“You have got to be poxy kidding me. Chimerae and Witches and Nymphs and knights? Plagues of Locusts and the Seven Dwarfs? What is this, the Land of Storybooks? Those cannot be their real names.”
“It is not what they call themselves, but, by the prickly cap of bleeding Christ, that is what they really are. The way to remember who is who is that the Witches want to sacrifice babies, the Chimera want to breed them like dogs, the Hormagaunts want to eat them, and the Locusts want to absorb their brains. What the Melusine want, I have no idea, and that worries me.”
“None of ’em sound like nice people,” said Scipio.
Menelaus gave him a sickly grin. “They are damned sick, believe you me. But no worse than the folk from our day, mister.”
“Our day was civilized!”
“Meaning we threw rockets instead of rocks. Civilization makes it easier to earn ourselves the mark of Cain, which is the goddam star-spangled banner of the human race. Remember how many World Wars the Cryonarchy fought? Four? Five? How many cities of innocent civilians were wiped out by atomic or antimatter space-bombardment? Man has not progressed a whisker’s length in all this time: Like a mad dog on a chain tearing up a circle centered on his stake, all we’ve done is change and change. Ain’t moved. Ain’t bettered us none. Ah, is that him—?”
Montrose was staring in naked eagerness.
3. A Familiar Face
The old knight entered. Menelaus increased the visual cortex activity in his brain to allow himself to see his old friend clearly.
The eyebrows and short, square beard of Sir Guy had turned white with age, but the heavy muscles of his youth had not yet vanished. The rest of his face was obscured with colorful designs of ink, some of them gleaming with luminescence. The short beard on his cheeks was oddly colored by the skin beneath, where the inks painting his jawline gleamed through.
He wore a cowl or coif of metal links covering his head and neck, with system jacks and fittings to mate with the inside of a large helmet. He wore a skintight one-piece of flexible gray smartmetal, the type an astronaut might wear beneath his space suit, and it also was fitted with jacks to mate with the interior of powered armor.
Over this, he wore a surcoat of black, and his cape was black. Both surcoat and cape were blazoned with a large white Maltese Cross. The white crosses stood out starkly in the hanging lanterns in the wide gloom overhead, and their reflections in the gold tiles underfoot.
He wore no boots, and his gloves were tucked in his belt. His hands and feet were baby-pink, and formed a bland contrast with the bizarrely complex glowing tattoos and inks of his face. Menelaus recalled that Larz said the Blue Men had dismembered Guy, and regrew the severed limbs later. It seemed an act of pointless cruelty. There were no ink-artists available to restore his lost designs, for the craft of tattooing with variable-property smart-inks had passed away over seven millennia ago. It was as if someone had effaced the cave paintings of Lascaux with a sandblaster.
His scabbard and holster were empty: the Blue Men had returned his clothing, but not his weapons.
Menelaus was struck by joy so potent that it felt like unto grief to see Sir Guy again, and he had to raise his hand to his eyes, which stung with unshed tears.
With his eyes closed, he suddenly recognized something odd about the way the dog things were moving.
Opening them again, he opened up the visual receptors in his nervous system to their maximum, and induced a pattern-finding gestalt in the reticular complex of his midbrain. There! The pattern was unmistakable! To double-check, he reduced the walking and standing and head-motions of each of the two hundred Moreaus in the chamber to an algorithm, made a few guesses about the architecture of their lower nervous system, and ran the equations through his head at high speed. The dogs were strict about escorting some people, and maintaining an average space of distance from them—Menelaus could graph in a simple relation how far a prisoner could step before the dog growled. But other people were allowed much greater latitude: Alalloel the Melusine, Linder Keir the Gray, Soorm the Hormagaunt, Oenoe the Nymph, Mickey the Witch, Rada Lwa the Scholar, Ctesibius the Savant, and, oddly enough, Alpha Yuen the Chimera.
Their latitude to Alalloel and Oenoe and Mickey he thought he understood: Mickey knew subtly how to manipulate their subconscious reflexes; Oenoe could work a similar trick by using scent codes. But the others? Why were they afraid of Alalloel?
4. Hear Ye
Illiance was surprised, because not everyone had entered the chamber yet, when at that moment Menelaus stepped forward and called out, his voice ringing to the walls.
“Hear ye! You are called to the appointed time and trial of the Judge of Ages.
“Each of you, your millennium and species will be scrutinized. Whomever finds favor in his eyes will be released in greatest numbers from this and other Tomb sites, together with your beasts and crops and ecology most favorable to you.
“He will reorganize the weather and climate to suit. Those who find no favor, you will be returned to slumber, to await, if ever, the pleasure of the inheritors of the Earth to thaw you for their purposes.
“The standards of his judgment have been known from the dawn of things: You are not being judged on your spiritual or military attainments, your beauty or your ruthlessness, your unity or your individualism. You are not even being judged on the justice with which you have treated the weakest among you.
“The sole criterion of judgment is your fidelity to the cause for which these Tombs were made! They were not made for your convenience, to await the development of pharmaceutical or technique to cure your bodily ills, nor to sate your curiosity about futurity, nor to grant sanctuary from current worldly ills, tyrants, or famines you wished to outslumber. No, it was none of these.
“The Tombs were made to store whatever could be preserved to resist, offend, and, God willing, overthrow the invasion by the Hyades when it comes. By entering the Tombs, and taking advantage of power to escape the chains of years, you are bound to that cause, knowingly or not, willingly or not.”
And he translated this into Iatric, Natural, Chimerical, Virginian, Anglatino, and Spanish.
But in Latin, he said another message entirely: “I need you to block and hold the albino when he comes in. Get the fat black Witch in the crazy blinky-eyed dunce-cap to help you.”
5. Commotion
There was a pall of whispering anger and fear that spread from group to group, age to age, as Menelaus repeated the words in one language, then another.
The Nymphs saw the looks of shock on the faces and muzzles of the Linderlings and Hormagaunts, and swayed to a graceful motionlessness, luminous eyes wide, not understanding what was said. Zouave shouted toward the throne, “We are his clients! I claim the protection of the sacred law of hospitality!”
Then the Nymphs heard the message in their tongue, and put their slender hands before their lovely mouths in shock, and hunched their creamy shoulders, putting their heads together in whispers. Thysa the Nymph put the back of her small wrist to her brow, head tilting back in a rustle of flower-crowned hair, as if about to swoon, and so well formed were the curves of her upraised arm and the figure of her pose, she might have been a statue. Two of the males began playing shrill flute-trills expressing anger. Aea the Nymph held up a rhododendron in protest, saying, “Our era was meant to escape the turmoil of evolution! Ours is a time of peace that halted the endless wars of Darwin! The Judge of Ages loves us! He cannot place us in the pan and balance our race against another!”
The Chimerae at stiff attention did not move or change expression, although their flinty, unblinking eyes beheld the fluttering agitation of the Nymphs; but the Kine sensed the fear in the room, and crouched down, whining and gritting their teeth. When the words were repeated in Chimerical, the Kine froze in place as in terror.
Daae, his eyes shining, shouted toward the throne, “The Chimerae are the superior peoples, and will gladly combat and slay whomever the Judge of Ages wishes to pit against u
s. He knows we have complete confidence in his ability to achieve his aims this day.”
When the message was repeated in Virginian, the crones grew pale and cowered, and turned and turned about, dragging the tips of their charming wands in figures of mystic circles on the floor about them for protection, but Fuamnach of Whalesong Coven dropped her wand on the ground in a sudden and loud clatter, and she sank down, sobbing.
Fatin the Maiden called out, “We do not recognize the right of Menelaus Montrose to sit in judgment over us!”
But Louhi said, “Anger him not! He is a god of the dead! We are buried alive in his dread kingdom!”
Menelaus spoke over the noise, speaking in Virginian, “The spirit of my dead mother appeared to me in a dream, saying, Work the purposes of the Judge of Ages, send the Warlock among you to these chamber doors, to propitiate the great god of thresholds, two-faced Janus!” And at this Mickey bowed to Fatin, and the fat man began to work his way through the crowd, somehow avoiding the gazes of the dogs.
Because of the noise of many voices in the chamber, the dog things laid their ears flat, and turned this way and that, fingering their weapons but hearing no orders, nervous due to the anger they could smell building in the room.
Even while Menelaus spoke, the last two prisoners were still being escorted into the chamber. The dogs escorting slowed down suddenly, wary because of the anger and fear smells, and the two figures continued forward. The Giant had not appeared, yet the echo of his footfalls could be heard from far off.
The Savant Ctesibius, regal as a king, his eyes leaden with grief, came forward, dressed in his robes of green and gold. His wig was as long and white as the one Scipio wore.
Rada Lwa the Scholar, with his pink eyes and bone-white face, walked in next to him, dressed in his black scholarly robes and square mortarboard, walking a little uncomfortably, as if chafed by the lack of his missing undergarment.
His eyes passed across Menelaus, and registered nothing.
6. Scholar and Savant
Rada Lwa and Ctesibius, having heard no announcement, and unaware of why everyone in the chamber was talking at once, were conversing in the modulator-demodulator language of the Savants.
While he was yet repeating his announcement in a few more languages (Anglatino, Merikan, and English), Menelaus, with another compartment of his mind, used his cortical echo technique to build up an auditory image of the environment, and he filtered out the excess noise. In this way, he was able to overhear when Rada Lwa emitted a high-density information squawk. “Menelaus Montrose, the fallen Hermeticist, his face perhaps altered by a biotechnological technique, is somewhere in this chamber, unseen, unrecognized. He has had the effrontery to order me not to reveal his identity. To whom in this chamber should I reveal it? What is the circumstance? Where is he?”
The Glorified Ctesibius regarded Rada Lwa with a look that might have been carved from the face of a mountain. Coldly, he replied in the same machine-code language: “The act, and therefore the thought that prompts it, is vain. The Hermetic Order achieved glorification while we slept, and have passed on to purely machine-based forms of life. Nothing in the macroscopic world, at our merely biochemical speeds of life, can possibly concern them. The asymptote occurred while we slumbered.”
“What? There must be some error—” sputtered Rada Lwa.
“No error. The Machine we serve has left us behind to die. Darwin has culled us; we are extinct. No act of ours has meaning; nothing changes that outcome.”
Rada Lwa could neither blush with anger nor go pale. “There is yet meaning in revenge.”
Ctesibius said, “You speak of the First Montrose? He attempted interference with my damaged soul’s desire to slay itself, a deep insult to the sacrament of euthanasia, so I bear him no love. You are perhaps shortsighted? He is on the dais before you.”
At this, Rada Lwa strode forward, and the dogs let him by.
Menelaus said loudly in Latin, “Behold the man. That is his pale ass.”
7. Knight and Witch
Sir Guiden, at this point, was standing at the door, guarded by five or six dog things, but Mickey the Witch was nearby, looking about in puzzlement. Sir Guy put an affectionate arm around the shoulders of Mickey the Witch. He said in German, “Fat Swarthy Man in crazy eyeball Dunce-Cap! Come you this way. More interesting scenery toward the front of the chamber, I’d like to show you. That man with corpse-white skin, let us him follow, yes?”
Mickey walked with him, smiling broadly, saying, in Virginian, “I don’t understand your gabble-gabble. You are an ugly ape, are you not? And such unpleasant body odor! You are up to something that will get us all killed, yes? Why is there a cross and an eagle tattooed across your nose? You are one of our hated enemies, a Christian, no? Christ?”
Sir Guy tilted his head. “Christlich? Ja.” He pointed at Mickey, at the cabalistic signs woven into his black robes. “Sie sind ein Hexe?”
Mickey pointed at himself. “Hexen! Um Bruxa. Homem de Magia!”
Sir Guy said, “Magus! Magier!”
They both nodded, laughing, pleased at having understood each other.
Mickey, grinning, spun his charming wand in his hand like a baton, and said in his own language, “We destroyed your vile, repressive, patriarchal superstition thousands of years ago! The only point of the Simon Families, and the only purpose of finding a longevity system that worked only on women, was to take down your corrupt and elitist phallocracy!”
Sir Guy, smiling broadly, said in his own language, “You’re one of the vermin infidels whose clumsy assault we repelled when you devil-worshippers tried to dig up and break all the Tombs holding famous Churchmen, right? You small-brained grave-robber! As soon as I get my paralysis lance back, I’ll shove it down your throat to your groin.”
“Your language sounds like the gargling and spitting of a rabid epileptic, and all your holy men were reincarnated as butt-monkeys among the Bonobos.”
“I don’t know what you said, but you are damned to burn in hellfire, my pagan friend!”
Both men, in mutual incomprehension, threw back their heads and laughed together; and either because they were in such good cheer, or because of the subtle abilities of Mickey of Williamsburg, the dog simply let them walk on past.
The Witch saw only then where the knight was leading. His footsteps slowed, then stopped. Sir Guy tugged on his arm, and said in German, “Der ist ein Maschinist, ja? Ein Sklave der Maschine? Exarschel?”
Mickey said, “Machinist, yes, a slave of the Machine. Exarchelisma. By virtue of his name, Rada Lwa Chwal, I know that he is a steed for the spirit world. Am I not a naming mage of the Eleventh? Rada Lwa can be possessed by Exarchel. You understand? Machine inside man. Evil inside man.”
The knight nodded, and said in Latin, “Exarchelus. Malum.”
And the two men were no longer laughing. Mickey stepped forward toward the nearest dog thing, and began talking gently to it while it snarled at him, and he reached and scratched it behind the ears as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and that dog was preoccupied, and Sir Guiden walked calmly on past.
The dog things also made no move to stop Rada Lwa, whose blazing pink eyes were fixed on the throne. On he strode, his black robes flapping angrily about his legs, pushing through the crowd toward the dais, shouting in Spanish, “Shoot! Open fire upon him! This is the Judge of Ages, Juez de Edades, the enemy of progress and the people, the betrayer of the dreams of perfecting mankind!”
Rada Lwa stepped to one of the dog things and reached for the dog’s weapon, as if he meant to take it from the animal’s paws. The animal looked up at him casually, as if bemused at the interruption.
Rada Lwa evidently did not have Mickey’s way with beasts.
A moment later, bleeding from the bites on his hands, and from the shocking blows to his face and stomach, and curled in a fetal position with puke mingled with blood drops in a puddle on the floor, Rada Lwa managed to haul himself unsteadily to his feet, spread his
arms wide, and call out, “Don’t any of you degenerate evolutionary dead ends and vermin-riddled subcreatures in this place understand Spanish? Shoot! Fuego!”
A tall and broad figure was looming darkly behind him. “I understand Spanish, Señor.”
8. Knight and Scholar
As it turned out, the Blue Men had not taken all the weapons from Sir Guiden, merely most of them. His cloak pin was a large wooden crucifix set with an ivory image of Christ, and, as it turned out, the bottom half of the crucifix was hollow and contained the blade of a long, narrow knife called a misericorde, and when he put one muscular elbow about the throat of the albino, he drew the knife with his other, and held the pointed tip before one pink eye, close enough to touch the little white, sensitive lashes of the lower lid.
Menelaus called down in Latin, “Sir Guy, none of the systems respond to my voice-command, and I am a phantasm to the cameras, so I need to get my hands on the sarcophagus controls, but there is a quarter score of dogs in the way.”
In Latin, Sir Guy said back, “It’s been forty years for me, Liege. My life has been spent in your service. Have you no kinder word than that?”
“Ah, sorry. Guess I am kinda rushed. Hey! Congratulations on getting married.”