by Kai Meyer
How long ago was that? she asked the Queen in her mind.
“Eons. Further back than the family tree of the Egyptians extends. Others worshipped me before, peoples whose names are long forgotten.”
“Is she telling you the legend?” Burbridge asked. “If not, I will do it. Sekhmet, the mighty, wise, all-knowing Sekhmet, was impregnated by a moonbeam and then bore the first sphinx, the progenitor of the sphinx people.”
The Son of the Mother! flashed into Merle’s mind. Why didn’t you tell me that?
“Because then you would not have done what you have done. And what would it have changed? The dangers would have remained the same. But would you have faced them for an Egyptian goddess? I have never lied to you, Merle. I am the Flowing Queen. I am the one who protected Venice from the Egyptians. What I once was before—what role does that play?”
A big one. Perhaps the biggest of all. Because you’ve brought me here. You know what the sphinxes are planning. Have probably always known it.
“We are here to stop it. The Son of the Mother must not rise again. And if he does, I am the only one who can oppose him. For I am his mother and his lover. With him I bred the people of the sphinxes.”
With your own son?
“He was the son of the moonbeam. That is something different.”
Oh, really?
Again Burbridge spoke. “Sekhmet can do nothing about it,” he said, surprisingly defending the Queen, even if he could only guess what she was telling Merle. “What she thought was a moonbeam … was in truth something else. It was a beam of the Stone Light, when it plunged down to the Earth. Did it find its target intentionally? And why Sekhmet in particular? I don’t know the answers to that. Probably the Light foresaw that its plunge deep into the interior of the Earth would bury it and that it would be hard to influence the creatures on the surface. Therefore—and this is only my theory as a scientist—I think that therefore the Light impregnated the lion goddess intentionally so that it could found its own race. A race of creatures that bore in them a piece of the Light, possibly without being aware of it. A people, in any case, that sometime could be taken over by the Light in order to carry out its orders on the surface. As the Lilim do in the interior of the Earth.” Weary and worn out, he broke off. At the end his voice had sounded weaker and weaker, increasingly older and rougher.
You heard him, Merle said to the Queen.
“Yes.”
And?
The Queen seemed to hesitate, but then Merle heard the voice in her head again. “It was I who killed the Son of the Mother. I felt too late that he bore the Light in him. It was too late because the people of the sphinxes were already born. I could only hinder him from rising to be their ruler. But as it has turned out, I only achieved a postponement. The sphinxes have become what I always feared.”
Then you went to the lagoon—
“In order to watch him. Just like Lalapeya and those who came before her. Nevertheless, there was a great difference: The sphinxes worshipped him and kept watch to keep anyone from desecrating his grave. I, on the other hand, watched him to prevent his resurrection. Lalapeya was the first one who guessed what he had in him. She had no information, of course not, but she felt it. Especially when she learned that the sphinxes were behind the Egyptian Empire and saw the resurrection of the Son of the Mother as the highest of their goals.”
Merle understood. This was the connection she’d been seeking, the connection between the sphinxes and the Stone Light. The Pharaoh, the Horus priests, they’d all been tools in the hands of the sphinxes.
The war, the destruction of the world, had that all not been important, really? Had it always been only about Venice and what was buried beneath it?
“With the prospect of world domination, the sphinxes made the Horus priests and the Pharaoh compliant. But their most important goal was always the lagoon. And I was the only one who could keep them away from there.” Her voice faltered for a moment, as if she’d lost power over it. Then she added more collectedly, “I failed. But I have come into the stronghold of the sphinxes in order to set things right. With you, Merle.”
You wanted to go there from the beginning?
“No. In the beginning I thought that we would find help in Hell. I wanted to draw the Lilim into the war against the Empire. But I did not know how great the Stone Light’s power over Burbridge already was. We have lost valuable time because of that. The Son of the Mother is already in the Iron Eye, I can sense him. Even Lalapeya cannot stop that. That is why she is there.”
What will happen when he awakens?
“He will be for the Stone Light on the surface what Burbridge was here below—only incomparably more cruel and determined. He has more sphinx magic than anyone. There will be no doubt about him and very certainly no mirror room into which he withdraws from the influence of the Light. The Light will saturate the world as water does a sponge. And then it will stop for no one.”
Merle’s eyes sought Junipa, who had been watching her with curiosity and concern. If the Son of the Mother grasped power and brought the Empire under his control, Junipa would again fall under the control of the Stone Light. Like everyone else. Like Merle herself.
Burbridge and Junipa both knew what was going on in Merle’s head. They couldn’t hear the dialogue between her and the Queen, but they were observing Merle carefully, her features, each of her movements. Junipa was holding Merle’s hand as tightly as before, as if she could somehow support her that way, help her to take in all the new information and process it.
The information and the Queen’s admission had bowled her over, but she still summoned up the strength to concentrate on the most important things: on the Queen, on Junipa, and on the Son of the Mother.
And then there was Burbridge, who stood facing her, a heap of misery, an old man who looked as if he desperately needed a chair because he was hardly able to stand on his own.
“You must go,” he said. “The Stone Light tolerates it sometimes when I withdraw here. But not often, and certainly not for as long as today.”
Merle gently detached herself from Junipa, walked forward firmly, and for the first time held out her hand. He took it, and tears came to his eyes.
“What will it do?” she asked softly. “To you?”
“I am Lord Light. I will always be that. It will perhaps destroy these mirrors. But that is not bad. We have met, and I no longer need them. I have said to you what there is to say … or at least the most important things. There are other things that I feel and think and—” He broke off, shook his head, and began again. “I cannot withstand the Light much longer. It will strengthen its hold.” Now the tears overflowed and rolled down his cheeks. “If we ever see each other again, I will finally have become him whom you met in Hell. The man who allowed Junipa’s heart to be exchanged. Who rules the Lilim people like a despot. And who surrendered his free will to the Stone Light.”
Merle’s throat was tight. “You could come with us.”
“I am too old,” he said, shaking his head. “Without the power of the Light I would die.”
Yet that’s what you want, isn’t it? Merle thought. But she didn’t say it aloud. The thought hurt, even if she didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t want him to die. But she also didn’t want him to be forever what humanity had long seen him as: the Devil, Satan in person.
He seemed to guess what she was thinking. “The Light has enveloped my soul. I’m too weak to go to my death of my own will. I’ve held out too long for that, fought too long. I could ask you, but that would be cruel and—”
“I can’t do that!”
“I know.” He smiled and looked strangely wise as he did so. “And perhaps that’s best. Every world needs its devil, this one too. It needs the specter of evil in order to recognize why it’s so important to defend the good. In certain ways I’m only fulfilling my duty … even the Stone Light does that. And someday people will again fear Hell as that which it’s been all these millennia: a phantom, som
ething that one may perhaps believe in but doesn’t hold for real. Legends and myths and transfigured rumors, far, far from the daily life of human beings.”
“But only if we succeed in stopping the sphinxes,” said Junipa.
“That is the prerequisite.” Burbridge pulled Merle to him and embraced her. She returned the gesture without thinking about it. “This story down here is not yours, my child. You are the heroine of the story up there. In Hell there are no heroes. Only those who are wrecked. It is not Lord Light who is your enemy. Your opponents are above: the sphinxes, the Son of the Mother. If you succeed in stopping them, it will be a long time before the Stone Light wins power on the upper surface again. If its loyal followers up there are destroyed, it is beaten in your part of the world. And as for this old man, it’s best if you forget him again. For a few hundred or a few thousand years. The Light and I … Lord Light, I should say … we have enough to do in Hell. We need not concern ourselves with the upper world.” He released her from his embrace, but his eyes continued to hold hers. “That is now your task alone.”
“The Lilim won’t attack the humans?”
“No. They have never done that. Not as an army, not to conquer their lands. There are individuals who’ve found their way up there, certainly … but they’re only predators. There will be no war between above and below.”
“But the Light will live on in Hell!”
“Powerful down here, but powerless on the surface. Without its children, the sphinxes, it will probably need thousands of years before it dares a new attempt. Until then it is nothing but what the churches preach: the Tempter, the Evil One, the Fallen Angel, Lucifer—and for all of you, basically, as harmless as a ghost rattling its chains. If it is nothing more than a part of a religion, if it again becomes an empty expression, then it can no longer hurt anyone.”
“He is right,” said the Flowing Queen excitedly. “He really could be right.”
“Go,” said Burbridge once more, this time imploring. “Before—”
“Before it’s too late?” Merle forced herself to smile. “I’ve read that somewhere.”
Then Burbridge laughed and embraced her again. “You see, my child? Just a story. Nothing but a story.”
He kissed her on the forehead, also kissed Junipa, then he stepped back.
The girls looked at him one last time, so they could remember the picture of Charles Burbridge, not Lord Light; the picture of an old man, not the Devil, which he would soon be again.
They departed the Hell of the Lilim through the mirror and walked back into their own world.
THE ABDUCTION
THEY’RE GONE,” JUNIPA SAID.
“What?”
“They’re not in the hiding place anymore.” Piercing the silver veil of the mirror world, Junipa was looking into the Iron Eye, into the room where they’d left the comrades. “There’s no one there now,” she said in distress.
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. I have to look for them.”
Merle swore because she couldn’t see through the mirror herself. All she saw were blurry forms and colors, but no clear pictures. At the moment she couldn’t even make out which mirror the hiding place had lain behind.
“There’s … there’s been a fight,” Junipa said. “The sphinxes—they discovered them.”
“Oh, no!”
“There are three men lying on the floor … three spies. They’re dead. The others are gone.”
“And Vermithrax?”
“I don’t see him.”
“But you can’t miss him!”
Junipa turned toward her, and for perhaps the first time since Merle had known her, her voice sounded irritated.
“Be patient, will you? I have to concentrate.”
Merle bit her lower lip and kept quiet. Her knees were trembling.
Junipa let go of her hand and looked around, turning in all directions among the mirrors. “The Iron Eye is so big. There are too many mirrors. They could be anywhere.”
“Then take me back into the hiding place.”
“Are you really sure? That could be dangerous.”
“I want to see it with my own eyes. Otherwise it’s so … so unreal.”
Junipa nodded. “Stay close by me. Just in case we have to disappear again fast.” She took Merle by the hand again and whispered the glass word, and they walked through a mirror as if through a curtain of moonlight.
The door of the room was shattered into hundreds of mirror fragments, which covered the floor like strewn razor blades. The wall mirrors also showed cracks in several places. One wall, to the girls’ right, was completely destroyed, and it took only seconds for them to realize that this was the way Vermithrax had fled from the sphinxes. The stone wall beneath the remaining glass looked like an open mouth full of missing teeth.
“There must have been many of them,” Junipa declared thoughtfully. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have run away. He’s much stronger than they are.”
Merle had gone down in a crouch beside the three dead men. She quickly saw that the Czarists were beyond help. Andrej was not among them. Merle remembered a fifth spy, a red-haired hulk of a man, who’d looked particularly grotesque in his mummy clothing. He was also missing.
“Merle!”
She looked up, first at Junipa, who’d uttered the terrified cry, then toward the door.
A sphinx was rushing toward them, his speed hypnotic. The sight froze her. But Junipa was already beside her, grabbed her, spoke the word, and pulled her through the nearest mirror. Behind them sounded a shout of surprised fury and then they heard a shrill grinding as the massive sphinx soldier crashed against the glass. A crack appeared inside the mirror world for a moment, then it was extinguished, like a pencil stroke that someone erased from the top to the bottom.
Merle was out of breath. The knowledge of how closely they’d escaped death gradually spread through her. Her heart hammered in her chest, hard and jabbing.
Junipa’s eyes remained expressionless, but her face showed how angry she was. “I told you to stay by me! That was pretty close!”
“I thought perhaps I could still help someone.”
Junipa looked as if she were going to make an angry reply, but then her expression resolved into its usual gentleness. “Yes. Of course.” She looked encouragingly at Merle. “I’m sorry.”
They smiled shyly at each other, then Junipa took Merle by the hand. Together they walked on.
Soon Merle again had the feeling of being lost and had to rely on Junipa’s sense of direction. Now and again they stopped. Junipa looked around, almost sensing, like a predator prowling for prey, touched a mirror wall once or twice, and then hurried on.
“Here!” she said finally, pointing to a mirror. It seemed to Merle that it shone a little more brightly than the others, in an orangey, fiery light.
“There he is! That’s Vermithrax!”
“Wait. Let me look first.” Junipa stepped forward until the tip of her nose touched the glass. When she whispered the word, the surface clouded before her lips. She shoved her face through just far enough to see to the other side, dove through her white breath on the glass as if it were a pitcher of fresh milk. Merle held her hand and had the feeling that Junipa’s fingers grew colder the longer she stayed part in the mirror world, part in the Iron Eye.
She whispered her friend’s name.
A wavelike shuddering ran through the mirror when Junipa pulled her face back. “They’re there. All four.”
“Seth too?”
“Yes. He’s fighting beside Andrej.”
“Really?” The idea surprised her.
Junipa nodded. “What do we do now?”
We have to go to them, Merle told herself. Have to help them. Have to stop the sphinxes from completing their plan. But how? She might be the granddaughter of the Devil, the daughter of a sphinx—but she was still only a fourteen-year-old girl. Any sphinx could kill her with a single stroke. And she didn’t want Junipa to be stabbe
d.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Junipa.
Merle stared past her at the mirror and the light behind it, at the twitching forms, too distorted for her to recognize figures in them. She knew that Vermithrax and the others were fighting for their lives over there, and yet no sound of it crossed over the threshold of the mirror world. No clattering of weapons, no cries, no panting or grim moans. The world could have been destroyed on the other side, but here behind the mirrors it would have been nothing more than pretty fireworks of color and silver.
“Something’s different from before,” Junipa said.
“What?”
Junipa crouched, put one hand on the glass at floor level, whispered the word, and reached through. When she pulled her fingers back, they were clenched into a fist. She held it before Merle’s face and opened it.
Merle stared at what she saw in front of her. Then stretched out a finger and touched it.
“Ice,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Snow,” said Junipa. “It’s only hard because I pressed it together.”
“But that means that Winter is here! Here in the Iron Eye!”
“He can make it snow even inside buildings?” Junipa frowned. Merle had told her of Winter and his search for his beloved Summer. But she still had trouble imagining a season as a flesh-and-blood being who roamed through the mirrored passages of the Eye.
Merle made her decision. “I want to go over there.”
Junipa threw the snow to the floor, where it dissolved into water as soon as it landed. She sighed softly, but finally she nodded. “Yes, we really have to do something.” She thought for a moment and added, “But don’t go all the way through the mirror. As long as you have an arm or a foot on the other side, the mirror will remain permeable. In an emergency, we only need to jump back.”
Merle agreed, even if she hardly heard what Junipa said. She was much too stirred up, her head whirling.
Hand in hand they walked through the mirror.
