That would be terrible: to die, and still not know peace.
Kraus gestured easily for me to sit down. A calm, casual gesture, from a man who knew he held all the power in the room. Just for a moment, the major reminded me of the CIA man, back in Saigon. I sat down. Kraus smiled again, just a brief movement of the lips, revealing stained yellow teeth.
“Yes,” he said. “They’re dead. They’re all dead. The ones who brought you here, the ones who stand guard, and the ones I send out to kill my enemies. Dead men walking, every single one of them, torn from their rest, raised up out of their graves, and set to work by me. Everyone’s dead here, except me. And now, you. Tell me your name, soldier.”
“Captain Marlowe,” I said. “Torn from my cell, raised up from my court-martial, and sent here by the CIA to kill you, Major Kraus. They’re frightened of you. Of course, if they knew what you were really doing here . . . ”
“There’s nothing they can do to stop me. My army is made up of men who are beyond fear, or suffering, who cannot be stopped by bullets or bombs or napalm. Zombies, Captain Marlowe. Old voodoo magic, from the deep south of America, where the really old ways are not forgotten. You needn’t worry, Captain, they won’t attack you. And they certainly won’t try and eat you, as they did in a cheap horror movie I saw, before I came out here. Into the real horror show, that never ends. . . . My men have no need to eat, any more than they need to drink, or piss, or sweat. They are beyond such human weaknesses now. They have no appetites, no desires, and the only will that moves them is mine. I give them purpose, for as long as they last. They are my warriors of the night, my weapons cast against an uncaring world, my horror to set against the horror men have made of this place.
“War . . . is too important to be left to the living.”
“Of course,” I said numbly. “The perfect soldiers. The dead don’t get tired, don’t get stopped by injuries, and will follow any order you give them, without question. Because nothing matters to them any more.”
“Exactly,” said Kraus, favoring me with another brief smile. “I just point them in the right direction, and let them roll right over whatever lies in their path. They destroy everything and everyone, like army ants on the march. Most people won’t even stand against them any more; they just turn and flee, as they would in the face of any other natural disaster. And if I should lose some men, through too much damage, I can always make up the numbers again, by raising up the fallen enemy dead.
“You’re not shocked, Captain Marlowe. How very refreshing.”
“‘Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it,’ ” I murmured. “I have seen worse things than this, Major. Done worse things than this, in my time.”
He leaned forward across his desk, fixing me with his terribly sane, compassionate gaze. “Yes . . . I can see the darkness in you, Captain. Tell what you saw, and what you did.”
“I have been here before,” I said. “In country, in the dark and terrible place where the old rules mean nothing, and so you can do anything, anything at all. Because no matter how bad we are, the enemy is always worse. I’ve seen much scarier things than zombies, in country.”
“I’m sure you have,” said Kraus. “They have no idea what it’s like here—the real people back in their real world. Where there are laws and conventions, right and wrong, and everything makes sense. They can’t know what it’s like here, or why would fathers and mothers allow their sons to be sent into Hell . . . and then act all surprised when the command structure breaks down, army discipline breaks down, and their sons have to do awful, unforgivable things just to stay alive? What did you do, Captain, to earn a mission like this?”
“I wiped out a whole village,” I said. “Killed them all: men, women and children. And then refused to say sorry.”
“Why, Captain? Why would you do such a thing?”
For the first time, I was being asked the question by someone who sounded like he actually wanted to hear the truth. So I considered my answer seriously. “Why? Because I wanted to. Because I could. No matter what you do here, the jungle always throws back something worse . . . I don’t see the enemy as people any more, just so many beasts in the jungle. The things they’ve done . . . they give the jungle’s dark savagery a face, that’s all. And after a while, after you’ve done awful, terrible things in your turn, and it hasn’t made a damned bit of difference . . . you feel the need to do more and more, just to get a response from that bland, indifferent, jungle face. You want to see it flinch, make it hurt, the way it’s hurt you. That need drives you on, to greater and greater acts of savagery . . . until finally, you look into the face of the jungle . . . and see your own face looking back at you.”
“I know,” said Major Kraus. “I understand.”
I sat slumped in my chair, exhausted by the force of my words. And Kraus smiled on me, like a father with a prodigal son.
“It’s the curse of this country, this war, Captain. This isn’t like any other war we ever fought. There are no real battle lines, no clear disputed territories, no obvious or lasting victories. Only a faceless enemy, an opposing army and a hateful population, prepared to do anything, anything at all, to drive us out. Any atrocity, any crime against nature or civilization, is justified to them because we are outsiders, and therefore by definition not human.
“There is only one way to win this war, Captain, and that is to be ready and willing to do even worse things to them. To embrace the darkness of the jungle in our hearts, and in our souls, and throw it in their faces. We tried to raise a light in the darkness, when we should have eaten the darkness up with spoons and made it ours—given it shape and purpose and meaning. I have done an awful and unforgivable thing here, Captain, but for the first time I am making progress. I am taking and holding territory, and I am forcing the enemy back.
“I will win this war, which my own superiors are saying cannot be won. I will win it because I am ready and willing to do the one thing the enemy is not willing to do. They are ready to fight us to the death, but I have made death a weapon I can turn against them. And after my dead warriors have subjugated this entire country, North and South, and I have won because not one living soul remains to stand against me. . . . Then, then, I will take the war home. I will cross the great waters with a dead army millions strong, and I will turn them loose on the streets of America, turn them loose on all those uncaring people who sent their children into Hell.
“I will make our country a charnel house, and then a cemetery, and then, finally, the war will be over. And I can rest.”
He looked at me for a long time, and his smile and his eyes were kind. “They sent you here to kill me, Captain Marlowe, those cold and uncaring men. But you won’t. Because that’s not what you really want. Stay here, with me, and be my Boswell; write the record of what I am doing. And then I will send it home, ahead of the army that’s coming, as a warning. It’s only right they should understand their crime, before they are punished for it. Tell my story, Captain Marlowe, and when I don’t need you any more . . . I promise I will kill you, and let you stay dead. No more bad thoughts, no more bad dreams, no more darkness in the heart. You will rest easy, sleep without dreams, and feel nothing, nothing at all. Isn’t that what you really want, Captain Marlowe?”
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes.”
Major Kraus smiled happily. “I shall put an end to all wars, and death shall have dominion, when Johnny comes marching home.
“ ‘The horror! The horror!’ ” he said, laughing.
Valorius awakes from a dream with his father’s words ringing through his thoughts, and he never forgets them. Whether they are as false as most words, he cannot say, for it is only those words that hold power over the thing they represent that are not false, and they are few and seldom found. . . .
BLOODSPORT
GENE WOLFE
Sit down and I’ll tell you.
I was but a youth when I was offered for the Game. I would have refused had that been possible; it was not—those offere
d were made to play. As I was already large and strong, I became a knight. Our training was arduous; two of my fellows died as a result, and one was crippled for life. I had known and liked him, drank with him, and fought him once. Seeing him leave the school in a little cart drawn by his brothers, I did not envy him.
After two years, I was knighted. I had feared that I would rank no higher than bowman; so it was a glad day for me. Later that same day I was given three stallions, the finest horses ever seen—swift golden chargers with manes and tails dark as the darkest shadows. Many an hour I spent tending and training them; and I stalled them apart, never letting them graze in the same meadow or even an adjoining meadow, lest they war. If I were refused that many meadows on a given day, one remained in his stall while the other two grazed; but I was never refused after my first Game.
Now the Game is no longer played. Perhaps you have forgotten it, or perhaps you never had the ill fortune to see it. The rules are complex—I shall not explain them.
But I shall say here and say plainly that it was never my intention to slay my opponent. Never, or at least very seldom. It was my task to defeat my opponent—if I could. And his to defeat me. Well do I recall my first fight. It was with another knight, and those engagements are rarest of all. I had been ordered to a position in which a moon knight might attack me. It seemed safe enough, since our own dear queen would be sure to attack him if he triumphed. Yet attack he did.
Under the rules, the attacker runs or rides to the defender’s position, a great advantage. I had been taught that; but never so well as I learned it then, when I did not know I was to be attacked until I heard the thunder of his charger’s hooves. That white charger cleared the lists with a leap that might have made mock of two, and he was upon me. The axe was his weapon, mine the mace. We fought furiously until some blow of mine struck the helm from his head and left him-still in the saddle—half-stunned. To yield, one must drop one’s weapon; so long as the weapon remains in hand, the fight continues. His eyes were empty, his flaccid hand scarce able to grasp his axe.
Yet he did not drop it. I might have slain him then and there; I struck his gauntlet instead. A spike breached the steel, nailing his hand-for a moment only-to the haft of his axe. I jerked my mace away and watched him fall slowly from his game saddle. His head struck the wretched stony soil of the black square first, and I feared a broken neck. Yet he lived, and was mewing and moving when they bore him away. The spectators were not pleased with me, but I was pleased with myself; it is winning that matters, not slaying.
My next was with a pawn. She was huge, as they all are; bred like chargers, some say. Others declare that it is only a thing the mages do to baby girls. As you are doubtless aware, pawn’s arms are the simplest of all: a long sword and a shield nearly as tall as the pawn herself, and wider. Other than those, sandals and a loincloth, for pawns wear no armor. I thought to ride her down, or else to slay her readily with my sword. One always employs the sword against pawns.
It was not to be. She sprang to my left, my stroke came too late, and she stripped me from the saddle. A moment more and I lay upon the fair green grass of a sun square, with her sword’s point tickling my throat. “I yield!” I cried, and she grinned her triumph.
I was taken from the game, and Dhorie, my trainer, found me sitting alone, my head in my hands. He slapped my back and told me he was proud of me.
“I charged a pawn,” I mumbled.
“Who bested you.”
I nodded.
“Could happen to anybody. Lurn is the best of the moon pawns, and you had been charged by a knight scarcely a hundred breaths before.” (This last was an exaggeration.) “You had given mighty blows and received them. Two moves and you were sent again. Do you know how often a knight is charged by another, but defeats him? The stands are still abuzz with your name.”
I did not believe him but was comforted nonetheless. Soon I learned that he had been correct, for my bruises had not yet faded when I was put forward in a new game. That game I shall not describe. Nor the others.
We do not mix, yet I saw the pawn who had bested me twice more. Once we occupied adjacent squares, and though speaking is forbidden, her face told me she knew me just as I knew her. She spun her sword, grinning, and I raised my own and pointed at the sun. Her hair was black as night, her shoulders broad, and her waist small. Her muscles slid beneath her moon-white skin like so many dragons, and I knew I could scarcely have lifted the crescent moon-sword that danced for her.
The Hunas swept down upon us, and the games were ended. There was talk of employing us in battle; and I believe—yes, I believe still—that we might have turned them back. Before it could be done, they rushed upon the city by night. We fought and fled as best we could, I on Flare, my finest charger. For four days and three nights he and I hid in the hills, where I bandaged our wounds and applied poultices of borage and the purple-flowered high-heal that none but a seventh son may find.
The city had been put to the torch, but we returned to it. My father had been a mage of power, I knew, and I felt that his house might somehow have survived. In that I was mistaken; yet it had not been destroyed wholly. The south wing stood whole, and thus I was able to return to the very chamber I had called my own as a boy. My bed was there and waiting, and I felt an attraction to it by no means strange in a weary, wounded man. I saw to Flare as well as I could—water, a roof, and a little stale bread I found in the larder—and slept where I had slept for nights that had seemed endless so long ago. In the hills I had not dreamt; the imps and fiends that sought me out there had been those of waking. Returned to my own bed in the bedchamber that had been my own, I dreamt indeed.
In dream, my father sat before me, his head cloven to the jaw. He could not speak, but wrote upon the ground for me to read: I blessed and I cursed you, Valorius, and my blessing and my curse are the same. You will inherit.
I woke with his words ringing in through my thoughts, and I have never forgotten them. Whether they be so or no, who is to say? Perhaps I have inherited already, and know not of it. Perhaps they are as false as most dreams—false as most words, I ought to have said. For it is only those words that hold power over the thing they represent that are not false, and they are few and seldom found.
A league beyond the Gate of Exile, I saw Lurn sleeping in the shade of a spreading chestnut. Dismounting, I went to her; I cannot say why. Seeing that she slept soundly and was not liable to waken soon, I unsaddled Flare and let him graze, which he was eager to do. After that I sat near her, my back propped by the bole of the tree, and thought upon many things.
“What puzzles you so?”
Hearing her voice for the first time, I knew it was hers, deeper than my own yet a woman’s. I smiled, I hope not impudently, and said, “Gaining your friendship. I fear that you will wish to engage, and that would be but folly as the world stands today.”
“Folly indeed, for it stands not but circles the moon as both swim among stars.” She laughed like a river over stones. “As for engaging, Valorius, why, I bested you. I choose to stand upon my victory, for you might die were we to engage again.”
“You would not see me dead.”
“No,” she said; and when I did not speak, she said, “Would you see me so? You might have killed me while I slept.”
“You would have sprung up and wrested the sword from my hand.”
“Yes! Let us say that.” The river flowed again. “Let us say it, that I may be joyful.”
“You would not see me dead,” I repeated, “and you troubled to learn my name, Lurn.”
“And you mine.” She sat up.
“I have seen sun and moon in the same sky,” I told her. “They did not engage.”
“They do but rarely.” She smiled as she spoke, and there was something in her smile of the maid no man has bussed. “When they do she bests him, as is only to be expected. Bests him, and brings darkness over the earth.”
“Is that true?”
“It is. She bests him, b
ut having bested him she bids him rise. Someday—do you credit prophesy?”
I do not, but said I did.
“Someday he will best her and, besting her, take her life. So is it written. When the evil day comes, you men will walk in blind dark from twilight to dawn and much harm come of it.”
“And what of women?”
“Women will have no warning, so that they bleed in the market. Will you come and sit by me, Valorius?”
“Gladly,” I said. I rose and did so.
“Have the Hunas killed everyone save you and me?”
“They have slain many,” I said, “but they can scarcely have slain everyone.”
“When they have looted the towns and burned them, not many will remain. Those of our people who can still hold the hilt might be rallied to resist.”
“Are they really our people?” I inquired.
“I was born among them. So were you, I think. I took shelter in this deep shade because my skin can’t bear your noonday sun. When your sun is low, I’ll walk again. Then we’ll see what a lone woman can accomplish.”
I shrugged. “Much, perhaps, with a knight to assist her. We must get you a wide hat, however, and a gown with long sleeves.”
When the sun declined, we journeyed on together, and very pleasant journeying it was, for her head was level with my own when I rode Flare. We chattered and joked, and in time—not that day, I think, but the next—I beheld something in Lurn’s eyes that I had never seen in the eyes of any woman.
That day we discovered a crone who knew the weaving of hats; she made such hat as Lurn required, a hat woven of straw, with a crown like a sugar loaf and brim wide as a shield. She sent us to a little man with a crooked back, who for a silver piece made Lurn not one long gown but three, all of coarse white cloth. Of our rallying of the people, I shall say little or nothing. We armed them with whatever could be made or found, and ere long enlisted a forester. Bradan knew the longbow, and taught some youths how to make and use war-arrows, bows, bowcases, bracers, quivers, and all such things—a great blessing.
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