Broken Crescent (37 page)

Most disconcerting was the fact that they were completely silent.

The ghadi met Nate and Bill at the edge of the village, in a mass that slowly parted as Bill led Nate forward. All stared at him with their dark alien eyes.

Nate still couldn’t read ghadi expressions. What he saw in their faces could have been fear, or awe.

“This isn’t happening. . . .”

The last ghadi stepped back, leaving the path open to the central pit, and Nate got his second surprise.

Standing on the other side of the pit were the two dozen ghadi from the pit chamber. Nate knew them because, like Bill and himself, they were covered with the dirt and soot from escaping the underground. These ghadi didn’t just escape, they had looted the remains of the human settlement there. Nate saw books, weapons, clothing, masks, and central to it all, an elaborate black sarcophagus about eight feet long and four feet wide. The lid was open and Nate could see the gold glinting inside.

The exertion caught up with Nate and he sat down on one of the stones orbiting the pit. One of the ghadi handed him a carved husk that was filled with some aromatic liquid.

Nate drank the bitter liquid, and felt the fatigue pull his eyes shut.

When Nate woke up, he was lying in a hammock inside one of the woven buildings. His torn, bloody clothing was gone. He looked around, and saw Bill squatting in a corner of the one-room hut, staring at him.

“Who are you, Bill? My apostle?”

In response, Bill stood up and carried over a bluish, mango-looking fruit. Bill handed it to him and waited.

“Thanks, but maybe I can get dressed first?”

Nate sat up, and a wave of vertigo swamped him badly enough that he almost fell out of the hammock. The feeling surprised him, until he realized that he hadn’t eaten in over a day, probably two. He had been surviving on panic and adrenaline.

The blue pseudo-mango started looking real good.

Trusting Bill to stop him if he tried to eat an inedible part of the fruit, Nate sank his teeth into it. The flesh was firm and stringy, like a cooked squash, and colored blood red in contrast to its bluish skin. The taste was a weird sweet-spicy flavor, almost like candied ginger.

At first it seemed seedless, but when Nate looked down into the fruit, the red flesh was shot through with tiny black specks.
Guess those are okay to eat, too.

Nate was so hungry that it didn’t occur to him until after the ginger-fruit was gone that the ghadi metabolism might be different enough that it could process food that was poisonous to humans.

No sense worrying about it at this point. “Thanks, Bill. I needed that.”

Nate got up and stood unsteadily on the dirt floor. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he looked for his clothing. It wasn’t here, which didn’t surprise Nate that much. What he’d been wearing when he’d come here had been in a pitiful state.

What was here was a pile of other human garments, up to and including a selection of masks. The neatly stacked and folded piles were placed on a low rectangular table as if they were an offering to the clothing god.

“Aren’t you the thieves?” Nate looked over at Bill. “There’s no way you managed to salvage all this while the College was attacking. You’ve been looting that place for how long? Months? Years?”

Nate shrugged. “Don’t bother to answer.”

The clothes fit him, after a fashion. Normal human clothing here was made for people shorter than he was. Fortunately, he was thin enough to get the stuff on, but a robe that was supposed to cover the whole body, ended mid-calf on him and he had to move the belt down about six inches.

Once he was dressed, Nate stood there a few long minutes.

“Now what?” he muttered.

Bill motioned him to come outside.

Nate followed Bill. From the light it was either early morning or early evening. In the center of the village, the entire population sat on the stones circling the central pit.

As Bill walked forward, Nate shook his head. “No, I don’t think you understand. I can’t just summon Ghad. The other pit had inscriptions I could invoke, but I have no idea what the whole thing—”

Nate found himself standing in front of the mass of the ghadi, by the edge of the pit. He looked at their faces, and felt suddenly inadequate. “You can’t even understand what I’m saying. I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. You should know you got gypped on your messiah. I’m no savior. I’m just a fucking grad student, and I am sick of all this.”

Nate looked down into the pit and saw the bones of dozens of dead ghadi. No miraculous visitation here to take all of them away. “You know, if I could figure out how to overthrow the College, I would. If I could fix you people, I would. But I’m just one person who doesn’t belong here.
What can I do?
”

Nate shook his head and stared into the pit. After a long time, the ghadi got up by twos and threes, eventually leaving him alone with Bill.

Alone with Bill and the chest of golden tablets.

T
HE SECOND DAY out of Manhome, their column of about five hundred men had reached the foothills overlooking the coast. At dawn, Chief Armsman Ravig Kalish came for Ehrid.

Saying, “You must see this,” he led Ehrid up to a bluff overlooking the way they had come. The high ground here gave an excellent view of the wrinkled landscape all the way to the coast. The gray sea was visible on the horizon. Even at this distance, Manhome itself was clearly visible, though it could be covered by Ehrid’s thumb.

Manhome, however, wasn’t the focus of Ravig’s excitement.

Ehrid looked over the hills and farmland unfolded below him and muttered, “It has started.”

The landscape below them was alive with movement. Three separate armies were in motion toward the rock of Manhome. Dawn sunlight glinted off the infantry’s armor, as formations marched facing the sea.

“We need to return,” Ravig told Ehrid.

Ehrid looked at Ravig. “We follow our orders.”

“But—”

“Look down there, again. How many troops do you see?”

Ravig looked down at the force arrayed against Manhome. He didn’t give an answer, so Ehrid provided one. “Just that left flank has at least three thousand men in formation, and they have twice as many cavalry down there as we have men. Half again as many archers. And that is only a third part of what we can see.”

“Manhome is being attacked—”

“Your devotion is admirable,” Ehrid said, “but do you know whose army you see?”

Ravig looked down at the force moving below them. It didn’t take him long to see the colors of the Monarch’s personal guard. Ravig stared for a long time, and Ehrid didn’t interrupt the armsman’s musings. Ravig wasn’t aware of the maneuverings that Ehrid had been a party to; none of his guardsmen were. This sight was the first hint of civil war that Ravig had been given.

“Of course,” Ravig said finally. “Who else could order such a force into the field?”

“Yes.”

“You knew this was coming?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence. If Ehrid listened very closely, he could almost hear the troops marching. A distant sound like rustling leaves.

Ravig stared at him and Ehrid hoped the emotion clouding the man’s eyes wasn’t betrayal. Ehrid had unlimited authority over his men, and none had the right to question him. However, rule and custom were faint arguments against a deception so large.

“Why are we not in Manhome, sir?”

“We have our orders.”

“Orders from the College. Our sworn duty is to the Monarch. With due respect, we should be opening the gate for his army.”

Ehrid felt a tremendous wave of relief.

“Our orders are from the Monarch,” Ehrid told him. “Half the guard of Manhome has already been pressed to serve the College in battle. Our leaving has denied them access to the other half.”

“We should be down there, sir.” It wasn’t a challenge anymore, merely a statement of resignation.

“We serve at the Monarch’s pleasure, and should be where he would have us.”

Ravig nodded. “How long have you known?”

“Long enough.” Ehrid clasped Ravig’s shoulder. “Come, I should talk to the men. Then we should start moving while the daylight’s young.”

Even in myths, General Kavish Largan had never heard of a victory so sudden and so complete. Never an enemy that collapsed so cleanly and so completely without a single confrontation. He had led the Monarch’s forces to Manhome prepared for months of siege, but the same day they had marched within sight of the city, his army was walking through the gates unopposed.

By the time the sun touched the western horizon, he had fully occupied the city of Manhome. His armies controlled the streets, and surrounded the walls of the College itself. His men were methodically searching through the endless tunnels that riddled the plateau. The advance into the city had happened so quickly that, if General Kavish hadn’t given a belated order, there wouldn’t be any of his forces on the ground outside the city, guarding against a counterattack.

The College he had been taught so long to fear was a cowardly phantom that vanished when confronted.

General Kavish made camp outside the main entrance of the College of Man. At sunset he sent a man inside, carrying a parchment bearing the seal of the Monarch, dictating the terms of surrender. Then he called his staff together to plan a victory feast for all of his men.

Midnight came before he became concerned over the man he sent inside with the terms of surrender. Before he could calculate the best response to his man’s disappearance, a robed figure walked out of the main doors to the College. The man wore the mask of a scholar. The mask was a twisted red demon with a prominent hooked nose.

Armed men surrounded the figure, and General Kavish pushed himself through the crowd to face the College’s representative. The mask faced him, frozen and expressionless. The general wanted to see what was hidden behind that facade.

“Do you accept the Monarch’s terms?” he asked the scholar.

The scholar from the College of Man spoke quietly. “We have decided.”

“Yes?”

“If you renounce the Monarch and have your army swear fealty to the College of Man, we will show you every mercy.”

The general shook his head in disbelief. Within the ranks surrounding them, he heard some nervous laughter. “With respect, we occupy your city. Why would I surrender to you?”

“To save your men.”

“The reign of the College is over.”

“We protect the existence of Man. You cannot conceive of the powers we hold at bay. No temporal authority will remove us from that task. Those who do will taste that power.”

General Kavish waved his men forward. He was tired of talking to this man. “Take him. Hold his arms, and if he utters something you don’t understand, kill him.”

The masked scholar took a step back, but he was surrounded before he got anywhere. Kavish’s men grabbed his arms and the general walked up to him and grabbed the nose of the demon mask. “I want to look at one of you in the face.”

Kavish took the mask. When he saw the scholar’s face, he gasped. Realization swept through the troops restraining the man, and they let him go.

Standing there, facing Kavish, was the man he had sent inside to give the Monarch’s terms. The face was bruised, and around his neck was a silver torc that was alive with the sacred writing of the College.

The voice that had spoken to Kavish said, “Since you do not swear fealty to the College of Man, you are an enemy of Man.”

The voice did not come from the beaten man in front of him.