Tithe to Tartarus

by John C. Wright

  She looked over her shoulder. There were more behind her and more to either side, like grisly fruit hanging from a rich tree. One looked as if he had been run over by a truck before being hanged and impaled. Another, as if he had been burned. Yet another had huge bites torn out of his bound arms and legs, as if he had been lowered into a pit of savage animals before dying.

  With a creak of ropes, the corpses now all rotated so that their bloated, blackened, torn, and desiccated faces all faced her.

  Yumiko screamed in shock and terror. She had let go of the flashlight and covered her mask with her gloves. Gritting her teeth, she forced her cold fingers to move. She grabbed and twisted the ring. Once, twice, thrice, and once more again.

  Her longbow and short sword snapped out to their full length, and her cape unfolded into glider wings, knocking the phone off the table. Bolo and boomerang and dozens of knives, barbed and throwing stars jumped out of their belt pouches and fell to the carpet.

  The metallic clamor of the dropped weapons rang in her ears. The echo hung in her ears a moment, and silence came.

  Fear vanished.

  The ghosts of the slain were gone.

  A light as clear and subtle as starlight was streaming from the ring in all directions, glinting like Procyon on a clear winter night.

  Yumiko stared at the ring in awe, but this time, it was the awe of wonder, not of terror. The woman’s face in the intaglio of the ring had changed again, and now her features were those of a stern and bright-eyed angel crowned with rays.

  Chapter Three: The Face in the Glass

  1. Starlight

  She stood. The chamber now seemed airy and clean. The dust on the carpet had also vanished. The suit indicated no toxins were in the air. Yumiko unsealed and opened her mask. The air seemed fresh and clear.

  She had to undo the harnesses of her wings. Cutting blades were now visible at the toes of her boots and running along her forearms from wrist to elbow. An elbow pad and two kneepads made her motions less limber.

  But she did not twist the ring to banish the starlight yet. It seemed to have banished the mist that had been in this chamber, unseen and unsuspected, and to reveal yet another level of hidden things.

  She stepped over the rolltop desk. It was no longer empty. One of the pigeonholes contained a radio apparatus; another held the five-sided element charts and astrological calendars for a type of divination called onmyodo; the tools of a chemistry set occupied others and a compact but thorough forensics lab; the drawers held groups of notebooks. She opened one; the page was blank. She held it near her nose and sniffed. There was a faint odor from the page, as if ink were present, but unseen. She closed her mask and went through the various settings of her lenses and flashlight, hoping the ink was visible in the ultraviolet or infrared. It was not.

  She opened other notebooks at random. All were blank. Here was the desk of her master, crammed with his secrets, years of journals and diaries, and she could see none of it.

  2. Celestial Collection

  Next, she opened the cabinet door on one of the walls. This time, bathed in the silver light of her ring, instead of a blank wall, the cabinet held a large and obvious handle. It must have been invisible before, hidden in the mist. She pulled it.

  On the other side of the chamber, the blank wall behind the rolltop desk sighed and slid open. Beyond was a walk-in closet. Three walls of the closet contained a set of glass shelves behind smoked glass panels. The shelves held what seemed at first to be a collection of gems that blazed with white fire. A dial could adjust the polarization of the panel to darken them and to make the blindingly bright shapes visible.

  A touch of the finger moved the glass panels to bring more into view from below and to hide those above. The rear of each shelf was mirrored so that the things displayed could be seen from front and rear.

  But the materials glittering in the collection were not gemstones. One or two she recognized, such as an awl or fork, an inkwell or arrowhead. Other objects were curved or pointed or hollow, like fishhooks or drinking bowls or sets of linked rings; but not quite of the right size and shape for any of these things. Here was a sets of cubes and prisms forming a hollow pyramid; there a group of what looked like miniature sundials or crystal toadstools; and the next shelf held what might have been spiral horns of fabled beasts, except that they were crystalline and transparent.

  Some held liquids but were not shaped like bottles. Some emitted light but were not shaped like lamps.

  All were as beautiful as works of art but looked like nothing in nature, and so they might have been decorations of pleasing shape. All were made of a crystal that seemed to fool the eye. One moment the object seemed smaller and nearer to the eye than the cabinet around it, and the next, it seemed larger and farther. Most of the objects burned solemn blue or pristine white, but there were, now and then, gem-like gleams as red as Antares, as blue as Bellatrix, as golden orange as Capella.

  Looking closer, she saw that nearly all were chipped, marred, or asymmetrical as if bits were missing.

  Then, she gasped, for she recognized one of the artifacts: it was a silver scarf-pin shaped like a fish, with azure chips for scales, and the light of Arcturus for eyes. Yumiko had seen her mother wearing it, holding the folds of her wimple at her throat. Yumiko’s eyes, in her younger days, must have been different from her eyes on Earth, for she had not remembered the ornament as so beautiful, so bright.

  When she turned the dark glass entirely transparent, Yumiko found her naked eye could not look upon her mother’s pin. Yumiko saw no way to open the case to touch the pin. Nor was she sure the touch would not burn her.

  She turned the dial and darkened the glass once more. Now Yumiko understood what this was: litter recovered from the rubble of Sarras, the fallen city of the stars.

  Silently, she closed the cabinet door.

  3. Armory

  A second wall of the eight-sided chamber also contained a cabinet, in which was a switch previously invisible. Pulling it open made the blank wall opposite the desk slide open. A second hidden closet was directly opposite the first.

  This second closet contained weapons. Two weapon racks faced each other, one filling each closet wall. The first held black blades and dark weapons, massive and heavy, and quivers of red arrows cut too long for her bow. The other held weapons of silver-white, slender and more graceful blades, shorter arrows. Gratefully, Yumiko re-supplied the arrows and throwing blades she had lost.

  Between the weapon racks was a chest of glass drawers holding other supplies. The upper drawers held arrowheads of different shapes: leaf shaped or trefoil, broadhead or bodkin-point.

  One drawer held flint-napped arrows of stone. A label read: For nephilim. The next higher drawer held arrowheads of fire-hardened ash for vampires and, above that, silver arrowheads for werewolves, all neatly labeled. The uppermost drawer held red metal arrowheads. These were labeled: Meteoric Iron from Sarras. For elfs.

  There was also a single arrowhead made of a black substance that seemed to be neither metal, stone, nor wood and was bitterly cold to the touch. For the Dragon. She wondered about that label.

  From the lower drawers she replenished her missing miniature grenades, flares, and so on. There was even a cubbyhole holding a pad of metallic cloth to replace the one a wolf had torn from her elbow three weeks ago.

  She found a small box containing a hacksaw, needle-nosed pliers, and other useful tools her utility belt had been lacking.

  Yumiko twisted the ring and banished the starlight. The eight-walled chamber seemed smaller than it had a moment ago, and the air hot and close. Like her other gear, this toolkit was a mermaid pouch. With the starlight gone, she could flatten the toolkit to an impossibly small size. Nonetheless, she had to remove and leave behind the pouch of weapons from her utility belt to make room. Evidently, her previous self had thought carrying an extra dozen throwing daggers, a trifork spearhead, and a brace of climbing claws was a better use of space.

  4. L
ocked Doors

  Next, she went to one of the two interior doors and opened it. With the ring no longer shedding starlight, the brick wall was still there—or seemed to be. But now she was sure that the brick wall was merely a trick, a thing of colored shadows. There was a switch or lock hidden in the mist, invisible. She reached toward her ring but then hesitated.

  Winged Vengeance did not have the Ring of Mists to command the mists to draw back. How did he open his door? He no doubt went through the rooms of his lair many times a day, including while burdened with laundry bags. Or, more likely, body bags.

  She pushed on various bricks at hand level or eye level, but nothing moved. The bricks felt solid.

  Perhaps he used a key or a remote control. But, if so, it would be something he carried on him at all times. Wings? She flapped the hem of her own cape against the wall. It was a celestial flying robe, at least, of a sort.

  The bricks remained bricks.

  Or rather, the elfin illusion of a wall of bricks remained. What would Winged Vengeance carry on his person at all times which was proof against elf magic?

  Then, she laughed, reached over her shoulder, drew out a red arrow whose head was made of meteoric iron from Sarras, and touched it to the so-called brick. As suddenly as if waking from a dream, she realized she had been staring at a door that was merely coated with red wallpaper printed with a repeating pattern of rectangles. She rapped on it with a knuckle and heard a hollow, wooden echo. The doorknob was plain to see. She opened it.

  Beyond was a barren cell, such as a hermit might use. There was a sleeping mat on the hard floor, a lamp, a trunk that contained a man’s clothing, a chamber pot, and a wash basin. Winged Vengeance certainly did not coddle himself.

  There was only one decoration in the hermit cell: a standing screen of black rice paper. It was a triptych of three panels. Calligraphy was painted on the screen in energetic but controlled strokes of red ink. One panel read: Those who flee the light adore the dark.

  In the center, it read: Let me be in the dark and bring my terrors, and dark they will no more adore, for it is become their foe.

  The final panel was two bold ideograms, which meant: In the darkest night, there must be vengeance.

  There were two archways on the far side of the cell opposite the rice screen. These opened into even smaller chambers. One was paneled in mirrors and held a stationary bike, weightlifting equipment, and a wooden practice dummy called a wing-chun. The other was paneled in cork and held a chair, a music stand, and a violin in a climate-controlled glass case. The sight of the violin stung her eyes with tears and troubled her heart, but no memory surfaced to tell her why.

  She returned to the main chamber and opened the other door. This one also seemed to have a brick wall behind it until she touched an arrowhead to it.

  The door now opened into a room with white walls and floral wall screens. Midmost was a pink bedspread. At the walls were a chair, a desk, and a wardrobe.

  In she walked, arms spread, and she spun in a circle, smiling. A stuffed white teddy bear with a bow about its neck sat cheerfully on the pillow. She picked it up and hugged it without knowing why.

  Beyond the fluffy pink bed were two archways. One led to a miniature kitchenette. The other held a door, behind which was a luxurious bathroom where an old-fashioned tub crouched on claws clutching glass marbles beneath a gas-powered brass water heater.

  She bounced on the bed, leaped up, spun on her toes again, and flung the wardrobe door open. She knew without trying anything on that it would all fit. She plucked up her favorite wide-brimmed straw hat, doffed her mask, and pushed back her cowl so that she could wear it. Yumiko smiled at herself in the mirror above the vanity bureau and tilted the straw hat at a rakish angle. She turned again and looked at herself in the mirror over her shoulder, striking a pose.

  There were two photographs tucked into the frame of the mirror. One was a slightly blurred black and white photo of a dark-haired woman with two children. It had the stiff quality of a photograph taken with a box camera long ago.

  The children were a young girl and an older boy. The little girl was tall and seemed almost too old for her mother to hold in her lap. The young man sat to one side and behind the mother. He had dark, intent eyes. All three had the black hair, ivory skin, and epicanthic eyefold of the Far East.

  The other photograph was in color. It showed a clean-shaven freckle-cheeked redheaded youth in an aviator’s leather jacket. Goggles were pushed high on his forehead, making his orange forelocks stand up at wild angles. On his back was some sort of metal backpack with wings, only part of which could be seen protruding from behind his shoulders. In one hand was what looked like an electric crossbow. It had ruby lenses at the tip of each arm and thick electrical cables running to the stock. His other hand was raised in a thumb’s-up salute.

  His eyes were as blue as cornflowers.

  An emotion too large for words possessed her. She drew the color photograph out of the frame and stared at the boy’s face intently. This must be the one. It was he. Tomorrow Moth, the young inventor. Her fiancé, supposedly.

  It was the first time she had seen his face.

  She looked up and saw herself staring at her. She said to the image of herself in the mirror, “This must be my room!”

  The image in the mirror said back, “It is. Welcome home.”

  5. Riddles

  Yumiko hesitated for a moment between puzzlement and fear, wondering whether she had finally gone mad. For she had spoken to herself several times in the mirror, whenever she was troubled. It had never answered back before.

  Yumiko, embarrassed, removed her straw hat. The image in the mirror remained wearing hers.

  “I beg your pardon? Can you talk?” Yumiko asked. “Are you real?”

  Her face in the mirror tilted her head to one side. “Does anyone ever answer that question by saying no?”

  “What is your name, please?”

  “Yumiko Ume Moth,” said her face.

  Yumiko scowled, and her face scowled at the same time, imitating her. “That is my name!”

  Her face said, “No, your name is the Foxmaiden. Your name is vengeance.”

  Yumiko shook her head, but this time, her face did not imitate her. Instead, it nodded slowly, insistently, staring her deeply in the eye with a knowing look.

  Yumiko said, “Who are you, really?”

  “Your shadow in the glass.”

  “Are you a spirit? A ghost?”

  “The ghost of a living girl?” her face asked impishly. “As Tom would say, That would be a slick trick.”

  “Then how can you talk? What are you?”

  “I am a diary, if you please.” The other smiled. “Your diary.”

  “What? I mean, I beg your pardon?”

  “I can talk because you needed someone to confide in.”

  Yumiko’s heart leaped. “Then you know all my past! Tell me! Please!”

  “That would be my pleasure,” said the diary. But then she said, “Who danced for joy on the day of darkness, when all the spirits of Heaven wept before the stone that blocked the cave where light died?”

  Yumiko scowled, and her shoulders slumped. The talking mirror was asking her for her password. Of course a girl would keep her diary locked.

  6. Family Photo

  Yumiko’s eyes fell on the black and white photo. She drew it out of the frame and brought it close. The lady wore a dress of a style Yumiko did not recognize, a fair garment of many silken pleats falling in smooth lines.

  It was her mother. Which meant…

  The diary said, “Who stepped forth when none other would go to confront the dreadful spirit that stood upon the eight-forked bridge binding Earth to Heaven and opened the way?”

  Yumiko inspected the two children carefully. They were dressed in summer kimonos called yukata. Hers was decorated with a pattern of moths; his with ravens.

  Even as a little girl, Yumiko had possessed something of the rangy limbs of an athlet
e, the narrow features and high cheeks of Akita Prefecture.

  She stared narrowly at the youth. The man into which he would grow was clear in his features. It was the face of Pooh-Bah of Titipu, the tall and impressive Japanese gentleman she had seen so briefly at the Cobbler’s Club.

  Why was a youthful Winged Vengeance with Yumiko and Dandrenor in a family photo?

  The diary said, “Who stood watch before the sacred grail of Sarras, from whose rim the last sacrifice at the last feast drank the last of the wine?”

  Yumiko jerked her eyes up from the photo and stared at her reflection’s eyes in the glass. “I know that one. Dandrenor. Dandrenor is the Grail Queen.” She turned the black and white photo and showed it to the mirror. “Now I have a question for you: Who is this little boy?”

  The diary’s eyes narrowed. “You do not recognize your own half-brother? That is rather odd. You answered the riddle right, but Nyctalope warned me not to trust anyone wearing your shape.”

  “Nyctalope? Is that his name?”

  “He said you fell into the hands of the Anarchists and so might be a clone grown from the cells of the real you, or possessed by a ghost, or just a dead body animated by an electronic brain. They do things like that.”

  Yumiko grimaced. “Please! How do I prove I am the real me?”

  The diary bowed slightly. “I am sorry, but you prove yourself by answering the riddle correctly and by knowing who your own brother is, or so I would say. You’ve done one of those, so it may be permitted that I recite you the final entry I was given. But the other entries must stay locked, I’m afraid.”

  “Wait! That is not fair! I am the real me!”

  “How do you know?”

  And Yumiko had no answer for that.