Doom's Break

by Christopher Rowley

  "Sir!" chorused the others.

  The gate swung wide. Aeswiren acknowledged their salute and let them stand easy.

  "Don't sweat it, boys. Hell, I'm the last person I'd expect to come walking out of these woods. Your disbelief was understandable. But, thanks to Sergeant Kaffee here, we've established who I am. It's a long story, and I will tell it all very shortly. But first I have some things to do. Now, who's the commanding officer here?"

  The men stared at the gold chasing on the breastplate. Worth a small fortune on its own. And they saw the heavy gold rings on the man's fingers, and they heard the words and felt the bearing of the man.

  "Uh, that will be the colonel, sir. Colonel Breuze."

  "Excellent, and where will I find the colonel?"

  CHAPTER NINE

  Admiral Heuze paced up and down the floor of his stateroom aboard the flagship Anvil, his peg leg making a dull clunk with every step. They had spotted a distant sail approaching hours before, and the ship had been beating up to them through an irregular breeze ever since. Heuze was worried, and impatient, which was not a good mixture.

  The first news had come from Ensign Combliss, shortly after the distant ship's hull became visible. "It's the Duster, sir. Frigate that went back to Shasht year before last. Was replaced by the frigate Wasp, sir."

  "What are they doing here, then?"

  "Say they have a special passenger. Request a meeting with you, sir."

  Heuze did not like mysteries like this. Coming on top of the bizarre news from his forts it was unsettling. Who was this "special passenger"? Was there a connection with this madness from the forts? A man had appeared from the forest, claiming to be Emperor Aeswiren. Three forts had gone over to this man.

  Heuze didn't know yet if the men had gone barking mad or if he had a rebellion on his hands, though it certainly sounded ominous.

  "A message, sir." The door had opened after a knock. A hand passed in a slip of paper.

  "Identity of special passenger, Filek Biswas," he read with astounded eyes.

  "Any return message, sir?"

  Heuze hesitated, befuddled by surprise. "No. No return."

  The door closed.

  Shaken, with mounting concern for what all this might mean, Heuze sat down by his desk. This news was the last thing he might have expected.

  Filek Biswas had come back? But what about his research program? What the hell had happened in Shasht? And if the Duster was bringing Filek Biswas to see him, who was this man who had convinced three forts that he was the fornicating Emperor Aeswiren the Third?

  Rousing himself at last, Heuze took his spyglass and went up to the quarterdeck and studied the approaching frigate carefully. Her rigging was worn but seaworthy. To Heuze's expert eye, she had the look of a ship that had been at sea for a long time.

  Tacking into the wind, her crew were setting sails with an expert efficiency that brought a small grunt of approval from him. Like most frigate crews, they were natural-born sailors. Soon afterward, the frigate made a final tack and slid smoothly between the much larger ships of the colony fleet.

  A boat was set down, bearing a single figure rowed by four men. It moved swiftly across to the Anvil's side. In a few minutes, the passenger had climbed the netting to reach the deck.

  "Biswas!" Heuze could not contain himself.

  "Admiral."

  They clasped hands. There were a thousand questions pressing.

  "My dear fellow, this has been something of a surprise."

  "Yes, Admiral Heuze, I'm sure it must be."

  "Come up to my stateroom. We can talk there."

  A few moments later, they were secure behind a locked door.

  Seeing Biswas once again brought back memories for Heuze. The two had become friends when Surgeon Biswas had been brought in to take off Heuze's leg from the knee down. A tiny wound on a toe had grown into gangrene, threatening the admiral's life.

  Surgeon Biswas espoused novel notions about cleanliness and anesthetics. Heuze had been pleasantly surprised by how easily the amputation had gone. The two became fast friends, for it happened that the admiral was able to rescue poor Biswas from an unfortunate situation on another ship. Indeed, if not for the admiral, Biswas most likely would have been castrated and sold into slavery.

  "What in the world are you doing here?"

  Biswas held up a hand with a weak smile. "I thought you might ask that. It's a long story. Let me explain... I sent you a letter after my return to Shasht. Have you received it?"

  "Yes, a year ago. You had been well received by the Emperor. He had shown his favor on you and rewarded you with—"

  "Oh, he was most generous. I had the run of the hospital. The research was going very well. But, well, nothing that good can last forever."

  Heuze nodded. "Yes?"

  "Admiral, tell me, how much do you know about the temple in the pyramid?"

  "What?"

  "The Gold Tops, the high priests, what do you know about them?"

  "Hate their sodomistic guts is all. We killed them. You remember. You helped me do it. Killing those buggers was one of the best things I've ever done."

  "Uh, yes, Admiral, but have you ever heard of the 'Old One'?"

  "No, can't say that I have."

  Filek nodded. "They keep it well hidden. Do you recall the message that my daughter brought back from her time among the native people?"

  "Biswas, stop that 'native people' stuff. They're monkeys. We went through all that long ago."

  Filek laughed. The admiral was still his fierce, irrepressible self.

  "Well, Admiral, if you recall that message, you may have heard a name mentioned during it."

  The name came back to Heuze as if it had been but a moment before. That strange, terrifying vision. A place of vast towers, of bright pennons that burned upon a blue sky. And that small voice in his ear.

  "Karnemin?" he said.

  "Yes. That is it."

  "Who does this refer to, this name?"

  "It is the Old One, Admiral. The Old One is the hidden ruler of the Gold Tops. From the heart of the pyramid he rules Shasht."

  "But..." Heuze's face expressed a mixture of astonishment and disbelief.

  "Believe me, Admiral, the Old One exists. He has lived in the pyramid since the beginning of the Empire, but he is far, far older than that."

  Heuze's curiosity was aroused. "What is this thing, this Old One?"

  "In form, he is said to be a man. Every Emperor has to meet him. They learn that they rule only so far and no farther. They learn that the Old One is the ultimate ruler of all Shasht."

  Heuze was left groping for air. All kinds of horrible realizations were slipping into place. "Biswas, has the Emperor been overthrown in Shasht?"

  "Yes. Aeswiren was overthrown by the Old One."

  "By the purple ass of the Great God, don't tell me..."

  "Yes, Admiral, the Emperor is here. He has come to the Land."

  And he had already taken three of Heuze's forts.

  "Oh, my god." Heuze stared at Biswas while his mind spun.

  "He is here, Admiral, and he has need of you. I have been sent to ask a question. Will you be loyal to Emperor Aeswiren now that he calls upon you?"

  Heuze sucked in a breath. This was a most dangerous moment. If he put a foot wrong here, he could easily end up being handed over to the priests. How they would love that! The admiral who had broken their power, given to them to be tortured before they tore his heart from his chest and offered it to their Great God.

  "Well, of course." Heuze tried to think of some way to dissimulate. "I have always been loyal to Aeswiren."

  "Yes, I thought so," said Biswas with a smile. "You know by now that most of your men in the forts have gone over to him."

  "Yes, I had heard this. I didn't believe it."

  "He went to the forts alone, Admiral. He just walked up out of the forest and the men took him to their hearts."

  "I..." Heuze heard Filek's words and understood.
>
  Aeswiren had truly come. The men in the army would respond to him like no other. The tide would be unstoppable.

  "What about Nebbeggebben?" The Emperor's son, who remained in nominal command of the colony.

  "We hope to arrange it so that there is no time for him to do anything. If you will stand by the Emperor, he will land on the island tomorrow and speak directly to the troops."

  Heuze whistled. The audacity of it. Sailing in under Nebbeggebben's nose and taking his army, just like that.

  The admiral snapped his fingers.

  "By the Great God's purple ass, I like it."

  It was just like the daring Aeswiren of old. When he'd lead a rebel army to unexpected victory. Heuze could feel the coming wind. There was no way to play it safe. And loyalty to Aeswiren would be recognized and rewarded.

  "Damn it all to hell and gone, I'm Aeswiren's man, you can tell him that."

  CHAPTER TEN

  When Aeswiren sailed to Mauste, Nuza had stayed behind in Dronned, among her own kind. As she'd watched the Duster sail out of the bay, she'd known that she might never see the Emperor again. The thought left her sadder than she ever would have imagined.

  She'd returned to her room in the palace, struggling through the throngs that crowded Dronned because of the war. Even the palace was jam-packed, as the royal civil service struggled with the huge demands of the army.

  Back in her little room, she sat quietly on the bed, writing letter after letter to her family in Lushtan. She had still not received word back from them, which left her in a state of mild anxiety. There had been no raids as far as Lushtan, but Nuza could not help but feel uneasy.

  She would have set off for Lushtan as soon as Aeswiren had gone, but there had come messages from the Assenzi requesting that she remain to speak with them about her adventures in Shasht and her relationship with the Emperor. They were hurrying to meet with her. On the roads to Dronned, from the north, south, and east, there were ancient frail figures on the move, each accompanied by nothing more than a donkey and a young acolyte or two.

  On several occasions, she had been invited to dine with the King and Queen of Dronned and their guests. They could not get enough of her stories about Shasht, even though she protested that she had seen very little of the place, having been virtually a prisoner most of the time in an apartment in the capital city. Still, His Majesty was interested in whatever she'd learned. A land turned into a virtual desert was almost incomprehensible to him. As were tales of giant pyramids, huge palaces of stone, and cities so vast you could not see beyond them.

  As for the Emperor, the King was filled with an eager fascination, as well as a certain resentment. The speedy visit of the Emperor to the dunes, to meet with Toshak alone, had not been taken kindly by the King of Dronned. Often in an evening, he would return to this point in the conversation.

  "I must admit that we have wondered why the Emperor did not ask to meet with us. We are, after all, the titular ruler of this realm. To request to meet only with General Toshak seemed almost insulting to us."

  Nuza would try once more to pour oil on the troubled waters.

  "We tried to explain all of that in our letters to you, Your Majesty."

  "I know, I know," the small fat king would grumble. "This plague you wrote about. It kills them, the men, and he was afraid we'd give it to him. That didn't please us very much either, to be thought of as disease-ridden."

  And so Nuza would have to work hard to rehabilitate the Emperor's reputation with the King and Queen, who remained quite prickly on the subject of Aeswiren's swift visit to their land.

  "What we have to remember, Your Majesties," she would say, over and over, "is that the Emperor must move very quickly now. He has to act before his enemies even know he is here. If he succeeds, then the war will end."

  That happy thought was always enough to still their protests and soften the hard feelings left behind. Ending the war was paramount. Even though the war had shifted its focus south to the coastline of Sulmo, the strain on Dronned was still enormous. All the realms of the Land were involved to some degree in the effort to defeat the invaders, but Dronned was one of the most prosperous realms and therefore the burden had fallen disproportionally on the house of Belit to provide material for Toshak's army.

  Sometimes the strain showed at the dinner table. Important nobles, Gryses of the Realm, were usually present. They, too, were paying more than they ever had before, but not as much proportionately as the King, and his resentment would on occasion boil over. The Grys Nurrum was practically driven from the dining table by the King when he foolishly attempted to protest the necessity of delivering twenty tons of dried fish.

  "What the hell do you expect our soldiers to eat then?" had been Belit's response. Nurrum had no good answers.

  Such dinners were hardly relaxing, and Nuza did not welcome the invitations, yet still they came, and still she went. She had no worthwhile excuse for refusing an invitation from the royal house of Dronned.

  Beyond all these matters, neither the King nor anyone else had been able to answer Nuza's own most pressing question. She could get no fresh information about Thru Gillo's death. Then, one evening at dinner with the King and Queen, she was introduced to the Grys Norvory, who had once been Thru's nemesis in the weaving guild. Since those days in the prewar past, he had fought in the army. He had even served under Thru's command in the battle of Dronned. At some point after that battle, the Grys finally became aware that he had been completely mistaken about Thru Gillo.

  Nuza listened to his account of his great change of mind. When he had finished she spoke. "Thru and I were lovers." She was frank as always and took no notice of Norvory's embarrassment. "We spent a great deal of time together. I remember the 'Chooks and Beetles' of his that you sold. It really was his. I saw him make another of that pattern, and other work, too. He was gifted."

  Norvory had recovered his poise.

  "Yes. Another Misho in the making, I think. He would have brought a revolution to our weaving arts. For what happened in the matter of the 'Chooks and Beetles,' I can only beg for your forgiveness. I was wrong. Worse, I was so caught up in my own view of the matter that I behaved with unpardonable arrogance. In mitigation I can only say that I was taken in by Pern Treevi, who I have learned was not a mot to trust."

  Nuza nodded mutely. She remembered the heartbreak for Thru back in those days. This aristocrat had ruined Thru's dream. But that was before the war, and more important matters had swallowed up that time.

  "It is hard not knowing for sure whether Thru is dead."

  "I am afraid he must be. I was not at the battle of Farnem, which is probably why I'm still alive. Almost all of the officers from Dronned who were there perished."

  Nuza gave a sigh of sorrow. "I saw Thru that summer. In Sulmo City, whenever he could leave his command."

  Norvory's face took on a grim cast. "That battle was such a disaster; our army engaged piecemeal. Gillo's brigade and another were forced to fight the entire enemy army. They were overwhelmed. I was devastated by the news of his death in particular, because I had finally understood how mistaken I had been in the matter of the 'Chooks and Beetles'; I had wished to apologize and to offer him some form of restitution. His death took that chance away, and now I am left with this stain on my good name and no way of removing it."

  So, Thru was dead. She said good-bye to her last faint hopes. Mourning was easier than not knowing.

  "Perhaps, Grys, if the war ends, as I now hope it will, you might open a legal office dedicated to helping the small and the weak pursue just claims against the great and the powerful?"

  He looked at her as if the idea intrigued him. "I thank you, Mistress Nuza. That is a very good suggestion."

  That dinner ended more pleasantly than some. The Grys had offered her room to stay at his country house should she ever want a respite from the crowding in Dronned. They had parted on good terms. She'd left hoping that Thru would have approved.

  —|— />
  The next evening, a mot came to her room with a message. On reading it, she jumped up, pulled on a light coat, and followed the mot through the winding passageways of the ancient palace.

  Toshak was waiting for her in a small office chamber. They embraced and then sat across from each other at the table.

  "Toshak, dearest, I have prayed that I would see you again."

  "Many things are in motion. It has been a very busy two weeks."

  "What news have you from the Emperor?"

  "He has landed on Mauste. If he has succeeded, then the war will end, for now."

  "He will win. Aeswiren is filled with an elemental force. I have seen it."

  "Yes, I believe you, but you also know what he faces. What we all face. This thing, the Old One, that has lived since the days of the old world, of the time of Man-the-Cruel. It will have anticipated the Emperor's plans. It must know that he has come here."

  Nuza frowned. Could they never be rid of the fear? The terror of war?

  "But, enough of that. I have good news from Sulmo. The men have abandoned three of the forts and moved into a single fort on Pelican Point. We have agreed that they will erect a larger place there, from which they will disembark when they leave our shores forever."

  "Where will they go then?"

  "To Mauste for a while, at least a year, perhaps two, and then they will sail away, back to their homeland."

  "May that day come!"

  "They will need our help before then. We will have to help them outfit their fleet, and dry and store enough food to keep them alive. We do not have the animal foods that they like. They will have to adjust to bushpod and bushcurd."

  "Let them. It is nothing compared to what we have had to live with because of them."

  Toshak nodded, then took her hand in his. "You will be visited soon by several Assenzi. They have a great many questions for you. They also want to meet with the Emperor. Do you think he will allow it?"

  "I think so, but he does not completely trust them."

  "Yes, he does not know them. He thinks they are like his enemy."

  "Our enemy, Toshak."

  "Yes."