oh come on, old chap!” Kevin said. “I know we have all the time in the world, but the lady is going to get frightfully tired standing there for years while you mess around. Out with it, laddie!”

“Don’t!” Ariadne said.

“He shall,” said her reflection.

“We were badly flakked,” Jerry said without looking up. “It didn’t look as though we’d get back across the Channel. I could barely hold her in the air… I told the others to bail out. K… Kevin had been hit, wounded. He was pinned in there, with a spar through his leg. He had to stay. I tried to fly the plane home; but it got so that I could barely hold trim, we were getting low and… I bailed out and left him.’ The airman laughed. “So I rode the barrel over the falls, stapled to my seat, while he floated down into Mera and decided it was really quite a nice spot for a gentleman to live. Nicer than fighting a beastly war, nicer than going back to face the others when they came out of POW camp.”

“Could he have landed that plane?” Ariadne demanded angrily.

“Answer the pretty lady, Jerry,” said Kevin Smythe-Williams.

“I was flying it,” Jerry said. “Perhaps I could have flown it all the way across. I don’t know. I don’t know!’

His hand had gone quite limp, and she squeezed it. “Then you made a judgement. You tried your best— ”

“It wasn’t my best,” he said. “I was still flying it.”

“And there you have it!” The ghost in the mirror smiled and stroked his moustache. “You left the controls and you hit the silk and left me. Not nice, Jerry! And you didn’t tell the lady my other name. The chaps didn’t call me Kevin, did they? Nor Smythe-Williams. They had another name for me— one that you gave me. A little jealous of my successes in those days, weren’t you, Jerry? What nickname did you hang on me, Jerry, old chap?”

“We called you Ladykiller,” Jerry whispered.

“And for short?”

“Killer.”

The ghost nodded, satisfied. “That should do, then, shouldn’t it?” he said. “Except maybe for my famous last words?”

“No!” Jerry cried, looking up in horror. The apparition chuckled and started to fade from sight, but its voice came faintly, as though from a distance and distorted by a crude intercom, sprinkled with static, “Jerry? Don’t leave me! You still there, Jerry? I’m trapped, old man… For God’s sake, Jerry…” The despicable whining seemed to go on for a hellishly long time, and then there was only herself standing there in the mirror. Jerry had fallen to his knees, doubled over and weeping like a child. She started to kneel down beside him and then decided it might be kinder not to remind him that she was there. A very cruel business, she thought, and wondered what its purpose was.

“Oh, get up, you blubbering ninny!” snapped her reflection, and he climbed slowly to his feet again, wiping his face angrily and visibly shaking.

“Now!” the reflection said. “The mission I sent you on— why did you send Achilles back with the wand?” Jerry gulped and moved his lips. “I thought I would save Killer and this time I would stay…”

“You thought you would redeem yourself, then? Make up for the first Killer, whom you deserted?”

“Yes. Yes!” The reflection shook its head. “You said you thought that. But that wasn’t the reason, was it?” This was incredibly cruel. Jerry had somehow managed to go even paler. Again he couldn’t find words.

“Oh, get on with it!” the reflection snapped, sounding faintly like the vanished ghost. “You had been told to take clothes for one; there are no children in Mera. Obviously you were supposed to bring back the woman and no one else. Why did you send Killer back and not come with him?” Jerry stuttered and mouthed; it took him a long time to find the truth. “She would not have come. I wanted her.”

“Go on,” the reflection said.

“I was sorry for her.”

“And more than that?”

Jerry blushed scarlet, right down to his shoulders. “Sex! I wanted to take her to bed. I was crazy— I wanted her insanely— more than any woman I had ever met.” The reflection looked amused. “And you still do! Well, that’s the truth but not the whole truth.” Jerry looked surprised. He tried to speak, hesitated, and then blurted, “I have come to admire her personality. I am in love with her.” He sighed and smiled briefly, shyly at Ariadne. “Thank you,” he said to the mirror.

“Don’t mention it,” her reflection snapped. “You thought Killer would insist on bringing you back. You were trying to blackmail me through Killer?

Jerry gulped once more and said, “Yes, I was.”

The reflection nodded angrily. “And why did you pistol-whip Carlo? Because he had stabbed Killer?” Jerry hesitated and then said, “Revenge! Because he had nearly let the demons get me.” The reflection nodded again, looking satisfied. “Have you ever been intimate with a man?”

“No! I was taught… brought up… I can’t…” He fell silent, staring down at the table again.

“But you have promised Killer. Will you keep your promise— and how do you feel about it?” Jerry pulled a face. “I plan to. I hope I don’t throw up.” The reflection laughed, her laugh. “You very well may. You’d better let me handle it for you. It won’t be the first time, as you well know. Tomorrow night at dusk, you told him.” Jerry blushed scarlet, looking down at his toes and wriggling them. “But…”

“Your gratitude does you credit,” the Oracle said, obviously amused, “but I can give Killer a much better time than you could.” Jerry suddenly laughed. “Thank you,” he said, sounding relieved.

Then the joking was over. The Oracle turned to stare at Ariadne, and she cringed, waiting for the horrors.

“Why did you steal Lacey from Graham and Maisie?” the reflection asked innocently.

Well, that was an easy one— because she loved her and wanted her. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out.

Nothing at all? That was the truth, wasn’t it? Lacey was her child. She loved Lacey— but she could not even say that. The silence was dragging on and on, and Jerry must be waiting, but she could not even look at the mirror, let alone him. And she could not speak. There must be a knack to this, a way to learn how to find the truth, because she wanted to say something, and nothing seemed to have words any more.

Her reflection sighed. “Well, we can come back to it. Are you an alcoholic?”

“Yes.”

“Still?” No.

“Yes.”

Why had she said that? “Are you a good mother?”

“Not when I’m drunk.” She couldn’t add to that

“Look at me!” the reflection snapped, and it began to change. It had a blue dress on. She knew that dress— two years ago. And it was swelling, growing enormous, bigger than the Minotaur— ten feet tall. It glared down at her terrifyingly.

HOW OFTEN HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT MOMMY WHEN SHE’S PRACTICING?

Oh, God! Was that how she had seemed to Lacey?

Then it was her small naked self again— and she fought back. “Lots of parents snap at their children. I don’t think that was fair.”

“Was it fair?”

“Yes.”

“See?” the reflection said. “A little effort, and we get the truth. Tell Jerry what you saw when the Minotaur came to the cottage.” Lord! But she managed that— the story of Graham at that other cottage, Graham drunk and very horny and wearing a cowboy hat. Jerry took her hand sympathetically, but she did not look at him.

“So the Minotaur reminded you of your former husband?” the reflection asked waspishly. “Why did you fire at its genitals?”

“They’re the most tender spot on a man, a male animal,” she said. “Even if silver bullets couldn’t penetrate the skin, they could hurt it there. It worked, damn it!” The reflection smiled. “You were a good wife for a lawyer. You have made true statements, but you have not quite answered the question. Try this then, describe Maisie Gillis.” She did, and it was not hard. Those days in the dungeon had helped her appreciate Maisie as a good kid, not bright, but well meaning.

“She loves children?” the reflection demanded.

“Yes!” Ariadne said quickly. “And Lacey loves her, I admit it.”

“Here you have no choice but to admit it,” her inquisitor replied. “So who is the more suitable mother, the good kid who is loved and has a husband to help, or the solitary alcoholic?” She had a choice of two names, and hers would not come out. “Maisie. But…”

“Yes?”

“But I don’t think that Graham is a good father!”

“Ah!” the reflection said triumphantly. “Back to the first question. Why did you steal Lacey from him?” She was furious to discover that she was weeping as Jerry had wept. She wiped her eyes and took a few long, deep breaths. “So that he could not have her.” So now she knew.

“And why did you attack the Minotaur in the way you did?”

“Because it reminded me of him!” she shouted. “Because of that night he attacked me! Because I wanted to hurt him, to hit him there. I hate him!” There was more she could have said, but that was suddenly very clearly the truth and it would do. She was not repentant.

Jerry put an arm around her shoulder.

“Ariadne,” her image said. “You may stay here in Mera if you wish. Here you will never age, die, or be sick. As you have already discovered, the alcohol craving has no power over you here. If you do not stay, you will be returned to your car at the moment when you took the turnoff to Hope, North Dakota, and none of this will have happened.”

So here it was. “And I have told truly that there I am still an alcoholic,” she said sadly. “What will become of me?” The reflection did not speak, and Jerry muttered, “It will not answer that.”

“What of Graham and the others?” she asked.

The reflection seemed to hesitate and then said, “Your decision will determine your reality stream. What they decide does not. Your decision does not affect them.” Ariadne tried to say that she wanted to go home… and was silent.

She tried to say that she wanted to stay, with no more success. Obviously she did not know what she wanted. She looked up at Jerry in despair. “How long can I take to think?” she asked.

It was again her reflection which spoke. “As long as you want, but you can not leave here until you do. I have seen people stand there for two days.”

“Can I stay and then change my mind later?” · “Yes,” said her own voice from the mirror. “But after that you can never return to Mera, and, after Mera, nowhere else is fit to live, so you can never be happy again— and the demons will surely get you.” She swung back to face the mirror. “Is that some sort of a hint?” she demanded— and got no answer. She tried the experimenting that Jerry had obviously been using, trying to make a statement to see if it was true. “Piano was my demon.”

True!

“I was hoping…” No, apparently she had not been hoping to resume her concert career. “It is too late for me to succeed in the career I might have had.”

True again! An alcoholic, then, with no chance for fame, for standing ovations, for the international circuit of Paris, Moscow, London.

She was weeping again. Too late! The piano demon had ruined her for motherhood, and she had wooed the alcohol demon, and that had ruined everything.

But Lacey… Lacey had as great a gift, hadn’t she? No, she didn’t. The words would not come. Lacey had a small talent only.

She had been fooling herself, then, hoping to relive in Lacey the career she had missed for herself. Oh, God! What damage would she do to Lacey trying to force her?

Jerry had been biting his lip in silence at her side. Now he said, “I have said truly that I love you, Ariadne. Do you love me?”

“I… I don’t know. It is too soon to tell. I am very attracted to you. I… admire your personality. Is that the right expression?” It sounded so feeble compared to what he had said! She smiled encouragingly, realizing suddenly how much people depended on lies, how painful was this undiluted truthfulness.

“Jerry,” she said, “it’s not because of that Smythe-Williams.”

“Not?”

“You’re not a coward, Jerry.”

“I’m not?” He looked astonished.

“Silly man!” she said. “You wouldn’t have ordered the others out over enemy territory if you’d thought that plane was going to stay in the air. How long did you fly it after that?”

“A couple of hours,” he mumbled. “Longer.”

“You are not a coward,” she repeated. “You calculate odds. You would have gone to Killer’s assistance today if Tiglath had allowed it, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes!” he said— and was obviously astonished and happy that he could say it, here in the house of the Oracle.

“So you are not a coward, and that isn’t it.”

His delight flamed in his face and then vanished. “Do you love Killer?” She cringed away from him. “I…”

“Well?”

“I don’t know how I feel about Killer.” Well, at least that came out. “He has a lot more to offer than I do,” Jerry said miserably.

She lost her temper. “If that means what I think it does, then you’re just being disgusting!” she shouted. “That does not impress me— if anything, the reverse! He would be worse than Graham. I’m not turned on by his muscles, either! Physically, I’m no more attracted to Killer than you are, Jerry Howard!” There was silence, then, as they stared at each other in astonishment, and the reflection smiled mockingly from the mirror.

True?

“Oh!” Jerry said, puzzled.

“But…” She did not understand either. “He needs a damned good spanking,” she said. “Yet he seems to hypnotize me. He has the same charisma— charm— that Graham had. If he calls me to his bed, I’ll go ”

“True!”

Oh, hell! What had she said?

Jerry took her hand and smiled sympathetically. “I know. Maybe when he’s finished with both of us, we’ll have each other?”

“Maybe!” Always Killer! She still did not know whether she wanted to stay.

She did want to stay. But her duty as a mother…

“Pilots who desert their crews…” she said. “What about mothers who desert their children?” Jerry started to stammer and finally managed to blurt out, “If you go back, Carlo will kill you.” True?

“What?” she said.

Jerry looked triumphant. He turned to her reflection. “She saved Killer! Doesn’t Mera owe her something? Tell her!”

The reflection sighed and nodded. “Very well. I’ll bend my rules for a special case.

“Carlo is better known as Hassan Aref,” it said. “He is a terrorist, highly trained and gruesomely successful, an expert on remote detonating devices. He is not usually for hire, but two of his companions are in jail. Gillis has agreed to defend them if your car returns safely from your trip— and you do not.” She gasped. Graham! Jerry swore under his breath.

“It is cheaper than alimony,” the reflection remarked acidly. “You are a nuisance and an embarrassment to him. You stopped twice on your journey to eat; they could have had you arrested on a kidnapping charge, right? They did not. The presence of two men at the cottage was a surprise, but they were going to take the others, the possible witnesses, to a motel. Then Carlo would have returned “Three bodies in a burned-out cabin in North Dakota would not have readily been related to the solitary Mrs. Gillis who had disappeared in Col-orado. It would have been an even better solution than the unmarked grave which he was planning earlier.”

“See?” Jerry shouted. “If you go back you will not know this. You will stop somewhere for the night, and they will get you! It’s obvious!”

True!

The Oracle interrupted. “It is also obvious, Jerry Howard, that his future may be even more despicable than his past. Had he returned later, he would have been mistaken for a demon by Killer, who was armed with a submachine gun. The world would have been rid of Hassan Aref, or Carlo Vespucci— and that was the main purpose of your mission!” Jerry gaped and blushed. “And instead Killer and I took him in… That was how the demons rallied so quickly?”

“Is he a demon?” Ariadne asked.

“He carried a big one,” the Oracle replied. “And Gillis’ was reaching a fair size. That was why they survived Asterios’ arrival in the cabin— they were his already. But it took a great deal of daemon to materialize the Minotaur today, and Asterios had to suck the daemon out of all of you to do it. Of course, if they return Outside, they may get reinfected.”

“If?” she echoed.

“Do not concern yourself with their decision. It does not affect you.” She still could not decide.

“Advise me, then, if you are so clever!” she snapped at the mirror. She wondered if the Oracle could lose its temper.

Her reflection smiled, but with less mockery and a trace more sympathy than it had been showing. “Do you know the story of the Judgment of Solomon?” it asked.

“Of course.” Two women had fought over a baby, and Solomon had threatened to divide the child; the real mother had withdrawn her claim. Why was that relevant?

“I am wiser than Solomon,” The Oracle said, “and I can execute his Judgment. What does the story tell you of the nature of love? What is love, Ariadne?” She wiped her eyes and forced a laugh which sounded as false as a brick bell. “I fear we shall stand here for years, if I must answer that . If the happiness of the loved one is more important than one’s own would that be love?” The woman nodded, smiling. “That’s not bad! Does it help?” Yes, it did. If she believed the Oracle, then she had no reason at all to go back, for Carlo would kill her that night. But she was not quite certain she did believe the Oracle.

But love She thought of Lacey struggling with piano lessons. She thought of Lacey hugging Maisie. Even of Lacey and Peggy. She looked at Jerry’s anxious face and knew that she wanted him to be happy.

“I love you,” she said.

True.

She turned back to the mirror. “I shall stay in Mera.”

True again.