Tathea

by Anne Perry

  “Hurt?” The question was preposterous. Every muscle burned, her flesh was tender everywhere with bruises, cuts, and blisters. “No.” She was not wounded, not seriously. “I shall never be the same again,” she added after a moment. “I can’t see anything but agony and death everywhere I look.”

  He did not move to touch her, although he was so close. Too many eyes might be watching. He was the commander of this entire force, and she must maintain a dignity above the need for comfort.

  “Nobody can know war who has not seen it,” he said. “We use the word with no concept of what it means.”

  “Is it always like this?”

  “No, but the differences are trivial. It always has agony, loss, terror, dirt, and exhaustion.”

  “Why do we do it?”

  He laughed abruptly, a sound which carried a world of pain. “Do you want to go back?”

  She did not answer. At this moment all she wanted was to sleep and wake up in the palace of Camassia, warm and quiet and clean, to have people about her who were uninjured, going about their ordinary, mundane jobs in safety. She wanted not to be guilty of anyone else’s pain. She wanted not even to know about it, far less be responsible and have to face it again tomorrow.

  But she could not tell him that. He had seen it all before. He bore the scars of old wounds on his arms and legs and one across his chest, which she had seen when he had changed his shirt after one of their lessons. He had not run away. He did not enjoy battle, but neither did he evade it.

  “Doubts?” he said gently. It was almost dark. The sun in the west was low casting red light across the sand and blackening the shadows. The wind was already cool. Now he did put his hand over hers. “Even the dullest of us have doubts when we see what it costs.” His voice came out of the darkness softly. “There’s no man fit to command who doesn’t hate the aftermath of a battle, won or lost, who doesn’t wonder and question whether he could have done it better, whether he should have done it at all.”

  She gripped his fingers tightly, feeling the blisters and the blood on them. “And what does he answer?”

  He did not hesitate. “There are some things worth fighting for, and some things it is better to die fighting against than submit to. There are prices of the soul as well as of the body. He needs to weigh his cause with great care and then decide.”

  “Even all this loss?” She looked towards the field. She could no longer see anything but the moving torches, but she could hear the cries and smell the blood.

  “Have you seen the slow death of a nation enslaved, a people losing their souls to corruption and tyranny?” he asked her. “Or a culture with all its beauty suffocated, people destroyed by ignorance and perverted by lies until their struggle to survive draws them to use the weapons of terrorism and they become what they once fought against?”

  There was no answer. If Ra-Nufis was right, that very tragedy was what she was about to see, or at least its beginning.

  They questioned the Shinabari prisoners they took but learned little of tactical value except that the barbarian incursions to the south were even more serious than Ra-Nufis had known.

  Alexius sent their own wounded back to the ships, which were standing offshore, and ordered a quarter of the remaining troops to take and hold Tarra-Ghum, now all but defenseless. The rest of them met up with the other wing, which had landed to the west and began a forced march across the desert inland, towards Thoth-Moara, guided by Ra-Nufis.

  Because of the terrain they could not avoid inhabited areas, as they would have done in a more temperate climate. They had to have water, and every oasis was inhabited. They met no resistance. It would have been futile, a few hundred unarmed villagers against the military might of Camassia. But the people anyway had no heart to fight and no will to defend something in which their belief had faded. Their houses were shabby and neglected; the streets were in need of repair.

  Tathea stared at the first oasis they came to with a burning shame. She saw in Ra-Nufis’s face a reflection of his understanding. He knew the confusion inside her, the anger that this should have happened to her own people, who belonged to the oldest and once the proudest of all nations. Shinabari military power had ruled the world two hundred years ago, not long in their history. Their architecture was the inspiration for all other great cities from Irria-Kand to Tirilis. Their literature was translated into a score of other languages. Their artifacts were collected by lovers of beauty in every land. Scholars struggled to master their language, it was the tongue of philosophy and science as well as of literature and imagination. Now the people stood silently, helpless and sullen while a Camassian army passed by, not even considering the inhabitants worth imprisoning, for they posed no danger.

  Tathea stared at them in the harsh sun and wondered whether it was her fault because she had abandoned them to the usurpers. If she had had the political skill to survive in Thoth-Moara, would any of this have happened? Or had it begun long before? Was it she and Mon-Allat? Maybe it was all of Shinabar? Perhaps the whole nation was weary. This was not a venerable old age, worthy of respect and love, gratitude for the achievements of the past, but the degeneration of those who no longer cared.

  They left the oasis in the morning. Tathea walked alone although she was surrounded by a hundred and fifty thousand marching men, moving inexorably towards the next great city, and eventually to Thoth-Moara itself. She must bring the Book to Shinabar, as she had brought it to Camassia. The difference was that the Shinabarians needed it as desert travelers need water. It would bring life to a soul that was dying.

  The next battle was small, little more than a skirmish. Half a dozen men were killed, and some score or so seriously wounded. It seemed almost too easy.

  Complacent with victory, a captain who had long served with Alexius posted an inadequate watch. It was a careless error, and his men paid for it dearly. A dozen lives were lost.

  Tathea heard the men talking about it. Alexius did not tell her himself, but she saw his face, eyes distant, mouth tight with distress. He stood apart for a long time, speaking to no one unless he had to, and then his answers were curt. There was a hush over the heart of the camp as they waited to see what he would do. The captain was a friend. They had served together in the great forests of the barbarian frontier, marched through the snows, shared food and blankets, and guarded each other’s sleep. They had seen the vast wind and storm-swept plains of Irria-Kand and faced the enemy who slaughtered their own wounded.

  Tathea watched him and ached to help, but she knew that even to approach him would intrude. She had no part in his decision. She could give him nothing except the discretion of silence and the understanding that his pain had to be borne alone.

  He made the only decision he could, to serve the law. White-faced and with a breaking voice, he ordered the captain’s execution. It was done immediately and in silence, the witnesses watching with bent heads. He was buried in the sand, and Alexius ordered that the marker should carry his name and rank and that he fell in the course of duty, nothing more.

  That night they camped close to an oasis again. After sunset Alexius climbed the high, sharp escarpment to the west and watched the full moon rise over the desert.

  Tathea debated with herself whether to go after him or not. Her whole body ached with weariness after the day’s march, and her feet were agony. She unwound the bandages and redressed them. She would dearly like to have bathed in the cool water under the shade of the trees, then wrapped herself up in her cloak beside one of the fires. She longed for the oblivion of sleep, when she would not have to think of Shinabar as she saw it now, so different from her dreams. It was shabby and tired. Only the desert itself still held the same beauty as before, perhaps even sharper because it cradled such despair.

  But her hurt, duller and less personal than Alexius’s, filled with uncertainly and fear of guilt, hungered for human sharing. To stand beside him, even without words, would be better than to be alone.

  She started to walk up
the scree slope, climbing slowly, her feet slipping, bruising themselves against the stones. The moonlight was brilliant. The air glowed with a radiance it held nowhere else, except perhaps across ice.

  She saw his dark figure ahead of her. He had his back to her, staring out across the milk-pale sea of sand. Should she go to him, or would it be clumsy, breaking the trust they had, demonstrating that she did not understand after all? But if she did not go, it would seem as if she did not know his pain and believe in him, or as if she were too consumed by her own exhaustion and horror to care.

  Her feet had made no sound and no mark on the slithering sand, but as she neared him he turned and looked towards her.

  She felt a moment’s sickening awareness of having committed herself. It was too late now to turn back. She would have to speak, and if her words were clumsy, they could break something of infinite value between them.

  “Is something wrong?” His voice came quietly out of the night. He had his back to the moon and she could not see his face, only the outline of his head against the pale wash of the sky.

  “No,” she answered. “I came only because ...” What could she say without intruding?

  The silence prickled. He waited for her to finish.

  “I had to see if you wanted not to be alone.” If grace was impossible, at least let her be honest. “I think if I had had to make your decision, I would want to be able to look in your face and know you understood, that you were aware of my pain. Not necessarily to say so. Some things cannot be said. Just to be there, perhaps only for a moment. Some watches should be kept in silence but not necessarily alone.”

  His body relaxed; there was an easing of the shoulders. “I knew him for twenty years.” His voice was very quiet, and there was a crack in it, as if he were on the edge of weeping. “When he was an old man, he wanted to have a garden ... and a dog.” He turned away towards the radiance of the moon, and she did not look at him.

  The minutes slipped by. The night wind stirred little flurries of sand. It was growing colder.

  “Too many people sacrifice all they have for our safety and our peace,” she said at last. “Most of us have no idea of the reality of it. I wonder if there would be any wars if we did.”

  “Perhaps not,” he answered. “Knowledge might drain all our courage from us. But I would like to think not. God has told us it will be as hard as we can bear. Should we ask for less and still expect to gain the glory at the end?” He put his arm round her, holding her by his side. “We must bear each other up. Tell each other the truth ... only ever the truth.”

  The watch fires were red below them, scattered across the desert floor. She was glad of his body’s warmth, even in the shelter of the giant slabs of rock crowning the escarpment.

  “Have I done the right thing?” she said quietly. “Would you tell me the truth about that? Should I have come to Shinabar at this cost? How many men are dead already?”

  “There are bigger wars than this.” His voice was hardly louder than the wind over the sand. “Wars of the soul. Death is neither here nor there to Asmodeus. Damnation is victory for him. Every sin or ugliness wounds us.”

  She leaned even closer to him. “And if I kill my enemy, the soldier who comes against me because I have invaded his land, is that my victory or Asmodeus’s?”

  “If you do it with pleasure, it is Asmodeus’s,” he answered. “If you do it with pain, because the battle is forced on you, it is yours. Suffering, fear, death are all the fortunes of war. Sometimes the only alternative is surrender.” He hesitated a moment, then went on, “But I have come to hate war more and more as I grow older. I’d rather fight the battles of the spirit. Perhaps that is simply because I see the casualties less clearly. Corruption seems more like a disease than an injury. It is so much slower; it gives the illusion it can be stopped with less cost.”

  “It is not an illusion!” she answered urgently. “With the Book we can begin again. We can start to recover the honor and the strength we used to have. We can spread the truth and learn to live it.”

  He laughed faintly. “With the Book we could stop all wars, feed the hungry, teach the ignorant, heal the world! But will we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not sure if it is meant for worlds, Thea. I think that perhaps it is meant for individuals. Maybe God sees us one by one.”

  She knew he was thinking of his friend that he had condemned today. Alexius saw his men not as an army, but each as a man like himself, each with one life and one death. She could not have loved him so much had he not.

  She rested her head against his shoulder. “You are right. He knows us one by one, each by name, and each as precious as if there was no other. That is what love is. It is not a collective thing.”

  He turned and looked at her, smiling a little. Her hair blew across her face, and he brushed it aside with his fingers. They were cool on her skin, but so gentle she barely felt him.

  She had healed some of his hurt. He did not say so, but it was in his touch. She did not need words; it was enough to know.

  He bent his head and she raised her lips to his. The kiss was long and sweet with all the ache of waiting. His body was warm, and she was sharply aware of his strength.

  She could smell his skin, his hair, the leather of his armor ... and the bitter herbs of the desert and the smoke of the watch fires in the wind. She was dizzy with the hunger to cling to him, to let passion and need be fulfilled.

  Their lips parted and he looked into her eyes. She knew his longing was as great, the pain and the tenderness as soul-deep as hers. She also saw a shadow, the dark knowledge of the price.

  She stepped back, shaking, pulling her arms from his, and it was like tearing the flesh. She did not say anything. She looked at him steadily for moments, her throat aching, the blood beating in her pulses; then she turned and walked away down the scree slope, back towards her place in the camp where her blanket was rolled by the fire. She might not sleep tonight, but at least she would not lie awake forever, knowing she had stepped into the abyss.

  The following morning they continued their march across the desert towards Thoth-Moara. She saw Alexius only briefly and in the company of others. She was not uncomfortable with him. His knowledge had been the same as hers, and there was no conflict, no failure of understanding.

  It was three days later when they were traveling across a shallow range of hills, marching in close order with scouts on either wing, that Tathea encountered the old man. It was early in the morning before they broke camp, and he came out of the dawn. She was alone by the rock pool in one of the few brief times she was granted privacy, the only concession to her gender. When she looked up he was walking towards her across the sand, a black figure with a halo of thin white hair streaming behind him, as if there was a high wind, although the air was motionless.

  She rose to her feet to face him, her hand on her sword hilt.

  But as he came closer he brought with him a great peace. His features were beautiful. His skin was darkened by the sun, but his eyes were wide and blue, and gentle as the sky. There was power in the curve of his nose and tenderness in the delicacy of his lips. She was not even sure if he was Shinabari, he was unlike anyone she had seen before.

  “Who are you?” she asked, letting the sword go.

  “My name is Iszamber,” he answered her, stopping a few feet away. He was dressed in desert robes of faded duns and creams with a sash of opalescent turquoise, and there were sandals on his feet, worn as with much travel.

  She thought of offering him food and water, but she knew he had no need of her help in anything. It was in his face, in the way he stood. This was his home; she was the guest, perhaps the intruder.

  “Be at peace, Ta-Thea,” he said gently.

  She was surprised. “You know me?”

  “I know all things that matter,” he replied with the ghost of a smile. His eyes did not waver from hers. “I know that you sought the truth from the beginning of the world and that
you carry it with you. You would give it to all men, but you cannot.”

  She drew breath to argue, but his look silenced her.

  “You will speak all your heart in Shinabar, tell them all you know, but they will not hear you.” Pity tugged at his lips. “Camassia has listened, and will remember for a space. It is a great nation, and will flourish in splendor over the earth. Its armies will conquer, its laws will prevail and its arts and inventions will enlarge the days of its people. But it too will fade, and in the end be consumed, and the light will flicker and then dim, until in the last nothing but darkness of the soul is left.”

  She wanted to stop him. How could a man with such beauty in his face deny all hope even before it was born? She searched in vain for evil in his eyes.

  He smiled at her, and it was sweeter than the rising sun.

  “In the days before the end,” he said softly, “when the great darkness covers the earth and the nations sink in ruin and despair, when civilization crumbles and is consumed in the last war, then the Island at the Edge of the World will still stand and hold the light of the Word of God above the tumult and the dying.”

  He held up his hand as if to still her from interruption, and yet it was also like a sign, as if he were making a covenant or keeping one.

  “In a tower above the sea, eleven believers will keep the truth in heart and mind and deed. Sometimes they will stumble, they will ache and they will grieve, but they will never fall. From now until the end comes, they will not be less than their calling, and the end of all things will find them prepared. It is the promise of God.” He lowered his hand slowly, then turned and walked away into the sunrise, leaving her alone on the sand, her heart filled with the memory of another sage and another time when the wind across the sand had carried the scent not of bitter herbs but of sea pinks and wild lupins.

  Chapter XIV

  AS THEY EMERGED FROM the low line of the hills, they were ambushed, not from the gullies as they expected but from a shallow riverbed invisible even from a few hundred yards away. The Shinabari knew how to mask themselves wearing gray and dun-colored clothing, and they were indistinguishable from the light and shadows on the sand. The fighting was hard and violent, the losses severe on both sides. But the Camassians won because their discipline and morale were better, and when sorely pressed the Shinabari general made a tactical error; he failed to anticipate the regrouping of Camassian forces, and he left his charge too late.