Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

And the speculum was revealed.

Like a great locket, it rested there, shining and brightening. As if at an agreed signal, all began to walk around it. Its back was ornately and beautifully designed and inscribed, but no one lingered to examine or to decipher; all walked with eyes awestruck and unfocused. And, as they did so, an horlogue began to sound the twelfth hour and as it did the room began to darken, until at eleven it was almost black. Then came the stroke of twelve, Vergil reached out and snapped back the lid, and the bronze, resounding like a bell, encompassed and occluded the stroke of noon. Simultaneously the the darkness was pierced by a broad shaft of sunlight and Cornelia pulled from the bosom of her robe a long golden pin and thrust it at the blank but luminous face of the mirror’s disc. The pin touched, the surface of the disc went into flux like oil resting upon the surface of water when disturbed. The disorder became a whirlpool, round and round, drawing everything toward it and everything into it.

“Laura!”

And there she was, pacing slowly on great Cyclopean steps; near her, always near her, but never quite in clear range of vision, was something ugly and dreadful. Whose voice had cried her name, Vergil did not know, but it was Cornelia’s voice which cried out now, cried no name, cried out. The whirlpool swirled reversewise, closed in, the scene vanished, and the last vanishing echoes of the stroke of twelve were heard. The mirror was a mirror now, and nothing more. Vergil, Clemen, Cornelia saw their own faces, but Vergil now saw what he had already felt : it was his own face, his true face, his face complete. His missing soul had returned to him. Cornelia — she who now stood staring, staring, staring — had kept her word.

To her it had been plain magic. To Clemens, a living metal had revealed a living truth. To Vergil, a focus had been provided to reveal in presently visible terms an event occurring elsewhere and at that moment impressed upon the universal ether, from which the virgin speculum (virgin now no longer) had received and revealed it upon its virgin surface. Vergil reached out his hand towards Cornelia.

Cornelia spoke. She did not speak, she was pointing at the wall, her face worked, her lips moved, her throat moved, a harsh and fearful cry came from her mouth. There on the wall in a luminous circle was the design of the four figures of the four quadrants of the uranoscope; around the rim, both clockwise and counterclockwise, the inscription in the curious and impressive letters of the Umbrian alphabet, so often written mirror-fashion, Widdershins.

Vergil seized her hand. “Lady Cornelia, don’t be afraid,” he said urgently. “This is the so-called magic mirror effect, yet it is no true magic but an effect derived from purely natural causes. Come and see, come and see… .” He showed her the design, now reflected on the wall, on the back of the surface of the speculum, whence (he explained) by a seemingly inexplicable effect caused by atomical disturbances, it was cast upon another surface and thus gave the impression that the solid bronze was transparent as glass. “I do not wonder at your surprise,” he said. “No doubt you failed to observe, while looking at the reverse of the disc before, that it showed the heavenly configurations… the Somber Warrior in the north, and in the south, the Vermilion Phoenix.”

She tore her hand loose from his grasp. Fear now partially retreated and was replaced by rage, but did not vanish utterly; and outrage and hatred and despair struggled with them both. She turned upon her heel and left the room.

Softly, Clemens said, “It is done.”

But Vergil knew that it was not done, that only a phase of it was done. The girl in the mirror, the first woman he had really seen in months — and he had fallen in love with her.

And now he had to find her.

THE BULL HAD bellowed that he would take Tartis Castle apart, stone by cyclopean stone, treaty rights or no treaty rights. But in actually approaching the castle with the Imperial Sub-Legate and a century of his own troops, Doge Tauro’s voice had decreased in volume and increased in awe. The politely astonished Captain-lord had immediately granted permission to search not the castle alone but all of Tartis ward, and insisted on limping along with them. The building was huge, it was vast, it seemed to extend for half of forever beneath the hill. Most of it was gaunt and bare, and of the rest, most was half dust and half decay. Long before the search was done, both Doge and Sub-Legate were convinced that not the Captain-lord nor any of his men knew anything of the matter. It took until the end, however, for them to conclude, reluctantly, that no one and nothing had held Laura there — with or without the knowledge of the rightful occupants — at any time. And so the seekers departed, more baffled than when they came.

Vergil lingered a moment to thank the Captain-lord in person for the gift of tin. The man shrugged. “It seems no good to have helped you. But why thought you that she was here?”

“I never thought she was. But she was clearly in a place as like to this as to make the others think that it was this… great blocks of stone piled by the four-armed Cyclopes in the Age of Dreams.…”

The Captain-lord looked at him with shrewd and tired eyes. “I know of one other such, that in Mycenae. But it all of ruins is. It could no one conceal. You” — he shrugged again his massy shoulders — “you know of more ones, I think. Yes? Then — Doctor — Magus — advise you, I have no right. But let me say… go not yourself. Let another go. But you, go not.”

Vergil sighed. “Sir, go I must.”

The snowy brows met in a frown. “Pursue, pursue! Always must you pursue?” And the vast chest rose in a great breath which was itself both question and statement.

His departing guest nodded. “Yes, Captain-lord. Until death conquers me.… or I conquer death… always, I must pursue. Farewell.” He turned to go.

Behind him, the low and weary voice said, “Pursue… pursue… I would be content merely not pursued to be.”

The torches were burning low, the Doge, stamping impatiently, started off, asking over his shoulder, “What did the old man have to say to you, Magus?”

“That in Mycenae is another castle which used to be like this. It’s all in ruins now, though, and no one could be hiding there.”

The Doge swore. So much work, so much magic, and all — he asked — all for what? And the Sub-Legate, breaking his silence, said, “I understand that the Emperor’s patience cannot be answered for much longer.”

Although Tauro growled that it made no difference, that even the Roman legions could not find Laura if no one had any idea where she was, Vergil understood… and knew that he, though not the Doge, was meant to understand… not that Caesar, losing patience, would summon troops to seek the princess of Carsus out, but that he would simply turn his ever-wandering attentions elsewhere. There were other young women of rank suitable for marriage, should the Emperor finally decide to divorce his aging and ill-tempered consort… should he decide to bother with marriage. And in that case, what worth the plans of Cornelia and the Viceroy?

For that matter, in any case, what worth Vergil’s own plans?

Clemens slapped his thigh in wrath and bawled from his chair that Vergil was acting like a concupiscent schoolboy. “I understand it clearly enough. You’ve seen nothing fairer than a furnace nor comelier than a crucible all this time. You were taut, tense… wrought up, dispense me the need to display the other many adjectives. And then in that, admittedly magnificient, abrupt moment you saw what I concede without argument was the face of rather an attractive wench, and — Zeus! you weren’t thinking, man — you were simply reacting. It wasn’t your heart, it was your codpiece that the impulse came from!