The Glass Word Page 3

  Instead they were greeted by darkness.

  The light from the surface vanished after a few yards. First the surroundings turned dark green, then black. He could no longer see Eft, nor the two mermaids who drew them steeply downward by their hands. The pressure on his body hurt, but nothing more seemed to harm him, which contradicted practically all the theories he’d heard about diving to such depths. It was really naive to ascribe all this to the effect of the helmet, he knew that only too well, but what other choice did he have?

  The wall of blackness around him was complete; he couldn’t even see his own arms. He might as well have been able to float down bodiless. And perhaps it was exactly that: You gave your body to the coat check at the entrance to the kingdom of the sea witch the way you would elsewhere divest yourself of top hat and coat. It irritated him—no, in truth it frightened him terribly—that he and Eft could no longer see the mermaids, although he kept on feeling their hands. And what if that was only his imagination? What if he’d been floating down alone for a long time, into an abyss of cold and darkness and God knew what sort of creatures?

  Don’t think about it. Don’t drive yourself crazy. Everything is all right. Everything will turn out well.

  He called up the memory of Merle’s face, her smile, the courage and flash in her eyes, the brave expression around her lips, and her untamable wild hair. He simply had to see her again. For that he would even put up with meeting a sea witch.

  Under him—in front of him?—over him?—diffuse lights appeared in the blackness. As they came closer they looked like, yes, like torches.

  Soon he realized that his guess was very close to the truth. At wide intervals there were globes hanging in the sea, not firm ones, like his helmet, but wavering, constantly changing their form: air bubbles. And in the bubbles burned fire.

  Fire in the deep sea, dozens, hundreds of fathoms under the surface!

  By the gleam of the torches he could now make out his companions again, pale apparitions with long hair, women whose hips extended into lithe, scaly tails. Even behind the curtain of floating clouds of particles and inky strands of shadow, their faces would have been of flawless beauty—had it not been for their broad mouths, stretching from one ear to the other and studded with a quantity of razor-sharp teeth. Yet it wasn’t the shark’s jaws of the mermaids that drew his gaze again and again but their strikingly beautiful eyes.

  The air bubbles with flames licking at their curves were now more frequent, and soon he saw the bottom of the sea. The ground was rocky, with extreme variations in height. The light bubbles bobbed gently up and down on bizarre fish bones and spikes, awakened to life by invisible currents, while the deep clefts and canyons lost themselves in blackness. Soon he could recognize that the surfaces of the undersea mountains themselves were covered with structures, ruins of walls, of buildings, of streets and alleys. Whether this place had at one time lain above the water or its inhabitants had lived here like fish remained uncertain. It was clear that this city had been abandoned a long time ago.

  If it had been a part of the suboceanic kingdoms, that took away a little of its mystery, Serafin thought—whoever had lived here couldn’t have been very much different from ordinary men, for their requirements were the same: walls to hide behind, streets in order not to lose their way, protection behind stone and metal.

  The sea witch resided on a cliff, high over the sunken rock country.

  She twined like a white worm in the darkness, fire bubbles dancing around her like fireflies—and yet, bafflingly, she escaped their glow, as if her skin were able to protect itself from reflecting the light.

  She blew out an air bubble, as large as the freight hold of a trading frigate. She beckoned Serafin and Eft with thin, slender-boned hands. Her long hair floated around her head like a forest of water plants, waving and floating, without ever sinking back onto her shoulders.

  She was as large as a mighty tower, even larger than her rival’s corpse, which Serafin and the others had discovered on the surface. Her face united the beauty of the mermaids with the menace of a giant octopus.

  The air bubble wafted toward Serafin and Eft. Just before it reached the two of them, the mermaids left their sides and whisked away with a few skillful flicks of their scaled tails. Serafin tried to avoid the bubble, but it touched him and drew him inside it. With a gasp he slid down its curve and came to lie at the bubble’s deepest point. A moment later Eft landed beside him. She still wore the small knapsack with Arcimboldo’s mirror mask on her back, from which nothing and no one could separate her. The straps were fastened so tightly that they cut into her shoulders.

  The face of the witch appeared out of the darkness. She formed her lips into a kind of pucker, with which she sucked the bubble toward her. Her gigantic features came closer and closer, finally were as big as a house. Serafin tried to shrink back, but his hands and feet found no hold on the slippery bottom of the bubble. He could only sit there and wait as they steadily approached the witch’s mouth.

  “She’s going to suck us in.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Spellbound, Eft’s eyes were fixed on the mighty face, terrible and beautiful at the same time.

  “Sea witches are man-eaters,” he said doggedly. “Every child knows that.”

  “Carrion-eaters, that’s the difference. They eat dead men, not living ones.”

  “And who’s to keep her from fixing that little flaw with a snap of her fingers?”

  “If she wanted to kill us, she could have done it on the surface. But she’s just vanquished another sea witch and taken over her kingdom. Maybe she’s in a good mood—as far as you can say such a thing about a sea witch.”

  The face was now about ten yards away. A dozen fire bubbles slid forward and flickered around the witch’s head like a crown. Serafin stared only at her lips, full and dark, no broad slit like the mouth of the mermaids. Behind the lips, teeth gleamed brightly, long and sharp as fence posts.

  The wall of the bubble bent in under the witch’s features—nose, mouth, and eyes broke in and suddenly were directly in front of Serafin and Eft. The witch had pulled the bubble over her face like a mask. Water ran over her white-gray skin, broad rivulets flowing from the bridge of her nose down to the corners of her mouth and to her chin.

  She had the face of a young woman, enlarged to absurdity as if under a magnifying glass. To look her in the eyes was to look so quickly from right to left that Serafin became dizzy, they were so far apart.

  Eft had given up any attempt to stand. She remained sitting and did her best to indicate a bow. Serafin gathered that the same was expected of him, and so he did it.

  The sea witch looked down at them, a wall of mouth and eyes and grisly teeth. “I welcome you to the under-sea.” Her voice was not as loud as Serafin had feared, but the smell that came across her lips pressed him back against the bubble wall like a hot squall. Within seconds the inside of the bubble smelled like a slaughterhouse in the Calle Pinelli. The odor even came through the diving helmet. “What has brought you into my realm?”

  “A flight,” said Eft straight out.

  “From whom?”

  “You know what times we live in, Mistress. And from whom men flee.”

  The witch nodded only slightly, but the movement made the entire bubble tilt and threw Serafin and Eft together. One of the gigantic mouth corners rose in amusement. “The Egyptians, then. But you are no human.”

  “No. However, I live among them.”

  “You have the mouth of a mermaid. How can the humans ever accept you as one of their own?”

  “I was young when I left the water. I did not know what I did.”

  “Who took your tail from you?”

  “You must smell her scent on me.”

  Again the witch nodded, and again Serafin and Eft slithered around like insects that a child has trapped in a jar. “I killed her. She was old and stupid and full of evil thoughts.”

  Serafin thought of the corpse of the witch on the
surface. He was amazed at the words of the creature before him. He couldn’t have imagined that a sea witch could label something like that evil at all. Or would want to. They are carrion-eaters, Eft had said. But did that make them bad by nature? Men also ate dead meat.

  “I was never a servant to your rival,” Eft said to the witch. “It was a business deal. She was paid for exchanging my scaled tail for legs.”

  “I will believe that. When she died, she had no servants left. Even some of the other witches feared her.”

  “Then it was good that you conquered her.”

  The witch made an encircling movement deep under Serafin and Eft with her tree-size hands. “You know who once lived in this kingdom?”

  Eft nodded. “The suboceaners were powerful in this area of the undersea.”

  “There is still an enormous amount to discover. The ruins of the suboceanic cultures are full of riddles. But I would have a greater compulsion to find them out if I did not have to worry about the Egyptians.”

  “Why should a being like you have to fear the Pharaoh?”

  The witch allowed herself a real smile for the first time. “You need not flatter me, mermaid-with-legs. True, I am powerful here in the undersea. But that which gives the Egyptians power could also become dangerous to me sometime. And yet I do not fear for myself only. The Empire has almost exterminated the mermaids. We sea witches are born to rule, but over whom shall we rule if our subjects become ever fewer? Someday there will be no more mermaids, and then our hour has also come. The sea will become an empty, dead kingdom, full of fish with no understanding.”

  “Then hatred of the Egyptians unites us,” said Eft.

  “I do not hate them. I recognize their necessity in the course of things. But that does not mean that I will come to terms with them. With all the anger and the sorrow they have caused me.” For a moment the gaze of the huge witch eyes was turned inward, lost in thought and heavy with care. Just as quickly her attention returned to the here and now. “What will you do if I let you go?”

  Serafin had remained quiet for the entire time, and now, too, he thought the most reasonable thing was to leave the talking to Eft. She knew best how to deal with such a being. “The humans who are with me will die of thirst on the wide sea,” said Eft. “And I do not want to go on alone. I would rather die.”

  “Great words,” said the witch. “You mean them seriously, don’t you?”

  Eft nodded.

  “What is your goal?”

  Yes, thought Serafin, what really is our goal?

  “Egypt,” said Eft.

  Serafin stared at her. The witch noticed it.

  “Your companion is of another opinion?” The question was formulated as if it were addressed to Eft, but in fact the witch was now looking at Serafin, and she was expecting that he would give an answer.

  “No,” he said uncertainly. “By no means.”

  Eft gave him the shadow of a smile. Turning to the witch, she said, “Our only choices are hiding or fighting. I will fight. And I am sure my friends will choose the same course once they have the opportunity to think about it.”

  “You intend to attack Egypt?” asked the witch scornfully. “You alone?”

  Serafin thought of the small troop waiting for them on the surface of the water. He guessed that Dario, Aristide, and Tiziano would join them. But Lalapeya? She was a sphinx, even if she’d assumed the form of a human. Already, in Venice, she’d taken a stand against her people and so against the Empire, but the defeat had worn her out. He wasn’t sure that she was ready to carry on the fight now. Or what sort of a reason she might have for it.

  Anyway, what did that really mean, “fight”? What would that look like? The witch was right: At best they were six—against the combined power of the Pharaoh and the sphinx commanders.

  Again the witch put the question to Eft: “You want to attack Egypt?”

  Eft smiled, but the effect was grim. “We will find ways to injure them. Even if it’s small things: a raid here, a dead priest there. A leaking ship, perhaps a dead sphinx once in a while.”

  “Nothing of that will even reach the ear of the Pharaoh,” said the witch, “not to mention worry him.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The act counts, not the result. You must understand that, Mistress. Did you not speak of exploring the ruins of the suboceanic kingdoms? What’s your purpose in that? They will not rise again in their old glory. No result—only the will to do it. Just as with us.”

  “Are you speaking of obsession?”

  “I would call it dedication.”

  The witch was silent, and the more minutes that passed, the more convinced Serafin became that Eft had adopted the right tone. At the same time, it was clear to him that the mermaid had meant every word seriously. That frightened him a little, but he also admired her determination. She was right. He would go with her, no matter where.

  “What is your name?” asked the witch finally.

  Eft told her. Then she added, “And this is Serafin, the most skillful of the master thieves of Venice. And friend of the mermaids.”

  “You are mad, but you are also brave. That pleases me. You are a strong woman, Eft. A dangerous woman, for others and for yourself. Be careful that the scales don’t tip too much to your side.”

  It had never occurred to Serafin that sea witches could be wise. Behind the fearsome facade there was far more than the bestial hunger for human flesh.

  “Does that mean you are letting us go?” Eft spoke matter-of-factly, without any emotion.

  “I am not only letting you go, I am going to help you.”

  The witch’s words might have impressed Serafin, but that didn’t mean he wanted her for a companion. No, not at all.

  But the witch had something else in mind. “My handmaidens will take you back to your companions. Wait there for a while. Then you will find out what I mean.”

  And that was what happened.

  The face of the witch withdrew from the bubble and sank into the darkness. Serafin discerned its warped outlines in the shadows one last time before the fire bubbles all around went out and the titanic being became one with the darkness.

  They returned the way they had come. As they broke through the surface and saw the light of day over them, Serafin uttered a thankful sigh. Perhaps he wasn’t the first human who’d survived an audience with a sea witch, but certainly one of the few. He’d learned as he listened to her, and his picture of the world had become yet a little more faceted, livelier, more varied. For that he was grateful to her.

  Dario and the other boys helped them out of the water, up onto the floating corpse of the old sea witch. Full of evil thoughts, cried a voice from the deep into Serafin’s mind, and now he found it even a little more disgusting to place his feet on the dead flesh of the corpse and to support himself on his hands while climbing up onto it.

  Lalapeya awaited them on the ridge of the lifeless scaled tail. The sphinx did not smile, but she acted relieved. It was the first time since their flight from Venice that Serafin saw anything in her expression other than grief and sorrow.

  They took turns reporting what had happened and were not interrupted by the others one single time. Even when Eft told what goal she’d named to the witch, no one argued.

  Egypt, then, thought Serafin. And in an absurd, nightmarish way, it felt right.

  An hour or two later the water began to boil, and something mighty rose from the sea.

  THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE

  THE SUNBARK FLEW LOW, FOLLOWING THE COURSE OF THE frozen Nile. It was buffeted by the winter winds, but at least no snow was falling, which could have forced them down.

  Merle gazed out through the window slits. Below them the land lay dazzlingly white. The once green banks of the Nile hardly contrasted with the desert anymore—everything was buried under a thick layer of snow. Here and there a frozen palm grove protruded from the ice, and sometimes she saw ruins of huts, the roofs crushed by the weight of the snow.

  Wh
ere are all the people? she wondered.

  “Frozen to death, perhaps,” the Queen said in her thoughts.

  Only perhaps? Merle asked.

  “If the Pharaoh had not already incorporated them into his mummy armies.”

  You think he would have completely wiped out his own people to fill his army?

  “You must not think of the Pharaoh as an Egyptian. He was a devil, even when he was alive more than four thousand years ago, but he has not been a human since the high priests awakened him. Whether the people who lived here on the Nile were ever his own is no longer of any consequence. Probably he saw no difference between the people here and those in all the other lands he conquered.”

  A land without people? But then who is he waging this war for?

  “Not for the Egyptian people, that is certain. Perhaps not even for himself. You must not forget the influence of the priests of Horus on him.”

  Junipa was leaning on the wall of the bark beside Merle, her knees drawn up and her arms around them. Merle felt that Junipa was observing her, sometimes openly, sometimes covertly. Seth had fallen into a kind of trance after the bark’s takeoff, which was probably necessary to steer the flight. Merle had observed him for a long while; then she’d decided to use the opportunity to tell Junipa everything that had happened since they’d parted at Arcimboldo’s in Venice. The girl with the mirror eyes listened, passively at first, then with increasing interest. But she said nothing, asked no questions, and now Junipa was sitting there, and Merle could virtually feel what was going on in her friend’s mind, as if Junipa were waiting for a sign of the Flowing Queen.

  Merle’s eyes wandered over to Seth, who sat on a pedestal in the front part of the bark, his face turned toward the inner space. A vein stood out on his forehead and disappeared beneath the golden network. Nevertheless, Merle thought she felt him groping toward her with invisible feelers. Once before, at their first encounter, she’d had the feeling that he was looking straight into her interior—and that he saw who was hidden there.

  She wondered whether the Queen shared her perceptions, but this time she received no answer. The thought that even the Flowing Queen could be afraid of the most powerful of the Horus priests frightened her.