by neetha Napew
scraping on the extruded stone floor. He was grateful for the respite but at the
same time concerned for the health of his Empress.
Everything was going so well. What could possibly have happened to upset her to
the point where she was worried about the outcome of the Great Enterprise?
Later, squatting with the others, Kesylict felt by far the most vulnerable, to
both physical abuse and criticism.
To his left rested the heavily armored and aged beetle shape of High General
Mordeesha. Battle armor drooped from his soft under-body. Insignia of rank and
the less symmetrical wounds of war were cut into his thick dorsal wing covers.
Sharp curving horns made of metal protruded from the helmet that fit over his
own horny skull. Sweeping metal flanges shielded his eyes.
From his neck hung tiny skulls and teeth taken from the corpses of those the
General had personally vanquished. They clanked hollowly against his metal
thorax plate as he shifted his position.
Nearby was the Grand Sorcerer Eejakrat, a thin, delicate insect-specter. Pure
white enamel decorated his wing cases and chitin. Strings of long white and
silver beads dangled fringelike from both sides of his maxilla. An artificial
white and silver crest ran from his forehead down between the dark compound eyes
to disappear in the middle of his back. It included his insignia of office, of
wisdom and knowledge, and marked him as the manipulator of magic most exalted.
Alongside the General, whose great physical skills could crush him easily, and
Eejakrat, whose arcane abilities could turn him back into a grub, the Minister
felt very inadequate indeed. Yet he squatted in the audience chamber amid the
glittering gems and thousand shafts of light they threw back from the dozens of
candles and the crystal candelabra overhead, as an equal with the others. For
Kesylict possessed an extraordinary reservoir of common sense, an ability most
Plated Folk lacked. It was for this that the Empress valued him so much, as a
counterweight to the blind drive of the General and the intricate machinations
of the Sorcerer.
"We've heard about your distress, Majesty," said the General tactfully. "Is it
so important that you must summon us to council now? The critical time nears.
Drill and redrill are required more than ever."
"I wish, though," responded Eejakrat in a voice that was almost a whisper
between his mandibles, "I could persuade you to wait at least another year,
General. I am not yet confident enough master over the Manifestation."
"Wait and wait," grumbled the General, skulls tinkling against his thorax.
"We've waited more than a year already. Always building, always preparing,
always strengthening our reserves. But there comes a time, good brother, much as
I respeet your learning, when even a soldier as unthinkingly devoted as those of
the Empire grows over-drilled and loses that keen edge for slaughter his officer
has worked so long and hard to instill in him. The army cannot retain itself at
fever-ready forever.
"Probably we will overwhelm the soft ones by sheer weight of numbers this time,
and will have no need of your obscure learning. You can then relax in your old
age and toy with this wonder you have conjured up. The final victory shall be
ours no matter what."
The General's voice trembled at the thought of the Great Conquest awaiting him,
a conquest that would alter forever the history of the world.
"Even so," said the Sorcerer softly, "you are glad to have both my old age and
my wonder in reserve, since in twenty thousand years we have shown ourselves
unable to defeat the soft ones, despite all our preparations and boastings."
As always, the General was ready to reply. Skrritch waved a knife-studded green
arm. The movement was slow to her, awesomely fast to her attendants. They
quieted, waited respectfully for what she might say.
"I have not called you here to discuss timing or tactics, but to listen to a
memory of a dream." She gazed at Mordeesha. "In dreams, General, it is Eejakrat
who is master. But I may want your opinion nonetheless." Obediently the General
bowed low.
"I am no jealous fool, Majesty. Now, of all times, we must put aside petty
rivalries to work for the greater glory of Cugluch. I will give my opinion if it
is asked for, and I will defer to my colleague's ancient wisdom." He nodded to
Eejakrat.
"A wise one knows his own limitations," observed a satisfied Eejakrat. "Describe
the dream, Majesty."
"I was resting in the bedchamber," she began slowly, "half asleep from the orgy
of mating and conversing with my most recent mate preparatory to his ritual
dispatching, when I felt a great unease. It was as if many hidden eyes were
spying upon me. They were alien eyes, and they burned. Hot and horribly moist
they felt. I believed they were seeing into my very insides.
"I gave a violent start, or so my attending mate later said, and struck
violently, instinctively, at the empty air. The cushions and pillows of my
boudoir are flayed like the underbellies of a dozen slaves because I struggled
so fiercely against nothingness.
"For an instant I seemed to see my tormentors. They had shape and yet no shape,
form without substance. I screamed aloud and they vanished. Awake, I flew into a
frustrated rage from which I have only just recovered." She looked anxiously at
Eejakrat.
"Sorcerer, what does this portend?"
Eejakrat located a clean place amid the royal droppings and rested on his hind
legs. The tip of his abdomen barely touched the floor. Minims, foot-long
subservitors, busied themselves cleaning his chitin.
"Your Majesty worries overmuch on nothing." He shrugged and waved a thin hand.
"It may only have been a bad hallucination. You have so much on your mind these
days that such upsets are surprising only in that you have not experienced many
before this. In the afterdaze of postcoital subsidence such imaginings are only
to be expected."
Skrritch nodded and began to clean her other eye, shooing away the distraught
minims. "Always the soft ones have managed to defeat us in battle." General
Mordeesha shifted uncomfortably.
"They are fast and strong. Most of all, they are clever. We lose not because our
troops lack strength or courage but because we lack imagination in war. Perhaps
my imagining is, after all, a good sign. Do not look so uncomfortable, General.
You are about to receive the word you have waited for for so long.
"I believe the time has come to move." Mordeesha looked excited. "Yes, General.
You may inform the rest of the staff to begin final preparations."
"Majesty," put in Eejakrat, "I would very much like another six months to study
the ramifications of the Manifestation. I do not understand it well enough yet."
"You will have some time yet, my good advisor," she told him, "because it will
take a while to get so vast an enterprise in motion. But General Mordeesha's
words concerning the morale and readiness of the troops must be acknowledged.
Without that, all your magic will do us no good."
"I will give you all the time I can, wizard," said Mordeesha. "I wish your
support." His eyes glittered in the candlelight as he rose to a walking
position. He bowed once more.
"By your leave, Majesty, I will retire now and initiate preparations. There is a
great deal to do."
"Stay a moment, General." She turned her attention to the sorcerer. "Eejakrat, I
like not rushing the wise ones among us who serve with you in this great
undertaking. We have been defeated in the past because we acted without patience
or stealth. But I feel the time is right, and Mordeesha concurs. I want you to
understand I am not favoring his advice over yours." She looked at Kesylict.
"I am neither general nor wizard, Majesty," the Minister told her, "but my
instincts say, 'act now.' It is the mood of the workers as well."
Eejakrat sighed. "Let it be so, then. As to the dream-hallucination, Majesty...
there are many masters of magic among the soft ones. We can despise them for
their bodies but not for their minds. Perhaps I am paranoid with our plans so
near fruition, but it is not inconceivable that the shapes you think were
watching you were knowledgeable ones among the soft folk. Though," he admitted,
"I know of no wizardry power strong enough to reach all the way from the
warm-lands to Cugluch and then penetrate the Veils of Confusion and Conflict I
have drawn about the Manifestation. Nevertheless, I shall try to learn more
about what occurred.
"If that happened to be true, however, it means that the sooner we act the surer
we shall be of surprise and victory." He turned to the General. "See, Mordeesha,
how my thoughts give support to your desires against my own hopes. Perhaps it is
for the best. Perhaps I grow overcautious in my old age.
"If you are ready, if the armies are ready, then I will force myself to be ready
also. To the final glory, then?"
"To the final glory," they all recited in unison.
Skrritch turned, pulled a cord. Three servitors appeared. Each carried a freshly
detached, dripping limb from some unfortunate, unseen source. These were
distributed. The four in council sucked out the contents of the arms by way of
mutual congratulations.
They then took their leave, the General to his staff meeting, Eejakrat to his
quarters to ponder a possible impossible mental intrusion into Cugluch, and
Kesylict to arrange the mundane matters of mealtimes and official appointments
for the following day.
The Minister had good reason to ponder the Empress' words concerning the
notorious cleverness of the soft ones. By such similar adroitness had he
retained his head upon his neck, even to agreeing with the others that the time
to move had arrived. Privately he thought Eejakrat should be given all the time
he wished. Kesylict had read the forbidden records, knew the litany of failure
of past battles with the soft ones. So while he was as ignorant of the
complexities of the Manifestation as any of the Royal Council, he knew that in
Eejakrat's manipulation of it lay the Plated Folk's hopes for final victory over
their ancient enemies, and not in General Mordeesha's boasts of superior
military strength.
Alone, Skrritch pulled a second call cord. A servitor appeared with a tall,
narrow-spouted drinking vessel. The Empress washed down the remnants of the
recent toast, then turned and stared once more out the window.
Thickening mist obscured even the ramparts of the Keep. The city of Cugluch and
its milling thousands were blotted out as though they did not exist. Day turned
toward night as the mist and fog grew darker, indicating the down passage of the
sun.
Mordeesha and his fellow generals had been chafing at the bit for several laying
periods. She had held off as long as possible in order to give Eejakrat still
more time to study his Manifestation. But knowing the wizard, such study could
go on forever.
The elastic of patience had been broken now. Soon the word would spread
throughout the Greendowns that the war had begun.
For an instant she thought again of the disturbing dream. Perhaps it had been no
more than a daymare. Even empresses were subjeet to strain. Eejakrat did not
seem overly concerned about it, so there was no reason for it to continue to
trouble her thoughts.
There were promotions and demotions to be bestowed, executions to order,
punishments to decide, and rewards to be handed out. Tomorrow's court schedule,
so ably organized by the prosaic Kesylict, was quite full.
Such everyday activities seemed superfluous, now that the first steps toward
final victory had been initiated. She savored the thought. Of all the emperors
and empresses of the far-flung Empire she would be the first to stride
possessively through the gentle lands of the soft ones, the first to bring back
plunder and thousands of slaves from the other side of the world.
And after that, what might she not accomplish? Even Eejakrat had voiced thoughts
about the possibilities the Manifestation might create. Such possibilities
extended beyond the bounds of a single world.
She turned on her side and leaned back against a hundred glowing red rubies and
crimson cushions. Her ambition was as boundless as the universe, as far-reaching
as Eejakrat's magic. She could hardly wait for the war to begin. Glory would
accrue to her and to Cugluch. With the wizard's assistance why should she not
become Empress of the Universe, supreme ruler of as yet unknown beyonds and
their inhabitants?
Yes, she would have the exquisite pleasure of presiding over destruction and
conquest instead of records and stupid, fawning, peaceful citizens. Cugluch was
on the march, as it should be. Only this tune it would swell and grow instead of
sputtering to an ignominious halt!
The hallucination faded until it was only an amusing and insignificant
memory....
XV
Jon-Tom was split down the middle. Half of him was cool and damp from the early
morning mist. The other side was warm and dry, almost hot with the weight
leaning against it.
He opened his eyes with that first lethargic movement of awakening and saw a
white-and-black-clad form snuggled close against his own. Flor's long black hair
lay draped over his shoulder. Her head was nestled in the crook of his left arm.
Instead of moving and waking her, he used the time to study that perfect, silent
face. She looked so different, so childlike in sleep. Further to his left
slumbered the silent shape of the wizard.
With his head and limbs retracted Clothahump was a boulderish form near a clump
of bushes. Jon-Tom started to look back down at his sleeper when he became aware
of movement just behind him. Startled, he reached automatically for his war
staff.
"Rest easy, Jon-Tom." The voice was less reassuring than the words it spoke.
Talea moved down beside him, staring morosely at the recumbent couple. "If I
murder you, Jon-Tom, it won't ever be in your sleep." She stepped lithely over
them both and trotted over to Clothahump.
She bent and rapped unceremoniously on the shell. "Wake up, wizard!"
A head soon appeared, followed by a pair of arms. One hand held a pair of
spectacle
s which were promptly secured before the turtle's eyes. Then the legs
appeared. After resting a moment on all fours, the wizard pushed back into a
squat, then stood.
"I am not accustomed," he began huffily, "to being awakened in so brusque a
fashion, young lady. If I were of less understanding a mind..."
"Save it," she said, "for him." She pointed to the unsteady shape of Pog. The
sleepy bat was fluttering awkwardly over to attend to his master's early morning
needs. He'd been sleeping in the branches of the great oak overhead.
"What's da matter?" he asked tiredly. "What's all da uproar? Can't ya let a
person sleep?"
"C'mon," Talea said curtly, "everybody up." She looked back at Jon-Tom, and he
wondered at something he thought he saw in her gaze. "Well," she asked him, "are
you two going to join this little session or aren't you? Or do you intend to
spend the rest of your life practicing to be a pillow?"
"I might," he shot back, challenging her stare and not moving. She looked away.
"What's the trouble, anyway? Why the sudden fanaticism for an early start? I've
never noticed you passing up any chance for a little extra sleep."
"Ordinarily I'd still be asleep, Jon-Tom," she replied, "but what made me wake
up wasn't too much sleep but the lack of something else. Isn't it obvious to any
of you yet?" She spread both hands and turned a half circle. "Where's Mudge?"
Jon-Tom eased Flor off his shoulder. She blinked sleepily and then, becoming
aware of her position, slid to one side. Her cat stretch made it difficult for
him to concentrate on the problem at hand.
"Mudge is gone," he told her as he rose, trying to work the kinks out of
shoulders and legs.
"So da fuzzy little bugger up and split." Pog used the tip of one wing to clean
an ear, grimacing as he did so. "Don't surprise me none. He as much as said he
was gonna do it first chance he got."
"I thought better of him." Jon-Tom looked disappointedly at the surrounding
woods.
Talea laughed. "Then you're a bigger fool than you seem. Don't you realize, the
only thing that kept him with us this far was wizardry threats." She jabbed a
thumb toward Clothahump.
"I am most upset," said the wizard quietly. "Despite his unfortunate
predilection for illegal activities, I rather liked that otter." Jon-Tom watched