The Water Mirror

by Kai Meyer

  Half the distance to the Campanile was behind her before Merle realized that the entrance was unguarded. The tower guards had joined the troops in front of the Doge’s palace. At least a hundred rifle barrels were now pointed at the messenger, and new ones were being added every minute. The lions on the ground, all wingless and of granite, pawed angrily, their claws scratching furrows in the pavement of the piazza. Their riders were having trouble keeping them in check.

  “From every inhabitant of the city a drop of blood,” cried Hell’s messenger into the crowd. “Only one drop from each, and the pact is sealed. Citizens of Venice, think! How much blood will the Empire demand of you? How many of you will die in fighting around the lagoon, and how many dead will the hosts of the Pharaoh later claim?”

  A young boy, seven years old at the most, tore himself loose from his horrified mother and ran on his short legs past the soldiers up to the messenger.

  “The Flowing Queen protects us!” he cried up to the creature. “We don’t need your help!”

  The panicked mother tried to run after him, but others held her fast. She struggled, flailed around her, but she could not get free. She cried the name of her child over and over again.

  The boy looked defiantly up at the messenger once more. “The Flowing Queen will always protect us!” Then he simply turned around and ran back to the others without the messenger’s hurting him at all.

  Merle had felt a pain in her chest at the child’s words. It was a moment before she realized that it wasn’t her own feeling. It was the pain of the Flowing Queen, her despair, her shame.

  “They are relying on me,” she said tonelessly. “They are all relying on me. And I have disappointed them.”

  “They don’t have any idea of what has happened.”

  “They will soon find out. At the latest when the Pharaoh’s war galleys anchor in the lagoon and the sunbarks spray fire from the sky.” She was silent for a moment, then added, “They should accept the messenger’s offer.”

  Merle almost stumbled over her own feet in fright. Only twenty more yards to the tower.

  “What?” she cried out. “Are you serious?”

  “It is a possibility.”

  “But . . . Hell! I mean, what do we know about it?” And she added quickly, “Professor Burbridge’s exploration experiences alone are enough to . . . oh, well, wish them to the Devil.”

  “It is a possibility,” the Queen said again. Her voice was unusually flat and weak. The little boy’s words seemed to have touched her deeply.

  “A pact with the Devil is never a possibility,” contradicted Merle, gasping for air. Running and arguing demanded too much of her stamina. “The old stories have already told us that. Everyone who’s gotten himself into something like that is the loser in the end. Everyone!”

  “Again, they are only stories, Merle. Do you know whether anyone really ever tried it?”

  Merle looked back over her shoulder at the messenger in the midst of the flames. “Look at him! And now don’t give me wise sayings, like ‘You shouldn’t judge a person by his looks’! He isn’t even a human being!”

  “I am not one either.”

  Staggering, Merle reached the door of the Campanile. It was standing open. “Listen,” she gasped, exhausted, “I don’t want to insult you, but Hell—” She broke off, shaking her head. “Perhaps you really aren’t human enough to understand about that.”

  With that she gave herself a shake and entered the tower.

  Serafin could have seen Merle running on the other side of the piazza, but his eyes were firmly fixed on the messenger—and on the ever-increasing crowd of soldiers gathering in front of him.

  The part of the Piazza San Marco directly in front of the basilica was now also filled with people who had hurried there from everywhere to see what was going on. Some might already have heard that a messenger from Hell had appeared, but probably they hadn’t believed it. Now they could see the truth with their own eyes.

  Serafin kept fighting the urge to just run away. He’d only escaped prison by a hair, and now with every minute he spent here, the danger increased that someone would recognize him and take him prisoner. It was dumb, so dumb to hide here behind the flower tub while the Guard were looking for him!

  But the soldiers had other concerns at the moment, and Serafin, too, pushed out of his mind the danger he was in. He must see with his own eyes how this matter ended, he must hear what the messenger had to say.

  And now he caught sight of something else: Three men had come out of the palace. Three councillors in splendid robes. Purple, scarlet, and gold. The traitors. The councillor in gold ran up to the captain of the Guard and was talking excitedly to him.

  The flames flickered higher for a moment, caressing the body of the messenger with their glowing tongues and illuminating the smile that divided his jellylike features.

  “One drop of blood,” he cried. “Think carefully about it, citizens of Venice! Only one drop of blood!”

  Merle was rushing up the steps of the Campanile. She was gasping for air. Her heart pounded as though it were going to burst in her chest. She couldn’t remember when she had ever been so exhausted.

  “What do you know about the Ancient Traitor?” the Flowing Queen asked.

  “Only what everyone knows. The old story.”

  “He never really was a traitor. Not the way they tell it.”

  Merle had trouble getting enough breath to speak; even listening was giving her problems.

  “I will tell you what really happened. Back in that time when Vermithrax was turned into the Ancient Traitor,” the Flowing Queen went on. “But first you should know what he is.”

  “And . . . what . . . is . . . he?” Merle gasped, as she took step after step.

  “Vermithrax is a lion. One of the old ones.”

  “A . . . lion?”

  “A flying and talking lion.” The Queen stopped speaking for a moment. “At least he was when I saw him last.”

  Merle stopped in astonishment. She had a terrible stitch in her side. “But . . . lions don’t talk!”

  “Not any that you know. But earlier, a long time ago, many years before the revival of the Pharaoh and the era of the mummy wars, all lions could talk. They flew higher and faster than the great sea eagles, and their songs were more beautiful than those of men and of the merfolk.”

  “What happened?” Merle started moving again, but she wasn’t able to manage more than a weary dragging forward. She was still dripping wet and completely exhausted and although she was sweating, her entire body shivered.

  “The stone lions and the people of Venice have been allies since time immemorial. No one knows anymore how this happened originally. Perhaps they were creatures from a distant corner of the world? Or the work of a Venetian alchemist? It doesn’t matter. The lions served the Venetians as fighters in many wars, they accompanied their ships on dangerous trade routes along Africa’s coast, and they protected the city with their lives. In thanks, their faces soon appeared on all arms and flags of the city, and they were given an island in the north end of the lagoon as a home city.”

  “If the lions were so strong and powerful, why didn’t they build their own city?” Merle could hardly hear her own words, so weakly did they pass her lips.

  “Because they trusted the citizens of Venice and felt bound to them. Trust was always an important part of their nature. The wanted it no other way. Their bodies might be of stone, their flight fast, and their songs full of poetry, yet no one had ever seen a lion build a house. They had long accustomed themselves to existence among men who loved roofs over their heads and the comfort of a city. And that, I fear, was the reason for their downfall.”

  Merle paused briefly at a narrow window that looked out on the piazza. She was alarmed when she saw that the numbers of soldiers and guardsmen had multiplied within the last few minutes. Obviously the councillors had pulled together the uniformed services from all quarters, from the night sentries to the highly deco
rated captain. There must be hundreds. And they were all pointing their rifles and revolvers, even brandishing unsheathed sabers, at the messenger from Hell.

  “Keep on going! Hurry!”

  After Merle, sighing, had turned to the stairs again, the Queen continued her story: “It could not go well. Humans are not created to exist peacefully with other creatures. It happened as it must. It began with fear. Fear of the strength of the lions, of their powerful wings, their fangs, and their mighty claws. More and more, men forgot how much the lions had done for them, yes, that Venice had them alone to thank for her dominant position in the Mediterranean. From fear grew hatred and from hatred the desire to finally subjugate the lions—for do without them they could not and would not. Under the pretext of preparing a festival of gratitude for the lions, they induced them to gather on their island. Ships transported countless numbers of cattle and swine there, slaughtered and gutted. The slaughterhouses had received the order to put everything they had in their storerooms at the disposal of the festival. In addition there was wine from the best Italian grapes and clear well water from the rocks of the Alps. For two days and two nights the lions enjoyed themselves unrestrainedly on their island. But then, gradually, the sleeping potion with which the treacherous Venetians had painted the meat and with which they had laced the water and the wine took effect. On the third day there was no longer a single lion on his feet in all the lagoon; all had fallen into a deep sleep. And again the butchers went to work, and this time they took from the lions their wings!”

  “They . . . just . . . cut off—”

  “Cut off. Indeed. The lions noticed nothing, so powerful was the sleeping potion in their blood. Their wounds were tended to, so that hardly any died, but then the Venetians left them on the island, in the certainty that the weakened lions were prisoners. Lions fear the water, as you know, and the few who tried to leave the island by swimming drowned in the currents.”

  Merle felt such revulsion that she stopped moving again. “Why are we going to such trouble to save the city? After all that the Venetians have done to the lions and the merfolk! They don’t deserve anything better than for the Egyptians to invade here and raze everything to the ground.”

  She felt the Queen smiling gently, a wonderful warmth in the area of her stomach. “Don’t be so bitter, little Merle. You are also a Venetian, just like many others who do not know all that. The treachery against the lions is long ago, many generations.”

  “And you really think people today are wiser?” Merle asked scornfully.

  “No. They probably never will be that. But you cannot condemn anyone for a crime that he himself is not responsible for.”

  “And what about the mermaids, then, that they harness before their boats? Eft said that they all would die.”

  The Flowing Queen said nothing for a moment. “If more of you knew of that, if more might know the truth . . . perhaps then there would not be such injustice any longer.”

  “You say that you are no human—and yet you are defending us. Just where do you get this damned goodness?”

  “Damned goodness?” repeated the Queen with amusement. “Only a human could use those two words in the same sentence. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I still have hope for you. But do you not want to hear how the story of the lions continues? We are almost to the top of the tower. Before we get there you should know what role Vermithrax played in all this.”

  “Go on.”

  “The lions only recovered slowly, and there were fights among them as to how to proceed. It was clear they were prisoners on their own island. They were weak, the pain in their shoulders threatened to kill them, and they were despairing. The Venetians offered to supply them with food, as long as the lions were willing to serve them as slaves. After long debate, the lion folk agreed to it. Some of them were transported to another island, where scientists and alchemists began to undertake experiments with them. New generations of stone lions were bred until finally they became what they are today—not animals but also not exact likenesses of their noble forefathers, a race of lions who were born without wings and had forgotten their singing.”

  “And what about Vermithrax?” asked Merle. “Or the lions who can still fly even today?”

  “When the Venetians began their treachery, there was a small troop of lions outside the lagoon, spying out the lands to the east for the humans. On their return home they found out what had happened and they roared with rage. But in spite of their anger there were too few of them to offer the Venetians more than a skirmish. So they decided to go away, instead of choosing certain extinction fighting a superior force. There were not more than a dozen, but they flew the entire way across the Mediterranean to the south, and farther still into the heart of Africa. There they lived for a while among the lions of the savannahs, before they realized they were only accepted out of fear rather than as equals. The stone lions retreated farther, high into the mountains of the hot countries, and there they remained for a long time. The injustice of the Venetians became history, then myth. But finally, several hundred years ago, there was a young lion by the name of Vermithrax. He believed all the old legends, and his heart was heavy with grief at the fate of his people. He made the decision to return here in order to pay the citizens of Venice back for their crime. But only a few wanted to join him, for meanwhile the mountains had become homeland to the descendents of the refugees, and hardly any felt pleasure at the thought of heading off into the unknown distance.

  “So it happened that Vermithrax made his way to Venice with only a handful of companions. He firmly believed that the oppressed lions of the city would join his side and their tormentors would go down in defeat. But Vermithrax started with a serious error: He underestimated the power of time.”

  “The power of time?” Merle asked wonderingly.

  “Yes, Merle. Time had slowly healed the wounds, and, worse still, had made the lions submissive. The old urge for comfort had overcome the silent, wingless race of lions. They were content with their existence as servants of the Venetians. None of them remembered the life of freedom anymore; the capabilities of their forebears had long been forgotten. Hardly any were willing to put their lives on the line for a rebellion that was not theirs. They obeyed the orders of their human masters rather than rebelling against them. Vermithrax’s attack on the city cost many lives and left an entire district in rubble and ashes, but in the long run it was finally doomed to failure. His own people stood against him. It was lions who vanquished him, those lions he would have freed and who now of their free will had become the accomplices of men.”

  “But then they were really the traitors, not he!”

  “All a question of point of view. To the Venetians, Vermithrax was a murderer who had fallen upon them from a foreign sky, killed countless people, and tried to stir up the lions against them. In their view, what they did was completely justifiable. They killed most of the attackers, but they left a few living to allow the scientists to breed a new generation of flying lions. No one remembered anymore how it had been when the lions had wings, and so it seemed alluring to the humans to have winged lion servants who could carry great burdens or, in war, could attack the enemy from the air, the way Vermithrax had done during his attacks on the city. A small number of new lions arose, a cross of the free, winged lions returning home from Africa and the will-less, loyally devoted slaves of Venice. What came out of it you know: the flying lions on which the bodyguards of the city councillors ride today. You have already made their acquaintance.”

  “And Vermithrax?”

  “For Vermithrax they invented a particularly subtle, cruel punishment. Instead of killing him, they imprisoned him in this tower. He must suffer his fate here in the airy heights, and nothing is worse for a flying lion than to be robbed of his ability to fly. For Vermithrax, who had floated free over the broad grasslands of Africa for many years, it was doubly cruel. And so his will was broken—not through the defeat but through the betrayal of his fellow lions. He
did not understand the indifference in their hearts, their doglike devotion, and the carelessness with which they had placed themselves under the command of men against him. The knowledge of this betrayal was the hardest of all punishments for him, and so he decided that it was time to put an end to his life. He waved away the food they brought him, not for fear of poison but in the hope of dying quickly. But Vermithrax, this rebel and rowdy, was probably the first of his race who had to learn that a creature of stone needs no nourishment. Certainly, stone lions also feel hunger and, indeed, eating is one of their favorite activities—but food is not a necessity of life for them. So Vermithrax is still housed in this tower today, over us, under the roof. From there he can look out over the city and is still a prisoner.” The Flowing Queen paused, and then she added, “To be honest, I do not know what condition we are going to find him in.”

  Merle was approaching the last landing. Light fell through a window onto a mighty door of steel. The surface shimmered bluish. “How did you meet Vermithrax?”

  “When he led his companions here from Africa several hundred years ago, he thought that he must do the same as men in one thing, in order to be equal to them—he must overcome the inborn fear lions have of the water. His forefathers had become slaves because they could not deal with the waters of the lagoon. They had become prisoners on their own island, and Vermithrax did not want to fall into the same trap as they had. As soon as he saw the lagoon before him, he therefore took heart and plunged into the waters, defying death. But before this challenge even the most daring among the lions must capitulate. The water and the cold numbed him, and he was in danger of drowning.”

  “And you saved him?”