The Hermetic Millennia (42 page)

These three and all the dogs, however, soon stepped onto round coral white disks or shelves that hung from the ceiling on long curving arms, and without sound, the arms flexed and the disks rose to various heights overhead. This alleviated the crowding, but now the chamber looked like some life-sized version of a game of three-dimensional chess.

The large wooden chair that Soorm had used three days previous was here, and a man of normal size lounged in it as if it were a couch, with one leg thrown casually over the massive chair arm, and his spine against the other arm. He could not lean against the back, lest he fall through the hole that had been cut in the seat for the tail of Soorm.

He was a round-faced man with hair as blond as a Dane, skin as dark as a Dravidian, and the almond eyes of the Far East. His neck was unusually long and thin, so his head looked frail and side-cocked. One eyebrow was higher than the other, and his mouth seemed tilted offcenter, giving him a wry, cynical, quizzical expression, as if he were puzzled by the world, amused by it, but resigned. His shoulders were thin and hunched, and his limbs splayed and lanky. He wore the coveralls issued by the Blue Men and had a silvery bowl of their warm rice wine in his hand.

Several slender jars of rice wine stood on a small table at his elbow, and the table was held, like a waiter offering a tray, by a long metallic curve dangling from the ceiling. Another table above this held a fork of smoldering incense. A third table near his wagging foot held small bowls of spiced meat slivers or nuts and tidbits coated in salt, or little twigs of mint to sweeten the breath.

Ull and Illiance, as before, merely sat as his feet, their feet crossed, their spines straight, sitting oddly too close to their prisoner.

When Menelaus, apparently a Beta-rank Chimera named Sterling Anubis, walked into view, his metallic robes slithering, the man’s face contorted with fear like a washcloth being wrung, and the mocking ease of his eyes went dead as stones.

“As you were,” said Menelaus with a nod, speaking in Chimerical. “There is no discipline here. That is long past.”

Without waiting for a response, Menelaus tilted his eyes down toward Illiance. The little Blue Man’s long coat had additional patterns of small stones added to it, tiny mirrors and studs, and even a few ribbons dangling from the hem.

“Nice duds, Preceptor Illiance,” said Menelaus to the little Blue Man in Iatric.

Illiance smiled serenely. “I am now Invigilator Illiance. My preceptorship is an abeyance while the others contemplate my nature.”

Menelaus said, “So when you got demoted, the uniform for lower rank is to wear fancier gewgaws on your clothes? That is the penalty for crying?”

Illiance said, “There are no ranks in our order. We are Simple Men. The others of my circle dress and groom me, so that there is no opportunity for vanity. They are, of course, permitted to express their opinions and conclusions about my conduct when selecting my outward ornament. It is an opportunity for self-denial and self-indifference on my part.”

“What happens if they judge you too harshly? You get to pin a shiny button on them?”

Illiance did not answer in words, but reached over to Ull, pried a stone out of the other man’s long coat, and threw it, tinkling, to the opalescent floor.

The man in the chair now had both feet on the floor and both hands gripping the seat bottom to either side of his knees. His spine was not straight, and his nose was turned away from Menelaus, even though his eyes watched him unblinkingly. He looked like he wanted to speak.

Menelaus put his hands behind his back. He spoke again in Iatric to the Blue Men. “Let’s get started. What do you want me to ask him?”

Ull said, “This relict is either a last-generation Chimera or first-generation Natural. He carries only a narrow range of chemical and neurochemical modifications, his body contains many very regular forms of molecular action and decay, giving us a finer estimate than the carbon-14 method. He comes from the sixtieth century of the Gregorian calendar, which would be the forty-second century by your reckoning. The strata record shows what we call the Chimerical Implosion, when the number of Tombs built and maintained dropped dramatically from the highest point—which was during the Time of the Witches—and did not rise again until the Festive Consolation Period of the Nymphs. There is one spike in the slumbering population. During this, the 5900s, the number of Chimerae who interred themselves or were interred showed an amazing increase, rising in places to as much as twenty percent of the population. He comes from the period. Ask him to account for it.”

Menelaus shook his head, and sighed, and translated the question.

The gold-haired dark-skinned man looked tense, then confused, but then, as sinuously as a Nymph, he lounged back in the overlarge chair, laughed, and picked up his bowl of wine, which he tossed to the back of his throat with a supple, practiced motion.

“Sure, I can tell ya. ’Zat all the dwarfs be wanting to know? They got questions, I got answers. Come to the right man. I’ll tell ya right and steer ya right, and do right by you. My rates are reasonable, and my price is always right!”

One of the triplets standing overhead on a narrow circle in midair said in the High Iatric language in a toneless, nasal voice, “Chimera Relict Anubis! What is he saying? The communication register on a nonverbal level issues variable signification!”

Menelaus turned and tilted back his head, “He has not answered as yet, Preceptor Ydmoy. The verbiage so far has been reassurances of his honesty, expressions of friendship, and advertisements for his services.”

Another of the triplets, from even higher near the ceiling, leaned and called, “Does this proffer of service happen to be altruistic or commercial?”

“Commercial, Preceptor Yndelf. He has not finished his sales pitch yet, Preceptors, so I cannot identify what he is offering.”

The final of the three called down, “Ours is a noncommercial order, and the event-situation is coercive rather than commercial. Hence the language is symbolic; but what degree of relation does it bear to the signification-environment of reality? It is a metaphoric expression, or emotive?”

“Emotive, Preceptor Yndech. It is called braggadocio.”

Illiance raised his finger. “Pardon the interruption, Beta Anubis, but if I happen to ask a question, will you answer?”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you sighing and rolling your eyes?” asked Illiance.

Menelaus raised his eyebrows. “What? You are asking a question about me, now? What brought that on?”

Illiance nodded and smiled a seraphic smile. “You said ‘shoot.’ This means you have accepted the moral obligation placed on you, and must answer the question.”

“Well, to be blunt, I am annoyed at your comrades in the rafters. You and Ull always waited patiently for the full answer from your prisoners before you asked questions. I have not even found out this prisoner’s name yet. So why are these yammering parrots here? Do they want me to find something out from the prisoner, or to hear themselves yak?”

Illiance said, “I asked a single question. You cannot reciprocate with more than one.”

“Fine. Answer me this: When did you learn to read human expressions?”

“I am human.”

“That’s not an answer. You know what I mean.”

“At the request of Oenoe Psthinshayura-Ah of Forsythia, I altered the signal-condition of my nervous system and provoked a configuration of parasympathetic-endocrinal responses in my cortical-thalamic complex, so that my symbol-event responses would complement and correspond to her thought-environment. Do you happen to understand?”

“Sure. You turned on your emotion chip, and now your fellow weirdlings are weirded out.”

“I do not see an obvious one-to-one correspondence between my explanation and yours. Can you confirm that you understand?”

“I understand that the peanut gallery was invited, so you all could keep an eye on each other, just in case someone else was tempted to turn on his emotion chip. Right? You guys are getting nervous about something. You are trying to liquor up this new prisoner and ply him with goodies instead of just threatening him with dog-death, like you did me, but you must be getting more frightened—I am not sure of who—because each time I see you, there are twice as many dog things as the time before. Are the marines on your tails? Is your boss getting nervous? Time to report to your stockholders? Has there been a palace coup?”

Illiance radiated serenity. “You ask many questions, where one would do. Inquire of the relict what was asked.”

“No.”

“No?”

Menelaus pointed over his shoulder. “No, not unless you tell the peanut gallery to shut up. I cannot cross-examine the prisoner if Dopey, Doc, and Grumpy up there keep jostling my elbow.”

Ull addressed Illiance in Intertextual: “
There is a meta-message behind the denotation. Beta Sterling Anubis attempts to explore the graduations of our power relation with him, perhaps to ascertain whether we prioritize his cooperation over the need to maintain credible coercion. Therefore underreact. Yield to his demand. It is not in our interest that he define the contour of our true interests in these matters.
”

Illiance pursed his mouth in a moue of sad patience. “
Mentor, he can understand what you are saying. Notice how he stares at the ceiling and pretends to whistle.
”

Ull said, “
I see the ceiling-staring and pretend-to-whistle behavior, but what does it mean?
”

Illiance looked sidelong up at Menelaus and made a skeptical twitch of his lips. He said, “
It means he is the least convincing actor imaginable.
”

Preceptor Yndech leaned down from his overhead stand. “
Brethren! I have deduced a stratagem to determine for what ulterior motive this relict, called Beta Sterling Anubis, if indeed he understands our language while maintaining a pretense of ignorance, maintains this deception. Allow me to proceed?
”

Ull nodded ponderously. “
Proceed!
”

Yndech called down in Iatric, “Beta Sterling Anubis! Eschew deception! What is your ulterior motive?”

Menelaus rubbed his ungainly, hawklike nose, covering his mouth with his hand, and seemed to take a moment to smother a cough. “Ahem! Ah, what was the question again, heh, ahum, Preceptor Yndech?”

“Beta Sterling Anubis! Eschew deception! What is your ulterior motive?”

Menelaus blew out his cheeks and looked thoughtful. “Yup, I, um, thought you said ‘eschew deception’—good advice. I’ll take it to heart. Let’s see. Motive, eh? My ulterior motive is to have a good belly laugh watching you squirm, you damn looters, as whatever your scheme here falls to pieces in your hands. Something has happened to make you nervous, and I want the chance to smirk and watch you bungle and make things bad, worse, and worst for yourself as your time runs out. It’s not too late to change your course, you little blue dimwits, and tell me the truth. Anyone who surrenders will be treated mercifully. Take a few days to think about it. Or—do you even have a few days?”

Yndelf said in the shrill voice, “Signals from the Tomb, using the entire Earth’s crust as an antenna, were sent to the Bell, which immediately responded—”

Illiance raised his palm, and Yndelf’s sentence was snapped off as suddenly as flipping a switch.

Illiance said meditatively, “It may appear, upon reflection, that the request of Anubis is perfectly reasonable, and produces no disharmony when merging with the several purposes we follow. I affirm that Preceptors Yndech, Ydmoy, and Yndelf, lacking experience with dealing with relicts and their anachronistic yet unpredictable behaviors, should merely audit for a time, and not participate on a verbal level.”

Menelaus smirked, and reached down with both hands, and scraped a swath of stones and mirrors free from the cobra-patterned surface of the back of Illiance’s coat. This left two parallel stripes of blank fabric running from his shoulders halfway down his back.

There was a stir among the triplets, but Ull did not change his reptilian expression or even turn his eyes toward Menelaus. Illiance maintained his normal serene expression, but he could not hide something like an unseen glow that filled his chest, straightened his shoulders, and brightened his eye.

Menelaus straightened up, dashed the gems and trinkets to the ground, and brushed his hands against each other. “Now!” he said in Iatric. “Do you gentlemen have anything you want to tell me?”

Ull said, “Yes. We tell you to continue questioning the relict. We wish to know the cause of the hibernation spike in his generation.”

Illiance offered, “And, to be honest, we are also curious about the origin of the Tombs, and any information he has concerning … ah … the figure of the Judge of Ages.”

The man on the chair sat up straight and spread his hands. He called out in Chimerical. “Hey! What’s gives? You forgot about me? How long are you and your trained monkeys and dogs going to gab and gabber, Commandant?”

Menelaus snarled at him. “You’re damn lucky I’m not a Commandant. It’s Lance-Corporal. I’m a Beta. Beta Sterling Xenius Anubis, Academic Wing, Dependent College, Hundred and second Civic Control Division, attached to the Pennsylvania Third Legion—I teach freshmen history and predictive history, Cliometry, xenolinguistics, Monument mathematics, and also gunnery, whip drill, and prisoner beating and torture techniques, basic laceration, boot and thumbscrew, singeing and deprivation. The psychological torture techniques are taught sophomore year. So I am not a nice man and I am not in a good mood right now. Who the hell are you?”

“Well, Lance-Corporal Anubis, I
am
a nice man, and you are going to be glad today was the day you met me! The name’s Larz! Kine Larz Quire Slewfoot of Gutter, private invigilator, investigator, effectuator, and consummator, fixer and facilitator, procurer, perfecter, eavesdropper, nonstopper, go-getter, and gutter-ganger! Quire-for-Hire, that’s me! Streetlaw Larz, mercenary of mercy! I’ve taken stripes and earned my stripes! If you lost it and you want it, I can find it; if you find you don’t want it, I can lose it. I know how to mix it up and fix it up. Electronic, optic, cryptic, and Coptic, I never sleep and I don’t let whoever I’m after sleep neither!”