Obsidian Mirror (15 page)

Still as winter’s most frozen corpse, Gideon saw the man flicker by; a thin, lank-haired man, his eyes hidden by small blue lenses that seemed to reflect everything.

A man with no substance.

A man like a wraith, an echo. And slinking at his heels, white as paper, the soft-padding wolf.

Safe in his Shee-craft, Gideon let them pass. He watched them merge into the shadow of the house. They left a darkness on the night, a vacuum.

Maybe Jake had been wise not to open the Dwelling. “Because Shee I know,” he breathed to himself. “And humans I know. But what sort of creature are you?”

A starling flew down and landed on the branch beside him. It fixed him with a black sidelong eye and said, “She asks is there anything to report?”

Gideon kept his face calm—they were experts at reading the slightest expression. He made up his mind then in that instant. He would escape them, even if he had to die. She would not own him for all time.

“No,” he said. “Nothing to report.”

Wharton heard voices coming, froze in his examination of the mirror, swore once, slid hurriedly behind the clockwork. He crouched behind a bank of levers just as Piers ushered Sarah through the labyrinth. Venn was close behind them.

Venn looked at her. “There’s nothing to worry about. Piers and I are both here…in case.”

Sarah stared around at the crude webbed labyrinth, the alien, crowded machinery. Then she saw the mirror. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not scared.”

It was a lie. To see it again, this terrible device, the shadowy warped reflection of her face in its depths, terrified her. It was festooned with trailing wires and monitors, and she knew far more than Venn about the devastation it could cause. She tried to sound calm. “Is this it?”

Venn came and stood beside her, so they were both reflected. “This is it. The Chronoptika. An impossibility in itself—a concave mirror that seems flat. It was obtained by a Victorian eccentric called John Harcourt Symmes, back in the 1840s. He claimed it could warp time. But his results were generally failures, though we don’t know for sure. One volume of his journals is missing. His last experiment may have worked.”

She said, watching Piers test systems and flick switches, “What happened to him?”

Venn shrugged, unhappy. “Forget him. We won’t be trying anything as stupid. Just getting the thing calibrated.” He looked at Piers. “The bracelet?”

“Not yet. Stand here please, Sarah. I just need to run some tests—your height, weight, and so on.”

She stepped onto a small Plexiglas platform. “This mirror. How did you get it?”

“A long story.” Venn seemed so tense, he couldn’t keep still; he walked around to Piers and watched him impatiently. “Will she do? She has to.”

“Two minutes.”

“And David Wilde? He worked with you on this, didn’t he?”

Venn raised his head and his eyes were hostile. “I suppose Jake told you that. Leave it, Sarah, I don’t want to talk about David.”

I’ll bet you don’t,
she thought. What about her! She was the one facing the risks. But she bit her lip and told herself to stay calm. This was what she was here for. And she was so close!

“Right.” Piers scuttled around the mirror. “There were a few rather strange readings there, but nothing the system can’t handle. I’ve been trying to build in a reflex barrier—a sort of safety function. We didn’t have it when we lost David, so you should be safer.”

Venn watched, motionless. “She’s ready.”

She said, “Yes.” Defiant, her eyes on his.

“Then put this on, please.”

Piers held a wide silver cuff of metal.
The bracelet.
She stared at it, then held her arm out, tugging up her sleeve. The bracelet was icy around her wrist. It hung a little loose. Her heart thudded, like a tiny vibration in the glass.

“Good. Now…” Piers turned, but Venn grabbed him.

“Wait.” Venn was staring at the shadowy corner behind the generator. Sarah turned quickly, but Venn’s voice was a roar of anger.

“JAKE! Get out from there.”

Nothing.

Then she saw it too, a shadow, lurking close. For a moment she knew the Janus Replicant had crept inside, that it was here. Then it detached itself. Something clattered and Wharton stepped out, looking guilty and dismayed and determined. “Actually, it’s not Jake. It’s me. And I’m afraid I can’t let this charade go on for one second longer. It all stops now.”

“So you see,” the scarred man said quietly, “the mirror is a dangerous thing. Venn is working blindly, with no second chances; he’s lost the bracelet your father was wearing and has only one left. No margin for error. Yet he is obsessed. If he had a subject he considered expendable, he might…”

Jake looked up. “Subject?”

“Someone to experiment on. Someone young, healthy. Expendable. He may ask you. If he does, you must refuse.”

Jake wasn’t listening.
“Sarah.”

“What?”

“She had something she wanted to tell me, and I didn’t listen. But it shouldn’t be her, it should be me!” He grabbed at the door handle, furious. “Let me out of here! Or drive me back, now.” He whipped around. “We have to get back there before…”

He stopped.

Maskelyne was facing him, the scar cruelly obvious now, the dark eyes clear and sad. “I’m sorry to be crude, Jake. But that’s not possible.”

He had a small strange weapon in his hand. It looked like a long-barreled dueling pistol, but it was made of transparent glass. The muzzle was pointed directly at Jake’s head.

Jake stared in disbelief.

“I want my mirror back. You are all I have to trade with. Venn’s beloved godson.”

Jake almost laughed. “Are you crazy? He can’t stand me! You’d be doing him a favor!”

His scorn was scathing. Just for a moment, Maskelyne froze in doubt.

And Jake attacked.

He grabbed the gun; the man twisted away. Jake’s fingers were tight over Maskelyne’s; he tugged, forcing the weapon up, his other hand gripping the man’s throat. Maskelyne was stronger than he looked; they grappled, breathless. Then Jake shoved and kicked, the gun slipped, he touched the trigger. An explosion of brilliance flung him back in the seat, rocking the car, knocking all breath out of him. For a strange, timeless moment the world was splayed darkness, a bruising crash in his ears that became a steady, fierce hammering on the car door. He struggled up.

He got the door open. Sudden bitter cold.

“Jake!”

He was outside. Rebecca was dragging him, holding him up. “What happened?” she gasped. “Are you hurt?”

He could taste blood. He swallowed and the roar in his ears popped; the night was a fog around him. He was shivering with cold and shock.

“Jake! Can you hear me!”

“I’m not hurt.” His lip was cut, his hands too. She stared into the car, her face white.

“Is he dead?” It was a whisper of dread.

The windshield was a cobweb of shattered crystal, its center a neat circular hole. Maskelyne lay slumped head-down over the wheel.

She leaned inside and touched him, feeling chest and neck. “Oh thank God. Thank God. He’s alive.”

Jake grabbed the weapon, then dropped it. Whatever it was, it had fired light, not a bullet. “Let’s go. Before he comes to.”

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance…”

“He tried to kidnap me. And I have to get to Sarah.”

Maskelyne’s hand twitched. He moved, and groaned. Instantly Jake and Rebecca were out and running, between the trees, leaping branches, fleeing down the track to the road. Rebecca was faster; she had the car open and the engine fired up before he got there; breathless, he threw himself inside. “Go.
Go!
”

The tires screeched. Mud flew. Jake was thrown back in the seat.

“Where?” she screamed.

“The Abbey.” He was up on his knees, staring back. The forest was a foggy gloom. He slid down, and took a deep, sore breath. “Let’s hope we get there in time.”

“You will sit there,” Venn said, savagely, “and you will not interfere. Or”—as Wharton opened his mouth—“even speak a single word!”

“Nonsense. It’s my duty.”

“My God!” Venn was eye to eye with him in seconds. “Tell me why I shouldn’t put you into the thing instead of her!”

It was a real threat. Wharton sat silent.

Piers said, “Excellency. We have to do it now.”

Sarah said, “It’s all right. Do it. Get it over with.” She looked down and saw that the bracelet was slowly closing tight around her wrist, shrinking like a locking handcuff, or a snake devouring its own tail. Venn pulled her hurriedly, inside the green strands of the web.

Power clicked on. Deep in the obsidian glass, a charge flickered. Light slid and glimmered.

Sarah held her breath.
This is for you Max,
she thought.
For Cara, for all of you. For Mum and Dad.

For ZEUS.

Voices.

Doors slamming.

The bracelet locked. Venn turned.

And then the darkness of the mirror stretched itself out for her, and she gasped. She was wrapped in it. The surface was gone; it was a great black hole of darkness, sucking everything in and down.

For a second, the way in was there, she saw it, it lay open and wide and clear, the way home, the way back, and then with a spark of agony it collapsed, and she was caught and tangled and trapped by a mesh of sticky threads, held by them when she wanted to crumple on her hands and knees, giddy and sick.

The bracelet fell off and rolled into the dark. She struggled up into Wharton’s grip and saw Jake was there, shouting and arguing with Venn, a tall red-haired girl running in behind him. Their voices were all confused in her head, mixed with the echo of carriages, the stink of horses, the mirage of the city on her retina and in her ears.

She tugged herself out of the sticky maze, away from Wharton’s concern, letting the terrible disappointment fade down into a dull ache of failure. She sat on a chair Piers hastily fetched and put her head in her hands. She was shivering with cold.

Then she saw they were all staring at her, silent.

“What?” she whispered.

Venn crouched, urgent. “I said, did you feel anything? Anything at all?”

She swallowed. Wharton said, “She looks so pale,” but she ignored that and said, “Yes.”

Venn flashed a glance of triumph at Piers. “I knew it! The bracelet triggered it!”

“No.” Sarah’s voice was a croak; she swallowed and stood up, wiping her face with her sleeve. “No. Not the bracelet. Nothing was working until Jake burst in. It was Jake who triggered it. And then I saw…
I saw another world.
”

It was worth the failure, she thought, worth the loss. To see the astonishment in Jake’s eyes. And the joy in Venn’s.