There were engravings on the base of the statue. Landis sent for an expert in the hieroglyphic writings of Naashan, and an old man arrived. Landis remembered him well. He had a crooked back and a twisted neck. He had crouched by the base of the statue in the moonlight, and scribbled his findings on a tablet of wet clay. Then, awkwardly, he had climbed from the pit.
‘It says she was Jianna, Queen of Naashan. It speaks of her victories, and the glories of her reign, which lasted thirty-one years. Her bones are probably interred at the base of the statue. That was the custom then.’
‘Her bones are here?’ Landis could barely control his excitement. His hands began to shake.
The crookback had been correct. A secret compartment had been located in the base, just beneath the carved throne. There had also been the rotted remains of a box, and two rusted hinges. From the ruined debris Landis guessed the box had contained parchment scrolls, but water had seeped in at some point and destroyed them. He had the bones packed away, and returned to the mountain temple, hidden within the desert. The journey took three long months, across the Carpos Mountains, then northwest to the city port of Pastabal, that had once been named Virinis. From here they sailed west, then north, moving through the straits of Pelucid, and finally reaching the western shore at the mouth of the Rostrias river. Few of the priests there were concerned, as he was, with the more recent history of the world, and his finds in Naashan were greeted with mild interest only. For they had dedicated their lives to rediscovering the greater secrets of the ancient, long-lost peoples who, it was said, had mastered the magic of the universe and then destroyed themselves.
Landis had never had any abiding interest in the origins of the artefacts he studied, only in how their use could benefit him. It was well known that the priests enjoyed preternaturally long lives. This appealed to Landis. It was also believed — and Landis now knew this to be true — that it was possible to return from death itself. These secrets, however, were known to very few. Landis had befriended one of them, and become an assiduous student. His mentor, a Reborn named Vestava, loved to talk of the ancient days when the temple was first founded.
It had followed the archaeological research of Abbot Goralian more than fifteen centuries before, and had led to the creation of the first Temple of the Elders on the present site in the desert. Beneath the rock of a lonely mountain here Goralian had discovered a series of buried chambers, containing arcane machines constructed of a metal that did not rust or decay, and white wood that did not rot. Goralian spent much of his life studying the machines, but it was only after his death that a second abbot, the mystic Absyll, had reactivated them. Landis Kan would have liked to have witnessed that moment.
According to Vestava, the abbot had entered a dream trance, and had pierced the mists of time, floating back through the ages. He had watched the ancients at work on the machines. When he awoke he led the priests to a high, secret chamber on the mountain side, where he pressed a series of switches and levers. Within moments a groaning sound had been heard, and the mountain chamber began to tremble.
Some of the priests ran, fearing an earthquake. Others stood rooted to the spot. Absyll led the still frightened priests to a stairway, and slowly they climbed higher into the mountain, emerging at last onto a metal platform hundreds of feet above the desert. Once in the open he pointed up the mountain. On the high peak above them something was moving. At first it appeared to be a thick column of gold, rising from the mountain. Then the tip of the column began to swell, and then to open, like a giant flower.
Vestava stated there were originally twenty-one petals, but they shimmered and merged together, creating a perfectly round metal mirror, resting on the mountain top. Absyll had called it the Mirror of Heaven.
If the priests on the platform had been amazed at the sight of the golden shield, then the others inside the mountain were equally astonished. Lights blazed from chamber walls throughout the ancient structure.
Machines began to hum. Men scrambled from the buildings, running out onto open ground.
Many of the priests had written their memories of that day, and Landis had studied them all.
Excitement had been high, and a sense of destiny had touched each one of them. In the years that followed many more discoveries were made, but only one matched the opening of the golden shield. The Abbess Hewla, before her fall into evil, had become fascinated by a shimmering mirror in one of the higher antechambers. Strange markings flickered on its surface, changing and flowing. Hewla copied many of the markings, and became convinced they represented the lost writing of the Elder race. After eighteen years of patient study she finally deciphered them. It brought her to a knowledge of the use of the machines. Landis had read and studied the abbess’s writings. Her work had led to a renaming of the temple, and a new direction for the priests who laboured there. It became the Temple of the Resurrection, and use of the machines initially gave the priests extended life and energy. More than this, however, it eventually allowed the priests to conquer death itself; to be reborn.
By the time Landis came to serve the temple Hewla was long gone, though stories of her, and the dark deeds of her life, had become legend. Landis had taken the bones of the long dead queen to Vestava, and suggested — humbly — that it would ‘enhance our understanding of the past if we were to restore her life’.
Vestava had smiled. ‘There would be little advantage in such a process, Landis. Her soul would long ago have left the Void. One day you will understand it. When you are ready I will teach you myself.’
That one day had been twenty-six years, four months and six days away. During that time Landis returned to Naashan, and had the head of the statue removed and brought back to his rooms at the temple. At nights he would sit and stare at it, and even at times talk to it. His passion for the long dead queen did not fade. In fact it grew stronger. He began to dream of her.
When Vestava at last chose to share the mysteries with his student Landis learned that the key to successful resurrection lay in an ancient ritual Hewla had called the migration of souls. In order to accomplish the transfer it usually had to be made within a day of death. On rare occasions it could be longer, if there was a mystic with power who could enter the Void and guide a soul back to the haven of his new body. But the longest time recorded was eight days. The Queen of Naashan had been dead for five hundred years.
The disappointment felt by Landis Kan was intense. That first night he lay in his chamber and wept.
Three years passed, and then came the most glorious moment of his life so far. He showed the statue head to a young priest, training in the mystic arts. The man’s skill lay in touching objects and seeing visions of their past. He and Landis had been joking about the young man’s gift. ‘Tell me of the statue,’
said Landis. The young man had placed his hands on the cold, white stone, then taken a long, deep breath. ‘It was crafted by a one-eyed man. It took him five years of his life.’ The young priest had smiled.