Ian MacLeod - The Golden Keeper

It was only when I made my first inspection into the hills beyond this valley this morning that I realized the true enormity of what has taken place. Clouded by the risen dust, the light itself had changed, yet had a clarity it had lacked before. The hills seemed more solid. New fissures of rock had reared up, peaks had fallen, cliff-faces had broken.

Truly, the earthquake was the author of strange events, which would have been put down in more primitive times to the work of gods. One of the counting house sheds seems have been bodily moved; more amazing still, a small quantity of gold was found lying upon the scales when all the wreckage was removed. I myself have seen, in the dust around this villa, evidence of incredible stirrings that I could have taken to be dragging clawmarks were I a man of lesser knowledge. And, as far as it is possible to tell amid the new face of the hills that overlook us, the imprisoned slaves were shaken out from their graves by the movement of the earth, and thus released. Of them—and of Alya—there is no sign, although the soldiers who had been stationed to guard them, and also Konchab’s dogs (although I, for one, am glad to be rid of their ceaseless howling) were found strangely beheaded, their torn necks coated in a foul greenish-black ichor, which I can only presume rose up from some deep portion of the earth.

At some point in the afternoon after the earthquake, weary of issuing instructions and the cries of the wounded, deprived of an entire night’s sleep, I went back to this room in the villa that the servants had made some small effort to tidy, and laid myself clothed upon the bed.

I scarcely knew that I was asleep, yet it seemed to me that I saw once again, as if from afar, the vast, strangely angled cities of which I have sometimes found myself dreaming. They are built from huge blocks of stone set and faced with shining gems, and in truth I felt a sadness to know that what I saw lay so impossibly far in the past that all but the faintest renlnant has faded. For I recognized that they were made in the manner of the ruins to which Alya had taken me; and not by man, who was not even upon the face of the earth at this far time, but by great beings, star-headed and with many strange limbs, who moved on the pads of three triangular feet. Despite their ugliness, I felt a sense of kin; for I saw that, in their own alien way, they were wise and purposeful. These, I thought, are the Old Ones, whose wisdom trickled down through the eons in enough measure for Alya’s ancestors to use it in the building, puny to them, yet still vast by our human standards, of the great pyramids. My sense of distance was redoubled by the knowledge that these creatures would ultimately be obliterated by a mad darkness. But here, it seemed to me as they moved within their towering cities, they were at their prime. The whole earth was theirs, from the highest mountains to the deepest trenches of the sea. And they looked upon the hellish creatures, whom they bid do their work using only the power of their minds, with contempt. They ruled everything. They knew no doubt.

Such, then, was the vision that was presented to me—and I, a Roman, at last witnessed a race with whom I could converse as an equal, had these creatures but mouths and eyes and ears. I watched, charmed more than repelled, as the Old Ones went about the incomprehensible business of their lives beneath the strangely colored skies of a lost ancient earth. I saw on shining walls the dot-markings with which I have become familiar, and heard, or thought I heard, a sweeter version of the piping that carried so often on the wind. I saw, also, many of the starstones, less worn but otherwise exactly like those I have collected, and glowing with fine inscriptions. These, I noted, were passed between the creatures by their odd appendages, and I soon reached the conclusion that they were a coinage of sorts. But here the matter does not end, for I also saw several of the creatures bearing black, multi-sided stones like that which I found in the edifice at the edge of the mountains. They would place these at the center of a starstone, causing a strange transformation to take place. The starstone changed color, and the veins within it ceased to glow as it took on all the appearance of gold.

Reader, as you may imagine, I awoke with a start then. In the thin light of dusk, I hastened to my trunk, remembering as I opened it the smoke that I had seen coming from it on the previous night. Indeed, the whole contents were charred and soot-stained. As I reached through the ash of my ruined clothing and closed my hand around the many-sided black stone, the ground once more gave a faint growl. Masonry crackled, and again the slaves of Cul Holman began to weep and wail. But the tremor proved to be nothing—a mere settling back of the earth.

I gazed at the black stone, and picked up also one of the starstones, turning them both over. It seemed quite impossible that one thing thus angled should mate with the curved indent in the middle of the other, as I had seen in my vision. But the two artifacts fitted well when I tried them; so well that I could not separate them when they were joined. In fact, the lines within the starstone began to glow, and it became so hot that I dropped it to the floor. Within a moment, too quick to notice, the starstone changed color. It gained a smooth golden luster and—for I discovered that both objects were immediately cold, and could be separated easily—had increased greatly in weight. Then I placed the black-faceted stone within the center of another starstone, bringing about the same transformation.

Here, reader, you may imagine that I proceeded to transform all the starstones into what I could only conclude was gold. In fact, I performed the process only three times; and for the third, by way of an experiment, I used the most scratched and damaged of the stones, with two of its arms broken, although that also changed. But gold is a tricky substance to possess, especially here, and at that moment I still doubted the sense of what I was seeing. It was enough. Before light next day, when all was quiet, I summoned a smithy to one of the makeshift workshops. To allay my remaining doubts, I bid him work one of the changed starstones in ways that only the most precious of all metals can be. Despite the man’s protests, the stone was easily cut and beaten into twenty fat coin-like discs of roughly equal size. They are warm to the touch as I hold them now, and feel smooth upon the tongue, creamy yet with a faintly salty flavor; much as I imagine those who indulge such matters find the flesh of a loved one. Gold truly is the most human of metals, yet it also brings us closest to the gods. As for the smithy, I have had him beaten on the pretext of some minor offense. If he survives, his tale will be taken as mere raving.

I have less than a quarter of my given time left here at Cul Holman, and I am torn between a desire to return to Rome, and to remain for longer, gathering starstones. This afternoon, beginning my search, I went out to where the further mines are being reestablished, and sought the gullies along which the slave girl Alya had led me. But I could not find any, and I surmise that they were closed up by the great movements of the earth. That would also explain why the wind sounds differently now—although it blows as hot and fierce as ever. Gone is the weird piping: gone, too, I imagine, are those vast ruins to which Alya took me—or so buried as to be lost forever. For it became apparent as I wandered deeper into these hills that the greatest disturbance took place in the far reaches. If there truly are such things as Virgil’s sleeping giants, it is there that the greatest of them all must lie.

Long have I neglected these writings, and now that I begin again, it is upon a proper roll of papyrus, with better ink, and in a better place. Indeed, I have often toyed with the idea of destroying all that I have written, in view of the hazard it would present were it to fall into greedier hands.