The Unwaba Revelations

by Samit Basu

  ‘I was tortured and banished and forgotten. When I awoke on this world, I did not even remember who I was at first. But then, over time, I healed, and regained control over my infinite memory. If you could call it control; I became, in many ways, the supreme prophet delivering my prophecies from my own knowledge, trapped by the physical limitations of my body. I am all-knowing, but not all-saying; I know what I will say, and it is never enough.

  ‘I have come to love this world, in my own fashion. To see it die would cause me a considerable amount of grief for a significant period of time. I have felt sympathy for mankind ever since my first mistake, and will strive until my body dies to atone for my crime. I have come to dislike the gods with surprising intensity, and will do what I can to spite their careless plans and make them pay for their callous whims. Life means nothing to those beyond it, but life is precious, and to throw it away needlessly… that is wrong. I’m just not convinced by this gods destroying the world thing,’

  Maya shut the unwaba’s mouth, looking with amusement at Kirin’s open mouth.

  ‘Remember the rules for conversation with me, O unwaba, oldest and wisest of chameleons? They hold for Kirin as well. Say what you were going to, Kirin,’ she said.

  ‘I’m just not convinced by this gods destroying the world thing. If they do exist as you say, don’t they need us? Don’t they need our faith to grow powerful, or to just survive?’ asked Kirin.

  ‘…vive? No,’ said the unwaba. ‘I don’t understand. Why should they? You are their playthings. You are like ants to them. Not even ants. You are like amoebae, though science has not yet progressed enough to tell you what amoebae are. Very small things. Smaller than amoebae. I get…’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘All this is fascinating in theory, unwaba, but I hope you’re going to tell us what we need to do before falling asleep this time,’ said Maya. ‘We’re not very good at just killing time.’

  ‘There is a lot you might have done to draw the gods’ attention to you. For example, you, Maya, could have led the armies of the world to Asroye, using the creatures you call chubbies as your guide, and you, Kirin, could have sent your armies to attack the ravians before they reached Kol, thus saving many lives. You have also forgotten that you have actually been to Asroye before, and so has your chariot, and you could have gained immense wealth and power by telling the vamans where Asroye – New Asroye, now – is. However, you cannot do these things. You must remain hidden. You will save more lives if the world survives this ordeal.’

  ‘But surely we can use your knowledge to somehow bring about a swift end to the war, and save even more lives,’ said Kirin.

  ‘Unfortunately, the longer the war and the bloodier it is, the greater the chances of your proceeding unobserved, and the greater your chances of saving the world. You need to keep the gods distracted. Interestingly enough, Zivran is at present doing the same thing.’

  Maya nodded grimly. ‘We know that, unwaba. Time, as you keep telling us, is precious. Tell us what to do now.’

  ‘I will tell you in the present only what, in the future, I will have told you in the past. Listen closely. You are about to have the privilege of experiencing an apocalypse. What is an apocalypse?’

  ‘The end of the world,’ said Maya.

  ‘Wrong,’ said the unwaba. ‘Though not wholly wrong—an apocalypse may concern the world’s end; this one does. An apocalypse is a revelation of secrets, an unveiling of matters hidden to a chosen few, often a prophecy made by gods to their chosen prophets.

  ‘Let us, however, concentrate on the simpler things; the end of the world, and the role you are expected to play in it.

  ‘What is the end of the world? The end of the world is nothing but a change. A metamorphosis from one state to another. Of course, everyone alive on an ending world usually dies, but what is death itself but metamorphosis?

  ‘That’s a nice way of looking at things,’ said Kirin.

  ‘Divine would be a more appropriate word.’

  ‘What would happen to all the people in the world?’

  ‘They will be taken off this world.’

  ‘Where will they go?’

  ‘Where people go when they die.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Somewhere else. Alternative accommodation, suitable for their altered state of being. You are supposed to be my prophet, not a housing expert. You do not need to know where. If you are so curious, go back to your Dark Lordly duties, and you will soon find out for yourself. As far as this world is concerned, they will die. Snakes of metal will run like rivers through the world. The armies of the undead, led by the First Pharaoh, the Scorpion Man and his Four Horsemen will ride like a tidal wave over oceans of carcasses. This world will be taken apart and put together for a new game. Before that, though, there will be many visually spectacular manifestations of divine power, which will ensure this world’s people give their collective demise the attention it deserves. An endless fimbulwinter will sweep through the world; the sun and moon will be extinguished, and devoured by Tsa-Ur. Time will be broken and repaired. There will be a good deal of shuddering, with trees and mountains breaking free. Flames in the torn sky, boiling, roaring seas, great tentacled beasts will rise from the seas to walk the land, and the dead will rise again. Ships of nails, cobwebs of entrails, much blowing of horns and very interesting parties afterwards. Lots of wailing, but not as much gnashing of teeth as you have been led to believe.’

  ‘This is the end of the world we’re trying to prevent, isn’t it?’ asked Maya.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why tell us about it, then? Tell us how to prevent it!’

  ‘It is inevitable. All you can do is delay it for a while.’

  ‘By “a while” do you mean a few thousand years at least?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then don’t tell us. You’ll ruin the surprise.’

  ‘Hmph,’ said the unwaba. ‘A sad day for a former god when his apocalypse is deemed unentertaining by yokels. Perhaps this world would be better off ended.’

  ‘Since you’re all-knowing – do we succeed? Do we save the world?’ asked Kirin.

  ‘Fortunately, I find I did not answer this question. Consider it logically. If I answered yes, you would grow complacent. If no, you would give up now. I know what you will do, in any case.’

  ‘So tell us.’

  ‘I did not tell you. As you just informed me, you like surprises.’

  ‘Your apocalypse is very impressive, O great unwaba. But I have my own reasons for not trusting prophecies, or prophets. And I’m not convinced I should do anything you want,’ said Kirin, ‘and I’ll tell you why. You said you were once a god, and it turns you’ve lived on this world for ages, pushing people around, manipulating them. Now you’re telling us you want us to save the world for you. How are you different from any of the other gods pushing pieces on a board? Why should we trust you? How do we know you aren’t working with the other gods, or a different bunch of gods with essentially the same motives? And if we do save the world for you, what happens to it afterwards? Do the gods just go away? Or do you get to rule the world somehow?’

  ‘These are reasonable questions you asked yourself before doing what you did,’ said the unwaba with a sigh. ‘I do not need to convince you; I already know what you chose to do.’

  ‘Then I’m surprised you got Maya to bring me here,’ said Kirin. ‘Because we’re leaving you here, and going away to decide our own future now.’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ said Maya. ‘I choose to believe him. I’d rather see a world guided by the being who created the Shanti-Joddha and Kol and helped me escape from the ravians than a world destroyed or torn apart by gods who don’t care about it. Leave if you want. I’ll do what’s needed alone.’

  ‘Not alone,’ said Spikes. They looked at him, standing solidly at the hut’s door. They’d forgotten he was even there.

  ‘You want to go up against the gods?’ asked Kirin, looking from Maya
to Spikes.

  ‘Yes, and I was hoping you’d come too,’ said Maya.

  ‘I could come for a bit,’ offered Kirin. ‘At least until something more interesting comes along.’ The line would have been more impressive if he hadn’t been smiling broadly at Maya, he thought.

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Maya. ‘When our plans spring a leak and we end up being tortured for all eternity, stuck on wheels with food just out of reach, sores all over us and vultures munching on our exposed brains, remember you volunteered.’

  ‘Are you done?’ asked the unwaba. ‘So you decided to stay; how happy I would have been if this news had astonished me. I have good news for you; if you had been paying attention, you would have realized I had no intention of giving you precise instructions or lists; that would have meant setting a quest for you, which in turn would have meant visibility and disaster. You will be making all your decisions yourself; this will make you feel more secure as well. To make you feel even better, I will try whenever possible to pretend I did not know what you would do.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kirin. ‘We’ll do what we can.’

  ‘However, since my own fate hangs in the balance, and I cannot trust you to get anything right, I will give you a few pieces of information, to do what you will with. In a few days, the Four Horsemen of the undead will set out, to herald the coming of the undead army. This is the beginning of the end; you should try and find a way to stop them. ‘Additionally, it is quite possible you will need, at some point, to negotiate directly with the gods. This will require actually visiting them; for this, you need at least one person in your crew who actually believes in the gods and what they stand for. The three of you are the most ungodly reprobates I have ever spent time with.’

  ‘That’s sweet,’ grinned Maya. ‘Where will we find these Horsemen?’

  ‘The Bleakwood. Remember, you cannot do anything that draws attention to either of you. Spikes will have to do whatever is necessary.’

  ‘For an un-quest, this seems remarkably like a quest,’ said Kirin.

  ‘If you look at like that, cleaning your teeth is a quest. Yet I doubt the gods will want to watch you do it,’ said the unwaba sternly, and these words of wisdom were given additional gravity by the gentle snore that followed them.

  Maya put the unwaba back into her pouch and rose, her eyes sparkling. Kirin got a huge hug; he did not complain. ‘We’re off to save the world, and we have no idea how,’ said Maya. ‘I love my life.’

  ‘Master,’ said Kirin to Spikes, ‘may I summon your chariot so we may, as you desired, go to the Bleakwood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Spikes. ‘And you may clean my toes on the way.’

  Chapter Seven

  Marshall Askesis’ plan to invade Avranti and defeat the ravians did not work.

  This was because the ravians rather uncooperatively decided to invade first.

  And so it came to pass that Marshall Askesis found himself waiting with his mighty army on the silent green hills of Pataal-e-Gurh, a battleground where the earth throbbed with memories for anyone of Koli or Avrantic descent, for it was here that Prince Amrit of Avranti, founder of Kol, had fought and won several pitched battles with invaders from Ventelot and Psomedea ages ago. And today Kol had returned to war with the mightiest army it had assembled since the Age of Terror, now as an ally of the Dark Lord, facing two of Kol’s greatest former friends. Historians would call this the Fifth Battle of Gurh. Depending on which way you looked at it, Avranti or Kol had won all the previous four, and had clearly been chosen by destiny to win again.

  Pataal-e-Gurh was in South Potolpur, on the Durgan border, only a few days away from Kol and far closer home than Askesis had wanted, but it was the farthest possible point where his armies could have been assembled in time – and time was short, for the Avrantic-ravian alliance had already swept past Shantavan and half of Potolpur. Most of north Shantavan had been set ablaze, and its denizens scattered. The rakshases had either died or fled to Vrihataranya, strengthening the Dark Lord’s forces there. Rabin of Oodh and his archers had sought refuge in Durg, and had now marched with Queen Rukmini and her army to join Askesis at Gurh.

  The banners of Kol and its allies now fluttered in the gentle morning breeze on three hills, side by side, with wide gaps between them. To the left of the hills were grasslands sloping downwards, ending in the mud-banks of the Great River Asa, grey and quiet in the morning sun, its waters preparing once again to foam red with blood after centuries of peace. To the right, the land sloped further upwards towards the hills and forests of Durg. Here, backs to their homelands, Queen Rukmini and her Durgans formed the right flank, rows upon rows of cavalry and infantry with a reserve force of forty war-elephants protecting the open ground behind them, so the Avrantics would be hard pressed to break through with their left flank and surround Askesis’ army. The queen herself was on horseback, at the head of her elite company of Durgan warrior-women, their maroon and silver armour shining proudly with every movement. The woods were full of Durgans, Potolpuri pikemen and Rabin’s rangers; this was an army that would not easily be taken by surprise. Already, the tribesmen of Shantavan had been tracking the Avrantic army for days from within the forest, not attacking, acting instead as silent, camouflaged scouts, ready to surge ahead and warn Askesis if the Avrantics decided to launch a major attack from within the forest.

  In front of the hills were the killing fields, a great basin of flat land, of fresh green grass waving in futile defiance against the impending invasion of thousands of murderous feet. Across the basin, the enemy would emerge over a gently sloping incline leading up to a ridge. The Avrantics were not travelling down the highways through the Free States, where Askesis could have kept them occupied with smaller, more compact forces making sorties from camps in villages, wearing them down with his modern tactics and mastery of logistics; instead, they were marching southwards along the Asa riverbank through largely unpopulated lands towards Kol, in a massive wave of bodies bordered by Shantavan on one side and the river on the other. The gap between the Asa and Shantavan was too wide for any kind of ambush to be possible. This was a battle where each army would have plenty of time to soak in the other’s size and magnificence.

  But Askesis had vaman sapper mercenaries with him, and for vamans scale was never a problem; they were at present digging a long trench at the far end of the basin, where the gap between the forest and the river was at its narrowest. A thousand men could still walk abreast there, but it would be difficult for anyone to march across this trench. The sappers worked with digging carts that hissed with steam as giant shovels scooped out great chunks of earth; into these the sappers placed explosives that further widened the trench. Ahead of the sappers, tree-cutting chariots sank their teeth into Shantavan’s bark, and coolie pashans picked up logs and carried them to the trench.

  On top of each hill on the Koli side stood squads of hired vaman artillery with their wondrous calibrated ballistae and catapults, siege weapons modified into quick-rolling war-engines suited to ground combat, capable of launching huge balls of Psomedean fire across large distances with incredible accuracy. One catapult released a great rock; it arced through the air all the way across the basin and crashed into the trench. The sappers cheered hoarsely and went back to work. Below the vaman artillery, Rabin’s archers lined the hills, longbows drawn, testing their range, sending arrows flying out over the troops, while men planted flags in the battlefield where their arrows fell. Koli labourers were hard at work below the archers, building rudimentary fortifications of wood and stone. At the foot of each hill stood maniples of Koli infantry, in three lines, fresh-faced novices, battle-hardened professional soldiers and elite veterans, in tried, tested and flexible formations with gaps between them to let through the reserve forces behind the hills.

  On the left flank, between the left-most hill and the Asa, stood the centaurs, restless and proud, their flawless bodies painted in occult patterns, long spears and shields in their hands, tails and helm
et plumes waving in the breeze. Behind the hills, in echelon formation, stood legions of Koli infantry and cavalry, relaxed and ready. Neo-Hudlumm hordes, giant blond men in studded armour bearing great axes or longswords, stood to the right of the right-most hill, jeering at the Kolis, fretting in annoyance at not being the first line of attack.

  In front of the hills, at the edge of the basin, stood an Artaxerxian army, led by a hero as great as any hero Kol could have created, and a boon to Askesis in a time of dire need; the Sultan’s nephew Haroun, leading thirteen thousand Artaxerxian soldiers, horse-archers with small curved bows, regiments of elite Amurabadi cavalry clad in leather and iron, bearing long scimitars and round shields, flanking columns of mixed infantry, mostly consisting of swordsmen, mercenaries from conquered lands to the west. How Lady Temat had persuaded the Sultan to empty his barracks so quickly in a time of tremendous opportunity, and what price she had paid for this assistance Askesis did not know, or want to know; he was not very good at expressing gratitude. And gratitude was due in abundance. Thousands of experienced soldiers with no objection at all to killing innocent Avrantics were a blessing, and the presence of Haroun—a young leader as brave as he was charismatic and so evidently born to be a universally loved ruler that it was a miracle the Sultan had allowed him to survive—was nothing short of a miracle.

  Distributed evenly amongst all the divisions in the allied army were Koli warlocks from Askesis’ legions. Normally the warlocks fought in small, roving groups protected by heavily armoured infantry and fleet-footed peltasts, moving in erratic patterns across the battlefields, isolating enemy champions and slaying them with dark sorcery, or moving into beleaguered divisions with protective wards and healing spells. But they would be fighting ravians now, and any soldiers not near magicians’ protective auras were at risk of changing sides – spreading the warlocks so thin reduced their destructive potential, but was the only option. Danh-Gem himself had used this technique to good effect during the Great War.