The Water Mirror (4 page)

Merle awoke. In the first moment she thought that a sound had snatched her
from sleep. But there was nothing. Complete silence.

The Flowing Queen. Everyone had heard of her. And yet no one knew what she
really was. When the galleys of the Egyptians had tried to enter the Venetian lagoon,
after their campaigns of extermination all over the world, something unusual had
happened. Something wonderful. The Flowing Queen had put them to flight. The Egyptian
Empire, the greatest and most horrific power in the history of the world, had had to
withdraw with its tail between its legs.

Since then, the legends had twined about the Flowing
Queen.

It was certain she was not a creature of flesh and blood. She was in and
throughout the waters of the lagoon, the narrow canals of the city, as well as the broad
expanses of water between the islands. The city councillors maintained that they had
regular conversations with her and acted according to her wishes. If in fact she had
ever begun to speak, however, it was never in the presence of the simple folk.

Some said she was only as big as a droplet that was sometimes here,
sometimes there; others swore she was the water itself, some just a tiny swallow. She
was more power than creature, and for many even a deity, who was in every thing and
every creature.

The campaigns of the tyrants might sow grief, death, and desolation,
Amenophis and his Empire might subjugate the world—but the aura of the Flowing
Queen had protected the lagoon for more than thirty years now, and so there was no one
in the city who did not feel obligated to her. In the churches Masses were held in her
honor, the fishermen sacrificed a portion of every catch, and even the secret guild of
the thieves showed her gratitude by keeping their hands to themselves on certain days in
the year.

There—again a sound! This time there was no doubt about it.

Merle sat up in bed. The tendrils of her dreams still
lapped at her senses like the foaming tide at one's feet during a walk on the
beach.

The sound was repeated. Metal grating on metal, coming up from the
courtyard. Merle recognized that sound—the lid of the well. It sounded the same
way all over Venice when the heavy metal covers over the wells were opened. The cisterns
existed all over the city, in every open piazza and in most courtyards. Their round
walls were carved with patterns and fabulous creatures of stone. Gigantic semicircular
covers protected the precious drinking water from dirt and rats.

But who was busying himself about a well at this time of night? Merle got
up and wiped the sleep from her eyes. A little wobbly on her legs, she went over to the
window.

She was just in time to see in the moonlight a form climb over the edge of
the well and slide into the dark well shaft. A moment later hands reached out of the
darkness, grasped the edge of the lid, and pulled it, grating, over the opening.

Merle emitted a sharp gasp. Instinctively she ducked, although the form
had disappeared into the well long since.

Eft! There was no doubt that she had been the shadowy figure in the
courtyard. But what would make the housekeeper climb into a well in the middle of the
night?

Merle turned around, intending to wake Junipa.

The bed was empty.

“Junipa?” she whispered tensely. But there
was no corner of the small room she could not have seen from there. No hiding place.

Unless . . .

Merle bent and looked under both beds. But there was no trace of the
girl.

She went to the door. It had no bolt that the girls could have slid closed
for the night, no lock. Outside in the hallway it was utterly quiet.

Merle took a deep breath. The floor under her naked feet was bitterly
cold. Quickly she pulled her dress and sweater on over her nightgown and pushed her feet
into her worn-out leather shoes; they reached beyond her ankle and had to be tied, which
at the moment required much too much time. But she couldn't possibly go looking
for Junipa and run the danger of tripping over her own shoelaces. Hastily she laced and
tied them, but her fingers trembled, and it took twice as long as usual.

Finally she slipped out into the passageway and pulled the door closed
behind her. An ominous hissing came from somewhere in the distance. It didn't
sound like an animal, more like a steam engine, but she wasn't sure whether it was
coming from here in the house. Soon after, she heard it again, followed by a rhythmic
pounding. Then silence again. Only as she was already on her way down the stairs did it
occur to Merle that there were only two inhabited houses on the Canal of the
Expelled—
Arcimboldo's workshop and that of the
weaver on the other side.

The whole house smelled strange, a little of lubricating oil, of polished
steel, and the acrid odor she knew from the glass workshops on the lagoon island of
Murano. She had been there one single time, when an old glassmaker had contemplated
taking her to work for him. Right after she arrived, he ordered her to scrub his back in
the bath. Merle had waited until he was sitting in the water and then run as fast as she
could back to the landing point. Stowing away in a boat, she'd managed to get back
to the city. Such cases were not unknown at the orphanage, and although the authorities
weren't at all happy to see her again, they had enough decency not to send her
back to Murano.

Merle reached the landing on the third floor. Until then she'd met
no one and discovered no sign of life. Where might the other apprentices be sleeping?
Perhaps on the fourth floor, like her and Junipa. She knew at least that Eft was not in
the house, but she avoided giving too much thought to what the odd woman was looking for
in the well.

There remained only Arcimboldo himself. And, of course, Junipa. What if
she'd only had to go to the bathroom? The tiny chamber, in which a round shaft in
the floor ran straight down to the canal, was on the fourth floor too. Merle
hadn't thought to look there, and now she cursed herself for it. She'd
forgotten the most obvious
thing—perhaps because in the
orphanage it was always a bad sign when one of the children disappeared from his or her
bed at night. Only a few of them ever reappeared again.

She was about to turn around to look, when the hissing started again. It
sounded even more artificial, machinelike, and the tone made her shudder.

She thought she heard something else, too, very briefly only, soft in the
background of the hissing.

A sob.

Junipa!

Merle tried to make out something in the dark stairwell. The area was
pitch-black, only a touch of moonlight falling through a high window beside her, a vague
suggestion of light that scarcely sufficed to make out the steps under her feet. In the
hallway to her left ticked a grandfather clock, alone in the shadows, a monstrous
outline like a coffin that someone had leaned against the wall.

Meanwhile she was certain: The hissing and the sobbing were coming from
the interior of the house. From farther below. From the workshop on the second
floor.

Merle hastened down the steps. The corridor that branched off from the
staircase had a high, arching ceiling. She followed it, as softly and quickly as she
could. Her throat was tight. Her breathing sounded as loud to her as the wheezing of one
of the steamboats on the Grand Canal. What if she and Junipa had jumped out of the
frying pan
into the fire? If Arcimboldo had planned some horror
similar to that of the old glassblower on Murano?

She recoiled as she perceived a movement next to her. But it was only her
own reflection, flitting across the innumerable mirrors on the walls.

The hissing was coming more often now, and sounded nearer. Eft
hadn't shown them exactly where the entrance to the workshop was. She'd
merely mentioned that it was on the second floor. But here there were several doors, and
all were high and dark and closed. There was nothing for Merle to do but follow the
sounds. The soft sobbing had not been repeated. The thought of Junipa being helplessly
delivered to an unknown danger brought tears to Merle's eyes.

One thing was certain in any case: She would not let anything happen to
her new friend, even if it meant both of them being sent back to the orphanage. Of the
worst she didn't want to think at all. Nevertheless, the bad thoughts stole into
her mind like the buzzing of small gnats:

It's nighttime. And dark. Many people have
disappeared into the canals already. No one would care about two girls. Two fewer
mouths to feed, nothing more.

The corridor made a bend to the right. At its end glowed the outline of
arched double doors. The crack between the two doors shimmered golden like wire that has
been held in a candle flame. A strong fire must be
burning inside
the workshop—the coal boiler of the machine that was uttering the primeval hissing
and snorting.

When Merle approached the door on tiptoe, she saw that a layer of smoke
lay over the stone flags of the corridor like a fine ground fog. The smoke was coming
from under the door, emerging in a fiery shimmer.

What if a fire had broken out in the workshop?
You have
to remain calm,
Merle kept drumming into herself.
Very,
very calm.

Her feet stirred the smoke on the floor, conjuring up the outlines of
foggy ghosts in the darkness, many times enlarged and distorted as shadows on the walls.
The only light was the glow of the crack around the doors.

Darkness, fog, and the glowing doors directly in front of her—it
seemed to Merle like the entrance to Hell, so unreal, so oppressive.

The acrid odor that she'd noticed in the upper stairwell was even
more penetrating here. The lubricating oil stench was also stronger. It was rumored that
messengers from Hell had visited the City Council in the past months and offered it the
help of their master in the battle against the Empire. But the councillors had ruled out
any pact with Old Nick. So long as the Flowing Queen was protecting them all, there was
no reason for it. Ever since the National Geographic Society expedition under the famed
Professor Charles Burbridge in 1833 had proven Hell to be a real place in the interior
of the earth, there had been
several meetings between the
ambassadors of Satan and representatives of humanity. However, no one knew any of the
details, and that was probably just as well.

All this shot through Merle's head while she walked the last paces
up to the door of the workshop. With infinite caution she placed her hand flat on the
wood. She'd expected it to feel warm, but that proved to have been wrong. The wood
was cool and in no way different from any of the other doors in the house. Even the
metal door handle was cold when Merle ran a finger over it.

She considered whether she should enter. It was the only thing she could
do. She was alone, and she doubted there was anyone in this house who would come to her
aid.

She'd just made her decision when the latch was pressed from the
other side. Merle whirled around, meaning to flee, but then she sprang into the
protection of the left-hand door, while the right one swung to the inside.

A broad beam of glowing light splashed across the smoke on the floor.
Where Merle had just been standing, the swirls of smoke were swept aside by a draft of
air. Then a shadow crossed the light stripe. Someone walked out into the corridor.

Merle pressed herself as deeply as she could into the protection of the
closed side of the door. She was less than six feet away from the figure.

Shadows can make people menacing, even if in reality
they aren't at all. They make midgets large and weaklings as broad as
elephants. So it was in this case.

The mighty shadow shrank, the farther the little old man got from the
source of the light. As he stood there, without even noticing Merle, he looked almost a
bit comical in his much too long trousers and the smock that had become almost black
with soot and smoke. He had disheveled gray hair that stood out on all sides. His face
glistened. A droplet of sweat ran down his temple and was lost in his bushy side
whiskers.

Instead of turning around to Merle, he turned back to the door and
extended a hand in the direction of the light. A second shadow melted with his on the
floor.

“Come, my child,” he said, his voice gentle. “Come
out.”

Merle didn't move. She hadn't imagined her first meeting with
Arcimboldo like this. Only the calm and serenity in the old man's voice gave her a
little hope.

But then the mirror maker said, “The pain will stop soon.”

Pain?

“You needn't be afraid,” Arcimboldo said, facing the
open door. “You'll quickly get used to it, believe me.”

Merle scarcely dared breathe.

Arcimboldo took two or three steps backward into the passageway. As he
moved, he held both hands outstretched, an invitation to follow him.

“Come closer . . . yes, just like
that. Very slowly.”

And Junipa came. With small, uncertain steps she walked through the door
into the hallway. She moved stiffly and very carefully.

But she can't see anything,
Merle thought
desperately. Why was Arcimboldo letting her wander around without help in a place that
wasn't familiar to her? Why didn't he wait until she could take his hand?
Instead he kept moving backward, farther from the door—and in fact at any moment
he was going to discover Merle, hiding in the shadow. Spellbound, she stared at Junipa,
who was falteringly stepping past her in the hallway. Arcimboldo, too, only had eyes for
the girl.

“You're doing very well,” he said encouragingly.
“Very, very well.”

The smoke on the floor gradually dispersed. No new clouds came from the
depths of the workshop. The glowing firelight bathed the hallway in flickering, dark
orange.