“Tell you the truth,” said Dhblah, “I’ve already drawn a few designs just now . . .”
Om vanished. There was a brief thunderclap. Dhblah looked reflectively at his sketches.
“. . . but I suppose I’ll have to take the little figure off them,” he said, more or less to himself.
The shade of Vorbis looked around.
“Ah. The desert,” he said. The black sand was absolutely still under the starlit sky. It looked cold.
He hadn’t planned on dying yet. In fact . . . he couldn’t quite remember how he’d died . . .
“The desert,” he repeated, and this time there was a hint of uncertainty. He’d never been uncertain about anything in his . . . life. The feeling was unfamiliar and terrifying. Did ordinary people feel like this?
He got a grip on himself.
Death was impressed. Very few people managed this, managed to hold on to the shape of their old thinking after death.
Death took no pleasure in his job. It was an emotion he found hard to grasp. But there was such a thing as satisfaction.
“So,” said Vorbis. “The desert. And at the end of the desert?”
JUDGEMENT.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Vorbis tried to concentrate. He couldn’t. He could feel certainty draining away. And he’d always been certain.
He hesitated, like a man opening a door to a familiar room and finding nothing there but a bottomless pit. The memories were still there. He could feel them. They had the right shape. It was just that he couldn’t remember what they were. There had been a voice . . . . Surely, there had been a voice? But all he could remember was the sound of his own thoughts, bouncing off the inside of his own head.
Now he had to cross the desert. What could there be to fear? The desert was what you believed.
Vorbis looked inside himself.
And went on looking.
He sagged to his knees.
I CAN SEE THAT YOU ARE BUSY, said Death.
“Don’t leave me! It’s so empty!”
Death looked around at the endless desert. He snapped his fingers and a large white horse trotted up.
I SEE A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE, he said, swinging himself into the saddle.
“Where? Where?”
HERE. WITH YOU.
“I can’t see them!”
Death gathered up the reins.
NEVERTHELESS, he said. His horse trotted forward a few steps.
“I don’t understand!” screamed Vorbis.
Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
The first boats grounded in the shallows, and the troops leapt into shoulder-high surf.
No one was quite sure who was leading the fleet. Most of the countries along the coast hated one another, not in any personal sense, but simply on a kind of historical basis. On the other hand, how much leadership was necessary? Everyone knew where Omnia was. None of the countries in the fleet hated the others worse than they did Omnia. Now it was necessary for it . . . not to exist.
General Argavisti of Ephebe considered that he was in charge, because although he didn’t have the most ships he was avenging the attack on Ephebe. But Imperiator Borvorius of Tsort knew that he was in charge, because there were more Tsortean ships than any others. And Admiral Rham-ap-Efan of Djelibeybi knew that he was in charge, because he was the kind of person who always thought he was in charge of anything. The only captain who did not, in fact, think that he was commanding the fleet was Fasta Benj, a fisherman from a very small nation of marsh-dwelling nomads of whose existence all the other countries were in complete ignorance, and whose small reed boat had been in the path of the fleet and had got swept along. Since his tribe believed that there were only fifty-one people in the world, worshiped a giant newt, spoke a very personal language which no one else understood, and had never seen metal or fire before, he was spending a lot of time wearing a puzzled grin.
Clearly they had reached a shore, not of proper mud and reeds, but of very small gritty bits. He lugged his little reed boat up the sand, and sat down with interest to see what the men in the feathery hats and shiny fish-scale vests were going to do next.
General Argavisti scanned the beach.
“They must have seen us coming,” he said. “So why would they let us establish a beachhead?”
Heat haze wavered over the dunes. A dot appeared, growing and contracting in the shimmering air.
More troops poured ashore.
General Argavisti shaded his eyes against the sun.
“Fella’s just standing there,” he said.
“Could be a spy,” said Borvorius.
“Don’t see how he could be a spy in his own country,” said Argavisti. “Anyway, if he was a spy he’d be creepin’ around. That’s how you can tell.”
The figure had stopped at the foot of the dunes. There was something about it that drew the eye. Argavisti had faced many an opposing army, and this was normal. One patiently waiting figure was not. He found he kept turning to look at it.
“S’carrying something,” he said eventually. “Sergeant? Go and bring that man here.”
A few minutes later the sergeant returned.
“Says he’ll meet you in the middle of the beach, sir,” he reported.
“Didn’t I tell you to bring him here?”
“He didn’t want to come, sir.”
“You’ve got a sword, haven’t you?”
“Yessir. Prodded him a bit, but he dint want to move, sir. And he’s carrying a dead body, sir.”
“On a battlefield? It’s not bring-your-own, you know.”
“And . . . sir?”
“What?”
“Says he’s probably the Cenobiarch, sir. Wants to talk about a peace treaty.”
“Oh, he does? Peace treaty? We know about peace treaties with Omnia. Go and tell . . . no. Take a couple of men and bring him here.”
Brutha walked back between the soldiers, through the organized pandemonium of the camp. I ought to feel afraid, he thought. I was always afraid in the Citadel. But not now. This is through fear and out the other side.
Occasionally one of the soldiers would give him a push. It’s not allowed for an enemy to walk freely into a camp, even if he wants to.
He was brought before a trestle table, behind which sat half a dozen large men in various military styles,
and one small olive-skinned man who was gutting a fish and grinning hopefully at everyone.
“Well, now,” said Argavisti, “Cenobiarch of Omnia, eh?”
Brutha dropped Vorbis’s body on to the sand. Their gaze followed it.
“I know him-” said Borvorius. “Vorbis! Someone killed him at last, eh? And will you stop trying to sell me fish? Does anyone know who this man is?” he added, indicating Fasta Benj.
“It was a tortoise,” said Brutha.
“Was it? Not surprised. Never did trust them, always creeping around. Look, I said no fish! He’s not one of mine, I know that. Is he one of yours?”
Argavisti waved a hand irritably. “Who sent you, boy?”
“No one. I came by myself. But you could say I come from the future.”
“Are you a philosopher? Where’s your sponge?”
“You’ve come to wage war on Omnia. This would not be a good idea.”
“From Omnia’s point of view, yes.”
“From everyone’s. You will probably defeat us. But not all of us. And then what will you do? Leave a garrison? For ever? And eventually a new generation will retaliate. Why you did this won’t mean anything to them. You’ll be the oppressors. They’ll fight. They might even win. And there’ll be another war. And one day people will say: why didn’t they sort it all out, back then? On the beach. Before it all started. Before all those people died. Now we have that chance. Aren’t we lucky?”
Argavisti stared at him. Then he nudged Borvorius.
“What did he say?”
Borvorius, who was better at thinking than the others, said, “Are you talking about surrender?”
“Yes. If that’s the word.”
Argavisti exploded.
“You can’t do that!”
“Someone will have to. Please listen to me. Vorbis is dead. He’s paid.”
“Not enough. What about your soldiers? They tried to sack our city!”
“Do your soldiers obey your orders?”
“Certainly! ”
“And they’d cut me down here and now if you commanded it?”
“I should say so!”
“And I’m unarmed,” said Brutha.
The sun beat down on an awkward pause.
“When I say they’d obey-” Argavisti began.
“We were not sent here to parley,” said Borvorius abruptly. “Vorbis’s death changes nothing fundamental. We are here to see that Omnia is no longer a threat.”
“It is not. We will sent materials and people to help rebuild Ephebe. And gold, if you like. We will reduce the size of our army. And so on. Consider us beaten. We will even open Omnia to whatever other religions wish to build holy places here.”