The Water Mirror (22 page)

“Couldn't we run down the steps?” Merle asked worriedly.

“Hurry, you said.” Vermithrax hadn't finished speaking when he rose gently in the air, glided over the banister, and plunged steeply into the depths.

Merle let out a high scream as the rushing air pressed on her eyelids and she almost catapulted backward off the lion's body. But then she felt a steady pressure on her back—Vermithrax's tail tip pressed her into his mane from behind.

Her stomach seemed to turn inside out. They fell and fell and fell. . . . The ground in the center of the stairwell was filling her entire field of vision when, with a shake, the obsidian lion righted himself again, swept just over the
bottom of the tower, and with an elementally powerful roar, shot out the door of the Campanile, a black streak of stone, larger, harder, heavier than any cannonball and with the force of a hurricane.

“Frrreeeeeeeeeee!” he screamed triumphantly in the morning air, which was still impregnated with the sulfurous vapors of Hell. “Free at last!”

Everything went so fast that Merle scarcely had time to notice any details, not to mention put them together into a logical succession of experiences, pictures, perceptions.

Men were bellowing and running here and there. Soldiers eddied around. Officers shouted orders. Somewhere a shot cracked, followed by a whole hail of bullets. One glanced off Vermithrax's stone flank like a marble, but Merle was not hit.

In a low-level flight, barely nine feet off the ground, the black obsidian lion rushed across the piazza with her. Men parted and ran, screaming. Mothers grabbed their children, whom they'd just let go free after the death of the messenger.

Vermithrax let out a deep growl, like a rockfall in the tunnels of a mine; it was a moment before Merle realized that this was his laugh. He moved with astonishing grace, as if he'd never been imprisoned in the Campanile. His wings were not stiff but powerful and elastic; his eyes not blind but sharp as a hawk's; his legs not lame, his claws not dull, his spirit not dulled.

“He lost the belief in his people,”
declared the Queen in Merle's thoughts,
“but not the belief in himself.”

“You said he wanted to die.”

“That was long ago.”

“Live and live and live,” roared the obsidian lion, as if he'd heard the words of the Queen.

“Did he hear you?”

“No,”
said the Queen,
“but he can feel me. And sometimes perhaps even what I am thinking.”

“What
I'm
thinking!”

“What we are thinking.”

Vermithrax rushed away over Hell's fissure. The flames were quenched, but a gray wall of smoke divided the piazza like a curtain. Vaguely Merle could see that stone and rubble were filling the crack from below and gradually closing it. Soon only the ruptured pavement would be a sign of the event.

More bullets whistled around Merle's ears, but strangely, during this entire flight she had no fear of being hit. Everything went much too fast.

She looked to the left and saw the three traitors standing in the bunch of guardsmen, in the middle a puddle of slimy secretions that flowed from the body of the messenger.

Purple. Gold. And crimson. The councillors had recognized who was sitting on the back of the lion. And they knew that Merle shared their secret.

She looked forward again, saw the piazza drop behind and the waves rushing under her. The water glowed golden in the dawn, a promising highway to freedom. To their right lay the island of Giudecca, but soon they also left its roofs and towers behind them.

Merle let out a shrill cry, of fear no longer, merely a vent for her euphoria and relief. The cool wind sang in her ears, and finally she could breathe deeply again, a boon after the horrible smell of sulfur in the piazza. Wind stroked her hair, flowed across her eyes, her spirit. She melted with the air, melted too with Vermithrax, who bore her over the sea, forty or fifty feet over waves of liquid fire. Everything was dipped in red and yellow, even she herself. Only Vermithrax's obsidian body remained black as a piece of night that was rushing forward in flight from the light.

“Where are we flying?” Merle struggled to speak over the noise of the wind but wasn't sure she was succeeding.

“Away,” cried Vermithrax boisterously. “Away, away, away!”

“The siege ring,”
the Flowing Queen reminded them.
“Keep in mind the Egyptian heralds and the sunbarks.”

Merle repeated the words for the lion. Then it occurred to her that Vermithrax had been locked up in the Campanile for so long that he could know nothing of the rise of the Empire and the Pharaoh's war of annihilation.

“There is war,” she explained. “The whole world is
at war. Venice is besieged by the armies of the Egyptians.”

“Egyptians?” Vermithrax asked in surprise.

“The kingdom of the Pharaoh. He's got a circle around the lagoon. Without a plan we won't get through it.”

Vermithrax laughed at the top of his lungs. “But I can fly, little girl!”

“So can the sunbarks of the Empire,” retorted Merle, her cheeks reddening. Little girl! Bah!

Vermithrax made a slight turn and looked back over his shoulder. “You make your plan! I'll worry about them back there!”

Merle glanced back and saw that they were being followed by half a dozen flying lions. On their backs sat black figures in leather and steel.

“The Guard! Can you lose them?”

“We'll see.”

“Now, don't be reckless!”

Again the lion laughed. “We two will understand each other well, brave Merle.”

She had no time to find out whether he was making fun of her. Sharp whistling sounded in her ear—rifle bullets whizzing past them.

“They're shooting at us!”

Their pursuers were about a hundred yards behind them. Six lions, six armed men—no doubt in the service of the traitors.

“Bullets can't hurt me,” cried Vermithrax.

“Well, wonderful! Not you, maybe. But they can
me
!”

“I know. That's why we—” He broke off and laughed threateningly. “Here's a surprise for you.”

“He's crazy!” If Merle had spoken aloud, her voice would have sounded resigned.

“Perhaps a little.”

“Do you think I'm crazy?” asked the lion cheerfully.

Why lie? “You were locked up in that tower for too long. And you know nothing about us people.”

“Did you not reproach me for the same thing?”
the Flowing Queen interjected.
“Do not oversimplify.”

Vermithrax cut a sharp turn to the right in order to avoid another gun salvo. Merle swayed on his back, but the bushy tip of the lion's tail pressed her firmly into his mane.

“If they keep on shooting so wildly, they'll soon use up their ammunition,” she bellowed into the wind.

“They are only warning shots. They want us alive.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“They could have hit us long ago if they had wanted to.”

“Does Vermithrax know that?”

“Of course. Do not underestimate his intelligence. These aerial maneuvers are harmless games. He is having fun with it. Possibly he only wants to find out if he has forgotten anything in all the years.”

Merle's stomach began to feel as if hands were tearing it in different directions. “I feel sick.”

“That will pass,” replied Vermithrax.

“All right for you to say.”

The lion looked back. “There they are.”

He'd allowed their pursuers to get closer. Four were just behind them still, but two now flanked them on either side. One of the riders, a white-haired captain of the Guard, looked Merle in the eye. He rode on a quartz lion.

“Give up!” he cried across the gap between them. He was about thirty feet away. “We're armed and outnumber you. If you keep flying in this direction, you'll fall into the Egyptians' hands. We can't allow that—and you can't wish it.”

“Which councillor do you serve?” Merle called.

“Councillor Damiani.”

“He is not one of the three traitors,”
said the Queen.

“Why are you following us?”

“I have my orders. And, dammit, that beast under you is the Ancient Traitor, girl! He laid half of Venice to rubble and ashes. You can't expect we'll simply let him go.”

Vermithrax turned his head to the captain and inspected him with obsidian eyes. “If you give up and turn around, I'll let you live, human.”

Something strange happened. It wasn't the reaction of the guardsman that astounded Merle, but that of his lion. With Vermithrax's words the winged creature awoke from the indifference with which it usually carried out the orders of its human master. The lion stared over at
Vermithrax, and for a long moment its wingbeats became more excited. The captain also noticed this and pulled on the reins in irritation. “Quiet, now.” His lips formed the words, but the wind snatched them away.

“The lion cannot understand why Vermithrax talks,”
declared the Flowing Queen.

“Talk with the lion,” cried Merle into the obsidian lion's ear. “That's our chance.”

Vermithrax abruptly let himself drop down thirty feet. The length of two men now lay between his paws and the churning sea. The closer they came to the waves, the more keenly Merle perceived their speed.

“Now!” roared Vermithrax. “Hold on tight!”

Merle clutched even deeper in his wind-tossed mane as the obsidian lion speeded up with a series of quick wingbeats, then made a 180-degree turn, climbing at the same time, and suddenly flew at their pursuers.

“Lions,” he called over the water in a thundering voice. “Listen to me!”

The six winged lions of the Guard hesitated. The beats of their wings slowed. They hung almost motionless in the air; thus their rumps sank down, moving from the horizontal almost to the vertical. Girths and buckles creaked as the six riders were raised up in their security harnesses. None of them had expected this maneuver. The lions were acting on their own will, and the guardsmen were not used to that.

The captain called out to his men, “Aim at the girl!” But in this position the gigantic heads of their lions were in the soldiers' way, and none of them could aim with only one hand and hold on to the mane with the other.

“Listen to me!” cried Vermithrax once more and looked from one lion to another. He too was floating in place, his wings beating unhurriedly up and down. “Once, I returned to this city in order to free you from the yoke of your oppressors. For a life in freedom. For an existence without compulsion and orders and battles that were never your own. As much air under your wings as you want! Hunting and fighting and, yes, speaking again, when you wish! A life like that of your forefathers!”

“He is using your language,”
said the Flowing Queen.
“The lions no longer understand their own.”

“They're listening to him.”

“You have to ask for how long.”

The six riders bellowed helplessly at their lions, but Vermithrax's voice easily overrode theirs. “You hesitate because you have never before heard that a lion speaks the language of men. But do you not also hesitate because there is a lion who is ready to fight for his freedom? Look over at me and ask yourselves: Do you not see in me your own selves again?”

One of the lions spit sharply. Vermithrax started, almost imperceptibly.

“He grieves,”
explained the Queen.
“Because they could be like him and yet they are still only animals.”

Other lions joined in the spitting, and the captain, who'd grown up with the lions and spent his entire life with them, smiled with the certainty of victory.

“Rebel against your masters!” Vermithrax bellowed angrily. The mood tipped from one moment to the next without Merle's understanding the reason for it.
“Don't take orders anymore! Throw your riders into the sea, or carry them back to the city! But let us go in peace.”

The lion that had been the first to spit extended the claws of its front paws threateningly.

“It is no use,”
said the Flowing Queen with a sigh.
“It was worth the try, but it is pointless.”

“I don't understand,” thought Merle bewilderedly. “Why wouldn't they listen to him?”

“They fear him. They are afraid of his superiority. For many, many years no lion in Venice has spoken. These ones here have grown up in the belief that they are superior to all other lions by means of their wings alone. But now another one comes along who is even more powerful than they. They cannot grasp that.”

Merle felt the anger rising in her. “Then they're just like us people.”

“Well, well,”
retorted the Queen. She sounded amused.
“Out of the mouths of babes . . .”

“Don't make fun of me.”

“No, excuse me. I did not intend to.”

Vermithrax spoke softly over his shoulder. “We're going to have to run for it. Get ready.”

Merle nodded. Her eyes wandered over the six guardsmen. None of them had yet succeeded in aiming his rifle. But that would change as soon as the lions were horizontal again; as soon as they flew forward again.

“And—go!” roared Vermithrax.

What happened then went so fast that only looking back later did Merle realize how very close to death she had been.

With a roar and powerful wingbeats Vermithrax sped forward, under and past the formation of six guardsmen, steeply up behind them, upside down over them and away.

Merle squealed in horror. Even the Queen cried out.

But Vermithrax turned over and Merle sat right side up again, clutching his mane, still not quite grasping how she'd survived the last seconds safe and sound. The moment during which the sea had suddenly been over her head had been short and not really dangerous—Vermithrax was too fast and had too much momentum for Merle to have been able to lose her grip. Nevertheless . . . he could at least have warned her!