Avram Davidson: The Phoenix and the Mirror

“But I heard,” the graybeard insisted. He had a sharp, watchful face. Two dogs barked, one after the other. Men’s voices called. The graybeard’s eyes swung up to the half arch of the ceiling, where the voices had seemed to be; swung over to the man he had just admitted.

“Was that what you heard?” the man asked. He looked at the door. It bore the image of an obscure god, one he had never seen before, an equestrian very much like that other godling, the Thracian Rider; but this was instead a woman in a strange headdress. More to the immediate point, perhaps, the door was sturdy and the huge bolts had slid smoothly into the living rock.

“Filthy creatures,” muttered the older man. “Why doesn’t the Doge send men, thousands of them — armed — with torches — and clean out the conduits once and for all? Is it because the manticores have so many burrows that the ground is riddled with them like an old cheese? They told me that’s why.”

“They told you rightly,” the newcomer said, turning to go.

But his rescuer was ahead of him now, blocking the way. “Is it true no man can follow? That hundreds would be lost — never find their way back?”

The younger man moved past him. “It’s true, and I thank you.”

A hand was laid on his shoulder, tightened. “Then why were you in the conduits?”

“Because I was a fool.” Their eyes locked. The hand took a firmer grip, then relaxed.

“No… you’re not a fool. And neither am I. So…” A curious sound came from not far off, like a bird call, but of no bird known. The graybeard removed his hand, placed it flat against the newcomer’s back and pushed him firmly ahead. “We’ll go and see her now,” he said. Two half flights of stairs brought them to the surface. They were in a garden, far too large to be located anywhere within the city. A huge oak wreathed in vines stood not far away, and a row of cypresses marked a path. There was a white froth of almond blossoms on the trees to his right, and the air was sweet with the scent of them. The curious call sounded again, nearer.

“I am coming, ma’am,” the graybeard said. “ We are coming. ‘In the name of Poseidon Horse-breaker,’ I asked him, ‘why were you down in those daemon runs?’ ‘I’m a fool, is why,’ he said. And — ”

A woman’s voice said, sharply, “Tullio, be still!”

Tullio’s face broke into a broad smile as if he had been complimented, and he nodded vigorously to the newcomer as if inviting him to share his pleasure. He composed himself as they rounded the great oak, and he bowed. The woman who sat deep in the shade of the tree was probably handsomer now than in the first, fresh days of her nubility; that was clear. If she had been merely beautiful at another period was uncertain. It was sure that she had never been merely pretty. Behind her, on a slight rise of ground, was a large villa. Servants were behind her chair, crouching at her feet, and on either side; yet she had the air of being quite alone. A golden whistle lay in her lap, as lovely as her golden hair.

“Are you hurt?” she asked — concerned, yet more bemused than aware. “What happened? Who are you?”

The man bowed. “I am not hurt, ma’am,” he said. “I was lost — pursued — attacked — then saved, thanks to your servant. My name is Vergil.” He felt the breeze touch the back of his neck and was prepared when the white deerhound, who had been nuzzling the lady’s hands, leapt howling to its feet. A deep sound rose from Vergil’s throat, and the dog stood back, subsiding, but with its hair still bristling.

“I think that I will stand over here, if I may, ma’am,” Vergil said. “The wind brings him the smell of those creatures.”

She nodded, abstractedly. “Yes, we have it sometimes when the air is still and heavy. Earthquake days, or when Vesuvio is about to be angry. A bitter smell, deep and bitter. Foul things, and yet… yet they must have some awareness of beauty, don’t you think? They dig up rubies and emeralds and all such precious stones, and make piles of them only to look at them. Or so one hears.”

Tullio chuckled. His lips smiled, but not his eyes. “And so Master Vergil hears, too, ma’am, I dare say — which is perhaps why and how he happened to get lost. Eh, sir?”

Vergil said nothing. The lady said, “Tullio.” Reproof was implicit in her tone. Then: “Give him refreshment — no, you , Tullio.” The cheeks above the sharp gray beard were slightly flushed as Tullio, with the slightest of shrugs, the slightest of smiles, took the tray from a silent servant’s hand and gave it to Vergil, as a servant girl, who had started to move, sat down again. There was wine, bread, a dish of oil, a dish of honey, soft cheese, a sliced lamprey. Vergil bowed his thanks, poured a libation, began to eat.

“But… weren’t there others?” the mistress of villa and garden asked. “We heard… it seemed.…”

He swallowed a mouthful, took a sip of wine. The air was cool in the shade of the great oak. There were many questions in his mind, but he could wait for the answers. He lifted his head slightly. A man’s voice spoke from the top of one of the almond trees. All eyes turned to look. There was no one there, but the voice went on speaking. And then, from the very summit of the oak, a dog barked.

“I see,” the lady said. “And I know some little about such matters. This is no mere mountebank’s trick.” She nodded. Her fingers played on the golden whistle. “I understand, now. You are that Vergil.”

Vergil bowed.

Her deep-set violet eyes gazed at him intently. Her long, white, blue-veined fingers clenched, so that the single ring on them thrust forward its crested signet. “Magnus,” she said, “can you make a speculum for me?”

“No, madam,” he replied after a moment.

She beat her hands together. “Do you understand me? I mean a speculum of virgin bronze, prepared according to the Great Science which is your art.”

The wind had stopped, the air was still. Crouching on the ground behind her lady’s seat, holding in one small hand an embroidery ring with a long needle thrust through the unfinished design — a bird of strange sort sejant upon a heap — a servant girl looked up at him aslant with red-brown eyes. “I understand you, madam. In theory I can make a virgin speculum. In fact, however, at the present state of things, it is impossible.”

The lady gave a gasp of despair. She threw out her hands, opening, somewhat, with the force of the gesture, the carefully arranged folds of her robe. An inch or two of bordering showed, and — a sudden stroke of light illuminating a corner previously obscured — Vergil now had the key to the puzzle. But it did not increase his pleasure. There can be too much gold.

“I should hope, ma’am,” he said, calmly, “that you understand that no simple willfulness prevents my agreeing.”

The despair ebbed from her face, and was succeeded by the slightest of flushes. “No,” she murmured. “No, no… after all, you have eaten my bread. You have drunk my wine.”

Something stirred in his mind. “And not only here,” he said.

“What… ?”

He came close, spoke so low that only the two of them could hear. “‘I , perishing with thirst, was given to drink of the waters of memory. I drank from the cymbal, I ate from the basket.’”

Memory was in her eyes, enlightenment upon her face. “ ‘You have seen the sun rise at midnight,’ then, too,” she said. “You have seen the Eleusinian mysteries. We are brother and sister, but we…” She looked about her, held out her slender hand, and he helped her rise.

“Not here.”