The Glass Word (24 page)

“This must be the deepest point of the Iron Eye,” Serafin said. “Look down there.”

From all the entrances to the mighty mirror temple, streams of water were splashing and gurgling into the hall, some only small rivulets, some as wide as brooks.

Lalapeya cautiously bent a little farther forward and looked down over the edge of the drop-off. “This is all going to be flooded soon, when the snow in the upper levels is completely melted.”

Vermithrax was still unable to take his eyes off the tower-high stature. “Is
that
her body?”

At first Merle had had the same thought, but now she knew better. “No, only a statue.”

“Where is her proper body, then?”

“Over there,”
the Queen said in Merle's head.
“Look to the right, past the front paws. You see that low altar? And what is lying on it?”

Merle strained and blinked and tried to make something out. It was far away. The floor of the hall lay deep below them; the balcony ran around the upper third of the wall. Whatever the Queen intended, they could reach it only with Vermithrax's help.

Merle discovered the altar just as she was about to give up. She also saw the body that was lying on it. Stretched out on its side, with the four paws pointed toward them. A wild cat. A lioness. She was no bigger than an ordinary animal; on the contrary, she appeared to Merle much more delicate, almost fragile. Her surface was gray, as if it were dusty—or stone.

Merle pointed out her discovery to the others.

“She's made of stone,” Vermithrax purred. He sounded as if he felt a little flattered.

“I was not always,” said the Queen with Merle's voice so that all could hear her. “When I laid aside that body, it was of flesh and blood. It must have turned to stone over all the millennia. I did not know that.”

“That could be due to the touch of the Stone Light,” said Lalapeya thoughtfully.

“Yes,” agreed the Queen. “Possibly.”

Serafin was still holding Merle's hand. He looked back and forth from her to the slender lion body far below. It seemed to him that with every moment the gurgling was a little louder, stronger, angrier. Not all the openings in the walls were at floor level; some, like the balcony, lay dozens of yards high, and the water plunged into the space below with tremendous force. The ice on the ledge where they stood was also melting, surrounding them all with slush and shallow puddles. Here and there it was already dripping over the edge into the depths below.

“We must go down there.”
The Queen's voice sounded somber and ominous. And once more Merle became aware that she was hiding something from her. The last part of the truth. Perhaps the most unpleasant.

Just tell me, she demanded in her head, what is it?

The Queen hesitated.
“When the time comes.”

No! Now!

The hesitation lengthened, became stubborn silence.

What's wrong, damn it? Merle tried to sound as demanding as possible—which wasn't so easy when you
were only saying the words in your head and not with your mouth.

“We cannot call everything into question now.”

No one's even talking about that.

“Please, Merle. It is already hard enough.”

Merle was going to argue when Serafin tugged on her hand.

“Merle!”

She whirled around tensely. “What is it?”

“Something's not right down there!”

“Absolutely not,” Vermithrax agreed.

Lalapeya said nothing. She was stiff with horror.

At first everything seemed unchanged: the gigantic statue of the demonic Sekhmet; next to it, much smaller, her lifeless body on the altar; and everywhere around them the water, flowing down out of the halls and passages of the Iron Eye and covering the floor.

No new arrivals. No sphinxes far and wide.

The mirror images! The reflections of the powerful statue had begun to move. At a fleeting look it might have been because of the curtains of water that streamed down the walls and broke up and distorted the reflections. But then gentle quaking and trembling turned into loud thundering. Gigantic limbs tensed and stretched. A titanic body awakened from its rigidity.

Merle felt as if she were falling miles deep into a chasm of silver. Everything around her whirled for a moment,
faster and faster. She felt sick with dizziness. Only gradually did the truth emerge from the whirlpool of impressions.

Some of the reflections were in fact from the statue, and those continued motionless. But the rest reflected a being that had only the size and part of the lion body in common with the statue.

Serafin's hand clutched Merle's fingers. He'd seen this creature once before, when the Egyptian collector's magic had pulled it from the wreckage of the cemetery island of San Michele.

The Son of the Mother—the largest of all sphinxes, hideous and misshapen like a distorted image of all those who revered him—had been in the temple the entire time. In front of the wall, seen at a distance, he had appeared to be one of the innumerable mirror images.

Now they knew better.

“Down!” whispered Lalapeya sharply. “He hasn't noticed us yet!”

All followed her direction. Merle's joints had turned to ice. Vermithrax had raised the obsidian hairs of his mane in excitement and extended all his claws, ready for the last, the greatest of all fights.

Maybe the shortest.

What gave the sphinxes refined, almost perfect looks, in the Son of the Mother looked displaced, crooked, distorted. The sphinx god measured some dozen yards from his muscular human chest to his lion hindquarters. His hands had
grotesque, knotted fingers, and many too many of them; they looked almost like spiders' bodies and were big enough to mash Merle and her companions with one blow. His claws were yellow and did not retract. With every step they punched a row of three-foot-deep holes in the temple's mirror floor. The four lion legs and the two human arms were too long and had too many joints, bent and stretched by muscle cords that lay strangely wrong under pelt and skin, as if the Son of the Mother had far more of them than any other sphinx.

And then his face.

The eyes were too small for his size and glinted with the same light as that of the Stone Light. His cheekbones were unnaturally prominent, and in the wings of his nose were cavelike nostrils. His forehead resembled a steep wall of furrows and scars, stemming from forgotten battles long ago. The teeth behind the scaly lips were a wall of stalactites and stalagmites, the entry to a stinking grotto, whose puffs of breath took form as crimson clouds. Only his hair was silky and shining, full and long, and of the deepest black.

Merle knew that they were all having the same thought: There was no point in it anymore. Nothing and no one could stand against such a creature. Certainly not the delicate lioness who lay lifeless down there on the altar.

“I had forgotten how dangerous he is,”
the Queen said tonelessly.

Marvelous, thought Merle bitterly. Just exactly what I wanted to hear.

“Oh,”
responded the Queen hastily,
“I can beat him! I have already done it once.”

That was pretty long ago.

“You are quite right there.”

The Queen appeared to have lost some of the optimism she'd displayed recently at every mention of the battle with the Son of the Mother. The Queen was daunted, whether she wanted to admit it or not. And deep inside Merle felt a fear that was not her own. The Flowing Queen was afraid.

“What's he going to do?” whispered Vermithrax with a dry voice.

The Son of the Mother was pacing back and forth in front of the grotesque statue of Sekhmet, sometimes faster, sometimes skulking, like a hunter circling his prey. His gaze was directed toward the tiny body at the feet of the statue, the petrified lion cadaver, which seemed to disquiet him far more than the masses of water that would soon overflow the mirrored temple.

“He doesn't know what to do,” Lalapeya whispered. She had pushed her bandaged hands to the edge of the balcony. She must be in pain, but she didn't show it. “Just look how nervous he is. He knows he must make a decision, but he doesn't dare to take the last step.”

“What last step?” Vermithrax asked.

“To destroy his mother's body,” said Serafin. “That's why he's here. He wants to erase Sekhmet for all time, so that he doesn't fare again the way he did the last time.”

“Yes,”
said the Flowing Queen to Merle.
“We must hurry.”

Merle nodded. “Vermithrax, you must take me down there.”

The obsidian lion raised a bushy eyebrow. “Past him?”

“We have no choice, do we?”

The Flowing Queen had still not said a word about how she was going to change back into her own body from Merle's. But now, like an unexpected stroke of lightning, Merle realized that obviously that was where the Queen's last secret lay. That was what she had concealed from her the whole time.

Good, Merle thought, the time has come. Tell me.

She had the feeling that for the first time, the Queen was searching for words. Her hesitation became unbearable.

Hurry up, will you!

“When I leave you, Merle …”
She stopped, stuck.

What then?

“When I leave your body, you will die.”

Merle was silent. Thinking nothing. Suddenly there was only emptiness in her.

“Merle, please …”
Again hesitation, longer this time.
“If there were another possibility somehow …”

Her consciousness was swept away. No thoughts. Not
even memories, things to feel sad about. No omissions, no unfulfilled wishes. Nothing.

“I am sorry.”

Agreed, Merle thought.

“What?”

I agree.

“Is that all?”

What did you expect? That I'd scream and rage and defend myself?

A moment of silence, then:
“I do not know what I expected.”

Perhaps I even suspected it.

“You did not.”

Yes, perhaps.

“I … oh, damn it.”

Explain it to me. Why can't I live without you?

“That is not it. It is not the change that is the reason. It is rather that …”

Yes?

“It is true that I can leave your body without your being harmed. If I move from one living creature to another, that is not a problem. But Sekhmet's body is dead, you understand? It has no life of its own anymore. And therefore—”

Therefore you must take one with you.

“Yes. Something like that.”

You intend to revive that stone corpse down there with my strength.

“There is no other way. I am sorry.”

You knew that the whole time, didn't you?

Silence.

Didn't you?

“Yes.”

Serafin pressed her hand again. “What are you two talking about?” His eyes were filled with concern.

“Nothing.” Merle thought it sounded hollow and empty. “It's all right.”

At the same moment the Queen took control of her voice and before Merle could stop her, she said, “The others have a right to know. They shall decide.”

“Decide what?” Serafin straightened up mistrustfully. Lalapeya also shifted closer. “What do you mean?” she asked.

In vain Merle concentrated, trying to push back the Queen's voice, as she had once before, in Hell. But this time she was unsuccessful. She could only listen as the Queen explained to the others through her mouth what was going to happen. Must happen.

“No,” whispered Serafin. “That can't be.”

“There must be another way,” growled Vermithrax, and it sounded almost like a threat.

Lalapeya inched over to Merle and embraced her. She was going to say something, had already opened her lips, when a light, girlish voice exclaimed, “You can't be serious!”

Merle looked up. She couldn't believe it. “Junipa!”

She detached herself from Lalapeya and Serafin, slithered
as quickly as she could away from the balcony edge through the snow and water, finally leaped up, and enclosed Junipa in her arms.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt? What happened?” For a few moments the words of the Flowing Queen were forgotten, just as her own fate was. She couldn't let go of Junipa, had to keep staring at her like a ghost who'd appeared in front of her from nowhere. “Where's Seth? What did he do to you?”

Junipa smiled shyly, but she seemed to be trying to conceal pain that was tormenting her. The grip of the Stone Light. The invisible claws that were stretching toward her heart.

The Son of the Mother continued to tramp back and forth in the hall below. He was much too deep in his hate-filled thoughts to notice the goings-on up on the balcony. And he was still hesitant to destroy the body of his mother. His heavy breathing and snorting echoed back from the walls, and the cracking and shattering of the mirror floor under his claws sounded like icebergs splitting as they bumped together.

Vermithrax was making an effort to keep his eye on the beast. But at the same time he kept looking over at the two girls. Serafin also crept away from the mirror edge to the others, gave Junipa a quick hug, and then turned to her four companions, who'd appeared behind her. The entire group had walked out of a mirror wall,
on which the last ice patterns were gradually melting.

Serafin greeted Dario, Tiziano, and Aristide. Dario and Tiziano were supporting Eft, whose right leg was emergency-splinted with a piece of wood; it looked as if someone had hacked it out of a bookcase with a blade, like an oversized splinter. Eft was pressing the lipless edges of her mermaid mouth firmly together. She was in pain, but she wasn't complaining.

“She insisted on coming to you,” explained Junipa, who'd noticed Serafin's look. “I found her and the others in a library.”