Empire of the East

by Fred Saberhagen

  Thomas now lay on his face without moving, without trying to look around. The knife-handle in his hand was slippery with sweat. He breathed the dust of the desert floor. His ears told him that the line of troopers was moving on still, going away from him.

  When the sounds were far away he rose cautiously to knees and elbows, and turned his head. The mounted men were many meters distant now and still receding; he could not see that any of them carried a feathered trophy. He crawled, circling as widely as he dared over the area where the birds had fought the men. But he could find no trace, not even a feather.

  The birds had saved him, whether they had died for him or not. Dead or wounded, they were gone. Thomas crawled out into the desert until he had put sufficient distance between himself and the enemy to feel safe in standing up. Looking back, he saw that the noose had tightened all the way. The enemy force, once gathered, seemed to be breaking up into smaller bands. There was no telling how they might move next to scour the plain. The only course for Thomas was to keep moving away from them, farther and farther out into the desert. Well, so be it, then. He would turn back westward when he could. Maybe it would have to be tomorrow night. He had his water bottle.

  At dawn he was still walking; by now the Castle and the pass were many kilometers behind him. The Black Mountains ahead were not perceptibly closer. Nearly barren, the land around him undulated to the horizon in all directions, without a sign of men or man-made things.

  Daylight was liable to bring reptiles. The notch of the pass behind him was too distant for him to see the leatherwings rising above the Castle, but he knew they would be there. He would soon have to hole up for the day.

  The scanty vegetation here offered no really promising place to hide. He would go on a little, looking for a bigger bush. Now in the growing light he began to notice an odd thing. The sand in places had a crusty, pocked, granular look, as if it had recently been rained on. Yes, just a day ago he and Rolf had seen the improbable rainstorm moving over this part of the desert. The Oasis of the Two Stones was in this general area, though Thomas could not see it for the rolling of the land between.

  He went on, still searching for a good hiding place, and casting frequent anxious glances up at the brightening sky.

  Then he saw a reptile, but it was on the ground, and dead—and, like the rain-stippled sand around it, something of a marvel. He stepped over a low dune to find the reptile’s body there in the hollow before him. It lay sprawled and twisted, gray-green no longer but swollen and black.

  The death was not the marvel—reptiles had their diseases and misfortunes, and certainly their enemies—but rather the manner of the death. The body was swelled enough to split the scaly skin, but not with decay, rather as if the creature had been roasted alive. Yet the sand around showed no signs of fire or great heat, only the faint marks of yesterday’s rain.

  Around the swollen body stretched a strap that held a pouch—the reptile had been one of Ekuman’s couriers. Thomas turned the child-sized body over with his foot. The pouch itself was burned black and torn; the charred fabric crumbled further at his touch. There was no heat left in it now. Inside, his gingerly probing found what had doubtless been a written message, but the paper dissolved into ash-powder at a breath.

  There was something in the pouch, however, that did not dissolve. A closed case of some heavy metal. It was of a shape that might contain some precious jewel, but the size of Thomas’s two fists. He turned it over carefully in his hands. It was not an Old World thing, he decided, for its shape and joining lacked the incredible precision that distinguished the metalworking of the ancients. It was blackened and battered. Thomas could not read the signs that were graven on it, but as he weighed it in his hands he felt certain that he held some powerful magic. The enemy would hardly freight his couriers with mere gimcracks.

  So the thing must be taken to Loford. Thomas buried the reptile and its emptied pouch with hasty scrapings of sand, to keep the others of its kind from finding it.

  Walking on, he shook the strange case in his hands and could feel a shifting weight inside. He turned it over and over, and felt the natural temptation to open it. But caution prevailed over curiosity, and he thrust it unopened into his pack.

  Looking up again for reptiles, Thomas was pleased to see that the sky was clouding over. If there was to be a peculiar rainy season this year in the desert, well, he would take advantage of it; clouds would hide him from the reptiles better than any of these scanty bushes could.

  As the sun came up a rim of clear sky brightened all around the horizon; but directly overhead a solid low overcast a couple of kilometers in diameter developed. The grayness of it thickened and darkened in swirls and ominous gatherings of vapor, while Thomas mentally cheered it on. A good rain would not only protect him from aerial observation, but could eliminate any chance of his running out of water.

  Thomas sat down for a rest. The clouds showed no inclination to blow in any direction today, the air seemed windless. The first grumble of thunder sounded overhead; the first big drops came pelting down. He put out his tongue to taste them.

  There was a flare and flicker above, then thunder once again. Sullenness growing in the atmosphere, and an electric pause. And then a high-pitched scream, that brought Thomas leaping to his feet and spinning around. From the same direction that he had come, a young woman was now running toward him, some fifty meters away. She wore a simple farm-girl’s dress, and a wide hat such as the folk of the Oasis wore when working their unshaded fields. As she ran toward Thomas she was crying out, “Oh, throw it! Throw it away from you!”

  Some buried part of his mind must have been aware already of the danger, for now he did not hesitate an instant. He scooped the blackened thing of power out of his pack and in the same motion of his arm lobbed the weight of it away from him, putting all his strength into the effort. And then the air seared white around him, and a shock great beyond hearing seemed to tear apart the world.

  VI

  Technology

  With slow steps Rolf walked twice around the Elephant, keeping a cautious distance from it, holding his torch high.

  Except for the impression that it gave of enormous and mysterious power, this before him did not much resemble the creature depicted in the symbols. This was a flattened metal lozenge of smooth regular curves, built low to the ground for something of its massive size. Here could be seen no fantastically flexible snout, no jutting teeth. There was no real face at all, only some thin hollowed metal shafts projecting all in one direction from the topmost hump. Looking closely Rolf could see that around that hump, or head, were set some tiny glassy-looking things, like the false eyes of some monstrous statue.

  Elephant was legless, which only made it all the more impressive by raising the question of how its obvious power was to be unfolded and applied. Neither were there any proper wheels, such as a cart or wagon had. Instead Elephant rested on two endless belts of heavy, studded metal plates, whose shielded upper course ran higher than Rolf’s head.

  On the dull metal of each flank, painted small in size but with Old World precision, was the familiar sign—the animal shape, gray and powerful, some trick of the painter’s art telling the viewer that what it represented was gigantic. In its monstrous gripping nose the creature in the painting brandished a sharp-pointed spear, jagged all along its length. Under its feet it trod the symbols:

  426TH ARMORED DIVISION

  —whose meaning, and even language, were strange to Rolf. Now, holding his breath, he ventured to put out a hand and touch a part of one of the endless belts, a plate of armor too heavy for a man to carry or for a riding-beast to wear into a fight. Nothing seemed to happen from the touch. Rolf dared to lay his hand flat on the featureless surface of the Elephant’s metal flank.

  Then he stepped back and looked around the rest of the cave. There was not much to see. A few openings in the curving walls, holes too small for men to enter. Maybe they were chimneys of a sort; the air in the cave was good. A
nd there were the huge doors set in the wall just ahead of Elephant—if “ahead” was the direction in which the projections on the topmost hump were pointing.

  These doors were flat expanses of metal, seemingly covering an opening of just the right size to permit Elephant’s passage. The vertical cracks of imperfect closure at the doors’ edges were noticeably wider at the bottom than at the top, as if the great panels had been slightly warped. Through each widened crack a small heap of pebbly dirt had sometime trickled to the floor below.

  Rolf knelt thoughtfully to finger some of this debris. As nearly as he could calculate, the floor here was at approximately the same vertical level as that of the canyon outside. The same landslide that had made the rock-jumble out there might easily have buried these doors.

  He closed his eyes for a moment to better visualize the various distances and directions of his movements in coming into the cave. Yes, it seemed so. Let these doors be opened, and some of the house-sized rocks outside them cleared away, and Elephant would be free.

  His rush-light had burned down to a finger-searing shortness and he lighted another from it. The air in the cave seemed as fresh as ever, and what little smoke his torch gave off was rising steadily. It would be far too much dispersed and faint for anyone to notice at the outer entrance of the cave.

  Rolf walked again around Elephant, running his hand along its surface. On this circuit he paid much closer attention to details. This was like handling Thomas’s eyeglasses; there was no feeling of magic here, but a sense of other powers that somehow seemed to suit Rolf better than wizardry.

  High on one vast armored flank, just above the covered upper level of the endless tread, was a barely perceptible circular line, like the crack of a very close-fitting door. Recessed in the surface of this circle was a handle that might tug it open, if it was indeed a door. And now Rolf saw there were four small steps, set into the solid metal, ascending from floor level to the circle.

  He took a deep breath, gripped his torch precariously between his teeth, and climbed. The handgrip on the door accepted his fingers easily. Deep in his throat he muttered a protective spell, half-forgotten since his childhood—and then he pulled. His first tug was resisted, and his second. Then, when he dared lean all his weight outward from the handle, ancient stiffness yielded with a sudden crack of sound. The door, incredibly thick, swung open on a hinge. In that moment a sharp, straining click sounded somewhere in Elephant’s inside, and there was light, striking out of the door like the golden beams of the sun.

  Already off balance, Rolf half-leaped, half-fell from Elephant’s side, his torch landing on the stone floor beside him. He did not need the torch, with the flood of true illumination washing out of Elephant’s opened side. That golden glow was not as bright as sunlight, he saw now, but it was as steady as the sun, without smoke or flames or flickering

  Now Ardneh will appear, Rolf thought, and made himself stand up. He had some idea, or thought he did, of how a demon should look, but no ideas at all about a god. He waited, but no creature of any sort appeared. Elephant was as immobile as ever.

  He chose to take the light as a favorable sign, and once more climbed the steps, pausing to marvel at the balance of the heavy door that he had opened. He paused again with his eyes just above the lower rim of the doorway, for the shapes inside were of a bewildering variety and all at first seemed utterly strange. Printed or graven symbols, not one of which Rolf could read, were sprinkled thickly everywhere. Nothing moved; nothing was clearly menacing. The light as steady as the sun came from little panels that glowed like white-hot iron but yet seemed to radiate no warmth.

  Pulling himself up gradually until he was halfway into the doorway, Rolf listened. From somewhere deeper inside Elephant came very faint murmuring, a little like running water, a little like soft wind. Wind it was, perhaps, for air was moving faintly out of the doorway, past Rolf’s face.

  He sat in the doorway a little longer, probing the strangeness before him with busy eyes. Actually the open space inside Elephant was not very big. Three or four men would pretty well fill it, and be crowded among all the strange objects that were already there. But now Rolf could see certain indications that humans were meant to enter. The door itself had an immensely strong but simple latch that could be worked only from inside. And the narrow clear paths of the metal floor had been roughly surfaced, as if to provide good traction for human feet. And from the fixed furniture of peculiar objects there extended several projections that looked like tool-handles, made to fit the grip of human fingers.

  Soon Rolf was crouching entirely inside the doorway, bathing in the heatless light, continuing to marvel. From here he could see more. Three objects that had puzzled him at first he suddenly understood to be chairs. They were low and stoutly made, faced not toward one another but side by side, turned in what seemed to be the direction Elephant was facing, toward the huge flat doors.

  With gradually increasing boldness, Rolf carefully stood upright—though he was not tall, he had little head-room—and made his way step by step, touching things with deliberate caution, to the central chair. This chair was thickly surfaced with stuff that might once have been good padding but was now hard and brittle. It cracked at his touch and sent up a cloud of dust when he at last dared to sit on it. The dust made him sneeze, but soon it was borne away by the mysterious whispering circulation of the air.

  Around the three seats and in front of them were ranged many incomprehensible objects, made of metal and glass and substances more difficult to name. Here were several of the handles that might have been those of tools or weapons; experiments first cautious and then more energetic convinced Rolf that none of these handles were intended to be pulled free to reveal simple tools of some sort on their working ends.

  Elephant seemed to be accepting Rolf as some huge placid work-beast might tolerate a baby’s prodding; when this comparison occurred to Rolf he smiled. A feeling of possessive power was growing in him. All these wonders were becoming his—already they belonged more to him than to any other living man. Suppose Thomas were here now, or Loford. Suppose one of the clever and mighty wizards of the Castle. Would any of them dare do this? And Rolf raised a hand, and touched casually one of the light-panels, which gave off only the faintest warmth.

  Sitting in the middle chair, he noticed that above each seat there hung a mask. Each mask had a strap, as if to hold it on a human head, and two glass rounds for eyes. From each mask’s nose there curled away a snout of more than Elephantine length, to fit into a socket in the wall. Rolf’s first touch made the face of the mask that rested above his chair crack dryly, and broke the long snout into a shower of dust and brittle fragments.

  Blinking his eyes and brushing powder out of his hair, he looked around him apprehensively. But still nothing happened. Even the murmuring whispering seemed to be smoothing itself down nearer silence.

  Rolf sighed out a long shuddering breath and was aware that, for the moment at least, the last of his fear had left him. His being here was all right, all right with whatever powers were in charge. He waited. The quiet air seemed pregnant with importance. The movement of the air carried the fresh dust away. A broken mask perhaps did not matter to Ardneh, for Ardneh was not a demon. He was—something more than that. If he was anything at all.

  On a sudden impulse Rolf spoke soft words aloud. “Ardneh? You were a god in the Old World, where this Elephant was made. I know that much. I don’t know any spells to call you up. Since you’re not a demon maybe spells aren’t needed—I don’t know.”

  He paused. Encouragement seemed to wrap him, through the softly moving air.

  “Loford says that you have come to stand for freedom, and so I…I wish that you would work through me. Someone said that the Old One was Ardneh, in a way, and in the same way I want to be Ardneh too.” For a moment Rolf in his imagination saw himself as the warrior of Loford’s vision, mounted on Elephant, armed with the thunderbolt in his hands. And for a moment the dream did not seem ridicul
ous.

  Still no voice but the steady fading murmuring answered him. Rolf twisted in his seat, suddenly feeling like a fool kid playing, talking to himself. He sneezed again in the fresh dust raised by his movement. So much for that. It would be nice to have a sorcerer’s power, but there was no point in playing at it like a child. He had no real control of demons, nor of gods either, whatever they might be.

  He decided to get on with the job. Again he began to test the objects before him and around him with his hands, pulling and prodding and twisting carefully. If there was a magical aspect to Elephant, he was incapable of dealing with it. He would just have to approach it like a farmer confronted with some strange and enormous tool, trying the handles that should make it work—

  Rolf grunted in surprise, and snatched his hands away from the table-like thing before him. Within a glassy panel on that table a series of dots of light had suddenly appeared, all regular in form and spacing though no two alike in color. Above and around the dots and also limned in pure light were sets of characters, in a language unreadable to Rolf. The largest said: CHECKLIST.

  After contemplating this for a little time, and reassuring himself that nothing more serious had happened, Rolf was emboldened to put his hand back on the control he had last touched, and push where he had just pulled. The lights in the panel before him obediently died away. He turned them on and off and on again, savoring new power.

  The upper most dot on the panel was bright orange. A small knobbed lever at the side of the panel, near Rolf’s right hand, had also acquired a marking of orange light. He pushed it, and it moved with a click.