Yndech said, “I think I have deduced the rudiments of the expressive and posture-related nonverbal cues of these antique pre-Locust creatures. I interpret this to be a gesture of disrespect.”

“The relict seems to be of normal human biology and neural pattern,” said Ydmoy in a contemplative tone. “How was he not affected by the paralytic mites?”

Mickey could not understand the language, but he laughed nonetheless, and said something in Virginian. “Do you think I am fool enough to eat fairy food? Mortals never return from the Land Beyond once they taste of those unearthly viands! No, I merely rubbed the beans and rice you offered on my teeth, and spit all out after. You think I cannot fast for a week with all this stored blubber? Ah! But watch this trick I learned from Brother Hare!”

And he flinched in terror at the sight of the Clade-dwellers at two opposite sides of the chamber succumbing to black gas, and he began backing away.

Ydmoy said to Yndech, “It would be enlightening if you would again share your knowledge of the gesture significations of the pre-Locust relict.”

Yndech exclaimed, “Aha! Again I can interpret the nonverbal signs! The Relict Melechemoshemyazanagual Onmyoji de Concepcion is frightened of the pacification gas! Notice how he moves away from it, and at the same time opens wide his mouth and both eyes, crossing his forearms before his face. He bangs his knees together. The gesture is unambiguous!”

Ydmoy nodded gravely. “Impressive! You command an adroit body of learning.”

But Yndelf said, “Inconclusive. Possibility exists that he gesticulates in such a fashion for some other purpose.”

Ydmoy said, “Small possibility! Let us test!” and he signaled for the nearest automaton to throw a canister at Mickey. The nearest dog thing, seeing the automaton throw, dropped its musket, went to all fours, and sprinted away.

The canister landed and the cloud spread, and now Mickey merely laughed, shouting in his own language, “I ingest larger doses of the holy drug than this for recreation, or to clear my sinuses! Your magic is weaker than mine, Blue Men!”

“The Followers cannot enter the gas cloud,” said Yndelf thoughtfully. “And the cloud interferes with the penetration power of our laser-based handweapons.”

Ydmoy, nodding, commanded two of the automata forth. The metal figures, in perfect lockstep, clanked into the cloud, striding with menacing purpose.

All three Blue Men flinched at the deafening noise of metal breaking, and stared when one of the automata came hopping backward on one leg, its hip motors whirling the shattered struts of its other leg. In the same moment, the sky-blue coffin came roaring out of the cloud, machine guns blazing, and ran over the wounded automaton. Such was the speed and the forward momentum of the coffin that it struck the falling automaton as if striking a ramp, and sailed wildly into the air, shooting vents of jellied gasoline left and right, while the loudspeakers amplified the yodels and whoops of Mickey the Witch.

The three Blue Men commanded dogs and automata against the raging coffin, and retreated across the chamber toward the statue of Father Time, at whose feet the deadliest fight in the chamber was even then waxing hot.

The ceiling guns and wall cannons twitched, but did not open fire on a coffin their records showed was rightfully stored in the chamber, and authorized to use deadly force against intruders. Unimpeded, chanting his battle-spells through the coffin loudspeakers, the Warlock of Williamsburg drove his enemies before him, moving toward the central fountain.

Mickey was certain the magic was strong within him that hour.

6. Nymphs

When the Nymphs were first overcome by the cloud, Oenoe, and Aea and Thysa, seeing that it was a suppressant of the higher brain functions only, put themselves into a hypnogogic state, akin to that of a sleepwalker, and activated similar neural complexes woven for generations into the cortexes of their people. Walking as if in a dream, and playing their musical instruments slowly, the unconscious and semiunconscious Nymphs rose and walked in procession up the curving stairway behind the statue of Michael the Archangel.

Only Omester the Satyr was from so early a period in history that he had no such control complex in his hindbrain, and so Sir Guiden had to fling him over his shoulders fireman-style, and lead the way upstairs to the balcony.

They all emerged from the black cloud. The gas was heavier than air, so it sank rather than rose.

Oenoe, Aea, and Thysa soon formulated a philter from their mantillas to counteract the effect. Sir Guiden charged Oenoe strictly to stay here out of the line of fire, and she bowed her head in obedience to him. “We are not a warlike people, my lord husband,” she said, smiling.

And so she and her maidens commanded the unconscious ones around them play music on their pipes and harps, with sleeping lips and fingers, and she waited for them to wake.

The mantillas the Nymph ladies wore spread and flapped in time with the music, and they were spreading a cloud of perfume to lull and bedevil any dog things venturing toward that quarter of the chamber.

Thysa wandered away down the balcony, until she was directly over the alcove holding the Witchfolk. Smiling and looking down from above, she applauded their brave deeds, and threw flowers at the feet of any fighter she thought needed a moment of berserk rage to aid him in his struggle: the flowers released spores to trigger battle-frenzy.

7. Witches

There was a safety feature built into the storage vats for the dangerous medical nanomaterial fluids stored in the throne room. It was a technology from some era neither the Blues nor the Witches knew: a curtain of what could be called smart-gas, a vapor whose electrical and tangible properties could be altered upon signal, was stretched across the alcove mouth. The Witches stepped through it, baffled by the sensation as if pushing through an invisible and almost impalpable beaded curtain—but there were more desperate things to attend to, and they were willing to believe it was supernatural, perhaps benevolent, and therefore the crones promised sacrifices to the spirits of this place, the Genius Loci, asking for protection, and used secret names to threaten, bind, and command.

And then the dogs were upon them.

Twenty-four dogs were in a line before an alcove in which thirty Witches were crammed, hiding, if at all, behind suits of armor from the First Dark Ages. This was not the carbon nanotube–reinforced titanium-steel ceramic of Maltese Powered Armor. These were pieces of handmade iron, or steel forged before Bessemer invented his process.

The line of dog things was simply a firing squad. When the fighting erupted around them, and the ceiling guns destroyed those in this dog squad who had dared open fire on Bashan, the order to hold fire rang through the chamber. The Witches cheered, and mocked the dogs in a language they did not speak, and an overly excited Doberman Pinscher ordered the charge.

Bayonets ready, the dogs rushed in at top speed. The prayers to the Genius Loci were seemingly answered, because the purpose of the curtain of smart vapor was to prevent fast-moving objects from hitting the storage tanks. The air around the dogs thickened, and slowed their movements, as countless threads of invisibly fine long-chain macromolecules, diamond threads finer than spider silk and of the same index of refractivity as the air, attracted a suddenly dense substance around them by means of van der Waals forces.

The dogs could press through, of course. The curtain was not armor, after all, merely padding to prevent bumps. But the second line trampled the first when the first slowed for no visible reason.