Mark Chadbourn - The Devil's Looking-Glass

Barely had the words left his lips when the funereal tolling of a bell tore through the hot dark once again. Will felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck.

‘The night unfolds and releases its terrors,’ Mandraxas whispered with a low laugh. ‘Run. Run.’

Across the City of Gold, they could hear the wind rising. In the high eaves and along the twisting alleyways it moaned. Doors crashed open. Feet pounded on stone. A high keening, of inhuman voices raised in anger, tugged at their ears.

‘The sands have run out, my love,’ Meg said with an edge to her voice. ‘This is no time for caution.’

Urging the others to follow, Will broke into a run, following the directions Deortha had whispered in his head. But the alleyways twisted and turned in a confusing manner, and the dark lay heavy around them.

Running feet echoed on all sides. Will could feel the rising anxiety of his friends as the activity milled closer. But just as he feared the worst, he saw the landmark he had been searching for, a golden globe spinning with no visible means of support at the centre of a small courtyard. He ran forward, only to be confronted by a high, black, featureless wall. Despairing glances darted among the others as they realized they were trapped.

Footsteps and calls echoed all around. The Unseelie Court were drawing near.

‘Why do you tarry?’ Carpenter barked. ‘Make haste before we are undone.’

Jenny squeezed Will’s hand as he scanned the length of the wall. ‘What is it you search for?’ she asked.

‘A door. Deortha told me our path of escape would begin here, at his chambers.’

‘The sorcerer has betrayed us,’ Launceston snarled, glancing back.

‘Deortha keeps his secrets well,’ Jenny said. ‘With him, nothing ever lies in plain sight.’

Will weighed her words. After a moment he snatched a sizzling torch from the wall and reflected its ruddy light with the obsidian mirror. Lines of silver filigree glimmered on the basalt: stars, a moon, a sun, a host of magical symbols of the kind he had only ever seen before in Dee’s shadowy chamber in the Black Gallery. And there, at the centre of them, the faint outline of an arched door shimmered. Handing the mirror and torch to Grace, Will pressed round the edge of the shape until he heard a click and the hidden door slid open.

The spies dragged their prisoner into the dark space. It was not a moment too soon. The tumult crashed against the edge of the courtyard as the door whispered shut behind them. His hand trembling, his face pale, Carpenter levelled his rapier, ready to repel any who followed. Shrieks and cries rang through the stone wall, but after a moment they began to pass by. Carpenter exhaled, his shoulders sagging as his blade fell.

Will took the torch and held it high to reveal a flight of stone steps disappearing down into the dark. As they paused to catch their breath, Grace could contain herself no longer. She threw her arms round Jenny, burying her face in her sister’s shoulder. Awkward and unsure, Jenny’s hands wavered over the younger woman for a moment before she returned the embrace.

‘Do you know me yet?’ Grace said between juddering sobs. ‘My heart will break if you remain a stranger. So long have I yearned for your return.’

Jenny held her sister’s tear-streaked face between her hands and gazed into the young girl’s eyes. Her brow cleared, and she smiled. ‘I remember holding a little girl’s hand as we searched for wild flowers in the wood. And telling stories under the covers when we were supposed to be asleep.’ She stroked the centre of her forehead. ‘I thought it a dream, insubstantial. But now I see you here, the visions grow clearer by the moment.’

As she pulled back, Grace bit her lip. ‘I feared you dead. Oh, I lost faith, Jenny. Only Will . . .’ She choked back the words. ‘Will never lost his belief that you would return to us. Even in the darkest days, he kept a candle in his heart, and that in turn brought comfort to me.’

Jenny looked beyond her sister’s shoulder to where Will was beginning to descend the stone staircase. While Meg and Launceston pricked Mandraxas with their daggers to follow, Will sensed Jenny hurrying to catch him up. Looking back, he saw her glance at the Fay and whisper, ‘I beg you not to hurt him.’

‘He is our foe and I have reached agreement with Deortha to take his life in exchange for our freedom. Your freedom,’ Will replied, ignoring a pang of jealousy.

‘Whatever you might think of him, he has shown me many kindnesses during my long years in the City of Gold.’ He felt her breath on his ear as they descended into the dark.

‘You love him? Even though he stole you from all you knew?’ he whispered, his voice sounding too harsh in the stillness.

‘When I was first brought here, I cried every day. I cried for the man I had lost.’ She swallowed and added quietly, ‘And you?’

He nodded, feeling the rawness of the memory, even after all the time that had passed.

‘But over the days and years, the life I had faded like a dream,’ she continued. ‘Soon this place, and Mandraxas, was all I knew. And he was gentle and caring, and he showed me love—’

‘They are not capable of love,’ Will interrupted, his voice hard. Moisture now glistened on the walls.

‘They are,’ she protested. ‘They are no different from us.’

‘And did you love him ?’ Will asked coldly. He paused, looking into her face. From further up the steps, he heard the shuffle of feet as Grace, the other spies and their prisoner descended cautiously.

‘You must understand, it was all I knew—’

Will turned away and continued his descent, his expression unreadable. ‘My plans for the King’s future were made long ago. Nothing will alter them.’ He increased his pace before she could protest.

The staircase opened out on to a long, low-ceilinged chamber barely lit by the glow of four candles arranged on the cardinal points of a circle inscribed on the dusty flagstones. Along the walls, a multitude of gilt-framed mirrors each as big as a man glittered in the reflected light. As Will stepped into the room, rapier drawn, shadowy figures formed in several of the mirrors, each one growing more distinct as if they were stepping out of a thick fog. He recognized several members of the Unseelie Court’s High Family, including Malantha, seductive and cruel, the silver-haired Lethe, a grotesquely fat, bald Fay he had glimpsed in Paris the previous year, and others he did not know. Each seemed to be standing in a different chamber, at courts across the world, Will guessed, where they wove their manipulations of men. And among them stood Deortha, his eyes ringed with shadow, the bird and mice skulls braided into his hair trembling with each faint movement.

‘What is this?’ Carpenter muttered, shuddering. ‘Are we betrayed?’

‘I am sure the High Family care little for us at this moment,’ Will murmured in reply. ‘Greater matters must now occupy their minds.’ He nodded to Meg and Launceston, and they forced Mandraxas to his knees in front of the mirrors. The Earl pressed the tip of his dagger against the nape of the King’s neck.

‘They are here to pass judgement,’ Will said to Carpenter. And to witness an execution? He wondered how much Deortha had told the other members of the High Family. He watched Jenny look along the row of Fay lords, her face cold, and knew there was no love lost there. She took Grace’s hand in her own, perhaps an unconscious desire to protect her sister from these predators.

A faint click echoed from the shadows behind them, but as Will peered into the gloom Mandraxas turned his face towards his siblings and uttered, ‘You will not judge me. I am King.’

‘King.’ Deortha shaped the word with cold precision. ‘You keep the Golden Throne safe for our Queen at the pleasure of the High Family. It is a privilege.’