… Unless it was a message not from any intelligence born of Mother Earth.
He was jarred out of his reverie. In the distance, he heard the horns of the dog things blowing. Reveille had come some forty minutes earlier than it did yesterday. There was no way to get Soorm and Oenoe out from the Tombs unseen and down the hill back to their prison yard in the time remaining before morning inspection without being seen.
He ground his teeth.—STAY THERE FOOD IN LOCKERS DO NOT NOT NOT TOUCH ANY MARKED RED AREAS—but static answered him. The wind stirring the leaves, or perhaps the motion of his arm had changed the energy contour of the cloak, and the connection was lost.
“Pox and damnation,” he muttered. “I surely don’t feel like the smartest man in the world this day.”
But by that time, he was running down the slope, throwing off his robe, angling toward where he calculated the nearest automaton patrol would be.
10
The Testament of Kine Larz of Gutter
1. The Missing Windcraft
When Menelaus returned, he was surprised to see that only about thirty of the prisoners were standing in ranks before their metallic tents. The dog things were agitated: some of them were brandishing their muskets at the prisoners; others were on all fours running in circles around the prison yard, casting for scent.
Through his implants, Menelaus was able to send a signal to the other tents. The return pulse told him that they were still locked and the remaining prisoners still inside. The several little Blue Men present showed no particular outward sign of excitement, but the jewels on their coats flickered, and Menelaus could detect through the ache in his back teeth that high-compression data bursts were passing between them.
His implants then picked up a burst of radio-noise from beyond the fence, from near the airfield, startling as a trumpet call. All save two of the Blue Men turned in unison and began walking slowly and gravely in the direction of the camp gate. Half the dog things began loping pell-mell toward the gate, running in no particular order, their tongues lolling. Of the remaining dogs, some were near the prisoners, brandishing their muskets and snarling, and the others ran this way and that like mad things, barking.
Preceptor Naar, a Blue Man whose only distinguishing feature was that he was a somewhat more purple shade of blue than the others, was one of those who had stayed behind to guard the prisoners. Menelaus could see a dozen of Naar’s black and yellow automata had unlimbered their belt-fed steam-powered cannon from their insectoid shoulders, or raised their shovel blades menacingly. There were only seven of the Chimerae outside the locked tents, and this did not include any Alphas, so the display of menacing weapons did not provoke a suicide-charge.
The second Blue Man present was named Bedel Unwing, who worked in the egg-shaped powerhouse at the corner of the fence. He was the only Blue who had any trace of hair: little eccentric tufts of white wisp growing about his ears. He was also the only one who seemed to work with his hands: he carried a tool belt and hung a pair of goggles by a strap about his neck. All his gems were on the back of his coat, none on the front, as if to protect them from sparks or stains from his work.
Menelaus had long since programmed the metallic smartfabric in his robes to baffle and jinx the sensitive rays issuing from the logic diamonds with which the Blue Men adorned their coats. Menelaus was unfortunately visible to the automata the moment he donned the cloak.
It was a delicate business to elude the dogs, the Blue Man’s eyesight, his gems, and the automata, but Menelaus was able to detect the emergent patterns in their apparently chaotic eye and camera movements and locations, slip from tree to tree and stone to stone, and pelt across the open ground separating the tree line from the back side of the line of tents without being seen.
He used his implants to order Mickey’s tent to unseal the groundcloth from the back fabric, and to become momentarily as pliant as silk. He slipped under the tent flap and was inside.
Inside, the air was nigh opaque with fume. There was Melechemoshemyazanagual in all his glorious rotundity, eyes red and watering, and a small fire of opiate herbs burning in the midst of the cylindrical chamber pot.
“You want to choke to death?” said Menelaus in Virginian, coughing.
“I prefer it to being caught by the wee blue fairy kings, or their hellhounds.” Mickey must have perfected the art of lucidity while dreaming or drugged, because he was able to answer without slurring his words. He also either had a biomodification or had a very high tolerance for smoke, because he did not cough. “You must proffer a dozen thanks to me, for I have worked your salvation this night.”
“It’s daytime. Reveille.” Menelaus held his hood shut over his nose and mouth. His eyes were watering.
“It is night in my inner soul, for my spirit walks the dark paths.”
“Thanks times twelve, then, pal. What I am thanking you for?”
“The beautiful geisha woman from Japan, the one who dressed in leaves and flowers, Weena.”
“Name’s Oenoe. Not Japanese.”
“She placed a come-hither on one of the Moreaus, a Doberman, with a scent of magic and an elfin perfume.”
“Neurocoded pheromones.”
“If you wish to call it by its illusionary outward and material-world name, yes. That opened certain deeper channels into its soul I could manipulate. I placed a glamour on the dog. When you had not returned by morning inspection, I knew you would be caught.”
“What did you do?”
“I had the Doberman hand me his voice-machine, and I used the talisman to cast a spell.”
“You mean you reprogrammed it.”
“Technology is still a type of magic. All knowledge that is secret has power over the ignorant. The talisman was able to wake the Ghosts inside one of the ancient Windcraft. With no pilot in the seat, and no hand at the control, she taxied and took off, and now heading North.”
“Wait—by Ghost, you mean those flying machines have emulations running them?”
“Not full emulations. Simple machine-minds that copy only the skill sets and knowledge of human brains, but not the infrastructure of midbrain and hindbrain. These partial minds live inside the serpentines. They look like long metal snakes made of silver—”
“I know what serpentines look like. It’s my damn tech. But why do they keep cropping up?”
“The serpentines were useful to my ancestors who made the Windcraft. Their electric muscles provide the torque for the air screws, and their dead voices provide navigation orientation.”
“Weird. By any normal Cliometric membrane-domain calculus, they should have vanished from human history like the steamboat or the eyeglass or any other niche technology.”
“The serpentines are magic relicts haunted by the Ghosts of the Sylphs, who were in the air when the Giants burned the world, and so survived for a season, but fell prey to the Medusae—but you must know of these events, being from the long-ago dreamtime yourself?”
“The time of legends is actually quite a broad period, and I was napping. But why did Blackie send the Medusae to wipe out the Sylphs?”
“Were you asking me, or do godlings talk to themselves on a regular basis? Or does the madness legend says overcomes you season by season seem near? Is it springtide that brings your episodes on? If so, we are fortunate to be in the middle of an ice age.”
“I think my fits of madness are brought on by sarcastic Witches.”
“Then you are dire danger indeed! In any case, the dog thing returned to his duties and remembers nothing. Only one aircraft had a Ghost whose secret names I could by my art command. The Blue Men will assume the Nymph and the Hormagaunt fled away north, and will not think to look within the camp for them.”
“You drugged the dog thing Oenoe had softened up for you by tricking him into the tent here?”
“Such is my art.”
“And why are you still burning all this jazz weed?”
“Such is my entertainment. Breathe deep! And you will see
visions of the looking glass side of life.”
“No thanks. I am trying to cut down on how often I blindly monkey with my brain structure.” Menelaus made a small opening, no bigger than a mail slot, at the seam of the back of the tent, and breathed the colder outside air instead.
2. Assignments
The voice machines of the dog things were able to shout out simple commands in several of the long-dead languages the various Witches, Chimerae, Nymphs, and Hormagaunts knew, and Menelaus heard at least two other strands of communication: the fluid singsong of the Blue Men, called Intertextual, and a tonal language of chimes, clicks, and diphthongs Menelaus did not recognize, and whose period he could not guess.
Several of the prisoners, all strong men, were called to form a work crew to haul coffins won past the broken Tomb defenses. It was not voluntary, but nonetheless the Blues made the dog things repeat promises of hot showers and hot cocoa for any who did his work well. Women were given tasks in the mess tent and infirmary tent.
Several were called out for particular tasks, including Menelaus. An escort of dog things took him once more beyond the slowly waving smartwire.
Mentor Ull was waiting at the foot of the large azure nautilus shell edifice in the center. His eyes were heavy-lidded and baggy, cold and hard. His countenance was lined and wrinkled, as if folded once too often into expressions of contempt and bitterness. He was absentmindedly scratching the ears of a dog thing that was simpering at his feet, tongue lolling. Menelaus could not help but smile, and he told himself that someone who liked dogs could not be all bad.
Menelaus said, “What was the commotion this morning? There is a plane missing, but you did not send out a party to search for it or get it back.”
Ull’s grim little mouth wrinkled into an even narrower line. “The past-creatures from undeveloped ages propose various antics due to the elliptical reasoning of the neurotic knots of neural tissue which pretend to serve them for brains. It is not in keeping with the simplicity and dignity of our Order to exert ourselves in reaction.”
“So if anyone escapes beyond the wire, you don’t chase him?”
Ull grinned without humor, his eyes dead. “The two relicts unaccounted for had already been examined. No further utility from them was expected.”
“What if they find the cops? You know, the bulls, bears, the Batsi, the bobbies? The authorities? Don’t tell me you are here with anyone’s permission.”
“The scenario proposed is implausible. The hypothetical fugitives could not long survive in a climate of tundra and taiga and boreal forest. And the Simplifiers neither recognize nor impose authority: the concept is without immediacy to us. Therefore, neither the hypothetical fugitives nor the nonexistent authority will be found on the surface of the Earth.”
“And speaking hypothetically, what is to be the eventual fate of the Thaws who do not escape? Once you are done with them? Answer carefully, because the Judge of Ages may not be hypothetical, but very real, and nearer than you suspect.”
Mentor Ull looked grim. “We are not to be trifled with, Chimera! We tolerate with blissful indifference the obtuse antics of the relicts merely because to enforce the discipline they lack would involve us in needless complications. Our social order is both too rigid and too flexible for the crude and unintegrated nervous systems of the various prior species of man, except, perhaps, in a subservient and servile capacity: but if, even as servants, the relicts cannot be adapted to our social order, harmony may suggest that the relicts recognize their inadequacies and commit self-euthanasia once we have achieved our objective here. Dead, and therefore without the disturbance of further neural activity, they would by definition not be discontent, and matters would likewise be simpler for us. Of course, if they are insufficiently enlightened to welcome that final solution, mass murder may be indicated.”
Menelaus decided that perhaps even someone who liked dogs could be all bad.
Without turning his head, Menelaus slid his eyes left and right, counting the armed dog things that walked before and behind. They seemed quite alert, almost nervous. Menelaus realized that the dog things were picking up small clues of nerves in their masters, clues to which he was blind. Interesting.
Menelaus wondered what the dogs would do if he merely reached out and twisted Ull’s nose hard enough to break the cartilage. Would they be restrained from killing him during the beating that would follow, because the Blue Men might need his skill as a translator? The three questions were whether Ull could stop the dogs, and whether Ull could stop the impulse to retaliation, or would care to.
Menelaus thought it best not to experiment. Perhaps merely biting off an ear would prove more productive.
Ull was saying, “I speak in the subjunctive, as no determination has yet been made. The degree to which your own capering and floundering in your attempts to outwit us provokes distortions in the smooth unfolding of events will bear on the question.”
Menelaus thought it better not to answer, but he pulled his hood closer around his face.
3. The Fixer
Mentor Ull and the sixteen dog things brought Menelaus Montrose into a chamber of the nautilus-shell building higher, taller, and smaller than the chambers he had previously seen. The bioluminescent lichen on the coral walls was thicker here than in the corridors, so the room was filled with a bluish white light that robbed objects of shadow and hue.
It was also too crowded. Ull and Illiance and three additional Blue Men stood with their bald heads brushing the elbows of the dozen or more dogs.
The three newcomers were identical triplets, distinguished only by the patterns on their long coats. Menelaus knew their names: Preceptors Yndelf, Yndech, and Ydmoy.
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 I
lliance,” 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.”
The Hermetic Millennia Page 32
