The Shasht War (31 page)

The face was dead-looking as ever, as if the flesh was frozen. The color was that of a sick old man, yellowed by age and decorated with wens and blemishes. When it spoke, the skin barely seemed to move—although the lips did. The eyes were blank, devoid of interest.

Aeswiren felt that familiar anger. How long had this ancient thing tormented Shasht? Feeding on the wars, building up the insane cult of He Who Eats?

"Greetings," he said in a quiet level voice.

That was another thing that irked him. It had no name. It was just "the Old One."

Aeswiren noted that the hairless head was reddened with cracks and peeling skin. The condition had grown steadily worse in the last three meetings. Perhaps this was a sign for hope.

"Welcome to the temple of the Great God, Aeswiren, Emperor of all Shasht for twenty-three years. Welcome to my abode. You have not requested a meeting in many years. Nor have we seen you in the temple giving worship to the Great God."

Aeswiren's eyes narrowed at the tone of voice. The Old One tried to provoke him and was amused by the Emperor's reaction.

"I pay my respects to the Great God elsewhere."

"Yes, of course you do. Anything else would be blasphemy." The Old One sat down in the small chair, as it customarily did. Aeswiren remained standing. He was the Emperor of Shasht, victor of two dozen battles, and bent the knee to no man. Indeed in his heart he did not bend before the Great God, either, if that God even existed, which he doubted. Aeswiren had fought his way to the throne and had ruled the land with benevolent strength for more than two decades; he felt he'd earned the respect of the old thing. He hated this jousting over the cult of He Who Eats.

"Your note mentioned a scroll that you think I should look at."

"Yes." Aeswiren produced the little scroll with its antique handles and placed it on the outstretched palm of the thing. The hand withdrew. After a long hesitation, the Old One examined the scroll, but did not open it.

"It has been opened and resealed. What does this mean?"

"Yes. I have read it. So apparently did the commanding fleet officer in the expeditionary force."

"Then, if it has already been read, if it is not private correspondence meant for my eyes only, why do you want me to read it? Why can't you simply tell me what it says."

"Because I do not understand what it says. The message is imbued with a powerful magic. A voice calls for 'Karnemin' to listen. I believe it is meant for you."

Another long silence. Aeswiren would've sworn he saw the thing's eyebrows rise slightly at the mention of that name.

"Oh, so there is magic in it is there?" For a moment Aeswiren saw the withered face break into an evil little smile.

"So tell me, Aeswiren, Emperor for twenty-three years, what did you think of the message in the scroll?"

"I am not equipped to understand it. I think maybe it refers to another time, possibly another world."

"And it was brought to you by this girl you have been seeing."

With another smile the Old One let him know that it understood that the Emperor was debauching the girl as a matter of course. Randy as goats were all Aeswiren's clan, after all. Aeswiren would have gladly driven a sword into its guts at that very moment.

"That is correct."

The Old One fell silent, and for a long moment it seemed to regard the scroll in its hand, as if weighing the danger it contained.

Then with a slight grunt, it broke the seal and flipped the scroll open. It read for a few moments and then gave a much heavier grunt. Aeswiren knew why. He'd seen that sudden panorama of the ancient city, the enormous towers thrusting into the sky. He'd felt the huge power unleashed by the magical writing. One moment the strange characters had been still, scratched in ink on the oddly soft parchment, and then in an eery transformation the writing had begun to move, flowing as if floating in a stream, and then everything had opened to a vast view of some enormous, ancient place.

The Old One's eyes were locked on the vision for a long ten seconds, and then it tore its gaze away with a couple of strange jerks of the head. It rolled the scroll up with trembling hands.

"So," it said with a little hiss, "this was what they sent you."

"The girl said they were ancient beings of great wisdom."

"This girl, this Simona of Gsekk, she is the daughter of Filek Biswas, who has returned to work in the hospital?"

"Yes."

"The priests tell me this man has a mark beside his name. They say he is not a devout believer."

"I know nothing of his beliefs or lack of them." Aeswiren lied. "He is doing great work that will advance our understanding of the world. He is breaking down the curtain that has separated us from the deeper arts of science."

"And you consider that to be a good thing?"

"Yes. Why not?"

Again, there was that tiny smile. Aeswiren shivered with the pure hatred he felt.

"For men to grasp the levers of science is to risk much, for Man is irresponsible, little more than a cultured ape. I am not sure that those levers should ever be grasped by human hand again."

Aeswiren was baffled. Like everyone else in his era, he knew very little of the world before the ice, and even the Ice Age, some twenty thousand years before was a thing of religious myth more than understanding. The history of the world as he knew it began with the ancient kingdom of Shasht.

"The man promises to bring about a revolution in medicine."

"I know, I know, and one consequence will be a vast increase in the birth rate. The population will soar, and it is already too great for the land. Indeed the land of Shasht is already overcrowded. The soil is exhausted."

"There are possible remedies. We could change landholding laws. Give the peasants their own fields. They will be more productive and take better care of the land. Another useful remedy would be to govern the corn markets to eliminate price fixing."

The Old One shook its head slowly and decisively.

"And risk instability? You do not know what men are capable of, good Emperor Aeswiren the Third. But I know and I forbid such forms of progress. Men need strong hierarchies, powerful gods that keep them on their knees. Men become too haughty, too given to chaotic impulses if you remove the yoke."

Aeswiren heard the insolence and deep-seated contempt behind these words. He frowned, pursed his lips, and returned the stare of the dead eyes.

He could not accept that there was no chance of improving the economy of the Empire. But suddenly he felt caution muffle his response. He was Emperor, but he did not want to challenge the ancient thing. His own plans were in the making. Hesh and the Hand would do the job, but he must not betray his intentions too soon.

"The land needs water, it needs rest. Too much grain is grown to fatten meats for the wealthy."

"So what would you do? Confiscate land and give it over to communal ownership? Fool! When men have no personal, private stake in the land, they will always cheat the group. Starvation and corruption follow inevitably. So, would you instead take the land into state holdings? A terrible mistake, because then the entire covetous instinct of your society becomes aimed at the state, and in short order it is entirely corrupted and all authority rots away. Chaos or barbarian invasion invariably follows."

Aeswiren stared back, unsure how to respond. To this old thing all men were like rabbits, short-lived, stupid, unable to control their basic urge to overbreed and fill the land with their flesh.

"Does any solution have to be so extreme?"

"Of course. The land is exhausted, the fields worked to the bone. Food costs have been growing for generations. Despite Norgeeben's efforts, hunger has become widespread among the lower orders. Soon there will be social unrest. Half measures will do nothing but slow the slide into disorder."

"And yet we have great areas that are kept just for the comforts of the rich."

"A drop in the bucket. Norgeeben stripped the great families of all the lands they'd stolen during the final reigns of the second dynasty. Compared to that, you'd not get much good farmland now."

Aeswiren suppressed his next thought. Cut the number of priests and reduce the need to feed them.

The thing knew what he was thinking, though.

"I know what you're thinking, Aeswiren, Emperor for twenty-three years. And I can tell you that such a solution will not be allowed. There will be no reduction in the burden imposed by the priesthood. Don't you understand that we are taking on society's unwanted children by making them Red Tops? If they weren't priests, they'd be criminal elements."

"They could be put to more productive uses."

"Hah, now there's a thought!" The Old One had that evil smile again. "Well, don't worry, they soon will be put to work. But not in your lifetime, eh?"

Aeswiren wasn't sure what that remark meant. Would they try to kill him right here and now? He was unprotected. But his popularity still protected him from summary murder, he thought. Or did it? Would this old horror feel any compunction about killing him in an instant?

"And as for this Filek Biswas, well, the priests have marked his name. If they mark him again, then his heart must go to the Great God."

Aeswiren frowned. This sounded almost like a challenge to him. His voice steadied as he returned the fire.

"I am sure the priests will restrain themselves and leave Filek to his work. Meanwhile I will see that the man is urged to show more piety."

A long pregnant silence ensued. Then the Old One spoke again, but in a new tone, a voice filled with more emotion than Aeswiren had ever heard from it before.

"Let us move to another, more important subject. You are aware, I'm sure that the captive creatures that were to have been sacrificed have escaped. They were given assistance by powerful forces in this escape. They are being sought now."

Aeswiren suppressed any surprise he might have shown at hearing this news in this way. He and his operatives had indeed been wondering what might have happened to the captive mots.

"I see," he said quietly.

"These vermin will soon be retaken, and this time they will be given to the God at once. I wish no further contaminations from them."

Aeswiren wondered at the vehemence in the ancient being. He'd never seen it get this excited about anything before.

"What is this 'contamination' that you fear?"

"They carry deadly diseases. You have read the report."

"Yes, the expedition was hit hard by a plague. You say they carry it and can infect us?"

"We must annihilate this filth. All of them must go to the altars, all!"

Aeswiren flushed involuntarily. Did this creature refer to his Nuza?

"Ahem, I must admit that I have wondered about this course of action. Why is it so important that we kill them all?"

"You do not know enough to understand. These vermin are the creations of the demons that rule that faraway land. Those demons will not stop until they can destroy our world. If we do not strike now and expunge them from existence, they will swarm across the world and overwhelm us eventually. It is us or them, literally."

Aeswiren could not square this view of the mots with what he knew from Nuza and Simona. The thing spoke with a lying tongue, it was clear. But he knew better than to challenge it. The vehemence, the passion of the Old One was fixed on this object.

Aeswiren left the meeting deeply concerned.

"My fault, I insisted that we stay together," said Thru. "The men wanted to break us up. I told them not to."

Ter-Saab grinned back at him. "So that's why we've been living in cellars the past month."

Juf Goost, spirit unbroken despite his smashed mouth, chuckled. "You mean if we'd been broken up, we'd have been sleeping on feather beds?"

"And eating something other than stale bread, too," replied Ter-Saab, easing himself back against the damp stone of their present hiding place.

Thru understood their feelings. None of them would complain, but all were as weary of this frightening life as mice, hiding in holes in the ground. Most of their wounds had healed, but poor Juf had lost most of his teeth and was left with a hideous face, his nose all smashed and flat.

"I'm glad you didn't let them break us up," said Jevvi Panst, voicing what they all felt.

"Me, too," said Juf.

"Oh, I don't know," groused Ter-Saab playfully, "I wouldn't have minded a feather bed."

"Listen to him," said Pern Glazen. Someone tossed a wet sponge at Ter-Saab, who ducked too late.

"Well, at least we're all still alive, even if we've had to sleep on stone."

As usual it was Thru, who addressed the essentials.

Indeed, Janbur Gsekk's strategy had worked well. They'd survived several weeks of the most intense search of the city, and the priests were burning with rage as a result.

However, during the second week, some servants had stumbled on them in a wine cellar under a great house in the outer Shalba. After a frantic afternoon Janbur of the Gsekk pulled them out. First they'd shaved the fur off their faces and necks. Then dressed in rags like slaves, they rode out on a wagon with a few real slaves openly through the streets.

Not a single Red Top noticed them. The priests and the guards were too busy looking at covered wagons and carts to bother with a wagon of slaves uncovered and open to view. The servants who had seen them were sworn to silence, given gold to seal their lips and threatened with death if they spoke. None did.

The captives were alive, and rumors had spread in the city, the most popular being that the captives had disappeared. As the priests hadn't sacrificed the captive monkeys to the Great God, the rumor made sense. Among a certain class of people this was cause for great merriment. Among the priests there was nothing but rage.

They were going to be moved again soon. So they shaved. The strangest feeling the first time. Some never got used to the wetness, the cold steel drawn across the skin, the sudden change of color in the face.

"I feel like a naked baby every time I do this," said Ter-Saab.