Larz suddenly was full of vim and pluck again, and so he waved his hands in the air, crowing loudly, “Well, tell them this ain’t no way to plunder a dungeon! Don’t they know anything? First, you check for traps! Always send in the native guide before you, because he is usually secretly a-working for the cult that worships the Mummy, so it won’t matter if he trips the tripwire. Second, always leave the gold on the ground, because the Judge of Ages circuits it into the electrocution system. And third, the beautiful captive always knows something important, so talk to her right away, and if she is gagged, take out the gag before you untie her feet, because that way she can warn you if the Beast of the Crypt is sneaking up from behind.
“And check for secret passageways behind the wall,” cried Larz, warming to his topic. “And follow the money; because the guy who makes out like a bandit is usually the bandit. Oh, and the adjutant or the mess-hall staff, or someone in the background who just helps out, like the interpreter following the Sultan of the Space Chimerae around, he is always the key to the whole thing. Folks what reads Bloody Half-breed Murderer at Large Picture Weekly or (what’s that good one?) Gladiator, the Son of Gladiator, we all know how it’s done! Not to mention Doctor Vengeance Versus the Decapitator. You’ve read Doctor Vengeance, right? ‘The Cure for Crime Is Bitter Medicine!’ or when he laughs his laugh and whispers, ‘Time to Amputate!’ Remember? You must’ve read ’em.”
“I read something like that when I was way young,” admitted Menelaus. “But it was about space pirates and moon maidens and suchlike.”
“How come none of these smart guys know what to do in situations like this? Wake the girl, check for secret panels, check for traps, and keep an eye on the adjutant! Common sense!”
“First, they’re too smart to read the cheaplies, and second, why are you trying to help them? These are our abductors, and the Judge of Ages is going to blast them, so don’t give anything away.” Menelaus turned his head, and said to the Blue Men in Iatric, “Kine Larz reports that the sudden noise startled him, and he hit the deck to avoid shrapnel. The coffin is armed, after all.”
Illiance nodded sagely. “The precaution was no doubt wise. He may return to his prone situation on the ground if he wishes, or put himself where he deems best. You must come farther.”
Larz decided to stand far away from Menelaus, and the dogs allowed him to step away. He avoided the vat of biosuspension material, which he recognized as nanotechnology and a source of danger; so he ducked into the opposite alcove. Maybe he did not recognize the large golden sphere as the containment dome for a small atomic pile.
6. Dais, Sarcophagus, Throne
Passing to the other side of the fountain, they could now see that the western wall was ivory panels carved with a bas-relief of two stallions rampant, facing each other, framing the rest of the scene with their uplifted hoofs, fiery manes tangled with the ceiling.
Between them on the wall was a stark black field, cut with silvery-white lines of nonhuman mathematical hieroglyphs forming a triangle within a circle, and at the corners of this triangle were symbols written in ovals of various eccentricities and triangles isosceles, equilateral, and right, written in turn into dodecagons and parabolic curves, radiating out in two great arms to nested fields of eye-defeating sine waves on the right like a restless ocean and rigid rectilinear shapes on the left like an army entrenched and encamped.
Written in the stone on the wall above the horses and the dark fresco were the words NE OUBLIE.
Before this wall was a three-tiered dais, and each tier was over ten feet broad.
Atop the lowest tier, to the far left stood a suit of powered armor for a knight, looking like an ape made of shining steel. As far to the right was what looked like barding for a horse, with breathing gear built into the champron or skull armor, instrument housings built into the crinet and crupper, strength-amplifying modules in the flanchard, and emission weapons dotting the peytral along the steed’s chest. Both suits of armor were emblazoned and caparisoned with the Maltese Cross. Oddly enough, it was powered armor for a horse.
Atop the middle tier midmost rested a huge, gold-plated sarcophagus with the relief figure of a sleeping warrior carved into its lid. This lid was slid half-open. The sarcophagus rested at a slight angle, the footboard lower than the head, so that the slumberer upon thaw would find the larger-than-life portrait of the woman the first thing before his eyes, along with the calendar and starmap of her location.
On closer inspection, the figure carved into the half-open sarcophagus lid was not quite a warrior. Sculptured folds of long and magisterial robes, such as warlords in battle would be unlikely to wear, lapped the figure in rising runnels like a frozen cascade. The image of a balance scales rested in one hand, and a flat-pointed, two-edged sword in the other. His hair was long ringlets that reached to his shoulders, and on his head was a tasseled square, almost a hood, such as judges in a forgotten land in days long gone were wont to wear when issuing death sentences. Below the carved boots of the reclining figure were skulls and broken swords.
Atop the highest tier, beneath a canopy upheld by four tall and pallid wands, was a black iron throne.
The dark throne was covered with the bright, silver-dappled scarlet leathers of extinct or re-extinct dinosaurs. The backrest was a pattern of argent and gules lozenges. The armrests, oddly, were carved in the shapes of friars in kirtles, so that the fingertips of one seated there would rest on the down-bent hoods, who bore the armrests on their heads like monkish versions of caryatides. The carved images of the kirtle friars carried long swords in their hands, points upright, blades mirror-bright. Above the throne, the canopy was adorned with images of scallops and roses. Below, the footstool was a tortoise made of iron.
The sarcophagus stood empty. The throne was occupied.
Here sat a stern-eyed man, almost the image of the image on the coffin lid.
He dressed in a costume of brilliant scarlet robes trimmed with white at the cuffs, with ermine at his throat and across his shoulders. He sported a black scarf and girdle, and down his back hung a scarlet casting-hood. A wig of long white curls framed his severe face.
Across the man’s knees he held a straight and naked sword, with an unadorned crosspiece of steel. The blade was square and short at the tip, as if the point had been sheered off. The blade was black synthetic that looked like glass, and shined with a violet light. It was logic crystal.
Menelaus stared in bafflement, wondering who the fellow was.
7. The Dark Judgment Seat
Menelaus saw before him where Preceptor Illiance and the knot of other Blue Men, two squads of dog things, and a trio of automata stood contemplating the figure on the throne. Mentor Ull glided up and was standing with the older Blues named Saaev and Orovoy, all three looking as wrinkled and decrepit as mummies.
Ull had folded his arms like a Mandarin, tucking each hand into the opposite sleeve. Menelaus with great interest perceived from the way the folds of the garment fell that Ull was wearing some metal device at his elbow, like a large bracelet pushed as far up the forearm as it could go.
Menelaus patted Illiance on his bald, blue, waist-high head, which made all the dog things snarl.
“You found him sitting here?” said Menelaus, baffled by the scene, and the stern man.
Illiance, serene and unperturbed, said, “Not at all. He happened to be in his sarcophagus.”
Menelaus stood below the dais, with the open sarcophagus between him and the throned figure, and stared up. The man’s face was long and bony, lantern-jawed, and a scattering of freckles touched his cheeks. He had deep-set eyes that seemed never to blink. His mouth was a nearly lipless gash that never flexed far from the horizontal. In the shadow of his long and curling white wig, his eyebrows were a dark orange.
Illiance said, “We are puzzled that he lacks the dark skin and slanted eyes that Kine Larz and Scholar Rada Lwa reported. We have not yet determined his hair color or the size and fineness of his hands. Perhaps he u
ndertook a minor biological adjustment when thawed in the time of the Chimerae, to appear more as they? We will address him: many ambiguities will be resolved.” Illiance stepped up onto the first tier of the dais.
Menelaus only then saw that the ornamented sarcophagus was an active one. Its alert lights were gleaming softly, and to either side of the prow, snub muzzles were poking from gun blisters to the left and right like the eyes of a chameleon.
Menelaus waved Illiance back, but the little man ignored (or, more likely, did not understand) the gesture, and kept walking forward. The Blue Man glided up the dais, and around the coffin to approach the throne. The sarcophagus weapons twitched but did not open fire.
Illiance, with no sense of private space or standing on dignity, sat down cross-legged at the stern man’s feet, his nose almost touching the man’s knees.
The man raised a hand and beckoned Menelaus. With a wary eye on the sarcophagus, Menelaus walked around it and stepped forward, his metallic robes slithering and jingling. He halted again and gave a stiff-armed open-palm Chimerical salute.
A twinkle of amusement appeared in the man’s eye, and he also held out his hand in the same form of salute. “Seig Heil,” he said sardonically.
3
The Court of Ages
1. Justice High and Low
Menelaus stared in confusion at the bewigged man, who, sternness gone, was observing him with a raised eyebrow, a look of relaxed good humor on his features.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” asked Menelaus.
“Nein. Sprechen Sie Spanisch?”
“Sí, hablo español muy bien,” said Menelaus.
The man laughed shortly, and replied, “No tan muy bien. Usted tiene un acento del gringo. ¿Usted habla Inglés?”
Menelaus looked astonished, and answered, “I reckon I do.” He spoke with a thick Texan accent.
The man had a milder version of the same accent: a Dallas accent rather than the accent of a rural county. He spoke in a voice of quiet dignity and power, saying, “My wife—is she yet returned? The time—is the aeon for which I await yet come?”
Menelaus took a step back, his face blank and expressionless. “Who are you, sir?”
“I am the architect, founder of the biosuspension hibernation Tombs here and throughout the world,” said the other, his face once more set in stern, hard lines. “I am the sole owner and director of the Endymion Syndicate. Those who have dared to trespass on my place of rest shall endure retaliation, I assure you. My name is Menelaus Illation Montrose.”
Even if they did not understand the rest of the sentence, the Blue Men understood the last three words. The chamber rustled with echoing murmurs of surprise, in which a note of victory could be heard.
Menelaus looked back at Mentor Ull. The weary old eyes, for once, did not seem dead, but were lit up and glistering with something like hunger. Menelaus, through his implants and nodes, detected a power surge in the large bracelet Ull wore above his elbow. It was an instrument, not an ornament. But whatever it was, it was not active yet: it was warming up.
“Now that you know of me, tell me of you. Who is the Interactor?” the throned man said sharply, as if annoyed that Menelaus had turned his back. Menelaus turned quickly to face him again, and saw the man nod his bewigged head down at Illiance.
Interesting. The word interactor was from the Twenty-sixth Century. It referred to someone with cybernetic neural implants, that is, someone able to interact directly with an infosphere.
“One of our captors,” said Menelaus. “His name is Illiance. Your Tombs have been broken open and looted, and the people and systems set to guard them are compromised, captured, or dead. We who are your clients are their prisoners, and as soon as they get what they want of us, we are to be killed—but you do not seem worried.”
“I am in the stronghold of my power, and have allies both seen and unseen. Tell them I command to know of them what they want.”
Menelaus said, “I can answer for them. They seek the Judge of Ages.”
“And who is that?”
Menelaus kept a straight face, and said, “They all say the Judge of Ages is the man named Menelaus Montrose, the posthuman. Yourself, in other words.”
“And you say something else, I take it?”
“I am not saying much of anything at the moment, but you can interpret my silence as a sort of skeptical silence.”
“Silence is wise. In that case, they may address me as the Judge of Ages. That title will serve, for now. As for you—what name do you go by?”
“High-Beta Sterling Xenius Anubis of Mount Erebus, from A.D. 5292.”
The Judge of Ages did not laugh, but his eyes twinkled. “Captain Sterling?”
“My rank is Corporal.”
“Of course it is. Clear ether and hot jets, Captain Sterling! Any sign of the Atom Monster from Mercury? Tell me. In A.D. 5292, was everyone named after a character from a boy’s adventure series from the Second Dark Age? Or just you?”
“Well, I could been named Montrose, after a starfarer from the Second Space Age, but that name was already taken. I understand it gets used a lot.”
“I am glad we respect each other’s privacy. But I do not doubt you are Captain Sterling, because your companions come from similar futurist cartoons. I see you brought along the Masterminds of the Moon, a group of Musketeer wolfmen, some Insectobots.”
“The bald blue dwarfs wearing logic crystals on their coats are our captors, and the Moreau dogs are the prison guards. The automata are digging machines looted from your facility at Saint Nevis Island, brought here to dig up coffins. Anyone else you see later will be a prisoner. I hope to bring them all into this chamber.”
“Which one of the masterminds is most master?”
“The leader is named Ull. The one whose eyes look like they were pried out of the skull of a dead snake, that’s him.”
The Judge of Ages said, “And how much English do they understand? Not much, I take it?”
Menelaus said, “Let’s assume the conversation is being recorded and will be analyzed later.”
The Judge of Ages nodded, and said, “I saw them come alert when I said the name Montrose. Have I put the lives of the Thaws in danger?”
“Basically, yes.”
“Since there are clients of the Hibernation Syndicate who have been unlawfully meddled with, the danger must be put to rest before I go to my rest once more.”
“If you can think of an excuse to get me next to the sarcophagus, I can aid your effort, Your Honor,” said Menelaus very softly.
In a rustle of his scarlet sleeve, the Judge of Ages now held aloft his dark sword.
“Oyez! Tell all who have need to approach, and I will administer justice swift and terrible to those in need of justice, both high and low of birth, both thawed of old and current of year. Tell this Ull, and his people, that he and his are jointly and severally liable to whatever penalty this hearing shall determine. Repeat to them my words, and ask of him first why he dares disturb my slumber.”
The throned figure pointed with his dark glassy sword toward the sarcophagus. “Captain Sterling, I appoint you my bailiff. Administer the oath. There is a Bible in the footlocker of my sarcophagus, just in case any of them are civilized men, but I will accept their affirmation if they are not.”
2. The Motive
Menelaus turned and translated these comments to the Blue Men, most of whom were still on the far side of the fountain, looking on with what seemed expressions of aloof academic interest. Their instinctive sense of position was simply odd: people in his day would have crowded forward to hear more clearly. He wondered if the technology in their gems, which could put information directly into curious eyes and ears, had long ago habituated these members of a cybernetic culture to stand any which where, since they could point a sensor and get a clearer view than walking and peering would give.
It was an odd thought. Perhaps their desire for simplicity was not just a game or an affectation. Maybe their culture ha
d lost something precious, not just a natural instinct for where and how to stand, but a thousand little, almost unnoticed, habits, patterns, and civilities.
Menelaus stepped away from the throne and toward the sarcophagus, but Mentor Ull called out, “Halt! Deception is suspected! The sarcophagus contains live weapons. Do not approach it!”
Menelaus said, “Mentor, I am merely retrieving the book of”—(there was no word for sacred in the Iatric language, or heavenly)—“the very significant things of the sky, in order that you may promise to tell the truth.”
Ull looked skeptical. “The act would be without meaning. We hold aloof from all ceremony, both secular and spiritual.” He used the word in the Witch language, iki-hebereke-ren, indicating a public coven ceremony performed while intoxicated.
Menelaus was surprised by the venom in his voice. “What is your objection to sky things? Do not sky things protect men from devils and hungry shadows of the dead?” There was no word for heavenly matters, but there were words in Iatric for supernatural malice and for restless souls that haunted graveyards. The Iatrocrats were still human, after all.
“Many lapses of logic are found within the lore of the seirei,” said Ull condescendingly. This was another Witch-word, that meant both spirit or ghost, but also order and regulation, which were all one and the same concept in Virginian. “Seirei hence is fit only for relics, underlings, and primitives. Simpler to eschew such paradox and nonsense.”
“If you have no seirei, then what will you swear by?” said Menelaus. “Your honor? As if you had any. Do you believe in anything?”
“We Blue Men hold that all matter-energy contains nuances of eternal and conceptual meaning, which only becomes self-aware according to embedded particulate hierarchies, ultimately embedded as pure potential in the primal pinpoint of the Big Bang. In effect, all rational life is merely a sense organ or a limb of the universe by whose means the universe decides to become aware of itself.”
“Gee, no paradoxes there,” muttered Menelaus sarcastically. Louder, he said, “But you are on trial, Mentor Ull. Your whole race is on trial. You have to take an oath to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. The Good Book here is part of the ceremony.”