Journey Through the Mirrors

by T. R. Williams

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Logan said. They moved the pieces into the projected grid and then at Logan’s suggestion, separated them by color according to the painted sides. After an hour, they were able to make out the figure of a man and what appeared to be flowers. It took some time, but with determination and assistance from Jordan’s PCD, the artifact was taking shape.

  “It looks like the last piece goes here,” Jordan said, using his finger to slide the projected piece into place. The 3-D image was now complete, revealing a thirty-centimeter-tall cylindrical object, which had an almost eight-centimeter-long stem jutting from its side. It was intricately painted and depicted a man standing under a blue sky, with flower-shaped objects floating around him.

  “What is it?” Mr. Perrot asked.

  “It’s a whistling vessel,” Logan answered. “There were a bunch of them in the secret chamber.” He had a quizzical look on his face. “Not to take anything away from the Puzzler, but it seems to me that Mr. Montez could have pieced this together himself. Why did he need me to do it?”

  No one had an explanation to offer.

  Jordan examined the vessel. “This one’s much bigger than the ones we saw,” he said. “And it’s shaped differently, too. The others were more rounded; this one is cylindrical, like a fat tube. The man painted on the vessel looks like one of the priests that were painted on the wall. And those are the same snowflakes we saw.”

  Mr. Perrot squinted and maneuvered to get a closer look at something. “Are those the Satraya symbols?”

  “Where?” Logan asked.

  Mr. Perrot pointed at the head of the man depicted on the vessel. “Jordan, can you zoom in on the man’s head?”

  Jordan did so, and Logan nodded at what they saw. “The fundamental four, along with the main Satraya symbol, all of which also appear on the headband of the praying man statue.”

  “Praying man?” Mr. Perrot asked.

  “Mr. Montez showed us a statue that he found near these fragments. Valerie said that it looked like a man on his knees praying. I think Mr. Montez is going to be disappointed. He suspected that these fragments were going to help him figure out some kind of radiation source.” Logan turned to Mr. Perrot, who was deep in thought. “What is it?”

  “Why would a person who was familiar with these symbols two thousand years ago sculpt a man who was praying?” Mr. Perrot said. “If the sculptor possessed that kind of knowledge, wouldn’t he have depicted something else?”

  “It looks like something is written on the stem of the whistle,” Jordan said. He zoomed to the spot he was referring to, but the words were incomprehensible: QUITETEUHQUIMILOA CANAHUAC COHUATL TOCONMONEXTILIZ ITOZQUI TLALLI.

  “What does it mean?” Jordan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Perrot said. “I’m not even sure what language it is.”

  “Valerie and I saw words from this language carved in the base of the praying man statue. Mr. Montez said it was a form of Nahuatl. Let’s see if we can get a translation.” Logan pulled out his PCD and started typing, waiting a moment for the results. “There are a few different interpretations, but they all seem to allude to the same thing: ‘Wrap thin serpent to discover earth voice.’ ”

  “Remember that image of a snake we found on the platform?” Jordan said. “The one with the red eye? Maybe this has something to do with that. Not sure what earth voice means, though.”

  Just then, Jamie walked in, carrying her violin and bow. “What are you doing?”

  “Solving a puzzle,” her brother answered.

  “I want to help,” she said. But before she could make her way over to the table, her attention was caught by the Munch pastel. She stopped and stared at it. Logan noticed her fascination and walked over to her, while Mr. Perrot and Jordan continued to ponder the meaning of the writing on the whistle.

  “Are you all right, Jamie?” Logan asked. “This is one of the most famous works of art in the world.”

  “I know. I once saw Grandma looking at it in a book,” Jamie said. Her voice was nonchalant, but her gaze was fixed on the picture. “That’s sort of how I feel when my head hurts.”

  Logan put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder as he stood behind her. “You feel like screaming?” He wondered if that was why he had seen his daughter’s face merged into the picture during his vision.

  “Yeah,” Jamie answered. “Grandma said this is what happens to some people when the earth loses its voice. She said her music teacher told her that.”

  Logan looked down at Jamie, who walked over to the table to join her brother and Mr. Perrot. “The earth’s voice,” Logan repeated, murmuring. He looked at the projected image of the whistling vessel and then turned to the picture. In Edvard Munch’s own words, this image was about the scream of nature, and the stone whistle seemed to have something to do with the earth’s voice. Could these two works of art, created almost fifteen hundred years apart, be related somehow?

  25

  Here, at the edge of your faith, is where you will find what you are looking for. Remember that truth and wisdom lie outside of your conjecture and your belief.

  —THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

  PEEL CASTLE, 9:30 P.M. LOCAL TIME, MARCH 22, 2070

  “The art of Reflecting, like the Satraya Flame, can only be achieved with singularity of mind and purpose,” Sebastian said, standing between two sheets of water falling silently from a source above. With twelve pillars and twelve statues standing ever watchful along the perimeter, the Arcis Chamber was held to be the most sublime room on the castle grounds. It was here that Sebastian Quinn had been taught the metaphysical arts associated with exploration of the mind and here, after spending many years mastering those arts, that he passed them on to others.

  The smooth falling sheets of water reflected the subtle images of Anita and Halima, who sat in front of them. The two eager students had made themselves comfortable, sitting cross-legged on cushions on the black and white checked floor. White sheets were draped over their shoulders.

  “In olden days, before mirrors and looking glasses, any reflective surface was sought out to reveal the extraordinary to an adventurer who had the eyes to see,” Sebastian explained. “Before you is such a thing. It is called Jaladarz, the water mirror. In it, you will see your purest reflection. Firmly press your finger to your forehead, just above your nose, and hold it there. As with the Satraya Flame, it is from this place”—Sebastian touched his own forehead, and his listeners did likewise—“that you will perceive the most interesting things about yourself and about the world of the seen and the unseen that surrounds you.”

  Sebastian walked away from the waterfalls and took his own seat on the floor out of Anita and Halima’s view.

  “You may lower your hands, but keep gazing upon the reflection of your countenance,” he said. As Anita and Halima looked at their reflections, Sebastian began to tell a story. “In a kingdom long ago, there lived a beautiful princess. On the day of her twenty-first birthday, the king declared the Swayamvara of his daughter. She was to choose the man she would marry. Many suitors traveled from far and wide, seeking the hand of the most dazzling woman in all the land. But the king was wise and knew the true hearts of men. Fame, fortune, and power were what most of them desired. And so the king devised a test. Only one who could pass it would be allowed to marry his beloved daughter. He began by having constructed a small circular pool filled with oil, its surface as still and reflective as a mirror.”

  “The king made his own Jaladarz,” Halima said, turning to Sebastian. “An oily mirror.”

  Sebastian smiled and motioned to Halima to look back at her reflection in the waterfall. “You mustn’t lose your gaze, or my tale will lose its meaning.” Halima turned back around. “Directly above the pool of oil, suspended from the high ceiling of the arrival hall of the palace, was placed a carved image of a fish, its eye prominently outlined in gold leaf. Halfway between the fish and the pool was a large spinning wheel with twenty-four spokes. The king de
clared that any man who wished to marry his daughter would have to prove his worth by shooting an arrow through the spokes of the rotating wheel and piercing the eye of the fish. The king further decreed that a contender could only look upon the target’s reflection in the pool, not gaze at it directly. And to make the test more challenging, handmaidens stood near, waving large feathered fans, stirring the air and sending ripples across the surface of the oil.

  “The wise king knew that if a contender attempted to focus only on the eye of the fish, the shimmer of the oil and the flicker of the wheel would obstruct his view, and the contender would fail. If a man were to concentrate on gaining a clear glimpse of the fish through the gaps of the wheel’s spokes, he would lose sight of the eye, and his arrow would miss. Leaning forward over the pool to gain perfect alignment would prove futile, as the bowman’s own reflection would overshadow the intended goal. And so it was that an impossible path had been laid for any man seeking his daughter’s hand, a secret that only the most sincere of heart would know.

  “And so it is today and with you,” Sebastian said, addressing Anita and Halima. “The art of Reflecting presents to you the same challenge as the king’s. Should you get caught up in the grandeur of your own countenance, you will lose the moment. Should you be distracted by the many faces that you will surely see, you will lose the moment. Should you grow impatient for something to happen, you will, again, lose the moment.”

  Anita and Halima meditated on Sebastian’s words, gazing intently at their own reflections.

  After a lengthy pause, Sebastian continued. “The hours of trial turned into days, which turned to weeks, then into months. Each suitor was given ten chances, but no one in the kingdom could pass the king’s test. Arrow after arrow went astray. Most plunged into the spokes of the spinning wheel. Those that passed missed the fish and struck the ceiling high above. The fish and its eye remained untouched. The learned priests and holy men of the realm pleaded with their king to lower his expectations. But the wise king was not dissuaded.”

  Sebastian interrupted his storytelling and addressed Anita and Halima. “There is a milepost that you will pass when gazing upon your reflection. There will come a moment when you lose track of who is looking at whom. You will wonder if you are you or the reflection of you looking back at you. But should you persist in your quest, you will reach the point at which you realize you are both. It is this moment that should be sought. This is when all things can be known and wizardly powers can be yours.”

  Sebastian took a light breath and then continued. “Early one morning, on the one hundred twentieth day of the Swayamvara, a young man dressed in simple garments arrived. He carried a crudely made bow and had but a single arrow in his quiver. The king stood and addressed him. ‘You, who have traveled here for my daughter’s hand, how do you believe that you will be able to accomplish this task with such a meager bow and a single arrow?’

  “The young man looked up at the king. ‘I cannot say, your grace,’ he answered. ‘I only know that at the time I heard of the trial, I had not a bow or an arrow to my name. What I hold now, I myself freshly fashioned. I do not presuppose my worthiness that I will pass this test and your daughter will choose me.’

  “ ‘Choose you?’ the king asked. ‘Do you believe my daughter has a choice in this matter? Is it not your assumption that should you hit the target, you will possess my daughter’s hand?’

  “ ‘No, my king,’ the young man answered without hesitation. ‘All have choice. One’s heart can never be possessed but must be tendered freely. Hitting the eye will only allow me the opportunity to greet your daughter with the air of possibilities.’

  “A slight smile came to the king’s face. He turned to his daughter, who had moved forward in her seat, keenly intrigued by the young man, and could not take her eyes off of him. The king retook his seat. ‘Proceed, then,’ he said. ‘And let us see the virtue of your intent.’

  “The young man knelt down and looked at his shimmering reflection in the oil. He saw the spinning wheel above and the dancing eye of the fish. He pulled the single arrow from his quiver and positioned it on his bow, then raised the bow above his head and pulled back on the string. The handmaidens continued to disturb the surface of the pool with each stroke of their feathered fans. The young man grew still, holding his gaze on the surface of the pool. He did not immediately let the string go as the other participants had done. Instead, he held steady. Those watching in the hall grew silent. They wondered what the young man was waiting for—the shimmer of the oil to lessen, the spinning of the wheel to slow, the appearance of the fish? The young man remained steadfast, until suddenly, everyone in the hall heard the snap of his bow and the wisp of the arrow as it flew upward.”

  Sebastian paused, allowing the silence and stillness of the Arcis Chamber to overtake the moment. Anita and Halima sat motionless, intently staring at their reflections. He knew they had attained singularity of mind and were about to fire their own arrows.

  * * *

  Anita had lost awareness of her surroundings. She had let go of the thoughts that tugged at her and was now completely entranced by her reflection in the falling water. Sebastian’s voice had faded, and the edges of her vision began to darken. The image before her began to morph, and a scene unfolded.

  Anita found herself in a place she had vowed never to return to. She was standing next to the dilapidated old red phone booth at the northeast corner of a park she had known as a young child. The soft ticking of a clock could be heard. The people walking down High Street seemed unaware of her presence. Apartment buildings surrounded the square, and to the south, she could see one of the spires of the cathedral she had attended in her youth. She was only a short distance from the house where she had grown up and spent the worst years of her life.

  Anita looked up at the sky. It was pitch-black, yet the town and surroundings were brightened as if on a sunny day. Lightning flashed. She listened for thunder, but it never arrived, nor was there any rain. The faces of the people passing were blurred, their voices muffled and their words not discernible. She was startled by the sudden blaring of an organ. It was a disturbing, off-tune sound. No one on the street seemed to notice, though, or else they did not seem to mind it. She looked around and realized that the noise was coming from the cathedral. She felt a tug on her waist and was abruptly catapulted inside it.

  In the blink of an eye, she found herself standing behind the organ console, which was not in its usual place. It now stood on the stone floor in front of the nave, which was full of parishioners, men, women, and children, some dressed in pure white robes. Anita wondered how the organ was still producing sound when it was not connected to its pipes. Despite the awful din, she could still hear the ticking clock. The ceiling of the cathedral was gone, and when she looked up she saw the same black sky and the streaks of lightning.

  A young man dressed in a grungy blue jumpsuit sat at the helm of the organ’s four-layered keyboard. His dirty left hand frantically pulled and pushed the various knobs of the console, altering the sound that bellowed forth. Anita noticed his right hand repeatedly striking the same seven-note pattern on the second tier of the organ’s keyboard.

  Anita felt a great pressure building in her head. A burning smell was filling the nave, and smoke was rising off of the people who had gathered. She attempted to stop the young man’s playing by grabbing his arm, but her hand passed through him as if he were a ghost. The children had started shrieking. The smell grew more pungent as the smoke thickened, more distinguishable: it was burning flesh. The men and women clutched their heads, some crying out in agony. The young man pulled and pushed the knobs more frantically, repeating the same terrible pattern of notes. The pressure in Anita’s head turned excruciating, worse than anything she had ever felt. Flames erupted throughout the nave, and in an instant, every one of the parishioners exploded into dark ash.

  The harsh, discordant sounds of the organ stopped, yet the ticking of the clock continued. Anita scr
eamed.

  26

  If you had a handful of fleeting moments to speak to the world, what would you say?

  —THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

  WASHINGTON, D.C., 5:35 P.M. LOCAL TIME, MARCH 22, 2070

  Valerie and the others were finally allowed back into the Cube after a decontamination squad confirmed that none of the nanites had escaped the Chromatography Bubble. As an added precaution, a resin-based compound was sprayed inside the Bubble, setting and hardening like amber and freezing the corpses of Goshi Tambe and the two other technicians like insects fossilized from prehistoric times.

  “What am I going to tell Goshi’s family?” Valerie said, as she watched thick white drapes being installed over the Bubble’s window until a proper disposal protocol could be performed. “He had a wife and kids.”

  “How many more people are we going to lose?” Sylvia’s voice was muffled but angry. She sat at her desk, with her head buried in her crossed arms. “Charlie, Director Burke, and now Goshi. What is happening?”

  Similar thoughts were coursing through Valerie’s mind. In less than a year, she’d lost three people she’d been close to, none to natural causes.

  Director Sully walked into the lab with several aides. “What’s the update? People are demanding answers.”

  “No real update,” Valerie said, allowing some disdain to show in her voice. “We’ll be looking at this from top to bottom.”

  “Starting with why Goshi began his testing early,” Sylvia added, sitting up and wiping the tears from her eyes.

  “Are you suggesting something, Agent Brookes?” Director Sully asked.

  “She’s not,” Valerie interjected, “but I am. Protocol is clear. The infectious disease team is supposed to quarantine and then clear all material before any investigation is allowed to be done.”