Unilluminable

The hall of mirrors. A deeply unsettling experience even at midday, as you stand there in filthy work clothes, battered old boots covering work-sore feet; everything about you keyed to work - everything about you worn out and dirty. Oh, there's no softness in the mirrors, not Brank's mirrors; there's nothing here but rectilinear planes of glass; thick cleavings of tin-backed, toughened lucidity, here in this room. And I stand, waiting for Brank's word that I might demolish this monstrosity.

Sometimes I dream of demolishing it for ever and for real, of taking the big hammer to it, advancing from mirror to mirror with intention clear in each reflected eye, raising the stolen implement, softly lifted from Rickmann's Test Your Strength stall; softly stolen with such irrelevant care. Irrelevant, of course, because in barely two minutes time there'll be more sound than this travelling hell has seen for some time; splintered shards of half-silvered crystal will cover the ground and I'll be there, the hammer dropped from my grip, unimportant now as I dance and dance on the fractured remnants of Brank's one and only reason for living, crushing it beneath my toughened rubber soles. Perhaps a part of him will die with it, that's what I hope, just the tiniest part of him... it'll be enough.

'Come on, lad,' he says, a thousand images of him oscillating wildly around me as he approaches - a thousand creased leather jackets, a thousand pairs of mud-stained jeans, a thousand more of that stubble-crusted face than there really should be; a thousand and one too many.

'Come on,' he repeats, handing me one of the wrenches he holds and gesturing at the mirrors that surround us, the same way he always does. And I, as always, approach one of the ever-watchful mirrors and begin to remove it from the scaffold-like structure, perhaps a little sullen at first, waiting for the enthusiasm to take hold of me; waiting for the sense of controlled destruction to give me a reason to continue working with Brank. It does so eventually and Brank and I convey the sixty-three mirrored panels one by one to the back of Brank's battered old truck. When the final one is loaded we return to the thin metal framework that remains and laboriously unclasp each steel bar from its neighbours before shunting and hoisting these too onto the precariously-laden truck.

We've never broken a mirror once, Brank and I.

---

We spent all the remainder of that day travelling. Some days we travelled with the rest of the crew, some days we made our way there a day earlier or a day later. Either way, the two of us liked being out on the road. That's not to say we liked being out on the road together, but there's an irrevocable quality about moving from one place to another that catches a part of you and sets it free. It's a kind of paradox. Brank summed it up once.

'There's something about the road,' he'd begun. 'Something about travelling. You like travelling, boy?'

'Don't mind it,' I remember saying.

'That's good.' He looked at me as if to check my sincerity. 'It is!' he confirmed, just in case I'd missed his proclamation. Brank's like that; he likes to know he's been listened to. 'There's something about it,' he continued, 'that's led people to write songs and poetry or to make films, boy. This road here isn't just a road... it's a way to something new.'

And I guess I agreed. I couldn't say it at the time; I no longer seemed to know how to talk to Brank, but I agreed with him and he seemed happy to accept that I did without verbal confirmation. It was an arrangement that had been foisted upon us a long time ago and it was working just as well all these years later.

'Prettiest place you'll ever see,' he was saying, his eyes fixed on the road now. Somehow once Brank had got to the age of fifty he'd become more cautious, a lot more concerned about where he was driving, as though he suspected the road would alter suddenly if he were to tear his eyes away for a second. 'All the houses - traditional, you know. Red brick and chimneypots. Nice place to settle, if you so wanted.'

There was silence for a moment.

'Charity,' I said idly.

'That's the place. Charity. Sounds peaceful, doesn't it? Sounds a little bit American, too.'

My silence gave consent.

---

It took longer to put the damnable construction up than it ever had to take it down, longer even than that time we had to demolish it in the depths of a thunderstorm, the old witch next door cackling with demented fright because she believed the mirrors would bring the lightning down on us, something like the old hurricane lamp she used to hang outside her caravan brought tiny swarms of fat black moths to her porch in the summer. We'd had many an argument about that lamp over the years, at least until the one time Brank had finally had enough.

'Furry little bastards,' he'd scowled, his thumb crushing another wriggling black body into the van window. He got up, went straight outside and flung the hurricane lamp down onto the ground. It didn't smash, which I guess isn't quite what Brank was hoping for. Even so, the old woman never lit it again, although the moths bothered us just the same as ever.

We'd managed to get the frame up a couple of hours later and were well into fixing the mirrors on it. Having stopped for a moment now while Brank made the tea on the ancient gas stove, I was able to survey the distant rooftops of Charity, apparently the prettiest place I'd ever see. It looked more or less the same as everywhere else, I thought, but Brank was right about the houses; most of them were made from red brick, a curiously dark red that was almost rusty-brown. Brank had told me about the nearby quarry that produced this uniquely shaded material. The local story was that thousands of years ago two warring giants fell together into a great chasm and the stones are forever tainted with their blood. I dipped my head into my work-sore palms and stared at the dusty earth.

'Are you in charge here?' said a voice, slow and melodic. Looking up I saw that it belonged to a tall, thin man, perhaps a little older than Brank. 'The mirrors,' he said, moving an expansive arm to encompass our stall and its accoutrements. 'They belong to you?'

'Who wants to know?' I said, seeing Brank approaching from behind the van with two tin mugs. He had already noticed the stranger.

'I have an offer to make,' said the man.

'We don't normally do private hire,' I replied. 'You'd best speak to him.'

Brank pushed a mug into my hand and turned to face the man. 'What can I do you for?' he posed, clearly imagining himself to be the pinnacle of stand-offish wit.

'It is more a question of what I can do you for,' replied the man gravely. 'How much would a thousand pounds go towards persuading you to do a private hire. I'm reliably informed you don't ordinarily do it.'

Brank's face split into a gap-toothed grin.

'For a thousand, Mister,' he chortled, 'We do pretty much anything...'

He turned briefly to me and winked lasciviously. I don't know why he bothered to turn; the man saw his expression anyway. 'So, what's it to be?'

'I'll be in touch,' said the man and walked quickly away.

---

I still find it hard to believe that Brank let him walk away. I started to get up, ready to follow if need be, certainly ready to shout after him. And yet Brank placed a hand firmly on my shoulder and pressed me back down onto the front step of the hall of mirrors.

'He'll be in touch,' Brank repeated for me, like he knew for sure. 'Patience, boy.'

---

By half-past nine the entire fairground was up and running. The generators thrummed industriously behind the trailers, regularly-spaced electric lights shone brightly in the slowly falling drizzle and through it all a damp wind slid thinly round the gaps in the picket fence that surrounded the field, slicing across the fair; a terrible night in all. And yet nothing can slow the first night of a fairground; if it had been wet like the devil himself were pissing on us from afar there'd still have been wave after wave of gullible punters thronging through the doors; families clamouring for ever more, children crying with spend-happy excess or perceived depravation; young women dragging their men onto the big wheel, every one of them pretending they're only getting on to keep her happy - either that or hoping to get a bit of attention at the top of the world. And the hall of mirrors where I currently stand, happily relieving the customers of their money while Brank watches from the far edge of the step near the out door, sucking on a roll-up as he takes in the pleasingly steady stream of people who've managed to find their way out and are still smiling about it.

'Sixty-seven so far tonight,' he coughs at me, picking a shred of tobacco from his tongue. 'It's going to be a good night, tonight.'

He stands there a moment longer, a smile on his face, before flinging the end of the roll-up into the rain-sodden mud and extinguishing it with the toe of his boot. He begins to pace up and down, hollering over the top of the noisy crowd, who respond as usual. Fifteen minutes later and we're up to seventy-nine.

---

I was five or six when Brank first showed me the hall of mirrors. My mother had gone to sit in the caravan with her sister and Brank had taken me to the first step of the hall of mirrors and put me down. We stood there for a while, Brank reading the words to me while I stared at the gaudily painted façade with the gratitude of a child. I didn't hate Brank then - he was a fixed point in my life, a curiously movable point of stability. It was only later, when his wife left and I had to live with just him that he began to lose this exalted position. But for now, as we stood on the painted steps of the structure I was breathless with excitement, hardly able to keep my eagerness in check. And so Brank led me up the steps, my hand in his, and slowly pushed open the door. He was smiling, even as I drew back and held onto his leg.

'It's alright,' he'd said, standing just in front of the door. 'There's two sorts of these, you know. Some of them, they have glass and mirrors so that the people outside can see in. They like to watch the people inside bump into the glass or walk into mirrors. It's hard to tell where you are, you see, and people always like to watch someone else's misfortune.'

I'd nodded at him then, my arms still around his leg.

'This one,' he continued. 'Well, it's a bit different. You want to go in?'

'Not on my own,' I confessed after a split-second's thought.

'I'll be with you. I've something to show you.'

Which is the first time I stepped into the hall of mirrors. The first ever time. The only time I go in now is to take it to pieces. And there'll be that one final night when I take it to pieces forever. The hammer's always there, leant against the corner of the test your strength machine and leant permanently against the back of my mind.

---

We never finish until after midnight on the first night. It's like an advert, the first night, because every one of those punters is going to talk to their friends the next day. So we do a long night, that first one, and work hard too. Brank's still stalking magisterially before the stall, and the money's heavy around my waist even though it's been emptied three times into Brank's metal locker.

'Good night so far,' he says as though we'll be at it forever. I glance at my watch and then nod at him - hours to go - whilst he perches back on the covered step by the exit, pulling at the contents of his tobacco pouch yet again; teasing, rolling, licking and sealing before taking the well-formed result between his lips and digging about in his jacket pocket for his lighter.

He'd done just the same thing that day so many years ago; rummaged around and pulled his lighter out of his pocket while I was still gazing at the myriad reflections of myself that surrounded me. It was a day for seeing new sights.

'What are you going to do?' I remember saying, for I could see he had no cigarette. At that age, when I'd been caught with matches once and been punished for a week, the very notion of playing with fire was a well-conditioned fear.

'Hold my hand,' he suggested gently, 'and watch...'

He pulled the door shut behind us and the darkness fell heavy, like a sheet of felt.

'It's dark,' I said, my eyes straining to see.

'Don't be afraid - just try to see.'

'I'm not afraid,' I responded quickly, and in truth I wasn't. With Brank here beside me, my small hand in his, it all seemed alright.

Brank flicked the wheel on the lighter then. So many lights from one tiny flame - there wasn't a corner of the room that wasn't filled with an even, shifting coating of lambent radiance. I gasped and let go of Brank's hand, awed by the overwhelming infinity of tiny, symmetrical points stretching out forever on every side, surrounding an unimaginable panorama of us. It wasn't bright enough even to read by, but it was like standing in a sea of shifting stars.

'There's not a part of the place that isn't lit up,' imparted Brank conspiratorially. 'It's not much light, I know, but it shines like magic all the same. Look-' and he made off into the depths of the maze leaving the lighter by the door still exuding its fragile light. I followed him, running a few steps to grasp his hand once more as he found the centre of the maze with enviable efficiency.

We stood there in the centre and he was right, there wasn't a single portion of the room that wasn't filled with the flickering points of light. 'This is what creation must have been like for God,' he said, his voice charged with something a little like sorrow. 'After so much darkness, this is what it must have felt like to say it.'

Then the lighter went out. Brank had lifted me up in his arms and made straight for the door. The pitch darkness meant nothing to him.

'It's okay,' he was saying, 'I often end up finding my way back in the darkness.'

We were out in half a minute, Brank's lighter retrieved from the floor - 'Let me, lad, it'll be hot!' - as I held the door open and then we were out in the sunshine again. My mother was just coming out of the van. Her cheeks were streaked with black trails at which she dabbed fitfully with a paper tissue.

'We'll be seeing quite a bit more of each other I reckon,' said Brank mysteriously, and then my mother hurried over and scooped me up, burying me into her neck as though I'd been missing for a month. I never saw her again.

---

A glut of customers appeared then and I relieved them of a small sum of money before allowing them entrance into the hall of mirrors. When the last one had stepped through the door and was firmly ensconced in translucency I turned to Brank, idly wondering if he'd noticed how the minute he'd stopped shouting we'd been inundated with a miniature horde. He hadn't been paying attention, as it happened, his attention focused completely on a small notebook held by the tall stranger.

Occasionally he'd nod, scratch out diagrams in the air with a dirty thumbnail or point at some aspect of the hall. The stranger, too, would nod slowly, form the same imaginary blueprints in the intervening space or flick from one page of the notebook to the other, his finger tracing various aspects of the page. I was burning up with curiosity by the time he went, though I didn't dare leave my post and approach Brank, nor was I able to catch his eye. All I could do was follow Brank's advice. Patience, boy. Patience.

I've always been wary of tackling sensitive subjects with Brank ever since the time I'd tried to ask him what had happened that day, the first of many questions I'd wanted to have explained. The whole discussion had spurred Brank into a mammoth drinking session the like of which I'd never seen and the like of which neither of us has seen since. Brank was sick for two days afterwards, lying in the stinking darkness of the caravan, all the curtains held shut with clothes-pegs since by midday on the Wednesday he'd decided even the pencil-thin lines of light down the middle of the curtain were an unbearable affront to his sanity. I'd gone round the curtains on his bidding as he'd lain there on the bottom bunk cursing and muttering. 'This is how God must feel,' he'd ranted, 'Wishing for an end to it all.' But he'd told me what I asked, that was the main thing. The whole incident may have been another shovelful of earth into the grave in which Brank and I had unwittingly buried our love for each other, yet at least I'd found out why I needn't mourn her departure. I wanted to cry but I think I did too much crying in the year following her exodus to a new and liberated life to be able to find enough tears for then.

We didn't speak of it again; that was the first of our unvoiced agreements - the first of many.

---

The final customers left the field at gone two, easily the latest first night we've ever done. Brank was almost delirious with happiness by the time we were able to crawl into the welcoming darkness of the caravan and rest our heads on the pillow. Brank, of course, wanted to talk.

'A thousand,' he repeated. 'A thousand quid for a private hire. Custom layout, that's all. Can you believe it? Just to build it and keep it like that for an hour. Wanted to know how many girders we've got, how many joins we can handle. Where could he get more materials if we need it?'

He chuntered on into the night before eventually falling to sleep at about four. I lay awake myself for some further period that seemed like hours. A custom layout is all well and good, but a thousand pounds for a couple of hours work? There's something not right there. I had plenty of opportunity to question him about it the next day, though, after we'd spent some of last night's excellent takings on a decent meal and a few drinks.

'It's all got to do with the lighter,' Brank reveals, digging around on his plate for the final cube of steak. He raises it to his mouth and chews on it with blatant enjoyment.

'I was just thinking about that last night,' I commented. 'Just remembering.'

'Yeah, well.' grunts Brank, suddenly taciturn. 'She's not coming back, not now, not ever. The sooner you realise that and move on the better.'

I nodded submissively. 'I wasn't thinking about that,' I lied. 'Just about the hall.'

'Every guy who owns a hall of mirrors knows about the lighter,' Brank imparted, returning once more to the subject in hand. 'It's just taken for granted that light bounces off a mirror. Everyone knows it. It's science, that's all. So if you have a sealed room lined with mirrors there isn't no place inside that can't be lit up. Fair enough?'

I shrugged.

'But this guy, he's got this theory. That it isn't necessarily true, see. That you could have a kind of room that doesn't work like that.' He paused. 'And?' I said when it became obvious Brank wasn't going to continue.

'And what?' came the irritating response.

'And what does our rich friend have to do with this?'

'That's all he said,' Brank grunted. 'He wants to try his theory out.'

'So he's a scientist?'

'Could be, could be.'

'Could be?'

'For a thousand quid it doesn't matter,' Brank retorted. 'You'll get your share, don't you worry. Now you tell me, boy - for a thousand quid, does it matter? Nice little earner for not a lot of work if you ask me.'

I shrugged again. It seemed simpler, somehow.

---

Three days later and the fair was closed. We only ever opened four nights in one place, even though we were due to stay here another two days before moving on. The next place was always best opened on a Friday night although I was still never sure why we didn't do at least one more day; in all probability no-one knew - it had simply always been like that. But it was certainly to our advantage to stay a further two days here with nothing on.

Mr Hiller had unexpectedly changed the terms of our verbal contract, it seemed. No longer was it a thousand pounds for two hours work, it had become a thousand per hour with the understanding that we would provide as much work as he needed over the next two days. It wasn't, he said, that he expected twenty-four hour work shifts from us; he thought that he'd require three hours at most, but he felt that the greater flexibility offered by such terms suited him far better, if it suited us, of course. Oh, it suited us fine, we assured him. Just fine.

'An ellipse,' he'd explained to me after introducing himself, 'has two focal points. In an elliptical room light placed at one of these focal points will be reflected to the other focal point.'

'But wouldn't the whole room still be illuminated,' I said slowly, straining to track the path of imaginary light in an imaginary ellipse.' 'Yes,' said Mr Hiller abruptly. 'Of course it will. But now look at this room-'

He opened his bag to remove a notebook. My eyes widened as he reached into his bag; not at the notebook but at what lay beneath, and I quickly looked away. The sharp movement caught his attention.

'It's a knife,' he said quietly, flipping open the notebook to show me the diagrams Brank had been privy to late last Friday night. 'Just a knife. We all have business to take care of.'

He smiled then. I just looked at the notebook which he handed to me, appraising my reaction.

'You're very wise,' he approved, closing the bag and placing it on the floor by his feet.

'Who are you?' I blurted out. 'What do you want?'

'Or maybe not so wise,' he said sharply. 'A mathematician, that's what I am. This is all you need to know and indeed is all you will know. The decision has been made. Your uncle, the owner of one of but a few halls of mirrors totally sealed against the illumination of the outside world, has agreed. What more could you possibly need to know, little man?'

The 'little man' rankled and I found myself responding almost without thought.

'I need to know who you are,' I said in anger. 'Don't treat me like a fool. I'm the one who'll hump these damned mirrors about the place; I'm the one who'll tighten the bolts of your new configuration. So I'm involved, see? It won't happen without me.'

Mr Hiller's face had changed alarmingly throughout the course of this exposition; amusement, disbelief or anger - I couldn't quite work out the meaning of his expression.

He lifted the bag from the floor again and I took a step backwards as he unzipped it. His hand dipped inside the bag, rummaged for a short while and stopped dead. He held his hand perfectly still and raised his head slowly to look me in the eyes.

'Sure?' he said, and I struggled not to read too much meaning into his voice. Was it my imagination; was the threat real or not. Knife or knowledge? Knowledge or knife? I swallowed. Dry.

'Sure,' I croaked and he withdrew his hand from the bag, handing me a small leather-bound volume and turning on his heel.

'You're very wise,' he said again, this time without the sharpness, then turned on his heel and walked away.

'Or maybe not,' I called after him. 'Maybe not so wise?'

He raised a hand by way of answer and continued to walk.

---

The book itself was written by an idiot; that much was clear from the contents page alone. Each chapter dealt with a different aspect of some arcane knowledge, most of it based around utterly ludicrous concepts; that ginseng is a life-giving food brought to our planet by benevolent aliens; that Atlantis was discovered by Spain in 1947 and deliberately destroyed to avoid other countries discovering the amazing technological secrets now possessed solely by the Spanish. The chapter of interest, of course, was clearly circled on the contents page and further paragraphs were underlined with great swathes of red ink, clearly intended to denote a passage of particular importance.

The general conclusion was just as bizarre as any other topic contained in the volume; that light contained a component which controlled the barriers between the seventeen dimensions, which a footnote indicated were discussed in a chapter entitled 'The four emotional planes of reality'. Of course, the book declined to specify what this component might be and how it might function, yet the properties it possessed were discoursed with an almost maniacal fervency. Clearly Mr Hiller believed it - wanted its power, no doubt! - and I could only assume that he intended to use our hall of mirrors to further his already misguided understanding of this ridiculous notion.

The question was whether to tell Brank or not. And even that wouldn't have been a question had I not had so much time to think about it all; the remainder of the day and much of the night were given over to an increasingly disturbed consideration of what the book proposed. To my rational brain it seemed ludicrous and yet undeniably unsettling; I wasn't gifted with Brank's blinkered and unswervingly ignorant attitude to all things outside his sphere of existence, nor did I possess even a shadow of the gullible traits so grotesquely displayed by the old crone who followed us from town to town, permanently sited on our right by the fairground boss.

Nevertheless, I found myself drawn to an inexplicable belief in the mystical double-talk. No - more than just belief; I'd almost reached the point where I believed enough to fear, for the warnings about this practice were legion and, in their own way, as utterly soul-destroying as the apparent effects of a failed attempt. So, to tell Brank or not to tell? To warn, perhaps, or not to warn?

In the end, I kept my mouth shut. It's what I was used to.

---

The day came quickly. I watched as the rest of the fair began to ready itself for the forthcoming exodus.

'I thought we were staying here for two days?' I shouted to Brank.

'We are,' came the response. 'They're not.'

I got up and shoved my head in through the caravan door. Brank stopped what he was doing and looked at me.

'We'll catch them up,' he said, amused. 'You know we don't always travel with them.'

'You don't understand. What if something happens to us? What if we need help?'

'Help, lad? What kind of help?'

I hesitated. 'Just... help,' I ended pathetically. Oh, he knew damn well what I meant and I'd have said so if there hadn't been a sharp knock beside me on the wall of the caravan. I looked up with a start and Brank virtually pushed me out of the way as he bounded down the steps of the caravan. 'Have you brought it?' he questioned greedily, reaching his hand out.

'Five hundred,' Mr Hiller confirmed, placing a thick wad of twenty pound notes in Brank's palm. There was no hint of conspiracy in the gesture; the money was planted firm and plain in full daylight and I swear I saw the old bitch's curtains twitch with barely-concealed envy. 'The next five hundred after an hours work. You'll have to trust me for the rest.'

'Why are they going?' I interrupted. 'It was you, wasn't it? How much did you pay them?'

Brank stared at me. 'Boy,' he started, ready to denounce me as a lunatic for the sake of another five hundred quid; ready to do nigh on anything, I realised, for another twenty-five notes.

'Them?' Mr Hiller interjected softly. 'I wouldn't pay them a thing. But the fairground manager; now he's a different story. I just thought it simpler if we worked alone... is that okay by you?'

I felt my lip curl up in disgust as I observed Brank's frantic nodding. And then Hiller turned to me.

'So be it,' I said, holding out the book with one finger holding it open between pages eighty-seven and eighty-eight. 'You know the dangers?'

'Dangers?' said Brank, alarmed and alert for the first time. 'What's that book?'

'There are none,' hissed Hiller, snatching the book from me and sliding it down into the depths of the bag. Behind us the first of our companions hit the road. 'No dangers. Remember that. The plans, Brank, the plans. I have made modifications... it may take a short time longer to create. You will, of course, be paid in full.'

Brank nodded eagerly. 'Whatever it takes. We've got nothing on for the next couple of days.'

I stared at him, and that was the last moment I ever felt anything for him other than hate.

'Get the wrench, lad,' he said quietly, and I went to get the wrench.

---

Two hours later saw the final departure as surely as two hours previous had seen the first. So far one thousand five hundred had found its way into Brank's back pocket, each fresh consignment carefully buttoned up with smoke-stained fingers. I wondered just how much Hiller had on him. 'It is done,' announced Mr Hiller with no trace of irony. He surveyed the newly formed structure with obvious glee, the greed shining in his eyes. 'No-one's ever managed it before,' he sighed pleasurably. 'As far as I know no-one's tried. Curious, no?'

I observed his face for a moment longer. 'Perhaps they had more sense,' I growled dryly.

Hiller's face changed subtly. 'Perhaps,' he mimicked with obvious scorn. 'Bring the door.'

Brank and I grabbed one end of the door each. There had been some argument about where to place it. Brank had misinterpreted the plans and already placed the hinges in the central portion of the structure, ready for the swinging door to be hung. Hiller, unfortunately, didn't notice until the entire structure was nearly up; two of the four graceful curves that we'd dug out of a fairly squat elliptical curve had to be removed and reconstructed-

'They're linked, that's why,' Brank had muttered inexplicably. 'How was I to know?' he'd scowled, stabbing at the plans with his finger. 'You didn't write the modifications on here, did you?'

'Watch your tone. And remember who's paying you. Just do it.'

Eventually, of course, we had reached this moment; Brank squatting down to lift the bottom edge of the door from the field, my own hands already gripping the top and bottom edge. Mr Hiller was cautiously peering into the hall of mirrors, drawing four candles from his bag. I wondered what he'd do if I dropped my end of the door.

'It'll be alright, lad,' whispered Brank to me as we brought the door closer and closer to the hall. It felt like we were bringing something to be sacrificed; the silvered ox heavy in our arms.

'Don't close it yet,' Hiller admonished as we pushed the hasps up and over the hinges. 'The cracks between the joins should be enough to stop the configuration misfiring, but it's best to take no chances.' He dragged a final five hundred from his pocket, handed it to Brank and stepped over the threshold.

'Not yet. Mind the door doesn't close,' he reiterated, and disappeared from view. We could see him for a while, reflected all around us in the mirrors as he placed the candles at the four curled horns of the bastardised ellipse and lit them. His voice came at last, muffled and distorted by the thick glass, almost as though it came from a great distance.

'Now,' he shouted, and Brank began to swing the door closed. 'Close it now!' he reiterated urgently, and the door swung finally closed with an almost insignificant click.

---

Silence. Then, far away, almost in the distance:

'It's beautiful... the darkness... light... playing...'

And then there was a strange liquid noise and as Brank and I looked on with stunned and passionless gazes the black seals pushed outwards and a thin trickle of blood appeared at every junction of mirror and steel, tiny rivers winding down each crack and pooling at the base of each strut. Brank grunted; no words, nothing human, just a single disbelieving grunt; and he reached out for the door, opening it just as my hand clasped his wrist, trying to stop him. But too late, the door swung outwards, the mirror coated evenly with a transparent paste of ground flesh and blood, the mirror still glinting underneath, brash and metallic. The air which rushed out with it was foul; organic and meaty, moist and almost sexual. We remained there for a moment, stunned beyond movement or communication. Then, cautiously, Brank stepped inside the wet, red cavern; I still don't know what he intended to do nor what he expected to find.

'Candles are still burning, lad,' he called in shaking tones. 'No sign of Hiller, though.'

I almost laughed out loud - no sign of Hiller. He was there, alright; I guess we could always scrape him into one place if it really mattered.

The door swung slightly in the wind, the mirror still shining somehow beneath the once-human sludge. Another gust, small and insignificant.

'And the candles are still lit, you say?' I shouted, just needing to check.

Another gust, another swing. Nearly closed...

'Looks like it,' came the reply. 'Hell, it's slippery in here. I'm coming out.'

I kicked gently. The click as it shut was almost insignificant.

---
Note: The concept of unilluminable rooms is not an invented one.
That doesn't necessarily mean I understand it...