These weird parallels between our histories had been leading me somewhere, and, coming from Bit-Hessee, I perceived where: To meddle in the dynasty of the Hragons, to redeem my past with Sorem’s present, to grasp power and use it. And for what better reason than that, in so doing, I would destroy the thing which had hunted me in the swamp city-the witch and her tangling web.
We sat down, and I told Sorem swiftly what had happened to me since the night of the Lion’s Field. He listened intently and made no idiot comment. I did not specify Bit-Hessian enchantments, nor speak of Uastis or my father’s image cast up from that circle on the tomb’s floor, but still I made him aware of the horror and the darkness, and of their belief that I was their messiah, the Shaythun-Kem.
“The Citadel has declared for Sorem,” I said, “five thousand men. And at a word from me, despite anything I may have done there, despite my escape even, Bit-Hessee will declare for Vazkor. How many fighting men do you suppose exist in the Rat-Hole?”
“By the Flame, not men alone, Vaskor. You’ve seen them. The women would fight too, for this, and their children. It was Hragon-Dat-my father-who forbade them to carry knives, for there have always been rumors of uprisings and prophetic leaders from the marsh. Still, they will have found some way to circumvent the law. To estimate, I would say seven thousand, or eight, if their old ones and their very young fight, too. And apart from those, the slaves would rise in Bar-Ibithni, for a messiah.” He looked me in the eye and added coolly, “Do you mean to turn them against me, Vazkor? They won’t march to aid a Masrian.”
“They’ll aid you,” I said, “without meaning to. Hear me out, then argue.”
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I put my plan to him, to the inappropriate accompaniment of some love song a jerdier was singing three courts away.
It was a long night, much going over of the material and plotting of strategies, and drinking wine to fill in the gaps of thought. Presently Yashlom was brought in, Sorem’s second, a captain with whom he had been campaigning a couple of years before. They had saved each other’s lives once or twice, and liked each other the better for it. Yashlom was a young man, a lesser prince of the Masrian aristocracy, serious and clever, with the stillest, steadiest hands I ever saw. Two other jerdats were also admitted, friends of Sorem beyond where their duty took them: Bailgar of the Shield Jerd (named for some military honor they had won in the past), and Dushum, who had been the first to declare himself Sorem’s man after word of Basnurmon’s treachery reached the Citadel. They did not trust me immediately, for which they were not to be blamed, but came around to it on the strength of the incident at the Lion’s Field. In respect of the other commanders of the garrison, Sorem meant to call a council in the morning, and with this in mind we sought our couches a while before sunrise.
For myself, I slept little, too much in my head for sleep, and hearing the dawn hymn start in the prayer-towers of the city, I got up again and paced about the chamber I had been allotted, going over everything soberly.
Beyond the five jerds in the Citadel, which amounted to five thousand men, there were the three Imperial Jerds of the Heavenly City, exclusive to the Emperor’s protection. In addition, nine jerds patrolled the borders of the Empire, Tinsen, and the eastern provinces, and might be called home on a forced march, to reach Bar-Ibithni in two months or less. This seemed poor odds, all told, but with Bit-Hessee slung in the pot the stew should become more appetizing.
For my scheme was this: Pledge myself, after all, to the Rat-Hole; incite them to cast off Masrian oppression; then learn their method, their exact strength, and the hour they would elect to strike the blow. Eight thousand or so religion mad Hesseks running amok in Bar-Ibithni would insure two things. First, that the Emperor, caught unawares, would have his hands full to deal with the trouble, keeping his jerds entirely occupied, and leaving the military regime of the Heavenly City and Crimson Palace in chaos. Second, Bar-Ibithni, in its terror, would lay the blame for the uprising squarely at the door of Hragon-Dat and his heir Basnurmon, both of
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whom were known to have propagated laws and taxes under which Old Hessek was outcast and chafed. The Emperor’s three jerds would be insufficient to quell the rising, for they were reckoned slovenly. If the riot was permitted to get far enough so that the rich merchants and the Palm Quarter began to suffer from it, Hragon-Dat and his chosen successor could expect no mercy from their subjects. At this point, Sorem, riding out at the head of the jerds of the Citadel, would rescue the metropolis from Hessek menace. (Five jerds-mounted and equipped with Masrian crossbows and longswords, fully armored, trained, and alert for the eventshould be a match for a half-starved rabble with blowpipes and slings from the marsh.) Sympathy and approbation should swing to Sorem like the pendulum, and the uprising squashed, the path could be laid for the overthrow of Emperor Hragon-Dat and the elevation of Sorem to his place. As Sorem had said himself, the whole city knew him to be pure king’s blood on both sides, sire and dam.
This much I was prepared to help Sorem to, out of liking, for I liked him well enough, but also because I foresaw for myself the temporal power that could be gained through him. Become his brother in this campaign and I could choose my station afterward, without magic or trick, on merit alone. A slice of the Masrian Empire was no mean prize. Even the little I had seen of it had shown me that. Slipshod and sleepy as it had grown, two men with their youth and their wits about them could order it differently. I had some dim dreams of conquest, my father’s dreams perhaps, the empire he had tried to make but barely held and finally lost through the betrayals of those about him. I had some right to carve from this joint, who had narrowly missed a birthright of kingship myself.
Yet, more than anything, my obsession was to rinse the mud and stink of Old Hessek from the map. To show the witch who had instructed them that I could best her. She had meant them to eat me alive with their beliefs; she had meant me to resist them and perish, or else to succumb to the tug of their rotten fantasies and perish of their filth. I had no doubts she knew the web had almost caught me, had waited eagerly, wherever it was she hid herself, for graveyard news of me. But I had disappointed her, got free. This time she would reckon on anything but my consent.
She should die with them if she were in Bit-Hessee, a fraction later if she were elsewhere. I remembered well, irony of
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ironies, how I had sent Hesseks to search for her. She had kept them ignorant, or they had lied. I must be careful now of the Power in me, for it was her beacon, and she fed from it and used it against me. Therefore, I had turned to armies, weapons of steel, human subterfuge. I should end her, one way or another. In doing it, I would become a prince of the Masrians. Everything she had denied me, I would have-a revenge in itself.
For the rats of the Rat-Hole I cared nothing, nor for the soft and luxurious populace of Bar-Ibithni who should shortly feel the nip of rats’ teeth. One could not play at wars and tremble at dead men. The human lot was death; soon or late it fell. To have what I must have, it would fall now. This was what my life had taught me. As the Masrians say: Only those who live in the sugar-jar think the world is made of sweetmeat.
We had the council, which was brief and lucid. They were intelligent men, the oldest, Bailgar, not much above thirty, not yet stuck in his ways. I suppose, too, they had seen the rot set in on Bar-Ibithni, the army stagnating in its forts and barracks, the occasional minor flare-up on the borders all that kept it in trim. It was to their credit that the legions of the Citadel were finely drilled and in excellent battle-order, not a thick gut or a smeared buckle in sight. I gathered from general talk that the jerds of the Heavenly City could not boast as much.
Concerning my plan, they marveled, looked me over, and at length came to approve of it. They knew my reputation already, and asked me questions. I gave them straightforward answers where I could, and answers that seemed straightforward where I could not. Their patent loyalty to Sorem no longer irked me, now that I could put it to use. He had the knack of getting himself liked and well thought of, and was man enough to back it up with deeds, so none need be shamed to call him commander or friend. For me, I saw that morning that he could shoot straight as a hawk’s flight, for we took some exercise in the great Ax Court of the Citadel. I imagine the jerdats were testing me, and I was sufficiently clever with their kicking iron-shod bows and the other games that they could find no fault. Bailgar even grew lavish in his praise, clapping me on the shoulder, saying his eye was going for shot and it grieved him to see such a keen one as mine.