Obsidian Mirror

by Catherine Fisher

  She shrugged, a slight, careless movement. “You can never go back. Take one step out of Venn’s estate and you crumble into dust. To fine desiccated bone. You don’t exist anymore, Gideon. You are eternal, yes, but you are also long dead.”

  She turned away. “The subject bores me. Come and hear the singing. And later we’ll ride out and hunt under the moon.”

  She held out her hand. After a moment he took it.

  But as they walked into the Wood he looked back through the snow and heard the roar of a motorcycle up the drive, and his eyes were sharp with recklessness.

  13

  The Wintercombe estate has been in his family for centuries. Orpheus Venn, a Cavalier nobleman loyal to Charles the First, reputedly received the land as a reward after the Restoration, and the family has lived there ever since. The valley lies between Dartmoor and the sea, and has a mysterious air. The locals believe the Faery Host inhabit it, and that one of Venn’s ancestors once had an amour with the Faery Queen, and that the family are now only half human. When asked about this once at a book festival in Bremen, Venn gave his ice-chip stare, snatched off the microphone and stormed out.

  His temperament is legendary.

  Jean Lamartine, The Strange Life of Oberon Venn

  REBECCA WATCHED THE dusk through the twinkling lights in the post office window. “I’m dreaming,” the postmistress sang, “of a white Christmas…Can I get you anything else?”

  “No. Thanks.” She went out reluctantly onto the sidewalk, the shop bell ringing behind her, and stood looking up the street. The half an hour was long gone. Obviously, Jake wasn’t coming.

  It was already getting dark, and the lanes would soon start to clog with snow. She idled down toward the bridge, seeing how the heavy lid of cloud was a weight on the village; how the old houses and the church and the pub seemed to cower down under it. It was colder than yesterday. Her breath frosted in the air, and the river, when she came to it, foamed over rocks that gleamed with frozen spray.

  She leaned on the parapet and gazed down.

  The Wintercombe was a haunted river. It drew her always, its dark peaty water emptying from the moor, cutting its fast, deep gorge to the sea. Leaning out, she took a small object from her pocket and held it over the water.

  It was a memory stick, and on it were all her notes from university, all her seminars and assignments. A whole year’s work. A whole year’s absence.

  All she had to do was open her fingers.

  And let it go.

  Something touched her face. She gasped and jerked back, clutching the piece of plastic, but the touch came again, and as she stared up, she saw the long-expected snow had come at last.

  It fell in the silent, relentless way she so loved, and as the flakes landed on the stone parapet, they melted very slowly into stars of damp.

  Wintercombe would freeze tonight.

  Another movement. This time it was behind her, and she turned to complain at Jake for being so late.

  Instead she saw a man standing on the bridge.

  He was a few feet away, wearing a dark coat and a hat that shadowed his face. In the glimmer of snow he stood still, watching her.

  The bridge was narrow. There was no way past him. She took one step back, and he said, “Rebecca.”

  Snow blurred him. She glanced back quickly; the village street was empty.

  “Is he coming?” Maskelyne stepped closer.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. Then, “What were you thinking of! That gun! Are you stark mad?”

  “Probably. It was a desperate gesture, though it wouldn’t even have hurt him. Have I scared him away for good?”

  Impatient, she shrugged. “Jake’s not the scaring type. But you shouldn’t be here. If he sees us together…”

  He took the hat off and his dark hair was damp with the snow. “Rebecca, what was that in your hand?”

  In her pocket, her fingers tightened on the memory stick. Then slowly she took it out and laid it on the parapet. The wind edged it; he came and grabbed it quickly.

  “Your university work.”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Yes. It is.” He gave it back to her. “Don’t give up your life for a dream. For me. Don’t lose everything for a man who intends to leave as soon as he can.”

  She shrugged, wordless.

  Maskelyne leaned on the parapet. “Does Jake suspect you?”

  “No.” Rebecca shoved her gloved hands deep in her pockets. “But they might be stopping him from coming. Venn might. Should I phone again?”

  He shook his head. “Venn has the caution of a man used to danger. And, if, as you say, the Chronoptika even flickered with life last night, how agitated he must be. How eager to try again.” He looked up. “It will be tonight, because he thinks he can force the mirror with his guilt. With his pain. He has no idea at all of the damage he might do.”

  “And you do?”

  “None better.” He turned his face and she saw the terrible scar that cut its jagged way down his cheek.

  She said unhappily, “Jake thinks I’m his friend. I am his friend. I don’t like…”

  “You don’t have to blame yourself.” He stopped. “I should never have involved you in this.” She saw how his eyes suddenly focused, sharp, over her shoulder. He said, “Listen.”

  She turned. The village was lost in a soft blizzard. She heard nothing but the crisp hiss of falling snow. And then, oddly magnified, a sharp bark. Quick and stifled. Footsteps. The panting of some large fevered animal.

  Maskelyne grabbed her arm, and she saw the fear in his face. “Come on. Quick!”

  The raw urgency in his voice made her move; before she realized it, they were running over the narrow bridge, their shadows shriveling under the solitary lamppost. In the center, down three steps, was the tiny stone lock-up, used centuries ago for drunkards to sleep it off overnight.

  Maskelyne jumped down and flung himself against the ancient, gratified door; it lurched and split, and instantly he was in through the crack like a shadow, tugging Rebecca behind him.

  The space was barely big enough for them both, a pitch-black, stinking hole. Alarmed, she turned, but he was already jamming the door back fiercely with a plank. “Help me! Before it gets the scent.”

  She shoved the wood with her foot. “Scent? A dog?”

  “A Time Wolf.”

  He’d pressed back against the curved stone wall, breathing hard.

  Her heart pounding, Rebecca watched the faint slit of twilight under the door. Snow drifted; then she saw a flicker of darkness.

  Maskelyne’s breathing stopped. They were both utterly silent.

  In the blackness only the numbers on her watch shone, a tiny circle of time. She was tense against the icy wall. Every muscle rigid.

  The shadow snuffled under the door. It pawed and clawed.

  Then, so close it made her jump, a voice said, “I know you’re in there.”

  Jake got as far as the fallen tree before the bike’s engine sputtered out and it slewed to a stop. He whipped the helmet off and stared at the gauge.

  Empty.

  Unbelievable. It had been full. He was sure.

  Snow fell on the glass gauge; he wiped it off, but the small red line was quite clear. Disgusted, he flung the bike over.

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s called for.” Piers sat on the fallen tree trunk, ankles crossed, watching, his eyes bright as coins.

  Jake stared. “How did you get here?”

  “Maybe I took a shortcut.” The small man stood, his white coat dusted with snow. “Did you think I was that stupid, Jake?”

  They faced each other. Then Jake breathed out, hauled the bike up, wheeled it around, and began pushing it back.

  Piers grinned. “You’re learning. That’s so good.”

  An hour later Sarah snapped, “Of course I’m ready.” She rinsed the potato knife under the tap and gathered the peelings into a tidy heap. Then she dried her hands, while Piers watched.


  The small man scratched his tiny beard. “I know it’s a bit soon after yesterday’s scare. If it were up to me, we’d wait, but…” He shrugged.

  Sarah looked past him. “Some people can’t wait.”

  “Some people have waited too long.” Venn watched from the archway across the kitchen. His eyes were on her. Ignoring Piers, he said, “This will be the last time for you, Sarah. If it works, I’ll wear the snake myself. You’ll be free to go.”

  The dismissal alarmed her, but she smiled. “You’re so sure.”

  “Try to describe what you see as it happens. Piers will prolong the exposure as long as possible, until the web is under pressure. We won’t risk losing you in there.”

  “You mean you won’t risk losing the bracelet.” She turned, bitter. “I know how much I’m worth.”

  “You agreed to this,” he snapped back.

  “I did. But what about Jake? It’s personal for him.”

  Venn didn’t move. Then he said, “I’ll find him.”

  Piers picked up the tea-towel and re-folded it neatly. “Excellency, something else. The alarms. There was someone watching the gate earlier. We should be careful. If it’s—”

  “I don’t care if it’s the devil himself.” Venn turned. “Five minutes. And we test this thing to its limit.”

  He went out. She stood, looking after him.

  Piers said quietly, “You’ve been reading Symmes’s journal.”

  It was so sudden, she couldn’t even bluster. “Yes…I found it. I haven’t gotten to the end. I gave it to Jake.”

  “There is no end. It stops in the middle of a burned page. Symmes vanished too, they say.” He looked up. “If you’re not happy…”

  “I’m fine.” She stared at the empty doorway. “I’m ready. It’s what I signed up for.”

  The handle of the lock-up door turned softly. Rebecca swallowed a gasp. Maskelyne, an edge of shadow beside her, did not move.

  The wolf growled, a low sound. They saw its claws, long and sharp, slide under the door, its nose savoring their scent. Then it was dragged away. With a crash that made her heart leap, someone kicked the door. “Is that you, Sarah? But then, how could it be?”

  The voice was so close, Rebecca felt she could have touched the speaker, if the door had not been between them. It was a young man’s intrigued whisper.

  “The wolf smells you. Are you some village ghost? Some echo from the delay?”

  The door shuddered again. The wolf whined.

  “Are you some Replicant? Or are you a journeyman, straying in time?”

  Maskelyne’s fingers held her in silence.

  Yelps and scratches.

  The purr of a passing car.

  The tiny, tiny hiss of falling snow.

  Neither she nor Maskelyne moved a fingertip, because they both knew that the stranger was still there, listening, a faint dimness beyond the threshold of the door.

  Finally, after a long moment, his voice whispered, “If so, my advice is to journey away and do it at once. Because this time is not a safe one for strangers.”

  Then there was just the snow.

  After five full minutes Maskelyne whispered, “Gone.”

  He leaned over and eased the plank away. When he tugged the door open, snow gusted in, and they saw that darkness had fallen on the bridge. He stepped out, and after a moment, beckoned.

  Climbing through, Rebecca saw that despite the chilly wind, the snow was thick. The bridge was white with it, the footprints of a man and a wolf rapidly filling, leading away toward the Abbey.

  She breathed out. “Who was he? What was that creature?”

  He shook his head. “That wasn’t a man. That was the copy of a man. It seems I’m not the only one looking for the mirror.” He turned to her, and she saw his worry. “Apart from Jake and his tutor, is there anyone else at the Abbey? Anyone at all?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “Just that girl.” She frowned. “Her name’s Sarah.”

  The door opened.

  Jake looked up from the pages of Symmes’s journal, his mind full of the scarred man and the mirror, over the scatter of his father’s books across the carpet. Each was open, and he had out all the letters he could find, and notes, and photos, because he had begun by searching for anything about the Chronoptika and ended by just sitting and reading and remembering.

  Maybe the bleak loss showed in his face as he stared up, because Venn stood silent a moment, his glance around the dark room swift with discomfort.

  “We’re trying again. Now. If you want to be there.”

  It was grudging. But Jake nodded. He pushed the books aside and stood up. “I’m surprised you want me.”

  Venn shrugged. “I don’t. But David would.”

  14

  He conjured snow, he summoned ice,

  he frosted lakes and rivers,

  he killed the birds in the elderwood,

  he blackened toes and fingers.

  He said If I can never rest

  then all the world will suffer.

  I will destroy both man and beast

  until I find my lover.

  Ballad of Lord Winter and Lady Summer

  THE SILVER SNAKE closed around her wrist like an alien hand, but this time Sarah was ready for it.

  She stared into the obsidian mirror.

  In its convex darkness she saw the room, warped and unfocused, a blur of shapes in the gloom of the winter afternoon. She saw the soft, relentless snowfall outside the mullioned windows.

  They were all watching her—Piers at the computer, Wharton perched on a broken armchair, Jake leaning against the stone wall, his arms folded in rigid defense, after his bitter argument with Venn that it should be him.

  But Piers had told them both to shut up, and he had clasped the bracelet on her wrist.

  Venn stepped back. “Anything yet?”

  “No.” Sound was muffled in the soft carpet. It was there to protect the mirror if it fell. She frowned. What if it did fall? Would that be enough?

  Venn turned on Piers. “Now?”

  “Less response than before. The temporal axis is steady. No fluctuations.”

  Her hands were sweating. She stared into the mirror, willing it to change, praying something would happen to its stubbornly solid surface. Glancing at Wharton, she sensed the rising silence of his disbelief. He was a lot shrewder than he looked. Had he told Jake about her?

  The room was dim, woven with the dense web of cables between her and the Chronoptika. Its pillars rose into darkness, their capitals adorned with clusters of crumbling ivy leaves and carved acorns. Under some, the faces of green men peeped through bramble, tendrils of leaves sprouting from their mouths.

  They were watching her too.

  Piers sighed. “Nothing. Maybe we should take a break.”

  “No!” It was her own cry, echoing Venn’s.

  “No,” he said, walking around behind Piers. “We increase power.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise, Excellency. It’s already at the maximum we—”

  “Don’t argue with me! Just do it!”

  Wharton was on his feet. “I don’t think—”

  Venn turned, lean and ominous. “No one asked you.” He came and stood in front of Sarah. “Be ready. There might be a strong reaction. If you feel anything at all, just say. If you can’t speak, raise a hand, and we’ll switch it off. Understand?”

  Wharton said, “I want you to know I heartily disapprove of all of this. Jake. What do you say?”

  Jake was looking at Sarah. Quietly he said, “We should go on.”

  He knows. The knowledge flickered through her fear, her swift sight of Wharton’s shock. He knows I’m not who I say. And he’ll sacrifice me if it means getting his father back.

  Venn was already at the controls, that mishmash of Victorian wiring and dials, roped with modern cables. He adjusted a few dials, said, “Now Piers,” and turned to watch the mirror.

  Nothing seemed different, but at once the air changed. It see
med sharper, tasted of metal. Jake peeled himself off the wall. A whine he had barely been aware of before was growing, inside his ears, inside his skull. It was climbing to a shrill, subsonic needlepoint of intense irritation.

  Sarah was still, focused on the mirror.

  She made a small movement, as if in pain.

  Jake said, “What is it?”

  She didn’t look at him, her gaze caught by her own curved reflection.

  “It’s starting,” she said.

  Gideon lay on the top of the high wall of the estate and watched the snow settle on the flat roof of the car below. All he had to do was slide his legs over and jump. He would land safely, ankle-deep in the snowy lane. He would be free.

  He didn’t dare.

  Between him and that safe landing lay centuries of days and nights, sunrises, moonsets. So many lifetimes that almost nothing was left the same from the place he had been born to. He dragged dirty hair from his eyes and lay with his chin on his hands.

  Was it true, or one of her lies?

  Would he crumble to dust, would old age fall on him as soon as his foot touched the outside? Was Venn’s estate really a protected outpost of the Summerland, with nothing but death beyond its borders?

  There was only one way to find out. He stood up, balancing.

  From here he could see the weathervane on the church tower at Grimsby Deep, miles away. That was the church he had been baptized in; vaguely he remembered a gaunt, echoing space. It had stayed with him, but it must be very different in there now. For him seventeen years ago. He had not changed by as much as a lost eyelash.

  Everything else had rippled through fat, inexplicable changes. Houses appeared, almost overnight. Carts had crawled, then cars had sped up the lanes. Small planes had fought each other in the sky. Pylons grew. Strange wires that the swallows gathered on every autumn hummed in the frosty wind. What were they all? When had they come? He couldn’t remember. And he had never been beyond, to the places where cars and people arrived from, where the planes sailed from, the small fascinating silver birds that flew so high.