As the blade swept down, it resisted and wobbled, in the same way two magnets of the same pole will resist if pressed together; both the logic crystal of the blade and the logic crystals of the coat whined, and then a flash of light and a snap of electric power flashed between them.

The blade was shattered in three pieces, but the gems on the coat of Illiance cracked or went dark. Both men were equally surprised, but both were not equally slow to recover: Scipio stepped on the little man, and snatched up both of the white ceramic pistols from where they stuck out from his coat pockets.

Scipio flipped up the sights with his thumbs and, holding a weapon in either hand, pointed at Mentor Ull, shouting out a command in a language Ull did not recognize.

Yndech said in Intertextual, “Let us irradiate the false Judge of Ages with our pistols, and mourn the departure of Mentor Ull. The exchange will be economical.”

But Ydmoy said, “Uncouth! You reason like a Locust. Perhaps the false Judge can be deflected via negotiation to a nonviolent admixture of motives and results. Perhaps if the false Judge were willing to compromise, he would merely shoot Ull in some extremity and maim him.”

Yndelf said, thoughtfully, “I have noted an interesting anomaly to which some attention should be paid. Was not Relict Melechemoshemyazanagual Onmyoji de Concepcion subjected to nerve paralysis with the others? While we turned our gaze to the fascinating assault on Preceptor Illiance, the Warlock seems to have hidden himself.”

Ull spoke in Iatric, ignoring the guns pointed at his head, “Negotiations are in order. I will first release the Giant Bashan, in order that he may translate our words. I no longer trust the accuracy of the Chimera Anubis.”

Ull now turned and called to the far side of the chamber. “Relict Bashan! First, command the false Judge to disarm himself. Next, order the Warlock of Williamsburg to reveal himself from hiding. Third, to each man, in his own tongue, translate these words: ‘It is required that the identity of the Judge of Ages be revealed. It has been deduced that he is posing among you in disguise. Each group is enjoined to look at those among you, and to identify whose behavior is eccentric or untypical for your order of being.’”

With another flicker of gems, motion returned to the limbs of Bashan, who stretched, and then laughed such laughter as Giants use.

Bashan turned, and raised the huge staff on which he leaned, taller than a weaver’s beam, and threw it like a spear. It passed halfway down the chamber and struck and pierced the gold containment sphere of the atomic pile. In the distance, a bell began to ring shrilly.

And with that, Bashan said mockingly in Iatric, “Little grasshopper, did you not wonder why I paused to make mention of an ability to speak all the languages here, even though the only languages I had opportunity to overhear in the medical house were yours?”

All throughout the chamber, the men and women of various ages began to groan and stir.

Scipio, who did not speak Iatric, said, “Okay! Someone who talks English or Spanish has to tell me whether the Moon-man here released the paralysis because I said so, or whether something else is going on.”

Menelaus, who had been frozen inside his cloak, now straightened and stretched and said, “Something else. The radioactivity in the chamber is drowning out the radio signals the Blues are sending to mites in our nerve clusters to paralyze us. So we can move.”

“Radioactivity interferes with radio?” Scipio asked, blinking.

“Hence the name. I see you have the same level of scientific education as a Witch.”

“Is the radioactivity going to kill us? Or mutate us into spider creatures?”

“Or less than a Witch. The Chimerae should be okay, because they are bioengineered for high-roentgen environments. The rest of us—depends on how long we are exposed. We have enough working coffins to do some cellular correction to prevent cancers and other misgrowths. It is what they were designed for. But for now…”

“For now, I shoot this guy in the head?” Because Scipio was still standing (one foot on the back of Preceptor Illiance, who was looking remarkably unflustered) with the pistols pointed at the skull of Mentor Ull, who was looking remarkably dyspeptic.

Ull said to Menelaus in Iatric, “Tell this unnamed Relict of long-ago that his antique railgun pistol is of no advantage. My embellishments”—his gems lit up as he spoke—“organize the circumambient magnetic flux to my advantage.”

And an invisible force yanked the metal dowel running down the length of each translucent barrel straight up into the air, taking the pistols with it. Scipio held on to the grips and found himself dangling in midair; he let go as the pistols were flung upward. Both pistols hung in midair twenty feet or so above the floor, and then Mentor Ull flung them both all the way down the length of the great hall and up atop the balcony, where they rang with a noise like dropped China crockery.

Scipio, shaken but unhurt, landed on his feet not far from where Menelaus stood. Illiance, freed of Scipio’s weight, was helped to his feet by two or three dog things with drooping ears, who licked his face and fussed over him, passing snarling glances of hate toward Scipio.

Ull said in Iatric, “Anubis, we seek the Judge of Ages. We know he is among you. Tell the relicts that we will begin killing all within the chamber, starting with women and Giant and others we are confident are not he, until he reveals himself.”

Menelaus said, “Look up. I have one hundred guns armed with a mix of armor-piercing and scattershot rounds, with a few tracers to look pretty, aimed at all your heads. The floor is electrified; the fountain is poison. You are totally outgunned, surrounded, and locked in a radioactive room that is rapidly growing unhealthy for human life.”

Ull sneered, “Your control is illusionary, Chimera. We permitted those signals to pass in order to lure the Judge of Ages, through overconfidence, to reveal his location. You do not think we returned the equipment of the Linderlings to them unchanged and dangerous? The multivariable channel neuroemission node object 6AS-46A-W5-BB963”—Menelaus reached under his cloak, and tightened his hand on the gold capsule Keirthlin had given him—“was reprogrammed to impersonate all passthrough data without passing it through. The signals only appeared to pass. Do you think us fools?”

“Yes,” said Menelaus. “Well, not all of y’all. Mostly you.” And he stepped over to the throne, and put his hand on the armrest. As he had hoped, the upper surface was library cloth, and at touch-range, the radioactivity could not stop the transmission from his fingertips to the cloth surface.

Two of the guns overhead clicked with loud snaps, and nothing happened, and nothing fired.

Menelaus groaned. “Okay, I take back that fool comment. That was well played. Is Blackie helping you, Learned Ull? There is no way that trick would have worked if it was just you who reprogrammed the node. What happened to Reyes y Pastor? Why did you take his seat at the Table Round?”

Soorm spoke in Iatric, “That answer I know!”

The words were spoken so loudly, and with such authority, that even Ull looked amazed, and stared at the monstrosity, half bear and half sea lion, that stood in the waters of the fountain, two mismatched eyes goggling, two tongues lolling, the claws on his webbed hands sheathing and unsheathing like those of a twitching lion.

Soorm said, “The Red Hermeticist realized that the era he ruled, all his dreams for how humanity should evolve, we beloved Hormagaunts, and everything else for which he lived, was a falsehood. Over a thousand years of events were organized merely to allow for one raid on Yap Island—the Cetaceans reverse engineered the genework on the Clades to deduce the mathematical Divarication solution Menelaus Montrose used to solve for complex mutually incompatible system interaction. It was from the Clade Codes that the Unity Divarication was devised, to drive the lines of Hormagaunt artificial species into oneness, and produce first the Locusts, and, later, the Locust hive mind.