Robert Silverberg: The Seventh Shrine

There seemed to be phantoms all around him.

A dozen Shapeshifters—a hundred, a thousand—

Grimacing faces. Glowering eyes. Teeth; claws; knives. A horde of wildly cavorting assassins surrounded him, dancing, bobbing, gyrating, hissing, mocking him, calling his name derisively—

He was lost in a whirlwind of ancient sorceries.

“Lisamon?” Valentine cried, baffled. “Deliamber? Help me—help—” But he was not sure that the words had actually escaped his lips.

Then he saw that his guardians had indeed perceived his danger. Deliamber, the first to react, came rushing forward, flinging his own many tentacles up hastily in a counter-spell, a set of gesticulations and thrusts of mental force intended to neutralize whatever was emanating from Torkkinuuminaad. And then, as the little Vroon began to wrap the Piurivar shaman in his web of Vroonish wizardry, Vathiimeraak advanced on Torkkinuuminaad from the opposite side, boldly seizing the shaman in complete indifference to his spells, forcing him down to the ground, bending him until his forehead was pressing against the soil at Valentine’s feet.

Valentine felt the grip of the shaman’s wizardry beginning to ebb, then easing further, finally losing its last remaining hold on his soul. The contact between Torkkinuuminaad’s mind and his gave way with an almost audible snap.

Vathiimeraak released the khivanivod and stepped back. Lisamon Hultin now came to the shaman’s side and stood menacingly over him. But the episode was over. The shaman remained where he was, absolutely still now, staring at the ground, scowling bitterly in defeat.

“Thank you,” Valentine said simply to Deliamber and Vathiimeraak. And, with a dismissive gesture: “Take him away.”

Lisamon Hultin threw Torkkinuuminaad over her shoulder like a sack of calimbots and went striding off down the road.

A long stunned silence followed. Magadone Sambisa broke it, finally. In a hushed voice she said, “Your majesty, are you all right?”

He answered only with a nod.

“And the excavations,” she said anxiously, after another moment. “What will happen to them? Will they continue?”

“Why not?” Valentine replied. “There’s still much work to be done.” He took a step or two away from her. He touched his hands to his chest, to his throat. He could still almost feel the pressure of those relentless invisible hands.

Magadone Sambisa was not finished with him, though.

“And these?” she asked, indicating the sea-dragon teeth. She spoke more aggressively now, taking charge of things once again, beginning to recover her vigour and poise. “If I may have them now, majesty—”

Angrily Valentine said, “Take them, yes. But put them back in the shrine. And then seal up the hole you made today.”

The archaeologist stared at him as though he had turned into a Piurivar himself. With a note of undisguised asperity in her voice she said, “What, your majesty? What? Dr Huukaminaan died for those teeth! Finding that shrine was the pinnacle of his work. If we seal it up now—”

“Dr Huukaminaan was the perfect scientist,” Valentine said, not troubling to conceal his great weariness now. “His love of the truth cost him his life. Your own love of truth, I think, is less than perfect, and therefore you will obey me in this.”

“I beg you, majesty—”

“No. Enough begging. I don’t pretend to be a scientist at all, but I understand my own responsibilities. Some things should remain buried. These teeth are not things for us to handle and study and put on display at a museum. The shrine is a holy place to the Piurivars, even if they don’t understand its own holiness. It’s a sad business for us all that it ever was uncovered. The dig itself can continue, in other parts of the city. But put these back. Seal that shrine and stay away from it. Understood?”

She looked at him numbly, and nodded.

“Good. Good.”

The full descent of darkness was settling upon the desert now. Valentine could feel the myriad ghosts of Velalisier hovering around him. It seemed that bony fingers were plucking at his tunic, that eerie whispering voices were murmuring perilous magics in his ears.

Most heartily he yearned to be quit of these ruins. He had had all he cared to have of them for one lifetime.

To Tunigorn he said, “Come, old friend, give the orders, make things ready for our immediate departure.”

“Now, Valentine? At this late hour?”

“Now, Tunigorn. Now.” He smiled. “Do you know, this place has made the Labyrinth seem almost appealing to me! I feel a great desire to return to its familiar comforts. Come: get everything organized for leaving. We’ve been here quite long enough.”