Touched by the Gods

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The door swung open, revealing a tall priest – and perhaps the thinnest human being Malledd had ever seen; he was almost skeletal. His white robe had a light blue band across the chest and around each sleeve; Malledd had never seen such a thing before. Priests sometimes wore other garments while performing their duties, and messengers wore red armbands, but he had never seen any color but white as part of an ordinary robe.

  The priest's head was utterly hairless, and he peered out with a quizzical expression.

  “Vadeviya tells me that this man is the gods' chosen champion, and that he wishes to speak to you,” the priestess explained. Then she put her hands on her hips and added, “And you should eat something – look at you! You've forgotten again, haven't you?”

  “I've been busy,” the magician-priest mumbled.

  “You've been spending all your time chatting, that's what you've been doing! There hasn't been that much official traffic. Aren't you hungry?”

  Shamefaced, the priest nodded. “Right now I'm ravenous,” he said. “But when I'm in trance I don't feel it...”

  “And you forget. Well, here, you talk to Vadeviya and his friend, and I'll go get you something.” She turned and marched away, leaving an amused Vadeviya standing to one side while Malledd and Dokar, both embarrassed, faced each other.

  “You're the divine champion?” Dokar asked uncertainly. “Did she really say that?”

  “She really said that,” Vadeviya replied.

  Dokar glanced at him uncertainly, puzzled by his emphasis. “But it's true?” he asked. “You're the chosen of the gods?”

  “So my parents were told when I was an infant,” Malledd admitted. “A priest told them that no fewer than three oracles had confirmed it.”

  Dokar bowed, a trifle unsteadily. When he came back up his expression was awed.

  “What was it you wanted, sir?” Dokar asked.

  “I want to know what's happening in Govya,” Malledd said. “In the war.”

  Dokar glanced at Vadeviya, who nodded.

  “Well,” Dokar said, “I don't know where to begin.” He looked at Vadeviya and Malledd and found no guidance there, so he sighed and began, “The rebel army captured Ai Varach and held it for a time, then left it and broke through the Shoka Pass onto the plains. Now they're marching west. Rebiri Nazakri has said that he intends to destroy Seidabar – he's issued proclamations about it. He says he'll smash its walls to powder and drench its streets in blood, that he'll wipe the Domdur dynasty from beneath the Hundred Moons forever, and apparently that's what he actually intends to do, as he has not bothered to occupy, garrison, or govern the provinces where he has defeated our forces, but has only used them to supply his army for the westward march. He's had some problems with desertion, but he's also been recruiting more, both living and dead – our scouts estimate that at present, he has at least ten thousand nightwalkers and four thousand men, and that those numbers are growing. Our surviving forces in the region are scattered and only lightly armed – about sixteen hundred men in all, mostly the survivors of Ai Varach and the eastern garrisons, all of them nominally under the command of General Balinus but many of them actually in small, independent bands with no communications with Balinus or much of anyone else. For now, they're fighting a hit-and-run campaign of quick raids, always by daylight, when the nightwalkers can't defend...”

  Malledd held up a hand, and Dokar stopped abruptly. The brisk recitation was too much for him to take in, with the casual mention of thousands upon thousands of men fighting for one side or another. Malledd could not imagine what a thousand men in one place would look like.

  And the calm account of the horrors Rebiri Nazakri had said he would perform in Seidabar...

  “I think you're going too fast for him,” Vadeviya said, smiling.

  Malledd realized he didn't need to know all these details. Hearing the numbers and times and places wouldn't tell him whether or not he was shirking his duties. There was a much simpler question he needed answered.

  “Who's winning?” he asked.

  Dokar blinked, startled. “Why, the enemy, of course. Our defenders are horribly outnumbered, quite aside from Nazakri's magic.”

  “But... but what about the Imperial Army?”

  Enlightenment seemed to dawn. “Oh, but you didn't ask that!” he said. “You asked about Govya. The vanguard of the Imperial Army departed Seidabar two days ago, and ought to be able to reach the Grebiguata River and set up a defensive line there well before the rebel army arrives. The goal is for General Balinus and the vanguard to hold the foe at the river until winter, which will give Lord Kadan time to gather and prepare an overwhelming counterstrike. This vanguard includes some six full regiments of infantry and one company of light cavalry, with priestly contingents providing full magical communications. In addition an elite force of New Magicians, sent by the Imperial College, has preceded them. The garrison at Ai Varach included three New Magicians, of whom two still live, and a few others from the east have also been involved in actions against the rebels, though unfortunately none of those appear to have survived. Balinus has reported the New Magicians to be very effective in both combat and reconnaissance, but distressingly vulnerable to Nazakri's black magic. The bulk of the Imperial force is still forming and training at Seidabar, of course – or really, in the military camps at Agabdal, just northwest of Seidabar. Reinforcements are expected to follow the vanguard to the Grebiguata shortly, while the main body will march east when the roads clear next spring.”

  “And then what?” Malledd asked.

  The magician blinked at him in puzzlement.

  “I mean, will the Imperial Army be victorious?” Malledd explained. “Will they be able to stop the nightwalkers?”

  Dokar stared at him.

  “How should I know? I'm a magician, that's all – a messenger, not a prophet!”

  “Well, what do you think? You know what's happening – by the sound of it, you know better than almost anyone.”

  “Oh, no,” Dokar said, waving a hand. “I just relay messages. I go into a trance that transports my spirit into the Higher Realm, and in the Higher Realm I can talk to other magicians from all over the world, and I've trained myself to remember whatever is said, but I don't know what's happening. I can't see the future; only the gods can do that. I'm not a general; I can't judge who's going to win a battle any better than you could. Even if I could, I'm only hearing one side – there aren't any magician priests on the other side. The Nazakri had them all slain in any town they captured. I don't know what the enemy's real strength is, and I don't know just how powerful Rebiri Nazakri's magic is.”

  “But you know how strong our army is,” Malledd said.

  “Well, as much as anyone does,” Dokar agreed. “Tens of thousands of hastily-trained and poorly-armed farmboys, for the most part – some of them are using sharpened graveyard fence-pickets for swords or lances. The officers are telling them it's because they're fighting nightwalkers, but the truth is it's because there aren't enough proper blades. We haven't fought a real war in two hundred years; none of our experienced officers have ever been in any fight bigger than the brewery riots of 1099, and half the officers are ordinary soldiers who were promoted specifically for this campaign and have never been in anything worse than a barroom brawl. We have numbers on our side – huge numbers, the Imperial Council expects to be able to field half a million men at the Grebiguata in the spring – and the rebel army isn't much more experienced than ours. Our morale is generally excellent, so far, but when actual battle comes, something more than the skirmishes we've fought so far, there's absolutely no telling how well our troops will fight, or what magic the Nazakri may have in reserve.”

  Malledd frowned. “You can't tell?”

  “No one can.”

  “You said they don't have good swords – what about the Imperial Armory?” Malledd had heard tales about the size of the Imperial Armory, and the fearsomeness of the weapons it held, since he was a boy. “Didn't they ca
ll for smiths triads ago?”

  “The Imperial Armory was cleaned out equipping that six-regiment vanguard, stripped to the walls. And just because they called for smiths doesn't mean they got them; it's easy to convince surplus farmboys to leave home, but most smiths know better.”

  Just then the priestess returned with a platter of food – bread, sliced ham, hard cheese, apples and cider. She set it on the table and Dokar immediately began to eat, ignoring his visitors.

  Malledd stared as the half-starved magician wolfed down bread and ham. He was thinking hard about what he had just heard.

  A cough interrupted his concentration. “There's enough for everyone,” the priestess said, shyly offering Malledd an apple.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Asari Asakari looked thoughtfully around the rebel camp, then turned back to his companion, who was busily polishing a complex crystal structure. He asked Aldassi, “Do you think it will work?” He spoke in Olnami, not Domdur.

  Aldassi looked up from his work, startled, and met Asari's gaze. “Do I think what will work?” he asked.

  “Your father's plan,” Asari said. “Such as it is,” he added.

  Aldassi turned his head and studied the encampment, just as Asari had, taking in the stacked corpses that were the nightwalkers, the mismatched tents of the living, the patrols marching the camp's boundaries, the mound of dirt around the pit his father had ordered the nightwalkers to dig the night before. He didn't reply immediately.

  “I'd say that some of the initial enthusiasm has worn off,” Asari ventured. “I don't think most of our people realized how far it is from Matua to Seidabar.”

  “I know,” Aldassi answered. “I don't think my father really understood the distance. It's a long way, certainly.” Then he shrugged. “But what choice do any of them have?”

  “Well, I wondered whether they would still have the necessary enthusiasm to fight, once we reach Seidabar,” Asari said, trying to sound casual.

  “They don't need to be enthusiastic,” Aldassi replied flatly. “The nightwalkers will destroy the city – or my father will, with his magic. All these people have to do is guard the nightwalkers and my father by day, and by night we will advance, and in time we will get there.” His pronunciation grew somewhat more elaborate and precise as he spoke. His father preferred the older, more formal dialects, and when he spoke of Rebiri's goals Aldassi tended to shift toward that mode of speaking.

  “But do they still want to?” Asari asked.

  “Does it matter?” Aldassi shrugged. “If they desert, my father or the nightwalkers will hunt them down and kill them. They know that. They've seen it.” He swept an arm around, taking in the horizon. “And where would they go, out here?”

  Asari had to concede that point; the great plain between Govya and the western hills was not exactly inviting territory. Endless fields of barley and wheat stretched out to the horizon in all directions, sprinkled with the scattered homes of the Domdur farmers – the nomads who had once occupied this land were all long gone, either dead, departed, or become Domdur farmers themselves. Now the farmers were mostly gone as well, having fled before the advancing army of nightwalkers. The army's foragers stripped clean each house they passed, and each field that had not been burned. One such house stood thirty yards away, and they were sitting in one such field, beneath a faded brown awning that fluttered above them in the constant wind.

  “Then you think we will reach Seidabar?”

  “Of course,” Aldassi said.”

  “And Seidabar will fall?” Asari asked.

  “How can it not?” Aldassi replied, now speaking entirely in the archaic formal style, as if he were engaged in one of the ritual tribal debates that were an Olnami tradition. “My family has lived for revenge for three hundred years, and now my father has found the means of that vengeance. We will have it; the gods would not have permitted us to come so far if they did not mean us to succeed.”

  “The gods favor the Domdur,” Asari said, his own pronunciation shifting toward the formal. He had never been trained in the old debating rituals, but he had heard them a few times. “Everyone knows that to be so.”

  Aldassi frowned. “No more,” he said.

  “You are certain? I have heard it suggested – ”

  “I suggest nothing,” Aldassi said. “I tell you it is so – a god speaks to my father, directing him, showing him where his destiny lies. It is this god who has seen to it that my father learned the New Magic and found the means to use it for more than its Diknoi inventors ever imagined possible.”

  “A god... speaks to your father?” Asari hesitated. “I know he claims to have a destiny leading him on...”

  “He has now learned that it is a god who guides him toward that destiny.” Aldassi considered a moment, then said, “Perhaps 'speaks' is overstating the case; this god, for that is what my father now knows it to be, does not openly address him in words, as the gods spoke to the Domdur oracles. Yet it makes its will known.”

  “You call a god 'it,' not 'he'?”

  “We know nothing of this deity's nature. Perhaps it is a god, or a goddess, or some other divine entity.” Aldassi shrugged. “It is enough to know that it is divine. The gods have abandoned the Domdur; their oracles are silent, and we have freed the ancient powers of the earth the gods once imprisoned. I know not whether the old, forgotten gods of my people have thrown down the Domdur gods, or whether the Domdur have sinned against their own gods and been cast aside, and I do not care – it is enough to know that the Domdur are bereft of divine favor, while my father has divine guidance in his pursuit of his destiny. With that guidance and the power it has given us we can once again fight the Domdur, and this time we will prevail.”

  “So Seidabar will fall.”

  “Seidabar must fall.”

  Asari nodded. “And then what?” he asked.

  Aldassi blinked, and stared at him.

  Asari stared back. “Then what?” he repeated. “When Seidabar is destroyed, then what?”

  For a moment neither man spoke. “Then we have our revenge,” Aldassi said at last.

  “And what will we do after that?” Asari insisted. “The Domdur still rule most of the world, after all, and even when Seidabar is gone their garrisons and governors will be everywhere.”

  “There will be chaos,” Aldassi said. “With the Domdur heart cut out the slaves will rise against their masters, and the Domdur will be slaughtered everywhere. The old nations will rise anew, and my father and I shall return to Olnami in triumph.”

  “And the rest of us?”

  Aldassi shrugged. “I don't know,” he admitted, slipping briefly out of the formal mode. “What will come will come.”

  “Perhaps we could make sure that what comes is what we want to come,” Asari said, his own accent becoming still more formal. “Why should we allow all the old nations to be restored? Were the Domdur our only foes of old?”

  “Pah.” Aldassi waved that away. “No one would dare defy my father.”

  “Exactly my point,” Asari said. “Why should you return to Olnami, to be nothing more than the Olnami warlords? Why should you allow the Matuans and the Greyans and the Kashbaanaya to do as they please? Do you not fear that the Domdur might someday recover, even with their Empress slain and their fortresses thrown down?”

  Aldassi did not bother to reply in words; he simply stared at Asari.

  “I mean,” Asari said, “why do we not take the place of the Domdur, and rule all the world?”

  Aldassi did not answer directly; he turned his head and stared westward, toward Seidabar.

  “You mean name my father the Emperor?” he asked at last.

  “Why not?” Asari said.

  “There are not enough Olnami in all the world to man the garrisons and the governors' palaces,” Aldassi said. “And the Olnami are free people, not soldiers.”

  Asari did not contradict that, though he knew better than to believe that most Olnami were any more devoted to freedom t
han anyone else. “Are all the Empire's soldiers Domdur?” he asked. “The priests, the messengers, the governors and advisors – are they all of Domdur blood?”

  “They serve the Domdur, whatever their ancestral blood,” Aldassi replied.

  “And most would as willingly serve the Olnami.”

  “Would they?”

  “Most assuredly,” Asari said.

  Something in his tone made it plain that he meant it. Aldassi cocked his head and looked sideways at Asari. “Have you spoken to my father of this notion?”

  Asari shook his head. “I do not have your father's ear.”

  “And I do, of course,” Aldassi said.

  “Of course,” Asari agreed. “I do not pretend that this conversation has occurred entirely by chance.”

  Aldassi turned his gaze westward again. “Do you pretend that this idea is solely the product of your own thoughts?”

  “No,” Asari admitted. “I have spoken with many people.”

  “Including, perhaps, some among the enemy who hope to be spared, should they agree to serve the Olnami?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Aldassi nodded. “But why should we spare them? What can they offer us?”

  “The means to rule the Empire, rather than to simply destroy it – that's what they offer, O Nazakri.”

  “Can the people to whom you have spoken truly offer us so much, then?”

  Asari hesitated.

  “In truth, Nazakri,” he said, “I have only spoken with messengers. If the signatures upon these messages are authentic, however, I would say that yes, these people can deliver what they promise.”

  Aldassi considered that. “You call me Nazakri as if it were my title,” he said abruptly. “My father is yet the lord of the Nazakri.”

  “Of course,” Asari agreed.

  Aldassi shifted abruptly back to modern, colloquial Olnami, the language not of formal challenge and debate, but of the marketplace. “So just who are these people, and what are their terms?”