Obsidian Mirror (33 page)

“Me?” she said.

“Of course you.” The Janus-image shook its head, looking around at the others, its thin face tilted with false astonishment. “Do you mean she really hasn’t told you?”

Wharton was watching her. Sarah glanced at him. For a moment he knew she was afraid, in some silent plea to him, but he said it anyway. “She’s told us enough.”

The Replicant smiled. It took its glasses off and polished them on its sleeve. “About her mission? Why they’ve sent her? She is part of a rebel organization that calls itself ZEUS.”

“We know about ZEUS,” Wharton snapped.

“Really?” It put the glasses back on and gazed at Wharton through them. “And do you know that she’s here to break your precious mirror into a thousand pieces?”

She looked at Wharton.

Appalled, he said, “Sarah?”

Her face was pale, her lips pressed tight. And she was silent.

Jake said, “What’s happening?”

Venn didn’t answer. He folded his arms and stood silent and grim on the steps of the house.

Behind Gideon, the Shee were flocking from the Wood. They carried bells and chimes; many beat drums, and the deep, throbbing rhythm made starlings rise from the trees and call to each other across the sky. The snow had stopped falling; now it lay deep and still, and the clouds were clearing.

High above, like a dust of diamonds on black velvet, the stars were coming out, shards and slivers of brilliance, eerie over the frozen Wood and the blue-white hummocks of the lawns.

The Shee wore white and silver. Jake stared at them, astonished; they were a wild army of guizers, mummers, gaberlunzies, masked and costumed with the remnants of ancient Christmases. He saw a ragged St. George, a black-clad Moor, a creature tailed and spined like a capering dragon, white fire flashing from its mouth. He saw morris men and caparisoned knights on skeletal horses. Tall beautiful beings like women walked out of the trees and turned their emerald eyes on him.

Behind, in the depths of the Wood, stealthier things moved; jewels and scales caught the starlight.

Shapes slunk like wolves.

He said, “Where is she?”

Venn’s voice was rough. “There.”

Summer came sitting elegantly on a vehicle Jake’s eyes could not quite focus on, a great glass sleigh, he
thought, or maybe a crystal carriage, pulled by a huddle of her people, their hair bright, their eyes cold as the moon, but as they drew near the steps the carriage dwindled; it became a child’s simple wooden sled, painted in faded blue.

Summer stepped down and stood barefoot in the snow. She said, “So you got back! Without your lovely wife.”

Venn snarled, “This time.”

“Or the long-lost father.” She smiled narrowly at Jake. “What a pity.”

“What are you doing here?” Venn glanced at the dark house, the snowdrift in the hall. “What’s happened?”

She ran lightly up the steps and peered in at the snow-covered hall. “Your enemy is inside your defenses, Oberon. And I’ve agreed to help.”

Venn snorted. “For what price?”

She reached out and took his hand. “A great treasure. And you can’t stop me, because Sarah has invited me in.”

Jake shot a glance at Gideon. The changeling’s green eyes were uneasy.

Venn was silent. He looked over the noisy, crazy army. Then he said, “Summer, I may need your help now. But believe me, if things weren’t desperate you’d be the last person I’d…”

“She was so clever!”

“Who?”

“Sarah. Did you know she can become invisible?”

He stared at her, as if nothing she said could be trusted. He said, “I’ve spent years keeping you out.”

She touched his fingers. “Then it’s time things changed.”

Jake watched, not sure what was happening. Summer seriously scared him. Finally Venn said, “All right. But just you. You don’t need this rabble to deal with Janus.”

She laughed. “So true. But they’ll wait in a ring around your house. There’ll be no way out for this Replicant.”

She made a signal to Gideon to stand aside. He didn’t move. “Let me come with you.”

She laughed. “Why should I need you? Stay here.” She pulled the string and the mare’s jaw clacked. “Stay and play, like the rest.”

She turned away, and swept past Jake, and he saw how Gideon looked after her, a look of pure hatred.

Venn led Summer into the Abbey. As she passed over the iron set into the threshold, Jake saw how she shivered, but Venn held her white fingers tight, and then they were inside, hurrying through the ice-cold stillness of the empty rooms.

Jake looked back. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Gideon turned the gray horse’s skull to face him, and moved its jaw. “I’m under a spell, Jake,” it clacked, in a sour, bony voice. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“But is it true?” Wharton snapped. “What he says? You told us…”

Sarah shook her head. “It’s not that simple. He’s trying to turn you against me.”

She glanced around, desperate. She was cold and shivering, despite Wharton’s coat, which he’d draped around her shoulders. Where was Jake when she needed him? Where was Piers?

“You’ve lied to us all along,” Rebecca said.

“You can talk! No! Listen to me! Janus is the future. A possible future. It all depends on what Venn does with the mirror.”

Maskelyne, standing between the glass and the Replicant, stared at her as if he no longer knew whom to trust.

“What do you mean?”

“What she means,” Janus said, smiling, “is that if Venn succeeds in his plan to bring back his wife, it will have wider repercussions. The mirror will become a priceless artifact, and there will be no way he can keep it secret. In about a hundred years from now this faction that calls itself ZEUS tries to…”

“He’s lying.” Sarah stepped up to Wharton. She
shook her head, furious. “He knows I can’t tell you. I dare not tell you.”

Wharton said quietly, “You have to. How can we understand otherwise?”

Sarah looked at Maskelyne, then at Rebecca. She felt suddenly so tired, she just wanted to crumple somewhere and rest, but then in the black depths of the mirror something moved, and she caught a brief flicker in the corner of the room.

She stopped. Rebecca gave a gasp of delight.

Wharton turned.

Venn and Jake were standing in the doorway of the Monk’s Walk. Just behind them was an astonishingly pretty young woman wearing a simple black dress, and, Wharton noticed in surprise, no shoes.

“Jake!
Thank God!
What happened?”

Jake said, “Too much to explain now.”

“And your father?” Wharton glanced at Venn, who shook his head.

The woman came in. She walked in a strangely delicate, girlish way, and her smile was so sweet, Wharton felt oddly troubled by it.

She looked at Janus with open curiosity and Janus looked at her.

At once Sarah knew the Replicant was at a loss; that it had encountered something outside its knowledge.

“Who are you?” it snarled.

“Summer is one of my names.” She stared in fascination at the mirror. “So this is it. Your obsession. Your gateway to bliss.” She was talking to Venn, but he had turned to Sarah.

He said, “So what’s the world like in your time, Sarah? Is it so terrible that you can’t tell us about it? Do you want my mirror to change things, to make things better? Or is it so perfect that you don’t want any chance of it being spoiled?”

His voice was raw with bitterness. Sarah stared back at him. Then she came up close to him and stood face-to-face, her blond hair short and ragged.

She said, “There is no world. In my time, the world is gone. All the people, the animals, the cities. Destroyed by a madman. And do you know what he used to destroy it? No meteor from space, no terrible plague, no nuclear explosion.
He used your mirror, Venn. Your mirror destroyed my world.
”

All the lights went on.

With a whine of power the web shuddered.

The doors slammed. Every machine and piece of cable in the room seemed to flicker into sudden new strength.

From nowhere Piers voice crackled from a speaker, making Wharton jump.

“The house is secure, Excellency. Welcome home.”