Muss licked lips so dry and fissured that they crackled.
‘And be quick about it,’ said Klarm. ‘If I never see Nennifer again after today, it’ll be too soon.’
‘The Numinator created the Council of Scrutators in the first place,’ said Muss.
‘What?’ cried Flydd, who was halfway through the door. He came back slowly, now showing his age and aftersickness with every dragging step.
‘It was well over a hundred years ago …’ said Muss. ‘The Numinator – he or she, no one knows – took over the existing Council of Santhenar and shaped it to his own purposes …’ another glance over his shoulder, ‘… only one of which was to win the war. The war wasn’t going so badly then. The lyrinx were few and didn’t threaten the whole world.’
‘What were the other purposes?’ said Klarm.
‘Controlling the world was one. Rewriting the Histories, in particular the Tale of the Mirror, was another. A third was collecting information on every person: their ancestry, looks, family traits, habits and talents, and compiling the bloodline registers.’
‘What for?’ said Nish.
‘No one knows,’ said Muss. ‘A copy of each register was placed in this room, and from here it vanished.’ His head jerked up and he stared at the emerald throne as if expecting the dread personage of the Numinator to materialise there.
The emerald throne remained as it was. Muss was gazing up at something, unblinking, and his eyes widened perceptibly. He was looking at the mirrored globe.
Nish glanced at it and the little hairs stirred on his arms. The room and its contents were still reflected there, but none of the people were. He edged towards the door. ‘As Flydd said, there’s Tiaan, Malien and Yggur to be recovered, and little Inouye, if she’s still alive. We can sort this out later.’
‘I think so too,’ said Flydd, who had come back into the room. ‘Let’s go, Klarm.’
At a faint humming sound, like a swarm of bees a long way away, Muss’s mouth gaped open and his eyes bulged. With a convulsive jerk he tore free of Klarm’s hand and bolted for the door.
‘Don’t let him get away!’ yelled Klarm.
To the distant music of tubular bells the mirrored globe became as clear as glass, revealing a roiling sphere inside as bright and burning as the sun. A ray of light burst from it and fingered the surface of the table before creeping along to the eidoscope, which was still lying there. The lenses rotated of their own accord; a mass of coloured rays shot from the other end and touched Muss on the back.
Just inside the door, Muss gasped, turning slowly and with evident unwillingness, until he faced the eidoscope. The rays expanded to cover his entire body. His clothes faded and were revealed as flesh-formed protrusions of skin and tissue, mimicking the colour and texture of the real thing. They dissolved back into him and Muss stood naked and sexless, a neuter with the body of a human but the massive crested head and toothed maw of a lyrinx.
And then he shifted into two, the images superimposed. One was a weathered man of some sixty years, the other a small, aged female lyrinx. The images separated fractionally, blurred together again then sprang apart. The lyrinx image went into a crouch; the man turned as though to flee, but only managed a couple of steps before the other was on him, attacking him savagely, clawing and biting.
The two images merged, blurred and faded back into Muss, though the battle continued as his body went to war on itself. The skin of his chest bulged out as if pushed from inside. Wounds appeared without any seeming cause – three long tears across his belly like claw marks; a chunk out of one shoulder; a gouge on his lower thigh. A bulge moved down from his diaphragm, pushing his stomach out until the watchers could see the shape of his organs outlined against the stretched skin.
It moved up through his chest while he choked and gagged, then the skin burst at his throat and he was torn apart from the inside out. Muss fell into a bloody heap on the floor, the light from the eidoscope faded and the mirror became reflecting once more.
They looked at one another, their faces taut with horror.
‘What was that?’ said Irisis.
‘The vengeance of the Numinator,’ said Flydd. ‘A mancer of surpassing power and, it appears, one who guards his privacy jealously.’