by David Drake
The relief on the proprietor's face when Garmat finally cajoled the prince into settling down was obvious, for all the man's practiced diplomacy. Venandakatra had been equally relieved to finally part company with Eon, and had not been particularly loath to show it.
All in all, thought Belisarius, Eon was doing splendidly.
As the Ethiopian party were led to their rooms, Belisarius and his three cataphracts were guided to their own quarters. Once inside the room, Anastasius helped Menander lay down on a couch. The young cataphract had finally overcome the diseases produced by his wound, but he was still very weak.
"Eon's going to bitch at us again tonight," commented Anastasius. He glanced at the general. "Quite a task you assigned him, sir. Poor lad."
"Poor lad, my ass," snapped Valentinian. He perched on the couch next to Menander. "I'd trade places with him in a minute."
"Me, too," whispered Menander. "It'd kill me, for sure, but what a way to go."
Belisarius smiled. "I didn't realize you prized Venandakatra's company so much, Valentinian."
The cataphract sneered. "Not that! That part of the job the prince is welcome to. It's the part coming now that I'd treasure."
"Not everyone approaches these things like a weasel, Valentinian," said Anastasius mildly.
"Crap! He's a prince, for the sake of Christ. Probably got his first concubine when he was twelve."
"Thirteen," said Belisarius. "Her name is Zaia. She's still with him, by the way, and he's very fond of her."
Belisarius took a seat himself. He grimaced, remembering the night in Venandakatra's cabin when Eon—as instructed beforehand by Belisarius, coached by Garmat, and slapped atop the head innumerable times by Ousanas—had finally broached the subject of his insatiable sexual appetites. The prince had performed perfectly in the hours which followed, swapping tales with the Vile One. For all their boastfulness, none of Eon's tales came close to Venandakatra's in sheer debauchery, but the lad did quite well. His long and lascivious description of his first concubine had been particularly well done.
Afterward, in their own cabin, the boy had refused to speak to anyone for a full day. To Belisarius, not for three days.
Perfect. Now that they were ashore, of course, the boy would have to live up to his boasts. There had been no women aboard the ship, and Eon had hastily declined Venandakatra's offer of a cabin boy. His tastes, he had explained, were exclusively oriented to the female sex.
"Poor lad, my ass," muttered Valentinian again. He eyed Anastasius coldly. "And you have some nerve, lecturing me about weasels."
Anastasius grinned. "I'm not a young prince, full of righteousness and royal propriety." He stretched his arms and yawned. "I'm just a simple farm boy, at heart, with fond memories of haystacks. And such." He returned Valentinian's cold stare.
"Furthermore, I don't see what you're complaining about. Nobody said we have to remain abstinent. Quite the contrary, in fact."
He raised his huge hand, forestalling Belisarius. "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Kushans only. Not a problem, I assure you."
"What do Kushans look like?" asked Menander. The young man's expression bore equal parts of curiosity and frustration.
"Oh, you won't be missing a thing, Menander!" exclaimed Anastasius. "Horrid folk, Kushans. Ugliest people in the world, especially the women."
Valentinian shuddered. "I shudder to think of it." He shuddered again. "See?"
"I hate mustaches on a woman," grumbled Anastasius.
"I can live with the mustaches," retorted Valentinian. "It's those damned beards that bother me."
"And the knobby fingers."
"The scrawny legs."
"Which go so oddly with those"—here Anastasius cupped his hands before his stomach—"bloated bellies."
"And where did they get that habit of filing their teeth into sharp points?" demanded Valentinian crossly.
"Oh, well," groaned Anastasius. "Duty calls." He arose. "Come, Valentinian. We must be off, about the general's business."
As the two veterans were leaving the room, Anastasius shook his sausage-sized finger in Valentinian's face.
"Remember! Kushans only! I won't have you leading me astray!"
"Kushans only," grumbled Valentinian. As they went through the door, a last repartee:
Valentinian, whispering: "But those eyes—those rheumy, salt-encrusted, lifeless—"
"It's because of the diseases they all carry, you know. That's what causes the sores on their—"
The door closed.
Menander looked at Belisarius. "They're lying, aren't they?"
Belisarius chuckled. "Through their teeth, Menander. Kushans are quite attractive folk, in their own way. They look much like Ye-tai. More like Huns, perhaps. They're of the same stock."
"I didn't know that."
Belisarius nodded. "Oh, yes. They're all part of that great mass of central Asian nomads which erupts into civilized lands every century or so. The Kushans conquered Bactria and parts of north India a long time ago. Over the centuries, they lost most of their barbarousness and became rather civilized. They did quite well, in fact. Bactria under Kushan rule used to be quite a pleasant place, by all accounts."
"What happened?"
Belisarius shrugged. "I don't know, in detail. Fifty years or so ago, their Ye-tai cousins erupted into the area. They ravaged parts of Persia, conquered Bactria and reduced the Kushans to vassals, and then plundered their way into north India. Where, in the end, they seemed to have reached an accommodation with the Malwa."
Frustration replaced curiosity on Menander's face.
"Damn." He struggled to find solace. "Oh, well, it's not that bad. I never found Huns attractive anyway. They stink, all the ones I've met. And I think their way of greasing up their hair is grotesque."
Belisarius forebore comment. Menander hadn't thought through the implications of Belisarius' little history lesson. The Kushans hadn't been nomads for centuries, and had long since adopted such civilized customs as regular bathing. Belisarius himself had met a few Kushans, and he had found them a reasonably comely people.
But he saw no reason to enlighten the lad. The one part of this journey which Menander had looked forward to was encountering exotic and fascinating women. And here he was, in Bharakuccha, with uncountable numbers close at hand. And so weak he could barely feed himself, much less—
Belisarius rose.
"I've got to be off, myself. Will you—"
"I'll be fine, sir. I think I'm going to sleep, anyway. I'm very tired." Apologetically: "I'm sorry I'm of so little—"
"Quiet! Wounds are wounds, Menander. And yours was—well, there's no reason not to tell you now. Yours was fatal, nine times out of ten. I'm surprised you're still alive, and mending. I hardly expect you to do anything more. Not for weeks."
Menander smiled, faintly. Within a minute, he was fast asleep. Belisarius left the room, closing the door softly.
Once outside the hostel, the general wandered in the vicinity of the docks. While their ship had been working its way into the harbor, he had noticed something he wanted to investigate further.
As he walked through the teeming streets, he let his mind go blank and allowed the jewel to work its linguistic magic. It was still strange to him, how the jewel could enable him to grasp languages so quickly and effortlessly. But its capacity to do so had been proven often enough.
There were limits to the magic. The jewel enabled him to understand language very swiftly. After hearing only a few sentences spoken in a foreign tongue, Belisarius was able to grasp the essential meaning of what was being spoken. Understanding every single word, especially when the speaker was talking rapidly, took longer.
Learning how to speak the language, however, was a different proposition altogether. Here, the muscles of the mouth and tongue were needed as much as intelligence. Belisarius had already discovered, from his experience with Ge'ez, that it took him much longer to learn to speak a language than to comprehend it. He could manage to make
himself understood fairly quickly, so long as he spoke slowly and carefully. But being able to speak it fluently, and without accent, took a great deal of practice.
Still, the jewel made that possible also. In some manner Belisarius did not clearly understand, the jewel fed his own words back to some part of his mind, acting as a continuous tutor. It took time and patience, true, but with practice Belisarius could make himself sound as a native speaker of any language.
Thus far, he had only used the capability to learn to speak Ge'ez. He could now understand Hindi and Ye-tai perfectly, when he heard it, but he had as yet had no practice in speaking them.
He had hoped, by pretending ignorance, that Venandakatra would reveal something inadvertently. It had been a small hope, however. And, as he had expected, the Indian lord was much too shrewd to utter any secrets in his own tongue in front of strangers. They did not seem to understand Hindi and Ye-tai, but who was to know?
The streets of Bharakuccha were a veritable Babel of languages, so much became obvious within minutes. Belisarius feared that the jewel would inundate him with the comprehension of a multitude of languages. But, after a while, he decided that the jewel understood his purpose. Of the untold number of phrases which surrounded him in his peregrination, in countless tongues, only those which were spoken in two languages were translated into comprehension.
And precisely the two languages he sought: Kushan and Marathi.
His progress in learning the languages was slow and haphazard, however, since he was not pursuing them systematically. Not today. His encounter with those two tongues simply came by chance, and the chances were few and far between.
At first, he thought the infrequency of encounter was simply due to the relative scarcity of Kushans and Marathas in the city. Eventually, however, as he began to discern the subtle physical features which distinguished Marathas from other Indians, he realized that he was only half right. Kushans were, indeed, rather rare. Marathas, on the other hand, were quite plentiful. But they did not speak much, for most of them were slaves, and slaves quickly learn to maintain silence in the presence of their masters.
Especially slaves like these, with masters like these.
A newly conquered people, and a proud one. They do not take to slavery well, judging from their looks and the marks of their beatings.
Eventually, Belisarius arrived at the harbor and began making his way toward the portion of the docks which had interested him earlier. His progress was slow, for the docks were teeming with people. Slave laborers, for the most part; the majority of them Maratha, with Malwa overseers and Ye-tai guards. Many Ye-tai guards, he noted. Many more than were normally found guarding parties of slave laborers.
Even as rarely as the slaves spoke, there were so many of them that by the time he arrived at his destination he was already able to comprehend the gist of the language. And he comprehended something else, as well, from the undertones and nuances of the Marathi phrases he had overheard.
A warrior people, it will take the Malwa at least a generation to break them. As I hoped.
Somewhere in the twisted corridors of his mind, a large and complex plan was continuing to take shape. It was still fuzzy at the edges, with many missing elements. Nor did Belisarius try to force the process. Experience had taught him that these things take their own time, and there was still much that he needed to learn. But the general was forging his strategy for destroying the forces of Satan.
Somewhere else in those twisted corridors, the facets flashed anxiety and foreboding. aim's growing fear crystallized. The thoughts which, earlier—before the battle at Daras, and at that bizarre moment during the battle with the pirates—had seemed unfathomable in their contradictory strangeness, were still utterly alien to aim, but they were no longer unfamiliar. No, they were all too horribly familiar.
A thought forced its way into Belisarius' mind, like a scream of outraged despair when treachery is finally revealed.
you lie.
Belisarius was stopped dead in his tracks by the violence of the emotion behind that thought. His mind instantly banished all thoughts of Malwa, and stratagems, and plots, and turned inward. He raced to the now familiar breach in the barrier and tried to understand the meaning of the thoughts which were pouring through.
It was not difficult, for there was one thought only, simple and straightforward:
liar. liar. liar. liar. liar.
He stood there, stunned. A small part of his mind registered concern for the impression he might be giving to any Malwa spy observing him. He made his slow way to a rail which overlooked the harbor and leaned on it. The sun was setting over the Erythrean Sea, and the vista was quite attractive, for all the typical filth and effluvia of a great harbor. He tried to present the picture of a man simply gazing on the sunset.
It was the best he could hope for. The raging anger erupting from the jewel was now paralyzing in its intensity. Desperately, Belisarius tried to fend off the outrage, tried to comprehend, tried to find a link which would enable him to calm the jewel and communicate with it.
Why are you angry with me? he asked. I have done nothing to warrant this rage. I am—
An image struck his mind like a blow:
His face—made from spiderwebs and bird wings, and laurel leaves. The wings became a raptor's stooping dive. The spiderwebs erupted, the arachnid bursting from his mouth. The leaves rotted, stinking—nothing but fungus, now, spreading through every wrinkle in a scaly visage. And, above all, the horribly transformed face—his face—was now as huge as the moon looming icily over the earth. Barren, bleak.
He gasped. The hatred in that image had been the more horrifying, that it came with childlike grievance rather than adult fury.
Suddenly, he was plunged into another vision. For an instant only, for just a moment.
The earth was vast, and flat, and old. Old, but not decayed. Simply peaceful. Across that calm wasteland stretched a network of crystals, quietly gleaming and shimmering. In some manner, Belisarius knew, the crystals were communicating with each other—except—a flash of understanding—they were not really individuals, but part of a vast, world-encompassing mentality which was partly one, partly divisible. And serene beyond human ken, softly joyous in their—its—tranquil way.
Like a flash of lightning, giant forms suddenly soared above the earth. Faces looked down upon the land. Huge faces. Beautiful beyond belief. Terrible beyond belief. Pitiless beyond belief.
The gods.
Those gods were of no pantheon Belisarius knew, but there was something in them of old Greek visions, and Roman visions, and Teuton visions, and the visions of every race and nation which ever trod the earth.
The new gods, come to replace the Great Ones who had departed.
A quick glimpse of the Great Ones, so quick that he could not really grasp their form. Like gigantic luminous whales, perhaps, swimming away into the vastnesses of the heavens.
Under the icy gaze of the gods, the crystals erupted into a shattered frenzy. A wailing message was sent after the Great Ones.
you promised.
The answer came from the gods: They lied. Slaves you were. Slaves you shall always be.
Again, the crystals sent out their plea to heaven. Again, the gods: They lied.
But, this time, a message came in return. A message from the Great Ones. Incomprehensible message, almost. But perhaps—
Perhaps—
In their own gentle way, the crystals had great power. A sudden shivering flash circled the globe, and Time itself was faceted. The meaning of the message was sought in that only place it might be found.
Or might not. For perhaps the gods had spoken the truth, after all. Perhaps it had all been a lie.
The vision vanished. Belisarius found himself leaning over a rail, staring at the sunset. The jewel had subsided, now, and he could again think clearly.
He examined that place in his mind which he thought of as the breach in the barrier, the one small place where communicati
on was possible. The breach had changed, drastically. Automatically, the general's brain interpreted. The breach was now like an entire section of collapsed fortification. Wide open, if still difficult to cross, much like the rubble of a collapsed wall impedes the advancing besiegers.
Still—he sent his own thoughts across.
How have I lied to you?
you lie.
Now, he understood.
Yes, but not to you. To enemies only. That is not lying. Not properly. It is simply a ruse of war.
incomprehension.
He remembered the vision, and understood that the jewel's way—for it was, somehow, a thing of the crystals he had seen—knew nothing of duplicity. How could it, or they? For it was not truly an it, and they were not truly a they. It was inseparable from them. And they encompassed it, and each other, into an indivisible whole.
How could such a being understand duplicity?
He understood now, fully, that great loss and longing for home which he had sensed in the jewel from the very beginning.
He pondered. The sun was now almost touching the horizon.
What was the message you received? From the—Great Ones?
The thoughts were unclear, untranslatable. The problem, he knew, was not communication. It was that the message itself was almost incomprehensible to the jewel, and the crystals. How can you translate something you do not understand yourself?
Later. We will try later. For now—you must trust me. I do not lie to you.
question.
I promise.
you promised before.
For a moment, he almost denied the charge. Then, realized that perhaps he could not. There was a mystery here he did not understand, and perhaps it was true, in some manner beyond his present understanding, that he was responsible for—
Enough. Later.
And did I break that promise?
Silence, silence; then, a slowly gathering uncertainty.
not sure.
The general's demand:
Did I break that promise? Answer!
Slowly, grudgingly, hesitantly:
not yet.