Demon in the Mirror

by Andrew J. Offut

  Hopefully it was merely another thief — who was now coming, with strange steps, her way. Without light. The only certainty about those rolling, semi-shuffling footsteps was that they were two-footed. Another thief, surely. Tiana tried to make herself very small, edging along the earthen wall until she was against a supporting beam.

  The footsteps neared.

  Now Tiana heard breathing — heavy and raspy, like the snoring of a giant. Cold sweat covered her; she actually felt wet dirt sliding down her body. She was glad that Calancian noblewomen did not wear underclothing of white. Her hand was wet on the hilt of Brehar’s slim, triple-edged dagger. She scarcely dared breathe. Nearer came the unnatural footsteps and the huff-snort-puff breathing.

  They passed. As they did, Tiana’s nostrils were distressingly assaulted by the odour of death; corruption. Do I believe in ghosts? — Of course; I am not, after all, a fool!

  The footsteps faded into the distance along the corridor; the foul odour lingered. Tiana’s arms itched; they were covered with gooseflesh and every little hair stood erect. He — or It- — was gone, and she was Tiana; curiosity overcame fear. Stepping out of the heeled shoes, she began ruining the soles of the pink silk hose by retracing her steps — and His/Its. Aye, it was her grave she’d heard dug up anew — and the coffin was not only unearthed, but smashed to kindling. Tiana shuddered. That coffin had been well made of the hardest Colladan mahogany!

  More than human strength was needed for this destruction, she thought, taking up a goodly chunk of cleanly broken wood.

  This time she made certain that the pitch black hallway she entered was a different one. You go your way, Thing, and I’ll go mine. With her eyes useless, her ears were keenly alert. She heard nothing. Beneath the earth, darkness was absolute. She roamed. On, and on. And eventually blinked — that was a glow, in the distance! She blinked, for though it was but an indirect glow of light, her pupils had surely grown so huge as to accommodate a fingertip.

  She came to the crypt of a noble family. In its centre, a small oil lamp rested on a pedestal of ivory; some aristocrat had earned — or demanded — an eternal flame to guide his way to Hella’s domain. That unfortunately did not imply an attendant she could await and overpower; an inch-wide pipe of gold carried oil to the lamp, which was mounted permanently in place. Odd, she mused, but it wasn’t; gold would last forever, whatever that meant, and the pipe’s thickness was doubtless to prevent its becoming clogged with sediment.

  Ah, you selfish kings of Nevinia! With that pipe I could buy all Reme and make it into a lovely port for every pirate on the Great Blue Sea!

  There was more; a broken, tenantless coffin had been wrapped with endless yards and perhaps leagues of silver thread. Humming, Tiana spent many, many minutes rewinding it around her mahogany stave and securing the other end to the lampstand. Meanwhile, she noted the niche-lined walls of the crypt.

  The slabs had been tom from every one, and every coffin had been smashed. None of that was surprising; she knew grave robbers had been here afore her. What was… disconcerting was that the previous despoiler had left a tidy fortune in jewels — while taking every single corpse.

  Tiana considered that mystery while she squatted to collect scattered jewels like a maid gathering berries. With those stowed in her fine velvet sack, she pieced together a torch: a large chunk of the newest coffin, wrapped with strips of underskirt, oiled. Linking two ornamental silver chains that had dropped or been torn from stolen bodies, she slung the sack of loot from right shoulder to left hip.

  “It may just be useful to extinguish this torch,” she muttered, and twitched at the sound of her voice, and shut up. And I may want to relight it.

  Unfortunately no one had thought to bury a relative with flint. Only jewels. She tried for a spark from an extremely valuable ruby of great size, but the stupid bauble broke into fragments. A large diamond, though, seemed as if it would work nicely. Lighting her torch from the lamp, she set off to find the tomb of King Nestor and the left arm of Derramal.

  She’d read surely a hundred names on crypts, all of which were untenanted but so full of plunder that she’d long since become choosy. Ships had been sent to the bottom for less than she’d judiciously plucked up and popped into the velvet bag that had been Brehar’s niece’s dress. Only one crypt contained a skeleton — the bones of which had been cracked and were clean of marrow, powder or otherwise.

  That discovery made her reconsider her torch, but she decided she’d rather be able to see, even though it might attract… something. She would never forget the constant horripilation and awareness of death on that Narokan ship while a cobra sought her in the dark. Besides, she had found the subterrene cemetery’s plan, and King Nestor’s tomb was now but a few turns ahead.

  The silver thread paid off. With a sigh, she glanced back at the tiny argent trail she’d left. Well, I’ll have no trouble finding it and, with it as guide, I can run to the lamp chamber, at least!

  Rounding a turn, Tiana came face to face with the Thing.

  It was obscene in its totally hairless, pasty whiteness. Naked, it was a monster, an anthropomorphic horror, an awful travesty of the human form. General shape and long, powerful arms and barrel chest placed it midway between man and — totally hairless — gorilla. The genitals were trebly obscene for being a lovely pink. A squat, misshapen head crowned the tall and rangy form — and yellow eyes blazed with hunger. The mouth drooped open to reveal doglike fangs. It drooled.

  The horrified Tiana now understood the missing corpses and the marrow less bones; the noble Tomb of Kings was a warren of semi-human ghouls. Of course it had been enraged to find her coffin empty — it had missed its dinner thereby.

  The Tiling advanced, long arms swinging up. Remembering how the coffins had been ripped asunder, she backed. There was no way to strike a mortal blow’ without entering the unusually large circle of arms thick as her thighs — and long as her thighs and calves combined.

  “Nice monster. You like fire?”

  It was not bestially fearful of it, she discovered upon extending her torch; the thing batted it away, seemingly casually — and with sufficient force to tear her low-burning brand from Tiana’s hand. It struck the wall with a bright spatter of sparks and gobbets of burning silk. One bit of burning cloth sailed against the advancing creature’s shoulder, and it snarled and jerked its head toward an attack it could not understand. On the floor, the torch flickered into death — and Tiana dived.

  The ghoul’s left hand-paw was at its singed right shoulder, and Tiana went low, on its left. Before it could swing a long arm down for her, she was past, grunting as she hit the earthen floor but thrusting herself up and spinning in one superlative movement worthy of a gymnast. She had stabbed the Thing twice in the back before it swung for her — she followed, staying behind and squatting to slash an ankle.

  The ghoul fell, hamstrung, and took the knife in the neck. A flailing arm failed to clutch and succeeded in saving Tiana by tumbling her against a wall. The torch died just before the monster did. She heard the last shaky, raspy breath.

  The torch still glowed, and a panting Tiana knew it could be rekindled readily. But if there were more than one of these creatures here, it now endangered more than aided her; she knew where she was going. Working her arm where it had been struck and rolling the opposite shoulder, which had first impacted the wall, Tiana stood in darkness. She pressed her ear to the ground, noting that it was damper here. She heard no footsteps, but there was another sound… water.

  This section of the tomb must be under the river, she realised, though that gave her only a sense of direction.

  She advanced, knife ready in one hand and dead torch in the other. Around another turn in that chthonic dark she eased, to see another glow. She smiled. Certainly King Nestor’s tomb had an eternally burning lamp! She hurried toward the glow — silently.

  The tomb of Nestor, anciently King of the Neviari ere they formed Nevinia, was a magnificent chamber nigh as sprawling as t
he throne-room of his successors, though hardly so lofty. Pearls clung like dewdrops to walls of jade. The floor was a blue lake of lapis lazuli. The eternal flame flickered like molten gold above a gold-banded ivory stand — and beside it, in a place of honour on a chrysolite table, lay a handless arm the colour of old parchment.

  Before that uneaten arm, almost in an attitude of worship, fully a score of deathly white ghouls squatted on their obscenely hairless haunches. They were busy with a grisly feasting.

  Once again a part of the evil is the centre of worship for creatures of evil — and now I must rob twenty ghouls the size of gorillas!

  She must distract them. Fire served me well in the convent of vampires…

  But there was nothing combustible here, save the enormous pile of bones in a discard pile that totally obliterated one wall. Tiana’s eyes widened.

  Oil.

  She ghosted away, back along silent corridors of velvet blackness. Her stockinged feet easily reassured her from time to time, treading on the silver thread. She returned to the other vault with its eternal flame. Cutting even soft gold was slow and hardly silent work, but the ghouls were preoccupied in the cracking of bones and smacking of reeking lips.

  Thin oil began to pour rapidly onto the floor. It stank, but Tiana smiled. The tunnel before this tomb definitely sloped downward to that of Nestor’s. Leaving that corridor, Tiana slipped rapidly back to the entry of the ghouls’ dining chamber. She waited. Once the oil had formed a nice puddle around the squatting monsters…

  Roaring flame should distract the filthy corpse-eaters!

  She waited. At last she saw the approach of the oil. She frowned; most of the flow she’d started was missing. Was the supply finite after all? She watched the trickle turn soundlessly into the vault, and Tiana noted a trembling in the air between her and the flame, beyond and above the streamlet. The oil was evaporating! How dare it adopt such a course when she needed it so desperately?

  Does evaporated oil burn? Who knew? As one could not drink evaporated water, evaporated oil was probably useless. Gritting her teeth, she knew she’d just have to wait until enough fuel had accumulated, then strike fire and light it herself. Lest one of the beasts glance around and see her before she was ready, she withdrew along the corridor and tried not to listen to the drooling, lip-smacking, marrow-sucking repast. She chided herself for being reminded of her own hunger. How horrid! Her stomach lurched at the thought, and…

  Her wait ended. The sound from the chamber was like unto that on the day of her highriding. First the tremendous clap of thunder, then roaring flame, billowing out the door and following the oil-trail up the tunnel. The rushing air was full of flying fragments of jade and lapis lazuli and bone and ghoul, Even well along the corridor that ran past the vault’s doorway, Tiana was tumbled heels overhead.

  Evaporated oil, she thought, burns.

  The flame had already subsided and she staggered up to race to Nestor’s chamber. The lamp was gone, but burning pools of oil nicely illumined the ruined vault. The walls dripped gore, and shattered corpses were all over — but where was the arm?

  Moving, of course, inch-worming along to save itself. It resumed lifelessness the moment she stuffed it into her bag of jewels. As she bent to a burning pool to relight her torch, a loud crack sounded from the explosion-weakened ceiling. Tiana pounced away. Thus she narrowly missed being buried beneath large pieces of ceiling. They were followed by an avalanche of rocks and silt. Then, rushing noisily, came a torrent of muddy water. The River Turbanis was entering the Tomb of Kings!

  Tiana regained the shelter of the tunnel ahead of the falling stones and mud, but she was hardly safe. The rushing river followed her, anxious to fill all this wonderful new space. Tiana ran.

  Hunger and weariness were forgotten. She did not have to coax what was surely a record speed from her supple strength. She ran. The river pursued. The race was unfair; at each turning she must choose the proper direction, while the rushing waters of the Turbanis took every direction, every tunnel. It gained steadily. By the time she had passed the other eternally lit vault she was splashing in water that rose faster than she ran.

  She burst into a large chamber and cursed only briefly after stepping into a hole and sprawling in filthy water; the hole was her own grave! She remembered being carried down that flight of stairs — and uphill. Several exits left this chamber, she saw as water reached her knees and kept climbing. Only two went away downward, and one was behind her. Tiana plunged into the other — and was in water up to her neck.

  Despite the dragging sack of loot, she lunged forward to swim.

  She was not aware of being borne up until her head thumped the tunnel’s ceiling. She realised that death was close, as close as the stairs and the door to the outside. Swiftly seizing one enormous breath, she dived and tried to hurl herself forward through inky black water. Tiana swam blind. There was no measure of time or distance, save for the growing ache in her lungs. Her bag of plunder dragged at her, slowed her; she’d not leave it, not now. Though she loved life, she was not particularly fearful of death. Too, until the onset of the panic that banished reason, she cherished the hope of leaving here with both the arm and wealth. Her arms grew heavy, even under water. She stroked and kicked, on, on. Lungs afire, she made what speed she could through the black water. Now she had to have air and, with one hand up to protect her head from slamming into the ceiling, she kicked herself upward. Her lungs were in agony and her arms begged to be left alone. She rose.

  She did not even know her hand had left the water until her head broke the surface and she was gasping, exhaling and sucking and snorting. No wind had ever tasted better than the stale, subterranean air of the Tomb of Kings.

  But it was not stale — and she saw above the level of her head a horizontal line of light. Grinning, she stroked with new vigour toward what she knew was a door backed by daylight. Her knee barked on cement — the steps! Huffing, quivering all over, she rose streaming from the water to climb the stairs to the door.

  With weary gratitude Tiana sank down on the landing at the top, just inside the entry to the Tomb of Kings… and the exit.

  Sunlight and escape from this tomb of horrors lay just on the other side of this great slab of steel.

  So did armed guards and vicious dogs and a moat full of carnivorous fish.

  Elated by her successes, Tiana knew she was far from safe. This problem was more instantly deadly than the previous ones. She had been on the other side of that door, fresh, fed, better armed and unburdened — and she’d been captured — after having to fight off two dogs. Now she felt half-dead, and her first attempt would insure that the Dark Guards would be extremely vigilant.

  She could see that the water was no longer rising; it lay at the fifth step down, and it was almost still. The Turbanis had found its own level, having totally flooded the Tomb of Kings.

  She had to have rest…

  She did not dare take the chance…

  She had to. She did: Tiana went to sleep.

  When she awoke, stiff but at least rested, it was with a semi-sane plan in her mind. Her fingers examined the lock and learned that it was easily opened from within. This cord probably went to the alarm bell; she cut it. Slowly, with care for quiet, she unlocked the door, eased it back and peered through the crack.

  Before the door, a body length away, stood six Dark Guardsmen in their cuirasses and greaves of black leather and dulled helmets with white-gold plumes.

  Taking a deep breath, Tiana opened wide the door and called.

  Six men turned to stare in shock at sight of a bedraggled, indecently semiclothed young woman who stepped from the tombs. They made incoherent questioning sounds, followed by words, “Ghost!” and “Lich!”. And then, almost incredibly: “Cow’s dung! ’Tis an aristocratic young lady in the undergarments of burial, somehow interred alive. Isn’t is so, my lady?”

  “You,” she told that guardsman beside his white-faced captain, “are a clever and brave man. Please
do come here.”

  They came, slowly and with pale caution. “By the Cud!” the captain exploded in horror. “The entire tomb is flooded/”

  “Aye,” Tiana purred, “and if you are silent about my presence here, all will think this a natural catastrophe or visitation of the gods. And… you’ll not be blamed and double-decimated.”

  The captain’s skin proved it could achieve a greater degree of pallidity. “It… is not a… natural… disaster?”

  “No,” Tiana said, feeling her strength rise with her spirits, for she was enjoying herself at last. “I was plundering, you see, and accidentally blew a hole in the ceiling with one of those perpetual lamps.” She shrugged deliberately, watching their eyes go appreciatively to her breast bindings, which were plastered wetly to her; she’d slept only long enough so that she no longer dripped, Theba be praised. “Arrest me and His Maj will doubtless behead you all for allowing me to perpetrate the crime of crimes.”

  “God!” and “Oh — mother!” and the corpse-pale captain: “But… if we let you go, we are guilty of this… heinous crime!”

  “Captain,” one of the tomb-guardsmen said hurriedly, “wait — if she departs, and good riddance… we are surely entitled to a share of her… profits.” His nice blue eyes, which should have been greed-green, were fixed not on his captain but on a smiling Tiana.

  “Why share?” demanded another. “Why not sword the bitch and…” He had been looking at the captain and of Tiana’s lightning-swift action he saw only a flash of steel close beneath his chin.

  His fellows looked at him in startled horror.

  Through there had been only the slightest quick pain, he could feel warm liquid trickling down his throat.

  “Don’t worry,” she said smiling, the red knife in her hand, “your jugular vein is little more than scratched. You won’t bleed to death — unless you talk too much.” To the captain she added, “If we’re going to haggle, oughtn’t we go where we won’t attract … undesirable attention?”