THE GOD BOX

by Barry B. Longyear

  "Korvas?" she said.

  "What?"

  "We are here."

  "I'm waiting for my stomach to arrive." I looked up at Syndia. "Have you seen Sabis?"

  "No."

  Something horrible occurred to me and I looked at Abrina. "The butnuts! What do we do about the smell? Sabis will die before he allows us within speaking distance."

  "When was the last time you had some?"

  I thought upon it." I believe it was while I was at your father's house, before I first laid eyes on you."

  "The smell has worn off. It only takes two or three hours. In another day you will again be able to smell the odor."

  "I count the minutes." I got to my feet, leaned against the shrine, and looked around. "Sabis! Sabis!" I called, my voice echoed from the near mountains.

  The Nant priestess looked at me and said, "Korvas, you said our answers would be here."

  I turned to Syndia." Somewhere in this shrine, I believe, are some of the Books of Fayn. In those books should be where the contest with Manku takes place. How do we get in?"

  The small shrine was a simple set of four steps leading to an obelisk made from local stone bound together with mortar. There was an alcove set into the obelisk where one could burn incense before a crudely carved likeness of Manku. I studied the face of the likeness and it was the face I had seen through the open god box.

  Abrina bent over and pointed at the shrine. "Are you certain there is something in here? It just looks like a pile of rocks." She stood up, pulled one of the torches from its receptacle, and walked behind the structure.

  I looked at Syndia, and she held out her hands. "What makes you think something is here?"

  "I saw it. I sort of saw it." I pointed at the steps. "Down there. There has to be a room of some kind down there. Sabis knows how to get in."

  Abrina's voice came from behind the monument. "Sabis is dead."

  Syndia and I ran around the shrine to see Abrina kneeling next to some brush. She pulled away the loosened shrubbery revealing the Mankua priest's bloodied form. Syndia knelt next to the old man and examined him in the torchlight. "See his nails? The burns in his ears? His eyes? Sabis was tortured to death."

  "Shadows." The name fell from my mouth with the bitterest of tastes. "The captain must not have gotten what he wanted."

  "Unless information about us was what he wanted." Syndia stood up and looked toward the shrine. "You are the Guide, Korvas. Get us in."

  I walked to the shrine, pulled out the second torch, and examined the carving of Manku. It wore a draped robe. It looked as if it was just set into the alcove, but it was anchored fast and wouldn't budge. Besides, using an image of your god for a door latch would be disrespectful. I moved around the shrine, poking every likely looking rock. The torches were close to burning out and I was preparing to give up. "What if we just turn Abrina and her ax loose on the shrine? Sooner or later we'll get down to the room."

  Abrina raised herself to her full height, which definitely made a statement all by itself. "Destroy his shrine? That would be disrespectful to Manku. My own gods would not be pleased if I desecrated the shrine of another."

  I scratched my head. "Disrespectful," I repeated, looking at Syndia. "The very last thing a priest would be expected to do would be something disrespectful toward his god, yes?" I went back to the statue of Manku. I tried again to wiggle it, turn it, twist its head, all for nothing.

  "Why don't you use the god box?" Syndia suggested.

  I couldn't think of a good reason except that I wanted to solve the problem myself. That wouldn't have sounded like much of a reason out loud, so I asked the box. Its answer was "Keep trying."

  Again I stared at the statue of Manku. The god's face had an expression of calmness about it, and that bit of compassion I kept seeing. What would be the most inappropriate thing I could do—

  l took out my knife and scratched at the carving. I pushed the blade in between two of the carved folds in the robe's drape and ran the point down the length of the drape. I accomplished nothing but the need to resharpen my knife. I moved the blade to the next fold and began running the blade down the length of the drape. When the point was directly over the god's heart it sank in.

  I pushed the blade in as far as it would go, and the stairs beneath my feet began sinking down. They kept going down until the former stairs up to the statue were now part of a set of stairs that extended downward farther than the light from my torch could reach. There were extinguished torches in holders every few steps.

  "Well?" said the priestess.

  I turned around and saw Syndia standing behind me. "This appears to be what we were seeking." I looked back at that staircase. It was certainly the darkest and most forbidding-looking entrance to the underworld that I had ever seen. I reached out my torch, lit the first of the staircase torches, and gave my fear to the god box.

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  There was a smell of damp and mildew in the air as well as the sounds of tiny claws scratching at the masonry. After what seemed to be an eternity, we came to what looked to be a natural cave. There were torches set into the walls which we lit. As the light coaxed the shadows from the corners, we began to appraise the room's contents. There were leather trunks, shelves filled with dusty old volumes, leather buckets filled with scrolls, and tables crowded with ancient mystical charts and instruments.

  "This is all that is left of the Mankuas," said Syndia as she caressed the leather binding of a book.

  I shook my head." We could search in here for days and not find what we want." I held my torch near one of the shelves and tried to read the titles." Syndia, what is this? I can't read any of these."

  Syndia came up beside me and studied the titles. "That's ancient Itkahn, the script and language of the people who inhabited Iskandar before the tribes fleeing from Ziven settled there. It was the language used by the Itkahn religion."

  "I can't read it, which means that you have to do the searching by yourself."

  "Korvas?" Abrina's voice echoed from the back.

  "Yes?" I looked around the corner of the shelf and saw a reflection of her torch on a wall far ahead. "What is it?"

  "Come here."

  I walked around a stack of leather cases and down a corridor that turned sharply to the right. As I turned I saw Abrina leaning on her ax, holding a torch high above her head. It was a huge cavern, its walls lined with shelves containing more books and scrolls.

  "By Angh's bleeding piles. There must be thousands—hundreds of thousands."

  "Look," she pointed with her torch straight ahead. There was another entrance. I walked to it, stuck in my torch, and gasped. It was an even larger cavern, its walls lined with even more scrolls and books.

  "How many of these rooms are there?" I picked up my god box and asked, "What do I need right now?"

  A drawer opened, and I read the note it contained by the light of my torch. "Again, the humor of the gods."

  "What does it say?" asked Syndia.

  "It says I need a plan." I fumed as I looked around. "Well, I guess we had best find out how many rooms are in this labyrinth, how big they are and in what relation to each other."

  "You mean make a map," said Abrina.

  "Yes. We make a map."

  Using one of the larger cavern rooms for a base, we found parchment and pen and began sketching out a map. When we had been at it for some time, I was reaching what I thought was the end of a corridor when it opened up into yet one more chamber. This room, however, was different than the rest in one respect. Its floor was crowded with cut-stone coffins. I counted them and there were forty-two. All but one were closed. The open one was empty.

  This was what had happened to the remnants of the Mankuan priesthood. In the midst of this treasure of forbidden knowledge, Sabis had entombed his brothers one by one until only he remained to tend the shrine of Manku and
the revenge of the Mankuas. Sabis had ached to live long enough to see Manku bring down his judgment upon the world for the sins of the Heterin faith. Yet the old priest had died at the hands of the Heterin Guard.

  I felt uneasy prowling among the dead priests, especially since we had left the last of his kind on the ground above like a sack of oats. Before continuing with any kind of plan, there was something that needed doing.

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  I carried Sabis's body down the stairs and through the many chambers, reaching at last the burial chamber. Abrina had cleaned out the empty stone coffin while Syndia searched among the nearest shelves for the Mankuan burial ritual. I lowered the old man into the coffin and arranged his hands. It made my skin squirm to look at his hands and imagine the pain Sabis must have endured before he died.

  "I couldn't find the ritual, Korvas."

  I shook my head as I picked up the god box." Perhaps we've done all we can do."

  There was a loud sound of stone striking stone.

  "Korvas," said Abrina, "this coffin be empty." I watched as she lifted the lid of the coffin next to the one she had just examined. I held my torch over it, and it too was empty. The inside of the coffin was lined with black glass. Sabis's coffin was lined with nothing but stone.

  I looked back at Syndia. "Well?"

  "I don't know," she answered. She shook her head and stood at the head of Sabis's coffin. I returned to the old priest's side and withdrew a drawer from the god box. Looking through the opening, I surveyed the body of the dead priest. Beneath his beard there was a bright blue glow.

  "Syndia, what does he have hanging around his neck?" The priestess leaned over the side of the coffin as I held the torch over the corpse. Her fingers reached to his neck and found a silver chain. She pulled on it and withdrew what was attached to the chain. It was a sapphire. She looked up at me with her eyebrows raised. I nodded. "Remove it."

  As Syndia worked the chain over the old priest's head, another crash signified one more closed coffin examined by Abrina. She walked over to Sabis's coffin and loomed over us. "Korvas, all of the coffins be empty and lined with black glass. Perhaps there be no others."

  "Nonsense. It would take more than one man to do all of the work that's been done down here."

  "Look!" Syndia was pointing at the corpse. I held the torch high and watched in horror as Sabis began to melt. He melted as if he were a piece of wax thrown into a hot furnace. As the liquid puddled at the bottom of the coffin, it turned black and began bleeding up the sides.

  "There's your black glass, Abrina. Let's get the lid on this thing before we get covered with the stuff."

  Abrina picked up the coffin's stone lid and fitted it into place. There were markings on the lid, but they made no sense to me. "Syndia, what do these markings say?"

  She looked at them. "Also Itkahn. This," she indicated a line, "is Sabis's name in Itkahn. This," she indicated the next line, "says 'All Hail Day of . . .' This last word is pronounced kahnalru, and it means land beyond the sunrise."

  "Ahmrita," I said.

  "Are you certain?"

  "Ahmrita is the only Ahmritan word I know, and it means Land-beyond-the-Sunrise." I studied the Itkahn phrase carved into the coffin's lid. "'All hail day of Ahmrita.' Syndia, with this old man's desire to have the whole world pay for what happened to the Mankuas, this can mean only one thing."

  "The Day of Judgment; when the Hero will fight Manku the Destroyer with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. It will happen in Ahmrita."

  I shook my head. "We can't be certain. Back when Ahmrita was called by this name, the empire was twice as large as it is now. The contest could well take place in one of the kingdoms to the south—"

  I noticed something strange. As Syndia turned away from the coffin, the sapphire dangling from its chain began to glow. When she turned back, the amulet went dark again. "Look at the amulet."

  Syndia looked at the sapphire dangling from the end of its chain. "What is it, Korvas?"

  "Turn to your right."

  As she did so, the stone glowed until it achieved a brilliant white-blue color. There was a passageway beyond her, and the priestess entered it with Abrina and I close behind. The passage opened onto yet another cave with shelves stacked with books. The stone began to dim, and Syndia paused. She turned to her left and the stone grew very dim. She turned to her right and the sapphire grew bright. She continued walking in that direction until we stood before a book-lined cavern wall that extended well up out of sight.

  "Korvas, hold the torch near the books." I did so and watched as Syndia held out the stone. She moved it up, and the stone dimmed. She lowered it and the stone grew bright, then dimmed as she pointed it at a lower shelf. She did the same thing to the left and to the right. The amulet was the brightest when it was pointed at one particular book.

  I held the torch steady while Syndia read the title out loud. "Mortimann's Book of Locks. It's a relatively new book, twenty or thirty years old." She pulled the volume off of the shelf and began paging through it. She turned to catch my torch's light on her reading. As she did so, Sabis's amulet went dark.

  I handed my torch to Abrina. "Hold this while I investigate something." I reached into the place where the book had been and felt around with my fingers. I touched a handle." There's a handle in my grasp. I'm going to pull it."

  I did so and withdrew my arm from the shelf as the entire wall rumbled. When the rumbling stopped, the shelves had parted, revealing a tiny cavern with but one entrance. Abrina stood outside due to the closeness of the space. Inside the small room were many candles and a single shelf containing nineteen leather-bound volumes. As I lit some candles, Syndia took one and passed it before the books as she silently moved her lips from volume to volume. "Korvas, these are nineteen volumes of the Books of Fayn."

  She passed the amulet down the row of books. Near the center of the row the sapphire glowed brightly enough to hurt the eyes. She took down the volume and opened it with trembling fingers. Perhaps it was only my fingers that were trembling. Inside the cover was the hand illuminated title in Itkahn.

  Syndia leafed through the pages. "This is The Book of Choice. It is concerned with the mechanics and the ethics of choice." The amulet grew very bright. "Here is the prophecy. The original form of the Oracle of Heteris!" She read a bit, then shook her head. "This cannot be right."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It is almost nothing like the oracle we know. Listen:" and Syndia translated the words. "'The child, orphaned by the cult,/ Is charged by the smoke/ To protect the seeker from harm/ Until the smoke releases the child/ To hand the seeker to its reflection.'"

  "Ahjrah was the child," I said, "Tayu was the seeker, Nanteria is the smoke, and I am the seeker's reflection."

  "Correct so far. Now listen: 'The seeker shall find the blade/ and more, himself, beside the one/ Before Manku in Land-beyond-the Sunrise/ All is Manku.'"

  Abrina folded her arms and said, "There be no mention of a hero. No mention of a man-warrior. They called it 'the one' and 'the blade.'"

  Syndia nodded and examined that page of the volume. "By using the word blade, a warrior was assumed, and the men who did the assuming assumed the warrior would be a man." Syndia tapped on the page with her finger. "This closing, 'All is Manku,' is what the old translators took to mean everything is destroyed. But that same phrase is used as a 'so be it' in the Nant faith, as in 'All is Nanteria.' This could be nothing more than a prayer closing. No wonder there was a fight over its meaning."

  "Is there more?" I asked.

  "Yes. The meeting between the Blade and Manku; this might narrow it down. 'At the tip of Ihtar's hand, / Where float the lavender leaves, / The Destroyer shall meet the blade, / Leaving only one.'"

  I glanced at Abrina. She was looking back at me. "That certainly sounds like a fight to the death to me."

  Syndia tugged on my sleeve. "What about the tip of Ihtar's hand?"

  "The Ahmritan gods are called the Ihtar, and the pri
nt of Ihtar's hand is the Sea of Ihtar. It's a narrow body of water that splits the old Ahmritan Empire in two."

  "The tip?"

  "At the end of the Sea of Ihtar is a smaller sea called the Sea of Manku—Givida is on the Sea of Manku. Givida is the religious center of the empire."

  "The lavender leaves?"

  I shook my head." I don't know, but at least we have a direction to travel. Let's make for Kienosos. We can get a ship there."