Demon in the Mirror

by Andrew J. Offut

  In which of Calancia’s several prisons she was now chained, she had no idea.

  It didn’t matter. Death would be horrible, slow and unbearable. Her pose alone suggested a number of torments; so did the little noises she heard — a rat. Well, he’d stay well away for a while, until he was sure she was unable to defend herself. Perhaps that was to be part of her punishment; they’d just let the lanky rats of Calancia gnaw awhile, before they came to demonstrate a few interesting devices. It was in Calancia that the device called the Lion’s Teeth was invented; even the Narokans had been impressed.

  I need one hand free. Perhaps a chain was weakened by rust or set in cracked mortar. Knowing better than to hurl herself against her iron bonds like a wild beast, she applied her strength to this limb and then that. There was not the slightest yielding, even when she used the full strength of her superb body.

  Tiana went limp to drain the tension. She could only wait for such opportunities as chance or someone’s carelessness might bring. Rested, she’d meet them better. Accordingly she applied her will, chased from her mind all thoughts of rats, torture, slow execution — and went to sleep.

  *

  Sounds awakened her. The darkness in which she lay was greyed by faint light that crept around the edges of the door. Metal clinked against metal; rusty iron slid, grating. Lovely; the door opened so that its shaft of light would fall directly between her wide-forked legs. Surely this was the torturer coming to ply his trade, and this might well be her only chance to win free. If he underestimated her strength and guile, she’d escape.

  The door groaned, grated back. Tiana squinted at the rectangle of light; this lifting of her head was good for the muscles of her stomach anyhow. A man stood gazing at her, a man tall and lean with grey-shot hair. He was clad in silk and ermine. For an unpleasant moment his face looked hawk-like, and she remembered the werehawk’s promise of vengeance from his brothers. But when he advanced his torch, she saw that he was more ferret-faced, with ridiculously curled mustachios.

  “Know you the charge against you?” His upper-caste Nevinian accent came in a toneless voice that held neither threat nor promise. A tenor.

  “Of course. Grave-robbing — royal.”

  “Not so. You are a whore who sought to peddle your wares to guardsmen on duty. They virtuously refused and arrested you.”

  “Lying hogs! I should have castrated that — I reached the vault door! But for that cursed bell I’d have plundered your whole boneyard!” Tiana was livid at the guards’ perfidy and her being executed on a lesser charge.

  “The door! Small wonder the Dark Guards lied. His Majesty would double-decimate them if he knew a robber came so close to success. Can you guess why I come to you?”

  “I told you I’m a thief, not a whore! Try to use me and I’ll bite your throat out.”

  “Hm!” He moved the torch about. “Naturally red hair, too. It is obvious the guards did indeed lie when they claim to have refused your body.” He entered, circling a little to the side, holding the torch out over her.

  “I look even better standing up.”

  “Not to a man, Scarlet! But—do you still covet the royal cemetery?”

  “Oho! Certainly — for an equal split.”

  “Oho yourself,” he said, just as equably. “A fourth, my dear. As the torturer Faeho will be along shortly, your bargaining position is… poor.”

  “A third, then. You’d not be here if it were easy to find another.”

  The tall man sighed, then smiled. “A third, then. You drive a hard bargain, my dear.”

  Was there mockery in that smile? Had he agreed too readily, or was this fancy noble above such haggling? “My name is Tiana, not your dear. With the torturer coming, shouldn’t we remove these chains?”

  “Ah, a pragmatic mind. Freedom first, then concern to your lewd nudity, eh?” The richly attired man bent to remove her left manacle. He was in his late forties, she judged. Without a day’s work in his entire past. Turning to her right ankle, he spoke. “I am Count Brehar, ah… Tiana, and you may call me ‘my lord.’ There is little need for haste, really. I… exaggerated about Faeho. I bribed all the guards — Faeho is with an expensive little masochist from Naroka.”

  “Is he now, milord?”

  The voice came from behind Brehar, who whirled to face a big, heavily muscled man who seemed to breathe from his great stomach. It was much in evidence, he being bare to the waist, though his head was black-masked. Short sword poised low, the torturer advanced on the noble, who wore no weapon belt.

  “Milord, ye be a fool. Ye really thought I’d sell so lovely a piece as this? Ho — His Maj himself will attend such a show! It be those who do not love pain that I love, my lord.”

  “Come, Faeho. When she talks, she’ll send a dozen of your cohorts to their deaths.” Lord Brehar was backing slowly to Tiana’s left.

  “Their problem,” Faeho the torturer said. He paced slowly after the noble, a great cat confidently easing in on his mouse.

  He was now within reach of Tiana’s freed leg. It came whipping over and up to jar home at the base of his torso, between his legs. Faeho grunted, bent; a knife appeared in Brehar’s hand as if by magic; a moment later the torturer wore the finger-thin blade in his jugular.

  “We all miscalculate,” Brehar said in that same neutral tone, while with some haste he opened Tiana’s remaining manacles.

  As soon as she was free, she snatched up the late Faeho’s sword and let Brehar see its tip. “Now my lord, I’ll thank you for your fine cape of ermine. You can have it back as soon as I have aught else to wear,”

  The rest of the escape was uneventful, though she did lose the heavy shorts word while swimming the prison moat. The city’s guard was lax; the two were soon in Lord Brehar’s stately, strangely empty manse. He poured two silver cups of tension release, blood red. Tiana took the one he didn’t offer.

  “We must hurry, Tiana. You need considerable preparation, and the guests will soon be arriving.”

  After she’d drunk deeply of the excellent wine, she asked, “What guests?”

  “Mourners — for your funeral.”

  “That’s nice of them I’m sure, but I am not going to die to oblige them.” Noting that he also drank, she pushed out her goblet for more wine.

  “Ah, but that is the point. The last syllable of my name marks me the king’s kin. He has both the crown and the wealth, you see. You will soon be buried in the Royal Tomb — alive, of course.”

  “My dear Lord Brehar! How clever you are!”

  “You are my niece, my dear poor little Dinharu, who’s lived so long with me. Hurry now, you can’t be buried in an ermine cape. I’ve seen you already, remember?”

  “Ah, but then I had no choice. I’ll change clothes alone. Just a bit more of that lovely wine, dear Uncle Brehar.”

  A bit more it was, and a fat roll to soak it up in her stomach. In a small room with draped windows, he had laid out a full set of rich, elaborate clothing. It was hardly to Tiana’s piratical taste, but if Calancian fashion decreed that aristocratic young ladies called to Theba be buried in such, she’d submit. After coolly gazing at Brehar until he departed, she hurriedly pulled on the indigo underpants, which had tape attachments inside the midthigh legs for the pink hose. Wrapping the length of matching pink silk six times rather tightly about her fulsome breasts was distasteful, but she knew that bosoms were out in Calancia this season. Next came the four underskirts — white, pink, white, too-yellow — and the buckled shoes of red leather with their thumb-long heels. The dress was high in back and cut not deeply in front, heavy green velvet with so much brocade and pearls at the bodice that it stood stiffly from her. Excellent; when I’m flat on my back in my coffin, these awful bindings and this iron-stiff bodice will disguise my breathing!

  Brehar was cheating; she noted that the magnificently jewelled carcanet consisted of brass, glass, and paste.

  “Oh my,” she murmured, “you absolutely raving beauty! A perfect fit, too —
what a fine figure Lady Dinharu has. Had. Poor thing had to tie her breasts down all the time, I suppose. Milord Count!”

  He came, bearing a tray of paints and creams; Nevinian nobles wore copious cosmetics and painted absolute masks on the dead. Civilisation’s proudest purebloods and the savage Woodlings both paint their faces, Tiana mused; how deliciously absurd! Still, it makes the impersonation possible.

  Once he’d smeared and carefully brush-drawn the hot stuff all over her face, Brehar led his animate corpse into a carpeted, black-draped room filled with chairs. On a covered table at the front of the room, away from the heavily draped windows, lay a handsomely finished chest of Colladan mahogany. Its interior was softly cushioned and lined with a lovely silk of leaf green. Tiana said not a word until she had inspected the concealed air holes and the inner releases for the coffin’s locks.

  “Good enough. I go out in high fashion and good style — how do I return?”

  “Under the casket’s floor lining you’ll find the robes of a nun. Tomorrow, accompanied by a nun, I shall come to sprinkle water and wine and drop a totatten leaf on your grave. Other mourners will require the good sister’s comforting, and you and I will be well away ere the guards realise that more people left than arrived.”

  “And if there are no other mourners?”

  He smiled. “Shall I describe those who will arrive just before me?”

  Returning the smile, Tiana said, “Clever Uncle Brehar! You — what’s that?”

  “A carriage outside. The first of the guests. Hurry, drink this and into the casket.” He extended a silver goblet of wine, which she had not seen him pour. “A mild sedative. You will have need of it, to remain motionless during your final rites.”

  “Uncle! But you didn’t want me to have more wine, lest I fall asleep and snore.” Accordingly, she let just the tip of her tongue touch the wine — and hurled the scarlet fluid into Brehar’s face. “Poison! You’d poison me before our theft?”

  Brehar sighed. “There is to be no theft, my dear Tiana. Nor any visit, nor nun. You see, there is no escape from the Tomb of Kings. You must die after all. You have called me clever; my niece is heir to a considerable property, which I hold in trust. On her death, I inherit. Unfortunately, the slut’s just run off with a wright’s son, and forfeited the trust. Therefore, I had to find a girl who resembled her — and bury her.” Once again his hand held the knife that had sent Faeho into the domain ruled by Theba’s daughter Hella.

  “Clever, clever Uncle Brehar,” she said, watching him start to close on her and reflecting that he’d have to stab her in the back that her wound would not show. “But oh Brehar, you have chosen the wrong person. I am hardly just a girl… see?”

  Too many skirts rustled with her rapid movement. Her hand was inside the wine goblet, and she used it as the tiniest of targes, batting away his knife-hand. Her other hand was already moving in a great roundhouse that slammed an open palm over his ear. His eyes went huge and his face writhed in the agony of a burst eardrum. Tiana did not want to leave marks, either. Accordingly, she gave Brehar a kneelift in the crotch, which both assured his silence save for a tearful gasp, and bent him into position for the back of her elbow, which slammed down on the back of his neck. Count Brehar stretched his length.

  “Brehar?” Male voice, in the entry hall.

  “I hear something, Shibenhar.” Female voice; entry hall.

  “Rat dung!” Female voice, very quiet; Tiana’s. She glanced about. Trapped in a room with a warm corpse and no place to…

  “My lord Count Brehar?” Male voice, definitely priestly.

  When the door was tentatively opened and a hooded priest in death-black robes entered just ahead of several nobles, there was a body in the casket, as expected, and another on the floor, definitely unexpected. No dagger was in evidence.

  Poor Brehar! He must have suffered a stroke in his grief. He was patently dead, and a pair of relatives moved him elsewhere, muttering about his and dear Dinharu’s property. But — all arrangements were made, and it was Dinharu’s turn, and Brehar would wait until his turn, tomorrow — poor man.

  Tiana greatly enjoyed her funeral. It was unfortunate that she couldn’t participate more actively, but at least she could hear what was said, which was likely more than she’d be able to do at her own final ceremony. The best part was the priest’s oration as to what a wonderful child she’d been, so kind, so dutiful, so chaste and obedient to her loving uncle. The paean was hardly marred by someone’s stage-whispered, “Probably poisoned the round-heeled wench so she wouldn’t run off with one of her lowborn studs.”

  After the funeral, the guest of honour wrestled mentally with a difficult decision. On the one hand, this seemed a — literally — golden opportunity, not to mention a silvery, pearl-besprent, and gemmy one. On the other, Brehar had assured her that there was no return from the Nevinian Tomb of Kings.

  While she debated, the decision was made for her.

  Before the last mourners had departed, a squad of the Royal Guards Dedicated to Theban Hella — the Dark Guardsmen — arrived. They sealed the casket, carried it to a wagon, and soon the box and its supposedly moribund contents had been conveyed to the final resting place. There was no opportunity for escape.

  Wishing she’d at least had another of those perfectly lovely fat wheat-rolls, Tiana heard the groan of a great iron door’s being opened. She was carried down and down a long flight of stairs, during which her head was uncomfortably propped against the end of the coffin. She was carted along a level again, though she was in position to be sure her honour guard mounted a slight incline. She was set down on a level surface. She heard rope-noises. Her coffin swayed down, jarred to a halt on a level. There was the buzzing sound of ropes being drawn from beneath her box.

  Brehar was indeed related to the royal family, and he was indeed poor. Tiana had expected a niche in a chamber; she received a hole in the ground.

  The first shovel of dirt rattled over the top of her coffin. One of the guardsmen was remarking on what a good piece she — Dinharu — had been. Tiana fought panic; she was being buried alive and could still raise so much fuss that she’d be hauled up.

  And accused. Attempted seduction of the Dark Guards. Illegal entry to the Tomb of Kings. Murder of the royal torturer. Murder of a royal relative. Attempted robbery of the dead. No, she’d take her chances. Death by torture would be long and long; here she had a chance — and death by smothering took not long at all.

  She listened to the fall of earth on her coffin. Very swiftly, her air began to go stale. The sound grew more muffled. The air worsened. Earth stopped falling.

  The shirking scum buried me shallowly enough, she thought — and moved swiftly. Already she had opened the coffin’s inner fastenings and knifed open the one that held together the two halves of the lid. She pushed upward. There was the very faintest of yields, and she knew that she must get her back and legs into it. Scrambling over onto her stomach and forcing her legs up under herself used her vitiated air more swiftly, but it was the only way. Like a great cat in horrid hot darkness, she arched her back and pressed with both arms and both legs.

  The scum had indeed buried her shallowly. The lid rose and dirt fell in on her. Drawing a great, great breath that surely emptied her little area of all air, she pushed with all her might. The lid gave and gave; soon she was striving to stand. The strain on her neck was terrible as she pushed upward with her crown. Her lungs began to burn — and her head emerged into air — and no less darkness.

  Despite her wrappings and the pressure of grave-dirt against her chest, Tiana stood in her coffin with only her head above the mound of dirt and breathed as deeply as possible. Then she began the next part of her resurrection, which was hardly easy, forcing her arms up through the pile of — fortunately very, very dry — earth and then dragging herself out.

  Having emerged into total darkness, she shook herself like a dog and bent over to shake dirt out of her hair. She did not knuckle her eyes; she was
covered with sweat and knew that dirt adhered everywhere.

  Well, Tiana m’girl — you are where you wanted to be, in the Tomb of Kings. Dark, isn’t it!

  It was. She walked until she came to a wall, followed it until she came to a doorway, followed that passage. She had no notion where she was going, but she did possess steel — Brehar’s dagger — if not flint. Perhaps she’d find a way to make fire, using one of these accursed underskirts and someone’s coffin wood.

  Reminded of the skirts, which were both hot and resistant to her strides, she leaned against a wall of cool earth and began stripping. She removed all but hose, shoes, underpants and the wrappings — which she decided to keep to arrest her natural jiggle and sway. Making the fine velvet dress into a sack, she thrust two of the underskirts into it. The sub-terrene air was cool on her upper body, most of which was bare.

  She was just starting to resume her blind walking when she heard the sound. Surely it came from the large chamber she’d recently quitted. Her nape prickled. Was she not the only restless “dead” — or even dead — here? Very still, she listened.

  Someone was digging in the earth, and with hands alone. She listened. The sounds ceased — and there came the sound of a couple of terrible slamming blows, accompanied by the splintering of wood, followed by a howl of rage.

  Tiana did not smile at the frustration of some grave robber who had discovered her not at home; she trembled. All she could think about was that this was the demesne of the dead, and… the Woeand vampires. Why did someone or something want a recently planted corpse — and not one likely to be accompanied by great wealth?