M. Barker - The Man of Gold

“I have warned you well, priest!” The older man stepped carefully into the room, stained brown robe flapping at his ankles. “You-and you-search this place. There must be guardians-wards. ’ ’

The soldiers and the others made a cautious sweep of the chamber. They returned to report nothing.

Vridekka approached the dais. The front of the metal housing displayed a series of slanted panels, placed invitingly as though for the comfort of a seated human operator; there was no chair. Each panel was covered with round glass plaques, black knobs, and little wheels of metal, all made to be manipulated by human hands, all unknown and unguessable. The middle panel somehow conveyed an air of special importance: a round hole occupied its centre, and a black bar or handle protruded portentously just below this.

The Mind-seer squinted down into the hole, looked all around the dais. “The key, priest Harsan. There must be a key-a rod, a staff of metal-or glass-or some other substance.”

Harsan did not answer, but Vridekka saw his eyes flicker toward the second, smaller exit from the chamber.

“Take him and the girl to stand before that door. Anything that emerges will slay them first.”

This was done; then one of the soldiers prodded the door warily with his halberd. It swung open, and light swelled up within the room behind.

Unlike the bare and featureless hall of the Man of Gold, this place was a nest of opulence. Soft draperies, thick cushions of red and burnt orange, an expanse of dark russet carpet, tasteful tables of translucent ruby glass, ewers and flagons and statuettes of crystal and gold-all were visible for a moment before the air currents began their work of gentle decay. The tapestries whispered down into dust; the cushions slumped and lost their colour; a figure of carved black wood crumbled upon a bird-necked stand of topaz glass, bringing both chiming down into final ruin. The carpet rustled and rippled and seemed to move. What had been elegance became crumbled rubbish.

Harsan had just time to glimpse two more things. The first was a shining box as tall as a man and perhaps twice as wide in the middle of this room. As he watched, this changed from dark to light, and five figures swam up from shadow within it. The second thing was a row of glittering golden warriors against the far right wall, silent statues each more than a man-height tall, each with a pair of hands that ended in odd-shaped tubes and claws.

“ Ru’un — automatons!” Vridekka’s voice cracked upon a falsetto note of warning.

A metal-shod boot kicked Harsan’s legs from under him. He fell-and contrived to take both Tlayesha and the Qol who guarded her down with him as he went. Shouts eddied overhead, but all he could see was a chaotic view of the Mrur’s rusty greaves and grave-stained leather tunic. A stench of death mingled with the Qol’s diy, snake-like odour made him gag.

Light-raw, naked, blinding-ravened and crackled above him. The Mind-seer-or perhaps Jayargo or even the Yan Koryani- doubtless possessed an “Eye” or some other of the weapon-tools of the ancients. The players had equipped their pieces-their blues and blacks-well!

A smell of burning and wisps of blue-grey smoke drifted down. Bony fingers dug into Harsan’s shoulders and hauled him erect. Tlayesha pulled herself up to lean against his arm; she panted and shook her head as though she had been running. The Qol would have grasped her, but she dodged aside.

Vridekka gestured the creature away. He actually seemed pleased. “So this was your trap! Clever little priest! — Nay, clever princeling of the Latter Times! Four Ru’un set to guard this chamber! Let the intruder into the outer hall, let him find this room of treasures, let him be lulled into avarice, and then let the automatons slay him!”

Beyond a swirl of dark cloaks and brown-lacquered armour Harsan glimpsed the ruins of the golden warriors. Tiny flames spurted from the breast of one; a second lay kicking feebly on its side; the abdomen of the third was rent open to reveal a blackened tangle that still glittered and popped. The last of the Ru’un stood as before, but its carven, calm, inhuman face was empty and vacant. There was a ragged hole in its torso.

The box, too, was charred but not entirely destroyed. Inside, against a backdrop of scarlet-flowering trees and green shrubbery, a tall, elderly man stood gazing out at them. A woman sat upon a blue-veined marble bench before him, and two children squatted at her feet. A portion of another, a youth in a tight-fitting suit of glittering amber fabric, was visible as well, but the right side of his body wavered and flashed with eye-dazzling jabs of light. A voice, fuzzy and strangely drawled, spoke words in an unintelligible tongue. The older man’s lips moved; he smiled and extended a beringed, gracious hand.

“A picture-box,” Vridekka said. “The first lord of this place and his family, mayhap, as they lived during the Latter Times. How long after they had become dust did the savants of Llyan of Tsamra find this place, and how long after that was the secret of this treasure hidden within the Globes of Instruction?”

The man in the box gestured and pointed in an authoritative fashion. The words dragged on, not at all matching the movements of his lips. He reached to take some unseen object from a stand beside him.

“Jayargo-!” Vridekka shrilled. “No-!”

The balding priest held something small between his fingers. Even as Vridekka cried out, a bolt of radiance sped from this to turn the images into flying, flaming shards.

“He may have had a weapon, Lord-another trap!”

“Such picture-boxes are harmless!” Vridekka tore at his beard in d espair. “A thing that has survived for aeons becomes useless-trash in a moment because of your gutless, illiterate fear!” “Master…”

Vridekka whirled to face Harsan and the rest, fury etched in every line of his skinny frame. “As the Corpse Lord knows, men today are ill-trained-ignoble: naught but wet anuses dribbling childish terrors and superstitions! Thus is knowledge-history, science, the world of the ancients-lost, never to be regained!” The voices in Harsan’s brain sang an angry hymn of hatred now.

“There is no help for it,” Vridekka shook his white staff at them all. “Listen, the rest of you! Destroy nothing else as you value your witless heads! Search the inner chamber for a rod that will fit the slot in that panel there. Open everything, look everywhere. It must exist. Unless we find it, our work is as futile as death without Lord Sarku’s afterlife!”

He left them to stride back toward the Man of Gold.

Taluvaz Arrio and Mirure came to stand beside Harsan. Neither had been bound, and the soldiers set to watch them seemed inordinately fascinated by the loot their comrades were finding within the room of the picture-box.

Resignation and fatigue stained the Livyani’s patrician features. He gestured anxiously toward Mirure, but his words had nothing to do with the N’luss girl.

“Priest Harsan,” he murmured, “not even a felon upon the impaler’s stake appears as hopeless as you do now. Nor do I believe that you have suddenly been converted to the faith of the Worm Lord to cooperate so gallantly with our foes. You must have yet another string for your bow. Confide in us. Let us aid you.”

“Can you loose my hands?” Even as he spoke, he felt calloused, familiar, feminine fingers touch his wrists behind his back. Something tiny and very sharp sawed there briefly, and he knew that he was free. This Mirure had more daggers secreted about her person than a Zrne had teeth!

“And now? Tell us.” Taluvaz touched Mirure tenderly, embraced her, made as though to support her. Had their guards paid heed to him, they would have known this to be a sham! The girl was a head taller than Harsan himself, making the slender, aristocratic Livyani seem almost a child beside her. She must be sufficiently recovered to act on her own.