We drove through the crowded shopping district, then past long rows of buildings that looked almost like ancient temples. The traffic here was lighter.
“Government offices,” Nella replied when I asked her what they were. She pointed to one as we swept past. “I usually work in there, back in the rear, you can’t see it from here. I don’t have a window, anyway.”
The street climbed up a steep hill.
“That’s the capitol, up in the old castle,” Nella told me. “That’s where we’re going.”
A full honor guard of Skorpis warriors lined the steps as we disembarked from the skimmer and entered the capitol building. I saw that they were fully armed. They fell in step behind us as Nella led me through a large and beautifully furnished entry hall toward a narrower corridor that ended in a metal door.
It was an elevator. The doors slid open to reveal two human soldiers, wearing sidearms only. Nella ushered me in, then came in behind me. The doors shut, leaving the Skorpis detachment outside.
We rode down, not up. “Medical exams,” Nella murmured when the elevator stopped. “We must make certain that you’re not carrying any disease organisms.”
Or bombs, I added silently. The examination was swift and almost completely automated. I was walked through four different scanning archways; then a white-coated human doctor watched as still another automated archway recorded my full-body scan.
“Completely normal,” the physician pronounced, running a finger across the readout display screen. “And extremely healthy.”
Satisfied that I was not a walking bomb, Nella and the two human soldiers led me back to the elevator. Again, we rode down, deeper into the bedrock upon which the city was built.
At last I was led to a massive blastproof parasteel door.
“I’ll have to leave you here,” Nella said, almost apologetic. “When the doors open, step right through. The Director is waiting for you on the other side.”
She hurried away, back to the elevator. I stood in front of the heavy doors, feeling a little silly to be standing there all alone.
Then the doors swung open as silently as the lid of a jewel box. I walked into a dimly lit room. I saw a long highly polished table that seemed to be made of granite or perhaps onyx. High-backed padded chairs lined both sides of the table. All of them empty.
The doors swung shut behind me, casting the room into even gloomier shadows.
There was someone sitting at the far end of the table, at its head. Alone, barely discernible in the dim lighting. I realized that I was bathed in light from a lamp in the ceiling high above, bathed in a cone of light while whoever it was at the head of the table hid in the shadows.
I stepped forward and the cone of light moved with me. Very well, I thought, I’ll go to the head of the table and see who’s there.
But I stopped before I had taken two steps. My eyes adjusted to the dimness and I recognized the figure watching me from the head of the table.
My knees sagged beneath me.
Anya!
CHAPTER 24
She did not smile at me. She did not give the slightest inkling that she knew who I was. She watched me with those incredibly beautiful gray eyes as I slowly, hesitantly, came toward her. Anya was wearing a simple cream-colored sleeveless dress; her hair was pulled back tightly, highlighting the sculptured plane of her cheekbones, the delicate yet strong curve of her jaw.
As I approached her, slowly, like a penitent making his awestruck way to a shrine, her face began to change. Her skin wrinkled, lost its youthful luster, began to look like faded parchment. Her hair turned gray, then white and lifeless, her hands became knobby claws, spotted with age.
“I am dying, Orion.” Her voice was the croak of a feeble old crone.
I rushed to her side. She barely had the strength to hold up her head. I reached out to take her in my arms, but found myself frozen in place, immobile, helpless.
“Aten and the others have sent you,” she said, her voice a weak, rasping wheeze. “They want to finish the work they began long ages ago.”