by Kai Meyer
“Isn’t that magic?”
“Well, yes, depending on the point of view. It certainly has something of magic, and, to be honest, I doubt that the surgeon himself understands what he’s doing. The real work is taken over by the heart—the Stone.”
Merle wiped the sweat from her forehead, although down here, despite the closeness to the Stone Light, it wasn’t really warm. She looked up at the glowing dome. “It’s the same. Exactly the same.”
“What do you mean?” he asked in surprise.
“The Stone Light. The Morning Star. The ball down there in the ground. It’s just like a giant heart that beats in the center of Axis Mundi.”
He agreed with her enthusiastically. “I’m very happy that you got this idea yourself. You’re right on the mark. My own theory is that the Morning Star—wherever it came from—functioned like a heart that for an infinitely long time was on the hunt for an organism that it could drive. Until it finally landed here. The world of the Lilim can, exactly like any society, be compared with a large living thing. At one time, the city on whose ruins we erected Axis Mundi was the center of this world. When it was destroyed, the Lilim culture fell because it didn’t know how to use the power of the Light. But today, thanks to our help, the Lilim are doing better. With the Stone Light, I’ve given their people a new heart, and now the organism of this society is growing and thriving to something still bigger, better.”
“Do the individual Lilim see it that way?”
Burbridge’s euphoria cooled. “They’re like ants. The individuals don’t count, only the people is of any significance. The individual may suffer grief, or pain, or exhaustion, but the whole draws on it and profits from it.”
Merle snorted. “You profit from it. Not the Lilim.”
He examined her carefully, and suddenly his eyes showed disappointment. “Do you really see it that way?” When she didn’t answer, he straightened and walked on faster. It was obvious that he was angry. Without turning around, he continued, “What profit am I supposed to get out of it? Wealth, perhaps? Bah, I wouldn’t even have a chance to enjoy it. What else? Luxury? No. Freedom? Hardly, for my life hasn’t belonged to me for a long time, but to this world. Power? Perhaps, but that means nothing to me. I’m no megalomaniacal dictator.”
“You’ve already given the answer yourself.”
“Oh?”
“You do it for science. Not for the Lilim, perhaps not even for yourself. Only for science. That’s another form of power. Or megalomania. For your investigations will never help anyone, because no human will learn of them.”
“Perhaps yes. Sometime.”
It was pointless. He wouldn’t understand. And it didn’t matter anymore. “One thing you must still tell me.”
“Just ask.”
“Why are you telling me all this? I mean, I’m only some girl.”
“Only some girl?” His left eyebrow twitched up, but he still didn’t look at her. “Perhaps you’ll understand everything soon, Merle.”
Once more she thought of her mission, of help for Venice. But in her mind she saw the city like a floating island moving ahead of her in the sea, ever farther away, toward the horizon, toward forgetting.
Burbridge himself no longer showed the least interest in it. And there could only be one reason for that. Because he’d long had what he wanted.
Only some girl …
It all was a tangle of confusion to her.
The grill ring over the Stone Light was now barely a hundred yards below them. The walks became wider, and more and more often they went through passages and tunnels in which powerful machines rumbled. Flues spouted clouds of fumes and smoke, which mixed with the ever-present mist and made breathing more difficult. At the sides of the walkways, steel gears as big as houses engaged with each other, or chains and belts moved over or under them and led to other wheels and machines. The closer they came to the bottom of the dome, the more the constructions on both sides of the walkways resembled the insides of those steam factories on some of the islands in the Venetian lagoon; Merle had learned to know two of them when the administrator of the orphanage had tried to place her there as a worker.
She wondered where the Lilim were who served all these machines. There were no workers anywhere, of any kind; it was as if the installations were completely deserted. And yet many of the machines were running at high pressure, and in some passageways the sound was deafening.
It was only after a while that she discovered that the machine tunnels weren’t deserted at all. Sometimes she saw a shadow between the apparatus, or something scurried across the ceiling at lightning speed. Several times, loops and angled pipes she’d taken for parts of machines suddenly moved; in truth, individual Lilim were hiding there, pulling in their limbs at the last minute.
“They are hiding,” said the Flowing Queen, but when Merle said the words out loud, Burbridge only nodded, brought out a short “Yes,” and fell into silence again.
They’re afraid of him, she thought.
“Or of you,” said the Queen.
What do you mean?
“You are his guest, are you not?”
His prisoner.
“No, Merle. A prisoner would be in chains or locked up; one does not have conversations with prisoners. He treats you like an ally.”
At last they left the tunnels and the smoking flues behind them and entered the bottom level. There were no more structures on the walkways leading to the star-shaped grill circle. Again, only thin iron railings separated them from the alluring vortex of the abyss.
Even from afar, Merle saw that they were being awaited on the round walkway. The grill circle rested like a crown over the center of the Light, thirty or forty yards over the curve. All around stood figures, grouped at narrow intervals along the railings. Figures with human proportions. They stood completely motionless, like statues, and as she came closer, Merle saw that their bodies were of stone.
“They’re waiting for something,” said the Queen.
They are only statues.
“No. That they most certainly are not.”
Merle had already seen that a single walk went straight through the grill circle, from one side to the other. In its center, and thus in the exact center of the dome, there was a little platform, just big enough to offer places for several people. At the moment it was empty.
On a rope from the platform dangled the body of an Egyptian.
He wore golden robes, which were torn and charred in many places. His head was shaved bald. A golden pattern covered his scalp like a net.
She had seen this man just once, and that only from a distance. However, she recognized him at once.
Seth.
The vizier of the Pharaoh. The superior of the priests of Horus.
His body was twisting slightly, sometimes with his face toward Merle, sometimes his back. They’d hanged him with a coarse rope, which seemed strangely archaic in a place like this. She would have supposed that Burbridge would have more elaborate techniques at his disposal for putting a man to death.
Seth. The second man of the Empire. Burbridge had had him hanged like a street thief. As much as his death relieved her, it horrified her as well.
Always, when the dangling dead man turned his face toward her, his lifeless eyes skimmed over her. The same look as that time when he’d stared at her from the tip of the collector. A chill ran up her back like ice-cold fingertips.
“The Pharaoh sent him to kill me,” said Burbridge. He sounded detached, almost a little astonished. “One could almost think Amenophis wanted to get rid of him. Seth never had a chance down here.”
“Where did you catch him?”
“Over the city. He came far. But not far enough.”
“Over the city?” she asked.
Burbridge nodded. “He flew. Naturally, not he himself.” He pointed upward. “Just look up there!”
Merle’s gaze followed his hand. She discovered two cages, which were hanging on long chains from a steel
beam high over the mesh circle. The first cage was over the right half of the circle, the other over the left. It looked as if at any moment the chains would let them down—only there was nothing on which they could have been placed. Under them was only the glowing, curving upper surface of the Stone Light.
In one cage a mighty sphinx ran back and forth, back and forth, like a predator missing the freedom of the jungle for the first time. Powerful wings lay folded on its back. Merle hadn’t known that there were winged sphinxes at all.
In another cage, very much calmer, almost relaxed, sat—
“Vermithrax!”
The obsidian lion awakened from his trance and moved his face closer to the cage bars. At this distance she couldn’t see details, but she felt the sorrow in his gaze.
The sphinx saw that Vermithrax moved and snarled at him across the glowing abyss.
“No reproaches, please,” said the Flowing Queen, but not even she could stop the quavering of her voice.
We brought him here, thought Merle. After all the years in the Campanile he was finally free, and now he’s a prisoner again.
“You can do nothing about it.”
The Queen intended to reassure her, but Merle would not accept it. They both bore the guilt for Vermithrax’s fate.
She turned to Burbridge with trembling lips. The quivering of her cheeks betrayed that she was close to tears. But she still had herself under control. She wanted to scream at him, call him names. But then she pulled all her thoughts together and looked for the right words.
“Why are you friendly to me, but you imprison my friend?” she asked, controlling herself with difficulty.
“We need him. More than the sphinx, even.”
Merle’s eyes went to the sphinx, who, half predator, half human, was rampaging in his cage, frantic with fury. The steel box swung back and forth, but its strong chain was equal to the burden. Merle’s eyes quickly turned back to Vermithrax. His long obsidian tail hung down between the bars of the cage and twitched slightly.
We have to free him, she thought.
“Yes.” This time the Flowing Queen had no objections. No suggestions either, however.
“An experiment,” said Burbridge, “for which we’ve waited a long time.”
“What … are you planning to do with them?” Merle asked.
“We’re going to dip them in the Stone Light.”
“What?” Merle stared at him.
“I’ve thoroughly considered whether I should show you this, Merle. But I think it’s important for you to understand. That you grasp what goes on down here. And why this world is the better one.”
Merle shook her head dumbly. She understood nothing. Nothing at all. Why her especially?
“What’s going to happen to him?” she asked.
“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be necessary to try it,” replied Burbridge. “We’re not experimenting with this thing for the first time today. The first attempts were failures.”
“You burn living creatures, only to see—”
“Don’t you feel it?” he interrupted her. “The Stone Light gives off no heat. It cannot burn anyone. Including your friend.”
“Then why do you want to dip Vermithrax in it?”
He grinned triumphantly. “In order to see what happens, of course! The Light changes every living creature, it binds itself with it and makes something new out of it. The stone hearts are part of the Light, small fragments, and they take the body’s own will away from it. Afterward we can do what we want to with them. That has shown itself to be quite practical, especially with the resistant Lilim.”
So, not all the Lilim had readily placed themselves under his rule. There were rebels. Potential opponents.
Merle and Burbridge were now standing at the inner railing of the round grill walk. Quite nearby was the first of the motionless stone figures that flanked the entire circle.
“We tried it with the golems,” Burbridge continued. “Statues, bodies, hewn out of stone. We let them down into the Light on the chain and when we pulled them up again, they were alive.”
Merle’s eyes flicked over the endless line of stone figures. They had human shapes, certainly, but their proportions were too massive, their shoulders too broad, their faces smooth as balls.
The professor twisted the corners of his mouth. Then, loudly, he called out a word in a language Merle didn’t understand.
All the stone figures made a step forward at the same time. Then they went stiff again.
He turned to Merle again with a smile. “Stone that becomes alive. A good result, one could say. In any case, a combat-effective one.”
Was that supposed to be a threat? No, she thought, he didn’t need to scare her with a stone army.
“And now,” he said, “we come to a new attempt. A second experiment, one could say. Your friend consists of stone that is already living before he comes into contact with the Stone Light. What do you think might happen when we dip the obsidian lion into the Light? What will become of him?” There was a spark in Burbridge’s eyes, and Merle realized that it was a part of the scientific curiosity he’d spoken of earlier. But it was a cold and calculating gleam. It had an alarming similarity to the Stone Light, and for the first time she wondered whether possibly she might be speaking not with Burbridge himself but with something that had gained power over him.
A heart on the hunt for a body, he’d said. One like his own? Was that the way the Light organized and directed whole societies and peoples? By giving a new heart to its leader first of all?
“We must get away from here,” said the Flowing Queen.
Really?
“I feel something!”
Two figures approached over one of the walks to the circle.
One was a bizarre creature that looked like a human walking on all fours—but its chest and its face were pointed upward. Around its head, eyes, and mouth were wound thorny vines of steel.
The second figure was a girl with long, white-blond hair.
Impossible! Absolutely impossible!
And yet …
“Junipa!”
Merle left Burbridge standing and ran up to the two of them.
The creature took a step back and let the two girls fall into each other’s arms. Merle no longer kept back her tears.
When they pulled away from each other, Junipa smiled, her mirror eyes glowing in the light of the Stone Light. Very deep inside, very briefly only, Merle was horrified at this look; but then she realized that the mirror fragments only reflected the flickering brightness that was all around them.
“What are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly, asked it again, and yet again, shaking her head, laughing and crying at the same time.
Junipa took a deep breath, as if she must pull all her strength together to speak. She held Merle’s hands, and her fingers now closed about them even more strongly, as if she never again wanted to let go of her friend, her confidante from the first days in Arcimboldo’s mirror workshop.
“They have …” She fell silent, started over: “Talamar abducted me.” With a wave at the grotesque thing behind her, she added, “He killed Arcimboldo!”
“We must get away,” said the Flowing Queen. “At once!”
Merle stared at Talamar, saw the steel vine, which had distorted the face into a wasteland of scars. “Arcimboldo?” she whispered, disbelieving.
Junipa nodded.
Merle wanted to say something, anything—“That’s impossible! He can’t be dead! You’re lying!”—when a scream sounded behind her.
A scream of fury.
A scream of hate.
“Must get away from here!” said the Flowing Queen once again.
Merle whirled around and looked back, across the few yards to Burbridge and to the edge of the round grill walkway.
At first look, nothing had changed. The professor still stood there, his back to her, looking into the center of the circle. The golem guards were stiff as before. The sphinx rampaged in his
cage, while Vermithrax sat motionless, gazing into the deep. Not at Merle and Junipa, and not at Lord Light.
The lion was looking down at the narrow walk that cut through the middle of the circle. At the platform in the center.
That platform from which the dead priest of Horus had been dangling.
The end of the rope now hung empty over the abyss. It was frayed, as if it had been bitten off.
Seth stood on the platform—alive!—with both arms raised and again uttered a scream.
“Iskander,” he roared into the light-flooded emptiness.
The cage of the sphinx exploded as if the bars were glass.
And then Iskander descended on them.
13 THE FIGHTERS AWAKEN
THINGS HAPPENED TOO FAST FOR MERLE TO SEE IT ALL AT first. Only a little later did she succeed in grasping most of it, a movement here, a blur there, underscored by a cacophony of noise and screams and the rushing of powerful wings.
The sphinx shot out of the cloud of steel and iron fragments into which his prison had changed from one minute to the next. He raced down, faster than the remains of the cage plunging down around him, and reached the platform in no time.
Seth was waiting for him. He sprang agilely onto Iskander’s lion back, screaming out a string of orders in Egyptian. Immediately, the sphinx launched himself from the platform, stormed onto the round path and, with a single, clawed blow, beheaded three of the golem guards that stood in his way. Burbridge threw himself to the ground behind them, while other stone soldiers on both sides stomped forward to protect their master.
Carried on by his swing, Iskander had to fly a loop in order to renew the attack on Lord Light.
When the cage burst, Merle had instinctively thrown herself on Junipa and pulled her to the ground with her. She halfway expected that Talamar would tear her friend away from her. But instead, the creature jumped nimbly over Junipa and raced over to Burbridge and the golem soldiers, with the intention of defending Lord Light with his life.