A dark hole leading into the ground lay open before him, and unquestioningly he entered it, descending a long flight of massive lichen-encrusted stone steps with archaic twining runes carved in them. Every movement was arduous for him. Though he was going steadily lower, the effort was like that of climbing. Struggling all the way, he made his way ever deeper, but he felt constantly as though he were traveling upward against a powerful pull, ascending some inverted pyramid, not a slender one like those above ground in this city, but one of unthinkable mass and diameter. He imagined himself to be fighting his way up the side of a mountain; but it was a mountain that pointed downward, deep into the world’s bowels. And the path was carrying him down, he knew, into some labyrinth far more frightful than the one in which he dwelled in daily life.
The whirling ghost-faces flashed dizzyingly by him and went spinning away. Cackling laughter floated backward to him out of the darkness. The air was moist and hot and rank. The pull of gravity was oppressive. As he descended, traveling through level after endless level, momentary flares of dizzying yellow light showed him caverns twisting away from him on all sides, radiating outward at incomprehensible angles that were both concave and convex.
And now there was sudden numbing brightness. The throbbing fire of an underground sun streamed upward toward him from the depths ahead of him, a harsh, menacing glare.
Valentine found himself drawn helplessly toward that terrible light; and then, without perceptible transition, he was no longer underground at all, but out in the vastness of Velalisier Plain, standing atop one of the great platforms of blue stone known as the Tables of the Gods.
There was a long knife in his hand, a curving scimitar that flashed like lightning in the brilliance of the noon sun.
And as he looked out across the plain he saw a mighty procession coming toward him from the east, from the direction of the distant sea: thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, like an army of ants on the march. No, two armies; for the marchers were divided into two great parallel columns. Valentine could see, at the end of each column far off near the horizon, two enormous wooden wagons mounted on titanic wheels. Great hawsers were fastened to them, and the marchers, with mighty groaning tugs, were hauling the wagons slowly forward, a foot or two with each pull, into the center of the city.
Atop each of the wagons a colossal water-king lay trussed, a sea-dragon of monstrous size. The great creatures were glaring furiously at their captors but were unable, even with a sea-dragon’s prodigious strength, to free themselves from their bonds, strain as they might. And with each tug on the hawsers the wagons bearing them carried them closer to the twin platforms called the Tables of the Gods.
The place of the sacrifice.
The place where the terrible madness of the Defilement was to happen. Where Valentine the Pontifex of Majipoor waited with the long gleaming blade in his hand.
Majesty? Majesty?”
Valentine blinked and came groggily awake. A Shapeshifter stood above him, extremely tall and greatly attenuated of form, his eyes so sharply slanted and narrowed that it seemed at first glance that he had none at all. Valentine began to jump up in alarm; and then, recognizing the intruder after a moment as Aarisiim, he relaxed.
“You cried out,” the Metamorph said. “I was on my way to you to tell you some strange news I have learned, and when I was outside your tent I heard your voice. Are you all right, your majesty?”
“A dream, only. A very nasty dream.” Which still lingered disagreeably at the edges of his mind. Valentine shivered and tried to shake himself free of its grasp. “What time is it, Aarisiim?”
“The Hour of the Haigus, majesty.”
Past the middle of the night, that was. Well along toward dawn.
Valentine forced himself the rest of the way into wakefulness. Eyes fully open now, he stared up into the practically featureless face. “There’s news, you say? What news?”
The Metamorph’s color deepened from pale green to a rich chartreuse, and his eye slits fluttered swiftly three or four times. “I have had a conversation this night with one of the archaeologists, the woman Hieekraad, she who keeps the records of the discovered artifacts. The foreman of the diggers brought her to me, the man Vathiimeraak, from the village. He and this Hieekraad are lovers, it seems.”
Valentine stirred impatiently. “Get to the point, Aarisiim.”
“I approach it, sir. The woman Hieekraad, it seems, has revealed things to the man Vathiimeraak about the excavations that a mere foreman might otherwise not have known. He has told those things to me this evening.”
“Well?”
“They have been lying to us, majesty—all the archaeologists, the whole pack of them, deliberately concealing something important. Something quite important, a major discovery. Vathiimeraak, when he learned from this Hieekraad that we had been deceived in this way, made the woman come with him to me, and compelled her to reveal the whole story to me.”
“Go on.”
“It was this,” said Aarisiim. He paused a moment, swaying a little as though he were about to plunge into a fathomless abyss. “Dr. Huukaminaan, two weeks before he died, uncovered a burial site that had never been detected before. This was in an otherwise desolate region out at the western edge of the city. Magadone Sambisa was with him. It was a post-abandonment site, dating from the historic era. From a time not long after Lord Stiamot, actually.”
“But how could that be?” said Valentine, frowning. “Completely aside from the little matter that there was a curse on this place and no Piurivar would have dared to set foot in it after it was destroyed, there weren’t any Piurivars living on this continent at that time anyway. Stiamot had sent them all into the reservations on Zimroel. You know that very well, Aarisiim. Something’s wrong here.”
“This was not a Piurivar burial, your majesty.”
“What?”
“It was the tomb of a human,” Aarisiim said. “The tomb of a Pontifex, according to the woman Hieekraad.”
Valentine would not have been more surprised if Aarisiim had set off an explosive charge. “A Pontifex?” he repeated numbly. “The tomb of a Pontifex, here in Velalisier?”
“So did this Hieekraad say. A definite identification. The symbols on the wall of the tomb—the Labyrinth sign, and other things of that sort—the ceremonial objects found lying next to the body—inscriptions—everything indicated that this was a Pontifex’s grave, thousands of years old. So she said; and I think she was telling the truth. Vathiimeraak was standing over her, scowling, as she spoke. She was too frightened of him to have uttered any falsehoods just then.”
Valentine rose and paced fiercely about the tent. “By the Divine, Aarisiim! If this is true, it’s something that should have been brought to my attention as soon as it came to light. Or at least mentioned to me upon my arrival here. The tomb of some ancient Pontifex, and they hide it from me? Unbelievable. Unbelievable!”
“It was Magadone Sambisa herself who ordered that all news of the discovery was to be suppressed. There would be no public announcement whatever. Not even the diggers were told what had been uncovered. It was to be a secret known to the archaeologists of the dig, only.”
“This according to Hieekraad also?”
“Yes, majesty. She said that Magadone Sambisa gave those orders the very day the tomb was found. This Hieekraad furthermore told me that Dr. Huukaminaan disagreed strenuously with Magadone Sambisa’s decision, that indeed they had a major quarrel over it. But in the end he gave in. And when the murder happened, and word came that you were going to visit Velalisier, Magadone Sambisa called a meeting of the staff and reiterated that nothing was to be said to you about it. Everyone involved with the dig was specifically told to keep all knowledge of it from you.”
“Absolutely incredible,” Valentine muttered.
Earnestly Aarisiim said, “You must protect the woman Hieekraad, majesty, as you investigate this thing. She will be in great trouble if Magadone Sambisa learns that she’s th
e one who let the story of the tomb get out.”
“Hieekraad’s not the only one who’s going to be in trouble,” Valentine said. He slipped from his nightclothes and started to dress.
“One more thing, majesty. The khivanivod—Torkkinuuminaad? He’s at the tomb site right now. That’s where he went to make his prayer retreat. I have this information from the foreman Vathiimeraak.”
“Splendid,” Valentine said. His head was whirling. “The village khivanivod mumbling Piurivar prayers in the tomb of a Pontifex! Beautiful! Wonderful!—Get me Magadone Sambisa, right away, Aarisiim.”
“Majesty, the hour is very early, and—”
“Did you hear me, Aarisiim?”
“Majesty,” said the Shapeshifter, more subserviently this time. He bowed deeply. And went out to fetch Magadone Sambisa.
An ancient Pontifex’s tomb, Magadone Sambisa, and no announcement is made? An ancient Pontifex’s tomb, and when the current Pontifex comes to inspect your dig, you go out of your way to keep him from learning about it? This is all extremely difficult for me to believe, let me assure you.”
Dawn was still an hour away. Magadone Sambisa, called from her bed for this interview, looked even paler and more haggard than she had yesterday, and now there might have been a glint of fear in her eyes as well. But for all that, she still was capable of summoning some of the unrelenting strength that had propelled her to the forefront of her profession: there was even a steely touch of defiance in her voice as she said, “Who told you about this tomb, your majesty?”
Valentine ignored the sally. “It was at your order, was it, that the story was suppressed?”
“Yes.”
“Over Dr. Huukaminaan’s strong objections, so I understand.”
Now fury flashed across her features. “They’ve told you everything, haven’t they? Who was it? Who?”
“Let me remind you, lady, that I am the one asking the questions here.—It’s true, then, that Huukaminaan disagreed with you about concealing the discovery?”
“Yes.” In a very small voice.
“Why was that?”
“He saw it as a crime against the truth,” Magadone Sambisa said, still speaking very quietly now. “You have to understand, majesty, that Dr. Huukaminaan was utterly dedicated to his work. Which was, as it is for us all, the recovery of the lost aspects of our past through rigorous application of formal archaeological disciplines. He was totally committed to this, a true and pure scientist.”
“Whereas you are not committed quite so totally?”
Magadone Sambisa reddened and glanced shamefacedly to one side. “I admit that my actions may make it seem that way. But sometimes even the pursuit of truth has to give way, at least for a time, before tactical realities. Surely you, a Pontifex, would not deny that. And I had reasons, reasons that seemed valid enough to me, for not wanting to let news of this tomb reach the public. Dr. Huukaminaan didn’t agree with my position; and he and I battled long and hard over it. It was the only occasion in our time as co-leaders of this expedition that we disagreed over anything.”
“And finally it became necessary, then, for you to have him murdered? Because he yielded to you only grudgingly, and you weren’t sure he really would keep quiet?”
“Majesty!” It was a cry of almost inexpressible shock.
“A motive for the killing can be seen there. Isn’t that so?”
She looked stunned. She waved her arms helplessly about, the palms of her hands turned outward in appeal. A long moment passed before she could bring herself to speak. But she had recovered much of her composure when she did.
“Majesty, what you have just suggested is greatly offensive to me. I am guilty of hiding the tomb discovery, yes. But I swear to you that I had nothing to do with Dr. Huukaminaan’s death. I can’t possibly tell you how much I admired that man. We had our professional differences, but—” She shook her head. She looked drained. Very quietly she said, “I didn’t kill him. I have no idea who did.”
Valentine chose to accept that, for now. It was hard for him to believe that she was merely playacting her distress.
“Very well, Magadone Sambisa. But now tell me why you decided to conceal the finding of that tomb.”
“I would have to tell you, first, an old Piurivar legend, a tale out of their mythology, one that I heard from the khivanivod Torkkinuuminaad on the day that we found the tomb.”
“Must you?”
“I must, yes.”
Valentine sighed. “Go ahead, then.”
Magadone Sambisa moistened her lips and drew a deep breath.
“There once was a Pontifex, so the story goes,” she said, “who lived in the years soon after the conquest of the Piurivars by Lord Stiamot. This Pontifex had fought in the War of the Conquest himself when he was a young man, and had had charge over a camp of Piurivar prisoners, and had listened to some of their campfire tales. Among which was the story of the Defilement at Velalisier—the sacrifice by the Final King of the two sea-dragons, and the destruction of the city that followed it. They told him also of the broken Seventh Pyramid, and of the shrine beneath it, the Shrine of the Downfall, as they called it. In which, they said, certain artifacts dating from the day of the Defilement had been buried—artifacts that would, when properly used, grant their wielder godlike power over all the forces of space and time. This story stayed with him, and many years later when he had become Pontifex he came to Velalisier with the intention of locating the shrine of the Seventh Pyramid, the Shrine of the Downfall, and opening it.”
“For the purpose of bringing forth these magical artifacts, and using them to gain godlike power over the forces of space and time?”
“Exactly,” said Magadone Sambisa.
“I think I see where this is heading.”
“Perhaps you do, majesty. We are told that he went to the site of the shattered pyramid. He drove a tunnel into the ground; he came upon the stone passageway that leads to the wall of the shrine. He found the wall and made preparations for breaking through it.”
“But the seventh shrine, you told me, is intact. Since the time of the abandonment of the city no one has ever entered it. Or so you believe.”
“No one ever has. I’m sure of that.”
“This Pontifex, then—?”
“Was just at the moment of breaching the shrine wall when a Piurivar who had hidden himself in the tunnel overnight rose up out of the darkness and put a sword through his heart.”
“Wait a moment,” said Valentine. Exasperation began to stir in him. “A Piurivar popped out of nowhere and killed him, you say? A Piurivar? I’ve just gone through this same thing with Aarisiim. Not only weren’t there any Piurivars anywhere in Alhanroel at that time, because Stiamot had locked them all up in reservations over in Zimroel, but there was supposed to be a curse on this place that would have prevented members of their race from going near it.”
“Except for the guardians of the shrine, who were exempted from the curse,” said Magadone Sambisa.
“Guardians?” Valentine said. “What guardians? I’ve never heard anything about Piurivar guardians here.”
“Nor had I, until Torkkinuuminaad told me this story. But at the time of the city’s destruction and abandonment, evidently, a decision was made to post a small band of watchmen here, so that nobody would be able to break into the seventh shrine and gain access to whatever’s in there. And that guard force remained on duty here throughout the centuries. There were still guardians here when the Pontifex came to loot the shrine. One of them tucked himself away in the tunnel and killed the Pontifex just as he was about to chop through the wall.”
“And his people buried him here? Why in the world would they do that?”
Magadone Sambisa smiled. “To hush things up, of course. Consider, majesty: A Pontifex comes to Velalisier in search of forbidden mystical knowledge, and is assassinated by a Piurivar who has been sneaking around undetected in the supposedly abandoned city. If word of that got around, it would make
everyone look bad.”
“I suppose that it would.”
“The Pontifical officials certainly wouldn’t have wanted to let it be known that their master had been struck down right under their noses. Nor would they be eager to advertise the story of the secret shrine, which might lead others to come here looking for it too. And surely they’d never want anyone to know that the Pontifex had died at the hand of a Piurivar, something that could reopen all the wounds of the War of the Conquest and perhaps touch off some very nasty reprisals.”
“And so they covered everything up,” said Valentine.
“Exactly. They dug a tomb off in a remote corner of the ruins and buried the Pontifex in it with some sort of appropriate ritual, and went back to the Labyrinth with the news that his majesty had very suddenly been stricken down at the ruins by an unknown disease and it had seemed unwise to bring his body back from Velalisier for the usual kind of state funeral.—Ghorban, was his name. There’s an inscription in the tomb that names him. Ghorban Pontifex, three Pontifexes after Stiamot. He really existed. I did research in the House of Records. You’ll see him listed there.”
“I’m not familiar with the name.”
“No. He’s not exactly one of the famous ones. But who can remember them all, anyway? Hundreds and hundreds of them, across all those thousands of years. Ghorban was Pontifex only a short while, and the only event of any importance that occurred during his reign was something that was carefully obliterated from the records. I’m speaking of his visit to Velalisier.”
Valentine nodded. He had paused by the great screen outside the Labyrinth’s House of Records often enough, and many times had stared at that long list of his predecessors, marveling at the names of all-but-forgotten monarchs, Meyk and Spurifon and Heslaine and Kandibal and dozens more. Who must have been great men in their day, but their day was thousands of years in the past. No doubt there was a Ghorban on the list, if Magadone Sambisa said there had been: who had reigned in regal grandeur for a time as the Coronal Lord Ghorban atop Castle Mount, and then had succeeded to the Pontificate in the fullness of his years, and for some reason had paid a visit to this accursed city of Velalisier, where he died, and was buried, and fell into oblivion.