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CHAPTER
22
In the hall of mirrors
night-fallen,
amid slow waves of data
crawling
shadows, wind-blown, now gather
into clouded shapes;
vibrations
in the air, crystal
frequencies,
a slow sudden pulse-beat.
Emerging, a drift of tears
multiplied
in the one thousand mirrors,
where
figures crouch in corners and then
rise to step freely
(as the
crane steps)
through
liquid soft reflections: where now,
following, the assassin glides
in silk.
The one hand, becoming
a thousand;
the one gun, a thousand guns.
And a voice that trails away
inside
the head. Whispering.
Barely
heard now, barely heard.
Silence. A single teardrop
falls
on glass. Echoes, magnified.
A skin
of silver nitrate that peels itself
away from the mirror,
becoming
a likeness. Half man
half
woman. A crying apparition that
raises a hand, lightly
revealing
the shine of a blade
and
plunges forward, howling, toward
the assassin, who moves
in turn,
quickly now, raising the gun
even
as the blade glistens forth from
one direction, another,
yet another.
The trigger is pulled,
and
all the shining pathways, broken,
scattering; the noise, the fireæ
a fall
of flesh, bone, wetness,
shards
of glass. Voices scream out
in relay. Cry, repeat, cry,
repeat,
cry, repeat. Gestures, falling.
Gestures.
Cry, repeat. And then quiet. Cold.
The agent finds there
only shadows,
pale, lingering,
an image
held on a splintered mirror;
the princess, fading now,
lingering,
fading. Finally, only this:
a smear
of blood on the looking glass
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