Demon in the Mirror

by Andrew J. Offut

  A wave of proud exultation swept her. Though she was wound about so that she was nigh moveless, she had surmised aright. The plants’ great activity necessitated a prodigious consumption of water, which meant a great and constant need. They, the plants themselves, had diverted an enormous quantity for themselves and proliferated accordingly. Now they had none.

  “Die, damn ye all,” Tiana groaned, wallowing and hacking. “Dry and die — rapidly!”

  She struggled to free herself from the weakening vines, wallowing and tearing.

  She heard Turgumbruda come running in from the stairs. As he approached, the botanical wizard dodged contorting branches and questing vines with an agility surprising in a man of so many years. He drew a paper tube from a pocket of his gardener’s smock, bent beside Tiana, and blew pollen into her face.

  Vivid flashes of colour erupted before her eyes. She saw nothing else — until the grey came rolling in. Then everything converged into the ultimate colour: black.

  *

  She awoke strapped to the operating table. Ohy no — naked again!

  Turgumbruda smiled down at her.

  “Before you complain, note that my salve has obliterated your hundreds of puncture wounds; thus have I repaid your saving of my life. Now, my dear lovely rescuer, I shall keep my promise. See — there beside you is the torso of Derramal. Ugly lump of flesh, isn’t it? As for letting you depart in peace, I shall… you will soon be asleep with my peaceflowers. You didn’t really suppose that Turgumbruda would let such a choice subject as your lovely self escape?”

  She glared up at the Dark Gardener. “Hardly a show of gratitude — what about your oath?”

  “Ah, darling girl. A wizard’s Power is based on deceit and unconcern with… niceties. When he swears on his Power, the promise is always literally true, but its fulfilment is sure to be a disaster. If you would know the true meaning of a wizard’s promise, imagine the most evil meaning the words can sustain.”

  “So I suspected,” Tiana said, and burst the straps she’d earlier weakened. Turgumbruda whirled to flee. Tiana again thought of the slavegirls who’d been brought to this house never to be seen again. She pounced. The wizard was an old man, and his bones broke easily.

  “Now,” Tiana muttered, standing naked over the broken corpse, “someone’s taken action on behalf of all those innocents.”

  *

  Sergeant Militor of the Nightwatch touched hand to sword pommel at sight of the weird vision. He stared at a signally shapely girl pushing a gardener’s barrow along Escallas’s Queen Ina Street. She alone was surprising enough, for she was clad only in a gardener’s smock, skin-tight black boots that vanished up beneath it, and a weapon-belt. More shocking was the wheeled barrow, which contained a male torso without head, arms, or legs. Yet there was no blood; the disgusting thing looked old, like an unwrapped mummy. Too, it was a bad day for investigating the strange, what with a whole company of his comrades having disappeared into the garden of that infamous sorcerer. Militor bit his lip. Then he turned hurriedly down a side street in quest of aught unusual or suspicious…

  Tiana was tired, but well satisfied with her second day in Escallas. She’d stolen not only Derramal’s torso — after this night she’d never refer to any part of a human body as a “trunk” again — but she’d got various other spendable valuables (for new clothes, again), and Turgumbruda’s extraordinary surgical tools. More importantly, she was sure she knew now where her brother was hidden. Poor Bealost! And she understood the riddle of Derramal and Lamarred, and knew what action she must take.

  First, she mused, I’ll have to brace that last werehawk and gain Derramal’s head. But, right now — supper and sleep!

  Oddly at this hour, the door of her inn was open and the common room was lit by both a fat candle and the fireplace — as though it were necessary! She pushed the wheelbarrow in, seated herself with ladylike aplomb at the only clear table, smock and all, and banged with her fist.

  “Dorbandura, you lazy steer! Where’s my supper?”

  He called from the kitchen: “Immediately, dear lady. I’ve kept food warm on the stove.”

  “Why, that’s service befitting a queen!” she called, and muttered, “of pirates.”

  The innkeeper, belly and chins jiggling, bustled in with the food he’d kept warming for her, all but praying she’d return. Setting the dishes before her, he stepped back a pace and opened the small box Thor-Nack had given him. His eyebrows rose. It was a mandrake root, but hardly the normal one with its approximate man-shape. This one was the perfect image of — something dreadfully not human.

  Already Tiana had noted the open door, the burning candle, the fire here in the common room; and remarked his apparent delight at seeing her. And of course all those messy tables. Too, though the floor had obviously been swept, dirt gritted beneath her booted feet. Aye, the floor had been swept… into a rough circle around this table where she… had been forced to sit…

  No, it’s not a circle… more a rectang - Pentagram!

  She was out of her chair and vacating the dirt-outlined formation even as he tossed the demonic mandrake into the fire.

  “No!” Dorbandura cried, and the murderous pig tried to push her back within the five-sided drawing.

  Agile pirate was far too much for fat taverner. She punched, tripped, shoved hard. With a cry of that same single word, “No!” he sprawled within the pentagram.

  In the fireplace the mandrake root blazed up, and every wisp of the resultant billowing smoke fled directly into the pentagram. In stark wide-eyed terror, Dorbandura scrambled to leave that sorcerous formation. He could not. It had become a prison; empty air formed five walls of glass against which he beat his fists without avail. The smoke was growing thicker, and now Tiana saw a blood-red demon’s head rise from the dirt that had concealed it.

  While Tiana watched, horror-frozen, table and chair and innkeeper vanished within roiling smoke. Shrieks emerged from the sulphurous, swirling mass. Then came the ghastly snapping and crunching sounds — followed by the unmannerly noise of great teeth chewing ravenously.

  As the smoke commenced to dissipate, there was a distinct belch.

  The only sign of Dorbandura, innkeeper and murderer, was a few drops of blood.

  Tiana would never admit that the ghastly incident frightened her. She merely decided that she was no longer hungry. She would gather her belongings and depart Escallas now, in the middle of the night. Woe unto him who sought to deter her! Hopefully in Lieden of Collada she’d meet only human foes who were easier on the nerves — and stomach.

  She did take a leathern sack of excellent Narfish wine.

  12 Siege of the City of Light

  Prince Eltorn Bihal of Collada looked in most respects like a storybook prince. Eltorn the Fair was tall, lean, hard of muscle — the perfect knight. At present, however, his broad shoulders were slumped, his mild blue eyes bloodshot and his handsome features drawn with care and worry. Stretched over a decision cruel as a rack, he paced the flooring of his pavilion while his generals and advisers repeated the same arguments for what seemed the hundredth time.

  “Our dilemma,” General Narthur was loudly declaiming, “is the result of a capital mistake by our ancestors. Not content with one nearly invulnerable defence, they built another.”

  “The fault is ours, not our ancestors,” General Fersen grumbled.

  “Oh, aye,” Narthur shouted. “Ours for trusting fortifications that were adequate for our great-grandparents instead of building new ones to meet present needs.”

  “The cost of the fortifications you proposed was and is prohibitive!”

  “Will it be cheaper to replace our king and queen, our capital city and all its people — in fact, the whole nation of Collada, Lord General?”

  “My lord General Narthur,” the prince interrupted. “I asked you to review how the present situation arose, not how it could have been avoided. You will not be interrupted,” he said, and his blue eyes fixed their gaze on port
ly Fersen.

  “But — very good, Your Highness,” Narthur said, and his bass voice had come down somewhat. “Our Lieden, capital of Collada, is the fairest city in the world. A centre of learning and art without equal, graced by superb marble buildings and peaceful parks. It is justly called the City of Light.”

  It came into the prince’s mind to call for more facts and less oratory, but he held his tongue. In agonisingly troubled times it was all too easy to fight one’s friends rather than the enemies one could not reach.

  “It has been our responsibility,” Narthur said, rumbling now, “to guard this jewel. We have failed. Part of the city’s beauty is provided by the crystal blue waters of Lake Belanda, which surrounds it on three sides. Our ancestors provided the city with a good set of walls, and similar conventional defences. In addition, they dug away parts of the peninsula and erected stone ramparts. What they built thus was a hunter’s shooting blind. Any army approaching the city must ride along a narrow strip of land with water to right and left. The entire length of this strip is within easy bowshot of the ramparts, so that any invader would be cut to pieces by arrows ere they reached the plain before the city. It was planned that those invaders who reached the plain would be destroyed by a charge of heavy cavalry. In that too the defenders have the advantage; they’d be charging downhill into disorganized men just emerging from the narrow land strip. One could ask for no better opportunity to slay the helpless.”

  Narthur paused to turn his grey-eyed stare on each man present. His voice lowered still more. “Unfortunately, Duke Lokieto, brother to the King of Thesia, sailed across Lake Belanda and landed a large army behind the ramparts. The attack was completely without warning; the city was completely unprepared. His spies had served well the duke, who struck when the regular army was on summer manoeuvers and more than half the city guard was away, dealing with a minor emergency in our province of Lugania. Thus it is we who are in the role of attackers, and we are outnumbered three to one… in addition to the impossible disadvantage of position.”

  The prince was nodding, his lips tightly set. “General Narthur, in all your criticisms of the old fortifications, did you ever say that Lieden was vulnerable to direct frontal attack… or any attack we might now launch?”

  “Your Highness — I did not.”

  “Can you now see any weakness?”

  Narthur shook his head.

  Eltorn looked at a spindly old man whose pot was hidden within his deep-blue robe. “Counsellor Orld, is there any hope that Lokieto will grant surrender terms?”

  Seated at the map table to Eltorn’s left, the old man shook his head. “None, Lord Prince. When his demand for surrender was refused, he vowed that when he took Lieden, his men would publicly rape every woman and then, beginning with the smallest infants, slay every human being and domestic animal in the city. It is his boast that he will level the entire city save for one tower. That he will leave standing as a memorial to his victory. This… is to be believed, Highness. They describe the duke’s behaviour to several villages and small towns.”

  Eltorn closed his eyes. “General Fersen, Lokieto must bring his supplies by ship. What do your spies report?”

  “Highness, his men feast.” Burly, paunchy Fersen spoke grimly indeed.

  “And what is the condition of our city?”

  Fersen shook his huge head. “The people have — have caught and eaten the last rat. The guards on the walls are unable to stand, let alone fight. Lokieto of Thesia could take the city with ease. That he delays implies either that he lacks spies in the city or that he prolongs the agony of our people out of sheer cruelty.”

  “My lord Kandor, can the navy take supplies to the city?”

  The young genius who served as admiral of inland Collada’s Lake Belanda fleet spoke rapidly as ever. “Your Highness, since the last battle with the Thesian ships, our fleet consists of one racing galley. Though it is one of the speediest craft ever built, Swallow manoeuvers like a turtle. It is useless in combat and cannot carry cargo. It can convey any messages Your Highness wishes sent.”

  “Into Thesia, perhaps,” Eltorn said, tight-mouthed. “Orld — have we any hope of foreign assistance?”

  Orld shook his head with its sparse strings of ash-coloured hair. “No, Highness. Agreements and alliances have become running water. No one wishes to aid a losing side… and Lokieto is called a military genius. He is feared.”

  “Can we recruit more warriors?” The prince was looking at Narthur, though without hope. He knew the answer.

  “No, Highness. One admits surprise that even more men have not deserted.”

  Eltorn paced disconsolately “Well, gentlemen, the answers have not changed. What do you now advise? My lord General Narthur?”

  “Highness — attack! We shall most certainly die, but it is not meet that your royal father and mother should perish while we sit in safety.”

  “Attack and die. I see. General Fersen?”

  “We must save what we can, Highness. We must retreat.” The prince held up a hand as Narthur jerked and opened his mouth. “What little we can — the army? Can we retire to fight another day?”

  Fersen regarded the floor. “Not likely, Highness. When the city falls and Collada is a duchy of Thesia, the men will lose heart and desert. Those who remain in this land will be sought out by Lokieto’s men, and slain.”

  “Then what is this ‘what little we can save,’ my lord General? Does it include any part of our land?”

  “No, Your Highness.” Fersen’s voice was nigh inaudible. “When the head is smitten, the body dies.”

  The prince lifted an eyebrow. “And yourself?”

  “Highness, I will go to my estates and seek to defend. That will cost me my life.”

  “I’m sorry, Fersen,” the prince said very quietly, and then addressed them all. “So we should die, or save naught but my own life to spend my days in shame and dishonour, hated by all as a coward. I take it all of you repeat the same advice as yesterday’s — attack and die, or run. Counsellor Orld… Sulun Tha is in Lieden, a great old man whose wisdom and judgment have never failed. Is there any new word from him?”

  Orld shook his head. “No, Highness,” he said, to the map table.

  “Then repeat the message we had from him.”

  “Sulun Tha wrote: ‘I have no useful advice or knowledge. If Lokieto of Thesia has any weakness, only he knows it. Therefore, watch him closely and seize upon whatever makes him show fear.’”

  “Of course.” Eltorn leaned on the table, spoke intensely. “General Fersen, what Lokieto fears he must watch. Has there been unusual activity of late on the part of his spies?”

  “Your Highness, for the past two weeks there has been no activity of any sort. Whatever the duke may fear, he neglects the most routine measures to observe our army.”

  “For the past two weeks. Did aught unusual happen two weeks ago, then?”

  Fersen made a gesture. “Lokieto showed his contempt. It was then he began flying his hawk.”

  “Hawk? Hawk? Tell me more, lord General.”

  “Lokieto has an Arctic hawk of extraordinary size, Highness. A pet. It was first seen two weeks ago, returning from its outing. Since then it has flown over our lines every day, northward above the Escallan Road. It returns some four hours later. Today it returned a bit later than usual, minus a feather or two.”

  “Good,” Narthur rumbled. “Perhaps a peasant loosed an arrow at it! It is more than we have — by the Back!”

  The meeting adjourned noisily, with every man hurrying to the entry of the sprawling royal pavilion. It was the sound of battle they heard, the ring and clangor of sword and shield and the screams of dying men.

  The army lay north of Lieden, which rose on the western shore of Lake Belanda. Now all saw the little Thesian craft high on the beach. There were no Thesians in sight — alive; the shore was littered with their dead. Running, Eltorn grabbed a soldier and demanded information.

  “They were mad, Your
Highness! Their galley put out normally, and then, without warning or reason that we could see, pulled hard for shore. The ship came fast, Highness, and scudded high up on the shore as you see. Enemy poured out — but we were on them in seconds.”

  “Good. And did any survive?”

  “The ship was not yet stopped when fifteen men plunged off, on horses. We slew three, Highness; the others rode into the woods.” The man pointed.

  Eltorn squinted at the woods, and ran down to the shore. Admiral Kandor was examining the beached galley. “Its keel has been modified, Highness. They intended this; this ship is useless for normal plying or combat.”

  “Highness!” Narthur bawled. “Fear! Lokieto has shown fear! These men were sent only to give their lives while the knights landed and rode to some purpose!”

  Eltorn’s eyes were narrowed; now his face lighted with realisation. “Aye — some purpose within two hours’ ride — along the road to Escallas, I’d lay wager! Twenty good men, half armour for fast riding — and the best horses.”

  Narthur nodded, grinned, and began shouting. Fersen, frowning, asked, “Two hours, Highness?”

  “Aye, my Lord General, half four hours — as the hawk flies!”

  *

  There was great joy and high excitement in leading mounted men in hot pursuit, particularly after their long helplessness and too much talk of it. Yet now they’d cantered two full hours, and Eltorn grew both nervous and self-doubtful. Surely he was right, and the hawk was a somehow intelligent spy. Lokieto sought some menace along the road from Escallas of Bashan to the north. As he needed no reinforcements, it must be something he feared. Now Eltorn realised that he should have ordered pursuit at all speed, to overtake and kill the dozen Thesians — all, perhaps, but one. Then we could have ridden on to meet — whatever they ride to meet. Sacred udders, he’d given them too great a start, and he may have cost the kingdom its only hope.

  These thoughts niggled as he topped a long rise — and looked down upon the enemy.