M. Barker - The Man of Gold

Then Harsan was shown to a cramped stone cell in a dormitory at the rear of the temple, where he cooled his heels for four long days, besieged in the morning by odours of spices and roasting meat from the nearby kitchens, and assailed at night by redolences of latrines and midden-heaps emanating from ponderous Chlen-carts driven along beneath his window by masked members of one of the sweeper clans, the lowest of the low. Bey Sii indeed had its sewer system, but many houses were not connected to it, and all larger items of waste had to be carried beyond the walls to be dumped and burned.

At length he was summoned to the Hall of the Diffusion of Radiance, a cluttered annex apparently added as an afterthought to the shrine of Chuharem the Diviner, the Thirteenth Aspect of Thumis. There he was directed to one Znaqiilu hiGurika, a peppery little bureaucrat entrusted with all those Labours of Reverence involving matters of the ancients. This person handed him on to a younger priest, a pasty-faced youth whose nasal drawl identified him as a native of Sokatis on the eastern frontier of the Empire.

“I am Siyun hiDaigan, priest of the Fourth Circle.” Sharp eyes, set close beneath hairy black brows hinting at Salarvyani ancestry, flicked up and then down over Harsan. “So you’re the miracle of wisdom we were told to expect? You’re not as full of years as I had anticipated.”

Siyun had employed the “You of Honourable Youth,” although he looked to be no older than Harsan. The latter was careful not to let his irritation show and replied carefully, “I am here because I have done some introductory study of the Llyani language.”

The other turned away, picking a path between the crosslegged scribes, pencases, and documents that littered the stained floor matting. “Many have come and many have departed, all at the whim of some exalted high priest or other… You’ll probably be forgotten here for years-and then be hauled forth to deliver a report you hadn’t known you must prepare.”

This was unpleasant news. Harsan said, “I thought my- mission-was of some interest to somebody. Else why summon me all the way from Do Chaka?”

“How did you conclude that? — Oh, because someone told you that the high lords of the temple had seen fit to squabble over the Llyani relics with certain other mighty temples I could name? And the bickering ending with them being made as open as a prostitute’s parlor, all sorts of people wandering in to poke at them, and a handful of Legion bravos standing about picking their arses to boot?”

Harsan had heard none of this and admitted as much.

“Never mind, then. Keep out of the way of the priests of the Lords of Change. Give no information and leave nothing written for them to read!” They were out of the Hall of the Diffusion of Radiance, moving down a zigzag corridor. “The soldiers won’t bother you. They play at guarding the relics, play at Den-den, and play with our girl acolytes who bring them their food. I’ve laid a wager with one of the rogues that both he and I will be here to celebrate the Five Feast Days at year’s end together. Once the great lords have settled their wrangling, it’s easy to mislay the likes of us until we’re all ready to board Belkhanu’s barque for the Isles of the Dead.”

Now they passed through a stout wooden door, descended a winding stone staircase, and emerged into a high vaulted room. This was lit by tiny brass oil lamps, set near clever ducts that took the smoke up through the massive heart of the temple above. They must now be well below the level of the pyramid that supported the upper structure.

Two men wearing only light Firya — cloth kilts sat crosslegged on the flagging. An oblong Den-den board lay between them and a heap of counters beside it. A jumble of armour and rolled sleeping mats proclaimed this room to be a temporary guardroom. Siyun saluted the two soldiers, who muttered greetings in return. He then picked up an oil lamp from a niche beside the door, lit it, and plunged off again into another dim passageway. This was constructed of massive stone blocks, hand-hewn and fitted together with the meticulous precision of the ancients. Moisture ran from the walls and trickled silently along a runnel in the centre of the floor.

The corridor wound downward, turned, branched, went down more stairs, and emerged into another lamplit chamber. Two more guards sat on their haunches by the door. These were attired in blue-lacquered Chlen — hide breastplates, the flaring shoulderguards of the Tsolyani regular army, and kilts like those of their comrades above. Two crested helmets bearing the insignia of the Omnipotent Azure Legion lay in a comer, and curved, scallop-edged swords leaned against a wall. One rose to greet Siyun, who said a word or two in reply and jerked a thumb at Harsan. The other guard seemed lost in some revery of his own.

They passed through into the chamber beyond, where a table stood covered with a grey cloth. On it lay the golden hand and the map symbol. There were other items as well: three roundish lumps of crumbling red rust, a rod of some silvery-blue metal perhaps as long as a man’s forearm, and a heap of manuscript leaves. These last were obviously fragile with age, mouldering, stained, and rotten.

A glance took in all of this. Then Harsan’s gaze shifted to the other occupant of the room and he stared.

It was a Pe Choi.

But yet what a Pe Choi! Instead of the sleek, dully-gleaming black nudity of the Pe Choi of Do Chaka, this specimen was decked out in an odd-fitting copy of a human’s kilt, a gorget of Chlen — hide all chaised and set with twinkling blue stones, and- most ludicrous of all-a hat! Rising up between the delicate grey-shadowed ear-ridges was a loaf-shaped bonnet of embroidered cloth-of-gold, a style currently fashionable among the young aristocrats of Bey Sii.

Harsan repressed a wild impulse to laugh, then a strong surge of revulsion. No Pe Choi of the Chakas would ever have worn this foppish travesty of human costume! This was a parody, a caricature. It was like the Kiini — bird a trader had once brought to the monastery; it had been garbed in a tiny grey priest’s tunic and black skullcap, and the man had made it say preposterously pontifical things in its shrill little voice.

Siyun was saying, “I can’t pronounce his name, but this is a priest of our Lord Thumis’ Cohort, Ketengku. Here is priest Harsan, the language scholar we were told to expect.”

The Pe Choi minced forward on his two powerful rear legs, articulated tail swaying in unconscious imitation of a dandy’s walk. “I am Chtik p’Qwe, Scholar Priest of the Fourth Circle.” He spoke almost perfect Tsolyani with only a trace of a whistle to mar the sibilants. “I have heard that you come from near my home in Do Chaka?”

Harsan had not yet recovered from his surprise and could only nod in affirmation.

Siyun said indifferently, “I leave you to your tasks. Our great Tunkul — gong can be heard even at these depths, so you’ll probably know when it is dinner time.”

The two were left to stare at one another. The Pe Choi almost certainly sensed Harsan’s distaste and reticence and was the firsi to break the silence.

“Since our two temples are so close, we may find it profitable to work together. I can show you what my techniques have uncovered, and you in turn can aid by analysing the writings.” He bent his long oddly-jointed neck closer to Harsan. “Two more will return-they are gone to the midday rituals at their own temples. They serve the Lords of Change, and we are told to be wary of them. They are here only upon the direct permission of the Imperium, as you may have heard by now.”

He led Harsan to the table and pointed to the relics. “This is a religious icon, a hand of gold made in imitation of that of some more ancient idol, named Tga’a Nmemsu, ‘the Man of Gold.’ ” Harsan gave no sign that he had heard of this before. “Next, there is a map symbol showing the Empire of Llyan of Tsamra. It cannot be used without certain devices now lost to us, and indeed, which we did not know still were workable as late as Llyani times.” The map symbol? Kurrune the Messenger must have run hard to carry it back, or perhaps he had sent it by some other courier.