Obsidian Mirror

22

If a man be replicated, can his soul accompany him? Without a soul, is he even human?

And if he is not human, what evil may inhabit him without hindrance?

Does my blacke mirror open the world to vile spirits—is it a pathway for demons? And therefore should I shatter it or bury it deep in the earth?

Alas for my dremes then.

From The Scrutiny of Secrets by Mortimer Dee

SARAH STOOD RIGID. The Replicant’s smile was charming. It held her arm in a tight grip. “You’re a little wet,” it said.

She threw a quick glance behind it. The door was locked—hopefully barricaded. But she was the one putting them all in danger. “Let me go.”

“Both of us having come all this way?” It shook its head. “I don’t think so. I have to say, I’m surprised. I presumed you were locked safely in there with them—the worthy teacher, and Venn’s clever genie.”

She looked stricken, but she thought fast. Venn and Jake weren’t back. But she couldn’t afford to wait for them.

“It would have been a shame to burn the place down.” It tipped its head sideways and smiled again. “All this ancient timber.” It took its hand out of its pocket and she saw it had a small lighter; a tiny blue flame flickered.

“I mean, look…” The Replicant wandered away to the curtain that hung over the door. “So much dust, so many old fabrics. What an inferno, Sarah.”

Carelessly it held the flame close to the curtain.

“Don’t.”

As soon as she said it she knew it was a mistake. Janus’s hand did not move. It said, “You could ask them to open the door.”

“They won’t. They know you’re here.”

“Yes, but now you are too.” It watched the edge of the curtain; with a shiver of fear she saw it had begun to smolder. “Tell them to open the door, Sarah.”

“Put that thing out first.”

Behind the spectacles, its eyes flickered to her. “Don’t defy me. Don’t pit your will against mine. Tell them to open the door.”

Smoke was rising from the worn fibers of the curtain. In an instant it would whoosh into fire. She clenched her fists.

“Put the flame out. Then I’ll talk to them.”

The Replicant did not blink. Its hand did not move. Red fire spurted in the damask folds.

Sarah ran. She snatched at the curtain and dragged it down, the worn cloth tearing as easily as tissue. Even as it fell it was already a mass of flame; small wisps scattered, scuttering down the bare wooden boards of the gallery. She stamped and beat at it, gasping, jerking back, heat on her face. Sparks danced around her hair.

The Replicant watched her. As she dragged the singed cloth into a hasty heap she saw from the corner of her eye how it lounged, waiting. When the last spark was out, she whirled around. It was even faster; it had her arm and had dragged her close, hauling her over to the door, and she felt the small silver click of the lighter; jerked away in terror from the hot glow under her ear.

“Listen to me, in there,” it yelled. “I have a friend of yours. Open the door.”

The flame was raised; she fought to pull away.

“Tell them.”

Gritting her teeth, she struggled, lashing out with her free arm, but it held the flame closer and the heat of it under her eyes made her gasp with terror.

Then, with a crack, the door unlocked.

“Let the girl go,” Wharton growled. “Or I blow you to kingdom come.”

Venn and Jake thundered up the stairs.

At the landing the butler came out of a room carrying a silver tray; before he could jump back Venn had shoved him aside in a crash of china and raced past, Moll tight at his heels.

Jake glanced back. Hassan had dragged out a whistle; he blew it, three shrieking, terrified blasts.

Venn stormed down the corridor, flinging open doors, finding only bedrooms. The last door was firmly locked.

“That must be it!” Moll hissed.

Venn stood back. “Jake.”

Together, they shouldered the door, and burst through.

“Get away from there!” Venn yelled.

Symmes turned. He was standing before a complicated assemblage of brass; a creation of springs and oscillating pendulums. Some ornate construction made of bands of metal had been fitted to encircle the mirror, like the meshed orbits of tiny planets. The glass itself was held steady in a frame ratcheted to the floor.

Jake saw at once that Symmes was wearing the bracelet. He leaped forward, but Symmes moved first.

He caught a smooth lever that was set into the machinery and shoved it down.

“No!” Venn said.

“I have to.” Symmes was breathless. “You know. You—an explorer. You know I have no choice.”

And he was gone, into emptiness, a great silent implosion that tore Moll and Jake into a rolling tumble of limbs, and made Venn cling to a chair as it was dragged across the floor.

The mirror rippled and closed behind Symmes.

Venn swore. He scrambled up. “Get that door closed!”

But Jake was too appalled to move. For a stricken moment his mind seemed as black as the glass; until Moll started dragging the chest of drawers across the door. “Don’t just stand there, Jake! Come on!”

He grabbed the furniture and hauled. Men were running up the stairs outside; a heavy fist pounded on the door. “Mr. Symmes! Sir?”

“Keep them out.” Venn stared at the mass of brass components in bewilderment. “What in hell’s name has he done to this?”

The door shuddered. The chest of drawers jerked, even with Moll sitting on it. “Come out of there! We are armed men, and if you resist, we’ll shoot.”

“Do something,” Jake muttered, his back braced against the barricade.

Venn grabbed the lever. With one firm jerk he put it into reverse.

The mirror spat. For a moment the whole room seemed to turn. And then it opened, like a black hole in the world’s heart.

The Replicant eased Sarah aside and walked toward Wharton, who pointed the shotgun with tense resolve.

Janus didn’t pause. “Even if you fire, you’ll find nothing happens to me. I am not here. How can you kill a reflection?” It stalked into the Monk’s Walk and glanced down the dark stone corridor, then back, appraisingly, at Wharton. “Look at you. A rational man, an educator of the young. And yet after less than a week in his company, what has Venn done to you? He has taken your mind and twisted it to believe impossible things.”

Wharton said, “Sarah. Come over here.”

She stepped across to him. She couldn’t see Piers—surely he must be staying close to the mirror. She said quietly, “It’s true. You can’t hurt him. But he can hurt you.”

Wharton glanced at her. She was staring at the Replicant with a bitter hatred.

The image of Janus smiled. It made to stride swiftly down the Monk’s Walk, but Wharton did not move and they came face-to-face under the vaulted roof. Icy winds whipped snow through the open arches; far below, Sarah heard the roar of the swollen river in its winter flood.

“You don’t get past me,” Wharton growled.

The Replicant shook its head. “You have no idea what I am. Or what she is. You’re so out of your depth, you’ve drowned and you don’t know it. Get out of my way, old man.”

Wharton scowled. “I’ve faced down bigger men than you in…”

He stopped, astonished. Janus had turned sideways and vanished.

He spun around. The dark figure of the Replicant was walking swiftly down the corridor. Snow gusted through the lean shape. It turned and laughed, and then whistled, and behind it the shadow of a wolf slunk at its heels.

Sarah grabbed Wharton. “We have to protect the mirror.”

“I really fail to see how.”

She tugged the chain with the half coin from her neck. “If all else fails,” she said, “with this.” She held it up. “Summer! I call you. I need you. Now!”

Maskelyne had only time to yell “Becky!” before the wolf raced in from the dark and leaped on his back. He fell and it was on him; he rolled and gasped to find its white teeth snapping at his throat.

He gave a wild cry of terror, scrabbling for the dropped gun.

Rebecca froze. For a moment she could not even breathe. Then she dived for the glass weapon and whipped it around.

She raised it, double-handed, and pointed it straight at the wolf.

But there was a man in the way.

He was standing there, bewildered, a stout, perspiring mustachioed stranger in a red dressing gown. He was staring blankly at the wolf, in a sort of horror, and he said something, but she didn’t know what, because at the sound of the whisper, the beast swiveled, its sapphire eyes glittering with instant new greed.

“Good God!” Symmes backed away.

“Fresher prey,” Maskelyne gasped. “He’s just journeyed.”

Rebecca swung the weapon. The wolf jumped. Symmes screamed, a sound that made Rebecca’s fingers clutch and slip on the trigger.

Then he, and the wolf, were gone.

They burst back through the black mirror in a furious tangle of flailing limbs, the man and the white-furred beast a tight confusion of violence. Venn moved instantly. He grabbed the wolf and hauled it away, but it was a thing that twisted and dissolved through his fingers, it snarled and backed, its great muzzle snuffling, bewildered, toward Moll.

She screeched, ducking behind Jake.

But already they saw it was fading, its whiteness clotting. Whining, it squirmed around, biting at its own tail as if it would devour itself, but now they could see through it, and even as it died it tried to leap, but Jake held Moll safe. With a shiver that struck deep into his heart he felt the thing fling itself over him. Become nothing more than a jagged spark that briefly lit the keyhole.

And then nothing at all.

Outside, there was a brief silence.

Then the butler’s voice. “Mr. Symmes! Sir!”

“He’s fine,” Venn yelled quickly. “Don’t shoot. We’re coming out.”

He already had the bracelet off Symmes’s wrist. The man was in a state of compete collapse; he sat huddled on the rug, his eyes closed, his breathing a strangled gasp. Venn went to the desk, swept papers aside, snatching up every notebook and journal he could find.

Jake picked himself up and helped Moll to stand. Even her composure was shattered; her eyes were wide and terrified under her tangled hair.

“Come on.” Venn grabbed Jake’s elbow and hauled him toward the vacuum of the mirror.

“No! Wait!”

“That wolf must have been in the Abbey!”

“Yes I know, but what about Moll?” He dragged to a stop.

Venn clasped the snake tight on his own wrist. “Not our problem. She’ll be fine.”

“We take her with us.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Jake stared at her; she smiled back, wan. “Don’t worry, Jake. You can come back and see me anytime, can’t you?”

Numb, he nodded. He had a sudden understanding of her misery here; saw she would probably die young, in some stinking cholera-ridden slum. Her faith in him made him ashamed. He turned to Venn. “Take her. Come back for me.”

For no more than a second Venn’s ice gaze flashed over her. Then, without a flicker of pity he said, “No.”

“He’s right.” Moll was moving backward, to the door. “I won’t let you. I’ll be out under the rozzers’ arms and running, Jake. No worries.” Tears stood in her eyes.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Course you can. Go on. Go now.”

“Come out of there!” the voice in the corridor thundered. With a great lurch, the chest of drawers was shunted away; the door shuddered its way inward.

Venn said, “Good-bye Moll,” and his cold clasp hauled Jake headlong into the mirror.

He looked back, but the room was already so incredibly distant, she was tiny as a doll, her face lost in shadows. “I’ll come back,” he breathed, but she was gone, and for a moment that had no measurement he was alone in a terrible, dimensionless space, alone and desolate, a small spark of light in an immense, whirling star-field.

Which was suddenly snow.

He gasped in the bitter cold.

He and Venn were standing knee-deep in drifts before Wintercombe, under a sky of breathtaking stars, and out of the Wood, Gideon was walking, and he carried, high on a pole, the skull of the Gray Mare, its white jaw clacking in the howling gale.

Behind him, in a rustling, ramshackle flock, came the Host of the Shee.