This was said sarcastically, nastily even. I thought vaguely that offending or belittling him might make him leave, but he apparently misread my remark altogether. That’s the trouble with idiots: You can’t even offend them without working overtime.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s a family trade.”
“Well, you mustn’t try anything too intellectually challenging,” I tried.
His face showed nothing. In fact, he seemed, if anything, strangely distant as he began to reply. “My great-grandfather first helped to hew and shape the stone which was laid as the foundation of this structure. You see those buttresses? He carved those himself, with nothing but a chisel and mallet. He worked until his hands bled, refusing to rest until the job was done to the best of his ability. The intricacy of their carving is unmatched, and, a hundred years later, they are still as even and flawless as the day they were finished. Since then the goblin armies have broken upon this fortress like waves against cliffs and it stands still. He taught the trade to my grandfather, who taught it to my father, and my father taught it to me. My hammer has been passed down through our family since the days of that great-grandfather in whose memory we set a small diamond into its handle. Soon I will continue his work.”
An odd chill had started to come over me halfway through this speech as it began to resonate through my mind. It was like smelling something that invokes some ancient memory which you can’t quite place. The experience left me confused and, stranger still, a little afraid. He finished his speech and gazed back at me, as if just realizing that I was there.
“A hammer passed through generations,” I said. “That must give a fine sense of continuity and history. I didn’t think people did that with tools. More with weapons. You don’t have an heirloom weapon passed through the family as well, do you?” I ventured.
“An axe,” he said. “My great-grandfather bore it when Phasdreille was besieged by a vast goblin horde which crossed the river to sack the White City. He rode with a cavalry force raised in the borderlands, and they met the goblin ranks as they lay outside the great city. The horsemen caught the goblins unawares and routed them, though many tall and fair soldiers fell in the battle. My great-grandfather survived, but he was killed shortly afterward. That was the last time he wielded his mighty axe. With it he struck down many dozens of goblins, cleaving a path through their ranks until he came upon their chieftain: a huge brute dressed in red and black, great ugly spikes on his helm and a weapon like a vast cleaver in his massive claws. My ancestor faced the beast and, after many blows were struck on both sides, felled him, cleaving his skull in twain. But the goblin was wearing an iron collar and the axe was notched, though it is still functional, and we set a diamond taken from the goblin chief and set it into the haft. I don’t carry it because it is not regulation-issue for sentry duty, but I long for the day when I can wield it as he did in the open field of battle.”
“Shouldn’t you be guarding the door?” I suggested hurriedly, anxious to get rid of him and the strangeness he suddenly seemed to exude.
“I was finishing my shift when you arrived,” he answered. “There’ll be another guard down there by now.” His manner rapidly shifted back to how it had been when I first spoke to him. All trace of the distance I had felt from him as he recited those oddly familiar words was gone.
“Then perhaps you can help me,” I said, unsure exactly where my words were leading me, but desperate to have him leave.
His face lit up. “Certainly,” he said. “What can I do?”
“You see this bluish dust in the ash?”
He stooped over and nodded thoughtfully. “What is it?” he asked.
“Well that’s what I need to find out,” I said, straightening up and trying to sound professional. “It may just be a little calcined sulfur such as is commonly discharged when the err. . celedine fibers are exposed to intense heat in the presence of anthracite, belomnites and, you know, cellulites. It could also, however, indicate the build-up of vitrilic carbon mandible particles.”
“Is that bad?” said the soldier, reading my expression.
“Let’s just say that if I’m right-and I hope to God that I’m not-the next spark kindled in this room could create an explosion which would leave nothing of this building but a dirty great crater in the ground.”
His jaw dropped. I went on. “I need you to go outside and find me a cup full of bird droppings. Preferably from er. . a kind of hawk. Female. It has to be female. Put male droppings in there and the alcolyde mercurials will spontaneously combust, and then we’ll be in real trouble. But you must walk very carefully. If you create a spark with your armor against the stone walls, we’ve had it.”
“I’ll get right on it,” he breathed, and began to tiptoe out.
“And don’t tell anyone!” I added hastily. “I mean, we don’t want a, you know, panic on our hands.”
He left me, creeping with arms spread for balance and uneasy glances back at the mound of ash which I was poking thoughtfully. Imagine, I mused as he left, how much easier life would be if all the people I met could be relied upon to be as dim as the worthy trooper who has just left me. Alas, such special gullibility is all too rare, and the world is a correspondingly tougher place for the rest of us.
I was so wrapped up in these considerations that I almost forgot to capitalize on the opportunity that that special gullibility had won me. I sprang up, dusted off my hands, and tried the door. It opened onto the gallery that skirted the great dome, and there was no sign of life that I could see or hear. I trotted hurriedly down the corridor to the great doors with their brass panels, lifting my skirts as I ran. When I got to them I found myself again aware of the dull hum which seemed to come from inside. As I stood there listening, my gaze fell upon the metal relief work which covered the doors. Before, I had noticed the images of the library with its great dome, but I hadn’t considered the details. I leaned closer to consider the figures depicted in the panels, noting that the builders were small and squat. I was just thinking about how odd this was and leaning on the door in a pensive kind of way when I recoiled suddenly. It was as warm as before, and pulsed with energy.
This was no fire. I guess I had always known that, but it struck me like a crossbow bolt through the forehead that I had been lied to on all sides. It also meant that there was something behind this door which I was not supposed to see, something which perhaps explained the strange secrecy which hung over this building. Without thinking further, I took the great brass ring in my right hand and twisted it sharply. The door clicked and yielded. The door opened. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw next.
The room inside was vast, and both walls and floor were stone. It could have been magnificent, and probably was, once. Now it was a scene of devastation and chaos. Much of the stonework was shattered and all the huge, carved images which stood like columns supporting the roof were disfigured so extensively that it was impossible to discern if they had been men or beasts. The intricately worked wooden paneling, which seemed to have borne remarkable pictures in marquetry, had been hacked to splinters. Only fragments of the beautiful wooden inlay could still be made out where the vandalism (for such it seemed) was limited to severe scoring and the crude strokes of a paintbrush dipped in scarlet. The same savage desecration was everywhere. The immense paintings which hung from the ceiling buttresses were slashed to stained tatters, the bookcases had been emptied and their contents violently shredded, and the statues which stood on either side of the great throne at the far end of the hall had been beheaded and daubed with crimson paint. There was, and had been, no fire. There was no smoke staining, no ash, no charred timber. The ruin before me was man-made and it had been effected with what I can only describe as hatred: a hatred so profound that it had unleashed a fury beyond words, beyond reason. Furthermore, it had not happened recently.