by Gene Wolfe
“Take it away, please. I am already too much given to vanity, believe me.”
“As you wish, sir,” his image replied. “I intended no disrespect. I merely desired to demonstrate to you the way in which I most frequently serve my mistress. Would you care to see her in place of yourself? I can easily display an old likeness.”
Silk shook his head. “An old unlikeness, you mean. Please return to your normal appearance.”
“As you wish, sir.” In the glass, Silk’s face lost its blue eyes and brown cheeks, its neck and shoulders vanished, and its features became flatter and coarser.
“We were speaking of the gods. No doubt I told you a good deal that you already knew.”
“No, sir. I know very little about gods, sir. I would advise you to consult an augur.”
“Then let’s talk about monitors, my son. You must know more than most about monitors. You’re a monitor yourself.”
“My task is my joy, sir.”
“We’re fortunate, then, both of us. When I was at—in the house of a certain man I know, a man who has a glass like this one, he clapped his hands to summon the monitor. Is that the usual method?”
“Clapping the hands or tapping on the glass, sir. All of us much prefer the former, if I may be excused for saying it.”
“I see.” Silk nodded to himself. “Aren’t there any other methods?”
“We actually appear in response to any loud sound, sir, to determine whether there is something amiss. Should a fire be in progress, for example, I would notify my master or his steward, and warn his guests.”
“And from time to time,” Silk said, “you must look into this room although no one has called you, even when there has been no loud sound. Isn’t that so?”
“No, sir.”
“You don’t simply look in to make certain everything’s all right?”
“No, sir. My mistress would consider that an invasion of her privacy, I’m sure.”
“When I entered this room,” Silk continued, “I did not make any sound that could be called loud—or at least none that I’m aware of. Certainly I didn’t clap my hands or tap on this glass; yet you appeared. There was a swirl of color, then your face appeared in the glass. Shortly afterward you told me you weren’t a god.”
“You closed the door, sir.”
“Very gently,” Silk said. “I didn’t want to disturb your mistress.
“Most considerate, sir.”
“Yet the sound of my shutting that door summoned you? I would think that in that case almost any sound would do, however slight.”
“I really cannot say what summoned me, sir.”
“That’s a suggestive choice of words, my son.”
“I concede that it may be, sir.” The monitor’s face appeared to nod. “Such being the case, perhaps I may proffer an additional suggestion? It is that you abandon this line of inquiry. It will not reward your persistence, sir. Prior to entering the balneum, you inquired about weapons, sir, and places of concealment. One of our wardrobes might do.”
“Thank you.” Silk looked into the nearest, but it was filled almost to bursting with coats and gowns.
“As to weapons, sir,” the monitor continued, “you may discover a useful one in my lowest left drawer, beneath the stockings.”
“More useful than this, I hope.” Silk closed the wardrobe.
“I am very sorry, sir. There appear to have been many purchases of late of which I have not been apprised.”
Silk hardly heard him—there were angry and excited voices in the corridor. He opened the door to the drawing room and listened until they faded away, his hand upon the glass latchbar of the boudoir door, acutely conscious of the thudding of his heart.
“Are you leaving, sir?”
“The left drawer, I think you said.”
“Yes, sir. The lowest of the drawers to your left. I can guarantee nothing, however, sir. My mistress keeps a small needier there, or perhaps I should say she did so not long ago. It may, however…”
Silk had already jerked out the drawer. Groping under what seemed to be at least a hundred pairs of women’s hose, his fingers discovered not one but two metal objects.
“My mistress is sometimes careless regarding the safety catch, sir. It may be well to exercise due caution until you have ascertained its condition.”
“I don’t even know what that is,” Silk muttered as he gingerly extracted the first.
It was a needler so small that it lay easily in the palm of his hand, elaborately engraved and gold plated; the thumb-sized ivory grips were inlaid with golden hyacinths, and a minute heron scanned a golden pool for fish at the base of the rear sight. For a moment, Silk too knew peace, lost in the flawless craftsmanship that had been lavished upon every surface. No venerated object in his manteion was half so fine.
“Should that discharge, it could destroy my glass, sir.”
Silk nodded absently. “I’ve seen needlers—I saw two tonight, in fact—that could eat this one.”
“You have informed me that you are unfamiliar with the safety catch, sir. Upon either side of the needier you hold, you will observe a small movable convexity. Raised, it will prevent the needier from discharging.”
“This,” Silk said. Like the grips, each tiny boss was marked with a hyacinth, though these were so small that their minute, perfect florets were almost microscopic. He pushed one of the bosses down, and the other moved with it. “Will it fire now?”
“I believe so, sir. Please do not direct it toward my glass. Glasses are now irreplaceable, sir, the art of their manufacture having been left behind when—”
“I’m greatly tempted nevertheless.”
“In the event of the destruction of this glass I should be unable to deliver your message to Auk, sir.”
“In which case there’d be no need of it. This smooth bar inside the ring is the trigger, I suppose.”
“I believe that is correct, sir.”
Silk pointed the needier at the wardrobe and pressed the trigger. There was a sharp snap, like the cracking of a child’s whip. “It doesn’t seem to have done anything,” he said.
“My mistress’s wardrobe is not a living creature, sir.”
“I never thought it was, my son.” Silk bent to examine the wardrobe’s door; a hole not much thicker than a hair had appeared in one of its polished panels. He opened the door again. Some, though not all, of the gowns in line with the hole showed ragged tears, as if they had been stabbed with a dull blade a little narrower than his index finger.
“I should use this on you, you know, my son,” he told the monitor, “for Auk’s sake. You’re just a machine, like the scorer in our ball court.”
“I am a machine, but not just a machine, sir.”
Nodding mostly to himself, Silk pushed up the safety catch and dropped the little needler into his pocket.
The other object hidden under the stockings was shaped like the letter T. The stem was cylindrical and oddly rough, with a single, smooth protuberance below the crossbar; the crossbar itself seemed polished and slightly curved, and had upturned ends. The entire object felt unnaturally cold, as reptiles often do. Silk extracted it from the stockings with some difficulty and examined it curiously.
“Would it be convenient for me to withdraw, sir?” the monitor asked.
Silk shook his head. “What is this?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
He regarded the monitor narrowly. “Can you lie, under extreme provocation, my son? Tell an untruth? I know a chem quite well; and she can, or so she says.”
“No, sir.”
“Which leaves me not a whit the wiser.” Silk seated himself on the stool again.
“I suppose not, sir.”
“I think I know what this is, you see.” Silk held the T-shaped object up for the monitor’s inspection; it gleamed like polished silver. “I’d appreciate confirmation, and some instructions on how to operate it.”
“I am afraid I cannot assist you, sir, althou
gh I would be glad to receive your own opinion.”
“I think it’s an azoth. I’ve never actually seen one, but we used to talk about them when I was a boy. One summer all of us made wooden swords, and sometimes we pretended they were azoths.”
“Charming, sir.”
“Not really,” Silk muttered, scrutinizing the flashing gem in the pommel of the azoth. “We were as bloodthirsty as so many little tigers, and what’s charming about that? But anyway, an azoth is supposed to be controlled by something called a demon. If you don’t know about azoths, you don’t know anything about that, I suppose.”
“No, sir.” The monitor’s floating face swung from side to side, revealing that there was no head behind it. “If you wish to conceal yourself, sir, should you not do so at once? My master’s steward and some of our guards are searching the suites on this floor.”
“How do you know that?” Silk asked sharply.
“I have been observing them. I have glasses in some of the other suites, sir.”
“They began at the north end of the corridor?”
“Yes, sir. Quite correct.”
Silk rose. “Then I must hide in here well enough to escape them, and get into the north wing after they’ve left.”
“You haven’t examined the other wardrobe, sir.”
“And I don’t intend to. How many unsearched suites are there between us?”
“Three, sir.”
“Then I’ve still got a little time.” Silk studied the azoth. “When I made my sword, I left a nail sticking out, and bent it. That was my demon. When I twisted it toward me, the blade wasn’t there any more. When I twisted it away from me, I had one.”
“I doubt, sir—”
“Don’t be too sure, my son. That may have been based on something supposedly true that I’d heard. Or I may have been imitating some other boy who’d gotten hold of a useful fact. I mean a fact that would be useful to me now.”
The roughened stem of the T was the grip, obviously; and the crossbar was there to prevent the user’s hand from contacting the blade. Silk tried to revolve the gem in the pommel, but its setting kept it securely in place.
The bent-nail demon of his toy sword had been one of those that had held the crosspiece; he felt certain of that. There was an unfacetted crimson gem (he vaguely remembered having heard a similar gem called a bloodstone) in the grip, just behind one of the smooth, tapering arms of the guard. It was too flat and much too highly polished to turn. He gripped the azoth as he had his wooden sword and pressed the crimson gem with his thumb.
Reality separated. Something else appeared between the halves, as a current divides a quiet pool. Plaster from the wall across the room fell smoking onto the carpet, revealing laths that themselves exploded in a shower of splinters with the next movement of his arm.
Involuntarily, he released the demon, and the azoth’s blade vanished.
“Please be more careful with that, sir.”
“I will.” Silk pushed the azoth into the coiled rope about his waist.
“If it should be activated by chance, sir, the result might well be disastrous for you as well as others.”
“You have to press the demon below the level of the grip, I think,” Silk said. “It should be difficult for that to happen accidentally.”
“I profoundly hope so, sir.”
“You don’t know where your mistress got such a weapon?”
“I did not even know she possessed it, sir.”
“It must be worth as much as this whole villa. More, perhaps. I doubt that there are ten of them in the city.” Silk turned toward the wardrobe and selected a blue winter gown of soft wool.
“They have left the suite they were searching earlier, sir. They are proceeding to the next.”
“Thank you. Will you leave when I tell you to go?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“I ought to destroy your glass.” For a second, Silk stared at the monitor. “I’m tempted to do it. But if a god really visited it when I arrived…” He shrugged. “So I’m going to tell you to go instead, and cover your glass with a gown. Perhaps they won’t notice it. Did they question the glasses in the other suites?”
“Yes, sir. Our steward summoned me to each glass. He is directing the searchers in person, sir.”
“While you were here talking to me? I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I can, sir. One strives to best utilize lulls in the conversation, pauses, and the like. It is largely a matter of allocation, sir.”
“But you didn’t tell them where I was. You can’t have. Why not?”
“He did not inquire, sir. As they entered each suite, he asked whether there was a stranger present.”
“And you told them there wasn’t?”
“No, sir. I was forced to explain that I could not be certain, since I am not perpetually present.”
“Blood’s steward—is that the young man called Musk?”
“Yes, sir. His instructions take precedence over all others, except my master’s own.”
“I see. Musk doesn’t understand you much better than I do, apparently.”
“Less well, perhaps, sir.”
Silk nodded to himself. “I may remain in this suite after you’ve gone. On the other hand, I may leave, too, as soon as you’re no longer here to watch what I’m doing. Do you understand what I’ve just told you?”
“Yes, sir,” the monitor said. “Your future whereabouts will be problematical.”
“Good. Now vanish at once. Go wherever it is that you go.” Silk draped the glass, covering it completely in a way that he hoped would seem merely careless, and opened the door to his right.
For the space of a heartbeat, he thought the spacious, twilit bedchamber unoccupied; a faint moan from the enormous bed at its center revealed his mistake.
The woman in the bed writhed and keened aloud from the depths of her need. As he bent over her, something within him reached out to her; and though he had not touched her, he felt the thrill of touch. Her hair was as black as the night chough’s wings, and as glossy. Her features, as well as he could judge in the uncertain glow, exquisite. She groaned softly, as though she knew he was looking down on her, and rolling her head upon her pillow, kissed it without waking.
Beyond the boudoir, the drawing room door opened.
He tore off his black robe and straw hat, ducked out of his torn tunic, kicked all three far under the big bed, and scrambled in, shoes and all. He was drawing up the gold-embroidered oversheet when he heard the door through which he had entered the boudoir open.
Someone said distinctly, “Nothing in here.”
By then his thumb had found the safety catch. He sat up, leveling the needier, as the searchers entered.
“Stop!” he shouted, and fired. By the greatest good luck, the needle shattered a tall vase to the right of the door. The report brought the bedchamber’s lights to their brightest.
The first armored guard halted, his slug gun not quite pointing at Silk; and the black-haired woman sat up abruptly, her slightly tilted eyes wide.
Without looking at her, Silk grated, “Go back to sleep, Hyacinth. This doesn’t concern you.” Faintly perfumed, her breath caressed his bare shoulder, deliriously warm.
“Sorry, Commissioner,” the guard began, uncertainly. “I mean Patera—”
Too late, Silk realized that he was still wearing the old, blue-trimmed calotte that had once been Patera Pike’s. He snatched it off. “This is unforgivable. Unforgivable! I shall inform Blood. Get out!” His voice was far too high, and mounting toward hysteria; surely the guard must sense how frightened he was. In desperation, he brandished the tiny needler.
“We didn’t know—” The guard lowered his slug gun and took a step backward, bumping into the delicate-looking Musk, who had stepped through the boudoir behind him. “We thought everybody had— Well, just about everybody’s already gone.”
Silk cut him off. “Out! You’ve never seen me.”
It had
been (as he decided as soon as he had said it) the worst thing he could possibly have said, since Musk had certainly seen him only a few hours earlier. For an instant he felt certain that Musk would pounce upon it.
Musk did not. Silencing the sputtering guard with a shove, Musk said, “The outside door should’ve been locked. Take your time.” He turned on his heel, and the guard shut the boudoir door quietly behind them.
Trembling, Silk waited until he heard the corridor door close as well before he kicked away the luxurious coverings and got out of the bed. His mouth was parched, and his knees without strength.
“What about me?” the woman asked. As she spoke, she pushed aside the oversheet and the red silk sheet, revealing remarkably rounded breasts and a small waist.
Silk caught his breath and looked away. “All right, what about you? Do you want me to shoot you?”
She smiled and threw her arms wide. “If it’s the only thing you can do, why, yes.” When Silk did not reply, she added, “I’ll keep my eyes open, if that’s all right with you. I like to see it coming.” The smile became a grin. “Make it fast, but make it last. And make it good.”
Both had spoken softly, and the lights were no longer glaring; Silk kicked the bed to re-energize them. “You have been given a philtre of some sort, I think. You’ll feel very differently in the morning.” Pushing up the safety catch, he dropped her needier back into his pocket.
“I was given nothing.” The woman in the bed licked her lips, watching for his reaction. “I took what you’re calling a philtre before the first ones got here.”
“Rust?” Silk was on his knees beside the bed, groping for the clothing he had kicked beneath it. Fear was draining from him, and he felt immensely grateful for it. Lion-hearted Sphigx still favored him—nothing could be more certain.
“No.” She was scornful. “Rust doesn’t do this. Don’t you know anything? On rust I’d have itched to kill them all, and I might’ve done it, too. Beggar’s root’s what they call it, and it turns a terrible bore into a real pleasure.”
“I see.” Wincing, Silk pulled out his ruined tunic and his second-best robe.