have no idea of what a shroudling is.'
Later still she responded, 'I would be very surprised if you did, for we have always been a secret race.' She opened her mouth to me, and I saw by spirit-light a slow retraction of her fangs into normal-seeming dentition. 'They emerge in times of passion other than feasting,' she remarked.
'So you do use them as a vampire would,' I said.
'Or a ghoul,' she said. 'Their flesh is even richer than their blood.'
''Their'?' I said.
'That of those we would take.'
'And who might they be?' I asked.
'Those the world might be better off without,' she said. 'Most of them simply vanish. Occasionally, with a feast of jokers, only parts of some remain.'
I shook my head.
'Shroudling lady, I do not understand,' I told her.
'We come and go where we would. We are an undetected people, a proud people. We live by a code of honor which has protected us against all your understanding. Even those who suspect us do not know where to turn to seek us.'
'Yet you come and tell me these things.'
'I have watched you much of my life. You would not betray us. You, too, live by a code.'
'Watched me much of my life? How?'
But we distracted each other then and that moment came to a close. I would not let it die, however. Finally, as we lay side by side, I repeated it. By then, however, she was ready for it.
'I am the fleeting shadow in your mirror,' she said. 'I look out, yet you see me not. All of us have our pets, my love, a person or place of hobby. You have always been mine.'
'Why do you come to me now, Rhanda?' I asked. 'After all these years?'
She looked away.
'Mayhap you will die soon,' she said after a time, 'and I wished to recall our happy days together at Wildwood.'
'Die soon? I live in danger. I can't deny it. I'm too near the Throne. But I've strong protectors - and I am stronger than people think.'
'As I said, I have watched,' she stated. 'I do not doubt your prowess. I've seen you hang many spells and maintain them. Some of them I do not even understand.'
'You are a sorceress?'
She shook her head. 'My knowledge of these matters, while extensive, is purely academic,' she said. 'My own powers lie elsewhere.'
'Where?' I inquired.
She gestured toward my wall. I stared. Finally, I said, 'I don't understand.'
'Could you turn that thing up?' she asked, nodding toward the spirit-light.
I did so.
'Now move it into the vicinity of your mirror.'
I did that also. The mirror was very dark, but so was everything else there in Mandor's guest house, where I had elected to spend the night following our recent reconciliation.
I got out of bed and crossed the room. The mirror was absolutely black, containing no reflection of anything. 'Peculiar,' I remarked.
'No,' she said. 'I closed it and locked it after I entered here. Likewise, every other mirror in the house.'
'You came in by way of the mirror?'
'I did. I live in the mirrorworld.'
'And your family? And the four other families you mentioned?'
'We all of us make our homes beyond the bounds of reflection.'
'And from there you travel from place to place?'
'Indeed.'
'Obviously, to watch your pets. And to eat people of whom you disapprove?'
'That, too.'
'You're scary, Rhanda.' I returned to the bed, seating myself on its edge. I took hold of her hand and held it. 'And it is good to see you again. I wish you had come to me sooner.'
'I have,' she said, 'using the sleep spells of our kind.'
'I wish you had awakened me.'
She nodded. 'I would like to have stayed with you, or taken you home with me. But for this part of your life you a certified danger bringer.'
'It does seem that way,' I agreed. 'Still...Why are you here now, apart from the obvious?'
'The danger has spread. It involves us now.'
'I actually thought that the danger in my life had been minimized a bit of late,' I told her. 'I have beaten off Dara's and Mandor's attempts to control me and come to an understanding of sorts with them.'
'Yet still they will scheme.'
I shrugged. 'It is their nature. They know that I know, and they know I am their match. They know I am ready for them now. And my brother Jurt...we, too, seem to have reached an understanding. And Julia...we have been reconciled. We - '
She laughed. 'Julia has already used your 'reconciliation' to try to turn Jurt against you. I watched. I know. She stirs his jealousy with hints that she still cares more for you than for him. What she really wants is you removed, along with the seven in the running with you - and the others who stand ready. She would be queen in Chaos.'
'She's no match for Dara,' I said.
'Ever since she defeated Jasra, she's had a high opinion of herself. It has not occurred to her that Jasra had grown lazy and lost by a trick, not by a matter of power. She would rather believe her own strength greater than it is. And that is her weakness. She would be reunited with you to put you off-guard as well as to turn your brother against you once again.'
'I am forewarned, and I thank you - though there are really only six others in the running for the Throne. I was number one, but a half dozen pretenders have recently turned up. You said seven. There's one I don't know about?'
'There is the hidden one,' she said. 'I do not know his name to tell you, though I know you saw him in Suhuy's pool. I know his appearance, Chaotic and human. I know that even Mandor considers him a worthy antagonist when it comes to scheming. Conversely, I believe Mandor is the main reason he removed himself to our realm. He fears Mandor.'
'He inhabits the mirrorworld?'
'Yes, though he is not yet aware of our existence there. He found it by a near-impossible accident, but he simply thinks he has made a marvelous discovery - a secret way to go nearly anywhere, to see nearly anything without detection. Our people have avoided his awareness, using curves he cannot perceive let alone turn. It has made him considerably more formidable in his path to the Throne.'
'If he can look out - even listen - through any mirror without being detected; if he can step out; assassinate someone, and escape by the same route - yes, I can understand it.'
The night suddenly seemed very cold. Rhanda's eyes widened. I moved to the chair where I had thrown my garments and began dressing myself.
'Yes, do that,' she said.
'There's more, isn't there?'
'Yes. The hidden one has located and brought back an abomination to our peaceful realm. Somewhere, he found a guisel.'
'What is a guisel?'
'A being out of our myth, one we had thought long exterminated in the mirrorworld. Its kind nearly destroyed the shroudlings. A monster, it took an entire family to destroy what was thought to be the last of them.'
