Present Tense [Round Two of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

  Smedley decided that there was nothing he could do about that. He had no idea of the return key, and he could have contributed nothing to the fight, if fight there was. He might never know what had happened after he left.

  He might have to introduce himself to the Service, instead of being recommended by Edward Exeter, Liberator. Should have brought his curriculum vita. Damn! That could be unpleasant. He'd have to talk about the war. Well, one day at a time...

  He should have asked Dommi to bring some breakfast. His mouth was watering. He sniffed. Mm. Yes, there were definite hints of meat in the all-pervading smoke. Perhaps someone was roasting an ox on that bonfire? Or frying bacon.

  Curiosity took him back to the gap in the hedge. He peered again, and this time there was no other face advancing to meet his. As he had suspected, the other hedge was just a screen across the entrance, providing privacy. The gravel path curved out of sight and his view was blocked by shrubbery and tall trees. They were not English trees, but a tree was a tree anywhere. Some of the colors were a bit off.

  He looked the other way.

  A body sprawled on the path about twenty feet away, but there was no doubt that it was dead. It had been hacked to pieces. Hair and clothes were unrecognizable, black with dried blood, and he could not tell whether it had been a man or a woman. He could hear insectile buzzings even at that distance. A couple of things like feathered squirrels were chewing at it.

  He looked beyond. Smoke drifted up from the remains of a house, a black field of ruin. He retched at the memory of the odors that had made his mouth water. In the background, amid the trees, other houses smoked, many other houses, all razed. Black specks on the ground might well be other bodies. Olympus had been sacked.

  A few men were moving around, and although they were far off, he could see that they were not dressed like Englishmen. They were dressed like Dommi, meaning virtually undressed. The natives had risen against the tyikank. It was Nyagatha all over again.

  Now one of the savages had learned that there was a tyika who had been missed. Dommi had not gone to fetch clothes, he had gone to fetch his friends, with assegais or machetes or whatever they used to kill white men ... tyikank ... Dommi was as white as Smedley, but he was a native, and there could be no doubt what had happened here yesterday, or perhaps the day before.

  Smedley was alone, naked, penniless, and friendless on a strange world where he could not speak the language and the native population was out to kill him.

  He really ought to have settled for Chichester.

  He ought to disappear into the woods as fast as he could move.

  But what if Exeter arrived as soon as he left?

  How long until Dommi and his pals arrived?

  Somebody screamed, but Smedley did not think it was him.

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  54

  EDWARD EXETER WAS THRASHING LIKE A LANDED FISH IN THE MIDDLE of the grassy enclosure. He kept on screaming.

  Smedley ran over to him and knelt down, having to ward off flailing arms and legs. He shouted a few times, but it did no good. In a few moments, though, the paroxysms grew quieter. Exeter subsided into a twitching heap. His muscles kept knotting and unknotting horribly, and he cried out every time.

  "Exeter? It's me, Smedley. Anything I can do to help?"

  Anything I can do to shut you up?

  Exeter's eyes were closed. He was obviously trying not to move. “Julian?” he whispered. “Hold me."

  Hold him? He was a man, dammit! And neither of them had any clothes on. With distaste, Smedley lay down behind him and tried to put an arm around him. All he did was set off another riot of cramps and spasms, and more shrieks of pain.

  "Keep it down!” he hissed. “They'll hear you!"

  "Hold me, damn you!"

  Right. Smedley rose to his knees, took hold of Exeter's hair, and hauled him up into a sitting position. Exeter screamed. Smedley wrapped both arms around him and hung on as tightly as he could.

  The fit passed. Exeter gasped and leaned his head back on Smedley's shoulder. After a moment he whispered, “Thanks! Just keep holding me."

  That was all very well, but there was a band of headhunters on the way. This did not seem like the moment to explain that, though.

  "What delayed you?"

  "Dunno,” Exeter whispered. His eyes were closed, and he was barely breathing. “Just couldn't get it to work."

  "I thought the Blighters had got you."

  Exeter shook his head, and that small movement set him off again, thrashing and moaning. Damn! but he was loud. He was going to be sore for days after these cramps. He was knotted like a fishnet.

  "I do believe we have run into a spot of trouble here,” Smedley said.

  Footsteps on gravel! He looked around in alarm, bracing himself to face a murdering mob, but it was only Dommi, alone. He came hobbling in, clutching a bundle. He was covered with soot, streaked pink with sweat, and he had developed a severe limp.

  "Tyika Kaptaan!” he cried. “I was as quickly as I could. And Tyika Kisster! It is most fortuitous to set eyes on your honor again, but at such a sad timing. I have brought the clothes, tyika, but I fear they are only the best I could find in the house of Tyika Dunlop, and many of them have singe marks upon them, and are soiled. It was the only house I was able to make entrance to."

  Exeter's eyes opened wide.

  "That's great, Dommi!” Smedley said hoarsely. “Could you hold Tyika Exeter for a moment for me?"

  Muttering solicitously, Dommi knelt down and relieved Smedley of his burden. The exchange set off another round of cramps in Exeter, but he bit back his screams. Grateful, Smedley crawled away and rummaged through the bundle the bearer had dropped. He found typical tropical kit: shorts and shirts and sandals and long white socks. No underwear. As Dommi had said, the white cloth was scorched and soot stained. He began to dress.

  Dommi was spilling out the horrible story between sobs. “It was a great madness, tyika! On Necknight, a great madness came upon us in the village. We gathered torches and all weapons which were at hand for us, and we marched in whole company upon the compound of the tyikank, singing hymns in the praise of Holy Karzon, whom our ancestors were ignorant to worship, but we know well to be the Demon Karzon and yet did not hail as such that night.” He was weeping like a fire hose. “There was terrible slaughter, tyika, and raping of the entyikank, and, oh, awful things were done. The houses were all been burned. I cannot explain this madness, tyika! There were others there, not belonging to us, not Carrots like us but strangers. They wore black, tyika, all black! I fear they were the dread reapers of whom our mother would frighten us when children we only were. It is most likely that they were the cause of our madness, Tyika Kisster, is it not? All of us Carrots are most humbly disposed toward the great tyikank who have done so much to educate us and civilize us, and we are very truly grateful for what you have done for us. It must have been the robed ones who provoked us."

  The reason he had been limping was that he had a bloody great burn on his foot. He must have gone into one of those smoldering ruins to find the togs.

  "There's a body just outside,” Smedley said. “The houses have been burned."

  Exeter licked his lips. “Zath again,” he whispered. “It's all over now?"

  "Indeed yes, tyika! We Carrots are remorseful in the most extreme about what we have done, but we could not help ourselves. I myself was one of them who did these terrible things. Now we are chagrined most deeply and wish to make amends. It is to be hoped that many of the tyikank and entyikank and domestic Carrots managed to escape out into the woods, tyika. We have been trying to count the bodies, but we also slew all the Carrots we found wearing the noble liveries you tyikank had so generously provided for us, and it is hard to tell who is among the dead and who is not there. Many escaped, I am hopeful..."

  He choked down more sobs. “We even burned the library, tyika!"

  Very gingerly, Exeter eased himself into a sitting position. Bloo
d dribbled from his mouth, shockingly red against his pallor. “I am sure it was the reapers who were to blame."

  "It had been reported that you would have imminent return.” Dommi whimpered. “I am most glad that your honor did not return sooner and so share in this unfortunate killing."

  Exeter hugged his knees, staring blindly across at the hedge, not moving. “The house of the Tyika Murgatroyd? Was this attacked?"

  "Indeed yes, tyika. No house escaped."

  "The servants of Entyika Murgatroyd? Ysian, the cook?"

  Dommi covered his face with his hands.

  "Well?” Exeter demanded, not looking at him.

  Ysian? Wasn't that the name of the girl Exeter had found hiding under a bed somewhere? How had she ever got to Olympus?

  "No, tyika. She did not escape. I saw."

  "How did she die?"

  "Not to ask, tyika!"

  Exeter's eyes were burning cold, but he was still gazing at the hedge, or through it. “Tell me, Dommi. Please tell me. I know it wasn't your fault."

  "Tyika—there were awful things done. Please not to say them."

  Exeter mumbled something that made no sense, but sounded vaguely like, “Oh, Vixen!"

  "What? Smedley demanded.

  "Nothing. Pass me those bags, will you, old chap?” Moving very deliberately, he began to dress. “Dommi, go and collect the Carrots."

  The valley was narrow, less than a mile wide. From a flat floor, the sides rose precipitously, soaring almost unbroken to the incredible peaks all around. It held a river, open meadows, and many-colored woods. It would have been spectacularly beautiful two days ago.

  They walked past burned ruins and trampled flower gardens, many strewn with dismembered bodies. By the time they emerged from the trees, Exeter was able to walk on his own, just steadying himself with a hand on Smedley's shoulder. They had come to tennis courts, where a band of terrified natives awaited their arrival, two score or more. Men, women, and youngsters, they all had red hair. Many carried shovels, but seemed unsure what to do with them or where to begin. They all looked ill with guilt and horror. Even Smedley, hardened campaigner from the Western Front, was utterly nauseated by what he had already seen, and that was only a small part of Olympus. Plumes of smoke were still fouling the valley.

  Exeter was greeted with apprehension and relieved murmurs of, “Tyika Kisster!” Others were running in through the trees. He waited as the crowd grew, leaning on Smedley. He was still trembling and very weak. It had been a bad crossing.

  "Self-fulfilling!” he murmured.

  "What?"

  "The Filoby Testament. It seems to be self-fulfilling. Dommi said he was expecting me back from Thovale, so the Committee must have summoned me—but I'd gone to Flanders! If Zath hadn't sent me there, I would have arrived here in time to die, you see. And if he hadn't done this, I would still be going on to New Zealand."

  Smedley looked at him in surprise. “Now you won't?"

  "If Zath can't break the chain, then how can I?” Exeter released his grip on Julian's shoulder and straightened up to address the nervous mob of Carrots.

  "It was not your fault!” he shouted. “It was Demon Karzon who drove you to this, Demon Zath. The saints will not abandon you, for it was not your fault. The Undivided knows the truth and where the guilt lies."

  They reacted with screams of joy, like children.

  "But you must demonstrate your grief. You must bury the dead with honor. Women go and start digging graves in the cricket ground, big graves. Men collect the bodies. We shall bury each household together, tyikank and servants together. The saints and the Carrots who lived together shall lie together. It must be done by sundown!"

  It was done by sundown, when the snowy peaks of Kilimanjaro and Nanga Parbat turned to blood. The dead could not be numbered, for many bodies had been piled in the burning houses and others had been butchered into anonymous lumps of meat. Nevertheless, it was clear that many more Carrots than tyikank had died—most of the strangers would have been able to use their mana to escape, Exeter said. The remains were tipped into pits and covered over. Olympus was a ghost settlement.

  Almost out on his feet with exhaustion, Smedley watched and marveled as Edward Exeter conducted a funeral service over the mass burial. He faced a congregation of several hundreds, probably the entire population of the native village, and he spoke in the local tongue, so that Smedley did not understand any of it, only the tears of the assembled Carrots. Whatever Exeter said, he began softly and ended with great vehemence, and his audience was impressed. When he had done, they cheered wildly, which seemed like a very peculiar closing for a funeral.

  The next day some of the surviving tyikank came creeping out of the forest, hungry, frightened, and exhausted. Missionaries began returning from duty in the field. They were all surprised to find work gangs already clearing away the ruins, cleaning up, erecting temporary dwellings. They were even more surprised that the leadership was being provided by a young man none of them had ever met, an officer in the Royal Artillery, known to the Carrots as Tyika Kaptaan. The lad was doing a fine job, too.

  Exeter had gone. He had departed in the night, alone, and nobody knew where. According to reliable Carrots, he had revealed to them in the eulogy he had delivered over the graves that he was the prophesied Liberator. They were not supposed to know that, of course, but it had always been impossible to keep the English-speaking domestic Carrots from eavesdropping and passing rumors, so many of them had already known. Now, apparently, Exeter had sworn that he was destined to bring death to Death, and thus fulfil the prophecies.

  It was, he had said, an affair of honor.

  He had not said where he was going.

  As the fortnights passed with no news of him, a consensus arose that either Zath's watchers had caught the fellow on his way out, or else he had just gone native again. He could safely be forgotten.

  Some of the pessimists would not believe that, especially Jumbo Watson. He predicted that Olympus had not seen the last of Edward Exeter. He pointed to the Filoby Testament and in particular to the cryptic Verse 1098:

  Terrible is the justice of the Liberator; his might lays low the unworthy. He is gentle and hard to anger. Gifts he sets aside and honor he spurns. Eleal shall be the first temptation and the prince shall be the second, but the dead shall rouse him.

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  55

  47 Bamlett Road,

  London, W1

  16th September, 1917

  Dear Miss Prescott,

  With very deep regret, I must inform you that word has been received that my brother, D'Arcy, has made the Supreme Sacrifice. A telegram from the War Office reported today that he has been killed in action. We have no further details at this time.

  I was at the house when the telegram arrived. My sister-in-law was, as you will understand, quite distraught, as were we all. I have only just got home, and have written to you as soon as I could. You may have seen the news in the evening papers already.

  A memorial service will be arranged and announced in the usual way.

  I am sure that you share our grief, even if you will not be able to acknowledge it in public.

  I am,

  Yours sincerely,

  Anabel Finchley (Mrs.)

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  Appendix: The Moons

  NEXTDOOR IS A PROBABILITY VARIANT OF EARTH. THE STARS VISIBLE from its surface are the same as those visible from Earth; the sun is apparently the same.

  However, Nextdoor has four moons. Prof Rawlinson's theory that they might have been gouged out by the impact of one or more meteors is not without merit. The Pacific was commonly believed in his day to be the scar left when the Moon was torn from the Earth. Modern theory supports an impact origin for the Moon, although the Pacific is now known to be billions of years younger. The impacting body would have had to be the size of a small planet, considerably more than a meteor, but in some respects Rawlinson was ahead of his ti
me. He was particularly perceptive in anticipating recent insight on chaotic systems; even a minute difference in the size, velocity, or angle of such an impact could generate enormous variations in the final results. This would account for not only the varying number of satellites but also the slight discrepancies in the length of the day and year on Earth and Nextdoor.

  Only Trumb displays a sufficiently large disk to hide the sun and create a solar eclipse. This occurs on every orbit, but is visible only in the daylight hemisphere. The following refers mainly to eclipses of the respective moons by the shadow of the planet, lunar eclipses as we know them.

  The outermost moon, Eltiana, has a period of twenty-eight days, very similar to Earth's Moon, but it is much less conspicuous, little more than a bright red star. Its equatorial orbit causes it to be eclipsed every month, although on average only each alternate eclipse will be visible from a given location.

  Ysh displays a small blue disk. It has a useful and dependable period of almost exactly fourteen days, the origin of the fortnight used as a basic division of time. Like Earth's Moon, Ysh has an inclined orbit and therefore is likely to be involved in eclipses only two or three times a year. Many eclipses will be obscured by weather or their occurrence during daylight hours. An observed eclipse of Ysh is a rare and ill-omened occurrence.

  Trumb, the green moon, displays a large disk. Its synodic period is 4.44 days and its orbital inclination too slight to matter. It is eclipsed on every orbit, although half the eclipses occur below the horizon.

  The tiny yellow moon, Kirb'l, may be a captured asteroid. Its orbit is elliptical and inclined at 15 degrees, which is close to the latitude of the Vales. To complicate matters, its orbit precesses rapidly under the influence of the other moons, and the body itself is asymmetric, rotating every two hours with marked changes in albedo. It has a synodic period of 1.5 days.