by Jayne Castle
30
“SO THIS IS where they came to die after the Last Battle of Cadence.” Emmett studied the skeletons. “According to the old legends they had made a suicide pact and vowed to carry it out if they were defeated. But I’ve got a hunch that they were a little more practical than that. Probably intended to hide from the Guild hunters until the heat died down.”
“I’ll bet something went wrong when she tried to de-rez a tunnel in the trap,” Lydia whispered. She thought about how close to disaster they had all come a moment ago when the opening she had made through the wall of shadow had begun to narrow without warning. “It wouldn’t have taken much. One tiny miscalculation and they would have been caught in the backlash when the trap shut.”
Emmett nodded. “They would both have been exhausted from the battle and the desperate retreat through the catacombs. Some of the firsthand accounts claim that Vance had been singed. One thing is for sure, by the time they reached this place neither of them would have been in any shape to tackle this monster trap.”
Lydia rubbed her arms against the prickly chill that had raised goosebumps on her skin. “They got caught. The effects of a trap as massive as this one would probably be enough to kill a human outright. At the very least it would have plunged them both into deep comas. Without medical help, they would have eventually died right where they fell without ever awakening.”
“The historians are going to be rewriting a few chapters in the textbooks after this place gets taken apart by the pros.”
“What a truly dreadful way to go.” Lydia shivered again and reached up to touch Fuzz. “Trapped in an alien nightmare.”
“Hell with ’em, they deserved it.” Emmett leaned down and picked up Vance’s infamous amber signet. “These two nearly destroyed the colonies trying to conquer them. The punishment fit the crime.”
She smiled ruefully. “Okay, that’s definitely a point of view.”
“What the hell is this place?” Vance’s amber in his hand, Emmett turned on his heel, surveying the great circular chamber. “I’ve never seen anything like it in the excavation reports. I’m damn sure it isn’t a tomb, though.”
Lydia followed his gaze. The vaulted ceiling was high, much higher than in the antechamber. A number of wide, curving balconies had been cut into the quartz walls. They rose in tiers almost to the top. There were a number of niches and openings Some of them appeared to connect to other, smaller chambers.
Many of the relics in the chamber were familiar in style and design. She had seen similar pedestals, urns, and abstract sculptures at excavation sites and in museums and galleries. But the long rows of shallow quartz boxes topped with ornately carved lids were new to her.
“You ever seen anything like these before?” Emmett crossed to one of the long boxes and ran a finger along the elaborate designs that decorated it.
“No, I haven’t.” Lydia went to stand beside him. “We can’t be sure that this isn’t some kind of very elaborate tomb built for a great leader. Maybe Herb was right. Maybe this is the burial site of Amatheon.”
“Don’t think so.”
She frowned. “What makes you so certain? No offense, but you’re a hunter, not a trained P-A.”
Emmett shrugged. “The place doesn’t feel like a tomb.”
“You can’t go by feel. The truth is, we know almost nothing about how the Harmonics used any of the rooms and chambers we’ve excavated in the past two hundred years.”
“True.”
Cautiously she raised the lids of several of the long boxes. There was nothing inside. “I wonder what they kept in these trays?”
He glanced back at the seething wall. “We don’t have time to do an archaeological report. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I just want to take a quick peek in a couple more of these trays.”
“Damn it, Lydia—”
She had the lid of another box partially open. There was an object inside. Her first thought was that it was a smaller version of the outer container. It was intricately decorated with the familiar, flowing abstract designs that appeared on so many of the relics.
“Look, it’s hinged on one side just like the cover of a . . . oh, jeez, Emmett.” She hardly dared to breathe. “Emmett, look.”
“Save it for later.” Emmett grasped her arm to haul her away. He glanced impatiently at the object that held her riveted to the spot. He went very still. “I don’t believe it.”
They both stared at the first of several extraordinarily thin sheets of quartz. Each was covered with still more abstract designs.
“A book.” Lydia swallowed and gently turned a page. “I think it’s a real book, Emmett. The first one that has ever been found in the ruins.”
The thrill of the discovery threatened to overwhelm her. Very carefully she turned another page.
Something shimmered on one of the green quartz sheets. A section of the page wavered before her eyes. She yelped in surprise, yanked her hand away, and took a quick step back. Fuzz grumbled about the sudden movement and dug his small claws into her shirt to maintain his balance.
Emmett leaned over the book and cautiously examined the shimmering section. “I think it’s a picture of some kind. But it’s out of focus. The reader probably had to activate some mechanism to make it clear.”
“Psi powered?” She studied the wavering page. “I can feel a trickle of energy.”
“So can I.”
“It doesn’t feel dangerous.”
“Famous last words from a P-A.” Emmett tightened his grip on her arm. “We’re sure as hell not going to run any experiments here. For all we know the energy ghosts and illusion traps may have been the least lethal of the psi-tech gadgets the aliens left behind.”
“I won’t argue, but you know what this place feels like, Emmett? It feels like a library.”
“You P-As are always warning everyone not to draw parallels between humans and the Harmonics, remember? You say we’re not supposed to make assumptions about the aliens’ culture based on our own.”
“I know, but for now I’m going with my intuition. I think this was a library or something similar. At some point they packed it up, perhaps when they abandoned their colonies. But they left one book behind. Maybe it wasn’t very important to them. Or maybe it just got overlooked. But it is our first Harmonic text. They’re going to go wild at the university.”
“And you’ll go down in the records as the one who found it.”
She closed the cover and gently lifted the book out of the long storage box. It was lighter than it looked. “I’m taking this with me.”
“Lydia—”
“I’ll be careful, I promise. I won’t open it again until I’ve got it in a research lab. Emmett, please, I can’t leave it. Last time amnesia wiped out my memories of this chamber and the people who knew the truth lied about everything. I just can’t take the chance of losing it all again.”
His face hardened and for a moment she thought he would refuse, but in the end, he just nodded once, very curtly.
“All right,” he said. “How do we get out of here?”
Relieved, she clutched the book in both hands and angled her chin toward an opening flanked by two elegant columns. “I remember that passage, I think.”
“Is there another illusion gate that way?”
She frowned, trying to summon up the memories. “Yes, but it’s a much smaller one.”
Emmett scooped Fuzz off her shoulder and put him down on the floor. “We’ll let you go first, buddy. You’ve got better senses than either of us. Home, pal.”
Fuzz promptly scuttled off, leading the way through the twin columns.
Lydia and Emmett followed. Fuzz tumbled and bounced through another chamber, past more mysterious objects, and then he turned into a short hall and stopped abruptly. His fur flattened against his sinewy little body.
Illusion shadow blocked the path.
“No problem,” Lydia said.
She de-rezzed the barrier quickly.
And nearly blundered into the massive ghost waiting on the other side.
It was huge. Green fire ebbed and flared in a terrible, unpredictable rhythm. There was a narrow space between the leading edges of the ghost light and the wall.
Emmett caught hold of her and yanked her back out of range.
“Now I remember that thing.” Lydia watched the ghost pulse and glow and swirl. The last of her missing memories flooded back.
“Is this the one that singed you?” Emmett asked, studying it intently.
“Yes.” She shuddered, clutching the book close. “There was no other way out. I couldn’t go back. So I waited until the pulses seemed to ebb somewhat and then I tried to slide past, hugging the wall. But it flared suddenly and scorched me. I was running on pure adrenaline at that point and I managed to keep going a few more yards. I got as far as the next intersection, turned into another passage, found a chamber, and collapsed. The next thing I remember is Fuzz licking my face.”
Emmett bent down and picked up an object lying on the floor. He held it between thumb and forefinger.
“My bracelet,” she breathed. “This is where I lost it. I broke the catch when I escaped from the guards so I clutched it in my hand. It got me this far, but when that ghost brushed me I must have dropped it.”
Emmett eyed the huge ghost. “If that chamber we just left really is a library, I guess this would be the circulation desk.”
“Staffed by the librarian from hell.”
Emmett tossed Vincent Lee Vance’s amber signet into the air and caught it in his hand.
“Lucky for us I’ve got my library card,” he said.
31
MONDAY MORNING LYDIA lounged in her office chair, sipped hot rez-tea, and surveyed her small, attentive audience. Melanie was propped on the edge of the desk, skirt riding high. Shrimpton hovered in the doorway.
“That’s pretty much the end of the story,” Lydia concluded. “After Emmett used Vance’s signet to de-rez that big ghost blocking our path, we made our way to the nearest exit. Emmett immediately got in touch with Verwood and Detective Martinez and briefed them on the situation down in Greenie Land. Martinez went in with a contingent of cops and hunters and mopped up. It was a huge coup for her, of course.”
“Too bad Herbert Slattery or Troy Burgis or whatever his name is got away,” Shrimpton said dourly.
“They’ll find him,” Lydia said.
Melanie nodded. “Meanwhile, finding that cache of illegal weapons in that corridor the Greenies called Area 51 will pretty much guarantee that Martinez gets a huge promotion.”
“By the time Martinez receives her new promotion, Emmett will be an ex–Guild boss,” Lydia said firmly. “Wyatt’s recovering nicely, thank goodness. He’s going home from the hospital today.”
Shrimpton scowled thoughtfully. “Have they figured out what this Herbert-Burgis character was planning to do with all those guns?”
“Burgis is the only one who can answer that question for certain but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he had plans to follow in Vance’s footsteps.”
“Conquer the city-states?” Melanie was appalled. “Impossible. There’s no way he could have done that.”
“I think he dreamed of finding some alien technology in that so-called tomb of Amatheon,” Lydia said slowly. “By all accounts he’s been obsessed with Vance for years. Got a hunch he figured that Vance had discovered some great secret in that chamber.”
“And Burgis thought that if he got his hands on that secret, he could accomplish what Vance failed to do, is that it?” Melanie asked.
“That’s the current theory,” Lydia said. “Like I said, we’ll know more when they get Burgis.”
“Shouldn’t take long to find him,” Shrimpton said. “Something tells me that if Martinez doesn’t catch him right quick, the Guild will hunt him down very soon.”
“That’s for sure.” Melanie chuckled. “Jack says every hunter in every city in the Federation is looking for Burgis. He can run for a while but he won’t be able to hide for long.”
Shrimpton heaved a mournful sigh. “So much for the great deal on the Mudd Sarcophagus. There never was a real private collector waiting to pay twice what it was worth. It was all a ruse to make the kidnapping possible.”
Melanie’s brows zipped together. “I don’t get that part. Burgis must have known that if you disappeared in the middle of a Greenie tour someone would have suspected the Order of the Acolytes of Amatheon.”
Lydia shook her head. “He didn’t care if a few of the Greenies got picked up off the street and questioned. None of them knew anything. The ones who were involved in the kidnapping were all safely back underground. It never occurred to Herb that anyone could find his hidden empire.”
“But he was wrong,” Shrimpton said. “Professor Lawrence Maltby discovered it first and he tried to warn you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Lydia put down her empty cup. “Poor Maltby. He wandered for years down there in the tunnels. At some point he must have stumbled onto Burgis’s operation. He obviously recognized Burgis and figured out that the Greenies were responsible for my Lost Weekend. He tried to warn me but by the time I got to his apartment, someone else had gotten to him first.”
“Burgis or one of his Greenies,” Melanie said. “Everyone in Maltby’s neighborhood knew he used drugs. It wouldn’t have been difficult to spike a batch of Chartreuse with something lethal.”
“Yes,” Lydia said. “I think the killer probably went in to make certain that the drugs had worked. Maltby must have still been alive. He’d been using Chartreuse for years and had no doubt built up some tolerance. It probably took him longer to die than the killer expected. There must have been a struggle.”
“That’s when the killer’s necklace got broken,” Melanie said. “Afterward, he picked up as many of the beads as he could find, but it was dark in the apartment and he was in a hurry.”
“He missed the bead that I found,” Lydia concluded. “He also missed the note that the professor had started to write, the one about the Amber Hills Dairy milk carton. Even if the killer noticed it, he probably assumed that it wasn’t important. Just the start of a grocery list.”
“I take it Burgis sent some more Greenies to search Maltby’s place later that night just to make sure that nothing had been left behind that might give the cops a clue?” Melanie asked. “Those were the two guys you and Emmett surprised?”
Lydia nodded. “They didn’t find the milk carton, either.”
Melanie frowned. “What happened to Burgis’s three pals? The ones who were with him in that pulse-rock band and later disappeared?”
“The cops haven’t been able to identify them yet,” Lydia said. “The assumption is that they are all living under other names and are part of the Greenie hierarchy. But it’s going to take a while to get to the bottom of that organization.”
There was a short silence while they all absorbed that fact.
“It’s not fair, I tell you,” Shrimpton said darkly. “The governor appointed the university to oversee the excavation of that library chamber and all of the big museums are going toe-to-toe to get a piece of the action. They’re lobbying like mad and calling in old favors. But this institution is out in the cold. It’s not right.”
Melanie cleared her throat. “We don’t exactly have the facilities to handle a major excavation like that one, sir.”
“Nevertheless, we should have been allowed to be part of the team that will open up the library.” Shrimpton slapped a hand against the doorjamb, his indignation rising. “But no. We don’t get zip-squat. Not zip-squat, I tell you.”
“It’s okay, Boss,” Melanie said soothingly. “Take it easy. Remember your blood pressure.”
“The devil with my blood pressure. It was a Shrimpton employee who discovered the way into that chamber. If there was any justice this institution should have been granted the lead license to excavate.”
Lydia exchanged a glance with Me
lanie. Referring to Shrimpton’s House of Ancient Horrors as an institution and making it sound as though it belonged in the same category as the Department of Para-archaeology at the university or the renowned Cadence Archaeological Museum was pushing it. But neither of them had the heart to point that out to Shrimp.
“I know just how you feel, sir,” Lydia replied. “No one from my old department at the university even bothered to invite me to join their crew as an outside consultant.”
“It’s your own fault, if you ask me,” Melanie said. “You should never have given your ex-colleagues in the department the secret to getting through that illusion wall.”
“I know, I know.” Lydia spread her hands. “The thing is, it was clear that they were going to attempt to de-rez it on their own. If someone had screwed up, there would have been a terrible accident. I didn’t want that responsibility on my shoulders.”
Shrimpton snorted. “The bottom line here is that we’ve got nothing, absolutely nothing, to show for our contributions to this momentous discovery. In fact, we actually lost something: a perfectly good sarcophagus. Those things don’t grow on trees, you know.”
“I have it on good authority that the Guild will see to it that the sarcophagus is returned,” Lydia assured him. “Emmett says it’s the least the hunters can do under the circumstances.”
Shrimpton huffed. “Well, that’s something to be thankful for, I suppose. But who’s going to compensate us for losing you, Lydia?”
“You’ve still got me, sir,” she said quickly.
“Yes, yes, of course we have you as a member of the staff,” he continued, “but let’s face it, the moment London steps down from his position as the boss of the Cadence Guild, you’ll no longer be the big draw you’ve been lately.”
Melanie chuckled. “Sad to say it, Lyd, but he’s right. When you are no longer Mrs. Guild Boss, I doubt if we’ll be able to convince folks to pay extra for a private tour of the museum conducted by you.”
“Like I said, we get zip-squat,” Shrimpton concluded mournfully. “Be lucky if this institution even gets mentioned in a footnote in one of the countless articles and books that will be written about that alien library.”
