The West Is Dying

by David C. Smith

  * * * *

  Evening had fallen, and King Elad was at supper with the Imbur Ogodis, Princess Salia, and members of the Athadian court, when Colonel Lutouk’s messenger arrived at the steps of the palace. A Khamar, as appalled by the man’s exhaustion and as by his dire news, conducted him inside and interrupted Elad’s fete with a whispered, “Your crown, we have grave news from Sulos.”

  Elad excused himself with much formality and, as he had been interrupted while telling the Lady Salia a particularly humorous story involving himself as a boy, he warned the Khamar underbreath, as they exited, that this grave word from Sulos had better be such that it required his immediate attention.

  However, the king had himself ordered the palace guard to interrupt him on the moment whenever news sufficiently critical required it. Elad’s mood therefore changed instantly when, following the Khamar into a private antechamber, he heard from Lutouk’s messenger why the man had worn down three horses to reach the capital this evening.

  Elad moved to a chair and sat still and silent for a long, terrible moment. His listened to his own breath and to his quick heart. Then, emotional, his voice uncertain, he asked several precise questions of the rider. As the breathless messenger told what he knew, Elad insisted upon specifics to get as complete an understanding as he could of what had transpired.

  At last, King Elad told the rider to get himself to the kitchen for food and to take his rest. The messenger thanked him, saluted him with fist over heart, and followed the Khamar outside, where a waiting servant escorted him to the kitchen.

  Then, as the Khamar waited, Elad took a sheet of paper from those on the table, opened an ink gourd, and composed a careful message to Colonel Lutouk of the Fourth Regiment in Sulos. Heating a bar of wax at an oil lamp, Elad affixed his royal seal to the document, rolled up the parchment, tied it with a golden ribbon, and placed it in a wooden holder.

  Standing, he handed the wooden tube to the guard. “This,” he ordered the Khamar “—immediately—by your fastest rider, to Lutouk only. But if he is dead, then to the acting consul, or to his second. There is to be no failure.”

  The Khamar slapped his chest. “It is done, your crown.”

  As that one left the room, Elad took up a large bell on the table and rang it loudly. Within a heartbeat, a servant entered from the hallway, followed by others—and by Abgarthis, an expression of curiosity on his face.

  “Rouse council immediately,” was Elad’s direction to the servants. “Every one of them. We hold session now.”

  The servants went as Abgarthis faced Elad.

  “What is it?” the adviser asked.

  Elad said nothing, only looked at him with an expression of the deepest possible rage.

  * * * *

  As the councilors entered their chamber, singly and in pairs and groups, Abgarthis made certain that the imbur and his daughter were seated comfortably to one side of the dais that held Elad’s chair. Whispers and low voices carried with them as the councilors found their places, wondering why Elad had ordered his council to meet so irregularly. Elad himself sat on his throne looking downward at nothing in particular, one fist on his chin, in a slumping posture. He looked up as the last of the robes settled in. Several chairs remained empty, the result of his purges.

  Elad frowned at the thought of further purges yet to come.

  At last, as every face there looked toward him, Elad leaned forward, glanced at his scribes to make certain that they were alert to him, and began.

  “Upon the dawn, I am ordering the Third Legion West under General Vardorian to Sulos. Until Vardorian can return from the frontier, I am ordering Colonel Sildum of the Third Regiment to move east to reinforce Colonel Lutouk’s forces. The Third and Fourth regiments are to seize and restrain any rebel forces found within the city and execute anyone—anyone—who resists questioning or arrest. They are to quarter themselves in Sulos until further word from me. In the morning, we will reconvene this council and read into the record my precise orders to General Vardorian and to Colonel Lutouk and my reasons for taking this military action of extreme emergency. I have already sent a rider to Sulos with specific orders for Colonel Lutouk to proceed as he sees fit until the arrival of Colonel Sildum.

  “Council, rebels have taken the city; they have slaughtered at the very least several hundred citizens; they have targeted the business classes and those with property. They have assassinated Governor Jakovas, and— Quiet! Silence!”

  Elad gave the men in that chamber the moment they needed to digest the fact of Jakovas’s murder and of the occupation of the city by its own rebellious citizens. He looked at Ogodis, at Salia—and he noticed that Salia in particular seemed impressed with him.

  Abgarthis, for his part, watched Elad until the king met his stare, and then asked, “Your crown…what of the royal family?”

  Elad told him and the others there, “We have no word of them as yet.”

  Lord Bumathis rapped on the table before him and stood. “My lord…if we may ask…who from the palace is in that city?”

  “Princess Orain and her son.”

  Voices rose, making noise like the surf at tide, with mutterings and whispers throughout the room.

  Bumathis promised, “I will pay priests to pray for them.”

  Others in the council chamber voiced similar assurances.

  Elad raised a hand. “Then I give you my gracious thanks, Lord Bumathis. Now…,” the king began again. “They have assassinated Governor Jakovas, and they now occupy the governor’s mansion. My orders to Colonel Lutouk, and to our legions, are to take those revolutionaries in the mansion and execute them. I open the room to comment.”

  For a moment—silence. Then, a loud voice to Elad’s left: “Kill them!”

  That sentiment was repeated quickly and more and more loudly, until the council chamber was filled with a chorus of vengeful men: Kill them. Kill the rebels. Kill every one of them. Kill, kill, kill them.

  * * * *

  Word spread rapidly of the rebellion in Sulos. Rumors that traveled from city to city gave the impression that a revolution had come at last. Spontaneous demonstrations and riots broke out in every major city of Athadia, from Bessara to Sugat on the coast as well as in Isita, Himosis, Irkad, and other inland cities. These reactions, although quickly and forcefully put down, made plain to Elad a situation that neither he nor any of his council had ever suspected: that the episodes of discontent that had surfaced recently were indications of widespread, deep-seated anger with the throne and the government’s economic mismanagement.

  In Sulos, Lutouk received King Elad’s orders a week after the revolt, on the day of the Holy Observance of the Ascension and the Deliverance. He had, over the past several days, entered into a dialogue with the rebels. He had listened to their grievances and accepted from revolutionary representatives a list of demands to be presented to the king.

  Colonel Lutouk took these grievances seriously; he did not wish to respond arbitrarily, to heedlessly punish violence with further violence. Long years of service in the imperial army had taught him much, had made of him a resourceful, understanding leader who appreciated the use of many types of tools and strategies. His hope now was that, because a rational issue was at stake, those involved on both sides would act rationally. Crowds may bolt like a herd of animals, and the powerful may react by throwing thunderbolts at them, but in the best of circumstances, although the irrational in people always waits like an animal to jump out and cause harm—

  Lutouk’s hope now what that the king would act rationally. For Elad to presume that this rebellion was a problem to be put down peremptorily, as though these rebels were no more than angry children (as the king indicated in the language of his order) was, for Lutouk, a glaring misapprehension of the facts. He had long ago learned the truth of an old aphorism common in Galsia, where he had been born: Blood is not washed clean with more blood.

  Still, he understood, on the afternoon he received his orders from Elad’s rider
, that the legions on their way north would arrive soon. It had taken the messenger three and a half days overland to reach Lutouk, and a ship could make the sailing much faster than that. Immediately, therefore, Lutouk met with representatives from the mansion and, after making assurances that he would do all that he could to protect their lives, informed the rebels of Elad’s decision. He appealed to them to give themselves up to the mercy of the throne.

  Although they initially scoffed at this proposal, the rebels knew that they could not remain indefinitely in the mansion. Already those outside, who had been managing to get them food and other supplies, had been discovered and arrested. Common sense told them that, even if their leaders were executed, they could go to their deaths nobly. And likely some of them, the least of them, would be spared. The king would not execute the children here in the mansion, surely. And after serving their terms in prison or in exile, these survivors would remain alive to carry on the essence of the revolt—educating others and continuing the demands for reforms and justice.

  That afternoon, therefore, they gave themselves up peacefully, relinquishing their makeshift weapons to Lutouk’s soldiers, then waiting, defenseless, in the cold mansion as the late day darkened.

  Colonel Sildum’s regiment of reinforcement arrived that evening, and Sildum presented to Colonel Lutouk his current orders.

  Lutouk confronted a dilemma. Angered, he felt hot tears of rage rise within him. Standing in the Shemtu Square, just outside the former office building that now served as his command headquarters, Lutouk silently read King Elad’s orders, reread them, and showed to Colonel Sildum of the Third Regiment a starkly cold expression.

  Then, to the embarrassment of the soldiers present, Lutouk crossed the Shemtu Square and, beneath the eyes of every badge and shield, spoke on familiar terms with the leaders of the revolt, who had come outside to meet him.

  “I swear to you, before the eyes of the prophet, that I am ashamed this day to be an Athadian. Despite the violence you have done, and despite the long years of violence done to you, I truly believed that debate could be managed. Our king does not wish this. Your deaths will increase the rebellion, I’m sure—not end it. But I am sworn to my badge of command, and I am bound, as acting governor of this province, to honor the direct orders of the throne. King Elad has ordered that you be executed immediately. All of you.”

  The wind blew; the snow fell; the icy cold wrapped around them. Not one voice of pain or anguish, sorrow or regret came from that crowd.

  One of them asked Lutouk, “Even the children?”

  “All of you,” Lutouk answered him.

  The man who spoke said, “Then tell our king that, sooner or later, now that he has begun this, he will have to kill everyone in the empire. He is alone.”

  That was all.

  Colonel Lutouk turned from them and returned across the square.

  To Colonel Sildum: “I will do this, but once I have done it, I am resigning my commission.”

  “This is insubordination,” Sildum informed him. “This is treason.”

  “It is not. I will fulfill my orders from my king. And then I will be done with this.”

  Sildum, a broad-chested man whose armor strained to contain his bulk, spat into the ice near Lutouk’s laced boots.

  Colonel Lutouk took out his sword and ordered the first and second platoons of Company Wolf to cross the square and fulfill the crown’s directive. He himself held his head low, refusing by that gesture to witness what he regarded as an intolerable injustice.

  But his officers and their men entered the mansion, escorted all of the rebels outside, and forced them to kneel in the ice and snow. The parents held their children close to them for as long as possible. As the work began, those watching from windows and roofs overlooking the Shemtu Square raised loud cheers and prayers of thanks.

  For despite Lutouk’s Galsian optimism, people seldom do act rationally, even when the issue at stake is itself a rational one.

  When it was done, Colonel Lutouk tore the badges from his coat and removed his rings and handed them, with his sword, to Colonel Sildum, telling him, “Return these to Elad. I hereby renounce my rank and station and am outside the army of this empire. Any money due me, tell this boy-king—” Lutouk considered for a moment “—tell Elad to distribute it all to the families of Athad’s ghettos.”

  Perilously close to treachery with those words, Lutouk turned and, in the evening’s bitter cold, mounted his horse and left the city, returning to his villa beyond the walls of Sulos.

  Through the night, by the light of bonfires built in the square, the men of Lutouk’s command, now under the direction of Colonel Sildum, fulfilled the last of King Elad’s orders: they gathered the heads of the one hundred twenty-four rebels executed in the square, disinterred four hundred fifty-one additional corpses previously buried in a common grave outside the city walls and decapitated those bodies, then carted the gory trophies to one of the ships that had been sent from the capital.

  By morning, the deck of the war galley was filled from gunwale to gunwale with the heads, and by Elad’s direct order, a mooring line was stretched from its bow to the stern of a second galley. As the tide went out and the winds lifted, this flagship steered into the ocean. Crowded because of its double crew, it began the slow, gruesome task of towing King Elad’s cargo southwest down the coast, to the capital.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  When Galvus and Orain returned to Mantho’s apartment, they found that the bodies of Mantho himself, Euis, the servant, and who knew how many others, had been carted away. All that remained as evidence of the night of hell were ruined furnishings, blood-spattered walls and floors, ransacked stores, looted closets.…

  “We can’t stay here,” Galvus said to his mother.

  It was not even their home. It certainly was not their city. They took themselves to one of the common buildings run by the army and were given two beds. Here they listened to the continual complaints of the lost and the bored and the depressed—the alive. My mother was killed…I had fine jewelry, now it’s gone…you should see what they did to my uncle’s portrait…it’s madness, what they did to the carpets in the back room.…

  They had no wish to stay there, either. They were aristocrats, they were of high-born blood, but they had nothing in common with these people. They were related by blood to the throne, and a simple mention of that fact would have brought them anything they wanted. But Galvus could not do it.

  He had with him only one thing besides the clothes he wore: the volume of Radulis that Adred had bought him. Galvus had not abandoned it; he had carried it under his tunic, and although he nearly had it memorized, he could not set the book aside. The words in it, and the arguments made in it, the vision and charity of this philosopher—these things made sense to him and mattered to him far more than did the whines of the privileged and the military law of the Elad’s occupation army.

  “We can take a ship,” Orain said. “Return to Athad—”

  “No, Mother.”

  “Elad is worried about us. He probably thinks we’re dead. At the least, we must tell him that we’re still alive.”

  Galvus told her then, “As far as I’m concerned, I am dead, and I want to stay dead. I want nothing more to do with Elad. I prefer to forget who my father was. I want to forget all of it. All of it. I hate it. Mother, if you want to return to Athad, do so. Go there. You’ll be safe. But I’m a man, not an aristocrat, not a prince. I intend to stay here in Sulos, and probably for the rest of my life. I want to do something I’ve wondered about for a long time: I’m going to live on the docks and learn to sail. I’m going to spend the rest of my life working at a trade, laughing at the government, complaining and paying my taxes—and I’m going to keep my secret. No one other than you or I will ever know that. Can you understand?”

  Orain had tears in her eyes. “I do understand.”

  “Mother, you and I never belonged there, not in our hearts. It’s not who we really are. Bu
t you have a right to it, and I think you should return.”

  She smirked and touched his hand. “Galvus, the only comfort I ever found in the capital, truly, was with Queen Yta and with Dursoris. What have I to return to? I think you’re right. We can live here. We should stay here and stay as we are. Hide our rings and our fine things and…live.”

  That was what Galvus wanted to hear, and he thanked her.

  Yet he couldn’t guess what his mother was thinking but did not say: that they would not spend the rest of their lives living as ordinary people. She did not believe that Galvus could do that; Orain did not believe that her son’s destiny would permit it.

  She had come to believe, had Princess Orain, through the nights of horror and pain, through the loneliness and the terror, through her reflections and considerations, that Elad would not forever be king of Athadia. She had come to believe that her private suffering, her own character, her own destiny, had already been decided by the gods—we are the gods—for one purpose. She was who she was, Princess Orain, the mother of Prince Galvus, for one purpose: her son would one day be the king of the empire.

  “Thank you, Mother. Thank you.”

  King of Athadia.

  What else could all of this be for, this hatred and turmoil, all of the crises of her life, all of the questions that seemed otherwise to have no answers? There was an answer. And when she looked upon her son—less with a mother’s pride than with a woman’s prescient judgment—she knew the answer.

  She was the mother of the man fated to become the greatest king the Athadian Empire had ever known.

  * * * *

  “There is what remains of the revolt against the throne!”

  King Elad yelled it from a balcony high above the wharfs, and his angry declaration was carried on the cold wind and echoed through the avenues and squares and alleys. Horses nickered; thousands stared up at him, witness to his rage; and when he pointed to the war galleys anchored just beyond the docks, thousands turned to look upon the evidence of revolutionary failure.