Within minutes, the top of a building is exposed. Then the whole top story,
with the sand flowing away in rivers, crawling to higher ground and spilling
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down out of sight, into hollows somewhere, burying mice and lizards and desert
peas.
Then, all at once, the sound and the movement stop. The sand neither rises
nor falls. It doesn t trickle back into the hole, and Radmer s hair does not
lie flat against his scalp. There is some sorcery at work here, still.
It s down there, Bruno says, pointing quite unnecessarily into the pit. As
if they could miss what happened there. As if they could be looking at
anything else. The building fades from mirror-black to bronze, and Bruno says
to it, in a somewhat louder voice, Glass ceiling. Glass windows. Door.
A double line of round portholes appears in the bronze, one of them
surrounded by a rectangular seam, which parts from the material around it and
swings inward on imaginary hinges. Bruno climbs down into the hole on sure,
steady feet, as though he does this all the time. He follows the carpet of
rigid sand right into the doorway itself, pausing at the threshold to look
over his shoulder at Natan and Radmer. Are you coming? It s very nearly a
command.
Natan is looking frankly scared by all this, and Radmer can hardly blame him.
He hasn t seen a sight like this in thousands of years, or maybe ever. But he
murmurs, It s all right. We re in good hands.
And Natan replies, I dflingmyself into the great beyond for this man, too,
in a sphere of brass or not. Suddenly I feel sorry for the Glimmer King. Isn t
that a funny thing?
Aye, Radmer can only agree. And with that, they follow the ancient
scarecrow of a man inside the ancient building.
The interior is surprisingly well lit. It s an office of some sort, and the
surfaces are immaculate walls and floors and countertops, tables, the arms and
seats and backs of wellstone chairs, supported by spindly structures that
look, even to Conrad s eye, as though they should have collapsed at the first
puff of wind. The fax machine a sight Radmer hasn t seen since the Shattering,
or nearly, stands against a far wall. Bruno walks right up to it as though he
owns the place.
Buffer status.
And then, when that doesn t work, Royal Override. Reset all functions to
factory nominal. Report the status of mass buffers. Report the status of
memory buffers. Perform a full diagnostic, and stand by.
The foggy, fractal surface of the print plate flickers for a moment, and then
the walls around it come alive with diagrams, with scrolling lists of words
and numbers, with a holographic table of the elements, annotated with a bar
graph showing how much of each element is present in the machine at this
particular time. It isn t much.
Fax, Bruno says to it, how are you feeling?
Very well, Your Majesty. It s good to be functional again, for the first
time in nineteen years.
Nineteen? Not two thousand?
I m not sure why I said that, Sire. A glitch, I m sure. Did I wake briefly,
under the soil? Did some ray of invisible warmth find me for a moment? Long
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enough to reset my counters? If so, I m honored to be reactivated now for more
meaningful service, especially by one so eminent. Is there anything I can help
you with?
Yes. Much. Bruno runs his admiring fingers over the surface of the print
plate, looking wistful and perhaps a bit sad. I see from your diagnostic you
have two human beings in your buffer. Optimized humans, bearing the
unmistakable imprint of Queendom-era pattern filtration. I don t recognize the
names, but then again I wouldn t expect to. There used to be so many people.
Shall I reinstantiate these two for you? the fax machine asks, with no
particular emotional emphasis. It doesn t care one way or the other; it will
simply obey the man it perceives as its king.
But Bruno shakes his head. No, let them sleep. It s more humane. But
preserve them in your memory, fax machine. Let no misfortune befall them, if
it s within your power to prevent it. You are about to see some heavy use, and
I d prefer those patterns not be erased in the process. Is your library
intact?
Alas, Sire, it is sorely degraded.
Have you any battle armor?
No.
Hmm. Have you ordinary space suits?
No, Sire. But I do have some police uniforms.
Ah. Well, that s a starting point. I m going to feed you material samples
and provide some detailed specifications. We re going to improvise.
It will be a pleasure, Sire.
But Natan is striding forward now, the look on his face almost angry. I m
remembering something from my classical literature, all of a sudden. That
word, ako i. It isn t a name at all. It s an old term meaning, like,
professor or something.
Bruno turns, looks over his shoulder. You surprise me, Deceant. And you re
absolutely correct; Ako i is not my name.
Radmer is not accustomed to feeling like a spectator, but the two men have
locked eyes, locked step in some ephemeral way, and he s on the outside. He
has nothing to say, nothing to add, no tasks to perform. He simply wants to
see what these men will say next, what they ll do. A sense of terrible
importance hangs over the moment.
Your name is Toji, Natan accuses.
And Bruno smiles sadly. No, that s not it, either. But you re very close.
He murmurs something to the fax machine, and a perfect diamond crown tumbles
out into his waiting hand.
Bruno had never asked to be a king, and in manyways he d felt himself wildly
unsuited to the role. But he had learned how to play it, and more than that,
tofeel it. Because people could tell the difference between a leader who spoke
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from his heart, and one who was just going through the motions. He was an
inventor, yes. A scientist and lover, yes. A father and a hermit and a
failure, yes. But he was once a king as well, and he consequently understands
the power of myth, to rally the spirits of men when cold reality s at its
grimmest. He has left Natan and Radmer behind, instructing them to gather raw
material to feed the fax. He himself has other business.
And he s young again! Immorbid! His black hair flowing almost to his
shoulders, his black beard bristling, his veins coursing with élan vital! A
medical-grade fax machine was a rarity indeed in the Iridium Days; this one
may have been the last in all the world, in all the universe. Perhaps the very
one he d once employed himself, to seek the final remnants of the shattered
Nescog. And he remembers with perfect clarity: by the endthere had been no [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]