- Chapter 13






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Chapter Eleven
Carcharoth held to his temper with all the remaining strength of his mind . . . which was still considerable, in a familiar situation.
Facing down the Council which nominally oversaw the operations of Sauron-on-Haven was familiar enough. Galen Diettinger had not been a Cyborg; in fact, he'd put down an uprising of Cyborgs not long after the Dol Guldur had landed. It was the First Citizen who was supposed to rule, with the Council to advise him.
No strong heir from the Founder's direct line had emerged for generations. Over the years, the Battlemaster had usurped most of the First Citizen's power and the Council's as well. It happened bit by bit, but the change was steady over the centuries. Cyborgs were a myth of terror to the cattle of Haven, but they had mythic resonance among the Soldiers as well. A Cyborg was the logical culmination of the genetic creed of Sauron. The Battlemaster's was a competitive position, and ordinary Soldiers seldom bothered to compete with Cyborgs, believing it a waste of time and effort. Cyborgs made no effort to correct that impression.
But Diettinger hadn't been a Cyborg . . .
Carcharoth looked around the circle of aged, worried faces and concealed his contempt. "We have suffered setbacks," he said.
Gimli the Archivist snorted. "This Council agreed," he said, looking up at the holo of Galen Diettinger on one wall, below the great banner of the Lidless Eye, "that the uprising in the western Shangri-La was the first priority. It seems that the minority was correct, and it was a diversion."
"No. The judgment was logical given the facts available at the time," Carcharoth said smoothly. Like all his kind, his voice was full and rich and carried overtones of sincerity, command and conviction—it was engineered for just those purposes.
"Perhaps it was logical, then," Councillor Haggard said. "But now we know differently. We will gain no tribute from Nûrnen in this generation. Or the next."
Carcharoth made a gesture of dismissal. "Regrettable but not fatal. We are recalling Deathmaster Ghâsh and his expeditionary forces. These are temporary reverses."
First Citizen Ansel Diettinger could not hide the contempt in his voice. "Loss of Nûrnen is scarcely a reverse, Battlemaster. It is more in the nature of a catastrophe."
"This setback will be remedied when the new forces arrive. The TAC estimates not more than three hundred thousand cattle troops before our walls. We have killed more than ninety thousand and they have not tested our strength. The Citadel holds, and Deathmaster Ghâsh comes with his forces. There is no reason for concern, First Citizen." He made the title an insult. "Our only problems will be sanitation when we seek to dispose of the dead."
They will burn, Carcharoth thought. He knew that thought showed in his eyes; he could smell the faint chemical traces of anxiety in the sweat of the Council members, hear the slight acceleration of their heartbeats, see pupils dilate. They had been trained for generations to defer to Cyborgs. This would be no exception. When the cattle are destroyed, I will sweep this antiquated farce out of existence. One of the Sauron Role Models, the Ancient Napoleon, had done something very similar with . . . what was the name? Carcharoth's data-retrieval system was still functioning: the Holy Roman Empire. "Unless this Council wishes to remove me from my post as Battlemaster?" he asked flatly.
He eyed Gimli and his group. Any opposition would come from them. There was none. They still feared him. As they should.
 
The Chairman of the New Soviet Men and the President-pro-tem of the Sons of Liberty withdrew to the next room, shutting the thick door tightly behind them. Even Soldier hearing couldn't hear what they whispered to each other.
The Soldiers were here under flag of truce, but their regiments weren't far away. There was fear in the smell of the rebels around the walls, the nobles of the politburo and the Ranchers who ruled the Sons of Liberty—as much as anyone ruled that group. The room itself had been the garrison commandant's residence. It still stank of cordite and black powder and old blood, and one corner showed sky where something had blasted the thick stone and morticed beams apart. The Soldier force here hadn't been large, but it had died hard.
The two cattle rulers returned; the Chairman's face was impassive for an unaugmented man's, his little blue eyes flat above the grizzled gray brush of beard that swept down over the shimmering silk of his high-collared shirt. The President didn't try to hide his hatred, a beak-nosed weathered man slung about with weapons, one of them a captured Citadel-made revolver.
"Nyet," the New Soviet rulers said.
"No." The President's voice was equally flat in his harsh twanging dialect of Americ.
Another Sauron might have seen that Ghâsh was star-tied, but to an ordinary human he was motionless.
"You are facing total defeat," Ghâsh said. "It is unreasonable to continue your resistance."
The President smiled. "If we was reasonable, we wouldn't have rebelled in the first place."
The Chairman stroked his beard and nodded. "Your demands grew beyond all bearing. If you have troubles elsewhere, good."
Ghâsh tapped the dispatches. "The Bandari have been using you as pawns," he said. "Do you not realize the nomad horde is past the Citadel? They are coming down through Karakul pass, spreading out into the Shangri-La. It is what they have sought for generations. Do you want those as your neighbors? Compared to them, our yoke is light."
Some of the other cattle in the room stirred and murmured.
"Nyet," the Chairman repeated, and the President nodded.
"We know what it's like fer farmers to have the fur-hats on their borders," the President said. "Like havin' giant rats fer neighbors . . . mean ones."
"Then why will you not end this foolish rebellion?"
"We figgure," the Americ-speaking leader said, "that you'll beat the fur-hats anyhow. Only it'll cost you more and weaken you more if you have to worry 'bout us too. Or if you lose, you'll kill enough of them to weaken 'em so we can handle them. It's a long way from here to the Citadel, anyhow. The nomads are there now. But you're here now. If you want peace, get out, we won't stop you."
"Da, the Zhid dogs have lied to us," the Chairman rumbled. "But we expected that; this is political struggle, no? You cannot expect us to surrender just because it would be convenient for you."
"Your losses have been heavy," Ghâsh said.
"We expected that."
The President nodded. "So've yours been. Hundreds to you is worse than thousand and tens of thousands to us. Especially when you need the troops elsewhere."
Ghâsh gave no sign of his feelings that unaugmented men could hear. Every minute was critical . . . for the Soldiers. The cattle could afford to wait, and they intended to take full advantage of the fact.
"As you say. We depart. But you will do more than not oppose us. You will assist us on the way. Transportation and supplies. Otherwise we will burn both your capitals to the ground."
Ghâsh could hear the faint sound of teeth grinding together.
 
Deferential but insistent hands had waked her, draped furs over her shoulders. Save them for the children, Chaya started to say. But she, even she, shivered. And there were no children in this house.
At least, not yet. She shivered again. Her mother Dvora had had these odd flashes of knowledge, and her mother before her. It was her mother's blood in her . . . . Her mother was Badri. She was Sauron.
What happened to Saurons who didn't die fighting? She had had stray reports, had promised herself that one day for her son's sake she would find out . . . no time now. Was she almost out of time? Since Nûrnen fell, she had drifted in and out of waking dreams, punctuated with lights and her own voice and eyes, concerned or awed, watching her.
Lights flickered about her, automatic courtesy in the night as Hammer-of-God had her conducted to the mayor's study. She didn't need the lights. Yet. And they reminded her of Nûrnen, burning down. Woe unto the city . . . no, not now.
She heard other voices, sleepy, apprehensive, and didn't need the keen hearing she still had to put names to them.
What have we done? What have I done? Each hour, she knew more until the waking dreams drew her as strongly as a drug—and drugs did not work that strongly on those of her blood.
She paused on the threshold of what had been the mayor's study. Light the color of oil glinted off the wood, off the model that Sapper and his officers had lugged into the room. Karl and Aisha stared down at the model, and near them, young Kemal, determined to grow himself from khan into General. His friend and vassal Ihsan stood behind him as if on guard.
Barak rushed in . . . and Sannie, from a different direction.
Trouble there? Not for her only son, borne with such pain. And even Sannie, one of the Seven, was dear to her now.
Around her, voices rose and ebbed. "Tameetha brought this one in . . ."
"Him! He spat on my father's name in Nûrnen. I should . . ."
"Aisha, dearheart . . ."
"He claims he hates Saurons? He lies. He made a boast of sharing their blood, but my father . . ."
"Lady, by my mother's grave I didn't know . . ."
"My father lies unburied!"
"Shut up, traitor!" Tameetha interrupted. "You saw the girl outside—her name's Raisa—confirms the story, and she'd like to scratch this one's eyes out. I'd say that's more than a lover's quarrel. Lovers—feh! Man like him would make you want to be a virgin again and stay one."
"Yongk, shut his face for him . . . no, we're not going to kill you yet, animal, not as long as General Jackson here says. You want to live? When he says talk, you talk."
"Judge Chaya?" Hammer's voice.
And Barak's. "Amah?"
"What have we done?" Chaya whispered aloud.
Aisha turned to her like a child seeking her mother's voice. Poor child, she had had all too little of that. Like all of them, she was going on too little sleep, especially now; but still, she glowed, not just from torchlight, but from the presence of the man at her side and the life that swelled out the Turkic garments she had thrown on, a splendor of scarlet and gold that bespoke lavish tastes in the mayor's wife.
The dreams hung temptingly in Chaya's consciousness—Heber as a young man, spring in the Pale, Barak as a baby. She pushed them away.
Hammer-of-God lurched over to the model of Nûrnen. Chaya winced in sympathy for the General. He was younger than she but lacked her pain overrides. He made do on willpower.
"When this is over," Aisha hissed, "Strong Sven is mine. He dishonored my father." She pressed forward and spat accurately on the man as he knelt, hunched over his belly. The stink of urine rose about him.
"There's worse dishonor than that. You will avenge it all," her husband told her. "But first, love, listen." Hand on her arm, he led her back to a chair. She could have broken free; she could have broken his arm as easily as her father Juchi had broken this coward of a Strong Sven's arm, but she let him seat her as if she were an invalid or a princess, and she even smiled.
"You wouldn't have waked us for nothing," Chaya said to Hammer-of-God. "What does this . . . creature have to say that's worth keeping him alive for, let alone waking me up?"
Hammer's stobor grin stripped exhaustion from his face. Strong Sven cringed further, and Chaya almost laughed. A Jew and a judge and a Sauron all in one, and I won't deal, is that it? "Karl," he beckoned to young Karl, "you and Shuli take him out and dump water on this dog. He's not housebroken. Then get us some food and go away."
They dragged him out, shutting the door on the babble of his curses and pleas. Moments later, they returned, dumping a wetter, cleaner, and—hard as it was to believe it—more frightened man on a bare spot on the floor.
Pale-faced servants followed them, setting steaming bowls and pitchers and cups anywhere documents could be shifted from the huge table.
"Take something with you," Tameetha bat Irene told Karl and Shulamit. They loaded hands and a pocket or two with food and herded the servants out.
Karl Haller beckoned to Chaya. Eat something. Typical mediko who'd been too long among Bandari, who always wanted people to eat something. Barak and Aisha joined her, and then they were all dipping with a kind of ghoulish coziness into the common bowls while Strong Sven watched, breathing through his mouth.
Aisha raised an eyebrow. She picked up a bowl from the table—it had been clean a day or so ago—dashed its contents into the fire, and filled it. Then she set it before Strong Sven.
"Let's see you feed, dog," she hissed. "With your left hand."
Kemal and Ihsan looked faintly revolted. A petty revenge, Chaya thought, but they didn't want the traitor passing out on them.
Using his left hand, Strong Sven shoveled in the grains and meat. Aisha watched every mouthful until he finished. She did not offer him a second bowl.
"Now, dog," said Hammer-of-God, "howl for us."
"I am a miner, lord, like my father and grandfathers before me. Up in the mountains, where the air is thin and the shafts are narrow . . ."
"Who've we got there?" Hammer-of-God snapped.
"Nazrullah Khan," Kemal had the name a second before Barak. One of the mujahedin, Chaya identified him. Her memory lapsed back into the waking dream of time and place that so pleased her and surfaced with a Terran name: Afghan. "Kin, feuds?"
"This lot keeps itself to itself," Barak cut in. "Some rumors that centuries ago, they were hand in glove with the Saurons. Any man who says that aloud doesn't get to say anything else. I wouldn't team them with the Russkis . . . ."
"What about Shamyl?"
"They are of the faithful," Ihsan shrugged. "It is no matter."
"Someone get them. Also Gasim, Ilderim Khan, Suleiman Tepe—let him earn his title—the other leading khans. See if you can find anyone of the men of Bod we can talk to. Doesn't have to speak Americ, but good Turkic . . . his life could depend on it."
"I'll go," Sannie volunteered.
"You'll go nowhere," Hammer-of-God snapped at her. "You are by-God one of the Seven and you don't run errands. Besides, didn't I hear somewhere you've a head for heights?"
"Grew up in the hills, sir."
"She's good," Barak put in. "Doesn't pass out as fast as . . ."
One not of our blood. Chaya gazed at the model of Nûrnen, the Citadel, and the rocks. Moses was supposed to speak to the rock, but he struck it, and his death poured out with the water. Open, she commanded silently, but the stone kept its own secrets . . . mottled stone, easily worked until touched with fire. Laced with small, rich deposits of copper, platinum, iron, gold. By now, the miners of Nûrnen and the mujahedin had probably honeycombed those hills.
Chaya felt her lips stretch in a grin worthy of a death's head. "There is a way, isn't there? A secret way into the Citadel."
Hearing the secret with which he had hoped to buy his life tossed out like that, Strong Sven almost pissed himself the second time that night. Kemal's and Barak's grins made them almost look, God forbid, like brothers. And after a moment, Aisha began to laugh.
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