The Crystal Empire (51 page)

From horizon to horizon, north to south, east to west, edifices, no two of which appeared to be of the same size, shape, or color, crowded one another, heaped themselves toward the underbelly of the airship and t
o
ward the sky above that.

Among them, not a single acre of bare ground was to be seen. What greenery there was—and there was greenery aplenty: tall grass, palm trees, thick-woven decorative hedges, ornamental shrubbery—carpeted the roo
f
tops of the buildings. Ayesha thought she caught a glimpse of an orange-orchard before the ship passed over it, sweeping the rooftops with a sh
a
dowy footprint even longer than itself.

The city teemed with people, too far away to be discerned in any great detail, looking to the girl much like a vast army of insects milling about in a gigantic hive, crowding one another, surging, going about their everyday incomprehensible, insectile business.

Nor did there seem to be any coherent system of avenues or alle
y
ways. Buildings merged into one another, a squarish tapering monument beco
m
ing a rounded dome, a lacy minaret melting at its base into acres of flat, glass-covered structures. Streets—none of them straight for more than a few dozen paces—flowed over these as often as around, som
e
times duc
k
ing beneath them, occasionally appearing and disappearing in a manner which made no sense to her eyes.

All such features ended, however, at the water’s edge where they, and the course of the giant airship, intersected yet another shoreline, that of the largest bay of all.

Across the water—dark gray, whitecap-topped, and cold-looking—she could just make out a cliff-gapping harbor-entrance, night-lights a
l
ready blinking upon opposite promontories (or perhaps they were left lit all of the time), and beyond, the razor-straight blue-under-blue line of the wes
t
ern ocean’s horizon.

To the northwest and southeast, the great bay stretched away into the dusky infinity of the coming night.

Between the structure-crowded shoreline they now crossed and the mountain-flanked harbor-mouth, four small islands lay within the bay, all near its entrance from the sea. Three of these, in particular the northmost, sheltered by twin peninsulas, were built over as densely as the endless city which surrounded the bay they lay within.

Directly to the south, nearest the harbor-mouth, a barren, rocky islet raised itself from the water, forming the foundation for a mighty tower, the tallest building Ayesha had ever seen, taller than she had thought a building could be, featureless and gray.

Owald pointed a finger at the tower.

“There’s the Spire of Dreamers, and—”

The southmost island, somewhat to the west of the tower-isle, like the northmost, presented a disorganized jumble to the eye.

“The Palace of the Sun Incarnate, residence of Zhu Yuan-Coyotl,” Owald shouted with hoarse excitement, “the seat of government for the Empire of Han-Meshika!”

The fourth, and second-largest, island possessed an edifice which glowed softly as the last rays of the sun shone through it. The airship made directly for it. Beneath them lay what appeared to be a mountain of ice, a solitary pyramidal glacier standing in the midst of a bay which was itself a veritable inland sea.

Ayesha gasped in half-recognition, the uneasy feeling she had seen this place before.

Unlike the moldering Egyptian pyramids she had visited as a girl, this monumental object was table-flat at the summit, entirely constructed of the purest of transparent crystal, each man-height block crafted into an eye-disturbing, irregular shape, mirrored within its depths where it met, in a flawless seam, with neighboring blocks.

“One thousand seven hundred sixty paces!” Owald shouted, the wind of the great ship’s passage slapping at his cheeks. He pointed a finger, swinging it horizontally.

Thinking she had failed to understand what Owald said, Fireclaw translated for him.

“Deep paces,” Owald added, “those of a big man! From base to top, a diagonal span of eleven hundred seventy-four paces, it’s the height of four hundred fifteen men. Tall men. If you could walk it—or wanted to—there are twenty-five hundred steps!”

At the flattened summit, there was what appeared to be an elaborate temple, open to sky, its floor consisting of what looked to the girl like a giant pool.

It was not its color alone—a deep and brooding red—which spoiled this illusion. Because she knew, despite appearances, that the pyramid was not made of ice, she reasoned that this “pool,” in reality, was as so
l
id and glassy as the rest of the gigantic edifice.

It was even more transparent.

As it fooled the eye, it terrified the mind. Its depths seemed to exceed even the great height of the pyramid, to plunge downward to the very ce
n
ter of the earth itself.

“It must have taken centuries to erect!” commented the Princess, d
e
voting only half an ear to what the man was saying. Stunned by all she had thus far seen, she was beginning to believe that, setting her irrational fears aside, the fate her father had wished upon her was not quite the end of the world she had imagined it to be.

This was, indeed, a mighty civilization.

Hovering above the glassy mountain, they spied another airship, not unlike the one which carried them. From beneath its hull there was su
s
pended a gigantic disk, itself not much smaller than the craft which held it in place.

“Practice,” Owald told them enigmatically. “You can’t see it, but u
p
on that hill, yonder, is a crew projecting a thin light-beam at the disk. From thence it is reflected to the pyramid-top.”

His father asked, “Toward what purpose?”

An odd look flickered briefly across Owald’s features, as if he rea
l
ized he had said more than he ought, but, having introduced the subject, he would not be let off without saying more.

“If all circumstances fall aright—if the ship’s steady, and in the co
r
rect place at the correct time—if the beam runs true from hilltop to py
r
amid, then it will work the other way as well. Pray do not ask me more, Father, for I am oath-bound not to reveal the secrets of Zhu Yuan-Coyotl, the Sun Incarnate, at least until the one to whom they are r
e
vealed has earned his trust.

“The top’s a hundred paces square...”

Unable to say more about the airship to his father, nor to understand Ayesha past a barrier of wind and foreign language, Owald continued with his statistics.

“...occupying a space of ten thousand square paces, of which near u
n
to eight thousand are taken up by the temple floor, which is called by the people the Eye-of-God.”

Of a sudden, he seized her by the shoulder, the roughness of his grip surprising her. What surprised her more were the teardrops whipped from his face and splashing upon hers.

“Five thousand people at a time can be made to stand there, Ayesha! And five thousand and five thousand more! Over and over and over again! Tis the heart of the world we live in, girl, the world we can never quit! It is the soul of the Crystal Empire!”

He turned then and in Helvetian demanded of his father, “I brought you out here so that we’d not be overheard! How can I make her unde
r
stand? Everything in, nothing out—the sole exception’s those entrusted with Zhu Yuan-Coyotl’s safety!”

Suddenly the young officer had Ayesha’s full understanding, whether he knew it or not.

“Neither of you asked me what befalls the remainder! Ask me now! They worship
that,
here, Father!”

He pointed to the setting sun.

The other airship had begun standing off, the great reflecting-disk beneath it slowly, by some unknown machination, being drawn upward, p
a
rallel to its hull.

The flying machine turned tail toward them and sped away.

“Not merely Zhu Yuan-Coyotl, its human aspect, but an incandescent orb which they believe requires sustenance! One outsider in ten tho
u
sand joins the guard, Father—nine thousand nine and ninety die a death too terrible to speak of!”

He pointed to the pyramid again, glowing in the twilight. The “pool” in its center was by now an inky black. “Your Saracen Princess, Father, ’tis here, in the heart of the world, that she shall be joined in wedlock to the real Sun!”

Believers, turn to God in sincere repentance; it may be that your Lord will acquit you of your evil deeds, and will admit you into gardens underneath which rivers flow.—
The
Koran,
Sura LXVI

“G
et up, fool!”

Naked limbs trembling, the old man lifted his face from the grimy deckplates. He blinked, eyes watering. Some moments passed before he could tolerate even the moderate quantity of light entering the small room he occupied from the clattering spaces beyond the door which had just been opened without warning.

His breath created little puffs of vapor when he exhaled.

Before him he saw a pair of elaborate-tooled boots beneath the e
m
broidered hem of a brocaded robe. Pushing himself to his bony knees, he let his eyes follow the robe upward, past the decorative sash—a pair of T-handled daggers had been thrust into it—past the arms, folded across the chest, resting in voluminous sleeves opposite one another, past the glittering medallion, a miniature of the solar mask he’d seen in the aud
i
ence chamber, to the smooth-skinned boyish face of Zhu Yuan-Coyotl, the Sun Incarnate of the Han-Meshika.

The dark hair was concealed by a quilted cap whose untied ear-coverings flapped when the Sun moved his head. His youthful face set i
t
self in an expression of tolerant amusement. Speaking in well-accented Helv
e
tian, the voice fell softer now, almost gentle.

“I said, get up, Oln Woeck.”

Trembling with strain, Oln Woeck attempted to comply with the d
e
mand. He discovered his unclad limbs had locked, from fear, from cold and old age, into the humiliating position of obeisance he’d assumed the instant the door had slid aside. What disturbed the old man was that his self-abasement had been automatic, a reflex performed without the slightest conscious consideration.

From behind the rich-garbed boy-ruler there stepped a copper-kilted guard, who seized the Cultist leader by one elbow and lifted him to his naked feet. Scarcely noticing the way the icy metal stung their soles, the older man gasped in the momentary belief his bones would shatter in their brittleness. Otherwise, he bit his tongue, suppressed both pent-up fear and mounting fury, and held his silence.

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl nodded dismissal at the soldier, who bowed, d
e
parting from the room.

The light still dazzled aged eyes. It was Oln Woeck’s first opportun
i
ty to see the place himself. He’d been dragged from the airship’s aud
i
ence chamber some unreckonable time ago, force-marched along en
d
less dec
o
rated corridors, up and down numerous spiral staircases, until he and his animal-helmeted escort had come to a huge, noisy kitchen, deep within the volume of the alien vessel.

A hundred menials had he glimpsed, milling about in the glaring light, as cookware clattered, steam hissed, unfamiliar odors assailed his already terrified senses.

There, the Sun Incarnate’s guardsmen had opened a thick and heavy-latched metal door, stripped him to the skin without leave or cer
e
mony of aught he wore, thrown him inside. He’d almost been relieved, consi
d
ering this unknown land with its unknown customs, not to have been tossed straightaway into a cooking-pot. Instead, he’d fetched up against the opposite wall, losing consciousness. They’d slammed the door, cas
t
ing the dazed Cultist into uttermost darkness.

Where they’d left him.

Now he could look about, the room was larger than he’d believed. He hadn’t spent much time or effort exploring it, so uncomfortable and afraid had he been. Upon one wall countless ranks of drawers or lockers did he see, each with its polished metal hasp and hinges, each with a l
a
beling plate upon which foreign characters had been painted.

The wall opposite couldn’t be seen, hidden as it sat behind rows of frozen yellow-pink carcasses suspended by hooks from shining rails which crossed the ceiling.

Grateful he was not to have encountered those in the dark!

Skinned, limb-chopped, gutted, and headless, it was difficult telling what sort of animal they’d been, what sort of meat they stored in this place. To Oln Woeck, long accustomed to leaving such matters as the sustenance of his body to inferiors, they appeared to be hogs. But som
e
thing gibbered at the back of his mind that his initial fears, upon seeing the kitchen, hadn’t been altogether without basis.