The Obsidian Mirror

by Catherine Fisher

  “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.

  23

  I will come when the wind is high she said

  I will come when the moon is bright

  I will come in the dark of Christmas Eve,

  When the beasts kneel in the night.

  My faery troop I’ll bring to you;

  my magic songs and raiment

  and should I save your ancient House,

  your heart shall be my payment.

  Ballad of Lord Winter and Lady Summer

  THE CATS CAME into the Long Gallery. Seven in a line, their tails high, they padded and prowled down its silent length.

  Outside, faint through the casements, the drums of the Shee pounded. Flame light rippled on the pargeted ceiling.

  One by one the inky identical shadows climbed and dropped and searched. They leaped on chairs, under tables. They slid in through any open door. They sat and scratched on books, sprawled on the piled papers of desks.

  One of them looked up at the jar.

  It was blue and white and the cat’s pupils widened as it jerked, very slightly. Once, then again.

  Nearer the edge of the high shelf.

  The cat climbed quickly up, padded along the tops of buckling books, and crouched. It lay in a flat slant of fascination, its fur bunched, its tail fat. When the jar shuddered again it reached out, one swift, exploring paw.

  The jar toppled. It slid and rolled. It crashed into porcelain slivers and the cat bolted to the safety of an armchair, green eyes wide.

  Piers, dusty, hot, and irritated, stood on the floor and spat out shards of pot. Then he glared at the cats. “What the hell took you so long?” he snarled.

  Maskelyne picked himself up. Rebecca said anxiously, “Are you hurt?” but he didn’t answer her; he was gazing at something behind her. She turned, fast.

  The Replicant smiled at her.

  As Sarah and Wharton ran in they saw Rebecca whisk the glass weapon quickly behind her back.

  Sarah glanced around. Where in God’s name was Piers?

  Casually pushing through the broken remnants of the web, the Replicant walked right up to the obsidian mirror. It stood and looked at its reflection in the glass, the lank hair, the neat dark uniform, with a mild, humorless smile.

  The mirror rippled. Wharton saw it clearly; a vibration that traveled within the glass, as if some unbearable tension had been set up.

  Maskelyne must have seen it too. He stepped out, anxious. “Don’t stand so close. Keep away from it!”

  Janus spared him a swift, interested stare. “So there was an anomaly! It was you on the bridge last night. What sort of journeyman are you?”

  Maskelyne said, “Journeyman?”

  “Don’t play the innocent. Has ZEUS sent reinforcements?”

  “No one sent me. I belong to no group. I travel alone.”

  Behind the Replicant, Wharton edged sideways, toward Rebecca. From the corner of his eye he saw that Sarah was standing just inside the open doorway. She was listening intently.

  The creature seemed intrigued. “Alone! How?”

  Maskelyne kept his eyes away from Rebecca. He seemed for a moment to be subtly altered, his dark hair longer, his face unmarked, but as he moved into the light, the scar was back, the jagged violence of it ageing him.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said, quiet. And then, “Step back. The mirror is troubled at your presence. It rejects you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. I can feel it.”

  The Replicant stepped forward, calmly. “Can you? A wretched scarred thief from some lost stinking city? Don’t tell me—you really think the mirror is yours. That it has some sort of loyalty to you. That’s a common delusion for journeymen, did you know that? A slow, helpless fall into insanity. Unless of course, you’re different.” A glimmer of fascination lit its eyes behind the blue lenses. “Are you different? Was it you who created the mirror?”

  Maskelyne came forward too, so that they both stood before the glass.

  “Perhaps the mirror created me,” he whispered.

  And even as Wharton heard Sarah’s indrawn breath he saw it too, all of them were reflected in that obsidian darkness, all except Maskelyne. Where his reflection should have been, there was only the smooth image of the room.

  The Replicant looked as astonished as any of them; there was a confused envy in its voice. “Now that is interesting.” Suddenly it caught Wharton’s stealthy movement and turned. Wharton froze, so near to Rebecca, he might have touched her. Behind his back, he felt the cold grip of the glass weapon as she slipped it into his hand.

  Janus swung back to Maskelyne. “In fact, you’re wrong about me. I have no intention of harming the Chronoptika. Quite the contrary. You see, I’m not the enemy. She is.” It pointed a bitten fingernail at Sarah, where she stood alone, in the shattered web.

  “Me?” she said.

  “Of course you.” The Janus-image shook its head, looking around at the others, its thin face tilted with false astonishment. “Do you mean she really hasn’t told you?”

  Wharton was watching her. Sarah glanced at him. For a moment he knew she was afraid, in some silent plea to him, but he said it anyway. “She’s told us enough.”

  The Replicant smiled. It took its glasses off and polished them on its sleeve. “About her mission? Why they’ve sent her? She is part of a rebel organization that calls itself ZEUS.”

  “We know about ZEUS,” Wharton snapped.

  “Really?” It put the glasses back on and gazed at Wharton through them. “And do you know that she’s here to break your precious mirror into a thousand pieces?”

  She looked at Wharton.

  Appalled, he said, “Sarah?”

  Her face was pale, her lips pressed tight. And she was silent.

  Jake said, “What’s happening?”

  Venn didn’t answer. He folded his arms and stood silent and grim on the steps of the house.

  Behind Gideon, the Shee were flocking from the Wood. They carried bells and chimes; many beat drums, and the deep, throbbing rhythm made starlings rise from the trees and call to each other across the sky. The snow had stopped falling; now it lay deep and still, and the clouds were clearing.

  High above, like a dust o
f diamonds on black velvet, the stars were coming out, shards and slivers of brilliance, eerie over the frozen Wood and the blue-white hummocks of the lawns.

  The Shee wore white and silver. Jake stared at them, astonished; they were a wild army of guizers, mummers, gaberlunzies, masked and costumed with the remnants of ancient Christmases. He saw a ragged St. George, a black-clad Moor, a creature tailed and spined like a capering dragon, white fire flashing from its mouth. He saw morris men and caparisoned knights on skeletal horses. Tall beautiful beings like women walked out of the trees and turned their emerald eyes on him.

  Behind, in the depths of the Wood, stealthier things moved; jewels and scales caught the starlight.

  Shapes slunk like wolves.

  He said, “Where is she?”

  Venn’s voice was rough. “There.”

  Summer came sitting elegantly on a vehicle Jake’s eyes could not quite focus on, a great glass sleigh, he thought, or maybe a crystal carriage, pulled by a huddle of her people, their hair bright, their eyes cold as the moon, but as they drew near the steps the carriage dwindled; it became a child’s simple wooden sled, painted in faded blue.

  Summer stepped down and stood barefoot in the snow. She said, “So you got back! Without your lovely wife.”

  Venn snarled, “This time.”

  “Or the long-lost father.” She smiled narrowly at Jake. “What a pity.”

  “What are you doing here?” Venn glanced at the dark house, the snowdrift in the hall. “What’s happened?”

  She ran lightly up the steps and peered in at the snow-covered hall. “Your enemy is inside your defenses, Oberon. And I’ve agreed to help.”

  Venn snorted. “For what price?”

  She reached out and took his hand. “A great treasure. And you can’t stop me, because Sarah has invited me in.”

  Jake shot a glance at Gideon. The changeling’s green eyes were uneasy.

  Venn was silent. He looked over the noisy, crazy army. Then he said, “Summer, I may need your help now. But believe me, if things weren’t desperate you’d be the last person I’d…”

  “She was so clever!”

  “Who?”

  “Sarah. Did you know she can become invisible?”

  He stared at her, as if nothing she said could be trusted. He said, “I’ve spent years keeping you out.”

  She touched his fingers. “Then it’s time things changed.”

  Jake watched, not sure what was happening. Summer seriously scared him. Finally Venn said, “All right. But just you. You don’t need this rabble to deal with Janus.”

  She laughed. “So true. But they’ll wait in a ring around your house. There’ll be no way out for this Replicant.”

  She made a signal to Gideon to stand aside. He didn’t move. “Let me come with you.”

  She laughed. “Why should I need you? Stay here.” She pulled the string and the mare’s jaw clacked. “Stay and play, like the rest.”

  She turned away, and swept past Jake, and he saw how Gideon looked after her, a look of pure hatred.

  Venn led Summer into the Abbey. As she passed over the iron set into the threshold, Jake saw how she shivered, but Venn held her white fingers tight, and then they were inside, hurrying through the ice-cold stillness of the empty rooms.

  Jake looked back. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Gideon turned the gray horse’s skull to face him, and moved its jaw. “I’m under a spell, Jake,” it clacked, in a sour, bony voice. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “But is it true?” Wharton snapped. “What he says? You told us…”

  Sarah shook her head. “It’s not that simple. He’s trying to turn you against me.”

  She glanced around, desperate. She was cold and shivering, despite Wharton’s coat, which he’d draped around her shoulders. Where was Jake when she needed him? Where was Piers?

  “You’ve lied to us all along,” Rebecca said.

  “You can talk! No! Listen to me! Janus is the future. A possible future. It all depends on what Venn does with the mirror.”

  Maskelyne, standing between the glass and the Replicant, stared at her as if he no longer knew whom to trust.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What she means,” Janus said, smiling, “is that if Venn succeeds in his plan to bring back his wife, it will have wider repercussions. The mirror will become a priceless artifact, and there will be no way he can keep it secret. In about a hundred years from now this faction that calls itself ZEUS tries to…”

  “He’s lying.” Sarah stepped up to Wharton. She shook her head, furious. “He knows I can’t tell you. I dare not tell you.”

  Wharton said quietly, “You have to. How can we understand otherwise?”

  Sarah looked at Maskelyne, then at Rebecca. She felt suddenly so tired, she just wanted to crumple somewhere and rest, but then in the black depths of the mirror something moved, and she caught a brief flicker in the corner of the room.

  She stopped. Rebecca gave a gasp of delight.

  Wharton turned.

  Venn and Jake were standing in the doorway of the Monk’s Walk. Just behind them was an astonishingly pretty young woman wearing a simple black dress, and, Wharton noticed in surprise, no shoes.

  “Jake! Thank God! What happened?”

  Jake said, “Too much to explain now.”

  “And your father?” Wharton glanced at Venn, who shook his head.

  The woman came in. She walked in a strangely delicate, girlish way, and her smile was so sweet, Wharton felt oddly troubled by it.

  She looked at Janus with open curiosity and Janus looked at her.

  At once Sarah knew the Replicant was at a loss; that it had encountered something outside its knowledge.

  “Who are you?” it snarled.

  “Summer is one of my names.” She stared in fascination at the mirror. “So this is it. Your obsession. Your gateway to bliss.” She was talking to Venn, but he had turned to Sarah.

  He said, “So what’s the world like in your time, Sarah? Is it so terrible that you can’t tell us about it? Do you want my mirror to change things, to make things better? Or is it so perfect that you don’t want any chance of it being spoiled?”

  His voice was raw with bitterness. Sarah stared back at him. Then she came up close to him and stood face-to-face, her blond hair short and ragged.

  She said, “There is no world. In my time, the world is gone. All the people, the animals, the cities. Destroyed by a madman. And do you know what he used to destroy it? No meteor from space, no terrible plague, no nuclear explosion. He used your mirror, Venn. Your mirror destroyed my world.”

  All the lights went on.

  With a whine of power the web shuddered.

  The doors slammed. Every machine and piece of cable in the room seemed to flicker into sudden new strength.

  From nowhere Piers voice crackled from a speaker, making Wharton jump.

  “The house is secure, Excellency. Welcome home.”

  24

  The fate of humanity rests on our efforts. We are only a few against his power, but we have courage. We’re the sacrifice. The avengers. If we succeed we’ll never know it. Perhaps if there is a future we’ll be looked back on as gods, or angels. Believe in your destiny. Let nothing—not hatred, not despair, not even love—stand in your way.

  Illegal ZEUS transmission

  Dec. 1848

  It has taken three days but finally they have found her. The men I employed brought her to the house this morning; a small, tousled, rather ill-smelling child wearing ragged clothes and boots that were too big for her. She was bruised and handcuffed. I fear my agents may have been a little too free with their fists.

  She examined the room, stared at me, and altogether showed quite remarkable spirit. She said, “Never thought I’d be in this gaff again.”

  Her eyes fixed, as if drawn by fascination, on the mirror.

  I have restored the order of the room. The rifled mess Venn had made of my
desk is now neat again, and the gleaming brass machinery is silent. In the three days since he and the boy vanished I have not been able to obtain any sign of energy from the device at all.

  “Release her,” I commanded.

  “She’s greased lightning, guv. She’ll be gone before you blink, like last time, when we broke in. And she’s a biter. Toby’s got the marks of her all down his arm.”

  I said, “Then you will please stand outside and allow no one to leave. You, Toby, will be compensated for your…er…injuries.”

  After they had gone, taking the cuffs with them, the urchin sat herself in a chair and looked at me with a fixity that made me uncomfortable.

  “Cost you, didn’t I?”

  “More than you could guess.” I sat opposite. “So, Moll, isn’t it?”

  “Might be.”

  “Look here, Moll. I have a proposition to put before you. How would you like a warm er…gaff, for a while? Plenty of food. New clothes.”

  She said, “Here?”

  “Yes. I…”

  “I ain’t no trull, mister.”

  I blushed. I was appalled. For a child of, what, eleven? her knowledge of the seedier aspects of the world was startling. “My dear child, I assure you…Good heavens…No…Please, let me make myself clear. I need information. I simply need to know everything possible about Venn and the boy Jake Wilde. Everything! Where you fell in with them, what they might have told you. Did they speak about their future world? About flying machines? About traveling to the moon? About cures for diseases? About…investments?”

  She eyed me, and I realized in my enthusiasm I had slid forward and was perched on the edge of the chair, my voice hoarse with excitement.

  I cleared my throat and drew back.

  But I had already shown her what such knowledge was worth.

  “Jake said a lot of things.” She shrugged, careless. “Like, you was a pompous old git.”

  “Did he.” I tried to smile.

  “And other stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  She wriggled back in the chair and placed her muddy boots one by one deliberately on my velvet footstool. “That depends. I suppose I wouldn’t mind staying for a bit. Skimble’s is too lairy these days. They know it was me what stole the bracelet; they’ve been through my stuff and if I go back there, I’ll get a lammering. Or worse.”