The ovoid vessel had parted in three sections above its midline belt. The sections had opened outward like the protecting calyx that fal s to unveil a flower. But the great figure so revealed was not nearly as pretty as a flower. In fact, curled up like some monstrous, wrinkled embryo, it resembled a great corpse shriveled by time— mummified.
Back in the town, I had been offered tours of catacombs fil ed with human dead, a disgraceful performance typical, I thought, of these degraded beings. There are things of which I have no curiosity. Yet now, I was looking upon the mortal shame of a Promethean. I had no idea what happened within a Cryptum or why any Forerunner of such fame and rank would choose such an exile, whether in penitence or insanity.… At first, I did not hear the approach of the sphinxes. From their frozen circle, three of the machines had unfolded great curved legs and now walked over the low black rock wal s. Between the swinging legs and grapples hard blue light sparked and flowed. The closest of the sphinxes unfolded four arms from just below the port of its empty control cabin and spun silvery cords into a loose net. Then, the sphinx stepped over us and descended into the pit. On the other side of the circle, another sphinx also descended, and reached into the opened Cryptum to gently lift the Didact’s shriveled body.
With infinite patience, the machines shrouded the body in the net, then withdrew from the pit, the net and its contents swinging slowly between. They carried the Didact right over us, and I looked up at the wrinkled hide, the minimum of clothing concealing the body’s bony hips. I could not see the face or the head, but I remembered Warrior-Servants who had visited my family in Orion … Powerful, fiercely handsome, giving me in my cool, calm nursery both visions of strength and nightmares of great destruction.
As a ful -rate Promethean of the Warrior-Servants, the Didact, revived and uncurled, might have risen to twice my height and weighed in at four to five times my mass. His shoulders by themselves might once have been as broad as my outstretched arms. But now, lacking armor, alive or dead, he looked as vulnerable and ugly as a hatchling bird.
With a humbled, shift-footed gait, I fol owed the machines and jumped over the wal s, ignoring the prescribed path. Chakas said nothing as he walked behind me.
Riser kept to the ceremonial tracks of his ancestors and fel behind.
“Truly, is this treasure?” Chakas asked dubiously.
“Not treasure,” I said. “Disaster. Any Forerunner who disturbs a Cryptum … Sanctions. Disgrace.”
“What’s a ‘Cryptum’?” Chakas asked.
“A vault of ages. In search of wisdom, or to flee punishment, a mature rate might choose the path of endless peace. It is al owed only for the most powerful, whose punishment might prove troublesome to the Forerunner hierarchies.”
“You know this, yet you opened it? Wil they punish humans, too?”
No defense, no excuse. I felt both embarrassment and misery. “It wasn’t me—not just me. You sang the right song, and it heard you,” I said.
“You’re happy to share the blame?”
Riser had caught up with us, running along and balancing, arms out. “We sang nothing,” the little human said. Chakas shrugged and looked away.
I wondered at their foolhardiness, that they did not vanish into the jungle. The war sphinxes breached the el ipse of their stil -frozen companions and, without slowing, passed through, then shoved and crashed into the jungle.
Two more out of the original twelve sphinxes then lifted up on blue-sparking limbs, joints alive with hard light, and fol owed the others through a cleared path of shredded greenery.
“What are we going to do?” Chakas asked as we picked our way over broken palms and bushes.
“Await retribution,” I said.
“Us, too? Truly?”
I looked upon them and felt pity. These war sphinxes had likely kil ed many of Chakas’s ancestors.… Humans must have sinned greatly against the Mantle to deserve such a fate.
FIVE
THE SPHINXES CIRCLED east on the ring island, gradual y trending outward from the inner shore. Fol owing in their cleared wake, we final y reached the opposite beach and looked across the broad outer lake, toward the distant crater rim.
The sphinxes conveyed their burden to a low, flat building constructed of bare blast metal, gray and angular. This structure lacked the nodes and projectors that created the ornate outer shel s common in Forerunner architecture. Indeed, from the sky, it might have looked like a forgotten storage depot, and against the line of tal palms, from the lake, it would hardly have been noticed at al . More and more mysterious.
The four sphinxes approached in ranks of two. The pair carrying the Didact paused before a wide descending ramp—the entrance. I heard the sound of huge doors swinging wide. The sphinxes sidled down the ramp into the building.
The other two sank to the ground outside and folded their legs and arms with faint whirrs and sighs. The blue glow of their joints dimmed and vanished.
We walked slowly past the immobile pair, skittish, uncertain whether they were guardians or just monuments once again. Bravest of al , Riser stopped to pat the pitted surface of the nearest machine, drawing an exclamation from Chakas —“Don’t do that! They could vaporize us.”
“Don’t know that,” Riser said, eyes narrow, ears up, lips straight. No doubt this was his courage face.
Indeed, the sphinxes looked as stolid and ancient as ever. I peered down into the entrance. Sand had drifted down the ramp, marked by the dimpling steps of the other sphinxes. Darkness lay at the bottom.
The doors were stil open. You are what you dare.
“Stay here,” I told Chakas, and started down the ramp. He reached to grab my shoulder.
“Not your business,” he said, as if concerned for my safety. I gently pul ed away his hand. The touch of his flesh was not as repugnant as I had thought. It felt little different from the skin of a young Forerunner—my own.
Surely we could not actual y be brothers, both shaped by the Precursors.… “I think the Librarian wanted all of us here,” I said. My fear had merged with my boldness and some other quality I mistook for courage, forming foolish resolve. I was like an insect flying toward a flame, certain it promised, if not complete justification and salvation, at least supreme adventure. “Someone slipped messages into your brains before you were born. Someone told you to lure a Forerunner. You sang the proper codes, and the Cryptum opened.”
Chakas formed his mouth into an O, then knelt and held his arms over his head, facing away from the ramp. Riser joined him, glancing up at me as if unsure this was the proper way to observe the ritual. “The Librarian touches al ,” Chakas said, and together they lapsed into whispered chants.
I continued down into the darkness. The first chamber within the building was wide and dank, four times my height—just barely enough to admit the sphinxes.
Coolness pooled while warm air swirled above my waist. A dim greenish light grew in the darkness and I saw, in outline, the sphinxes facing each other over a broad pit fil ed with silvery liquid. The sling containing the Didact draped between the sphinxes, mere centimeters above the pool. I squatted as close as I dared to the edge.
Around me, for the next few minutes, al was stil .
Then, the jarring voice again addressed me: “Forerunner, do you witness this return? ”
I tried to retreat, but a bril iant white light shot down from the roof of the chamber and held me. The light shimmered and removed my wil to move.
“Do you witness? ”