No humans did come to the tomb, and if any had, they would not be ones who could read English or recognize a Curosa symbol.
The drawer was open now. A creature lay in it, manlike, shivering, and despite its deviations from human facial expression, clearly unhappy. It raised a hand and stared at four grayish fingers, tinged faintly with blue. It put its arms around itself and shivered more violently still.
The Crown was activated. He should be there to supervise its use, that was his task. Why was no one here to help him? If the human brothers had reached sufficient grace to use the Crown, why were they not considerate enough to send people here to assist him in his waking?
His body spasmed suddenly, and he clasped himself, whimpering, and then let go. The Crown was becoming quiescent again. There was no question of lapsing back asleep, though, not now; he must try to rise. He put his hands on the side of the sarcophagus and tried to pull himself up. He was too stiff. He lay down again and rolled from side to side, trying to loosen muscles that seemed to be in another body, somewhere else. He reached again. Eventually he would succeed, eventually he would get up, for that was his duty.
It took an hour. In the end it was anger born of frustration that forced him out of his coffin and got him standing—his weight on his hands clutching the tomb, mostly, but standing—in the dark hillside. Now he must search for the opening.
Brother? he asked mentally. There was no answer. He was aware suddenly of the weight of the hillside, the limits and the darkness of his resting place. Brother!
There was only silence. For a moment he wanted to scream, and that was a shocking thing for one of his breed to do, but he fought down the panic. Perhaps his brother was still asleep. It had been a long time, after all. No doubt he would awaken soon and tell this unworthy one what needed to be done.
He was not alone. No, he wasn’t.
“Pearl says they felt it,” said Fischer a few hours later. “They don’t need the record, they’re ready to declare the Crown authentic.”
“Shed any light on what happened?” asked Adrian.
“Useful knowledge from an Oracle? Don’t hold your breath.”
The second security minister said, “Whatever happened on the Opal, it wasn’t like here. The council denies everything and asks what we’re talking about, but my sources there tell me something did take place. Not of an intensity like ours.”
“Not everyone from here felt it,” said Fischer. “We’re trying to get a partial list of those unaffected, and try to figure out why.”
Another minister protested, “We don’t even know why anyone was affected!”
Fischer shrugged.
The minister went on, “And should we be asking people these leading questions? Should we admit something took place when we don’t even know what it is?”
“If you think you can do the job better,” began Fischer.
Adrian said, “Gentlemen, please.” He needed some rational counsel. He looked around irritably. “Where’s Tal?”
Three of the unaffecteds were in Tal’s office, blissfully unaware of the general turmoil around the City.
Tal put his head into the vault and drew it out again. “She opened it just like that?” he said.
Keylinn replied, “Well, not just like that. It took several hours.”
“Hours.”
“You would think you’d been doomed to death. There are a lot of bright people in the world who share some of your technical knowledge, you know.”
Spider said, “She said a number of things about you.”
“Really.”
“She said that you wouldn’t trust your own mother.”
“If you knew my mother, you wouldn’t trust her either.” He put his head into the vault again and inspected the connections.
“She also said that you have a fatal weakness.”
Tal was running his hand over the doorway, checking. He paused. “Did she, now. And did she say what it was?”
“Yes.” Spider smiled. “But I think my life will be more enjoyable if you don’t know it.”
Tal glanced casually at Keylinn, who shrugged and remarked, “She didn’t say it to me.”
He closed the vault and took the seat by the desk link. He sat there for several minutes. He didn’t say what he was doing, but Spider would have bet his life that Tal was reviewing the security subprogram.
Keylinn had gone back to her reading. Spider said, “Tal, is it true that you won the Sawyer Crown by playing some kind of marble game with a six-year-old?”
“Yes.”
“So tell me,” said Spider, after a minute. “Did you cheat?”
Chapter 48
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead
And all but he departed.
THOMAS MOORE
Will Stockton sat in the crook of a tree near the bottom of the mountain they called Butter Hill. A multitude of stars gave him just enough light to see movement down the road that led to Everun—when there was movement. Just now there wasn’t, and that pleased him.
It had been eight days since he was forcibly welcomed into state security’s little army. Ironically, he was a sergeant again. His unit had merged with another six days ago, and their own commander had taken charge of the whole force. Will had found himself promoted, along with most of his comrades, no doubt for political reasons. The other unit had not had a wave of promotions.
It wasn’t that bad. They’d had to explain to him the difference between yards and meters, but on the whole he’d picked things up quickly enough to surprise himself. Some of the city kids in the unit were still disoriented, especially at night when the constantly illuminated streets of Everun were far away and the mountainside seemed full of things to stumble over. But Will had been trained by the Opal City Guard, whose idea of antisabotage practice consisted (among other things) of letting their cadets loose in a totally blacked-out tunnel three miles long, full of booby traps and assigned
