Obsidian Mirror

18

That a man could grow quietly into so much power. That he could plan and scheme and have his enemies removed one by one, and then his allies, until finally everyone is too terrified to speak out against him. Until he rules with a scepter of steel.

We should have seen this coming. This is history; it has happened again and again. But if he then discovers a weapon that can destroy the world…

We are the first to fight against such a terror.

Illegal ZEUS transmission

“WAKE UP, CULLY. It’s time.”

The small hand was shaking his shoulder; he rolled over and nearly groaned, but the dirty fingers clamped tight on his mouth.

Moll drew back. Her tangled hair had been pushed into a man’s cap; her eyes were lit with excitement.

Jake sat up. He must have slept for a few hours; he was stiff and sore from the hard floor and his mouth was dry. Scratching his hair, he felt fleabites. He whispered, “Water?”

She shook her head.

“Probably just as well. So, where are they?”

In answer she squirmed alongside him, and they both peered cautiously over the balcony.

The thieves had drunk themselves into oblivion. They lay sprawled on the cluttered stage, one on a bench, the other curled in a heap of old coats and cloaks, only his head showing.

The women had gone.

“Right.” Jake glanced up at the swinging bag. “We need to lower that. Are there some pulleys?”

She looked at him sadly, as if he were the child of ten. “Not as works, cully. You have to climb.”

He scowled. Silently, she pushed him through the door out of the balcony.

The sleeping theater was a nest of rats. They scattered in rustling scutters as the small girl led Jake, her hand in his, along the rotting corridors. Ancient posters hung in rags, layer upon layer of lost comedy acts and forgotten singers, of plays mildewed into obscurity.

The backstage area was a maze of bedding and rubbish. A woman squatting in a corner turned and stared at them, and Jake saw she held a baby, swaddled tight to her chest.

Moll put her finger to her lips; the woman stared, blank with weariness.

What had once been the wings stank now; pools of what Jake hoped was water ran on the boards, some of which had been ripped up for firewood.

He paused.

The bag of loot swung overhead. It was at least fifteen meters up, and the rope it hung from snaked down and was firmly tied around the big thief’s waist.

Jake swore, silently.

Moll tugged him down, her small lips tickled his ear. “Look there. You’ll have to climb.”

Slung next to it was a thicker cable, rising in a great loop. He gazed at it, then at the men. He said, “Right. You stay here. If they wake, they mustn’t look up. Do you understand?”

“Clear as muck, Jake.”

He took the cable in his hands. It was filthy, and the fibers creaked, but it was strong and as he tested it carefully he knew it would support him. He slid his hands up, gripped with his feet, and began to climb.

Hand over hand he hauled himself up. The rope’s end twitched and swayed; then it came loose from somewhere and skittered over the stage, making a soft rustle that froze him in fear.

The big thief snored.

Moll, crouched in the darkness, gave him a double thumbs-up. He climbed on.

Soon his hands were red and sore, his knees and back one fierce ache. The higher he went, the more the rope swung, its end kinking and flicking. Up here it was dark, and sweat stung his eyes, but at last he was alongside the bag, its dim shape an arm’s length away.

This was tricky. He tried to reach out and grab it. Twice he missed.

The third time, with an effort, he forced the cable to swing, and as the swing brought him close he caught at the bag and this time held it, the leather soft and yielding. Gently, he drew it toward him.

The cord leading down strained tight around the fat man’s belly. He snuffled and muttered something in his sleep, flinging out one arm.

Carefully, gripping only with knees and ankles, Jake eased his hand inside the bag. He felt cloth, the greasy edges of coins. He felt the solid round lump of a gentleman’s watch. And he felt the bracelet.

Its snake form was cold under his fingers.

He tugged at it.

Coins slid and clinked. He had it but it was tangled on something in there; he pulled it again with more force.

The rope swung, the cable swept. In a sudden dizzying moment he lost his grip; his ankles slid, he grabbed wildly at the rope and at once he was upside-down, gasping, the snake bracelet ripped from the bag of loot that tipped out all its contents, crashing, tumbling, an iron rain, onto the sleepers on the stage.

Sarah said quietly, “I never actually said that girl was me. I let you believe it. I saw the report in the paper and the photograph was like me. It was too good a chance to waste.”

They were all gazing at her as if they didn’t know her anymore. It was hard, but she pushed the cropped hair behind her ear and floundered on. “My name is really Sarah, just not Stewart. I…”

Wharton pointed to the coin. “Explain that. In the journal, Symmes is given it as a token. Zeus. Why is it significant?” His voice betrayed his anger.

She stared. “You read the journal?”

Wharton looked slightly red. “Well, I went into Jake’s room and there was all this stuff…”

She nodded. “The journal is about the past. I don’t come from the past. I come from the future.”

Rebecca stifled a grin; Sarah’s eyes flickered to her. “Don’t laugh at me.” She glanced back at Wharton. “He believes me.”

He shrugged. “Yesterday…an hour ago…I would have laughed too.”

“She’s telling the truth.” Gideon’s voice was cool and disinterested. “I’ve seen her—she was a little girl. They took—will take—her parents away.”

She stared at him, dizzied by the way all time was one for him. Then she said, “I will be born here. But my Wintercombe is a ruin. A place of ghosts. A colony where ragged people live like rats, and where I hide my secrets in a hiding-hole in a brambled room.” She shrugged, and went and sat on the inglenook bench, staring into the flames. “I can’t tell you all of it. But there was a man in the camp called Janus. He started off as one of us. One of the revolutionaries. Gradually, he changed. Became one of them. My father said, ‘He’s going too far. Thinks he’s more important than the cause.’ One night, in winter, we heard him on the radio. TV was long gone, the Internet dead. We heard Janus and we knew he was all that was left. My mother laughed, but my father was afraid. It only took an hour after that for the headlights of the trucks to come roaring down the drive. They took my parents away. I don’t know where. They took me to the Labyrinth.”

Gideon came softly and sat next to her. “A place of terror?”

She laughed. “A place where I learned to be invisible. A place of secret experiments and strange procedures. A place where they studied humans, how to make them more than mortal.”

He laughed too. “More than mortal!”

Rebecca shivered.

“But a few of us were stubborn.” Sarah looked up. “We formed a resistance cell. We called ourselves ZEUS because of the coin, and because of the story, the legend in Greek mythology…”

“What legend?” Rebecca asked,

Wharton nodded. “I see. Chronos—that is Time—was a Titan who murdered all his sons one by one. Until Zeus was born. Zeus was the one who defeated Time.” He looked at her. “How many of you were there?”

She shrugged. “Six. Six friends. Angry, disaffected kids with no hope. No plan. Until we found out about the mirror.”

Wharton got up and put a new log on the fire, pushing it well down into the hot red embers. “So you get yourself in here, you make us feel so sorry for you, you lie and pretend, and all the time you want to steal the mirror?” His anger was sharp as a wasp. He stood there and dusted his hands and held her with his annoyingly honest stare.

“Not to steal,” she said quickly.

“Then…”

“To protect it. From Janus ever getting it.”

She glanced at Gideon. He sat in the inglenook, watching the crackling fire. His hands were around his knees, his whole body twisted away from the iron work. He was listening intently.

She hurried to escape the lie, maybe too quickly. “He’s experimented with it. We don’t know details, but we do know that it works and that he’s journeyed because…because of the Replicants.”

Wharton said, “All this is fascinating, but…”

“No, please. Listen.” She turned to him, her blue eyes fierce. “This is important. If a journeyman makes a mistake…if you come back at the wrong time…that is, if you come back before you leave…don’t you see? There will be two of you. We call it replication. Janus must have done that, because he has at least several Replicants. One of them is here, outside, in the grounds. Now.”

“And the wolf,” Gideon said. “Don’t forget the wolf.”

“He breeds them. They smell out the tracks of a traveler in time.”

Wharton frowned. “But, the snow.”

“Won’t stop him. He’ll use it. He’s already cut the power.”

Rebecca shook her head. “All this…it sounds crazy.”

“Who asked you?” Sarah swung around, irritated. “What are you doing here anyway?”

The tall girl shrugged. “I came to warn Jake…”

“Why?” Sarah said, suspicious. “About Janus? Then how did you—”

“Look.” Wharton’s voice was sharp. “The house is secure. Any minute now Piers will get the lights working. No one can get in. I assure you.”

The crash silenced him.

He stared at Sarah. Then they were both out of the archway and running down the frosty corridor, under the bells. Hurtling into the hall, Wharton stopped dead, seeing the front door had been burst wide open, the lock still smoking. Snow swirled over the black-and-white tiles of the floor.

Behind him, Sarah said, “He’s inside.” She turned to him, her face pale. “Get to the Monk’s Walk. Quickly. Or we’re finished.”

“Oh, I intend to. But not you.” Wharton blocked her way. “I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere near that mirror, Sarah. Because everything you’ve told us could still be a pack of lies.”

Deep in the lightless house, Maskelyne heard the crash. He had crouched, shivering, trying to rub feeling back into his arms and shoulders for long minutes; then he had explored carefully, opening doors, peering into rooms, working his way silently into the heart of the ancient building, its scents of wax polish and old lavender.

He knew the device was here. In some inexplicable way he could sense its waiting presence, feel its tingling aura in his nerves. The mirror recognized him. He moved toward it, down passageways, up stairwells, treading stealthily down the empty expanse of the Long Gallery.

The crash stopped him, under a portrait of a long-dead Lord Venn. Someone had forced open the front door. For a moment he heard the blur of anxious voices, then he ran, up a narrow spiral stair that led to the first floor.

He walked stealthily down the corridor and turned a corner.

Piers was waiting for him.

The small man smiled, satisfied. “So. It is you after all.”

He stood in his grubby white coat, the red waistcoat bright under it, his small feet planted firmly. He had no weapon, but Maskelyne knew he didn’t need one. This was no human servant.

He stopped. “You know me?”

“You’re in Symmes’s journal. You’re the one he stole the mirror from.” His voice was conversational. Piers strolled down the corridor. “I’ve seen you on the cameras. You’ve been trying to get in here for months.” He came up to Maskelyne, curious. “Did you journey? Did you come straight from that night in the opium den?”

Curiosity. The bright eyes were wide with it. It was the one weak point Maskelyne understood. He let his shoulders slump; allowed exhaustion to cross his marked face. He said, “I’m lost in this time. I just want the mirror. My mirror.”

There was a small blue-and-white ceramic pot on the wide windowsill. That would do, if he could reach it. Quickly he drew the slim glass weapon from his pocket.

Piers laughed, as if surprised. “That won’t hurt me.” He came right up to it; let the barrel rest against his chest, almost friendly. “I’m not the sort of being that can be destroyed with a weapon.”

Maskelyne nodded. “I know that,” he said. Then he spoke, so fast, so low, the whisper was barely intelligible; a rapid spell in ancient Latin and lost Celtic, the words garbled backward, forward, inside-out, and opposite, a web of knotted sound, a rattle of power.

Piers gasped.

He looked down at himself, howled a syllable of rage, flung out both spidery hands.

Maskelyne sidestepped, made a sigil of his fingers.

Piers was an outline, a glimmer. He was a faint after-image in the air of the corridor. He mouthed curses, but no words came.

Maskelyne took the jar and lifted the lid. It smelled of the ghosts of roses. He stopped the spell, took a breath, and commanded.

“Enter.”

Piers, faint as dust, fixed him with a furious glare. And then he was gone, though Maskelyne felt scorched, as if that wrath had burned right through him.

Hands shaking, he put the weapon away, fixed the lid on the jar, and stood it on the sill. Then he sat down beside it so fast, he felt as if his legs had given way, and put his head in his hands.

He had not made such a dark magic for centuries.

He was surprised to find he still had it in him.

The noise was terrible. Coins fell like rain, bouncing and rolling, rattling on the bare boards.

The thieves were awake in seconds, Moll screeched, and Jake only managed to stop his fall by grabbing the twisted cable so tight, the snake bracelet bit into his hand. Hot rope scorched him.

The men saw him; they swore and yelled. One—the smaller—ran and grabbed the end of the rope and jerked it so ferociously, Jake could hardly hold on. If he fell, he was finished. If they had a weapon, he was finished.

Then Moll struck.

She came out of the ruined wings like a spitfire, kicking, spitting venom. She had some sort of cudgel of wood; she cracked the thin man from behind across the back of his knees so that he staggered and fell, howling. She dragged her weapon up and turned, but the big man was there.

With one backhanded blow, he floored her.

Jake roared with rage. Forgetting safety, he slid down the rope, hitting the stage so hard, his knees buckled; in seconds he had the thick cable looped around the man’s throat and was hauling him back, throttling, dodging the flailing fists and clutching fingers.

The thief made choking, animal noises; he scrabbled desperately at the rope. Jake clung on, but the man’s strength was too much. With one convulsive jerk he turned, and a knife slashed so close to Jake’s neck, he felt the whistle of air.

Moll yelled, “Jake!”

He leaped back.

Breathless, he confronted the thief. The man tossed the knife into his right hand and plucked another from his back pocket. The blade slicked out. Menacing, grim with anger, he moved in.

“Down, Jake!” Her screech was so shrill, it sounded like the monkey’s. He gave one glance back, then threw himself aside with a yell and the vast stage curtain swept over him like a smothering tidal wave of darkness and dust. For a moment he was drowned in it, and then he had rolled free and she was grabbing him, dragging him up. “Run! Run!”

Half blind, he crashed into the ramshackle scenery; through lopsided battlements, through a tilted doorway cut in a cardboard cottage. Behind, the big thief roared and floundered under the curtain, swearing death and revenge, but already they were fleeing through heaps of painted graves, tombs adorned with skull and crossed bones, through flimsy flats of gnarled trees and fairy rings and a vast sprouting beanstalk.

Moll giggled.

“You’re crazy,” Jake gasped. “He could have killed you!”

“He never. And he won’t.”

She grabbed him away. “Down this way. Smart now.”

A narrow grating in the wall. She had tugged it open and was swarming through; Jake slid after her, feet-first into a pitch-black stinking space, a slit barely wide enough to squeeze inside, descending at a steep angle.

As they scraped themselves down and down they slowed, gasping in the fetid air, until at last they stopped, and Jake heard, far behind, the big man slamming at the tiny grid with chilling rage.

He heard a small creaky sound in the darkness beside him. Moll, it seemed, was laughing.

He realized he was sore, one hand badly rope-burned. But the bracelet was safe. He touched it, in the dark, then shoved it deep in his inner pocket. The thought of how close he had been to losing it forever turned him cold. He gazed up the filthy tunnel.

“How far does this go?”

“Into the gutters,” she said, snuggling up tight to him. “All the runnels and sewers, the new ones, they all meet down here. This is where the meat-men live, and the rat-boys too. But don’t fret. I knows a way up that will bring us near the posh streets, the ones you want.”

“Why should I want them?”

He caught the glimmer of her grin, patient and knowing. “Because that’s where he lives, don’t he? The one you want. The cully what took the mirror.”

Sarah paced the tiny scullery, furious.

Wharton had been polite but utterly firm. He had taken her arm, marched her in here, and locked the door. She gave a small scream of frustration. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

She stopped.

Taking a glove off, she pulled the gray notebook from her coat pocket and for a moment, stared at it.

Reluctant, she opened it. The page was covered with the sloping script of Janus.

I’M SORRY, SARAH. MY REPLICANT IS IN THE HOUSE NOW. AND THANKS TO THAT LITTLE SUBTERFUGE OF YOURS, WHICH OF THEM WILL TRUST YOU ANYMORE? THE BLUFF TEACHER, THE LITTLE GENIE, THE REMARKABLY CURIOUS LOCAL GIRL? GIVE UP, SARAH. OR YOUR PARENTS WILL PAY.

Icy with dismay, she stared at the words, then slammed the book shut and flung it from her as if it were infected.

She had to get out!

She ran to the door and rattled the handle, strained at the lock. Maybe if…

“Girl from the future.”

A quiet, amused voice. She stood very still. She said, “Who is that?”

“Gideon.”

Her hands clasped tight on the handle. She said, “What’s happening? I have to…”

“You can’t get to the mirror. Rebecca and Wharton have gone down there and he’s armed.”

“You could let me out.”

He sounded as if he was laughing, a cool, rare laugh. “Why should I?”

“Listen to me, Gideon. Open this door. Take me into the Wood. Take me to Summer. That’s what I want you to do. And in return, if I get Jake and Venn back, then I promise I’ll get you home. Back to your family. Before this nightmare ever began.”

He was silent so long, she thought he had gone. When he said, “Summer is far too dangerous,” she almost cried with relief.

“I have to try. Please.”

A rattle of sliding bolts. She stood back. The door opened and he stood there, in his moss-green ragged coat, looking at her.

“Will you betray me too, Sarah?”

“Of course not,” she lied.