The Glass Word

by Kai Meyer

  Merle only nodded and closed her eyes.

  Her fingers touched the lukewarm water as if they were lying on glass, without breaking through the faint rings. The murky phantom on the surface brushed against the ends of her fingers. Merle still had her eyes closed, but she could feel him, his frantic rushing back and forth over the water.

  She heard his whispers, distorted and much too far away for her to be able to understand them. She must somehow bind the phantom to herself, like a piece of iron to a magnet.

  “The word,” she whispered to Junipa. “Do you still remember the word?”

  “What word?”

  “The one Arcimboldo gave us when we had to imprison the phantoms in the magic mirrors for him.” Their old teacher had opened the door through one of his mirrors for them that time in Venice. They had entered the magic mirror world and found the mirror phantoms inside: beings from another world who wanted to cross into this one and then were stranded in Arcimboldo’s magic mirrors as spiritlike shadows. The spirits moved almost invisibly and as lightly as wind gusts in the glassy labyrinths of the mirror world, yet they were forever barred from returning or from a further journey into a physical existence. With a magic word the girls had bound them and brought them back to their master, who had let them go into the reflections in the water of the Venetian canals.

  “Hmm, the word,” murmured Junipa thoughtfully. “Something with intera or intero at the beginning.”

  “Intrabilibus or something like that.”

  “Something like it. Interabilitapetrifax.”

  “Childish rubbish,” scolded the Queen.

  “Intrabalibuspustulens,” said Merle.

  “Interopeterusbilibix.”

  “Interumpeterfixbilbulus.”

  “Intorapeterusbiliris.”

  Merle sighed. “Intorapeti—wait, say that again!”

  “What?”

  “What you just said.”

  Junipa thought for a moment. “Intorapeterusbiliris.”

  Merle exulted. “Almost! Now I remember: Intorabiliuspeteris.” And she said it so loudly that for a minute even the conversation between the Czarists and Vermithrax on the other side of the room stopped.

  “Seth is watching us,” Junipa whispered.

  But Merle neither bothered about the Horus priest nor paid attention to Junipa’s warning. Instead she said the magic word impatiently a second time, and now she suddenly felt a tickling that crept from her right hand up to her elbow.

  “Merle!” Junipa’s voice became imploring.

  Merle blinked and looked at the mirror. The phantom flickered like a circular billow of fog around her fingertips.

  “It worked,” said the Flowing Queen. She also sounded concerned, as if she were not pleased that Merle was making contact with the phantom.

  “Hello?” asked Merle tonelessly.

  “Brbrlbrlbrbr!” said the phantom.

  “Hello?”

  “Harrlll … hello.”

  Merle’s heart beat faster with excitement. “Can you hear me?”

  Again the strange muttering, then: “Of course. It was you who couldn’t hear me.” He sounded fresh and not at all ghostly.

  “Did he say something?” asked Junipa, and Merle realized that her friend couldn’t hear the phantom. Neither could the others in the room, who’d now resumed their conversation and paid no more attention to what Merle was doing. With the exception perhaps of Seth. Yes, he was very definitely observing her. A shudder ran down her back.

  “Can you help me?” she asked straightaway. She had no time for verbal sparring. At any moment Andrej could signal them to come for a discussion of their situation.

  “I’ve been wondering when you’d ever get around to that,” said the phantom snappishly.

  “You will help me?”

  He sighed like a mulish little boy. She wondered if that’s exactly what he’d been before he became a phantom: a boy, perhaps even still a child. “You want to know what’s behind your water mirror, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Your friend is right. If you call someone who’s sometimes a woman and then again a woman with lion’s legs a sphinx, then she’d probably be a sphinx.”

  Merle didn’t understand a word. “Could you be a bit clearer?”

  Again the phantom sighed. “The woman on the other side is a sphinx. And, yes, she is your mother.” When Merle took in her breath sharply, he added, “I think so, anyhow. Now are you satisfied?”

  “What’s he saying?” whispered Junipa excitedly. “Tell me!”

  Merle’s heart was racing. “He said the sphinx is my mother!”

  “He said the sphinx is my mother,” the phantom mimicked, mocking her. “Now, do you want to know more, or not?”

  “He is an ill-bred brat,” commented the Flowing Queen. The phantom didn’t seem to be able to hear her, for he didn’t react to that.

  “Yes,” said Merle, her voice wobbling, “yes, of course. Where is she now? Can you see her?”

  “No. She doesn’t have a wonderful mirror like the one in which you’re holding me prisoner.”

  “Holding you prisoner? You jumped into it yourself!”

  “Because otherwise the same thing would have happened to me as the others.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “They were all from my world. But I only knew my uncle. He didn’t want me to come with him, but then I sneaked into his workroom at night and jumped into the mirror after him. He looked really dumb when he noticed it.” The phantom giggled. “Oh, well, and then I looked dumb when I realized what had happened to us.”

  “Jawing,” the Queen said, “nothing but jawing.”

  “Let’s talk about my mother again, all right?”

  “Sure,” said the phantom. “Whatever you want.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “The last time I saw her she was sitting on a dead witch in the middle of the sea.” He said it as matter-of-factly as if he’d seen her cooking.

  “In the sea?” Merle asked. “Are you sure?”

  “I know how the sea looks,” he replied spitefully.

  “Yes … yes, sure. But, I mean, what was she doing there?”

  “Holding one hand in the water and creating a magic mirror out of it. So she could hold your hand. Remember?”

  Merle was terribly confused. “So can you only see her when she holds one hand in the water?”

  “Just like you.”

  “And you hear her too?”

  “Both of you.”

  “But then why can’t I hear her?”

  “We could change places anytime,” he retorted snippily.

  Merle thought for a while. “You must tell me what she says. Does she know how to speak with you?”

  “She very quickly tumbled to the fact that there’s someone in the mirror besides her little daughter. And she was polite enough to ask me my name first.”

  “Oh … what’s your name, then?”

  “I’ve forgotten.”

  “But how—”

  “I said that she asked, not that I could give her an answer.”

  “How can anyone forget his name?”

  “How can anyone suddenly become a dust mark on a mirror? No idea. The only thing I can remember are the last few seconds in my uncle’s room. Everything before that is gone. But I have the feeling that it’s gradually coming back. Sometimes I remember details, faces, even tunes. Perhaps if you carry me around for a few more years in your musty pocket, then—”

  This time it was she who interrupted him. “Listen. I’m sorry about what happened to you, but I can’t do anything about it. No one forced you to run after your uncle. So—do you intend to help me or not?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, drawling.

  “If you can talk with”—Merle hesitated—“my mother, then you can pass on to her what I say. And the other way around.”

  “A sort of translation, you mean?”

  “Exactly.” Now he’
s got it, she thought, and even the Queen sighed somewhere deep in her thoughts.

  “Guess I could probably do that.”

  “That would be very nice.”

  “Then will you take me out of your pocket sometimes?”

  “If we ever get away from here in one piece, we might find a way to get you out of this mirror.”

  “Do not be too generous with promises you may not be able to keep,” said the Queen.

  “That won’t happen.” The phantom sounded a little sad. “I can’t take on a body in your world. Everyone said that.”

  “Maybe not a body. But a larger mirror. How about the sea?”

  “Then I’d be something like a sailor, wouldn’t I?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Hmm … I guess that would be all right.” And then he began to sing a song, quite tunelessly, something about fifteen men on a dead man’s chest. Quite nonsensical, Merle thought.

  “We’ll try,” she said hastily, so that he’d stop the howling. “Promise.”

  “Merle?” Suddenly he sounded serious.

  “Yes?”

  “Merle …”

  She was breathing faster. “What is it?”

  “She’s here again. Your mother, Merle … she’s here with me.”

  “What the devil is she doing?” Dario shifted crossly from one foot to the other. The snow crunched under the soles of his boots, and Serafin thought that Dario’s teeth would soon crunch just as much, from fury, if Lalapeya didn’t stand up that instant and go on.

  The sphinx was crouching on the bank of the frozen Nile, between blocks of fractured ice whose edges had shoved over and under one another. The boys had taken shelter in a dead palm grove only a few yards away. The palm fronds had long since broken off under the burden of snow, and all that remained were just a few slanting trunks sticking out of the white wasteland like fingers. The boys among the dead trees made splendid targets from the air. Eft was not with them; she stood below on the bank beside the sphinx, looking down at her worriedly.

  Serafin couldn’t stand it any longer. “I’m going down to them.”

  He looked at the Iron Eye one more time; it rose above them like a gray wall, an incomprehensibly high monstrosity. You could have taken it for a mountain, if it hadn’t risen so smoothly and abruptly out of the icy plain. The twilight helped to veil the true nature of the fortress.

  Somewhere behind the snow clouds the sun was going down. At least they soon wouldn’t need to fear the barks any longer. But certainly there were other guards outside, here at the foot of the Iron Eye. Guards who were still fast and deadly at night.

  Dario murmured something as Serafin clomped away, but he made no move to follow him. That was quite all right with Serafin. He wanted to speak with Eft and the sphinx alone.

  But when he finally looked over Lalapeya’s shoulder and saw what she was doing, the words remained stuck in his throat.

  A hole gaped in the ice at the water’s edge. It looked as if a predator had scratched it with its claws. So close to the Iron Eye, the ice was much thinner than the place where the boat had gotten stuck. Twelve inches, Serafin estimated, at most. That must be because of the warmth radiating from the fortress. It had certainly become warmer, but the temperature was still way below freezing.

  Lalapeya was crouching in the snow, bent forward, her arm plunged into the water up to the elbow. Her hand was motionless in the ice-cold stream. The sphinx had shoved back the sleeve of her fur coat; her naked lower arm was slowly turning blue. Nevertheless she made no move to withdraw the hand. Only now did Serafin notice that she was whispering something to herself. Too softly. He couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  Distressed, he turned to Eft, who’d stepped up beside him. “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s speaking with someone.”

  “Her hand will freeze.”

  “It probably already has.”

  “But—”

  “She knows what she’s doing.”

  “No,” he said angrily, “obviously she doesn’t! We can’t burden ourselves with dragging her into the fortress half-frozen.” He reached out his hand to pull Lalapeya back by the shoulder, away from the water.

  But Eft halted him, and the hissing that suddenly came from her shark mouth made him flinch. “It’s important. Really important.”

  Serafin staggered back a step. “She’s crazy. Both of you are crazy.” He was about to turn away and go back to the others. But again Eft held him back.

  “Serafin,” said the mermaid imploringly, “she’s speaking with Merle.”

  He stared at her dumbfounded. “What do you mean?”

  “The water helps her do it.” Eft waved Serafin a few steps farther away and there—on the bank of the frozen Nile—Serafin now learned what was special about Merle’s water mirror.

  He folded his arms over his chest and rubbed his upper arms under the fur, more from nervousness than from cold. “Is that the truth?” he asked with a frown. “I mean, are you really serious?”

  Eft nodded.

  Serafin lowered his voice. “But what does Merle have to do with Lalapeya?”

  The mermaid showed her teeth: a smile. “Can’t you figure that out?”

  “No, damn it!”

  “She’s her mother, Serafin. Lalapeya is Merle’s mother.” Her fearsome grin grew wider, but her eyes remained human and wondrously beautiful. “Your friend is the daughter of a sphinx.”

  Merle listened with concentration to the phantom’s words while at the same time she struggled not to let her trembling fingers dip too far into the reflection. She mustn’t let the connection to him break off now, she had to hear what the sphinx—her mother—had to say to her.

  “She says you must go to Boerbritch,” the phantom repeated.

  “Burbridge?” Merle asked.

  “You should go to him, only there are you safe. Safer anyway than in the Iron Eye.”

  “But we just got away from Burbridge, out of Hell! Tell her that.”

  A while passed, then the phantom brought back the answer. “She wants me to tell you that you should meet him in his mirror room. You and your friend. She should guide you there.”

  “Junipa guide me into a mirror room?”

  “Yes. Wait, that’s not all … ah, now. She should take you to him. There you will be safe.”

  Merle still didn’t understand. “Safe from whom? From the sphinxes?”

  Again a pause, then: “From the Son of the Mother, she says. Whatever that means.”

  Merle growled in annoyance. “Would you be so good as to ask?”

  While the phantom obeyed, the Queen chimed in. “I do not know if that is such a good idea, Merle. Perhaps you should—”

  No, Merle thought decidedly. You stay out of this. This is my affair alone.

  The voice of the phantom reported back. “The Son of the Mother. That seems to be something like a name for … yes, the forefather of the sphinxes, as it were, their oldest ancestor. A kind of sphinx god, I guess. She says he is on the way here, or is even in the fortress. She is not sure. And she says that the sphinxes are going to try to awaken him to life again.”

  Merle was startled when the Queen uttered a strange sound. How much do you know, really? she thought for the hundredth time.

  “The Son of the Mother,” whispered the Queen. “Then it is true. I felt him hut I thought it was impossible…. By all that is holy, Merle, you must not do what she asks. You must not go away from here.”

  You could have told me about that before, Merle thought bitterly. You ought to have trusted me.

  The phantom went on, “She keeps saying the same thing, Merle. That your friend must take you to Burbridge, before it’s too late. That you should go into his mirror room and should wait there for him if necessary. She says he can explain everything to you, about you, about her, and about your father.”

  “Ask her who my father was.”

  The pause grew longer. “Burbridge’s son,” said the
phantom finally. “Steven.”

  Steven Burbridge. Her father. The thought felt strange and frightened her.

  “What is her name?”

  “Lalapeya,” said the phantom.

  Merle felt her fingers begin to tremble. She bit her lips and tried to pull herself together. It was all so confusing and so overwhelming at the same time. Had the sphinxes not been her enemies from the beginning? Were they not the true rulers of the Empire? If her mother was actually a sphinx, then her people had plunged the world into ruin. But Merle was not like them, and perhaps Lalapeya wasn’t either.

  “Merle,” the phantom interrupted her train of thought, “your mother says that only Junipa can guide you. That is very important. Only Junipa has the power to use the glass word.”

  Merle was as dizzy as if she’d been whirling in a circle for hours. “The glass word? What’s that supposed to be?”

  “One moment.”

  Time passed. Much too much time.

  “Hello?” she asked after a while.

  “She’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “Lalapeya took her hand out of the water. I can’t hear her anymore.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Sorry. Not my fault.”

  Merle looked up and for the first time was aware of Junipa again, who sat in front of her, filled with concern. “I should guide you? He said that?”

  Merle nodded, numb, as after a nightmare. She ought to have been celebrating. Now she knew who her parents were. But it changed so little. Really, nothing at all. It only confused her even more, and it frightened her.

  In a whisper, she told Junipa everything. Then she looked up and saw that Seth had not taken his eyes off them. He smiled icily when their eyes met. She quickly looked away.

  “I know what he meant,” Junipa whispered tonelessly.

  “Really?”

  Junipa was breathing shallowly, her voice sounded hoarse. “Through the mirrors, Merle. We should go through the mirrors.” She smiled sadly. “That’s what Arcimboldo gave me these eyes for, after all, isn’t it? I can not only see with them. They’re also a key, or at least a part of one. Burbridge told me everything: why he gave Arcimboldo the commission to take me out of the orphanage and so forth. I was supposed to look into other worlds, but I can also go there.”