Paul Mcauley - Ancients of Days

After he had inadvertently called down one feral machine and woken and defeated another, after he had murdered Gorgo in a fit of anger, he had sworn not to use his powers again. At least, not until he understood them. And as yet he did not know if he could do what Syle wanted him to do. He did not know if he could successfully defend the Department of Vaticination by warping the minds of machines to serve his own ends. Besides, if his powers came from the Preservers, then it was obvious that he should not use them for his own gain.

But in exchange for defending the Department of Vaticination, he might learn much more about his bloodline.

And if he knew where he came from, then he might better understand his powers and what the Preservers wanted of him. And if he could master his powers, why then he might be able to do anything.

With this thought came a tumble of images. Yama flying on the back of a metal dragon, driving hordes of defeated heretics into the Glass Desert beyond the midpoint of the world. Yama clad in a buzzing weave of bright motes, preaching to a multitude on some high place, with the world spread beyond. Yama on a rolling ship, waking ancient machines from the depths of the Great River.

Yama striking with a golden staff a rock in the icy wastes at the head of the Great River, and calling forth new waters to renew the world. And many more images, bright and compelling, as if his mind was trying to master all the futures into which he might walk. The visions possessed him, wonderful and terrifying. When he was woken by Pandaras it seemed that he had not rested at all.

And now, not half an hour later, he stood beneath the intricately carved portal of the Gate of Double Glory. The tunnel beyond it slanted downward, curving as it descended. The thrall, Brabant, had already passed out of sight.

“Brabant never did anything bad I heard about,” the gatekeeper said. “And I know all about what comes and goes.”

Yama said, “Did Brabant tell you what his business might be?”

The gatekeeper was an ancient but muscular and vigorous thrall, with a humped back and a white mane. He looked at Yama slyly. “It would be his usual business,” he said.

“And what’s that?” Pandaras said. “Speak civilly to my master, fellow. He has the safety of your department in his hands.”

The thrall said, “Why, it’s well known Brabant has the keys of the kitchens of the household of the House of the Twelve Front Rooms. He’s often out this early. The day markets open when the main gates open, and bidding is fierce these days. Things aren’t what they were. There are shortages because of the war. You here to protect Brabant, dominie? He in danger?”

“It is a matter of security,” Pandaras told the old thrall.

This seemed to satisfy the gatekeeper. “Aye, I suppose we’re in danger even now. They’re not to start fighting the quit claim for more than a decad, but you can’t trust Indigenous Affairs. It’s a grower, see. Wants to get control wherever it can, however it can. But I do a good job. Don’t worry about the gate. Nothing has ever passed me by without proper authority.”

For once, this was no idle boast. Tamora had surveyed the Department of Vaticination on the first day, and said that once the triple doors were lowered, the gate could not be forced without destroying most of the cavern.

“We should hurry, master,” Pandaras said. “We will lose him.”

“You will stay here, Pandaras. Stay here, and do your duty.”

“I’d do better going with you. I see you’ve taken off your bandage, but your wound won’t have healed, not yet. And I’ve a fancy to seeing more of this place.”

“As you will, when we are done here. I promise it.”

Yama turned to the gatekeeper and said, “How do you open the doors? There are three, I believe.”

The gatekeeper nodded. “One here, dominie, another a hundred paces further down, and the last a hundred paces beyond that. To keep the air in, see. In the old days, the cavern was sealed around the House of the Twelve Front Rooms, but the bulkheads were sold for scrap years ago. Well, in the old days there was a word you’d speak and the doors would obey. But they’re just metal now. The vital parts died long ago. So now we do it by water. You saw me haul on that wheel?”

It stood on a strong post inside the glass booth that clung to the right-hand side of the gate’s round mouth. It was as tall as the gatekeeper, and spoked like the wheel of a wagon.

The gatekeeper said, “It controls the sluices. Water is what does the job. It flows out of the counterweights and the doors sink down with it, and then it’s pumped into a reservoir above our heads, ready to fill the counterweights to close up the gate as need be.”

“You keep watch on the gate all day?”

“My little house is up above the gate—see the stair? It winds right up to it. I’m cozy as a swallow in a godown roof up there.”

“Then when Brabant comes back, you will make a note of it.”

“I will keep watch,” Pandaras said, “although I’d rather come with you, master.”

“Your boy there needn’t trouble himself,” the old thrall said. “I see everything that goes in and out. Our secretary Syle likes to know what’s going on.”

The tunnel was lined with a slick, white material that diffused the light of Yama’s solitary firefly; it was as if he moved at the center of a flowing nimbus. The tunnel turned a full circle as it descended, then opened on to a shaft ten times as wide, one of the main throughways that ran from top to bottom of the Palace. Like all the throughways, its gravity was localized; the tunnel met its roof at right angles. Yama stood at the beginning of a corkscrew ramp, looking straight across the throughway at the tops of sleds and carts and wagons that, spangled with lanterns, streamed past as if clinging to a sheer wall. But as he went down the ramp, the throughway seemed to turn around him, until at last he was standing on a walkway beside the traffic and the mouth of the tunnel he had left was a hole in the curved roof above his head.

There were few pedestrians, and Yama had no trouble following Brabant. The thrall was a sturdy fellow with a thick black mane done up in braids. He walked at a slow but steady pace along the walkway into the lower part of the Palace, where he took a ramp that spiraled up into the roof. It led to a short, narrow tunnel which suddenly opened on to a huge cavern filled with stalls and people.

It was one of the day markets. People from the hundred departments of the Palace of the Memory of the People were wrangling with merchants, gossiping, strolling about, or eating breakfast. The smoke of hundreds of cooking braziers and hotplates mingled beneath a low ceiling of stained concrete, a blue haze which defined a pale wedge of early sunlight above the flat roofs of godowns that stood shoulder to shoulder at the cavern’s wide mouth.

Machines twinkled through the smoky air; thousands of fireflies spun above the heads of the people who crowded the aisles between the stalls. The noise was tremendous.

The bawling of animals and the chatter of thousands of conversations echoed and re-echoed from the bare rock walls. In one part of the market, shoals of fish were laid on banks of smoking ice, and bubbling tanks held mussels and oysters and slate-blue crayfish; in another, tethered goats grazed on straw, placidly awaiting the knife. There were stalls selling erasable paper, inks and pigments, sandals, spices, every kind of fruit and vegetable, cigarettes, edible plastic, confectionery, tea bark, and much more, and at every one spielers praised the quality and cheapness of their wares. Here and there, soldiers of the Department of Internal Harmony stood on discs floating in the air, watching the crowds that surged beneath their feet.