“The standards of his judgment have been known from the dawn of things: You are not being judged on your spiritual or military attainments, your beauty or your ruthlessness, your unity or your individualism. You are not even being judged on the justice with which you have treated the weakest among you.

“The sole criterion of judgment is your fidelity to the cause for which these Tombs were made! They were not made for your convenience, to await the development of pharmaceutical or technique to cure your bodily ills, nor to sate your curiosity about futurity, nor to grant sanctuary from current worldly ills, tyrants, or famines you wished to outslumber. No, it was none of these.

“The Tombs were made to store whatever could be preserved to resist, offend, and, God willing, overthrow the invasion by the Hyades when it comes. By entering the Tombs, and taking advantage of power to escape the chains of years, you are bound to that cause, knowingly or not, willingly or not.”

And he translated this into Iatric, Natural, Chimerical, Virginian, Anglatino, and Spanish.

But in Latin, he said another message entirely: “I need you to block and hold the albino when he comes in. Get the fat black Witch in the crazy blinky-eyed dunce-cap to help you.”

5. Commotion

There was a pall of whispering anger and fear that spread from group to group, age to age, as Menelaus repeated the words in one language, then another.

The Nymphs saw the looks of shock on the faces and muzzles of the Linderlings and Hormagaunts, and swayed to a graceful motionlessness, luminous eyes wide, not understanding what was said. Zouave shouted toward the throne, “We are his clients! I claim the protection of the sacred law of hospitality!”

Then the Nymphs heard the message in their tongue, and put their slender hands before their lovely mouths in shock, and hunched their creamy shoulders, putting their heads together in whispers. Thysa the Nymph put the back of her small wrist to her brow, head tilting back in a rustle of flower-crowned hair, as if about to swoon, and so well formed were the curves of her upraised arm and the figure of her pose, she might have been a statue. Two of the males began playing shrill flute-trills expressing anger. Aea the Nymph held up a rhododendron in protest, saying, “Our era was meant to escape the turmoil of evolution! Ours is a time of peace that halted the endless wars of Darwin! The Judge of Ages loves us! He cannot place us in the pan and balance our race against another!”

The Chimerae at stiff attention did not move or change expression, although their flinty, unblinking eyes beheld the fluttering agitation of the Nymphs; but the Kine sensed the fear in the room, and crouched down, whining and gritting their teeth. When the words were repeated in Chimerical, the Kine froze in place as in terror.

Daae, his eyes shining, shouted toward the throne, “The Chimerae are the superior peoples, and will gladly combat and slay whomever the Judge of Ages wishes to pit against us. He knows we have complete confidence in his ability to achieve his aims this day.”

When the message was repeated in Virginian, the crones grew pale and cowered, and turned and turned about, dragging the tips of their charming wands in figures of mystic circles on the floor about them for protection, but Fuamnach of Whalesong Coven dropped her wand on the ground in a sudden and loud clatter, and she sank down, sobbing.

Fatin the Maiden called out, “We do not recognize the right of Menelaus Montrose to sit in judgment over us!”

But Louhi said, “Anger him not! He is a god of the dead! We are buried alive in his dread kingdom!”

Menelaus spoke over the noise, speaking in Virginian, “The spirit of my dead mother appeared to me in a dream, saying, Work the purposes of the Judge of Ages, send the Warlock among you to these chamber doors, to propitiate the great god of thresholds, two-faced Janus!” And at this Mickey bowed to Fatin, and the fat man began to work his way through the crowd, somehow avoiding the gazes of the dogs.

Because of the noise of many voices in the chamber, the dog things laid their ears flat, and turned this way and that, fingering their weapons but hearing no orders, nervous due to the anger they could smell building in the room.

Even while Menelaus spoke, the last two prisoners were still being escorted into the chamber. The dogs escorting slowed down suddenly, wary because of the anger and fear smells, and the two figures continued forward. The Giant had not appeared, yet the echo of his footfalls could be heard from far off.

The Savant Ctesibius, regal as a king, his eyes leaden with grief, came forward, dressed in his robes of green and gold. His wig was as long and white as the one Scipio wore.

Rada Lwa the Scholar, with his pink eyes and bone-white face, walked in next to him, dressed in his black scholarly robes and square mortarboard, walking a little uncomfortably, as if chafed by the lack of his missing undergarment.

His eyes passed across Menelaus, and registered nothing.

6. Scholar and Savant

Rada Lwa and Ctesibius, having heard no announcement, and unaware of why everyone in the chamber was talking at once, were conversing in the modulator-demodulator language of the Savants.

While he was yet repeating his announcement in a few more languages (Anglatino, Merikan, and English), Menelaus, with another compartment of his mind, used his cortical echo technique to build up an auditory image of the environment, and he filtered out the excess noise. In this way, he was able to overhear when Rada Lwa emitted a high-density information squawk. “Menelaus Montrose, the fallen Hermeticist, his face perhaps altered by a biotechnological technique, is somewhere in this chamber, unseen, unrecognized. He has had the effrontery to order me not to reveal his identity. To whom in this chamber should I reveal it? What is the circumstance? Where is he?”

The Glorified Ctesibius regarded Rada Lwa with a look that might have been carved from the face of a mountain. Coldly, he replied in the same machine-code language: “The act, and therefore the thought that prompts it, is vain. The Hermetic Order achieved glorification while we slept, and have passed on to purely machine-based forms of life. Nothing in the macroscopic world, at our merely biochemical speeds of life, can possibly concern them. The asymptote occurred while we slumbered.”

“What? There must be some error—” sputtered Rada Lwa.

“No error. The Machine we serve has left us behind to die. Darwin has culled us; we are extinct. No act of ours has meaning; nothing changes that outcome.”

Rada Lwa could neither blush with anger nor go pale. “There is yet meaning in revenge.”

Ctesibius said, “You speak of the First Montrose? He attempted interference with my damaged soul’s desire to slay itself, a deep insult to the sacrament of euthanasia, so I bear him no love. You are perhaps shortsighted? He is on the dais before you.”

At this, Rada Lwa strode forward, and the dogs let him by.

Menelaus said loudly in Latin, “Behold the man. That is his pale ass.”

7. Knight and Witch

Sir Guiden, at this point, was standing at the door, guarded by five or six dog things, but Mickey the Witch was nearby, looking about in puzzlement. Sir Guy put an affectionate arm around the shoulders of Mickey the Witch. He said in German, “Fat Swarthy Man in crazy eyeball Dunce-Cap! Come you this way. More interesting scenery toward the front of the chamber, I’d like to show you. That man with corpse-white skin, let us him follow, yes?”

Mickey walked with him, smiling broadly, saying, in Virginian, “I don’t understand your gabble-gabble. You are an ugly ape, are you not? And such unpleasant body odor! You are up to something that will get us all killed, yes? Why is there a cross and an eagle tattooed across your nose? You are one of our hated enemies, a Christian, no? Christ?”