The Glass Word (18 page)

To Venice,
she thought. Yes, she would take him to Venice if he wanted it.

Just as in Hell, in the mirror world there was no difference between day and night. However, now and then the darkness appeared to descend on the other side of one of the mirrors or the morning to dawn; then the shine of the silver changed, the flickering of the colors. Their light also fell on Junipa and Seth and bathed them sometimes in one color, sometimes in another, from dark turquoise to
milky lemon yellow. Once Junipa turned to the priest and saw the flaming red from a mirror gush over his face and strengthen his determined, warriorlike expression. Then again a gentle, heavenly blue covered him, and the hardness left his features.

In this place between places there were still many wonders to explore. The riddle of the colors and their effect was only one of countless mysteries.

She wasn't able to say how much time passed before they reached their destination. They didn't speak about it: It was several hours, certainly. But while behind one mirror only moments passed, behind the next it might perhaps be years. Still a secret, still a challenge.

Seth stopped beside her and regarded the mirror that rose in front of him. “Is that it?”

She wondered if the priest were filled with rage alone or whether there wasn't also a little fear, a trace of insecurity in the light of the grandeur of the environment. But Seth betrayed nothing of what was going on inside him. He hid his true nature behind anger and bitterness, and his only drive was the desire for revenge.

“Yes,” she said, “behind it lies Venice. The chamber of the Pharaoh in the Doge's palace.”

He touched the mirror surface with the palm of his hand, as if he hoped to be able to pass through it without Junipa and the glass word. He bent forward, breathed on it, and rubbed the cloud away with his fist, as if he were
removing a spot of dirt. If there had been a spot there, it would only have been the hate in him, something that would not be simply wiped away.

Seth regarded his mirror image for a little while longer, as though he couldn't believe that the man in the glass was a reflection of himself. Then he blinked, took a deep breath, and drew his sickle sword.

“Are you ready?” Junipa asked, and she already saw the answer in him. He nodded.

“I'll take a look into the room first,” she said. “You'll want to know if the Pharaoh is alone.”

To her astonishment, he refused. “Not necessary.”

“But—”

“You understood me, didn't you?”

“There could be ten sphinxes there standing around the Pharaoh! Or a hundred!”

“Perhaps. But I don't think so. I think they're gone. The sphinxes are on the way back into the Iron Eye or are already gathered there. They've got what they wanted. Venice doesn't interest them anymore.” He laughed coldly. “And Amenophis not at all.”

“The sphinxes have abandoned him?”

“Just as he did the Horus priests.”

Junipa said nothing. The Pharaoh's betrayal had struck Seth more deeply than he would have thought possible. The two agreed on nothing, and yet Amenophis was anchored in his soul. Not as a human being, for Seth was
indifferent to him, yes, he even despised him. But as his creation, which he'd awakened to life and which stood for all that Seth had once believed in.

What Seth was planning was far more than only the taking of another's life. It was a betrayal of himself, of his goals, of all the possibilities that his pact with Amenophis had opened to him. It was also a clean break with his own works in all the decades since he planned and supervised the reawakening of the Pharaoh.

Either way, it was the end.

Junipa took hold of his arm, whispered the glass word, and pulled him through the mirror.

At once the pressure was there in her chest again, the seeking and squeezing and dragging of the Light.

The huge room behind the mirror was empty. At least at first sight. But then she discovered the divan of jaguar skins, which emerged from the semidarkness on the other side of the room. It was night in Venice, and also here in the salon; only a weak glow came through the window. Torchlight from the Piazza San Marco, she guessed. It rested softly on the patterns of the carved panels, on the brushstrokes of the oil paintings and frescoes, on the crystal pendants of the chandeliers.

Something moved on the divan. A dark silhouette in front of a still darker hill of skins.

No one spoke.

Junipa felt as if she weren't really there, as if she were
observing the scene from a faraway place. As in a dream.
Yes,
she thought,
a great, horrible dream, and I can do nothing except watch. Not take part, not run away, only look on.

Glass shattered behind her and tinkled onto the floor in a cascade of silver droplets. Seth had smashed the wall mirror through which they'd entered the salon. No possibility of retreat anymore. Junipa looked around hastily, but there were no other mirrors here, and she doubted she would get far enough in the corridors of the palace to find another.

Amenophis rose from his divan of jaguar skins, a small, slender figure, who moved slightly bent, as if he carried a terrible weight on his shoulders.

“Seth,” he said wearily. Junipa wondered if he were drunk. His voice sounded numb and at the same time very young.

Amenophis, the resurrected Pharaoh and leader of the Empire, stepped into the half light from the window.

He was still a child. Only a boy, who had been turned into something that he might never have become without gold paint and makeup. He was no older than twelve or thirteen, at least a year younger than herself. And yet he'd commanded his armies to rule the world for four decades.

Junipa stood stock-still among the ruins of the mirror. The shards were spread wide over the dark parquet. It looked as though she were swimming in the middle of a starry sky.

Seth walked past her up to the Pharaoh. If he was looking around for guards or other opponents, he didn't betray it by any motion. He stared straight ahead at the ordinary-looking boy who waited for him in front of the divan.

“Are they all gone?” he asked.

Amenophis did not move. Said nothing.

“They've left you, haven't they.” Seth's tone was without any arrogance or spiteful pleasure. A statement, nothing else. “The sphinxes are gone. And without the Horus priests … yes, what are you without us, Amenophis?”

“We are the Pharaoh,” said the boy. He was smaller than Junipa, very slight and unprepossessing. He sounded sulky but also a little resigned, as if in his heart he'd accepted his fate. And then Junipa realized there would be no spectacular final battle between the two of them. No wild swordplay, no murderous duel over tables and chairs, no antagonists who swung through the room from the lamps and the curtains.

This was the end, and it was coming quietly and without tumult. Like the end of a serious disease, a gentle death after a long illness.

“Were all the priests executed?” asked Seth.

“You know that.”

“You could have let them go.”

“We had given our word: If you failed, they would die.”

“You already broke your word once when you betrayed the Horus priests.”

“No reason to do it a second time.” The boy's smile belied his words as he added, “Even we learn from our mistakes sometimes.”

“Not today.”

Amenophis took a few steps to the right, to a large water basin beside the divan. He put his hands in and washed them absently. Junipa almost expected that he would pull out a weapon and point it at Seth. But Amenophis only rubbed his fingers clean and shook them briefly, so that the droplets whirled in all directions, before he again turned to the priest.

“Our armies are inconceivably large. Millions upon millions. We have the strongest men as guards, fighters from Nubia and the old Samarkand. But we are tired. So tired.”

“Why don't you call for your guards?”

“They left when the sphinxes disappeared. The priests were dead, and suddenly there were only living corpses in this palace.” He let out a cackling laugh, which didn't sound either real or especially full of humor. “The Nubians looked at the mummies, then us, and they realized that they were the only ones alive in this building.”

He had the council murdered,
flashed through Junipa's mind.
The entire City Council of Venice.

“They left us a short time later; secretly, of course. Though we had long observed what was going on in their heads.” He shrugged. “The Empire is destroying itself.”

“No,” said Seth. “You destroyed it. At the moment when you had my priests executed.”

“You never loved us.”

“But we respected you. We Horus priests were always loyal and would have continued to be, if you had not given the sphinxes preference over us.”

“The sphinxes were only interested in their own intrigues, that is true.”

“Insight too late.”

For the first time Amenophis spoke of himself in the singular. “What shall I say?” The most powerful boy in the world smiled, but it distorted his face like his reflection on the moving surface of the water basin. “I have slept for four thousand years, and I can do it again. But the world will not forget me, will it? That is also a form of immortality. No one can forget what I have done to the world.”

“And are you proud of that?” asked Junipa, her first words since her arrival. Amenophis didn't deign to answer her, not even with a glance. But suddenly something became clear to her: The two were speaking Egyptian with each other; and yet she understood what they said. And at the same time she understood what Arcimboldo had meant when he told her, “As guide through the mirror world, you are a master of all voices, all tongues. For what good would a guide be if he didn't know the language of the lands through which he led others?” How could she have guessed before what that was going to mean? It was
still hard for her to grasp the whole truth now. Did that really mean that she understood each of the languages that were spoken in the countless worlds?
All voices, all tongues
echoed through her mind, and she grew quite dizzy with it.

Amenophis pulled her out of her astonishment. “Immortality is better than what you gave me,” he said to Seth. “A few decades, no more. Perhaps they would have made a century. But you were already tired of me, weren't you? How long would you have tolerated me? You wanted to take my place … poor Seth, you were quite ill with envy and ambition. And who can blame you for that? You were the one who solved the riddles of the suboceanic kingdoms. You gave the Empire all its power. And now look at you! Only a man without hair and with a sword in his hand that he never even saw until a few days ago, much less carried.”

The Horus priest was standing with his back to Junipa, but she saw him tense. Death surged from every pore.

“All illusion,” said Amenophis, “all masquerade. Like the gold on our skin.” He ran a finger through the smudged gold paint on his face and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

“The Empire is no illusion. It is real.”

“Is it? Who will tell me, then, that it is not one of your illusions? There you're a master, Seth. Illusions. Masks. Sleights of hand. Others might have thought it was magic,
but I know the truth. You explored the remains of the suboceanic kingdoms as a scholar. But the learned man has become a charlatan. You know how to influence the minds of men, how to delude them. Giant falcons and monsters, Seth, those are the toys of children but not the weapons with which one manages an empire. At least the sphinxes were right about that.” The Pharaoh made a skipping turn and sank back onto the divan, back into the shadows. His weary voice floated into the darkness like a bird with a lame wing beat. “Is all this illusion? Tell me, Seth! Did you really awaken me to life or am I still lying in my burial chamber in the pyramid of Amun-Ka-Re? Have I really become the conqueror of the world, or is that only a dream you have conjured up for me? And is it true that all my loyal followers have left me and I am now all alone in a palace full of mummies—although perhaps I am one myself and have never left my grave? Tell me the truth, priest! What is illusion, and what is reality?”

Seth had not moved at all. Junipa moved slowly along the wall. She had a vague hope of making it to the door before one of the two of them noticed her.

“Do you really believe that?” asked Seth. Junipa stopped. Yet the words weren't directed to her, but to Amenophis. “Do you actually think that the events of the past forty years are nothing but an illusion?”

“I know what you are capable of,” said the Pharaoh with a shrug. “Not real magic like the sphinxes, but you
know all about deception. Perhaps in truth I am still laid out on the sandstone block in my pyramid, and you are standing beside me, your hand on my forehead—or whatever was necessary to plant all these images in my head. With every year that has passed and with every minute of the recent days my certainty has become greater: Nothing of all this is
true,
Seth! I am dreaming! My mind is caught in a huge, unique illusion! I have played the game, moved the pieces on the board, and had my fun. Why not? In truth, there was never anything to lose.”

Junipa reached the door, slowly pressed down the gigantic latch. And yes, the high oaken door swung open! A draft of cool air came from the corridor and blew through her hair. But still she did not run away. The last meeting between the Pharaoh and his creator held her fast with a macabre fascination. She had to know what happened next. Had to see it.

Slowly Seth began walking up to the divan.

“Even my death is only an illusion,” said Amenophis. From the mouth of a twelve-year-old, the sentence sounded as unreal as if he were rattling off a very complicated mathematical formula. Junipa was reminded again that the Pharaoh was much older than his body made him appear. Inconceivably older.