A Lady in Crystal

by Toby Bennett

  The red tail whipped down on the charging rodent. Just before the blow landed the tail uncoiled into several separate strands that plunged sharp barbs into the rat's flesh. A flood of electricity overloaded the tiny nervous system and left the rat frozen, as its attacker began to take large bites from it. The victor of the tiny squabble was so intent on its feast that it didn’t notice the quick quiet footsteps of someone approaching it from behind. Akna had become accustomed to the darkness but it was his memory, rather than the distant lights that had survived the fury of the storm, which he used to make a grab for the thing on the ground. He had chosen this spot for the fact that almost all the lights were gone. He did not want to take any chance of Seroke’s spy getting a look at him. If Zenker’s suspicions were right, the magistrate would probably see whatever it did. His strike had to be quick and surgical.

  The creature sensed the charge at the very last moment. It had no sense of hearing to speak of but its body was very sensitive to vibrations in the ground. It released the rat's body and gathered in its tendrils but fast as it was, Akna was faster. The thick blade of his heaviest dagger drew sparks from the slick street, as it hacked down, severing the coiled fibres that made up the deadly little tail. The spy screamed soundlessly and in his litter Magistrate Seroke jerked upright, with a jolt that threatened to tear the flesh from its bearers’ hands. Before the dying monster could shift to see its assassin, it was scooped up and held at arm’s length away from its attacker. Swivel and bite as it might, the dying creature was unable to penetrate the heavy gloves its captor wore and its master was denied even a glimpse of his enemy.

  Akna’s momentum sent him skidding over the wet street. He fetched up against the wall of a nearby house, where a globe of phantasmal light provided a rare source of illumination. He waited for the thing to stop moving, before tentatively opening his hand; still careful to remain in the shadows, he lifted the dead thing up to the light. He nodded to himself at the sight which greeted him, there in the centre of his palm, bisected by the slit of its horrendous mouth, lay a single human eye ball, the severed cords of its enlarged optic nerves still dripping black blood. Thunder rumbled, resounding from the three great hills of the city, Akna closed his fist over the eye and squeezed it into a pulpy jelly.

  *

  For Seroke the minutes between the loss of the eye and arriving home seemed to drag. It was not that the pain he felt had been significant. In truth it was little more than the prick of a pin; with many such agents all over the city, it was inevitable that he lost a few every so often. Before they returned to him, he was only aware of what his extra eyes saw on a very abstract level; if he were any more connected to them, he would soon go mad with the sensory input of more than a hundred, separate points of view. The thing that really bothered the magistrate was that, whoever had destroyed the eye, had contrived to do so without being seen himself. Up until now anyone who had actually seen an eye was dead. Some of those victims had even provided their own eyes, to replace the ones lost in the attack. Though they appeared fragile, the eyes were deadly and capable of freezing a man’s nerves just as effectively as his erstwhile spy had frozen the rat, which it had been preying on. Seroke cursed himself for that lapse, the eyes were always hungry and it had seemed like a small risk to allow them to hunt under the cover of the storm. If he didn’t let them hunt, they would take their nourishment from his body and he was increasingly feeling the strain of providing so much strength.

  The squeal of iron, as his servants opened his front gates, brought Seroke back from his introspection. It did not matter why the attack had happened; whoever had done it must have already suspected the nature of the eye, if they had taken such pains not to allow it to catch sight of them.

  “He was waiting for me,” the magistrate muttered to himself.

  The sound of the rain stopped abruptly as the litter reached the overhang of his porch but the magistrate did not take this cue to leave his litter. If there was someone waiting for him, he would have to be careful. Seroke had not felt apprehension of this kind since he had gained the eyes; he had assumed that no assassin could get close enough to be a threat without his knowing but the loss of the eye in the street and his failure to even gauge who had done it, made him nervous. He was not the only one using the storm to hunt. Whoever was stalking him would be close.

  “My Lord, are you all right?” One of the servants asked through the leather curtain of the litter. It wouldn’t do to worry his household. If his own network of spies couldn’t detect his stalker then his staff would only get in the way. Any upset in routine might tip the assassin off that he was expected and Seroke dearly wanted to have a reckoning with anyone presumptuous enough to attack one of his own.

  “Perfect, why should you think otherwise, Markis?”

  Seroke swept aside the curtain and alighted on the steps that lead up to his front door. He was careful to stay close to the litter at first, while the many eyes surrounding the house searched for any movement. He had no need to fear, he told himself, a single eye was one thing but now he knew he was being hunted, he was in no danger, no one could enter his house without him knowing. Anyone trying to follow him in would be overmatched. Nothing moved in the darkness, not even when he left the cover of the litter. Nothing moved or had he somehow missed it? Seroke was a cautious man and he would far rather have had someone make a try for his life at that moment than the uncertainty of the wild storm and the disorientation of rolling thunder.

  “You seem pale, My Lord.”

  “Of course I’m pale, it’s cold as the Elmspur Pass out there. I hope you’ve kept the fire high?”

  “Of course, My Lord.”

  “Good. I shall have supper now and then you may retire.”

  “As you wish, My Lord.” Markis did not make much of the slight change in routine, he was a servant and not about to question his masters whim's. If he wanted to be left alone early then that was how it would be. His master was right about the ghastly cold, the elements seemed to be doing their worse. Lightning forked through the low clouds, forcing him to blink with its brilliance. He took his master’s coat and had to force himself to squint against another sudden flash. For a single moment, he imagined that he saw the after image of a figure moving over the roof of the house next door. He couldn’t be sure though, even with his eyes almost shut the light left him blinking and disorientated. Such brilliance was particularly dazzling to the inhabitants of Niskar who, although used to light, rarely had to deal with such brilliance. The magistrate found it particularly disconcerting since, without eyelids to protect, them his excess eyes were in an an even worse state than Markis. Blue flashes still swum across his scattered perception and Seroke realised that if there were anyone out there, they had indeed chosen their moment well.

  Chapter 7:

  “In the blink of an eye the world can change

  And all that’s familiar become stark and strange.”

  Akna moved through the house with agonising slowness, every so often he saw one of the eyes peeking from a shadow or a crack in the wall but he knew for every eye he saw, there must be more that he did not. The behaviour of the strange spies told him that he was not unexpected. The magistrate had obviously guessed his pursuer was using the disorientation caused by the lightning and thunder to penetrate the house’s defences. His fate now rested on the fury of the storm, if it abated too soon then he would be surrounded, with no way to fool Seroke’s unnatural senses. The youth, who had wormed his way into Cardinal Lothar’s chambers only a few months ago, might have worried about that but the man, who slithered through the crawlspaces of the magistrate's mansion, was a very different creature. He was beyond fear; beyond even caring whether he was caught; his body moved with the precision that his masters had spent more than a decade instilling in him. He crept forward without ever feeling a single tremor of anxiety or urgency. Akna no longer shared the weaknesses inherent to a creature of flesh and blood. As much as the storm confused the abominations that sou
ght for him throughout the house, his own emptiness obscured him from the nightmare creatures that slithered through its large, abandoned rooms.

  In accordance with their master's wishes, the servants had returned to their quarters. Once he was sure he was unobserved, Seroke had slipped through a hidden panel and down the stairs beyond into the bowels of the great house. With each roll of thunder Akna crept closer to the secret panel. As he had expected, one of the demonic eyes had been left to watch the door. Akna had one chance to get past the eye without an attack, which would give away both his presence and position; he released the thin rope that he had been keeping taut in his left hand. Without this support the panel, through which he had entered the ceiling’s crawlspace, tipped and fell onto a vase beneath. The daemon eye’s response to the crash was instantaneous. All around him Akna could feel the house come to life as the vicious little creatures surged towards the source of the noise. It would only be minutes before they traced him from the dropped tile to the ceiling and to his actual position but by then Akna intended to have joined the magistrate below the house.

  As soon as the watcher was out of the room, Akna rushed to the panel and clicked it open with sure fingers. His sabre was in his hand now, the time for stealth alone had passed.

  Akna took the steps two at a time and soon found himself in a stone corridor that had been carved into the hillside. Water had seeped from the rough-cut stone for years and the ground beneath his boots sported a thin layer of slime, criss-crossed by tell-tale snaking trails that marked the passing of the magistrate's spies. Lanterns had been hung on the brackets in the walls but Seroke had been in too much of a hurry to light them all as he passed, so the long corridor was interspersed with dark stretches of shadow. Akna viewed the shadows with suspicion; despite the agony of knowing that he might not be able to afford the time, Akna forced himself to examine each patch of darkness carefully as he approached it. Sure enough, as he cautiously approached the second stretch of shadow he spotted an eyeball slither out onto a ledge at the top of the corridor wall. Apparently his distraction had been discovered. The magistrate was probably searching throughout his mansion to discover the intruder’s real location. The only advantage Akna had left was that Seroke still probably regarded the underground complex as secret. Even so the magistrate was taking no chances. Akna flattened himself against the wall and regarded the eye watching the corridor.

  The eye had lifted itself up onto its twisted tail of crimson cords and was twisting back and forth. If Akna had been any closer to the lantern it would have seen him but with darkness around him, the eye was little better at finding him than the person who had once owned it would have been. Seroke might yet regret not having lit all his lamps. Akna’s hand tensed on the hilt of his weapon but he dismissed any thoughts of attack as soon as they surfaced, if he destroyed the eye, Seroke would know where he was, as surely as if they eye had seen him. In the fastness of the hillside, the storm was no longer his ally; Akna’s only hope lay in reaching the master of the house undetected.

  The eye swung away as the grizzly creature examined the other end of the corridor and Akna sprung across and into the shadows directly below the roving eyeball. If the eye had caught a glimpse of him crossing into this new patch of shadows then it gave not sign. Akna waited, barely breathing and planning his next move. The timing would have to be exact if he was going to be able to move again. Akna glanced up, just in time to see the eye split open to reveal its sharp teeth. Hissing drops sprinkled Akna’s upturned face but he managed to resist the urge to rub at the tiny points of pain, where the acid had touched his skin. The eye stayed fixed in this silent scream for several seconds, before lowering itself back onto the stone ledge and slithering back down the corridor. Akna spotted several similar movements from further down the corridor.

  Seroke had obviously decided that he was not going to find his quarry so easily. Akna did not believe that the magistrate was foolish enough to think that his ceiling tile had fallen by accident. The eyes giving up the search could mean only one thing, the magistrate was gathering his strength, Seroke was waiting for him. Akna gave the eyes a moment to slither ahead, before he slipped after them down the corridor. His progress was still slow because he could not discount the idea that the apparent retreat was a trap but he was unable to see any stragglers waiting in ambush, so he pressed on.

  The passage branched into a V-shaped junction, Akna followed the trail of lit lanterns to the right. The door at the end of the passageway stood ajar and lights burned brightly beyond; an opened door seemed too easy and Akna’s instincts baulked at going forward. He slunk back to the junction and felt his way along the wall of the left hand passage. The floor began to slope beneath his feet and his nostrils detected a strengthening in the odour of rot and decay. He took another step and felt the surface beneath his foot become smoother. Moments later, he heard an ominous groan from the floor. He sheathed his sword, squatted down and pulled off his glove with his teeth. An action he instantly regretted, since the leather still bore the taste of the dead eye’s bile. Grimacing, Akna stretched out and placed his hand flat against the floor. Sure enough he felt the chill of metal. In the dark it was impossible to tell what he was squatting on but the shift in his weight gave him a sudden indication that it was not stable. He felt himself begin to tilt and the floor, which was clearly on a fulcrum of some type, increased its downwards angle. His soft soled shoes began to slip almost instantly and only exceptional coordination kept him upright. The chute, he could think of no other word for what he was standing on, groaned again as it tilted forward still further, dragged down by his shifting weight. It was too late to redress the balance and it was now pointed almost all the way down. The soft leather soles that had allowed him move so quietly afforded him little purchase on the metal, as he fought not to be dumped into whatever lay in the blackness below.

  Akna didn’t know if he really heard his glove slide over the edge of the tipping platform or merely imagined it but he knew the situation was desperate. He threw himself backwards over the metal and managed to almost clear the midpoint of the chute. Deprived of his weight, the device began to right itself, then he landed again, with a clang that made him wince more than the pain of hitting the hard surface in the dark. Akna scrabbled but he began to slide down again, picking up speed as the platform tipped further. Akna’s mind raced, it was clear that he would not be able to tip the metal platform back and he had no wish to fall. He might be able to jump back a few more times but he would soon wear himself out; then he remembered the ledge that he had seen in the other passageway; with no time to second guess his decision, Akna threw himself out into the darkness, his fingers splayed and questing for a ledge they might never find.

  The chute reset itself with a resounding clang of metal and Akna began to fall. He was close to the wall, he could feel the pressure of the air as he rushed past it. He stretched out further and felt the stone snatch at his ungloved left hand. Ignoring the pain, he kept his hands out and ready to take his weight. Although he was expecting the ledge, it still came as a surprise; it was wider than he had expected and he took the first impact on his forearms. A numbing pain swept up his arms and he slid over the stone, his toes slammed into the wall as he was thrown backwards. He clawed at the ledge that was being torn away from him by his body’s momentum. At the last moment he managed to get a grip on the damp stone with his finger tips. Akna put everything into the surge that pulled him up and onto the narrow ledge.

  The stone was just wide enough for him to lie on his side, panting and blinking into nothingness. Gradually his straining eye detected a change, light slowly blossomed from further up the tunnel; someone was approaching, bearing a light. Akna suppressed his own ragged breathing and he could hear the distant footsteps coming closer. He pressed himself into the shadows and lay unmoving. As the light brightened, he noticed it reflecting off the broad metal chute below him. Below that, Akna could see a shadowed pit; he could just make out the shapes of pale l
imbs and twisted bodies at the bottom. Without seeing more, Akna could guess that none of the bodies had eyes.

  At last Magistrate Seroke came into view. He was a man of average height with features that had once passed as handsome but now that he was approaching the end of middle age, they seemed in danger of becoming hard. The awkwardness of Anka’s position made it difficult to get a proper look at his mark but the real impediment was the bulky leather cloak Seroke had drawn about himself. As the magistrate came closer, the details of the cloak resolved themselves and Akna realised that he was looking down at a patchwork of human skin.

  Human eyelids to be exact, some of them gaped open like empty mouths, to reveal raw welts in the magistrate’s naked skin beneath but others bulged with eyes of many hues, darting in all directions, scanning the passage for danger. As Akna watched, one of the eyeballs slid free of the safety of the cloak; the slim trail of blood leaking from the corner of the slack lids, like a dark tear, confirmed Akna’s suspicion that the long tail had recently been fixed in Seroke’s flesh. The eye slithered over its fellows and slipped over the metal surface of the chute. Seroke walked almost to the tipping point and lifted his lamp high so that the eye, which was now hanging over the edge and staring into the pit, could get a better view of the crumpled bodies below.

  From his vantage point Akna couldn’t see the expression on the magistrate’s face, when he saw that there were no new victims in the pit but the reaction of the eyes that dotted his back was enough to reveal Seroke’s consternation. The eyes darted in all directions, sometimes even rearing up and biting at one another in their sudden anxiety. Akna squeezed himself into the shadows of the ledge he lay on; with the lantern held so high the pool of shadow had become very shallow, he thought of reaching for his crossbow but he doubted that any movement on his part would be missed. He couldn’t do anything but lie motionless and hope the magistrate's panic really was blind.