Empire of the East

by Fred Saberhagen

The officer was sweating, evidently wishing he was a private simply taking orders once again. Wood went on: “It will be necessary to call up some special reserves. I am referring to a group of demons who have for one reason or another been put into confinement, in a place—outside the normal world. They are dangerous and unruly creatures, and I must impress upon you the necessity of my being allowed to concentrate in peace while I am working with them.”

  All that Wood had said thus far was true. His great untruth had been in leaving out even the faintest hint of the existence of Orcus, the real object of the work he was about to do. Not even in his own inner thoughts had Wood allowed himself to form that name. Not for centuries now.

  The officer wet his lips. “Great Lord, you will understand that I mean you no disrespect, when I venture the opinion that this project of releasing imprisoned demons, along with these discoveries regarding our enemy Ardneh, should be reported to headquarters as soon as possible. To the Emperor himself.”

  The officer was sharper and bolder than he looked. Understanding that the man wanted to be reassured that there was no intrigue against the Emperor in progress here—or perhaps wanted to be let in on it if there were—Wood answered patiently. “Send a message to headquarters any time you like. But I presume no reptile will fly until daylight, and I must begin the evocation here and now. Tonight. It is not a calling that can be made in an hour, or even in a day. There are many bars to be let down, sealed doors to be broken, locks to be opened for which the keys were thrown away. If we are to have help against Ardneh in time, I must begin now to call upon—the powers that are to help us. Should the Emperor for some unimaginable reason forbid me to go through with the calling, I can stop it at any point. Now if you will detail the men to help me, I must select the first required victim.”

  The officer was reassured, and moved away, giving his men such orders as Wood had requested.

  When Wood came to the Western prisoners, he found them now laid out in a row, all still unconscious from the effects of his paralyzing spells. The woman was standing there, once more looking down at one of the still forms. The same one. It was he who had come near killing Wood. This time her expression indicated thought, rather than uncaring hate.

  It was Wood’s first opportunity for a long, close look at her. “What is your name, girl?”

  “I am called Charmian, my noble Lord.” Her blue eyes were so luminous that his spell-casting fingers twitched defensively. But it was no more than woman’s inborn witchery she had, as power to bedazzle men. No more? There were numerous demonic spells not half so powerful. Wood pondered the possible advantages and drawbacks of sending her on as a gift to Ominor; the Emperor enjoyed alluring women as much as any ordinary man.

  Wood looked down. “And who is this one at your feet, who makes you frown so thoughtfully?”

  “He was my husband, Lord,” she said, managing to surprise him. She hesitated briefly before adding: “There is a question I would ask.” His expression gave assent, and she went on: “You are choosing one of these for a ritual victim? I thought as much…is the victim’s death to be an easy one or difficult?”

  “Tonight’s victim will die easily.”

  “Then I beg of you, dread Lord, take some other than this who was my bridegroom once. I would not have him die a quick and easy death.”

  Duncan’s camp tonight was nearer to Ardneh, by some kilometers, than it had been the night before. Duncan each day moved his army north, following his wizards’ advice and his own intuition, and keeping pace with the parallel movement of the main body of his Eastern foes.

  Now in Duncan’s tent, the seeress Anita, in deep trance, was muttering: “…they open doors to they know not what, they take down bars that were put up when they were wiser and more frightened.” The girl’s speech began to trail off, becoming more disjointed and unintelligible, until at last she could only cry out in unwonted fear. Duncan, weary from the dull riding and intermittent fighting of the day, tried to puzzle out what it could mean, but he could not. Neither could his wizards, who contradicted one another in sharp debate about the girl: whether to waken her or send her deeper into trance, whether what she said tonight had any useful meaning. At last she was taken out. Duncan and his councilors continued meeting through the night. There was no communication from Ardneh.

  The blood of the first sacrifice was warm and fresh on Wood’s hands, and in his throat the words of power flowed like song, controlled, in harmony with the images formed in his mind by his practiced imagination. Energy flowed through him, from him. Shortly after starting the evocation he had felt a pang of worry, on realizing just how tired he was. This was not a task to be begun when weary; mistakes might be punished terribly. But now it was all going well enough.

  It was a task that required a full mastery of magic, but he was equal to it. More than equal. In his imagination he was now descending worn stone steps, through a dark and narrow passage, going to visit the dungeon under the world. Other demons were confined there as well as Orcus, and Wood meant to release them in passing. They were not really dangerous—not to Wood. Now he could hear them, feel them, smell them, moving in some imagined cell just off his passageway. A pack of ethereal wolves, jostling one another for the chance at taking on reality once more. They knew their jailer was coming, and perhaps they knew he meant to let them out.

  To Wood these were not much; they were cattle he penned up or loosed, no matter how monstrous and powerful they might loom in the sight of lesser men. To handle them he needed no protracted ceremonies, no human sacrifices; he could bring them up into the world tonight, without consulting the Emperor, and he meant to do so. It was only the Other, whose name Wood had been avoiding even in his thoughts, that made him worry now. It was the process of releasing Orcus, of course keeping hold enough on him to put him down again when the West had been defeated, that called for supreme wizardry and offerings of lives.

  Now the first victim had been offered, and down in the deepest dungeon cell the chained One had begun to stir and tremble in his painful sleep. When those stirrings became evident to Wood, their magnitude restored his memory regarding what Orcus was truly like. Suddenly he now longer saw the gathering of the other outcast demons as a wolf pack, even as a herd of unruly cattle, but as no more than a nest of squealing, snapping rats. Neither they or Wood had changed of course. It was only the comparison with Orcus.

  Wood slowed his imagined descent of the stone steps. The bottom was near. Surprisingly, Orcus was not only stirring, not only beginning to awaken, he was already straining and struggling to be free. He radiated an incredible power and purpose. Impossible, of course, that his effort should succeed. Wood was still the jailer, armed and comfortable and with the stair behind him open for his ascent. He stood now at the ultimate cell door, looking down through bars and gratings at the wretch in chains, the giant cramped and bound. But the rousing of Orcus had begun too successfully, was proceeding a little too rapidly. To maintain the proper margin of safety, steps should be taken to slow things down.

  The bloodied ritual knife still in his hand, the corpse of the first sacrifice still warm at his feet, Wood swayed a little with his weariness, swayed and frowned and changed the text that he was chanting, altered the shape of the dungeon whose symbol-structure was held so carefully in his mind…

  Like a snake uncoiling from the uttermost depths beneath the world, the power Orcus came striking up at him. Through symbols and matter alike the shockwave traveled, launched by the half-conscious Demon-Lord, trying in blind fury to strike back at his tormentors. At the first impact of the shockwave, Wood cried out. He had a moment in which to realize that in his weariness he had mispronounced a word of his long chant, before he fell down senseless.

  Even with Wood unconscious, the One who had struck him still could not escape his dungeon. The walls and bonds of magic were still too many and too strong. Orcus could not force his way back into the world of men, or even awaken fully from his sleep. But the hords of lesser demon
s that Wood had been about to herd back into the world were now able to force the passage for themselves. They lost no time in doing so.

  Charmian crouched motionless as the vile rabble of the demons began to appear in the torchlit night before her. One after another their hulking, obscure shapes blurred into the world, and almost at once vanished again for other parts of it. Wood when he awoke, or some other magician of comparable stature, could round them up again, and no doubt would; but they were not going to stand still and wait for it.

  Charmian had good reason to be afraid. That she herself was of the East might mean very little to these ill-disciplined powers. Any one of them, hungry to inflict pain, or yearning for the taste of some immaterial human essence, might destroy her on impulse—or, worse, swallow her without destroying. Imagine the emotions of a spoiled infant, combined with the force of some huge animal or elemental power, and cleverness above the human average.

  To try to run away might draw attention to herself, but still she was on the brink of doing so. She was distracted by the realization that the Western prisoners still alive were now awakening. The light spells Wood had placed on them were loosened by his unconsciousness. No one had thought to bind them physically, or perhaps the thought had been that to do so might insult the chief wizard of the East.

  Now Charmian saw her husband stir. An instant later Chup got to his feet. He was only a few meters away, and when his eyes fastened on her she did not dare to run.

  He was a more immediate threat than any of the demons, who so far had ignored her as they came into sight and vanished again. She took a step nearer to him, and with hands clasped beseechingly cried out: “Help me, Chup! I’ve released you, saved your life. You must get me away from here!”

  Chup continued looking at her. She read cold rage into his fixed stare, and then realized that it was only blank. Now his forehead wrinkled. With men screaming and demons flickering in the background, he gave the impression of a man with all the time in the world, trying to understand some interesting problem. Now she noted that the other surviving Westerners were wandering around witlessly; their minds must be still half-imprisoned by Wood’s spells.

  Now she drew back from Chup again, but he moved with her, studying her face as if he sought some answer there. She feared to turn and run lest some predator’s instinct make him chase her and attack. “Come, Chup! I beg of you. Save me! Help me get away!” The Constable was dead, Wood fallen, and demons seemed to rule the world. There was nowhere else for Charmian to turn. She pleaded, tugged at Chup’s unyielding arm, and at last in her desperation slapped his face. This last made him frown at her most villainously, though he gave no sign of retaliation. The frown frightened Charmian, and she hastened to soothe him with strokings and soft words. His face smoothed and he looked content once again, while above him and Charmian the insubstantial horrors of demons came and went, casting light of purple and gold and green, and leaving waves of sickness in the air.

  An Eastern soldier, probably maddened by some passing demon’s touch, came bounding at them. Charmian saw his contorted face and his uplifted sword. She turned to try to run, but slipped and fell. As the man leaped toward her, Chup caught him by one arm, seemed to wave him in midair as if he were a banner, and threw him sprawling on his face, so heavily that he did not rise.

  Recovering, Charmian crawled to pick up the sword the man had dropped. Murmuring “Come, My Lord Chup, come with me. We will help each other,” she held it out toward Chup, whose hand closed on the pommel as naturally as a mouth might close on food. Taking hold of his other hand, big and hard, docile and trusting, Charmian led him out away from the remains of smoldering tents and torches, away from the passing pyrotechnic demons, out into the summer night. Other humans could be heard running and crying out around them in the dark, but no one paid them any heed.

  IX

  Ardneh’s Life

  “Wolf tracks, if I’ve ever seen them,” Rolf announced. It was mid-morning on the day after their arrival at Ardneh’s base. They had camped overnight wrapped in their cloaks in a small, ancient dormitory, where the plumbing still worked but the ancient furnishings had otherwise crumbled long ago. Ardneh, still busy integrating into his own complex being the strange artifact that had been their gift, had not yet explained to them in any detail what their chief tasks here were to be. But he had asked them to make a short reconnaissance round the old mine entrance, to see if there were any signs of their having been followed. When this request puzzled them, Ardneh explained: “It is here, inside my own physical structure, that my powers are in some ways most limited.” And there came to Rolf, with seeming naturalness, the mental image of a hand trying to bandage itself.

  Now he stood with Catherine at the mouth of the ancient adit. A thunderstorm had come and gone during the night, unheard by them inside, leaving fresh mud where the small stream’s banks had been dry dirt. The splayed prints in the mud were those of large and heavy animals. “Only natural beasts of some kind, we can hope,” Rolf added now.

  “Look.” Catherine was pointing at the hard rock ledge a couple of meters in from the entrance. Rolf crouched beside her. The faint smear of mud on rock was not yet quite dry. His eyes could not really make it into a large paw-print. But something, or someone, had left it there within the last few hours.

  “Are there wolves that serve the East?” Catherine asked.

  “I have heard stories of such, but never seen them. Ardneh will know.”

  “We were to scout outside; I suppose we had better not retreat at the mere sight of a track.”

  Rolf agreed, and they proceeded cautiously. But, once away from the mud at the adit’s entrance, they could discover no evidence of enemies or large beasts. New rivulets, still gurgling with rainwater, entered the stream at several points, and a hundred meters downstream from Ardneh’s cave it was now much deeper than it had been, overtopping its normal banks to comb long grass with its current.

  After following the stream that far they scouted in a circle centered on the entrance to the cave. They climbed the hill, crawling cautiously round its grassy top to observe a peaceful summer world in all directions. From there the circle brought them back to the stream and its swift pools. Catherine knelt to scan the bank closely; her thighs showed white before her skirt fell back demurely into place.

  The little glade felt utterly secure, isolated from friend and foe alike. A thought that Rolf had banished came leaping back, with power irresistible: Maybe the curse has ended now—

  Two minutes later, feeling numb with fury, he was turning away from Catherine, picking up his just-dropped scabbard from the grass. The sword came out into his right hand, and with it he hacked murderously at the Lady Charmian’s image, projected by his rage on a small tree. He was leaving marks to show enemy scouts that someone had been here. All right, then, he was leaving marks.

  “I am changed again,” came Catherine’s wearily steady voice from behind him. “Changed and dressed.”

  Walking behind her, on their silent way back to the cave, he thought that even her normal, youthful shape was after all far from lovely. Those bare legs moving ahead of him were not curved in the way that a man’s dreams told him a girl’s legs should be curved. Too thin and wiry. My Lady Charmian chooses ugly servants, always—

  And Rolf felt sullen, mean, and ugly too.

  Wood woke with a start, and instantly sprang to his feet. The movement came in a burst of fear-born energy that drained away as quickly as it had come, and left him tottering. He stood swaying in the cheerful sunlight, amid unfamiliar grass and trees, unable to recall how he had come to be here.

  Gradually, in bits and pieces, it came back: the error made in weariness, the jolting punishment from Orcus. But that had been during the night, and it was late morning now. Or might it even be early afternoon—

  With a shock Wood beheld that the grass where he had lain still remained pressed down, showing the outline of his body. Within the outline it was even yellowed, beginning to d
ie from lack of sun.

  How many days had he been lying there? Within the outline of withered grass, beetles were scurrying to find a new shade. But though he must have been motionless as a corpse, apparently no living thing had come closer than that to molesting him. A magician of Wood’s power was not completely unprotected even when unconscious.

  Now he looked cautiously about. The only other humans remaining in the grove had made food for scavengers already. He faced no immediate threat.

  Wood spewed out words of power, barking commands and questions into the air, which soon crackled with invisible presences. His first orders were for food and drink—he was ravenous and thirsty now, as well as stiff in every muscle and joint. Next he demanded information.

  What he learned was, for the most part, reassuring. The horde of rogue demons had scattered around the world, which was an annoyance, but no more—obviously Orcus had not escaped. Quickly Wood set in motion the processes necessary to bring the others back under his control. Then, clumsy and aching, he set out on foot across tree-dotted grassland in the direction where, as his invisible informants now assured him, Ominor’s army was presently encamped.

  With no better means of travel than his old legs, the journey was slow. But the kind of steed he had once ridden was not readily replaceable, and he was saving his powers now for essentials. After an hour, however, the hiking grew oppressively difficult. He took thought, noted that the light breeze was at his back, and nodded to himself with satisfaction. With a few words he changed his shape into that of a wind-rolled, rootless weed, a feat he could manage with no great expenditure of energy.

  In this guise he traveled faster than before, and by late afternoon had come within sight of his goal. Resuming his usual shape, he now made himself completely invisible, a condition hard to maintain for more than a brief time. In this way he passed sentries and minor wizards alike without being detected, until he stood inside the pavilion of the Emperor himself. Wood was surprised—though not enormously so—to discover the woman Charmian standing before Ominor. She was simply dressed now, and shy-looking, with downcast eyes. There were a few other people about.