However, as majestic and awe-inspiring as its public face may be, we were essentially tradesmen making a delivery, and the museum’s loading dock, accessed via a subterranean deck, proved no different from that of any other skyscraper in New York.
“Stay put and keep an eye on the gear,” Canterbury instructed as he unhitched himself from the equipment cart. “I’ll go find the Curator.”
“No need, Master Canterbury,” said an elderly, but firm female voice. “I am already here.” A Kymeran woman with long cornflower blue hair woven into an elaborate double-drape French braid emerged from the shadows at the far end of the receiving platform. She wore a floor-length satin jacket the color of celadon pottery, with wide, stiff sleeves and a Mandarin collar, and about her neck was hung the badge of her office: a jade dragon with its tail in its mouth.
“I take it this is the installation?” the Curator asked, pointing to the crates the drovers were loading onto the dock.
“Yes, milady,” Canterbury replied, with a ritual bow of his head. “The larger box contains the body, while the others hold the wings, head and tail. It shouldn’t take more than six hours for it to be assembled.”
The Curator turned her pale gray gaze upon me. “I see your apprentice is human. That is most interesting. Please follow me to the exhibit hall.” Without further explanation, she turned her back to us and began to walk away, forcing us to hurry after her as she headed into a warren of rooms filled with warehoused exhibits. Everywhere I looked the past and present seemed to be colliding in a jumble of dust, rust, and flaking paint, as a small army of restorers cleaned and rehabbed artifacts that dated back before the pyramids of Giza.
Eventually we came to a large freight elevator. As we drew near, a sloe-eyed sphinx stepped forward, blocking our path. Like most of her kind, the human-headed lioness wore a golden vulture cap atop her jet-black head and a bejeweled pectoral about her neck. When she spoke, her voice was deceptively beautiful.
“Wood, wire, iron or stone,
Inside of me are treasures sown.
Some say I’d be a seat on high
For those unable to decide.
I cannot be opened by lock or hinge,
And protect all things that lie within. What am I?”
“You’re a garden fence,” the Curator replied without pause.
The sphinx smiled, displaying a fearsome double row of very sharp teeth, and then bowed her head, moving aside. As we passed by, the Curator ran her hand down the length of the monster’s spine, and in response the sphinx made a purring noise and arched her back like a house cat.
“Please forgive the extra security measures,” the Curator said, “but we have recently suffered a theft.”
Canterbury raised an eyebrow. “Was anything of value taken?”
“All our exhibits are of historical value,” the Curator replied as the freight elevator’s accordion gate opened on its own, revealing a car the size of a studio apartment. Upon entering, the gate trundled shut behind us, as if closed by spectral hands. “But, luckily, that which was taken is not completely irreplaceable.”
A few moments later we arrived on the second floor of the museum, which was currently closed to the public. As we walked toward the main exhibit halls, Canterbury’s hooves echoed loudly in the darkened hallway. The centaur grimaced and came to a halt.
“Give me a moment to muffle my shoes,” he said, digging into the satchel he wore slung about his shoulder. “I’m making a hell of a racket and I don’t want to scuff up your floors.”
As we waited for my master to reshoe himself, I peered into a gallery off the main hall that bore a sign that read, in both Kymeran and English: THE LOST KINGDOM. The far wall was covered by a mural depicting a city of towering glass spires, about which flew brightly colored dragons bearing riders dressed in ornate suits of armor like the one I had seen at Lady Syra’s penthouse, all of which was dwarfed by the terrifyingly huge tidal wave bearing down upon it. Scattered about the gallery were sealed display cases mounted on artfully lit plinths, inside of which were shards of pottery, bits of jewelry, and other tattered fragments that were all that remained of a civilization that drowned when mankind was picking its collective nits.
As I was studying the exhibits, I caught the scent of figs and dried roses and turned to find the Curator standing behind me. “There are artifacts in this section that date back fifty thousand years,” she said, speaking in a hushed voice. “It’s amazing anything was left at all, considering the survivors fled with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and what little they could gather in their arms.”
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to an exhibit behind velvet ropes. Inside the display case was an opalescent vessel the size and shape of an amphora that contained a viscous pinkish-purple liquid that sluggishly churned to and fro, like a captive octopus hiding in a jar.
“That is our most precious exhibit,” the Curator replied proudly. “It is the only living glass left in the world. Our ancestors used it to build their cities, much like the ancient Egyptians used mud and straw to build the pyramids.”
“That stuff is glass?” I frowned. “It looks more like the goop inside a lava lamp.”
“That’s because living glass is, indeed, alive,” she replied. “It’s a boneless, amorphous creature, not unlike a jellyfish. It thrives on magic, much the same way plants feed on carbon dioxide. Although it possesses no intellect, living glass is highly sensitive to the thoughts of those around it. Once tamed and sculpted, it takes on the appearance of its namesake, but has the strength of tempered steel.
“Back when Kymera was in full flower, there was a class of wizards, known as artifices, who specialized in domesticating and sculpting living glass. But when the tsunami struck, it wiped out the breeding tanks, along with those who tended them. The only artifex to escape the destruction of Kymera was the Lady Ursa, consort to the Witch King, Lord Arum. She brought this very same container of living glass with her when she fled Kymera. She planned to reestablish the species, but died before she could do so. There has not been another artifex since. It is considered a lost talent, drowned along with the shining spires it once raised.”
At the far end of the gallery was an archway leading, according to the signage, to the Hall of Arum, which was twice the size of the first gallery, and included life-sized dioramas. I stared in fascination at a wax dummy with long hair as blue as a peacock’s breast and golden eyes that seemed to possess an eerie luminosity. The mannequin was dressed in elaborately embroidered robes and seated on a golden throne shaped like a rampant dragon, its bejeweled wings spread wide to either side. On the wax figure’s head sat a diadem resembling a pair of dragons, one jet black, the other gold, entwined from tail to snout so that they faced one another, holding a fire opal the size of an egg balanced between their gaping jaws.
Behind the throne was a detailed three-dimensional landscape showing the building of a great city high atop a mountain. Architects could be seen in the background, consulting their schematics as surveyors hovered overhead on winged dragons. Meanwhile, an armored guard sat astride a bearded, wingless dragon, keeping an eye on the brace of Cro-Magnons dragging a mammoth block of stone up the steep hillside.
I glanced down at the placard mounted at the foot of the diorama, which read, Lord Arum, Savior of the Kymeran people and founder of the city-state of Dragon Arum, located in what is now known as the Carpathian Mountains, circa 50,000 B.C.E. (Before Common Era). The likeness of Lord Arum is modeled on his death mask.