Chapter 21 Chapter Twelve

He woke up and saw the black figure of a woman bending over him.For a moment, he thought it was "her".He looked again, and it was really "she".Her cool fingers caressed his cheek. "Am I dead?" he whispered, reaching up to take her wrist. "No." Her voice was soft, a little hoarse, with a trill that he didn't know where.He had never heard her speak before. "Are you real?" "yes." Kassad sighed and looked around.He was wearing a thin robe, lying on some sort of bed or platform, in the middle of the dark, cave-like room.The stars cast their light and streamed in through the cracks in the broken roof overhead.He raised his other hand and touched her shoulder.The hair was like a black aura covering him.She was wearing a loose, thin robe, and even in the starlight, he could still see the outline of her body.His nose caught the scent, the scent of soap and skin and her own, a scent he had become all too familiar with after so many of their meetings together.

"You must have a lot of questions," she whispered softly as Kassad undid the golden buttons that held her robe.The robe fell silently to the floor.Nothing was worn inside.Above their heads, the ribbon formed by the Milky Way is particularly dazzling. "No." With that, Kassad reached out and pulled her closer. Kassad pulled the thin quilt over them as the morning approached with a gentle breeze.The thin fabric seemed extremely warm, and the two of them lay together in the extremely warm blanket.Somewhere, snow and sand were rubbing against the bare walls.The stars are still clear and bright.

They awoke in the first twilight, their faces pressed together under the silky sheets.Her hand ran down Kassad's ribs, finding old and new scars. "What's your name?" He asked softly. "Shh," she whispered back, sliding her hand further down. Kassad put his face close to the curve of her neck, smelling the fragrance.Her breasts touched him softly.The night fades away, and the morning comes.Somewhere, snow and sand blow against the bare walls. They make love, sleep, make love again.When it was full daylight, the two got up and dressed.She had undergarments for Kassad, a gray coat and trousers that fitted perfectly, as did the cotton socks and soft boots.Women also wear similar clothing, the color is dark blue.

"What's your name?" Kassad asked as he left the broken-roofed house and walked through a dead city. "Moneta," the woman replied, "or Nimotheni, whichever you like, call that." "Moneta," Kassad said softly.He watched a small sun rise in the blue sky. "This is Hyperion?" "yes." "How did I land? Lower body elastic field? Parachute?" "You descended with wings of gold leaf." "I'm not in pain. Am I not hurt?" "You are well looked after." "What is this place?" "The city of poets. It was abandoned more than a hundred years ago. Behind that hill is the Tomb of Time."

"Where are the Ouster ships following me?" "One landed nearby. The Lord of Mourning brought the crew to him. The other two fell far away." "Who is the king of great sorrow?" "Come on," Moneta said.The dead city is eaten by the desert.Fine-grained sand sweeps over white marble half-hidden in the dunes.To the west, the Ouster ship crouched, its hatches wide open.On a nearby collapsed stone pillar, a thermal cube was heating coffee and freshly baked bread rolls, and the two ate in silence. Kassad racked his brains to recall Hyperion's lore. "The King of Mourning is the Shrike," he said at last.

"certainly." "You... City of Poets?" Moneta smiled and shook her head slowly. Kassad finished his coffee and turned the cup upside down.He had a strong feeling that he was still dreaming, even stronger than any simulation.But the coffee was pleasantly bitter, and the sun was shining warmly on his face and hands. "Come on, Kassad," Moneta said. They crossed the icy sea of ​​sand.Kassad looked at the sky, thinking that the Ouster ships could attack them from orbit, then suddenly decided that was impossible. The Tomb of Time lay quietly in a valley.A low obelisk gleamed softly.A giant stone sphinx appears to absorb the light.Shadows of complex structures made of twisted pylon gates veiled themselves.Other tombs loomed in the rising sun.Every mound has a door, and every door is open.Kassad knew that the doors had been open and empty since the first explorers discovered the tombs.For more than three centuries, people have searched for hidden rooms, tombs, chambers, passages, but found nothing.

"Can't go forward," Moneta said, and they had reached the cliffs above the valley. "The tide is strong today." Kassad's tactical implants fell silent.He didn't have a comlog with him.He searched in memory. "There is an anti-entropy field around the Time Tomb," he said. "right." "Time Tombs are very old. Anti-entropy fields keep them from getting old and old." "No," said Moneta, "the tides of time push the Time Tombs against time." "Reverse time," Kassad said to himself in a daze. "Look."

Flickering like a mirage, a steel thorn tree emerged from the haze and the sudden storm of ocher sand.The tree seemed to fill the entire valley, standing there, at least two hundred meters high, almost level with the cliff.The branches shifted, blurred, and reemerged like a poorly edited hologram.The sun dances on the five-meter-long thorns.The bodies of the Ousters, both men and women, were naked, impaled on at least two dozen thorns, and other twigs were impaled with other corpses.Not all human. A sandstorm blurred vision, and after a while, the storm subsided and the phantom disappeared. "Come on," Moneta said.

Kassad followed her, walking on the edge of the tide of time, avoiding the ebb and flow of the anti-entropy field, just like a child playing with the waves on the wide beach.Kassad felt the pull of the tides of time, like familiar waves tugging at every cell in his body. Just beyond the entrance of the valley, where the hills opened to the dunes, and the low moors to the city of poets, Moneta touched a blue slate wall, and a door opened, leading to A long, low room within a cliff wall. "Do you live here?" Kassad asked, but he noticed immediately that there was no sign of people living here.The stone walls of the room are dotted with shelves and stuffed alcoves.

"We gotta get ready," Moneta whispered as the light turned a golden hue.A long luggage rack hangs down its contents.A strip of mirror-like polymer as thin as waxy rice paper descends from the ceiling and becomes a mirror. As if in a dream, Kassad watched Moneta calmly and submissively as she took off her clothes and then came to take off his.Their nudity was no longer sexually arousing to him, it was merely ritual. "You've been in my dreams for years," he told her. "Yes. Your past. My future. Shockwaves of events flow in the river of time like ripples in a pond."

Kassad blinked, and she raised a golden rod and touched his chest.Startled slightly, his body became a mirror, his head and face a featureless oval, reflecting all the textures of color in the room.A second later, Moneta was like him, her body a cascading mirror image, water covered with quicksilver, quicksilver covered with chrome.Kassad saw his own reflective reflection in every curve and muscle of her body.Moneta's breasts catch and reflect the light; her two points bulge slightly like tiny splashes in a mirrored pond.Kassad walked over and hugged her, feeling their surfaces flow together like magnetic currents.Under the connected magnetic field, their skins touched each other lightly. "Your enemies are waiting for you beyond the city," she whispered.Her chrome face flows with the light. "enemy?" "Ousters. The Ousters that came here with you." Kassad shook his head, and he saw his own reflection shake his head in the same way. "They don't matter anymore." "Oh, no," Moneta said softly, "the enemy is always important. You have to arm yourself." "How to arm?" But the instant he spoke, he saw Moneta touching him with a brown sphere, a dark blue hyper-ring.His kaleidoscopic body was speaking to him now, as clearly as soldiers reporting messages in implanted command circuits.Kassad felt his power increase, and a bloodthirsty desire slowly surged inside him. "Come," Moneta led him into the open desert again.Daylight seems to be polarized and feels oppressive and dim.It seemed to Kassad that they were gliding across the dunes, like liquid flowing through the white marble streets of a dead city.Near the western end of the town, near the ruins of a crumbling building (but the carved lintels still remain, inscribed "The Poet's Amphitheater"), something stood waiting. For a split second, Kassad thought it was a person in the chrome force field suits he and Moneta wore, but it was only a split second.There is nothing human about this unique mercury-chrome structure.Kassad noticed in a trance the four arms, the flexible finger blades, the neck, forehead, wrists, knees, and the large number of thorns on the body, but Kassad's eyes were always fixed on the two pairs of thousand-faced eyes , like a red flame burning, the sunlight also faded, and the day was dim, turning into a blood-red shadow. Shrike, Kassad thought. "Lord of mourning." Moneta whispered softly. The thing turned and led them out of the dead city.