Bryce and the others had made it into the now cleared stairwell, but Venera had been too slow. Soldiers of Sacrus emerged from clouds of gunsmoke, faceless in the faint light. Venera scrambled to her feet, slipped on blood, and half fell through the doorway into the treasure room. Her feet found purchase on the carpet, and she pressed her whole body against the cold door. It slowly creaked shut, ringing from bullet impacts at the last instant.
She spun the wheel in the center of the portal and turned around to lean on it. A sound hangover echoed through her head for a few seconds, or was she still hearing the battle, but muffled by iron and stone?
Stepping forward she lifted her arms, saw blood all over them. Something caught her foot and she stumbled. Looking down she saw that it was another bodya soldier of Sacrus, maybe the very one with whom shed locked eyes through the little glass window in the door. He lay on his back, arms flung about, and blood pooling behind his head.
His abdomen had been cut wide open and his entrails trailed along the floor.
A new wash of fear came over Venera. She backed against the door and brought up her pistol to check it. Wouldnt do to have a misfire due to blood in the barrel. For a few moments she stood perfectly still, listening and, finally, looking about at the place she had come to.
The huge square room was lit better than the hallway had been, by small electric spotlights that hung over dozens of pedestals. She had glimpsed those earlier, the canisters and boxes atop them now glowing in surreal majesty. There was nobody else in sight, but she thought she could see another door opposite the one through which shed entered.
A woman chuckled somewhere; the chuckle turned into a laugh of childish delight.
Venera made her way around the rooms perimeter in quick sprints, ducking from pedestal to pedestal. It was hard to tell where the laughter was coming from because sounds echoed off the high ceiling. Faintly through the floor she could still hear the noise of battle.
The laugh came againthis time from only a few yards away. Venera rounded a broad pedestal surmounted by some kind of cannon and stopped dead, pistol forgotten in her hand.
A big clockwork mechanism had been shoved off the next pedestal and now lay shattered on the floor. Little wisps of smoke rose from it. The pedestal itself was covered with the remains of a man.
Somebody was kneeling in the gore and viscera that dripped over the edges of the pedestal. It was a woman, completely nude, and she was bathingno, wallowingin the blood and slippery things she was hauling out of the mans torso. She stroked her skin with something, squeezing it as if it were a wet sponge, and gave a little mewl of delight.
Venera raised the pistol and aimed carefully. Margit! What have you done?
The former botanist of Liris cocked her head at Venera. She grinned,
holding up two crimson hands.
Dont you get it? she said. Its cherries! Red, red cherries, full and ripe.
Wh-who Venera had suddenly remembered the commandants boast. He had found a hideous death for Garth, hed said. She stepped forward, staring past a haze of nausea at the few scraps of clothing she could recognize. Those bootsthey were Sacrus army issue.
They trusted me, said Margit as she lowered herself into the sticky mass she was massaging. These two knew meso they let me in. When the bombs went off, the wall and door parted a bitthe hinges sprung! I just pushed it open and ran right out of my little room! Nobody there to stop me. So I came here and brought him with me.
Brought who?
Margit raised a hand to point at something lying in the shadows of another pedestal. The one theyd just given to me. My present.
Garth! Venera ran over to him. He was on his side, unconscious but breathing. His hands were tied behind his back. Venera knelt to undo the knots, putting her pistol down when she decided Margit was too far into her own delusions to notice.
Far gone she might be, but shed killed at least two men in this room. You must have ambushed them, said Venera, making it into a question.
Oh yes. I was dressed oh so respectably and had my prisoner with me. They were staring out the window, you people were shooting and thrashing about somewhere out of sight and I just popped up there in front of them. Let me in! Oh, I looked so scared. As soon as their backs were to me I mowed them down.
There were only two?
Margit clucked reproachfully. How many people do you put inside a locked vault? Two was overkill, but you see the doors dont open from the outside. Thats a precaution. She enunciated the word cheerfully.
Venera slapped Garth lightly; he groaned and mumbled something, batting feebly at her hand.
She looked up at Margit again. Why come here?
Margit stood up, dripping. You know why, she said, suddenly serious. For that. She pointed, straight-armed, at something on the floor.
It was crimson now, but there was no mistaking the cylindrical shape of the key to Candesce. When Venera saw it she gasped and raised the pistol again, cocking it as she tried to haul Garth to his feet with her other hand.