In the Heart of Darkness by Eric Flint & David Drake

Garmat gave his head a little shake. “No. Something unpleasant, however. Of that you may be certain.”

Another drum roll. The crowd in the pavilion began to fall silent.

Garmat’s lips tightened. “Whatever it is,” he whispered, “at least we won’t have to sit through an endless reception. Look at Venandakatra.”

Belisarius glanced at the Malwa lord, and met Venandakatra’s gaze. The Vile One nodded slightly, very politely. His eyes gleamed.

Silence fell over the pavilion. Venandakatra arose and stepped forward, until he was standing in the little space between the Emperor’s entourage and his most honored officers and guests.

Almost as soon as he began to speak, Belisarius knew that Garmat was right. At least there was not going to be a long wait. Venandakatra sped right through the obligatory fawning on the Emperor, which normally required a full hour.

True, he spent a minute reminding his audience that Skandagupta was “a very moon among kings, beloved of the gods, and the sun of valor.”

Then, another minute, pointing out that the Emperor’s stride “was beautiful like the gait of a choice elephant,” and that he “displayed the strength and prowess of a tiger of irresistible valor.”

Moving on to the Emperor’s more spiritual side, Venandakatra spent another minute dwelling on “the reverberations of the kettle-drums which have become the reverberation of the Law of Piety” and similar descriptions of Skandagupta’s justice and devotion.

Now, alas, he veered for several minutes onto the field of the Emperor’s prodigious intellect, during which time the awestruck audience discovered that Skandagupta “puts to shame all others by his sharp and polished intellect and choral skill and musical accomplishments. He alone is worthy of the thoughts of the learned. His is the poetic style which is worthy of study.”

Fortunately, he did not quote the poetry.

Venandakatra’s peroration, now coming to a close, ascended rapidly toward the heavens. The Emperor, he reminded everyone, was:

Adhiraja, super-king.

Rajatiraja, supreme king of kings.

Devaputra, son of heaven.

Mahati devata, great divinity in human shape.

Then, casting all false modesty aside:

Achintya Purusha, the Incomprehensible Being.

Paramadaivata, the supreme deity.

“All that,” mused Garmat, peering at the Emperor on his throne, “in such a fat little package. Who would have guessed?”

Belisarius managed not to smile. His struggle was made easier by Venandakatra’s ensuing words, which focussed on the subject of Ranapur. Soon enough, it became apparent that this was the real point of his peroration. The actual siege itself, the Vile One dispatched with a few sentences, which, by Malwa standards, was a studied insult to the military officers. The focus of Venandakatra’s treatment, however, was on Ranapur’s punishment.

Belisarius listened for a few minutes, fascinated despite himself. Not so much by the speech itself, which consisted of an interminable, protracted, loving description of the tortures inflicted on Ranapur’s resi­dents, but by the fact that the Malwa would boast of them so publicly. Even the most vicious Roman emper­ors had always drawn a veil over the details of their crimes.

After a time, he blanked the words from his mind. He had already heard a description of the Malwa atrocities—not from the smiling lips of the Vile One, but from the pale, tight-jawed mouth of Menander. He knew of the impalings, the burnings; the people ripped apart by yoked oxen, fed to tigers, trampled under elephants; and the Emperor’s particular delight, the men and women whose arms and legs had been torn off by a specially trained war elephant. That elephant, he had heard, had been a personal gift to the Emperor from Venandakatra himself.

He focussed inward, summoned Aide.

Is such incredible cruelty the doing of this thing you call Link?

The answer was immediate, and contained none of the uncertain fumbling which so often characterized Aide’s replies.

No. Link is not cruel. Link is a machine. Cruelty means nothing to it. Only results.

Do the “new gods” demand it, then?

A bit of hesitation. Just a bit.

We—do not think so. They are—too cold. They, also, seek only results. But—

The thought faceted, broke into fragments. Belisarius caught enough of a glimpse to understand.

Yes. They seek only results, and take no personal pleasure in cruelty. But results can be achieved through many different means. And this is the means they will naturally take. Their instinctive response to resistance: kill, butcher, rule by terror.

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