It was an odd thought. Perhaps their desire for simplicity was not just a game or an affectation. Maybe their culture had lost something precious, not just a natural instinct for where and how to stand, but a thousand little, almost unnoticed, habits, patterns, and civilities.

Menelaus stepped away from the throne and toward the sarcophagus, but Mentor Ull called out, “Halt! Deception is suspected! The sarcophagus contains live weapons. Do not approach it!”

Menelaus said, “Mentor, I am merely retrieving the book of”—(there was no word for sacred in the Iatric language, or heavenly)—“the very significant things of the sky, in order that you may promise to tell the truth.”

Ull looked skeptical. “The act would be without meaning. We hold aloof from all ceremony, both secular and spiritual.” He used the word in the Witch language, iki-hebereke-ren, indicating a public coven ceremony performed while intoxicated.

Menelaus was surprised by the venom in his voice. “What is your objection to sky things? Do not sky things protect men from devils and hungry shadows of the dead?” There was no word for heavenly matters, but there were words in Iatric for supernatural malice and for restless souls that haunted graveyards. The Iatrocrats were still human, after all.

“Many lapses of logic are found within the lore of the seirei,” said Ull condescendingly. This was another Witch-word, that meant both spirit or ghost, but also order and regulation, which were all one and the same concept in Virginian. “Seirei hence is fit only for relics, underlings, and primitives. Simpler to eschew such paradox and nonsense.”

“If you have no seirei, then what will you swear by?” said Menelaus. “Your honor? As if you had any. Do you believe in anything?”

“We Blue Men hold that all matter-energy contains nuances of eternal and conceptual meaning, which only becomes self-aware according to embedded particulate hierarchies, ultimately embedded as pure potential in the primal pinpoint of the Big Bang. In effect, all rational life is merely a sense organ or a limb of the universe by whose means the universe decides to become aware of itself.”

“Gee, no paradoxes there,” muttered Menelaus sarcastically. Louder, he said, “But you are on trial, Mentor Ull. Your whole race is on trial. You have to take an oath to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. The Good Book here is part of the ceremony.”

Ull said, “Insignificance! We revere no ceremonies.” And he whistled, and sent five dog things forward, three standing between Menelaus and the sarcophagus and two crouching atop it, muskets at port arms or dirks clenched between sharp, white teeth.

Menelaus backed away. “Then your words cannot be trusted.”

Ull did not stir, but merely gestured with a jerk of his chin toward Illiance. “The Preceptor has predominance in this area. It is better that he should speak.”

“Ah! In that case, with your permission, Mentor Ull, I will recover the book from the sarcophagus to present it to Preceptor Illiance…”

“Approach not the sarcophagus, neither to recover books nor other objects, neither for this nor for any purpose!” snapped Ull.

Illiance explained apologetically to Menelaus, “Any oath would be redundant: it is innate to the Way of Simplicity that the words of those of my order conform to our thoughts, and that our thoughts conform to reality.”

Menelaus turned and said in English to the Judge of Ages, “Your Honor, the defendant refuses to swear. He also wishes benefit of counsel. The little blue man sitting at your feet like a dog will do the talking. If that is acceptable to the court?”

The throned man showed no reaction on his face. He said merely: “Do the defendants understand the gravity of the charge they face?”

“I don’t think so, Your Honor.”

“Have the years forgotten my statutes and commandments? I am not to be wakened before the appointed time, no, nor none of those under my charge. Explain to the defendants that the penalty is mortal if no circumstances demanding leniency arise, and that both they, and all the civilization they represent, its records and accomplishments, stand in the dock! Repeat to them precisely my words!”

Illiance listened gravely while Menelaus translated.

Illiance said, “Reassure the Judge of Ages that our attention to his ceremonial is sincere, and we find this ritual quite interesting. Nonetheless, can he confirm his identity? There are some incongruities between his appearance and the description we were given.”

“He says he is the Judge of Ages. His exact words were these: My bride, is she yet here? My aeon, is it yet come?”

And because those words stuck in the throat of Menelaus, they came out hoarse and harsh, and with an echo of majestic anger, as if some dark, great power of the ancient world had spoken.

There was a visible stir of uneasiness among the Blue Men. Calm and reticent as they were, the recital of the phrase was like an unseen breath of silent winter moving among them, words that brought chill.

“Hear him!” Menelaus roared into the silence. “He demands to know why you dared rouse him from his long slumber. He demands to know why you seek and woke him.”

His voice echoed from the far wall.… why you seek and woke him …

Illiance seemed to need a moment to gather his nonchalance. “This we did for the simplest and most honorable reason imaginable: we wish him to judge our age and vindicate it.”

Menelaus stared at Illiance for so long that even the Blue Man, abnormally patient as he might be, grew restless under the hot gaze. Illiance said, “Am I unclear? The Judge of Ages must judge us. We wish to be preserved by him and not destroyed by him.”

Menelaus spoke in a soft, dangerous voice through clenched teeth. “You mean you want him to use the Tombs, and what is stored in them, for your benefit? If so, you have done exactly the opposite of what you need to do to win his favor. You have trespassed on his sanctuary, used his healing equipment to torture the weak, and killed the clients he vowed to protect. In order to deter generations yet unborn, to make them fear even to think about committing similar crimes, he must visit upon you a vengeance so huge that the echo and rumor of its terror must last fifty thousand years!”

Illiance nodded. “We find that regarding other men as means to an end, such as when the innocent are punished to deter the guilty, results in linguistic and conceptual complexities so convoluted as to become paradoxical. Hence considerations of the sort of which you speak are nonoperative with us.”

“You cannot get someone’s help by doing the things that make him your enemy! Are you totally insane?”

“Not insane. We think differently than relicts like yourself, but more directly.”

Menelaus said scornfully, “Direct is right! You directly mean to kill him.”

Illiance said, “A character from remote prehistory? Unlikely. What would be the motive? We are simple men, an order of ascetics. Abstract or symbolic motivations form no part of the principle to which our mental environment coheres.” Illiance gestured toward the chamber around him. “Behold, we have Followers and to spare, not to mention energy pistols and remote weapons; and yet here sits the Judge of Ages, unharmed, unmussed. If murder were our object, why would we have gone to such eccentric efforts to detect and thaw him? We could have consumed his sarcophagus with explosives, tampered with the feed, hoisted it aloft to dash it down the cliffs outside, or (more simply) stepped aside to observe the coming of the Bell.” Illiance shook his head dismissively, a gesture identical to that of a Dawn-Age man. It made him look more human than his normal expression. “Kill him? You have misconstrued our purposes.”