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.”
