«I don’t believe you.»
«If you don’t believe you’re the prettiest,» he pretended not to understand her, «then take the mirror and see for yourself. It won’t deceive you. It has no more reason to lie than I do.»
Rhianon looked involuntarily at the cracked mirror. She did not care to look in it, so she only shook her head in disapproval.
«Leave me alone.»
«Leave you alone when you’re about to cry.
Rhianon put her fingers to her cheeks. Really soon tears would run down them, salty and searing like turpentine. They might burn her skin if she didn’t handle them. If Orpheus were here he would make her laugh.
She rose and sat up in bed. The gleaming smoke still hovered above her.
«You can’t replace the company of those I like,» she said with a touch of reproach.»
«But I can be useful to you,» he moved closer, almost to her. «I really can.»
«You don’t know what I want.»
«So tell me.»
She just laughed.
«How you try to simplify things, and they are so complicated.»
«I know, but it will get easier if you believe me.»
She didn’t believe him, and she didn’t want to, but there was no one else around. Even the harpy, who had been on her heels the whole time, had disappeared this time. Rhianon sat staring at the smoke billowing over the floor. It gleamed so beautifully, but it was cold. If it had been material, it would surely have felt as prickly to the touch as golden sand.
She stared at it long enough, and then she suddenly really wanted to go to the tower. Could he have instilled that in her? Or maybe she had a need for companionship. The five spirits were always courting her. Sometimes it was even pleasant to be with them. Now that she was alone, she needed to unwind. Let Madael tear up the world below if he so desired, and here in the sinister underworld she could discover her own corner of pleasure and sorcery. She was drawn to the spirits as strongly as if they were standing beside her and calling to her.
«All right,» she stood up, brushed her fingers through her tangled locks, and then moved toward the exit, trying not to watch the emeralds in the bears’ eyes flash and fade behind her. It was as if they were signaling her to stay. Otherwise something terrible would happen, her emerald gleam warned her, but she paid no attention. It was just a few minutes and she was already in the tower with the spirits. This time it was unaccustomedly quiet around her, no laughter, no jokes, no promises. Each spirit sat in its own niche, gleaming in the darkness with multicolored sparks that surrounded each vague figure. Rhianon stopped in the center. She had to turn her head to look at each in turn. The tense silence made her tired.
«Well?» She glanced at the spirit whose fuzzy silhouette had ruby sparks danced across it. «Is there anything else you want to offer me?»
«Not much,» the orange spirit replied.
«Is it a new country? Or is it a place of interest?»
Several of the ghostly voices nodded in agreement. Rhianon sensed a slight movement in the air, as if she thought she heard a breeze inside the tower.
«Look!» A hand of smoke and gold flecks deftly wrapped around her wrist and forced her to place her fingers against the partition above the alcove. «What do you see? What do you feel?»
The smoke was no longer enveloping her, and Rhianon kept running her fingers along the wall. She could feel the cold stones, but she could see nothing. There wasn’t even a spider’s web that had insects with human limbs crawling all over it. Elsewhere in the castle there was such a web, it stretched in golden lace around the corners or the ceiling and looked quite beautiful, but the strange parasites stuck in it could frighten anyone. Here, on the other hand, there was no slime, no mud, no spider nets, not a crack in the stones, but they seemed damp for some reason. Rhianon did not immediately manage to fumble for something that looked like a bas-relief.
«Is it a symbol or a coat of arms?» She frowned, tracing a fancy monogram with her finger. She could see well into the darkness, but she couldn’t make it out clearly. She had to study it by touch. It was quite elaborate, covered in delicate curls, and the carving was deeply embedded in the wall. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed it at once.
«What is it?» Rhianon asked, but the spirits were stubbornly silent. Did they want her to guess for herself? Rhianon shook her head. They were so stubborn. They could have easily explained it to her, but they didn’t hurry. Maybe it was the oppressive silence that was causing her to have strange visions. She heard screams, the way only children can scream, shrill and hoarse, as if their cervical vertebrae had been broken, and she saw blood. Someone was twisting the head of a black hen and dipping a dagger in its blood to carve a magic wand out of the alder tree with it. Someone is summoning spirits. She recognized Hildegard’s hands carving something whimsical out of wood. And then it was the turn of incomparably ancient visions. People dancing in a ring lined with demons, Madael’s servants dragging blocks and laying them in a circle, and then watching from above as sacrifices were offered on the altars. It was human sacrifices.
Rhianon swallowed hard. They want to flatter their lord with these sacrifices. Stonehenge, as it would later be called, the place where he first appeared in the midst of the ritual, simply emerged from a halo of fire, her warrior-lover, fresh from battle, bloodied sword in hand and helmetless. Even those who had conjured and offered sacrifices to him on the altars, seeing him without his helmet, went blind. But she herself, instead of going blind with the appearance of Madael in her life, on the contrary, began to see well in the dark. Maybe it’s because fire is her element. She herself is made of fire. And a fallen angel in fire cannot be a stranger to her. Still, Rhianon was scared. Those rituals were terrible. They meant nothing to Madael, he took the pain of others for granted, because he thought that no one would ever go through the same pain as he himself after the fall. The horror, suffering, and stupid self-sacrifice of mortals became something he took for granted. He despised people, but he accepted their sacrifices. He was indifferent to his own army as well, but condescended to let them herd a bloody temple for him. Every block of his unfinished chapel is stained with blood. We must ask him to forbid his demons to continue dragging the blocks. That temple must never be finished. No way.
To think how much inanimate stones can tell us. Rhianon kept running her hand over them, and the wall seemed to vibrate and come alive under her touch. The surface was no longer cold; on the contrary, it began to seem fiery.
«It’s a letter,» Rhianon realized at last. Beneath the swirls and monograms she could see the familiar shape of a letter. «It is the letter «A.»
«Well done, you guessed it,» the emerald-colored spirit pretended to clap his hands, but the clapping wasn’t even louder than the echo. «Now keep watching.»
Rhianon moved on to the next partition and fumbled for a similar symbol. She no longer had to run her fingers over it as long to figure it out.
«It is the letter «D.»
She didn’t know what it was, but the spirits were nudging her toward something. There was a vague sense of panic, merriment, even excitement in the tower now. Everything stirred. They were expecting her to do something. She felt as if a storm was about to break out of the autumn leaves flying at her.
«Keep watching,» someone commanded.
Rhianon obeyed. She found the next symbol.
«B,» she said aloud, and frowned. It was an Earth alphabet, or so she thought, but in fact she found some unknown symbols and interpreted them in a way that was close to human perception. It could have happened to her, after all. Living with Madael, she learned to understand the language of angels, but to perceive it as human speech. Now she thought she encountered familiar letters, but really they were forbidden and dangerous symbols that meant something terrible.
«Farther, farther…» they urged her on.
In the next two partitions she discovered two more letters, «E» and «N.» What could this mean? There were five spirits and five letters. As many ghosts fill the hall, so many symbols are in it. Rhianon tried to draw a parallel, but she had little success.
«They’re the first letters of your names,» she surmised.
For a moment the air in the hall was heavy with laughter, low as the wall, more like the rustle of a leaf whirling against the wall, but more affecting to her than deafening laughter.
«What’s the matter? Are you trying to play a trick on me?»
«Not at all, most beautiful, not at all,» the spirits flew from their seats and touched her shoulders and hands and face affectionately – all as they had the first time and yet in a very different way.
«What do you want from me?» Their caressing touches this time felt slippery and clammy, like the embrace of a grave full of worms. It was as if the worms were sliding across her skin, not her hands. If one day she died and ended up in the ground, the grave bugs would caress her the same way.
«It is just a little, divine beauty,» the golden spirit whispered in her ear, and the others echoed.
«It is just a little.»
Rhianon wanted to put her hands over her ears so she couldn’t hear them. It sounded like a funeral choir. It was as if the spirits were performing a requiem for her. She is a princess and she is about to die, to be walled up here, and the spirits will begin to circle around her burial place. And so it might have been, had it not been for the spark of fire inside her that they feared.
«It’s true already inside you,» the reddish spirit whispered, the ruby sparks flashing beautifully on her transparent body, it seemed magnificent, like a whole treasure trove of scarlet gems. His glowing hand slid gently around her waist, as if seeking to penetrate her corset and press against her skin.
«There’s fire inside me,» she whispered, as if she were confiding in them a deep secret.
«And what fire is it,» the greenish spirit confirmed. «It is a creature of fire. It is a great creature. So magnificent, it would be impossible to believe your eyes. No mortal would believe it, no immortal either. You have no idea how much pain and suffering he would bring to humans and demons alike.»
«Is it he?» Rhianon looked from one spirit to the next perplexed, but they all seemed to be talking to each other. No one was quick to offer an explanation.
«He’ll be magnificent,» the spirits whispered, breathless and delighted. «He couldn’t be more wonderful, but his character leaves a lot to be desired…»
