Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [100]
Cold, lightly minted water splashed on his face from the magnificent enameled basin refreshed him instantly. Reaching for a cloth, he wiped droplets clear, enjoying the reinvigorating tingle they left on his skin. Raising his gaze to the filigree-edged mirror, he tried to understand what had happened to him, and how.
Bare inches away, incandescent yellow eyes set in an impassive black mask of a face peered menacingly back at him, burning hotter than ever.
Choking on his own fear, he reeled away from the accusing, threatening face in the mirror that belonged not to him but to some emotionless brute. His fumbling fingers contracted spasmodically around the first thing they touched. Drawing back his arm, he tried to throw the iridescent drinking goblet as hard as he could at the silently taunting mirror.
The effort nearly caused him to fall. Looking down at his hand, he saw that the goblet had a hold on his wrist and would not let go. Or rather, the fiend that was emerging from the rainbow-hued glass would not.
Screaming, spinning wildly, he smashed the goblet against the marbled wall. Glass went flying in multicolored splinters, the light from a thousand fragments momentarily illuminating the bathroom with a full spectrum of brilliance and fear. It obliterated the dark demon that had been emerging from the hand-blown glass goblet, but not the one in the mirror. Blood bubbled from a dozen tiny cuts on his hand and face. Ignoring them, he backed out of the bathroom and slammed the door as hard as he could.
Articulating the wordless dirge of the living unhuman, two more hulking representations of the carving were seeping out of the bedroom windows, their jet-black bodies massive and irresistible. Leaping across the bed to the safety of the bedroom door, Proctor Bisgrath frantically drew back one security bolt after another. Before fleeing into the outer hall, he picked up a heavy iron doorstop and threw it at the nearest of the advancing homunculi. The metal struck the figure with a loud crack. Half the face shattered and crumbled away without slowing the inexorable advance of the black glass manikin in the least.
His howls and screams echoing through the empty, great house, Bisgrath flew back down the stairs. For one seeking escape, it was an ill-advised choice. From every window and mirror, from every frosted-glass cabinet and graceful chalice, the indefatigable progeny of the obsidian carving lurched and tottered toward him, heavy arms outstretched, fingers curled like black flesh hooks. In every one of them, pitiless eyes burned soullessly.
There was no way out, he saw. But maybe, just maybe, there was a way in. He had not risen to the position of Proctor General for all the kingdom of Bondressey through dint of slow wit and ponderous thinking. Whirling, he rushed back into the library.
The four monstrous forms that lumbered out of the remaining unbroken windows were each large and heavy enough to crush an entire patrol beneath their bulk. But, relentless as they were, their movements were not the swiftest. Ducking beneath the whooshing sweep of a grasping arm, he darted along the back wall until he reached a bookcase filled with innocuous tomes on the art of gardening. Moaning like a chorus of doom, the four huge figures turned to follow. A menagerie of smaller cousins poured in through the door that led to the great hall.
Pulling out a specific book that was not a book, Bisgrath held his breath as the heavy bookcase that was not a bookcase rotated silently on a concealed pivot. Ducking into the secret room beyond, he leaned hard on a lever set in the wall that was a match