“A curious tale,” Valentine said. “But what is there in it that would have made you want to suppress the discovery of this Ghorban’s tomb?”
“The same thing that made those ancient Pontifical officials suppress the real circumstances of his death,” replied Magadone Sambisa. “You surely know that most ordinary people already are sufficiently afraid of this city. The horrible story of the Defilement, the curse, all the talk of ghosts lurking in the ruins, the general spookiness of the place—well, you know what people are like, your majesty. How timid they can be in the face of the unknown. And I was afraid that if the Ghorban story came out—the secret shrine, the search for mysterious magical lore by some obscure ancient Pontifex, the murder of that Pontifex by a Piurivar—there’d be such public revulsion against the whole idea of excavating Velalisier that the dig would be shut down. I didn’t want that to happen. That’s all it was, your majesty. I was trying to preserve my own job, I suppose. Nothing more than that.”
It was a humiliating confession. Her tone, which had been vigorous enough during the telling of the tale, now was flat, weary, almost lifeless. To Valentine it had the sound of complete sincerity.
“And Dr. Huukaminaan didn’t agree with you that revealing the discovery of the tomb could be a threat to the continuation of your work here?”
“He saw the risk. He didn’t care. For him the truth came first and foremost, always. If public opinion forced the dig to be shut down, and nobody worked here again for fifty or a hundred or five hundred years, that was all right with him. His integrity wouldn’t permit hiding a startling piece of history like that, not for any reason. So we had a big battle and finally I pushed him into giving in. You’ve seen how stubborn I can be. But I didn’t kill him. If I had wanted to kill anybody, it wouldn’t have been Dr. Huukaminaan. It would have been the khivanivod, who actually does want the dig shut down.”
“He does? You said he and Huukaminaan worked hand in glove.”
“In general, yes. As I told you yesterday, there was one area where he and Huukaminaan diverged: the issue of opening the shrine. Huukaminaan and I, you know, were planning to open it as soon as we could arrange for you and Lord Hissune to be present at the work. But the khivanivod was passionately opposed. The rest of our work here was acceptable to him, but not that. The Shrine of the Downfall, he kept saying, is the holy of holies, the most sacred Piurivar place.”
“He might just have a point there,” Valentine said.
“You also don’t think we should look inside that shrine?”
“I think that there are certain important Piurivar leaders who might very much not want that to happen.”
“But the Danipiur herself has given us permission to work here! Not only that, but she and all the rest of the Piurivar leaders understand that we’ve come here to restore the city—that we hope to undo as much as we can of the harm that thousands of years of neglect have caused. They have no quarrel with that. But just to be completely certain that our work would give no offense to the Piurivar community, we all agreed that the expedition would consist of equal numbers of Piurivar and non-Piurivar archaeologists, and that Dr. Huukaminaan and I would share the leadership on a co-equal basis.”
“Although you turned out to be somewhat more co-equal than he was when there happened to be a significant disagreement between the two of you, didn’t you?”
“In that one instance of the Ghorban tomb, yes,” said Magadone Sambisa, looking just a little out of countenance. “But only that one. He and I were in complete agreement at all times on everything else. On the issue of opening the shrine, for example.”
“A decision which the khivanivod then vetoed.”
“The khivanivod has no power to veto anything, majesty. The understanding we had was that any Piurivar who objected to some aspect of our work on religious grounds could appeal to the Danipiur, who would then adjudicate the matter in consultation with you and Lord Hissune.”
“Yes. I wrote that decree myself, actually.”
Valentine closed his eyes a moment and pressed the tips of his fingers against them. He should have realized, he told himself, that problems like these would inevitably crop up. This city had too much tragic history. Terrible things had happened here. The mysterious aura of Piurivar sorcery still hovered over the place, thousands of years after its destruction.
He had hoped to dispel some of that aura by sending in these scientists. Instead he had only enmeshed himself in its dark folds.
After a time he looked up and said, “I understand from Aarisiim that where your khivanivod has gone to make his spiritual retreat is in fact the Ghorban tomb that you’ve taken such pains to hide from me, and that he’s there at this very moment. Is that true?”
“I believe it is.”
The Pontifex walked to the tent entrance and peered outside. The first bronze streaks of the desert dawn were arching across the great vault of the sky.
“Last night,” he said, “I asked you to send messengers out looking for him, and you said that you would. You didn’t, of course, tell me that you knew where he was. But since you do know, get your messengers moving. I want to speak with him first thing this morning.”
“And if he refuses to come, your majesty?”
“Then have him brought.”
The khivanivod Torkkinuuminaad was every bit as disagreeable as Magadone Sambisa had led Valentine to expect, although the fact that it had been necessary for Valentine’s security people to threaten to drag him bodily from the Ghorban tomb must not have improved his temper. Lisamon Hultin was the one who had ordered him out of there, heedless of his threats and curses. Piurivar witcheries and spells held little dread for her, and she let him know that if he didn’t go to Valentine more or less willingly on his own two feet, she would carry him to the Pontifex herself.
The Shapeshifter shaman was an ancient, emaciated man, naked but for some wisps of dried grass around his waist and a nasty-looking amulet, fashioned of interwoven insect legs and other such things, that dangled from a frayed cord about his neck. He was so old that his green skin had faded to a faint gray, and his slitted eyes, bright with rage, glared balefully at Valentine out of sagging folds of rubbery skin.
Valentine began on a conciliatory note. “I ask your pardon for interrupting your meditations. But certain urgent matters must be dealt with before I return to the Labyrinth, and your presence was needed for that.”
Torkkinuuminaad said nothing.
Valentine proceeded regardless. “For one thing, a serious crime has been committed in the archaeological zone. The killing of Dr. Huukaminaan is an offense not only against justice but against knowledge itself. I’m here to see that the murderer is identified and punished.”
“What does this have to do with me?” asked the khivanivod, glowering sullenly. “If there has been a murder, you should find the murderer and punish him, yes, if that is what you feel you must do. But why must a servant of the Gods That Are be compelled by force to break off his sacred communion like this? Because the Pontifex of Majipoor commands it?” Torkkinuuminaad laughed harshly. “The Pontifex! Why should the commands of the Pontifex mean anything to me? I serve only the Gods That Are.”
“You also serve the Danipiur,” said Valentine in a calm, quiet tone. “And the Danipiur and I are colleagues in the government of Majipoor.” He indicated Magadone Sambisa and the other archaeologists, both human and Metamorph, who stood nearby. “These people are at work in Velalisier this day because the Danipiur has granted her permission for them to be here. You yourself are here at the Danipiur’s request, I believe. To serve as spiritual counselor for those of your people who are involved in the work.”
“I am here because the Gods That Are require me to be here, and for no other reason.”
“Be that as it may, your Pontifex stands before you, and he has questions to ask you, and you will answer.”
The shaman’s only response was a sour glare.
“A shrine has been discovered near
the ruins of the Seventh Pyramid,” Valentine went on. “I understand that the late Dr. Huukaminaan intended to open that shrine. You had strong objections to that, am I correct?”
“You are.”
“Objections on what grounds?”
“That the shrine is a sacred place not to be disturbed by profane hands.”
“How can there be a sacred place,” asked Valentine, “in a city that had a curse pronounced on it?”
“The shrine is sacred nevertheless,” the khivanivod said obdurately.
“Even though no one knows what may be inside it?”
“I know what is inside it,” said the khivanivod.
“You? How?”
“I am the guardian of the shrine. The knowledge is handed down from guardian to guardian.”
Valentine felt a chill traveling along his spine. “Ah,” he said. “The guardian. Of the shrine.” He was silent a moment. “As the officially designated successor, I suppose, of the guardian who murdered a Pontifex here once thousands of years ago. The place where you were found praying just now, so I’ve been told, was the tomb of that very Pontifex. Is that so?”
“It is.”
“In that case,” said Valentine, allowing a little smile to appear at the corners of his mouth, “I need to ask my guards to keep very careful watch on you. Because the next thing I’m going to do, my friend, is to instruct Magadone Sambisa and her people to proceed at once with the opening of the seventh shrine. And I see now that that might place me in some danger at your hands.”
Torkkinuuminaad looked astounded. Abruptly the Metamorph shaman began to go through a whole repertoire of violent changes of form, contracting and elongating wildly, the borders of his body blurring and recomposing with bewildering speed.
But the archaeologists too, both the human ones and the two Ghayrogs and the little tight-knit group of Shapeshifters, were staring at Valentine as though he had just said something beyond all comprehension. Even Tunigorn and Mirigant and Nascimonte were flabbergasted. Tunigorn turned to Mirigant and said something, to which Mirigant replied only with a shrug, and Nascimonte, standing near them, shrugged also in complete bafflement.
Magadone Sambisa said in hoarse choking tones, “Majesty? Do you mean that? I thought you said only a little while ago that the best thing would be to leave the shrine unopened!”
“I said that? I?” Valentine shook his head. “Oh, no. No. How long will it take you to get started on the job?”
“Why—let me see—” He heard her murmur, “The recording devices, the lighting equipment, the masonry drills—” She grew quiet, as if counting additional things off in her mind. Then she said, “We could be ready to begin in half an hour.”
“Good. Let’s get going, then.”
“No! This will not be!” cried Torkkinuuminaad, a wild screech of rage.
“It will,” said Valentine. “And you’ll be there to watch it. As will I.” He beckoned toward Lisamon Hultin. “Speak with him, Lisamon. Tell him in a persuasive way that it’ll be much better for him if he remains calm.”
Magadone Sambisa said, wonderingly, “Are you serious about all this, Pontifex?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Very serious indeed.”
The day seemed a hundred hours long.
Opening any sealed site for the first time would ordinarily have been a painstaking process. But this one was so important, so freighted with symbolic significance, so potentially explosive in its political implications, that every task was done with triple care.
Valentine himself waited at surface level during the early stages of the work. What they were doing down there had all been explained to him—running cables for illumination and ventilating pipes for the excavators; carefully checking with sonic probes to make sure that opening the shrine wall would not cause the ceiling of the vault to collapse; sonic testing of the interior of the shrine itself to see if there was anything important immediately behind the wall that might be imperiled by the drilling operation.
All that took hours. Finally they were ready to start cutting into the wall.
“Would you like to watch, majesty?” Magadone Sambisa asked.
Despite the ventilation equipment, Valentine found it hard work to breathe inside the tunnel. The air had been hot and stale enough on his earlier visit; but now, with all these people crowded into it, it was thin, feeble stuff, and he had to strain his lungs to keep from growing dizzy.
The close-packed archaeologists parted ranks to let him come forward. Bright lights cast a brilliant glare on the white stone façade of the shrine. Five people were gathered there, three Piurivars, two humans. The actual drilling seemed to be the responsibility of the burly foreman Vathiimeraak. Kaastisiik, the Piurivar archaeologist who was the site boss, was assisting. Just behind them was Driismiil, the Piurivar architectural expert, and a human woman named Shimrayne Gelvoin, who also was an architect, evidently. Magadone Sambisa stood to the rear, quietly issuing orders.
They were peeling the wall back stone by stone. Already an area of the façade perhaps three feet square had been cleared just above the row of offering alcoves. Behind it lay rough brickwork, no more than one course thick. Vathiimeraak, muttering to himself in Piurivar as he worked, now was chiseling away at one of the bricks. It came loose in a crumbling mass, revealing an inner wall made of the same fine black stone slabs as the tunnel wall itself.
A long pause, now, while the several layers of the wall were measured and photographed. Then Vathiimeraak resumed the inward probing. Valentine was at the edge of queasiness in this foul, acrid atmosphere, but he forced it back.
Vathiimeraak cut deeper, halting to allow Kaastisiik to remove some broken pieces of the black stone. The two architects came forward and inspected the opening, conferring first with each other, then with Magadone Sambisa; and then Vathiimeraak stepped toward the breach once again with his drilling tool.
“We need a torch,” Magadone Sambisa said suddenly. “Give me a torch, someone!”
A hand torch was passed up the line from the crowd in the rear of the tunnel. Magadone Sambisa thrust it into the opening, peered, gasped.
“Majesty? Majesty, would you come and look?”
By that single shaft of light Valentine made out a large rectangular room, which appeared to be completely empty except for a large square block of dark stone. It was very much like the glossy block of black opal, streaked with veins of scarlet ruby, from which the glorious Confalume Throne at the castle of the Coronal had been carved.
There were things lying on that block. But what they were was impossible to tell at this distance.
“How long will it take to make an opening big enough for someone to enter the room?” Valentine asked.
“Three hours, maybe.”
“Do it in two. I’ll wait aboveground. You call me when the opening is made. Be certain that no one enters it before me.”
“You have my word, majesty.”
Even the dry desert air was a delight after an hour or so of breathing the dank stuff below. Valentine could see by the lengthening shadows creeping across the deep sockets of the distant dunes that the afternoon was well along. Tunigorn, Mirigant, and Nascimonte were pacing about amidst the rubble of the fallen pyramid. The Vroon Deliamber stood a little distance apart.
“Well?” Tunigorn asked.
“They’ve got a little bit of the wall open. There’s something inside, but we don’t know what, yet.”
“Treasure?” Tunigorn asked, with a lascivious grin. “Mounds of emeralds and diamonds and jade?”
“Yes,” said Valentine. “All that and more. Treasure. An enormous treasure, Tunigorn.” He chuckled and turned away. “Do you have any wine with you, Nascimonte?”
“As ever, my friend. A fine Muldemar vintage.”
He handed his flask to the Pontifex, who drank deep, not pausing to savor the bouquet at all, guzzling as though the wine were water.
The shadows deepened. One of the lesser moons crept into the margin of the s
ky.
“Majesty? Would you come below?”
It was the archaeologist Vo-Siimifon. Valentine followed him into the tunnel.
The opening in the wall was large enough now to admit one person. Magadone Sambisa, her hand trembling, handed Valentine the torch.
“I must ask you, your majesty, to touch nothing, to make no disturbance whatever. We will not deny you the privilege of first entry, but you must bear in mind that this is a scientific enterprise. We have to record everything just as we find it before anything, however trivial, can be moved.”
“I understand,” said Valentine.
He stepped carefully over the section of the wall below the opening and clambered in.
The shrine’s floor was of some smooth glistening stone, perhaps rosy quartz. A fine layer of dust covered it. No one has walked across this floor for twenty thousand years, Valentine thought. No human foot has ever come in contact with it at all.
He approached the broad block of black stone in the center of the room and turned the torch full on it. Yes, a single dark mass of rubystreaked opal, just like the Confalume Throne. Atop it, with only the faintest tracery of dust concealing its brilliance, lay a flat sheet of gold, engraved with intricate Piurivar glyphs and inlaid with cabochons of what looked like beryl and carnelian and lapis lazuli. Two long, slender objects that could have been daggers carved from some white stone lay precisely in the center of the gold sheet, side by side.
Valentine felt a tremor of the deepest awe. He knew what those two things were.