His scabbard and holster were empty: the Blue Men had returned his clothing, but not his weapons.
Menelaus was struck by joy so potent that it felt like unto grief to see Sir Guy again, and he had to raise his hand to his eyes, which stung with unshed tears.
With his eyes closed, he suddenly recognized something odd about the way the dog things were moving.
Opening them again, he opened up the visual receptors in his nervous system to their maximum, and induced a pattern-finding gestalt in the reticular complex of his midbrain. There! The pattern was unmistakable! To double-check, he reduced the walking and standing and head-motions of each of the two hundred Moreaus in the chamber to an algorithm, made a few guesses about the architecture of their lower nervous system, and ran the equations through his head at high speed. The dogs were strict about escorting some people, and maintaining an average space of distance from them—Menelaus could graph in a simple relation how far a prisoner could step before the dog growled. But other people were allowed much greater latitude: Alalloel the Melusine, Linder Keir the Gray, Soorm the Hormagaunt, Oenoe the Nymph, Mickey the Witch, Rada Lwa the Scholar, Ctesibius the Savant, and, oddly enough, Alpha Yuen the Chimera.
Their latitude to Alalloel and Oenoe and Mickey he thought he understood: Mickey knew subtly how to manipulate their subconscious reflexes; Oenoe could work a similar trick by using scent codes. But the others? Why were they afraid of Alalloel?
4. Hear Ye
Illiance was surprised, because not everyone had entered the chamber yet, when at that moment Menelaus stepped forward and called out, his voice ringing to the walls.
“Hear ye! You are called to the appointed time and trial of the Judge of Ages.
“Each of you, your millennium and species will be scrutinized. Whomever finds favor in his eyes will be released in greatest numbers from this and other Tomb sites, together with your beasts and crops and ecology most favorable to you.
“He will reorganize the weather and climate to suit. Those who find no favor, you will be returned to slumber, to await, if ever, the pleasure of the inheritors of the Earth to thaw you for their purposes.
“The standards of his judgment have been known from the dawn of things: You are not being judged on your spiritual or military attainments, your beauty or your ruthlessness, your unity or your individualism. You are not even being judged on the justice with which you have treated the weakest among you.
“The sole criterion of judgment is your fidelity to the cause for which these Tombs were made! They were not made for your convenience, to await the development of pharmaceutical or technique to cure your bodily ills, nor to sate your curiosity about futurity, nor to grant sanctuary from current worldly ills, tyrants, or famines you wished to outslumber. No, it was none of these.
“The Tombs were made to store whatever could be preserved to resist, offend, and, God willing, overthrow the invasion by the Hyades when it comes. By entering the Tombs, and taking advantage of power to escape the chains of years, you are bound to that cause, knowingly or not, willingly or not.”
And he translated this into Iatric, Natural, Chimerical, Virginian, Anglatino, and Spanish.
But in Latin, he said another message entirely: “I need you to block and hold the albino when he comes in. Get the fat black Witch in the crazy blinky-eyed dunce-cap to help you.”
5. Commotion
There was a pall of whispering anger and fear that spread from group to group, age to age, as Menelaus repeated the words in one language, then another.
The Nymphs saw the looks of shock on the faces and muzzles of the Linderlings and Hormagaunts, and swayed to a graceful motionlessness, luminous eyes wide, not understanding what was said. Zouave shouted toward the throne, “We are his clients! I claim the protection of the sacred law of hospitality!”
Then the Nymphs heard the message in their tongue, and put their slender hands before their lovely mouths in shock, and hunched their creamy shoulders, putting their heads together in whispers. Thysa the Nymph put the back of her small wrist to her brow, head tilting back in a rustle of flower-crowned hair, as if about to swoon, and so well formed were the curves of her upraised arm and the figure of her pose, she might have been a statue. Two of the males began playing shrill flute-trills expressing anger. Aea the Nymph held up a rhododendron in protest, saying, “Our era was meant to escape the turmoil of evolution! Ours is a time of peace that halted the endless wars of Darwin! The Judge of Ages loves us! He cannot place us in the pan and balance our race against another!”
The Chimerae at stiff attention did not move or change expression, although their flinty, unblinking eyes beheld the fluttering agitation of the Nymphs; but the Kine sensed the fear in the room, and crouched down, whining and gritting their teeth. When the words were repeated in Chimerical, the Kine froze in place as in terror.
Daae, his eyes shining, shouted toward the throne, “The Chimerae are the superior peoples, and will gladly combat and slay whomever the Judge of Ages wishes to pit against us. He knows we have complete confidence in his ability to achieve his aims this day.”
When the message was repeated in Virginian, the crones grew pale and cowered, and turned and turned about, dragging the tips of their charming wands in figures of mystic circles on the floor about them for protection, but Fuamnach of Whalesong Coven dropped her wand on the ground in a sudden and loud clatter, and she sank down, sobbing.
Fatin the Maiden called out, “We do not recognize the right of Menelaus Montrose to sit in judgment over us!”
But Louhi said, “Anger him not! He is a god of the dead! We are buried alive in his dread kingdom!”
Menelaus spoke over the noise, speaking in Virginian, “The spirit of my dead mother appeared to me in a dream, saying, Work the purposes of the Judge of Ages, send the Warlock among you to these chamber doors, to propitiate the great god of thresholds, two-faced Janus!” And at this Mickey bowed to Fatin, and the fat man began to work his way through the crowd, somehow avoiding the gazes of the dogs.
Because of the noise of many voices in the chamber, the dog things laid their ears flat, and turned this way and that, fingering their weapons but hearing no orders, nervous due to the anger they could smell building in the room.
Even while Menelaus spoke, the last two prisoners were still being escorted into the chamber. The dogs escorting slowed down suddenly, wary because of the anger and fear smells, and the two figures continued forward. The Giant had not appeared, yet the echo of his footfalls could be heard from far off.
The Savant Ctesibius, regal as a king, his eyes leaden with grief, came forward, dressed in his robes of green and gold. His wig was as long and white as the one Scipio wore.
Rada Lwa the Scholar, with his pink eyes and bone-white face, walked in next to him, dressed in his black scholarly robes and square mortarboard, walking a little uncomfortably, as if chafed by the lack of his missing undergarment.
His eyes passed across Menelaus, and registered nothing.
6. Scholar and Savant
Rada Lwa and Ctesibius, having heard no announcement, and unaware of why everyone in the chamber was talking at once, were conversing in the modulator-demodulator language of the Savants.