The Hermetic Millennia (50 page)

From the rear approached Preceptor Naar, leading a clattering flotilla of striding and loping machines, including the fifteen that had been outfitted with steam-powered Gatling guns.

Out in the front of the procession, waving his hands high in the air with every exclamation and snapping his fingers whenever he made a rhyme, the blond-haired, dark-skinned and sly-eyed Larz. Yndelf, Yndech, and Ydmoy (who were nearest him) must have understood enough of the dialect of late-period Chimerical to keep the conversation going with a question now and again; or perhaps Larz spoke merely for the pleasure of it, which he evidently relished.

In the hands of Ull was a serpentine, one of those long semi-intelligent whips made of memory metal used as ceremonial weapons by the Chimerae. Its hilt was wrapped with blue and red silk, and decorative amulets of carved and painted wood had been fitted over the original hilt and control-points.

Menelaus stood with Yuen and Daae amid the pines, hidden by the thick needles from a casual glance from below. He stood with his hood pulled close against the bite of the wind.

The other two stood as motionless as hunting cats. When the last of the procession passed out of sight between the snowy hillocks below, at a silent sign, the two turned and loped across the snow with alarming speed. Menelaus followed, careful to impersonate their peculiar way of running, which was to lean forward with their arms held horizontally behind them. They came shortly to a hill as even and symmetrical as an upended bowl. When they came up the slope, Menelaus felt in his implants a sudden silence of the surrounding signal traffic: an invisible field like a Faraday cage was around them, blocking radio and microwave.

8. The Rape of Arroglint

Yuen spoke without preamble to Daae. “The Blue Man called Ull has touched the sacred scourge, Arroglint the Fortunate, of the Yuen clan. I must either spill his blood, or request a reduction in rank to nonliving.”

Daae said, “Request denied. Ritual suicide is not in the best interest of the High Command at this time, as it would reduce our effective fighting force of Alphas by one half.”

Menelaus interrupted in a angry voice, “Damn! Did those thieving lepers actually break the seals on your coffin footlocker, Yuen? You’re not horsechafing my breeches? No matter how much they do, each time I hear of another crime, it seems worse! If the Judge of Ages were actually real, he would hide them till they squealed like stuck pigs, or rip off their heads and dook down their neck holes. No one breaks what he has sealed and lives to boast of it! Do they think they are immune?”

The eye of Yuen not covered with an eyepatch slid toward Menelaus and narrowed dangerously. “I commend that you are so driven by righteous indignation on my behalf that you forget the proper way for a Beta to address an Alpha.”

Menelaus recovered himself and gave the stiff-armed salute. “Sorry, Proven and Loyal Sir! Request permission to kick myself sharply in the gonads with both heels until I convulse and puke.”

Daae said dryly, “Denied. While the contortion needed for the maneuver would be fascinating to see, such an act is not deemed in the best interest of the High Command at this time. Your imagery is poetically vivid enough, but possibly leaves something to be desired. Perhaps you could employ your command of language to give me a report on recruitment.”

“Sir! Preliminary situation is favorable: I have approached the Hormagaunts and the Nymphs, and elicited promises of alliance. Together with us, that makes twenty-eight, of which only seven have fighting experience, eight if we count the Alpha Lady. The rest are noncombatants, servants, or women, useful only to stop bullets, and likely to panic in combat. The Witches are still an unknown factor, but there is a highly influential one of their number, named, uh, a long sort of name that starts with an
M,
who says he can perhaps sway them to our cause. There are thirty-one Witches, including a dozen Demonstrators.”

“Perhaps?”

“He is too cautious to promise the result, sir.”

Daae said, “Witches are always craven, but surely will join us if we seem to be the winning side.” The word in Chimerical for
craven
and
opportunist
was the same word. “We must make them think we will win.”

“There are also three revenants from the unknown period of history after the fall of the Hormagaunts—the gray twins and the strange-eyed lady with the scars on her spine—but I have had no chance to speak with them, or discover a common language.”

Yuen said, “I have observed the gray twins in the mess tent: they are unwarlike. By how they stand and move, the way they hold their eyes, it is clear enough. The other one is a murderess with much blood on her hands, or so I suppose: the dogs fear her.”

Menelaus said, “I tried just now to enlist the Savant Ctesibius from
A.D.
2525, whom Proven Yuen wounded and sent to the hospital. The man is in the grip of deep melancholia, and will neither aid us nor the enemy.”

Yeun said, “If he knows of our plan, he must die. Besides, his demeanor is arrogant, particularly for an unmodified Kine.”

“Sir, he knows nothing, and will not stir himself to speak any warning to the enemy. I suggest we not spare the time and manpower best devoted to other tasks.”

Daae said, “For now, Alpha Yuen, spare the Savant. Beta Anubis, continue the report.”

“I have had no opportunity to speak with the Giant from
A.D.
3034, whom I have not seen inside the wire since the first day, nor the Scholar Rada Lwa from the Antecpyrotic world. You recall the man whom you saw hospitalized when he attempted to reenter the Tombs, sir? You told me of him.”

Daae nodded. “Of course. He is covered with luminous tattoos, and looks like an apparition. At that time you advised breaking into the Tombs rather than attacking the wire.”

“He is also from
A.D.
2509, an era earlier than that of the albino Scholar: I think he is one of the Knights Hospitalier, and a vassal of the Judge of Ages. Who can say the wonders he knows?”

Daae looked thoughtful. “He surely would know the whereabouts of the Judge of Ages.” And, despite that Yuen said nothing and showed no expression, Daae turned and said to him, “The Judge is no barracks-room tale. The man is a reality.”

Yuen nodded brusquely. “Of course, sir. Just as you say, sir.” He used the same tone of voice he would have used had he been convinced.

Menelaus said, “Alpha Daae! I regret to report that I have found no sign of the other Thaw of which you spoke.”

Daae raised an eyebrow. “I spoke?”

“Sir, you said that the man able to destroy whole aeons of history, the figure against whom I seek my revenge, was thawed from the Tombs, and abroad. You said he must be here.”

Daae said, “Only the Judge of Ages has the right to condemn the ages of history, throw down kings, and vanquish empires. I know he is here, because he must arise to defend his Tombs. Otherwise, they would have all long ago been looted. That we are here proves he is among us.”

Menelaus felt a microscopic prick of disappointment. He had been hoping Daae knew something of the whereabouts of Del Azarchel.

“Sir!” said Menelaus, astonished. “You say the Judge of Ages is the one guilty of destroying our period of history?”

“Was there not corruption among the officers, vice among the ranks? Had we not betrayed our founding eugenics principles, allowed miscegenation, permitted indiscipline to spread? Had not the Genetic Republic become a Caste-based Empire? Had we not betrayed evolution itself?”

“The Judge of Ages did not do this!” said Menelaus.

“Who else?” asked Daae. “Who else controls the Cliometric art?”

“What of Del Azarchel and his Hermetic Order?”

Daae made a dismissive gesture. “Children’s tales. How could such creatures exist? Even if they did exist, how would we know of them? The Judge of Ages must be real: his Tombs are visible and solid.”

Menelaus thought the man had an odd standard for deciding what to believe.

Yuen must have felt the same way. He said sardonically. “The handprint on the Moon is visible too, Alpha Captain. On clear nights.”

Apparently Yuen believed in the Master of the World, even if he did not believe in the Judge of Ages. Surprising.

Daae’s reply was more of a surprise: “It is a natural phenomenon, one which our eyes tend to interpret as looking meaningful. There is said to be a human face on Mars. Did a ghost named Del Azarchel paint it there? And then adorn the rings of Saturn with colors gay and bright?”

“Sir! Do you think the Knight is perhaps the Judge incognito?” Menelaus asked Daae. “Then we should break him out of where the Blue Men hold him.”

Daae said, “The Judge of Ages is a Next, one of those superior beings of whom stories tell. He does not need the aid of lesser beings.”

Menelaus said, “Every huntsman needs his loyal dogs, and every knight his horse. Sir. I suspect we will all have a part to play, if the Judge of Ages shows himself. Are we willing to do what might be required of us?”

Daae turned his face away and murmured. He spoke so softly that Menelaus had to increase the rate of nerve firings in his auditory nerve to make out the words, “Even unto death. Our race was found wanting.”

Yuen’s voice was shockingly loud by contrast. “Beta Anubis! You sound as if you expect this Judge of Ages to pop out of hiding! Where is he? Maybe rolled up inside some marsupial pouch hidden in the fat Witch-man’s belly. There is room to spare. Let us attend to matters more dire. Arroglint is defiled!”

Menelaus bowed and said, “Is the Alpha Steadholder Yuen willing to forgo his rightful and due yet vain retaliation against the weapon-defiler Ull for a short space of time, in return for my promise that a more permanent and satisfying revenge awaits if you delay but a little?”

Yuen shivered, his eyes burning pinpoints. “A wise man once said, ‘They who can give up an essential retaliation to obtain a little delayed revenge, deserve neither retaliation nor revenge.’”

Menelaus said, “Aha! But didn’t an even wiser man once say, ‘War is hell, so stick to the goddam plan, or else we shall all surely hang separately’?”

Yuen’s eyes returned to a more normal level of ferocity when he blinked and looked at Menelaus in confusion. “That does not sound like a Chimerical saying. Is that in the Field Manual of Approved and Zealous Thought?”

“Hm. Must’ve been added later.”

Daae said, “Who leads their party? He looks like a poorly bred Gamma of our era.”

“He’s unmodified. His stock name is Quire, civilian; his agnomen, Larz. I counted him in the tally.”

Yuen’s face, without moving a muscle, grew ferocious. “A Kine! Is that one of
our
Kine leading their party? He earns a slow death, perhaps by flaying, for this insubordination.”

Menelaus nodded. “If things were as they appeared, of course, Alpha-Steadholder, you would be correct. But I urge patience!”

Daae regarded Menelaus with narrowed eyes. “Rumor has already reached us that the Kine says he can pry open the Tombs and deliver the Judge of Ages to the hands of the Blue Men. Do you imply that the Kine acts at your direction, Beta Lancer? Is he a double agent?”

“No and yes, Alpha Captain. I gave no orders and don’t know his plans, but he is clearly attempting to deceive them, and so, technically speaking, that would make him a double agent. Who does he work for? He has been kept in the hospital beyond the wire until now. I don’t know who he has talked to.”

Yuen said, “We should still flay him as an example to other Kine, who will otherwise revolt.”

Menelaus said dryly, “That precaution, though wise, is somewhat tardy. The Kine rose up in revolt and overthrew the Command in
A.D.
5900. Except for the other three here in the camp, our Kine are as extinct as Chimerae.”

Daae silenced them with a slight, almost invisible motion of his head. “The conversation is supervacaneous.” He used a Chimerical word meaning “serving no military purpose.” “I see the Blues and their dogs and their machines approaching the dig. What do the Loyal and Proven of the Command have to say about the feasibility of attack?”

Daae looked at Yuen. Yuen said, “As soon as they reach the level that contains the ratiotech brain operating the Tomb defenses and coffin traffic, they can have the coffins guard us and send the dogs to go play. The arsenals just of buried Chimerae would strengthen them immensely: they could turn a wing of the Tombs into a prison far more secure that this lazy jury-rig of wire and tower. We must stop them. Kine Larz is the only one we need to kill. One of our Beta Maidens could pierce him with an arrow.”

Daae looked at Menelaus, who said, “Premature! Our chance of victory is slender. I strongly recommend a target in the opposite direction: now is the time to rush the wire. All the cannon-bearing automata are headed for the dig; a skeleton crew of dog things remains behind.”

Daae said, “To what end? What is our tactical goal, Beta Anubis?”

Menelaus said, “Sir! To rescue the Giant and the Knight, the posthuman and the servant of the Judge of Ages, and perhaps the Scholar as well, and use their expertise to seize control of the stores, supplies, weapons, and powerhouse of the Blues beyond the wire, then to close and hold the gate against them, and commandeer the aircraft. With air superiority, we can crush them.”

Yuen said, “Not if they force the door and retreat into the Tombs. I will point out that Anubis suggested the opposite strategy not long ago, and boasted that the Tombs have supplies to withstand a siege forever.”

Menelaus said, “They cannot force the door.”

The cold and stony eyes of Daae narrowed microscopically. He seemed intent. “You speak as if certain.”

“I am.”

“Justify this.”

Menelaus pointed. “Our Kine there, one of our cattle from our period of history, has buffaloed the Blues into thinking he can use Alpha Yuen’s weapon’s onboard brain to jinx the security on the automatics guarding the fourth door. It is some sort of computer-fraud technique from the last period of Chimera dominion, right before the Nymphs took over, called snake-charming.”