The Night of the Solstice

by L. J. Smith

  “Alys, its meeeee… .”

  The shock, when it came, was terrible. As she turned, searching, she found herself looking into the mirror, which in this world was bright and untarnished. It reflected her, alert and wary, and behind her … unmistakably … Charles, Claudia, and Janie.

  Wildly she spun around, looking back and forth from the mirror to the empty air behind her, and noticing that the three other reflections were doing this also. The room was filled with ghostly voices.

  “I can’t believe this—” “Where are you all?” “Interesting, isn’t it?” “Alys!”

  The empty air, she realized gradually, was not empty. If she looked hard she could just discern three vague forms in the moonlight, forms apparently made of very thin darkness.

  “We’re ghosts,” said the smallest form, lifting insubstantial arms in despair. “Oh, Alys, I don’t like it.”

  Distant laughter sounded in Alys’s ear. “Not ghosts,” said Janie’s voice. “Shadows. And what I don’t like is this candlelight. Too bright. Let’s get out of it.”

  “But how do we stop being shadows?” wailed Claudia.

  “It’s all right,” sighed Janie. “I should think it would be obvious. If we want to change, we go through this mirror where we can see ourselves the way we used to be.”

  “We’d have to open the window shutter first and let the moonlight in.” Charles’s wraithlike form seemed to shudder at the thought.

  “We’ll worry about it later,” said Alys. The truth was that she had no desire to stop being a shadow. For the first time since meeting the vixen she felt unburdened, absolved of all responsibility. It was a very pleasant feeling, as if no one in the world was real except her. Right now she wanted to find someplace dark, and quiet, and far away.

  But when she tried to take hold of the door handle to open the door she found she could not move it.

  “We’re incorporeal,” murmured Janie. “Bodiless. We can touch each other but not anything else, not anything solid.”

  They could not move the shutter either. Janie thought they should be able to drift through solid matter if they willed it hard enough, but no one could manage this.

  There were several moments of silence.

  “So what do we do now?” said Charles at last, not as if he cared much.

  “Nothing,” said Alys calmly. “There’s nothing at all for us to do.”

  Janie and Charles accepted this without surprise. They settled back against a wall, content simply to wait … and watch. Only Claudia whimpered a little.

  “Hush,” said Alys distantly. Nothing seemed very real.

  Then Charles said, “Listen.”

  They all heard it—a snuffling, scratching noise in the hall outside. The next instant the door burst open.

  It struck Alys on the forehead and shoulder, but the blow was softened as she seemed to melt into the wood. Her shadow-indifference was shattered. She fell backward as much from surprise and horror at the sight of the animal on the threshold as from the impact.

  Cats … she had never liked cats. And this was some unnatural combination of leopard and basilisk, with feline head and hindquarters and reptilian snout and claws. Its shoulders were covered by heavy, armored scales that looked almost metallic. It could not see or smell her, she realized, as the unblinking yellow eyes stared right through her, but it could hear her panting breath.

  “Move away from it,” hissed Charles, from his kneeling position behind the door. The great head swung toward him immediately, distracted, and from the scaly throat came a whining sound. Trembling, trying not to breathe, Alys inched backward into the safety of the veiling darkness.

  An icy hand touched hers, although here she could see no form at all. “Please, let’s go home,” whispered Claudia.

  The animal turned at even this faint sound, the whine becoming a high snarl of frustration.

  “Briony,” said a man’s voice in the hall, “what is it?”

  Alys’s heart leapt into her throat. Everything was all too real now, terrifyingly real. But there was no time to think or move, because he was there, framed in the doorway, with the monster-cat turning to fawn on him. He was human, or at least he was a man, but there was a strange similarity of movement between him and the animal, a sinuous, stalking grace. After one long look Alys knew she would much rather face the Groundsler.

  “Yes,” said the man, rubbing the cat’s hideous head as he gazed around the room. “I feel it too. Something amiss.” He stepped forward and the candlelight played on his face. It was not a bad face, handsome even, until a trick of the light deepened the shadows of lines around the mouth and showed the tightness of skin under the hooded eyes. There was weariness there, thought Alys, and driven purpose, and cruelty.

  The next moment the light changed and showed only a tall man with a cropped helmet of dark hair and a remote, abstracted expression. He wore a vaguely military outfit of dark red tunic and leggings. Although his eyes still looked about the room, his gaze seemed turned inward now, upon some distant scene of pain and amusement.

  Even as he stood there, a second man, younger than he, more tired, less assured, stepped into the doorway. This one was garbed in flowing gray robes that gave him a clerical air. Yet despite his youth and tiredness and monkish demeanor, he and the other man had something in common: power. It emanated from them in waves so strong that Alys could almost see it.

  “Cadal?” the young man said quietly. “Cadal, we’ve got her.”

  For a long moment Cadal Forge stood unmoving, apparently heedless. At last, he stirred and sighed. Without turning, he said, “That’s good, Aric. Bring her to me.”

  Aric glanced about the dark and barren room. “Here?”

  Cadal Forge nodded, already gone in reverie again, his absent yes barely audible.

  As the younger sorcerer departed, leaving the door ajar, Alys felt Janie’s panicked hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go,” hissed Janie’s voice in her ear.

  “Be quiet,” Alys breathed, for Briony was straining forward, whimpering. “I have to see what happens. It could be Morgana they’ve got.”

  “I don’t care who it is,” whispered Janie between set teeth, but Alys dragged her farther back into the darkness, and they joined the shadows on the wall as Aric returned.

  He was escorting a girl, a very young and delicate-looking girl, who wore a simple white garment, like a Greek chiton, girdled with ribbon. A gold band encircled her hair, which was straight and fine and the color of moonlight. In her right hand she held a bunch of purple loosestrife, still dripping wet; on her left wrist perched a small bright-eyed falcon. The whole room seemed lighter for her presence, and the four shadows shrank back even farther, feeling exposed.

  “Hello there,” said the girl, offering Cadal Forge the loosestrife.

  “Oh, leave your rubbish!” cried Aric, slapping the bouquet from her hands.

  “Softly, Aric, softly,” said Cadal Forge. With complete gravity he bent and retrieved the flowers, then returned them to the girl. “So you have been gathering blossoms near the marsh, have you, and playing by the water?” His words were courteous, his manner charming, but it was clear that he was speaking as a great king speaks to a half-witted child.

  “Well, I have a new amusement for you,” he added, and for just an instant the force of personality, the commanding strength that lay under his mockery, was apparent. Then he smiled, and his voice was almost lilting as he said, “Come, you enjoyed our last venture together.”

  The girl laughed musically with him, then stopped. “Yes,” she said, sobering, “but, you see, I’m busy now. I’ve just caught this sweet thing in my Wood.” And she pursed her lips to the falcon, which hissed viciously. Its talons gripped her wrist cruelly, but she showed no sign of pain or distress.

  “Very sweet,” said Cadal Forge dryly. “But what I ask will take your mind off him only for a few moments. Listen to me, Elwyn. You were glad enough to listen before and make mischief for your shrewish sister.”


  What he said next was lost on Alys. So this was Elwyn Silverhair, Morgana’s Quislai half sister! This was the person responsible for putting the entire human world in danger, the person who had outwitted the Mirror Mistress and opened the doors for the enslavement of Earth… .

  “But I don’t want to play anymore,” said Elwyn, stamping one small bare foot petulantly. “I already did what you asked me to.”

  “Yes, you brought me Morgana. But you neglected to bring that slinking familiar of hers, and I was forced to run it down myself. And while it was loose I believe—I have reason to suspect—that it taught others the secret of the mirrors. What I want of you, Elwyn, is to cross to the Stillworld once more and find out the truth of this. If I am about to have human visitors here I would like to … to prepare some suitable greeting for them.”

  In the darkness, Claudia buried her head in Alys’s shadowy lap.

  “But I’ve already told you I’m busy.” Elwyn put her head on one side and smiled at him ingenuously. “You see, there are reed whistles to make, and flowers to gather, and I want to fly my falcon and see her bring down other birds… .”

  “I am aware of the many pressing demands on your time,” said Cadal Forge. “But for the sake of our long friendship, surely you can spare an hour. I really must insist.”

  The way he said it, Alys could not imagine anyone daring to refuse. But—

  “No,” said Elwyn flatly, dropping the smile and shaking her silvery head for emphasis. “I’ve made up my mind, Cadal Forge, and I don’t wish to argue. I will not go.”

  “Then you will stay,” cried the sorcerer, suddenly unrecognizable with fury. Strangely, his hooded eyes hardly seemed to see Elwyn, but rather stared blindly through her. “You will remain a prisoner in this house until you obey me!”

  “And how will you keep me? I see no thornbranches here.”

  “You see a Red Staff.” Something passed, blindingly fast, from Aric’s hands to those of the master sorcerer. It was a length of wood like a quarterstaff, dull red in color. The head was carved in the hideous semblance of a griffin, and as Cadal Forge pointed the staff at Elwyn, long twisted branches, laden with thorns, shot out from the griffin’s mouth.

  With a ringing laugh, Elwyn danced lightly out of the way, and in a single movement reached the window. No one saw how the shutter came open, but it did. Placing her hands on the sill, she swung herself lithely through it. Her sweet laughter hung mockingly on the air for a moment and was gone.

  Aric sprang to the window and leaned out. “We must stop her!” he cried. “If she speaks of this—”

  “No, no. Let be,” said Cadal Forge. The savage passion had left him. He passed a hand over his forehead, blinking, and seemed to withdraw. “She will have forgotten it within the hour,” he added, as Aric still looked out.

  Reluctantly, the younger sorcerer turned, closing the wooden shutter once more. “She was our only hope of finding what lies beyond the mirrors,” he said dully.

  Cadal Forge had recovered himself, and a faint smile touched his lips. “No,” he said. “I suspected it would come to this. And there is another, more intelligent and reliable ally at hand.”

  “Who?”

  “Thia Pendriel.”

  Aric stared at him as if he had gone mad. When he spoke at last, it was in the flat voice of unbelief. “Thia Pendriel. Silver Guildmistress and a magistrate of the Council. Originator of the Plan of Separation. Thia Pendriel, who ordered you executed for treason, who herself helped to cast the portal which placed you in a Chaotic Zone to die—”

  “And thus was unwittingly responsible for what I found in that Zone.” Reaching into the folds of material at his breast, the sorcerer drew out a fist-sized jewel, a ruby, irregularly shaped but so clear it looked like a chunk of red ice. He weighed it in his hand as he continued speaking. “Thia Pendriel, who hates Morgana for winning the Gold Staff away from her in her youth more than she ever hated me. Thia Pendriel, who has skills surpassing all others’ at bringing far-distant scenes to light, and who can turn the mirrors themselves into windows so that we may see the other side.”

  Aric was still shaking his head as if stunned. “But should the Council learn of the Society’s existence—”

  “They will not learn of it from her,” said Cadal Forge. Once again his expression was thoughtful, remote. “There is much you do not understand, Aric. Thia Pendriel has made a study of the mirrors; she knows all there is to know about them—except what no one but Elwyn could tell her, that on the night of the solstice they open to all. And this last secret she will pay dearly to learn. She is interested in the Stillworld for her own reasons.”

  “Which we do not know.”

  “Nor does she know ours,” murmured Cadal Forge. The dreaming look enfolded him as he stared into the darkness and smiled.

  Aric looked at him in uneasy surprise. “But she must know ours, if she is to aid us. And I daresay she must have her share of the Stillworld as well—”

  “Yes, yes, whatever her price is we must meet it.” Cadal Forge had refocused with a start. Now he turned to Aric and examined him. “You still do not agree. What are you afraid of? Perhaps”—he straightened, his shadow lengthening on the far wall—“you think I cannot match her power.”

  The younger man turned the color of old cheese, and averted his eyes. “No, my lord,” he whispered after a long silence. “I know what you have found, and how you use it.”

  “Then let me save it for the humans, and don’t tempt me to use it on you,” said the other, relaxing, and smiling again. “My old friend, be at ease,” he added gently. “The councillor and I have met secretly more than once since my ‘execution,’ and I know her weaknesses. I leave for Weerien tomorrow.” He moved to lay a hand on the shoulder of Aric, who still looked slightly sick—and stopped cold. Alys had been so mesmerized by the conversation that she had left her shelter in the darkness and crept forward, by degrees, to hear better. At last, without realizing it, she had come into the line of sight of the mirror, and as Cadal Forge stepped forward he suddenly found himself gazing at the reflection of a very material young woman.

  Their gazes locked in the mirror and Alys felt the force of those crystal gray eyes like a blast of heat from a furnace. With a gasp, she flung herself down into the shadows, and her reflection disappeared from the bright glass.

  “What sorcery is this?” cried Aric, but it was Cadal Forge who whirled around swift as thought, his keen eyes razing the exact spot where Alys and the other three lay trembling. Yet even those eyes could see nothing, for shortly he turned back to his associate.

  “I cannot tell,” he said, and several times as he spoke he looked from the mirror to the wall, and back again. “But you must bring the Gray Staff and work a spell to reveal all that is hidden in this room. And I … I must cast a portal to Weerien at once. Our need of Thia Pendriel is greater than I thought.”

  Aric nodded and hurried from the room. But Cadal Forge, despite his words, hesitated, looking meditatively into the shadows. By his side Briony crooned deep in her throat, her yellow eyes fixed on Elwyn’s hawk, which had not escaped with its mistress, but perched uneasily on a ledge in the rafters.

  At the continued sound the sorcerer looked up, following her gaze. Then, with an abstracted glance at his familiar, he lightly laid the fingers of one hand across the Red Staff. The hawk, which had taken flight in fear, suddenly thrashed and plummeted to the stone floor, one wing broken.

  Alys covered Claudia’s eyes with a shadowy hand as Briony pounced.

  “Are you truly beyond the mirrors, friends of Morgana? Are you indeed watching? Then see this.” Cadal Forge spoke above the noises Briony made with the hawk. Once again he brought out the great jewel, holding it in sight of both mirror and shadows. “Behold Heart of Valor, a jewel from the time of Unmaking, recreated again—by me. Shall I tell you how I did it?” The sorcerer spoke casually, as if addressing honored guests he could see. In fact, all at once he seemed to be enjoyi
ng himself.

  “When the Council cast me into the Chaotic Zone my faithful Aric managed secretly to send me my staff. Even with all the power of the Red I struggled—I nearly succumbed to the maelstrom. But my will to live was strong. I wrestled with that great Zone as if it were an enemy that could be conquered—and I did conquer. I woke from deathlike sleep to find desolation all around me, but no Chaos. All was quiet. Natural law had been restored. But on the ground before me lay a jewel. I recognized it as one of the bas imdril, one of the Gems of Power that the Council Unmade long ago, and that I, in my struggles, had somehow created again. And that I have mastered—so.” The sorcerer fit the great Gem into his staff, and the griffin seemed crowned with fire. “Not even the Council knows of its existence, or that, with a word, I can do this.” The ruby traced a wide circle in the air, and, as the sorcerer murmured intently, the circle became a cylinder, a tunnel of shimmering light stretching off to infinity.

  “I defy you to oppose me,” said Cadal Forge quietly, and he stepped into the portal of light. It shrank and closed behind him, and the room was left to darkness and the flickering of the candle.

  A dim figure took shape before that candle as Charles jumped from the shadows. “Hurry!” he said. “Before Aric gets back!”

  “Hurry where?” whispered Janie.

  Aric had reclosed the shutter and the door. There was no moonlight, and no escape.

  Charles tried futilely to wrench the shutter open before turning back.

  “We’ve got to do something—”

  “We can’t,” said Janie. Then she suddenly began to laugh. “We can’t do anything. We’re absolutely helpless!”

  “Stop it,” said Alys. “Janie, be quiet!”

  Alys herself was sick with fear, not the least because Briony had finished with the hawk and was now turning languid yellow eyes toward the sound of their voices. If they were truly shadows, those steely claws could not hurt them, but as it was …

  “He’s coming back!” cried Charles from the door.