Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

falcon, and pronghorn antelope. Most of the graves were empty, and one had been preserved under glass. A trestle table sat nearby, spread with sheets of thin paper and sticks of charcoal.

“The scholars in the university must have been studying here,” I said, holding the torch up to the walls. There were rows and rows of spiraling, ornate symbols painstakingly engraved into the brass paneling. “Can you read these?”

“Nuh uh.” Karalti shook her head. “Weird language, though. It's full of Words.”

“Language usually is.”

“No, silly. Not words. WORDS.” She uttered an exasperated sigh.

The human graves were at the end of the hallway, the bodies still mostly in place and intact. A faint musty smell permeated these rooms, the odor of flesh long turned to dust. We left it in peace, returning to the main hall and trying another corridor... but as I took my first step past the threshold, I felt - and heard - the air around me sigh and pull back toward the main chamber.

“Huh?” I stopped, looking back in the direction of the faint, icy cold draft.

Karalti chirped curiously. “What?”

“I thought I...” There was a whispering in the wind, the sound of words too soft to hear. The Mark of Matir chilled, and I found myself drawn back, angling for one specific branch of the tomb. As I walked, the hissing, tickling air built in intensity, stroking the back of my neck like cold fingers. When I stepped in, the breeze gusted and blew out the torch in my hand. And there, in the shadow of the door, I saw an even deeper darkness at the end of the hall. Matir’s star blazed like a black sun on the face of a round metal portal as thick as a bank vault door.

Karalti followed warily as I was drawn closer. When I was at arm's length, I reached out, and carefully placed my hand down on the door. As I did, eight other symbols flared to life, casting an opalescent glow across the floor. A white hourglass, a green heart with spirals in place of arteries, a blazing red hammer, a hexagon struck through with a sword... the symbols of all of the Nine.

“Hail, Herald,” the air hissed. “Hail to you, Daughter of the Black God.”

“Oooh...” Karalti shivered pleasurably.

A pulse of energy rolled through the pit of my belly like a shot of tequila. The symbols winked out, and the door soundlessly rolled back into the wall, opening into an undisturbed burial chamber bathed in warm golden light. I stepped in, awed. The sealed vault still smelled like incense, scents I was pretty sure were frankincense and myrrh. Magelights hovered patiently over a great planetary diorama, the center of which was a golden globe of Archemi. Or... was it? As I got closer, I saw that the planet in the middle of the diorama was far too large, and contained no fewer than six continents. On one of the rings orbiting the giant planet was a much smaller one with only two landforms. One was the easily-recognizable fortune-cookie shaped continent of Artana. The other was the Africa-like continent of Daun.

“Holy shit. That's Erruku!” I gently spun the big golden globe. As it rotated, the little Archemi globe began to move around it, along with several other, even smaller planets. “Erruku has continents?”

Karalti was in as much awe as I was, trying to figure out what she was seeing. “But… Erruku is the moon. Nothing lives there.”

“That we know of.” The enormous moon that lit Archemi's skies was, indeed, nothing but a swirling yellow circle in the sky.

The diorama was only one of many treasures in this room. Karalti broke away to poke through it all while I advanced to the inner chamber. This place was very different to simple, austere tomb I had been teleported to under Taltos. It was as grand as anything ever dug out of Ancient Egypt. There was furniture and pottery decorated in gold leaf, statues made of bronze so old it had turned black, artificed machines that had fallen apart into their fragile components. The walls were covered in engraved tablets written in a curving right-to-left script I didn’t know. All of the letters were connected by a long line across the top of each word. I couldn’t imagine how much value this would be to the University.

At the end of the inner chamber was an even smaller one. It contained a sarcophagus that looked to be made of solid gold. Graceful Tulaq were molded onto the corners, the tips of their wings touching. The walls and ceiling were painted like the walls of an Egyptian tomb, showing a sequence of images all featuring the same man. He was very tall, with a huge red beard that fell to his waist. He dressed in blue robes, a tool belt, and golden gauntlets. In some scenes, he praised a great burly effigy of Khors in front of a huge volcanic forge. In others, he oversaw teams of humans and Mercurions in the construction of a single huge hand, or a giant scimitar as long as ten people. But in the central image, the one directly behind the head of the sarcophagus, he was not featured at all. The image was of a Warsinger. And not just any Warsinger – THE Warsinger. The one that I had seen when the Ruby of Boundless Strength bonded itself to the Spear of Nine Spheres.

Chapter 27

In the vision, she had been nothing more than a sand-veiled silhouette striding through the desert, but the silhouette was unmistakable. She – this Warsinger was definitely feminine – was rendered like a mechanical saint. She had a pair of curved golden swords crossed over her chest, and a great flaming halo that hung behind her narrow head. The Warsinger’s helmet was styled like a falling meteor, with an angled crest of spikes surrounding a single long tail, all of it swept back from an impassive angular visor. A great flaming halo hung