Without turning his head, Menelaus slid his eyes left and right, counting the armed dog things that walked before and behind. They seemed quite alert, almost nervous. Menelaus realized that the dog things were picking up small clues of nerves in their masters, clues to which he was blind. Interesting.

Menelaus wondered what the dogs would do if he merely reached out and twisted Ull’s nose hard enough to break the cartilage. Would they be restrained from killing him during the beating that would follow, because the Blue Men might need his skill as a translator? The three questions were whether Ull could stop the dogs, and whether Ull could stop the impulse to retaliation, or would care to.

Menelaus thought it best not to experiment. Perhaps merely biting off an ear would prove more productive.

Ull was saying, “I speak in the subjunctive, as no determination has yet been made. The degree to which your own capering and floundering in your attempts to outwit us provokes distortions in the smooth unfolding of events will bear on the question.”

Menelaus thought it better not to answer, but he pulled his hood closer around his face.

3. The Fixer

Mentor Ull and the sixteen dog things brought Menelaus Montrose into a chamber of the nautilus-shell building higher, taller, and smaller than the chambers he had previously seen. The bioluminescent lichen on the coral walls was thicker here than in the corridors, so the room was filled with a bluish white light that robbed objects of shadow and hue.

It was also too crowded. Ull and Illiance and three additional Blue Men stood with their bald heads brushing the elbows of the dozen or more dogs.

The three newcomers were identical triplets, distinguished only by the patterns on their long coats. Menelaus knew their names: Preceptors Yndelf, Yndech, and Ydmoy.

These three and all the dogs, however, soon stepped onto round coral white disks or shelves that hung from the ceiling on long curving arms, and without sound, the arms flexed and the disks rose to various heights overhead. This alleviated the crowding, but now the chamber looked like some life-sized version of a game of three-dimensional chess.

The large wooden chair that Soorm had used three days previous was here, and a man of normal size lounged in it as if it were a couch, with one leg thrown casually over the massive chair arm, and his spine against the other arm. He could not lean against the back, lest he fall through the hole that had been cut in the seat for the tail of Soorm.

He was a round-faced man with hair as blond as a Dane, skin as dark as a Dravidian, and the almond eyes of the Far East. His neck was unusually long and thin, so his head looked frail and side-cocked. One eyebrow was higher than the other, and his mouth seemed tilted offcenter, giving him a wry, cynical, quizzical expression, as if he were puzzled by the world, amused by it, but resigned. His shoulders were thin and hunched, and his limbs splayed and lanky. He wore the coveralls issued by the Blue Men and had a silvery bowl of their warm rice wine in his hand.

Several slender jars of rice wine stood on a small table at his elbow, and the table was held, like a waiter offering a tray, by a long metallic curve dangling from the ceiling. Another table above this held a fork of smoldering incense. A third table near his wagging foot held small bowls of spiced meat slivers or nuts and tidbits coated in salt, or little twigs of mint to sweeten the breath.

Ull and Illiance, as before, merely sat as his feet, their feet crossed, their spines straight, sitting oddly too close to their prisoner.

When Menelaus, apparently a Beta-rank Chimera named Sterling Anubis, walked into view, his metallic robes slithering, the man’s face contorted with fear like a washcloth being wrung, and the mocking ease of his eyes went dead as stones.

“As you were,” said Menelaus with a nod, speaking in Chimerical. “There is no discipline here. That is long past.”

Without waiting for a response, Menelaus tilted his eyes down toward Illiance. The little Blue Man’s long coat had additional patterns of small stones added to it, tiny mirrors and studs, and even a few ribbons dangling from the hem.

“Nice duds, Preceptor Illiance,” said Menelaus to the little Blue Man in Iatric.

Illiance smiled serenely. “I am now Invigilator Illiance. My preceptorship is an abeyance while the others contemplate my nature.”

Menelaus said, “So when you got demoted, the uniform for lower rank is to wear fancier gewgaws on your clothes? That is the penalty for crying?”

Illiance said, “There are no ranks in our order. We are Simple Men. The others of my circle dress and groom me, so that there is no opportunity for vanity. They are, of course, permitted to express their opinions and conclusions about my conduct when selecting my outward ornament. It is an opportunity for self-denial and self-indifference on my part.”

“What happens if they judge you too harshly? You get to pin a shiny button on them?”

Illiance did not answer in words, but reached over to Ull, pried a stone out of the other man’s long coat, and threw it, tinkling, to the opalescent floor.

The man in the chair now had both feet on the floor and both hands gripping the seat bottom to either side of his knees. His spine was not straight, and his nose was turned away from Menelaus, even though his eyes watched him unblinkingly. He looked like he wanted to speak.

Menelaus put his hands behind his back. He spoke again in Iatric to the Blue Men. “Let’s get started. What do you want me to ask him?”

Ull said, “This relict is either a last-generation Chimera or first-generation Natural. He carries only a narrow range of chemical and neurochemical modifications, his body contains many very regular forms of molecular action and decay, giving us a finer estimate than the carbon-14 method. He comes from the sixtieth century of the Gregorian calendar, which would be the forty-second century by your reckoning. The strata record shows what we call the Chimerical Implosion, when the number of Tombs built and maintained dropped dramatically from the highest point—which was during the Time of the Witches—and did not rise again until the Festive Consolation Period of the Nymphs. There is one spike in the slumbering population. During this, the 5900s, the number of Chimerae who interred themselves or were interred showed an amazing increase, rising in places to as much as twenty percent of the population. He comes from the period. Ask him to account for it.”

Menelaus shook his head, and sighed, and translated the question.

The gold-haired dark-skinned man looked tense, then confused, but then, as sinuously as a Nymph, he lounged back in the overlarge chair, laughed, and picked up his bowl of wine, which he tossed to the back of his throat with a supple, practiced motion.

“Sure, I can tell ya. ’Zat all the dwarfs be wanting to know? They got questions, I got answers. Come to the right man. I’ll tell ya right and steer ya right, and do right by you. My rates are reasonable, and my price is always right!”

One of the triplets standing overhead on a narrow circle in midair said in the High Iatric language in a toneless, nasal voice, “Chimera Relict Anubis! What is he saying? The communication register on a nonverbal level issues variable signification!”

Menelaus turned and tilted back his head, “He has not answered as yet, Preceptor Ydmoy. The verbiage so far has been reassurances of his honesty, expressions of friendship, and advertisements for his services.”

Another of the triplets, from even higher near the ceiling, leaned and called, “Does this proffer of service happen to be altruistic or commercial?”

“Commercial, Preceptor Yndelf. He has not finished his sales pitch yet, Preceptors, so I cannot identify what he is offering.”