Mentor Ull spoke up, his voice high-pitched and querulous, “And you delay rather than aid the conversation, Beta Sterling Anubis, in which you have no part and which does not concern you! Please repeat the words given you to the Judge of Ages, promptly and accurately. It is not the endorsement of a middle-rank Chimera of limited mental accomplishment we seek, but the judgment of a being superior to human beings.”

Then Ull added, “… If this indeed be he!”

3. Priority

Mentor Ull stepped toward the throne, and spoke, “Relict Beta Anubis, ask the throned man to confirm that he is undeniably Menelaus Illation Montrose, and the Judge of Ages. The question of his identity is best settled definitively before further events proceed.”

At that same moment, the Judge of Ages stood up, and pointed the sword toward Ull. His voice rang, and his deep-set eyes had a cold stare. “Enough! Interruptions will be punished as contempt of court! Captain Sterling, do these blue dwarf men understand the firepower I have buried under my mountain?” This comment was in English.

Menelaus said, “Your Honor, this is not the facility under Cheyenne Mountain.”

“So, then … tell me where the hell I am.”

Menelaus was standing close enough that he could see the hollow look of shock in the man’s eyes, but the tone of voice was so even and calm that it carried no hint of the disorienting bewilderment which was behind the question.

“Fancy Gap in Carroll County, Virginia, inside a cave formation called Devil’s Den.”

“Fine. Tell the blue dwarf men I have a, uh, a den full of deadly weapons.”

Ull was staring at the sword, and did not wait for a translation. “What is he saying? Does this gesture indicate threat? Or is it a symbol of dominance? Please inform him of the circumstances of his environs. The coercive power at my call is sufficient to render such symbols incongruous.” He drew his pistol. The dog things brought their muskets to their shoulders with a metallic clatter of noise. The gun muzzles were pointed at the Judge of Ages. The dog muzzles were wrinkled in snarls.

Menelaus lunged up the dais, stepped before the throne, and spread his arms, so that his metal cloak hung like a drape, blocking Ull’s line of fire. “Mentor Ull, the sword is symbol of the dominion of justice, which must be orderly. Invigilator Illiance, you’d better say something to calm everyone down.”

Illiance said, “You know my task has been elevated to that of Preceptor.”

“I know, but you’ll get a demotion for sure if your dumb doggies here shoot the Judge full of explosive pellets.”

Illiance turned to Ull, and said, “Mentor, the time has finally come to present our case to the Judge of Ages. This is the reason for all this great effort, these distasteful and immoral acts, the coercion of people and conversion of property?” For the first time, a look of doubt, almost of fear, flickered across the face of Illiance, and one eyelid twitched and narrowed. “It is the reason justifying our otherwise unconscionable acts, is it not?”

Ull scowled and holstered his pistol. “Of a certainty. I merely prefer his identity be confirmed.”

The Judge of Ages said, “Captain Sterling, tell me what they said.”

Menelaus said, “An argument over pecking order, near as I can make out. The creepy-looking old bald dwarf was in charge a moment ago, but the nice young bald dwarf with puppy-eyes who looks like he’s high on tranquilizers is in charge now. He says he is not hunting for Montrose to kill him. We might as well believe him.”

“And what about the creepy-looking old bald dwarf?”

“Him? You and I will be lucky if we both make it out of here alive,” said Menelaus, not turning his head. “He thinks you are not Menelaus Montrose.”

The Judge of Ages stood, put his left hand on the shoulder of Menelaus, and gave it a squeeze. “Then let us act, for now, as allies and comrades, and let us do nothing to shame the name of Montrose, which must endure. All the future, no matter how remote, is just one slumber away.”

Menelaus turned and looked into the other man’s eyes, but he was not sure what expression to read there. He stepped aside.

4. Who Is Montrose?

The red-robed and white-wigged man, seated once more, again raised his blunted sword. “Sterling, tell them the Judge of Ages speaks: Let none here question my name nor my right to pass judgment. Hear me! I will tell you who is Menelaus Montrose.”

He spoke in a voice as if he were reciting a poem or play recalled from his youth: “Montrose is a man, a mortal man who has set himself the task of outwaiting eternity. His greatness is in the greatness of the obstacle he undertakes. That is who he is!

“What is his time? It shall be A.D. 70000 before the earliest possible date of the return of the Swan Princess Rania. She will spend the lion’s share of that eternity at near-lightspeed, such that no words of love or hope pass between her and the cold universe encircling, since one beat of her precious heart is as a year to us; or thousands of our years, to her, the space of a sigh.”

The man seated on the throne then did sigh, and silence filled the chamber around him.

“Men of the current and temporal world! Each hour, no, each moment of delay parting me from that sweet reunion and vindication is as torment! Who trifles with the Tombs of the Cryonarchy of Man? I myself am the First Cryonarch: all the slumbering dead below the Earth are mine. Do you think whatever few and soon-forgotten years the current kings or empires savor their suzerainty matter to me? Whatever greatness you pretend to possess is already dust to me. When you approach the Judge of Ages, remind yourselves that you, to him, are already things of the long-dead past. His heart lives at the date of her return, sixty thousand years from now; the rest of him, without his heart, endures here.

“Do not trifle with the Judge of Ages, for he is not a man of this time, nor of any time. He is a creature of eternity. Ask of him what you will, but ask at your peril, for he will answer from an eternal coign of vantage.

“Let those with petitions to set before me approach.”

Menelaus translated the words, and for some reason, his voice held a majesty and passion not present in the calm tones of the Judge of Ages.

There was no motion in the chamber, and no voice spoke.

5. Prayer

The Blue Men exchanged twitters in Intertextual. The discussion was technical. Montrose listened with curiosity. Illiance summed up their conclusions: “These words fit the established psychological pattern our negative information calculus has deduced as a normal axis for the person sought. If this is not he, then he composed those words, and this man here is merely reciting them, but this is dismissed as an unlikely eventuality.”

Illiance turned back toward the throne, and spoke again in Iatric. “Most of the surface of the Earth is glaciated, Your Honor. Where the glaciers have receded, only the most primitive biology has reestablished itself: lichen and moss, mushrooms and ferns, but no trees; insects and worms, but no mammals. In the areas surrounding old ruins, or the openings of Tombs, very small oases of older forms of life survive: tundra and taiga, grasses and pine, owls and foxes, and a plethora of simpler creatures.”

Montrose translated. The Judge of Ages asked, “Are you survivors of a war? Or, perhaps, a plague?”

“Consider us the survivors of a plague of Locusts,” said Illiance with a small, sad smile. “The genetic mechanism that ensures strict monogamy among us is counterproductive in situations where rapid repopulation is called for. We seek a biological corrective for this which your faculties could provide. Further, our inquisition has already established that reindeer, walruses, caribou, and other biotic forms which could prevail under current conditions are preserved somewhere in the Tomb system, here and at other sites.”