Doom's Break (15 page)

The surviving Red Tops had been itching for this chance ever since. They were so close to arresting the hated admiral and his closest captains and giving them over to the inquisition. Thus, they fought with everything they had, and they would have cowed and defeated the sailors if not for the amazing rumor that was sweeping through the ship.

"The Emperor is here! On the
Shark
, now!"

Eyes bulging with amazement, the sailors turned on the Red Tops with fury in their hearts and renewed strength in their arms.

"Aeswiren!" they roared.

They stopped the attackers dead in their tracks. Then they began to clear the decks, pushing the maniacal Red Tops back, cutting them down, hurling them overboard.

On the quarterdeck, the captains, the admiral, and the Emperor had withstood the efforts of the Red Tops to get among them. The deck was slippery with blood.

The sound of the fighting, the glare of two dozen torches, the chants of "Aeswiren"—all had been noticed by the rest of the fleet. Dozens of boats had been set down, and now these boats, crewed by sailors, came up on the boats of the priests.

Admiral Beshezz roared orders at the newcomers, telling them to take up the attack and overrun the
Shark
.

The crews rowed in, hardly slackening their pace, until they were abreast the priests' boats, where the Red Tops, wet and nearly defeated, were climbing aboard.

The arriving sailors attacked, driving spears and swords into the exhausted Red Tops. Beshezz roared in anger. So did other officers, but they were ignored.

"For Aeswiren!" howled the sailors. The rumor had already swept the fleet that day, and now the fighting confirmed it. The fornicating Red Tops were trying to kill the Emperor, and the ordinary seamen would not have it.

The Red Tops were caught between two fires and could do nothing but fight and die. Many drowned after being knocked into the water and prevented from climbing out again. It was over in less than an hour, and Admiral Beshezz, hog-tied and soaked, was delivered to the quarterdeck in front of the Emperor.

The word was passing through the fleet, borne on a tidal wave of cheers. Aeswiren was among them. The war was over. They were going home.

Best of all, the hated Red Tops were finished.

The Old One sat in meditative seclusion. The blinds were drawn, the candle doused. His breathing was very slow, seven breaths a minute.

Meditation was both a retreat and a trap for him. A retreat, because in the dark silence he could find the peace that was otherwise elusive. A trap because if he was not careful, he could lose himself there in the quiet dark and not come back. After one hundred thousand years of life, the quiet dark was very seductive. Life was an enormous burden sometimes. It would be very easy, he thought, to lay down that burden and cease to exist.

Why live?

The question hung there, shimmering in the silent dark. Why suffer any further in the material world?

A moment passed. Thousands, millions of smaller lives hung in the balance.

The answer welled up from a small residual core of anger and hate. Because he would be avenged on them! On the leaders of long ago, who had cast him down and expelled him from their world. He would carry on his war until he had exterminated every trace of their work. So he had vowed on the day of his escape. So it would be!

The Old One stirred and broke the trance state. He took a deeper breath and opened his eyes.

The room was as it had been before, close, comfortable, warm even in midwinter. It was time for him to practice magic. Time to read minds on the other side of the world.

Once, he would have needed help from Basth to move around, even in the middle of the day, but in the new body he had taken that was not a concern. He rose in a single fluid movement and stood for a moment, enjoying the new body.

It was the strongest he had ever had, a joy to control. When he practiced with a sword he exulted from the strength and speed that he now possessed. This body had belonged to Pulbeka, a stone breaker. But Pulbeka had never known the way of the sword. Only Karnemin knew that.

The Old One tipped back his huge head and roared with laughter.

He pulled aside the curtain and stepped out of the alcove. In the outer room, warm water and clean towels were waiting. He refreshed himself, swung his arms in the air, threw a few mock punches, reveling in the power these huge shoulders provided.

He had stayed in the old body far too long. The previous transit had been most difficult. He had almost died in the process and lost everything after so long. That experience had made him afraid to move on to the next body. Death for that body had been a kindness.

He stepped down the hallway to another room. Several oil lamps had been lit and the airshaft opened to let out the smoke. It was night outside the temple pyramid.

A quick examination of the scene showed that Basth had prepared everything as ordered. The grey ritual slab of stone had been wheeled in on a heavy dolly.

Across the stone lay an old woman, naked, bound to the plank at her ankles, knees, waist, chest, and neck. Her arms were tied painfully behind her and under the plank. She had been thoroughly bathed, oiled, and perfumed, as if she were going to a lover.

He gazed down on her. She was just an old scrub slave. He'd specified only that she be reasonably healthy. Years before her face had been broken with the brand. Since then she had lived chained to a huge brush with which she scrubbed the streets. Her old stringy arms were thin but wiry. What crime had she committed? The Old One did not care a whit. Her life spirit, her death energy, that was all he required.

On the table next to the slab was a pile of perfectly cut slates, each two feet by one and no more than a quarter inch in thickness. Each weighed five pounds. He laid the first slate on the old crone's chest and began to chant the curious rhyme that governed this spell.

As he chanted he felt colors swirling in his mind. First green, a stain that covered everything. Across the pure green grew a lacy network, a riverine system of dark threads. The threads connected, then grew together into knots and masses and finally clustered into blobs, growing darker and bluer and finally purple before they suddenly flushed red. With the color of blood flowing through his eyes, he turned, took up a second slate, and laid it carefully on top of the first on the old woman's chest.

She looked at him wonderingly. He continued to chant, the singsong syllables swinging back and forth while the red conglomeration glowed like heated wires.

After he placed the third slate, the wonder in her eyes turned to fear. She could move her head easily enough and had seen the pile of slates placed nearby. The stack was three feet high.

In Pulbeka's hands, the slates were not much more than large playing cards. The Old One snapped them down, one every ten seconds, singing all the while. The old woman began to scream, understanding her doom. She strained at her bonds, seeking to move her chest, but the ropes were iron tight.

The eighth slate brought a different timbre to her screams. She was finding it harder to hold up the weight. The fifteenth virtually silenced her. Little more than gasps and croaks came up after that, until with the thirtieth there began the gurgles.

The Old One kept singing while he held her eyes and absorbed her terror. The slates piled higher. She could not move. She could not breathe. She struggled to hold up the weight. He stared into her eyes, sucking out her life energy.

The gurgles gradually faded, the skin dulled, the eyes lost their shine. He took in the whole of her death with a tight smile on his great face.

His heart soared with the perfection he had achieved. His eyes closed while his mind exploded from the confines of his skull and flew outward, taking flight like an eagle of the dark.

Below him he could see the city of Shasht spread out around the temple pyramid. The harbor and the river snaking inland were etched darkly beneath the moon. Lights in thousands of windows picked out the outline of the great boulevards.

The world curved away to the horizon and the distant mountains of the south. To the north the oceans beckoned. He flew on, arms outswept as if they were wings.

Above the world glittered the stars, hard and sharp in this view, unobscured by the atmosphere. This world would belong solely to Man once more. The evil begun by the academy would be expunged.

Like some giant dragonfly of pure energy, he arrowed northward and into the east, hurrying over great cloud masses lit by moonlight. Far below, the ocean sparkled darkly in its immensity. On these gossamer wings of magic he passed faster than a sound, faster than anything but the gleam of the sun, and soon far ahead he perceived the dark mass of the northern continent.

The eastern edges were tinged by the first touch of dawn.

Down now, swinging over the mountains into the sweet green interior. Then, in a high valley, he spotted an encampment of pyluk. A dozen green-skinned fighting machines, lying by their simple wooden spears.

He felt laughter soar in his throat. He hadn't seen pyluk in a long, long time. Pyluk, his creatures, his playthings, his weapons.

But, it was not time for that. He had other work in mind.

The pyluk were soon far behind. Now the mountains rose up from the wrinkled hills. And there was Highnoth.

The ruins of the ancient city, the last city, the last place in the world that men lived as of old.

The place where he had been held captive for so long.

And there he found them, the creatures of the Leadership. His enemies in all things.

They felt him!

There was sudden panic among the ancient gnomes.

The smelters weren't fired that day, so the blue sky over Dronned was clear for once. Folk from all across the kingdom were drawn to each month's biggest market day, visiting vegetable stalls and art galleries and everything in between. Drummers and tumblers from as far away as Reif were playing for the crowd in the southeast corner of the Dronned market. From the far corner came the shrill pipe music of sheepherders from Blurri.

The midday bell rang from the tower of the Guild Hall. The cook shops along Pike Street were firing up their grills. At the Laughing Fish tavern the barmots were breaking open a fresh barrel of beer.

From the lookout tower, built on the harbor mole, came a cry. With so much commotion in the old town, no one took that much notice.

A youngster in the blue shirt of the messenger corps soon came running up the mole. "A ship!" he cried as he went past.

"A ship with two masts."

That news caused an immediate stir. Two masts meant a ship of men, not a stout cog of the Land. Ships full of men had always signaled a raid. Hundreds of mots ran down to the harbor to see for themselves. In many homes there began an immediate surge of panicky packing. Donkeys, carts, chests, and boxes were all in motion.

A bugle began to sound in the courtyard of the palace. The town criers took up their places on street corners to bellow a message. The royal civil service was suddenly boiling over with activity as messengers by the score exited the palace.

A pair of messengers were already haring up the north road to find the Commander of the Third Regiment, currently in Dronned Camp for training. "Seven hundred mots and brilbies will be ready within ten minutes, sir!" roared the sergeant at arms, though he was barely to be heard over the sound of the camp springing to life.

Nuza heard the message while working in the royal library, editing the transcripts of her memoir of Shasht. Also in the library were the two Assenzi that had been visiting with her for the past week, digging out everything she recalled about Shasht and her time there.

Nuza had never been exposed to Assenzi like this before. In person, they were unnerving. They seemed to know or sense everything. Most of the time they exhibited a slowness of movement that was almost unlifelike. But they also possessed perfect memory.

The messenger was a boy with a piping high voice, and she caught the words "a ship, two masts" very clearly.

The Assenzi, Utnapishtim and Acmonides, both down from Highnoth, certainly came to life. They got up from their own projects with alacrity. Their gnomish faces with the huge eyes were a study in alarm. They reassured each other in gentle voices.

"We need not be overly alarmed," said Utnapishtim.

"Indeed, there is a full regiment here. And many veterans in the town population at large."

"But there should be no more raiding."

"
Could
is the word, dear Utnapishtim, not
should
. They still could raid."

"The Emperor promised an end."

"But Aeswiren did not gain control of every element among the men."

"It is quite bothersome to have to pack up all these papers," muttered Utnapishtim as he stuffed scrolls and parchment into a satchel.

"Surely, ancient Masters, there must be another reason for a ship of men to come here. Perhaps they bring a message from Aeswiren?"

"Yes, Nuza, you are probably correct," Acmonides replied.

Aeswiren had taken control of the Shasht fleet and army. Only three ships had broken away, carrying his son, Nebbeggebben. The fighting was over. The men had evacuated Sulmo entirely. They were still occupying Mauste and would do so for the next year while they cultivated supplies to keep them going on the long trip back to Shasht, but they were wielding shovels and hammers, not swords and spears.

Another messenger came running through the palace. "There are mots and men on the ship. Mots and men, they can be seen together."

This provoked another wave of curious folk to hurry down to the harbor, mors among the mots now. They formed a crowd along Dock Street and around the inner harbor.

The city waited breathlessly. Small boats had already put out and circled around the strange ship as it came in, sailing on a scrap of sail on the foremast. From the lookouts on the headland north of the city came word that no other sails were visible. The small ship was alone.