Menelaus frowned down at him. “Are you expecting to recognize him based on what someone says he looks like when you are cracking open Tombs? What makes you think this Mount Woes is at this site?”

Illiance said, “We believe there are eighty-nine sites worldwide. An examination of the defenses and architecture, taken in context with the surrounding data, allows us to deduce the pattern of goals of the Tomb Architects. Mentor Ull has run a calculation assuming there is but one master Architect, the Judge of Ages. From this model, we can deduce his means and methods, create a model of his general intellectual and emotive environment, organize all the data into personality modes and neurolinguistic speech-act sets, and use a negative information contrivance to deduce retroactively his behavioral strategies and inflexibilities, extrapolating forward again to his current reality, which will include his physical location.”

“Unless he decided to stop somewhere for a cup of coffee, or to take a bath.”

“While it is true that a sufficiently complete model will also make allowances for fuzzy logic semivariables, such as spontaneous impulses, it was thought best to obtain a physical description of his person, should he be standing among us even now.”

“That is a creepy thought. If he is standing among us, have you made out your last will and testament?”

“The question is fascinating on several levels, for it presupposes a moral obligation among survivors to follow the anachronistic wishes of a person who, being dead on a neural hence also linguistic level, can neither be informed nor express pleasure nor displeasure touching how and whether those wishes are carried out: it also presupposes individual determination of property, which is an awkward concept, even antisocial. And yet this fascinating discussion, being not of the highest priority, is best regarded as a future event, or a subjunctive one.”

“I am not sure what you said.”

“My will is to discover the Judge of Ages. Please obtain a description.”

Menelaus spoke into the microphone in Spanish. He listened carefully for a moment.

The voice in Spanish said to Menelaus, “Of course I know him. I stood within arm’s reach of him, and the fame of my bloodline comes from him! He is a gaunt and ungainly like a puppet made of sticks. His hair is red, his eyes pale blue, his face is all bone, his chin sticks out, and his nose is like a great hook used to open a crate. There are scars on his hands, and his right arm is bigger than his left. He is the ugliest man alive.”

Menelaus nodded, and turned, and said in High Iatric to Illiance, “The Scholar Rada Lwa says the Judge is el mulato, a swarthy man, not too tall, with some gray hair above his ears. He is silent and grim, but very handsome. He wears robes the color of blood, and artificial hair to his shoulder, much like the hair the Scholars are wont to wear. No man can look in his eyes: and an aura of majesty and terror surrounds him. He carries a brace of pistols, and many knives hidden on his person, and a metal whip hidden in his sash.”

Illiance briefly lost his normally serene expression. “This is a statistically unlikely development! There is little chance that two men from two different millennia coordinated a deceptive story. The description matches with an usual degree of correlation the elements revealed by Kine Larz! Ask him if the Judge of Ages has small hands—that is an element Kine Larz mentioned.”

Menelaus again spoke the fluid language into the microphone, saying, “I am Menelaus Montrose now before you. My hands are on the controls of the coffin you are in. If you betray me, or tell any living soul who I am, I will release chemicals to castrate and lobotomize you, leaving you with just enough intelligence that you will forever remember how smart you once were and what purpose your limp and withered manhood once served. Are you going to do what Grampa says? I have readouts of your neural activity and blood pressure and galvanic skin response, so if you lie, it will be your last clear thought.”

The voice spoke in a cold and defiant tone. “First Ancestor, if you would deter falsehoods, you mutinous traitor, choke on your own! You are honor-bound never to harm one who falls into your coffins. I cannot and shall not be deterred! Once you shamed me—across the aeons I have waited, and will spend my life gladly, exactly, merely for the opportunity to do you hurt, howsoever small!”

Menelaus nodded sagely and turned to Illiance, saying, “He says he has hands like a surgeon, with fine and tapering fingers.”

Illiance was so pleased that he actually hopped like a little boy and clapped his hands. It was a somehow disquieting sight. “Mentor Ull will no doubt be pleased with this clear and definitive information! The testimony of Kine Larz is substantiated to a degree that no further need remains to delay an attempt on the Tomb doors.”

But Aanwen said in Intertextual, “A cautious reconsideration may at this point be strongly advisable, Invigilator Illiance. While the relict word-forms are unknown, a mathematical analysis of the syllable number and pitch and other nonverbal channels of information indicate Rada Lwa’s message-volume cannot map onto the volume uttered by the man pretending to be a Chimera. Also voice rhythm and intensity are disproportionate for the subject matter: this was a signifier of emotional distress inappropriate to a discussion of the size of someone’s hands. A deceptive mistranslation is the likeliest explanation.”

Illiance turned toward Menelaus and said in Iatric, “What else did Scholar Rada Lwa happen to say?”

Menelaus said, “He is complaining of pain as the thaw process nears completion, and requests a dose of morphine or some other heavy sedative. I think he is a little upset because of the pain that is creeping up on him. You and me had a deal, Illiance! Tell the Widow Aanwen, please, to anesthetize the patient. I am not going to question a man in pain.”

Aanwen said in Intertextual, “There happen to be none of the neurological or endocrinal signs displayed on my medical feeds consistent with the relict experiencing pain. Again, a deception is being practiced.”

At that moment, the voice from the coffin began speaking in loud, harsh, wrathful tones.

Illiance said, “What does he say?”

With a jerk of his arm, Menelaus yanked the microphone out of its jack. Silence fell. Menelaus said, “He is excitable, because he thinks I am torturing him. He does not realize I am a fellow prisoner, and so he evinces undue hostility.”

Illiance said, “If so, why did you disconnect the voice channel so suddenly?”

“Ah! As a Chimera, am honor-bound to avenge any threats uttered against me in a fashion of horrific violence. But if I beat up a pasty-ass albino bookworm in a coffin, weak from torture, all the cool Chimerae will laugh at me. So I had to make sure I did not hear anything he was about to say.”

Illiance turned and looked up, regarding Menelaus with a composed, calm, yet thoughtful expression. Menelaus tried not very successfully to arrange an innocent look on his lank features. Neither man spoke.

2. A Sport

Eventually, Illiance broke the silence. “Would you regard us as friends?”

Menelaus shrugged, a gesture that made his robes clatter. “‘Sokay with me if ’sokay with you.”

Illiance blinked. “Cogent meaning fails to be conveyed, perhaps due to dialect or idiosyncrasy of speech. I will ask again. Do you aver the mutual moral obligations that surround friendship to obtain between us, Lance-Corporal Beta Sterling Anubis?”

“And I am a Corporal Anubis now. I was promoted.”

“Congratulations.”

“And I can extend what you call a mutual moral obligation only to some degree to a man holding me prisoner. But that is not what friendship is. Friendship is liking someone, sticking by him, come hellfire or plague. And I like you. Sort of. What brought this question on?”