The Overlords of War

by Gerard Klein

  Corson did not need a dictionary to work that one out.

  “It’s painted!” Veran shouted. “This scoundrel has tricked you! I’ll prove it!”

  The Urians were too dumbfounded to move. That was lucky for Veran, Corson thought, but clearly he had been banking on the fact that not even the nobility were allowed to carry weapons into the Egg chamber. There was time for him to rub his palm against the shell. Where he touched it, the surface turned from blue to ivory.

  A hell of a trick, Corson thought, panting, feeling his end was near despite the fact that the Urians had completely ceased to pay him any attention.

  But that egg was not simply painted. Some sort of chemical had been needed to neutralize the dye Veran had applied two hundred and fifty years ago ... or was it last week? He could have brought nothing in with him. The Urians’ scanners would have located a capsule hidden in his mouth, or anywhere else. And if he had smeared something on his skin before coming here, the ritual bath would have washed it off. The trick was impossible.

  And then he caught on. Even naked, even thrice washed and rubbed down with a rough towel, Veran had brought a very active substance with him, a complex liquid that was both acid and alkaline.

  His own perspiration.

  On the shell the reaction was spreading. Molecular bonds were breaking one after another. The dye was dissolving into colorless constituents or more likely subliming. Veran did not like to leave traces behind.

  Shrill whistles arose from the crowd. Claws dug into Corson’s shoulders; he offered no resistance. Veran let go of Ngal R’nda, who, beak wide, struggled to regain his breath. Urians in violet togas seized the mercenary, but he shouted, “I proved it, I proved it—the egg is not blue and he’s an impostor!”

  “He’s lying!” Ngal R’nda cried. “He sprayed a dye on the shell! I saw him! Put him to death!”

  “Break the egg!” Veran shouted. “If I’m lying the inside will be blue! Break the eggl”

  Ngal R’nda was confronted by uproar. Around him Urians formed a circle, still deferential but somehow threatening. It was the chick from a blue egg that these vassals feared, not their warlord. He whistled high, piercing, weary-sounding notes that Corson could not understand. But their import was clear.

  “Shall I break the egg?”

  Silence. Then more whistling, curt and merciless. Ngal R’nda bowed his head.

  “So be it. I shall break the shell which should only be crushed at my death, that its dust might be mingled with my ashes. I, last of the Princes of Uria, shall be the only one of my long line who ever broke the blue shell twice!”

  He seized the egg in both claws, lifted it, and smashed it on the base of its pedestal. Fragments fell to the floor. Ngal R’nda seized one of those which remained on the pediment and brought it close to his age-dimmed eyes. He recoiled and fell in a faint.

  Then one of the nobles advanced and seized a fold of his blue toga. He pulled on it violently. It did not tear, and Ngal R’nda was dragged with it as in a sack. There was a stampede. Corson felt himself released, then someone bumped into him so that he nearly fell and had to struggle to prevent himself being trampled. At last the tide of bodies swept past him. Mad with rage, the avians were pecking to death the last Prince of Uria. A bitter stench of chlorine filled the air.

  Someone touched his arm: Veran.

  “Come along before they start wondering how I worked my trick!” They walked unhurriedly to the door, their ears full of angry cries. On the threshold Veran glanced back with a shrug.

  “So,” he said, “perish all fanatics.”

  CHAPTER 32

  About once every decade he dismounted, approached a passer-by, and asked, “What year is this?"

  Some fainted. Others fled. Some few vanished. Those must know how to travel in time. But he always found some willing to inform him. They looked at the man and the Monster without surprise, and smiled. An old man, a boy, a Urian, a woman.

  A question burned on Corson’s lips: “Do you know who I am?” For their smiles and their readiness to cooperate smacked too much of a miracle. They must know who he was. They were so many guides, beaconing his way. But they simply gave him the date and, if he tried to engage them in further conversation, managed to divert him adroitly into a dead end. Even the child. He was unfit to match wits with these people. In six thousand years culture had advanced a long way. He had not soaked up enough of it. He was still a barbarian, even though he knew some things that they did not

  When he saw the Urian, he almost made the blunder of jumping back into time. But the great bird made a sign of peace to him. He wore a white toga with fine embroidery on it, and said with a grimace that Corson took to be a smile, “What are you afraid of, my son?”

  At first he had looked like Ngal R’nda. Now Corson realized the resemblance was solely due to his great age.

  “I seem to recognize you,” the Urian said. “In a time of trouble you appeared from nowhere. I was fresh from the egg then, but if I recall aright I took you to a bath and gave you food before escorting you to a secret ceremony. Things have changed since then, and for the better too. I am glad to see you again. What do you wish to know?”

  “I’m looking for the Council,” Corson said. “I have a message for them. Maybe several messages.”

  “You will find them on the seashore, about thirty or forty kilometers from here. But you will have to wait a hundred and twenty years or so.”

  "Thanks,” Corson said. “But I won’t have to wait at all. I can travel in time.”

  “I presumed so,” the avian said. “It was a manner of speaking. It is a fine animal that you have there.”

  “I call him Archimedes,” Corson said. “As a souvenir of something that happened long ago.”

  As he was on the point of remounting, the Urian checked him.

  “I trust you hold no grudge against us for what happened. It was a mischance. Tyranny always engenders violence. And beings like ourselves are pawns in the hands of gods. They impel us to battle for the pleasure of the spectacle. They love the dance of fire and death. You resolved the situation with much tact. Someone else might have provoked a bloodbath. All we Urians are most grateful to you.”

  “All. . . including you?” Corson asked in disbelief.

  “The Old Race and the humans. All who live on Uria.”

  “All who live on Uria,” Corson repeated thoughtfully. “That’s good news.”

  “Good luck on your journey, my son,” the old Urian said.

  So, Corson said to himself, peering through the time fog which rose from the ground to engulf him and his pegasone, the humans and the natives have become reconciled. Splendid!

  The Urians must have managed to exorcise the demons of war. Their species was not doomed, as he had imagined.

  By now he was getting to know the planet well. The location of the beach reminded him of something. That was where Antonella had taken him. By coincidence?

  He decided to make a detour via Dyoto. It was an irrational impulse, an urge to make a sort of pilgrimage. He locked the pegasone to the present at the top of a hill, and looked skyward in search of that pyramidal cloud of a city seemingly balanced on its twin vertical rivers.

  The sky was empty.

  He reconfirmed his position. There was no possible doubt. Up there, a hundred and fifty years ago, a colossal city had reared to heaven. It had not left a trace.

  He looked down, into a hollow made by the convergence of three grassy valleys between wooded hillsides. A lake filled it. Corson narrowed his eyes to see better. In the middle of the lake a sharp peak pierced the surface; elsewhere ripples broke around obstacles a few centimeters underwater. Among the vegetation on the shore he recognized other geometrical ruins.

  The city had fallen and the vertical river had given birth to the lake. Underground canals were still supplying it and the overflow escaped by a little brook running along the lowermost valley. Dyoto had been destroyed. The force which had upheld its buildings ov
er a kilometer in the air had failed. It had all happened long ago, perhaps a century, to judge by the density of the vegetation.

  Sadly Corson recalled its lively streets, the swarms of floaters which poured from it like bees from a hive, that store where he had stolen food, that mechanical voice which had so courteously reprimanded him. And he thought of the women he had met there.

  Dyoto was dead like so many other cities overwhelmed by the tempest of war. Perhaps at the bottom of that lake reposed the body of Floria Van Nelle, who had by chance introduced him to the strangeness of this world.

  The old Urian had been lying. His smile had been false. The war had occurred and the humans had lost. It must be so, if their cities were in ruins.

  He hoped Floria had not had time to realize what was happening. She was unprepared for this or any war. If she had survived for a while, it would have been as a plaything for Veran’s mercenaries, or worse still as a victim of the pitiless crusaders serving whoever had taken Ngal R’nda’s place.

  So he had failed.

  With an effort he resisted the impulse to jump back into the past. He remembered his dream of a city being destroyed and the cry of its inhabitants, who, too late, were foreseeing their doom. Sweat ran down his face. He could not go back now; he had an appointment in the future which he could not escape. Up there, with the Council if it proved still to be in existence, he would have to discuss the problem and find out whether the lumbering wagon of history might yet be diverted down another road. Then there would be time to come back and discover what had gone amiss.

  And even if he could accomplish nothing more, he could kill Veran. A cracked bell rang in his head. If he killed Veran he himself would die. This collar would pierce his neck with poisoned spikes. He was not even supposed to think of fighting Veran without killing himself. He could not quit now.

  He suppressed his lust for vengeance. Exhausted, he remounted the pegasone and urged it onward.

  It went forward sullenly, and for the first time Corson noticed how gray everything was around him. In the impenetrable fog of the centuries, where nights and days were intermingled, he felt the pegasone escape from his control. His fingers tugged on its tendrils, but in vain. The beast, whether from fatigue or under the command of another will, threatened to lock into the present. Disheartened, he let it do so.

  The sound of the sea, a slow and regular rhythm. He was on a long beach which the setting sun had gilded. That struck him as odd. Left to their own devices pegasones normally preferred to synch with daylight because of their appetite for energy. But this time his mount had been drawn to twilight.

  He opened his eyes wide. Stretched out on the sand before him were three naked bodies, motionless. He took off his helmet, feeling the moist air on his face, and stared at them. Three naked bodies, dead for all he could tell—could this be all that remained of the Council of Uria? One man, two women, like the victims of a dreadful shipwreck, tossed ashore by the tide.

  At Corson’s approach, however, the man moved, rising on one elbow to examine him with interest. He smiled. Apparently he had come to little harm.

  “Ah, you must be the man from Aergistal,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Corson managed to say, “The Council—”

  “Here we are,” the man said. “The Council of Uria for this millennium.”

  Corson leaned over him. “Do you need any help?”

  “I don’t think so. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “But these women—” Corson began, dropping to the sand.

  “Don’t disturb them. They’re in communion.”

  “Communion?”

  “We have plenty of time, don’t worry. It’s a lovely evening, don’t you think?”

  As he spoke he was scrabbling in the sand. Now he unearthed a crystal flagon, which he opened and handed to Corson.

  “Refresh yourself, friend. You’re looking very strange.”

  Corson made to argue, but changed his mind. If this bit of human jetsam said there was plenty of time, who was he to contradict? He set the flagon to his lips. It contained cool wine. He was so surprised he swallowed the wrong way and almost choked.

  “Don’t you like it?” demanded the castaway.

  “It’s the best wine I ever tasted.”

  “Then drink the lot, friend. There’s more. There's always more.” Peeling off his gauntlets, Corson complied. A second swig put fresh heart into him. Then he recalled the place and the circumstances.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I have some field rations with me.” “Thank you,” the man said, "but I prefer somewhat more delicate fare . . . Oh, how stupid of me not to have thought of that. You must be hungry after your journey.”

  He rose on his knees, energetically scooped aside more of the sand, and revealed a large silvery container. He removed its lid and sniffed the contents with approval.

  “Help yourself. You’ll have to eat with your fingers, I’m afraid, but we lead a very simple life here.”

  To Corson’s astonishment, the dish held what looked like half a chicken, garnished with a sauce and vegetables such as he had never seen before. But the smell made him instantly ravenous, and he ate so eagerly it was a while before he was able to utter the words which a moment ago had been at the forefront of his mind.

  “I saw Dyoto!”

  “A handsome city,” the man said. “If a little out of style.”

  “It was at the bottom of a lake. The war has completely destroyed it.”

  Startled, the man rose on his elbows and sat up.

  “What war?”

  And then he began to laugh quietly. “Oh, of course. You come from the time of the troubles. You must have had a shock, but you weren’t to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Dyoto was abandoned. That’s all. Not destroyed. It no longer suited the way we wanted to live.”

  Corson struggled to digest the information. “And what way is that?” he said finally.

  “The way you see. Very simply. We need the opportunity to meditate. We’re getting ready for”—he hesitated—“for the future, I suppose you’d say.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Corson said, rubbing the greasy traces of his food from his fingers with a handful of sand.

  “We certainly need you, Corson. But not here, not now.”

  “Are you certain you’re not short of anything?” Corson insisted disbelievingly.

  “Do I look as though I am? Do you mean clothes? But we hardly ever wear them nowadays."

  “Provisions! Medicines! I don’t imagine the whole of this beach is stuffed with mess tins and bottles of wine. What are you going to do when your stocks run out?”

  The man gazed thoughtfully out to sea. “You know, that’s a point that had never struck me. I think—”

  Corson interrupted fiercely, “Get a hold on yourself! Are you crazy, are you ill? There must be a way to fish the sea, or game to hunt in those woods! You can’t let yourself die of hunger!”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s very likely,” the man said. Looking Corson straight in the face, he rose with a smooth movement. He was the taller of them, muscular and well built; long hair hung around his face.

  “Where do you suppose that bottle came from?”

  Embarrassed, Corson rose in his turn and used the neck of the bottle to draw a line in the sand. “I don’t know.”

  “When we run short of wine, we shall order more, of course.”

  “Ah!” Corson said, brightening. “You live in the dunes and you’ve come to dine on the beach. Back there you have servants or robots.” The man shook his head. “Back in the dunes you won’t find palaces or even shanties, let alone servants and robots. I don’t believe there’s a living soul within forty kilometers. I see you haven’t yet understood our way of life. We have no roof but the sky, no bed but the sand, no curtains but the wind. Do you find it too warm, too cool? I can attend to that for you.”

  “So where does this com
e from?” Corson said angrily, kicking aside the empty bottle.

  “From sometime else. Some century in the past or future. I don't know. We decided to let these decades lie fallow. It’s a very pleasant spot to rest and think things over. Of course we control the climate, but in this period you won’t find a single machine on the planet. Those we do need are tucked away in time. When we want something one of us enters communion and asks for it, and the article in question is sent here.”

  “What about Dyoto?”

  “Some while back, we discovered we had taken a wrong turning. We decided to try another way.” “This one?”

  “Exactly.”

  Corson stared at the sea. A classically beautiful sunset was in progress, but it was something stirring within himself which made him cheer up. The tideless sea plopped against a rock a few fathoms from the beach like a particularly well-domesticated animal. The invisible sun glowed behind the clouds. By reflex he looked for a moon in the sky, but of course here there was none. The stars, in constellations he had now come to know well, were springing into the sky and shedding their faint light on the world.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the man said.

  “It is indeed,” Corson admitted.

  He cast a diffident glance toward the women sunk in coma, sleep, whatever, their attitudes suggestive of abandon. He thought he recognized a head of hair, the line of a back . . . Surely it couldn’t be Antonella! He took a pace toward them, but the man checked him with a gesture.

  “Don’t disturb them. They’re in conference right now, discussing you. They’re communing with Those of Aergistal.”

  “Antonella . . .” Corson said.

  The man turned his head. “Antonella is not here. You will see her later.”

  “She doesn’t know me yet.”

  “I realize that.” The man’s voice was low, as though he was sorry the matter had been brought up. “It will be necessary for her to learn to know you.”

  There was a pause.

  “Don’t hold it against us,” he said at length, and added quickly, “Would you rather sleep now, or talk over our business?”