The cathedrals and nunneries and other buildings were inflicted with rabies, so that the doors all closed and those inside were digested and slain. No innocent life was spared, and those who did not resist were not killed cleanly but by slow torture, cut with knives so that strings of his own flesh could tie the victim between two fires to which wood was added one stick at a time. They were infected, so that when other prisoners were released from cages made of the bones of their loved ones, the infections afflicted sight and reasoning centers, so that these would-be saviors merely lit themselves aflame or brought more harm on the victim, much to the amusement of the Annam Hormagaunts.
I saw the coffin of the Red Hermeticist being loaded aboard the airskiff of the Medusa, but whether this was a slumbering coffin or a death coffin, I could not say.
History has heard nothing more of Reyes y Pastor.
And I? You know how I escaped. I fled to your Tombs for protection, Judge of Ages, knowing this the one place the Hermeticists could not come. That is how I came to be your prisoner.
What? No. No tales I told the Blue Men were truth, though perhaps some parts were closer to true than others. What right have they to ask anything of me?
8
The Testament of Oenoe the Nymph
1. The Tale of a Bride of a Dead World
After noon mess, a pack of eight dog things escorted Menelaus past the gate to the large sky blue nautilus shell.
There was a warm and steady headwind from the doorless opening as he entered, which stayed in his face as he climbed. The air pressure was slightly higher inside than out. Menelaus decided that the Simplifiers either had a religious prohibition on doors and chimneys and windows, or a deliberate preference for pretty but uncomfortable impracticalities. Not to mention lots of fuel to waste.
He was brought around one more half turn of the corridor, reaching a higher but smaller chamber than before. Here, a different architecture suddenly appeared. The floor was coated with living grass, surrounding a depression in the center of the floor where a green pool thronged with floating lotus blossoms shimmered. As the dogs escorted him in, a screen of leaves and lianas closed over the opening, moving just slowly enough to be unnoticeable. This living screen of leafy vines was the first curtain he had seen inside the nautilus shell; and the only barrier to the wind. The air within was humid and warm.
On the grass lay draped the beautiful curvaceous form of a She-Nymph, her midnight hair like a waterfall of ink, shining, falling in drapes and cascades adown her swanlike neck and slender shoulders. Generations of gene-modification had exaggerated her various sexual characteristics to a point just shy of absurdity. Her eyes were slanted and lustrous, so large as to seem a child’s eyes. Her eyes were underlined by an epicanthic fold, and shaded by eyelashes like two raven’s wings. Her face was round and high-cheeked, her lips so full and red, they seemed to burst with blood. The chin beneath was small and firm, coming to a dainty point. Her breasts were like those of a pregnant woman, while her waist was that of an untouched maiden, and the muscles of her belly formed a parenthesis around a perfect navel. Her designers graced her with wide hips sweetly rounded, long legs that were a symphony of curving length, firm thighs and pointed toes, all muscled like a slumbering lioness.
Even her hands and arms were more feminine than nature’s own design, as her elbows had more than normal range of motion at the joint, that when she straightened her arms they bent slightly backwards, graceful as a willow tree in wind.
Her blush response was likewise exaggerated. A she reclined, her flawless skin shaded from palest gold to lambent yellow like aged ivory to a rose red, and back again. One moment her skin seemed almost tawny, a goddess in warm bronze, but in the next moment her skin was so pale that the blue hint of arterial veins in her bosom could be glimpsed.
She wore nothing but a V-shaped garland of flowering lianas bright with little blue flowers and white, that snaked around her hips like a braided loincloth and fell in two ankle-length sashes trailing in meandering loops between her legs.
Several dog things hunkered near the walls, panting in the sauna-heat. The two Blue Men were seated cross-legged on the grassy floor, calmly sweating, having not removed their coats. The elder, Mentor Ull, regarded the Nymph with eyes as cold as a snake’s, and his half-closed lids gave him a sleepy look. Preceptor Illiance wore an expression of meditative serenity.
The Nymph was agitated, her eyes glancing left and right, and she lifted her hands nervously to toy with her hair now and again, or she swayed from left to right, reclining now on one rounded, marvelous hip, now tucking her long legs the other way to recline on the other. When Menelaus entered the room, she tossed back her hair in the flurry of darkness, her red lips parted, and she looked not quite toward him with hunger, and her dark eyes were like coals, and her pupils dilated hypnotically. He could sense the unscented natural perfume of a woman in heat from across the chamber like a kick to the back of his skull.
Illiance spoke without any preliminary, saying, “Lance-Corporal Beta Anubis, after some consideration, we have agreed to your demand that we depose a woman of the Nymph race. Frankly, we do not see how this will sate the academic curiosity which is part of your purpose in aiding us—she is not from an era of decline. However, Preceptor Ull agrees to host the interview of her, provided you also elicit answers to the questions that concern us. You seek to discover if the Tombs are hindering progress; we seek knowledge of the Tomb origins. Of the Nymphs so far exhumed, this relict is the only one from an era that is most likely to satisfy our mutual interests.”
Menelaus replied in High Iatric, “Preceptor Illiance, you may not know it, but you are afflicting this poor girl. Neither you nor the dog things here are giving her the normal nonverbal sexual cues she is used to, and so her body is automatically trying to become more sexually provocative. She might not even be consciously aware of it. Try to smile or get an erection or something. Give off musk. Do you have any cellular control over your bodies?”
Illiance said, “Our life modifications are almost entirely neurological, with hormonal and circulatory modifications no more than necessary than those to maintain balanced mental functions during high-speed neural activity.”
Ull spoke in Intertextual. “Achieve discreet silence. It is not advisable for the relict to happen to grow aware of our biomodifications and limits.”
Illiance inclined his head toward Ull. “May I reveal sufficient to quell his question? Otherwise the psychological discontent will resonate through the remainder of our dealings.”
Ull flicked his heavy-lidded eyes in a gesture of assent.
Illiance said to Menelaus, “We cannot mimic these subconscious responses. We are based on the Locust template, who, in order to achieve greater social harmony, are genetically imprinted to form lifelong pair-bonds. You may explain this to the she-relict before you ask her about the Tomb origins.”
“And you might explain what is wrong with all you future people? Why is everyone a nudist? She might be able to concentrate if you gave her some clothes. Hell, I might be able to concentrate better.”
“Like you, she seems to have haply refused our gift, and she tore the overalls and threw them at the muzzle of Follower Ee-ee Krkok Yef Yepp in a gesture we found disharmonious. The meaning of this act is obscure to us, and we ponder whether it was symbolic or functional, and in what proportions.”
“Which dog is Eek-Crap-Uck-Yuck-Whatever-the-heck-you-said?”
“Ee-ee Krkok Yef Yepp. Yonder.” Illiance inclined his head toward a stately Doberman Pincer. His eyes were bright, and he was wagging his tail happily.
“You want me to ask her about that too?”
Illiance said, “Our purposes mingle with yours, but do not seek to overpower them.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It may be. What is that loud breathing noise you make with your mouth?”
“It’s called a sigh. The technical term is exasperation. I never thought I’d miss having an Alpha
bark orders at me, but at least they told you what they wanted cleaned or who they wanted killed. Learn something new every day, I guess.”
Illiance raised both hands and touched his forefingers, one to each ear, making a gesture that meant nothing to Menelaus. He said with quiet pride, “To lead a soul to new learning, however trivial, sustains the universal imperative of life.”
Menelaus answered nothing to that, but instead stepped forward and knelt by the pool in a slithering rustle of his bulky metallic robes. His face was already red from the heat, and he shrugged one arm and shoulder out of his garb, so that it hung over the other shoulder like a toga. With his naked arm he plucked a lotus blossom from the pond and tossed it lightly toward the Nymph, saying in her language, “For your delight.”
She rose to her feet and came swaying toward him, more graceful than a sinuous snake. “I have much for your delight, young bridegroom.”
He lowered his eyes and held up his hand. “While I am flattered, ma’am, I—” But his tongue failed him at that moment, because she did not stop her ballerina-smooth glide forward, so that his upturned palm was now pressed into the yielding and scenting flesh of her lower belly. Little flowers crinkled under his surprised fingers, and he was afraid to look up for fear of where his nose might land.
Before he could push her away, however, she had stepped around behind him and laid a warm, long-nailed hand on his bare shoulder, almost a caress. “You need not kneel yet to me, young bridegroom, for I wish your homage in other ways. Lift up your head.”
Menelaus stood. Even compared to Chimera, he was tall, and so he towered over her. He drew his bare arm back into his cumbersome cloak and, despite the heat, drew his hood around his face, and held the fabric at his chin in his fist.
She swayed back from him and half turned, giving him a glance over her smooth shoulder. “You importune me! Or do you wish in truth for my delight, which is the root of all benevolence?”
“I am a Chimera. Your race destroyed and supplanted mine. Not that I mind. We were annoying folk, to be honest.”
Her enormous eyes were even prettier when she narrowed them in thought and looked at him sidelong. “Do you jest? You biolinguistic tells are hard to read. Disrobe, and I will learn your muscle-nerve responses.”
“Thanks but no thanks. Like I was about to say, first, I am a married man, and second, I am on duty, and third, Chimera only get to impregnate according to a breeding program.”
“Impregnate?!” said the Nymph, surprised. “I was only inviting you to the love-play. Social harmony is achieved only when everyone loves everyone.”
“My mistake. Here I thought sexual reproduction had something to do with sexual reproduction.”
“Your words fail to kiss my understanding ear, and this diminishes my speech-joy.”
“Sorry about your speech-joy, ma’am. Let me introduce myself. I carry a rock to smash in the skulls of people who annoy me, and that list is pretty long and getting longer, and my name is Beta Sterling Xenius Anubis of Mount Erebus.”
“I delight in the name Oenoe Psthinshayura-Ah, and my displayed design is the Crocus twined with Clover and Forsythia, but my intimate design is Hyssop, Juniper, and Lily in an eternal knot. Do you know the flower language? It has remained unchanged since eldest recorded time.”
His eyes slid toward the Blue Men, and then glanced toward the dog things. “I know what oleander and orange blossoms stand for.”
She drifted back to her place on the far side of the lotus pool and cooed. “To understand and to be understood is its own delight, more intimate than other consolations.” She knelt on the grasses, but then went to her hands and knees, turning and turning again, like a kitten clawing a place to rest, and she collapsed slowly into a sinuous heap.
Oenoe plucked a grass blade, tickled her red lips with it, and then held it between her perfect teeth, twitching and chewing it thoughtfully. She lay on her stomach, thighs on the grass, feet upright and swaying slowly in the air, toes pointed toward the ceiling, which accentuated the curve of her calves. “The blue-pigmented dwarfs. What is wrong with them?”
“Aside from being Tomb-looters? They are eunuchs.”
She straightened up, eyes bright. “Then I am the captive in the harem of some brutal Sultan from Araby the Blessed, who means to use me ruthlessly for his pleasure?”
“Ah, no. They are neurochemically eunuched, except to particular mates. Ma’am, I am a historian, so I happen to know that there were no harems and no brutal Sultans anywhere on the planet for at least seventy centuries before your time. I also know the Nymphs don’t keep records or histories except for songs in your trees. How do you know about such things?”
She cocked her head to one side and smiled. “Sultanates may have passed away long since, but the wild romance-tales girls hear and swap have not changed.” Then she looked at him from beneath her absurdly long and dark lashes. “The blue eunuchs lead the dance here, not you? Even though you are a whole man?”
“I am their prisoner. I am translating for them.”
“Of your own will?”
“There are other things I’d rather be doing, ma’am.”
“Do they understand these words?”
“The young one speaks Natural, but not fluently. The boss, I don’t know. The dogs are intelligent creatures and carry vocal coder-decoder devices which could translate everything they hear, so it beats the hell out of me why I am even here.”
Oenoe seemed suddenly done with playfulness, for now she knelt again, buttocks on her heels and her curving spine upright, and she crossed her beautiful hands in her lap.
“What do they want of me? Do they wish their manhood restored? Ah! I would have to see their genetic codes, enzymatic and prostaglandin gestation history before I could say if a restoration is feasible. Of course I will donate my every effort. I am of the Order of Nature: our way is the way of love. Tell them not to despair.”
2. Mating, Matriarchy, Mantilla
Menelaus sighed and turned toward Illiance. In High Iatric he said, “She offers to make your rutting season year-round, and restore you to sexual promiscuity. She makes the offer out of the goodness of her heart. She’d have to see your medical records.”
Illiance blinked. “Tell her we are gladdened and ennobled by the offer, but do not see the advantage. We shall attempt to imitate and reciprocate her benevolence, which awes us.”
To Oenoe, Menelaus said in Natural, “They are damned impressed with the offer and will try to pay you back, but they say no.”
“Only one spoke. Is the other his child?”
“No, ma’am. The other one is his boss. Do you know that word?”
“A male Mother. I understand. An Alpha-of-Alphas.” She used the Chimerical word for Imperator-General. “Was he conscripted to serve as Matriarch, or did he put himself forward of his own will?”
“I don’t know whether he was picked. What difference does it make?”
“We regard the one from the other as distinct as birds from fish. To we who serve and who obey Nature, it is paramount to be led by servants, not to serve leaders.”
“Just assume the worst, ma’am, and you are less likely to be disappointed.”
“Such wisdom! Surprising that a race which could bring forth such sage and accomplished soldier-ants would be so easily sponged from the annals of time!” There was no word for fighting-men in her language, so she used her word for legionnaire ants, myrmidon.
“Now you are mocking me, ma’am.”
“Only because you are stiff and easy to tease, and too tongueless to reply. You said you are married. To whom? Your mother?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Introduction into the sexual arts is best done by a child’s mother, who can lead him gently through the exercises, with small chance of embarrassment.”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t marry my mother. I reckon I’d be plenty embarrassed if I had. A wife means more than a sexual partner: the bond is exclusive and lifelong.”
<
br /> “I don’t know those words.”
“Exclusive means I cleave to her and forsake all others. Lifelong means it is unconditional and unbreakable; to cleave to each other in weal and woe, health and hardship, plenty and penury, at bed and at board till death us depart. Lifelong means no casting off just because she goes barren, or he comes back from the warfare blind or shy a leg or something.”
“By why would a partner want a maimed love-performer? Maimed folk look ugly!”
“It ain’t no damn partnership! Partners is folks you can give up on when they drop their side of the bargain. Marriage ain’t no damn bargain.” In another language, to himself, he muttered, “In more ways than one.”
Oenoe was unconvinced. “How can sex be exclusive? Its nature is all-giving!”
“If you give your all to one woman, there ain’t nothing left over to give to any other: stands to reason.”
“Fie on reason! As for it being lifelong, no man can hold an erection for that length.”
“You don’t know real men.”
“Your system sounds selfish and ungainly.”
“And yours, begging your pardon, ma’am, sounds like a grotesque overreaction against the tight sexual control of the Chimerae.”
“Ho hee! So you think your echoes live on in us? A flattering thought to you! Your race is long forgotten.”
“Forgotten or not, you set about doing everything the opposite of the race you were supplanting, but after they were gone, you kept on getting into a simpler and more easily transmitted version of your same practices and habits, until you ended up with a society where all friendships and family relations are sexualized. The first generation of Naturals merely wanted a revocation of the eugenics laws.”
“Not true!” Her enormous and shining eyes held a combination of wonder and mock-outrage. Then she smiled a sultry smile. “Surely we have always been as we are now. Our lack of history proves that there was nothing worthwhile to record.”
The Hermetic Millennia Page 26
