Strength of Stones (26 page)

Kahn spotted the triplet spires in the sunset. The aircraft began its descent. At five thousand meters, rough air shook it. Stabilizers took hold and their course smoothed. Thule grew on the darkening land, glittering in the pale yellow glow like a palace made of glass and ice.

Thule had been ruled by Jemmu Yoshimura, president of the Asian Jews, a tough little rabbi with scarcely any Japanese blood, but descended from a famous family. Except for the spires, Thule hadn't changed much and was apparently still alive. Its twelve outer towers flashed with the changing angles of their approach. The central temple -- part of which supported the easternmost spire -- was as intricate and fascinating as when Kahn had finished it, a cold radiolarian sculpted in city parts.

The sunset reflected from it bathed his face and the cabin. A flat plain of snow surrounded the city, laced with roads leading to a harbor which no longer existed. Outlying areas of the city had stopped functioning, obviously, but for a kilometer around the snow was a thin layer of white and not a thick blanket; Thule's environmental envelope still tempered the cold and storms.

The craft banked and Kahn looked down from an altitude of three thousand meters.

The snow and ice were covered with black specks.

"Entering city environment," the craft said softly.

"Double back and take us lower, slower," Kahn ordered.

They flew in a broad, unhurried circle over the snow within Thule's environment.

The specks were bodies. Some were mimics contorted and in pieces, surrounded by sprays of city part fluid. The battle-field -- for so it seemed -- stretched right up to the now-familiar circle of silicate spines. Under the envelope, the bodies lay where they had fallen, frozen but kept free of covering snow.

"Transmit my voice," Kahn said. "I am the builder..." He repeated the phrase twice.

Then a voice replied from the city, low-pitched and almost musical, seductively pleasant. "Welcome, Pontifex."

Kahn raised an eyebrow. "I am not the pope," he said. "Respond in an appropriate manner."

"You are a builder of bridges, so you are Pontifex. You are also Archon," Thule's voice said.

Kahn leaned back and looked at his passengers. "What the hell is it talking about? Jeshua, you seem to be up on such things..."

"Pontifex means bridge-builder, I believe. Archon is a kind of demiurge."

"Oh? And what is a demiurge?"

"The creator of the shadow world, standing between true Godhead and humanity."

"I see." Ghostic doctrine, he thought. He didn't relish facing a city so full of strange conceits.

The aircraft slowed even more, spilling its air with a faint hiss, and drifted onto a glittering, sky-blue landing deck. Broad light-absorbing banners hung limp from stanchions at one end of the field. They fluttered briefly with the wash from the craft's passage.

The door opened. The air was not as cold as Arthur expected, but it was cold enough. Kahn walked past them and stood in the doorway. If it was possible for a simulacrum to have premonitions, he was having one now, and it told him to leave, to put as many kilometers between them and Thule as he could.

He stepped down the ramp. The air was perfectly still under the city's weather umbrella, silent.

The platform was deserted.

"Warm the air, please," Kahn said, his voice echoing from the distant walls. In a few seconds, the air became more comfortable. "Something's responding," he said to the others.

"You are the builder," Jeshua said. "Shouldn't the city obey your orders?"

"Resurrection did," Kahn admitted.

"Is Thule any different?" Arthur asked. "Yes," Kahn said. "We'll have to be careful."

Thinner nodded, looking around with a watchful but calm expression.

From across the plaza, they heard a sound like wind whistling through a narrow opening. Then a light appeared, resolving as it approached into a framework pyramid made of bars of crystal. Within the framework was a smaller, solid pyramid, seemingly made from gold, but giving off a warm light. Kahn didn't recognize it -- no city part had had such a design in his plans, even in Thule. It was possible Pearson had added such parts later.

The inner pyramid reversed itself in the frame, and the same rich voice came out of it. "Welcome, Builder. Thule has awaited your return. Your companions are also welcome."

"What agency do you represent?" Kahn asked. "I am the religious coordinator."

"May I address the architect?"

"The agency left in your place is no longer functioning," the pyramid said.

"Who built you?"

"I am from the reign of Pearson."

"Do you know what I'm doing here?" Kahn asked.

"You are here to attend the Bifrost."

"And who am I?"

"You are an image of the Archon, Kahn."

"Where is Kahn?"

"Standing before me."

"And the original?"

"Transformed."

Kahn stood silent for a moment, wondering how he should approach the situation. "Where is the Bifrost?"

"In the central amphitheater."

"Is it still functioning?"

"It is intact, but only you can make it function."

"I see." He didn't, however. He was more confused than ever. "Please take us there."

"Certainly." The pyramid floated slowly over the platform. "If you will follow..."

They walked across the plaza, under the pale blue-green arches and down a corridor whose walls and ceiling seemed made of ice crystals woven in geometric patterns. They came to the promenade surrounding a heatshaft and the pyramid halted.

"This will be your transportation to the lower regions," it said. The heat shaft vehicle resembled a giant snowflake, glittering in the cold white light reflected from the vent a hundred meters above.

"When we arrive," Kahn said, "I would like to have four terminals waiting, and open access to the ComNet."

"All things can be arranged," the pyramid said in a pleasant tone.

Matthew stood on the snow-covered plain north of Thule. His aircraft and four pipe-joint city parts waited behind him, one part clutching a portable environment pack. He walked to the edge of a cluster of stiff, rime-covered bodies and looked down on them, frowning slightly,

Every other city had allowed his city parts to enter ... Thule had rejected them. With one hand, he brushed away the frost, then backed up quickly. The body was human, skin desiccated but intact, lips drawn back in a mocking sneer. Resurrection's mimics were mingled with the centuries-old bodies of Thule's inhabitants. He bent down over the corpse, gingerly pulled back a stiff white coat -- they had all worn clothes much too thin to keep them alive, even in the comparatively mild city environment zone -- and saw a silver star of David on a lapel.

Matthew wandered from body to body, examining humans, mimics, city parts. The mimics and city parts were all badly mangled, pierced by shards of crystal. When he had sent Resurrection's mimics out of the city, through tunnels dug beneath the river plain, he had expected few difficulties. But even when Eulalia and Throne had let his mimics inside, they had resisted his attempts to dismantle the Bifrosts. They had resisted Kahn, and they had resisted him. He had had to destroy Eulalia, finally, but Throne had come to the river plain, as if attracted by Resurrection's healthy example, and with his overwhelming army of city parts he had killed the city from inside, dismantled it, carried it underground. He had used the materials to build the army of city parts and mimics which he sent to Thule.

Thule had never even let them inside. When they had tried to break through the city's barriers, the battle had been incredibly short. The few that had survived returned with stories of legions of parts designed specifically to destroy.

With its Byzantine city mind, it could do almost anything. It had let Kahn in -- the original Kahn -- and then somehow thwarted him. And now it had swallowed the simulacrum.

But Matthew couldn't afford to trust Thule to be as efficient this time. He didn't like to think of what he would have to do if the simulacrum succeeded -- he hadn't enjoyed destroying Eulalia. There were few enough cities left as it was, and perhaps in time he could think of a use for Thule.

He walked back to the aircraft and sat on the door ramp. "Come here." He motioned to the nearest city part. It approached. "Bring down the flier, just in case."

Another ramp opened in the side of the craft and a bee-shaped flier floated out. It had been modified slightly; now a black cylinder stood upright in the middle of the passenger section. On top of the cylinder was a silvery cube with three delicate antennae, measuring about ten centimeters on a side. By Kahn's technological standards, no doubt it was very crude, but Matthew had long since abandoned self-conscious comparisons. He was the son of a peasant; the best he could hope for was that his methods be effective, not elegant.

Either way, Kahn would not drain his planet of people. There was nothing out there for them to go to, nothing they would understand. God-Does-Battle was their home, for better or worse, so God had decreed ages ago. And Matthew would do anything to carry out God's will.

A crystal framework pyramid -- the same or different was hard to tell -- met them at the bottom of the shaft. "Pontifex, the Bifrost is in an amphitheater on his level. We have also arranged for terminals in an adjacent library to have ComNet access. But we expect you would liked to see the Bifrost first."

Kahn agreed, and the pyramid led them into the amphitheater. It had been designed to hold sixty thousand citizens, but the circular stage set up in the middle of the grass-covered field played to empty seats.

They walked across the well-kept, lustrous green grass. The stage was not made of city parts; for that reason, Kahn suspected it had been constructed later, perhaps nine hundred years ago. Their angle of approach -- from the rear -- didn't give them a good view of the Bifrost, if indeed it was located on the stage. Two white, wing-shaped arches stood in their line of sight. He wondered how it was all connected with the spires. Perhaps there were no physical connections -- and at any rate, how could he even speculate?

It seemed that the original Kahn's planning had included psychology. The stage was very like an evangelist's proscenium, decorated in rather angelic fashion.

They rounded the stage.

Between the arches rose a rectangular space of such intense blackness that it looked like a hole. Around the base of the stage was a half-circle of steps. Everything had been arranged so that hundreds of thousands of people could enter each hour, walk up the steps -- and, Kahn presumed, into the blackness.

From this perspective, it looked very much like an advanced matter transmission system.

"Is that the Bifrost?" Arthur asked.

"I'm not sure."

"That is the Bifrost," the pyramid said warmly.

"Is it operating?" Kahn asked.

"This unit does not know. The Bifrost has been in this mode ever since the transformation of the primal Archon."

"It's never been tested?"

"No."

"Where are the terminals?"

"This way." The pyramid moved toward an aisle and Kahn followed. Jeshua and Arthur were close behind, but Thinner held back, staring at the black rectangle.

"Were many records left by ... the Archon?" Kahn asked, deciding the simplest expression of a confused situation would have to do.

"There are records," the pyramid said.

"Don't you know what the Bifrost is? Not even now?" Arthur asked.

"I'm not the same Kahn who built it. Why should I know? He had four hundred years on me." At the end of the aisle, they passed through a broad gate. Thinner followed several dozen meters behind, feeling the walls with his hands, stopping occasionally to stroke a pillar or buttress.

The terminals were in an antechamber. The walls had been festooned with multi-colored crystal flowers, intricate circular designs with mystical symbols etched in glass and city material. The result was eye-spinning and garish, not at all like the original Thule.

Kahn pulled a chair out from one terminal and sat. "Feel free to use the others," he said to Arthur and Jeshua. Jeshua followed suit, but Arthur remained standing.

Kahn spread his hands over the dimples in front of his terminal screen. "Records of Robert Kahn, please."

A homunculus formed on the plate. It was a black and yellow locust standing on its hind legs, wearing a formal black suit and round black cap. "Those records are separate from the city ComNet," it said. It cocked its head at him inquiringly. "Any questions I may answer?"

He wanted to ask if the original Kahn was still alive, but the words stuck in his throat. "Where are those records kept?"

"In the Archon's chambers."

"Where are the chambers?"

"I will find out. Do you have any other questions?" The homunculus should have known immediately. Either Thule was not completely integrated or it was hiding things. And he was worried by other aspects of the homunculus -- its use of a personal pronoun, its peculiar form and animation, quite unlike the service figures in other cities. What it represented in Thule's scheme of things, he couldn't tell.

"I need a record of solar flux in the last five, six hundred years."

"I believe the Pontifex has notes on that subject, but there are no records in the ComNet." The homunculus' tone of voice was faintly taunting now.

"Are there any city records?"

"No."

"What does the ComNet..." Kahn took a deep breath and bent closer to the little figure. "Then I'd like city history, starting with the return of the original Kahn."

"Coming up."

Kahn and Jeshua fit their fingers into the cups and stared into the projectors. Arthur leaned against a pillar, tapping one foot nervously. He looked around for Thinner. The mimic hadn't followed them into the antechamber.

Arthur walked to the door, then down a short corridor. Thinner wasn't in the amphitheater, and he wasn't in the corridor. Arthur returned to the antechamber, saw that Jeshua and Kahn were absorbed in whatever the terminals were showing them, then went in search of Thinner.