Chapter Four:
Once the kittens and their mother were safely ensconced on the real sofa, back in the real world, Ari led the way back into the labyrinth, boxing at shadows in a mercurial display of high spirits. Giles lingered for a moment, hanging back to catch one last envious glimpse of the tortoiseshell and her family. He wondered if the witch who shared their lives had an inkling of the special gifts the kittens now possessed – or the sacred duty those gifts would demand of them as they grew older. Whether she did or not, it was likely that she’d be overjoyed at her companion’s safe return; going by how old the kittens were, the tortoiseshell had to have been missing for several days.
He sighed at the thought, hefting the sword back onto his shoulder and striding after Ari before the cat disappeared completely from view. He wasn’t sure just how long he’d been wandering in this strange, silent world, but it felt like forever. Were his family missing him? Were Buffy and the others searching for him, or mourning him? Did they think him lost forever?
Or had they even noticed that he was gone?
There was disconcertion underlying that consideration. Not that he’d thought of it – but that, having thought of it – he found himself fearing it might be true. If only he could remember. His memories of the past were becoming clearer, but most of them seemed to be those of distant, long ago events. Whenever he tried to focus on recent history his efforts stirred the lurking, nagging headache into a raging protest of pain.
He went back and mentally walked through it again, frowning at the fog that still obscured the important details. He could recall fragments of his childhood, including the day his father took him aside and solemnly informed him of his birthright, his destiny to serve the Slayer. There were glimpses of rebellion in his academic years – glimpses his mind shied away from for some reason – and memories of returning to the fold, of being trained and tutored in the most obscure of subjects and skills. After that things fractured a little more, becoming hints and images, patterns of names and faces, of places and events. He had a clear picture in his head of Buffy, standing in the library protesting her destiny – and of later, less certain occasions, times when the other members of his adopted family drifted through and lingered with a sense of warmth and affection.
The headache began to pound at the back of his skull as he tried to follow what remained; the slender threads of memory unraveling into disjointed flashes that had no context or meaning. A young man in combat fatigues. A shiver of something primitive and very powerful. A place – not the library – filled with shelves and books and other objects. A bleached blond vampire fighting beside him, rather than against him. Buffy and her sister. Xander and a rather attractive blonde woman. Willow and an equally attractive but far shyer blonde companion of her own. A shadowed tower. A man lying on the ground …
Pain flared with almost unbearable savagery, making him gasp and stagger. The world pitched around him and he was forced to seek the support of the nearest wall while he fought down a surge of dizziness and nausea.
Are you all right?
Ari had to repeat the question, emphasizing it with an added piirupp? of sound. The pressure of solicitous paws on his thigh lifted Giles from his self inflicted misery, and he looked down, finding the cat standing on his hind legs so that he could push his nose into the curl of a shaking palm.
"Oh, Lord," he sighed, letting his weight slide down the support of the wall until he was sitting on sketchy linoleum. Ari immediately climbed into his lap; they sat like that for a moment or two, the man letting the impact of pain slide away while the cat purred reassuringly and let himself be petted by distracted fingers. "No," Giles breathed eventually, giving his companion a friendly scratch behind his left ear. "I’m not all right. I - I seem to be incomplete … bits of me missing. I’m lost, Ari. I’ve lost myself as well as my way, and something tells me I need to find one before I can find the other. But it’s hard. Like – trying to sort through pieces of broken glass."
Memories and mirrors share many aspects, Ari observed philosophically. And both need light to give them purpose. He licked at his company’s hand in much the same way that the mother cat had offered comfort to her kittens. The White Knight knows many things. Perhaps he will know your way.
If there was one thing that Giles was certain of, it was that the world behind the mirrors was never quite what it seemed. The residence of the White Knight turned out to be a perfect illustration of this rule – as did the White Knight himself, who wasn’t at all what he expected.
Although he matched the name the cats had given him exactly.
Strictly speaking – and since cats didn’t actually speak as such, that was something it was hard to be strict about – it wasn’t White Knight at all. It was closer to one old and noble, sworn to defend, honoured and honourable, serving the light. All of which Giles had, for some subconscious reason, translated into Looking Glass terms; probably because the concept sat so comfortably alongside the terrors of the bandersnatch and the jabberwocks – not to mention his being on the wrong side of the mirrors to begin with.
Ari had led him into what looked like yet another hotel, this one mellowed with age and seasoned with expensive touches. There were long carpeted corridors with doors off at regular intervals, impressive meeting rooms with oak paneling offsetting the ancient silvered mirrors that gave them shape, curtained foyers containing delicate works of art, and a sweeping staircase complete with intricate balustrading. He felt remarkably at home in this mellowed, comfortable environment, and a lot safer than he had for days. That was mostly because of the cats.
He hadn’t seen another living soul since he and Ari had left the tortoiseshell and her kittens safe at home, but as soon as they passed through the first panelled doorway, he spotted a brindled feline lying half asleep on a table. That cat leapt to its feet and glared at him until Ari trotted over with a friendly meow, and one of those too quick and soft to follow exchanges of thought. After that, Giles began to see cats everywhere; sitting on the furniture, lying on window ledges, or just standing, watching him pass. They all watched him pass. It was as if a whispered message had gone ahead of them, announcing his arrival, and stirring curiosity among all the Walkers of the Way. They weren’t hostile glares, just inscrutable ones; he was studied and assessed by dozens of eyes – deep green ones, soft amber and even a pair that were a brilliant blue. The Siamese fell into step behind him as he crossed that particular room. Several others joined the parade as they went so that, by the time he and Ari descended the stairs and arrived at their destination, they were flanked by a flood of fur, one that spilled past them to scatter itself across every available surface.
Giles himself came to an abrupt halt, looking around in astonishment.
He knew this place. For the first time since he’d entered this world behind the mirrors, he’d arrived in recognisable location.
"Good Lord," he reacted, looking down at Ari. "The White Knight lives in the Savoy?"
"The only place a respectable Englishman would choose to live, don’t you think?" The comment was soft and quietly amused. "The Ritz is so passé these days. Besides, it’s convenient for the theatre. And I do like good performance. When I get the chance."
Giles looked up. There was a group of overstuffed armchairs off to one side of the foyer, grouped around a low, gilt-edged table. Sitting in one of them, with a cat curled up in his lap and another stretched out along the back of his chair, was a man.
A very old man.
He was weathered and wizened by his age, his thin white hair clinging to the spotted skull beneath it like tufted sea grass creeping across a tide washed sand dune. His face and hands were wrinkled and lined, heavy with the leathering of years, and his body had a shrunken look about it, as if his muscles had withered away, leaving nothing but skin and bones behind. For all that, his eyes were bright and clear, an intimation of keen intellect lurking in their piercing depths. He was wearing what looked like a rumpled dressing gown made of quilted dark green silk – and a matching pair of velvet carpet slippers.
"Forgive me if I don’t get up," he was saying, with a hint of self-depreciation. "But it’s somewhat of a performance these days. Very undignified really. I try to avoid moving unless I have too."
"No, no … th- that’s fine," Giles assured him, his manners kicking in with instinctive reaction while the rest of him floundered in astonishment. "Please – don’t put yourself out on my account."
"Oh, I won’t," the old man said with confidence. His voice was soft but rich, accented with gently aristocratic tones. "I’m far too old to bother with such ritual inconveniences. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be polite about it. I don’t get many visitors. In fact," he considered, looking briefly concerned, "I think you’re the first for … Well," he smiled. "The first for a while, anyway. Unless you count the cats. Which isn’t a very productive occupation. Counting cats, I mean."
"No," Giles agreed a little bemusedly. "I- I don’t suppose it is."
"Well. Don’t just stand there. Come in. Sit down. I’d offer you tea, but … I don’t recommend it. Nasty stuff. Tastes as if it’s been strained through a sock. One that’s been in the laundry basket several days. Pity that." The old man sighed, shifting a little to get himself comfortable. "I used to like taking tea at the Savoy."
"Yes," Giles concurred warily, deciding he probably ought to do as he was told. "It – um … used to be a real treat." He moved to where he was being motioned, sinking into one of the deeply padded chairs and propping his sword up against the arm of it. Ari leapt onto the fabric and sat beside him, posing there like an Egyptian statue. "Umm … this – umm … probably sounds like a silly question, but – ah … have you been here … long?"
The old man laughed, a soft wheezing chuckle that ended in an equally wheezy cough. "Long enough," he answered, once he’d got his breath back. He leaned forward, studying his guest with a discomforting intensity. "I," he said, "am Geoffrey Davenport. A lost soul, you could say. And you. Who – or what are you?"
"Um … Giles. Rupert Giles. I-I think." The admission of doubt earned him a raised eyebrow and a look of amusement.
"You think? You think? No, no. You have to be sure here. Here the slightest doubt will twist you and reshape you before you know it. This world reflects what it sees."
"I – uh – noticed. But … what about the things it doesn’t see?"
"Oh," the old man chuckled, waving a dismissive hand. "It makes those up as it goes along. What did you say your name was?"
"Giles," Giles repeated defining himself with a little more certainty this time.
Just Giles, swift with the sword, certain of heart, Watcher and wise among men, Ari interjected firmly, his tail twitching a little. I found him walking the Way. Or trying to, he added smugly. He’s not very good at it yet.
"Is that so?" Davenport reacted, looking surprised. He reached out a cautious hand and touched Giles’ arm. "You’re real," he breathed, the tentative touch becoming a lurch forward and a determined grab. The cat in his lap was thrown rather unceremoniously onto the floor. "You’re really here."
The old man’s fingers were thin and mostly bone; they sank into the solidness of flesh with a grip like steel. Giles winced. "Ah – yes. Yes, I am. Although … I don’t know why, or how."
"You don’t?" Davenport considered, staring at him with disturbing intensity. "No idea at all?" His fingers were clenched around his visitor’s bicep with determined fervour. Giles wondered if had any way to convince the old man that he wouldn’t fade into mist the minute he let go.
"No. No, I – I just found myself here ... well, part of myself, anyway. The details seem … a little fuzzy."
"They often are, here." Davenport went on staring, studying him the way a moth collector might study the unknown specimen caught in his jar. "Don’t you know your Alice, my boy? Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through … And it was, and it is, but only the cats know how that’s done. Know how to walk the Way. There are other ways into Looking Glass House. But they’re hard to find." His eyes twinkled with sudden amusement. "Harder still to find a way out." He finally let go, and sat back, leaving behind a lingering and bruised impression of his wizened fingers. "I never did."
His conclusion came with a wry smile, one that hinted at a subtle instability. Giles gave him a wary, and slightly worried, look. The world behind the mirrors trembled at the very edges of sanity – and so, it seemed, did Geoffrey Davenport.
Tread carefully, Ari recommended, offering the comment behind the cover of a washed paw. He doesn’t know if you can be trusted, yet …
This sounded like good advice, especially since Giles was thinking much the same thing about the wizened figure in front of him. On the other hand, how sane was he, taking advice from a cat?
"So … Lewis Carroll," he questioned slowly, thinking that literature, at least, was something he could discuss with confidence. "The things he wrote about – this world, the bandersnatch, t-the jabberwock … they really exist …?"
Davenport chuckled softly.
"In a way. I don’t think he ever truly came here, though. It was a dream, perhaps. People often come here in dreams. They walk past a mirror, giving it a glimpse of themselves, and a little of them lingers in the glass. Their image wanders the halls and it takes memories of them back next time they meet their reflection. That’s what I thought you were at first. A fetch. A fantasy. Nothing but an echo, caught between a glimpse and a glance. But you’re real. As real as I am. And just as lost, it would seem. Did you come here of your own accord?"
"I don’t know." Giles leaned back into the padded chair and sighed, expressing some of the frustration of his situation. "I can’t remember. I wish I could."
"But you remembered you’re a Watcher." The question was pointed; the old man leant forward a little, his eyes glittering with challenge.
Ari had already said as much, so there didn’t seem much point in denying it – but Giles had to wonder how Davenport knew about his calling, what made him ask the question quite so bluntly. He’d even given the title its appropriate capital letter. You could hear it in his voice. Watcher.
"Yes," he nodded warily. "That I remember."
The answer seemed to be the appropriate one. Davenport returned the nod with a sage one of his own. "Hard to forget, I should think. Earned yourself a Slayer, yet?"
"Ah … " Earned? Was that how he’d describe it? "Well, there is a Slayer I serve …" He paused, his eyes going wide and a sudden cold shiver running down his spine. "She … died," he realized, struggling with the horror of the unexpected memory, the recollection of his heart being ripped in two.
"They do that," the old man noted, sharing the thought with the cat at his shoulder. "Don’t last long, you know. Not written into their destiny."
Giles barely heard him. His soul was shattering all over again, splitting into jagged, unbearable pieces of pain.
Buffy …
Something butted against his chest, a persistent demand for attention; he looked down to find Ari sitting on his lap, pushing a warm nose inside his shirt and purring loudly. So loudly that the vibration of it rumbled through every inch of him.
"Are you all right?" Davenport was asking solicitously. "You – ah … drifted away for a moment. Went almost transparent. Not a good thing to do around here."
"Uh – what? No. No, I –I suppose not," Giles said bemusedly, wrapping his arms around Ari’s solid warmth. The contact helped drive away the shivering chill that had seized hold of him; the tears that had tracked their way down his cheeks had left a trail of ice behind them. "I’m – I’m sorry," he apologised, hastily reaching to wipe away the wetness as he realized what a spectacle he was making of himself. "I- I – um – I didn’t expect …"
"Of course you didn’t," the old man interrupted, waving his hand to dismiss the apology as unimportant. "Bad enough the first time, I should think. Having it all come back like that … well – not the pleasantest of experiences, by the look of it. Shook your sense of self … and that’s all we have around here. You lose that – you risk losing everything. Which, I’d say," he added perceptively, "is what losing her felt like at the time. Am I right?"
Giles nodded, still wrestling with the intensity of the memory. Images of Buffy’s broken body flashed through his mind, along with echoes of unbearable grief – and a disconcertedly stubborn knowledge that, despite all that, she still needed him. That he needed to get back …
"Those that wait to Watch," Davenport considered ruefully, talking as much to their feline company as anyone else, "think that being assigned a Slayer would be the greatest of privileges. Even getting a Potential to care for is seen as a way of gaining status. But those who do … " He sighed, giving his company a wryly sympathetic look. "It takes a hard heart not to care, young man. Don’t curse yours for failing you in that duty."
Potential.
The word stirred further memories, setting his mind spinning again.
Something about the Potentials …
"I- I don’t," Giles murmured distractedly. "Were you a Watcher? Is that how you -"
"Know?" The question was amused. "About Slayers and Potentials, about the Council and the cause? No." He said it with matter of fact confidence. "No, it’s not that simple. I wish it was. I probably wouldn’t be here, if that was the case. Although - you are. So perhaps – if things had been different … We never know our fate," he considered slowly, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers over his chest. "My intentions were good. My research was meticulous. And my downfall was hubris. I’ve been paying for that ever since. I was born into the order. But I was the younger son of a younger son. My older brother was assured there was a place for him in training once he’d left the Academy – and I was told the calling had passed me by. That I should focus my attentions on serving the Council in other ways. I rather resented that. I was a far better student than my brother; I felt he was a … somewhat stodgy and unimaginative prospect compared to myself. But – tradition, you know? The calling falls to the first born in the line and – if they test positive … the second born doesn’t get much of an opportunity to protest their view on destiny."
"No," Giles agreed with a remnant of personal resentment. "The first born doesn’t get much chance of that, either."
"It’s a calling," Davenport reminded him. "Being chosen can be hard – but being passed over … not even being offered a chance to be assessed - that’s much harder, believe me. I was bitter about it for years. But the Council … " His expression twisted into a telling grimace. "Often has need of other talents. Mine turned towards restoration and preservation: the transcribing of records and the maintenance of artifacts. I was very good at that … and it gave me access to the great repository of knowledge and history in the order’s archives."
Ari had clearly decided this was going to be a long story; he flopped down and rolled over, making himself comfortable in the crook of his supporter’s arm. Giles leant back into the depths of the chair, abstractedly stroking the cat’s soft white belly fur while he watched the old man and tried to make sense of what he was saying.
"I buried my resentment in study. In research. I learned a great many things I probably wasn’t meant to know – including a few things nobody else did. That was how I found out about the Walkers of the Way – from a very old and crumbling papyrus I extracted from a set of Canopic jars I was given to investigate … one of the finds from the Kingman expeditions. You’ve heard of David Kingman, I suppose?"
Giles nodded. The mention of the name had instantly brought the knowledge to mind: there’d been a time, back at the turn of the century, when the Council had been very active in the retrieval of ancient artifacts – mostly because so many other eager archeologists were busy retrieving them with no idea of what sort of trouble they might get themselves into by doing so. Kingman had led a number of expeditions to Egypt, earning himself a reputation for meticulous and thorough scholarly work – at least until he was strangled by the mummified tomb guardian that he and his team had managed to awaken on his final trip.
"Of course you have. His texts are probably still required reading at the Academy. Did you study his work on Bubastis?"
Bubastis …
The city dedicated to Bast. The cat headed goddess, patron of Egypt’s sacred felines.
Giles glanced down at Ari, and then round the room with wary consideration. There were cats draped everywhere, watching the two men in their midst with unreadable intent.
"Yes," Davenport chuckled, nodding his acknowledgement of the connection. "I know. That’s what I discovered – or re-discovered , perhaps. The secret the priestesses of Bast took to their graves. Cats have been walking these places since the dawn of time. Ever since the goddess’ first cat – her own child, they said - was dragged through a mirror so that the demon that did it could take her place and feed on the souls of her worshippers. What the demon didn’t know," he confided, leaning forward to share the information with a smug grin, "was that the sacred cat was pregnant – and that she survived the terrors of the world behind the silver mirror, raised her kittens to become warriors – and sent them back to slay the demon and free the souls it had devoured."
Salla Bu-shabis, Ari commented, flexing his paws and purring softly. Mother of us all. In her name we walk the Way and guard the many doorways of the world.
May she guard and guide us. A chorus of feline thoughts rippled around the room. Until we walk together once again.
"Good Lord," Giles murmured, struck by the quiet reverence in their shared refrain. "They take this really seriously, don’t they?"
"They do – and they don’t," Davenport smiled, putting back a bony hand to stroke the cat lying along the back of his chair. "Cats never take anything entirely seriously. But who and what they are is important to them. They were sacred back then – servants of the gods – and here, they still hold to that status and that duty. Took me a while to understand that. The Walkers are not pets, my friend. They are free and independent spirits. They cannot be commanded – only watched over with love."
"Just like a Slayer." Giles’ comment was soft, delivered with a quiet sigh and a great deal of feeling. He could remember – somewhere, in among the fractured patterns of his past – the anger and the sadness he had felt, finding that the men in charge of the Council had no grasp of that concept, no understanding of the nature of their duty, or the cause they were sworn to serve. To those men, the Slayer was no more than an expendable instrument, a weapon to be wielded without thought or consideration. How many Watchers, he wondered, had taken up their post only to find – as he had done – just how wrong that perception was? Had they felt as he had felt, the day their Slayer died ...?
"Exactly," Davenport was saying. "Hard lesson to learn. To try and mold such a creature without regard to their will – just, can’t be done, can it? Not without breaking something. My brother’s Slayer broke," he announced, watching his company with a shrewd consideration. "My brother with her. He never forgave himself for her death – and nor, I think, have you for yours."
"No such mistake for me. Not here. Not among these fine felines. I love them and I let them go, hard as it is. You’d be well advised to do the same."
"I did." Recollections were falling into place, like scattered pieces of an unfinished puzzle. The old man’s words had triggered a recollection that warmed his heart and soothed his fractured soul – a certainty that he couldn’t place as yet, but was there, as surely as Ari’s warm and furry pelt beneath his hand. "It was difficult, but I had no choice. She did her duty. Fulfilled her destiny. She died saving the world. There was nothing I could do but let her go. And then she came back."
Brought back, memory suggested, although by whom he wasn’t so sure. It didn’t really matter. The terror and the pain of the earlier moment were past and unimportant. By some miracle or other, Buffy was still part of his life.
And she needed him …
"Came back?" Davenport straightened up and stared at him in bewilderment. "She died and … Are you sure?"
"As sure as I can be." Giles grimaced apologetically. "I know it doesn’t make any sense, but – Buffy is alive, and I have to get back to her. Wherever she is," he added, frowning at his inability to retrieve concrete facts to underpin the certainties his emotions were offering him.
"Well, of course you do," the old man said, still looking a little bewildered. "A Watcher belongs with his Slayer …" He went on frowning for a moment, then shook his head and sat back with a quiet sigh. "If a cat like Ari here can walk the Way whenever he pleases, and bring me a living soul to talk to after all these years – well, who’s to say a Slayer can’t come back from the dead? Miracles have been known to happen."
"Yes," Giles agreed. "I- I suppose they have."
Miracles …
He’d unearthed a memory of holding Buffy in his arms, her body warm and solid and very, very much alive, her heart thumping behind ribs with too little flesh on them. It seemed a very important memory, one he frowned over, trying to place its context among the shattered snippets of his missing life. How could he have forgotten that?
"Mr Davenport?" he asked warily, "what are you doing here? How did you …?"
"… Get stuck inside the mirrors?" Davenport completed with a wry grin. "Long story. Thought I was telling it to you, actually. That Slayer of yours keeps distracting us both. Now – where was I? Oh, yes – the papyrus. The legend about the cats. Most people would probably have just dismissed it as mere myth, but I – I was intrigued. You work for the Council for any length of time and you learn there’s a good deal of truth in myth. As well as a great many lies, of course. I began to – watch, I suppose you could say. Cats, not Slayers, that is. I read everything I could get my hands on: grimoires, histories, legends, old texts and more recent treatises. I studied folklore, I researched rituals, and I even sought out initiation into an obscure cat cult. All in secret, of course. The order tends to frown on extra curricula involvements like that. Did in my day, anyway … I learnt a great deal about the mysterious and wonderful felis domesticus: habits, preferences, activities … biology, behaviour .. but not a hint about what I was really looking for."
The Watcher had to smile at the chagrin in the old man’s voice. It had a ring of familiarity, helping to evoke the frustrations of seemingly fruitless research, the need to revise and re-visit time and time again. He could recall, it seemed, endlessly long hours spent pouring over apparently irrelevant volumes, their contents useless for the task in hand – only to find the work invaluable on some later occasion, when the pages came back to mind, just when they were needed most.
"You’ve been there, I take it?" Davenport’s look was shrewd, and Giles nodded, acknowledging their shared experiences.
"You looked elsewhere," he suggested softly. The old man laughed.
"I did indeed. I studied mirrors and the myths about mirrors, about mirror magic and illusions, about transportation spells, the rites to summon unseen spirits, and rituals for the opening of doorways. The more I researched, the more I wanted to know. I even took to carrying a copy of Alice, pouring over it for hours in the belief that Carroll had known much more than he’d been prepared to reveal. Cats and mirrors. My specialty. My obsession."
"My foolish, fateful folly."
Davenport sighed, expressing an acceptance of something he’d managed to come to terms with a long time ago – and yet still regretted, still grieved over, despite there being nothing he could do. Giles had the uncomfortable impression that he was familiar with that feeling too, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on why …
"I became quite an expert. I learnt to do all these – little tricks – with the mirrors. I could, for instance, make them reflect, just for a moment, other things. Someone else, for instance …glimpses of the past, hints of other places. Even things I’d never even seen. But I never came close to the doorway I was seeking. Never quite believed it enough."
"Until the day I saw one of the Walkers step into a mirror – and vanish from sight."
His audience nodded once again, understanding what he meant. Giles wouldn’t have believed it himself – until he’d seen it happen, until he’d seen the tortoiseshell take her kittens home
"I’d gone back to the family estate for a while. To look after my brother. After the loss of his Slayer … well, I don’t have to tell you about that, do I? No," he decided, clearly seeing the look that had chased across his company’s face. "Let’s skip that bit, shall we? Suffice it to say, the two of us spent long hours, walking, keeping each other company. Sometimes he’d talk, and I’d listen – or I’d talk, and he’d ignore me. Most of the time, though, we’d keep our own council. Days of quiet silence. In good weather we’d walk outside, around the house, down to the barns, out to the stables – wherever we felt like. But when it rained – we’d pace the corridors, room after room, one after another. That’s when I saw it. There was this - grizzled old queen, one of the good farm mousers that the cook had encouraged into the house in her old age – and a much younger cat, both of them lurking by the fire in the picture gallery and both of them, I thought, seeking sanctuary from the weather. My brother barely glanced at them – but I was in the habit of watching for cats, the way he watched for vampires. So I saw it. Saw the moment when the young tom stepped away from the fire, jumped up onto the mantelshelf – and stepped out of the world altogether."
"My brother must have thought me utterly mad. I rushed back into the room and practically tore the mirror down from the wall. But the cat was gone. The glass was solid and the old queen just sat there on the rug and looked at me as if she knew all the mysteries of the world and wasn’t going to tell me one of them."
"She didn’t have too. I had the proof I needed, and the impetus to return to my studies with renewed enthusiasm. There was a way. I just had to find it. I thought – I knew – that if I could just do that, could prove to the fools on the Council that I was just as valuable, could contribute just as much as any one of their precious Watchers … no offence intended, I should say."
"None taken," Giles smiled, shifting Ari’s relaxed weight into a more comfortable spot on his lap. He had a feeling that’d he’d never been one of the favoured few. As far as he could recall he hadn’t been considered worthy enough to be assigned a Potential at an early age, and – hadn’t he inherited Buffy in some way? From a somewhat maverick Watcher who’d only tracked her down after she’d been called. The man had been killed on Watch and … what had his name been?
"Pride, my friend, can be a great inspiration. And impatience a greater pitfall." Davenport returned to his tale with a hint of quiet regret. He had, his audience suspected, been waiting a long time to tell someone his story. It would have grown over the years, and then dwindled again, made large by being dwelt on, and reduced to distance by time. "I returned to my research, going back over things I’d already dismissed, and eventually, I found a way. Just a little one … just a possibility … but a way. Not the Way, but I didn’t know about that then. I just wanted to see what lay behind the mirrors. I thought I’d find a world full of wonders, and littered with secrets. Which I did, of course, much good it did me. I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to – and I was so certain of returning that same day, that I never even bothered to leave so much as a note behind me."
"That was over fifty years ago. I’ve been here ever since."
"Good Lord," Giles reacted, sitting up to stare at him in amazement.
Fifty years?
"I know." Davenport smiled wryly. "Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true. I never found a way out. I found the right places, I even found one or two of the right people, but – I don’t think anyone cared about me enough to notice I was gone. Certainly not enough to come looking for me. The Walkers may come and go as they please. But for those who lack their particular gifts, the only certain way out is to be called out. As you were called in, I suspect. This is a dark and distorted place, Giles. A twisted, treacherous version of the world you and I know. The Walkers guard the doorways, and try to keep the darkness and the hunger from oozing through – but it’s there, all the same. Waiting. Watching. Wanting what we have and it can never know."
"Jabberwocks," Giles breathed, remembering the presence hunting in the passageways, the sense of something dark and dreadful lurking in the night.
"Jabberwocks – and bandersnatch, and siligoths and dandagyre. All kinds of things you’ve never even heard of – and possibly one or two you have, but which are spoken of in hushed tones and disbelieving words. The reflections of our worst nightmares. Many of which we have created, giving shape to shapeless darkness, in a landscape where our world provides the only light."
Giles found himself glancing round room a second time, half expecting to find something dire lurking in the shadows; he shivered, caught in a sudden moment of realisation like a man looking down in the snow to find himself treading on the ice above a lake. The surface might look strong enough, firm enough to support his weight, but one wrong move, one misplaced step could shatter the surface and plunge him deep.
"So," he managed around a hastily swallowed gulp, "how did you survive?"
"With difficulty," Davenport answered promptly, grinning at his company’s disconcerted reaction. "To begin with, anyway. I was lost for a long time. Lost – and hunted. I stumbled from room to room, from place to place, desperately searching for a way out and finding nothing but dead ends and empty promises. Things followed me at night, forcing me to run or hide – and I spent weeks without sleep, snatching what rest I could during the suspect safety of the day. I didn’t have the advantage of your training," he pointed out, nodding towards the sword the Watcher had left propped up against his chair. "Or your experience, either," he added shrewdly. Giles rejected the implied compliment with a wry shake of his head.
"I’m not sure either helped," he confessed, recalling the first few days he’d spent wandering in the labyrinth. "Although – knowing I could use the sword if I had to … that has been something of a comfort, I have to say."
"I’m sure it has. I was nothing but a bookworm and a somewhat overweight scholar when I arrived here. My sole defense was a smattering of magic I’d gleaned from ancient texts and had never used for anything other than parlour tricks. So I ran. I ran for my life and my sanity and I barely managed to hang one to one while clinging desperately to the other. The Walkers didn’t find me walking the Way, however inexpertly. They found me huddled in a corner somewhere, praying for the nightmare to end."
He exaggerates, Ari yawned, obviously having heard all this before. If he’d been as helpless as he says, a jabberwock would have eaten him long before we found him.
"You have no idea, young fellow," Davenport said huffily. "You weren’t there. I was like a mewling infant, with no idea how to feed or clothe myself. The Walkers adopted me. Took care of me – and taught me many things. In return, I have taken care of them. They come to me when they are hurt, when they have burs or tangles in their fur, when they are sick, or simply old. They ask for stories and they share their own; I have tutored kittens and I have tended to the dying. They are my family and have been so for generations. Now that I am old and in need of comfort, they offer it without complaint."