Treason (17 page)

Dissent had already set for the second time that night when we finally stopped at a farmhouse well off the road. The house was right at the bank of the Sweet River. The wind was cool out of the eastern hills that led to Ku Kuei. The fire in the hearth was hot and fierce, and the host forced us to eat soup before he’d let us go to bed.

The bodyguards slept on the ground floor. And when the host showed me to my room, Saranna was already on my bed, waiting for me.

“I know you’re tired,” she said. “But it’s been a year.”

As she undressed me I looked out the window onto the rolling wheat-covered hills to the east, where the sun rose out of Ku Kuei, and I felt the breeze playing across my body while Saranna tickled me (nothing forgotten, not even now), and I smelled the reek of horseflesh in my own clothes and the fresh whitewash the host had used a week ago, and it was good to be home.

After three weeks it was clear that ours would be an unnoteworthy rebellion. We had eight thousand soldiers, loyal to the core and some of the finest fighters in the kingdom. But Father’s treasury fed them and armed them to no avail: Rumors came, which soon were verified, and we knew our cause was lost. Dinte had signed a treaty with the Nkumai. Now there were 120,000 men against our tiny army. Father and I might have been better generals, but there are limits to what a general can do.

What hurt us worst, however, was the fact that the Nkumai, apparently from the day I was captured, had put their duplicate Lanik into cold storage and started publicly declaring that I had indeed been with them, but had been captured by Mueller forces and was now a defector with my father’s army. And as soon as they started that story going, they ended the policy of wasting the land, claiming that the destruction had been entirely my idea and they were grateful to be able to quit.

It did nothing to make me popular or my story of a twin believable, and troops weren’t exactly flocking to my banner. We tried to conceal the fact that I was with Father, but some stories can’t be kept secret.

So there we were with eight thousand men, a full treasury, and not one choice except to run away. Of course the Nkumai and dear Dinte chose that moment to join forces on the north side of the Mueller River and head straight for us.

“We’ll die heroically,” said Harkint, who still didn’t trust me.

“I’d rather live,” I said.

“We know your preferences,” he answered coldly.

“I’d rather all of us lived. Because it won’t take long with Dinte in command before people start clamoring to have Father back.”

“It wouldn’t take long
now
, if you weren’t with us,” said another soldier, and a murmur of assent came from the others gathered in the large room of the house. Father frowned at him, but the soldier was right. I was Father’s chief liability. Lose me, and he’d be able to raise more of an army. Maybe ten, fifteen thousand more. Still not enough.

“I have a plan,” I said. “And it will work.”

The next morning we set out along the Sweet River. We made no secret of our direction and we traveled at a leisurely pace. The river ran southwest, and anyone with half a brain could guess we were heading for Mueller-on-the-Sea, the great port on the Rebel River delta where the fresh water spewed out into the saltwater Sleeve. Strategically it was vital, and the fleet, if we could reach it first, would take us to Huntington, where the troops would still be loyal to Father and, not having seen the devastation, might not hate me as much. There we could wait and prepare an invasion.

This meant, of course, that Dinte and the Nkumai would race us for the fleet and get there first. I had no objection. After all, even if we got to Huntington safely we would be permanently in exile; with the Nkumai getting both our iron and their own, there would be no resisting them. So when we reached the point where we had to leave the river no matter where we were going, since the river jogged to the west, I ordered our army to begin a doubletime race, not southwest for Mueller-on-the-Sea, but southeast for the Great Bend of the Mueller River, where we would be free to go eastward, gathering strength among the recently conquered and none-too-docile populations of Bird, Jones, Robles, and Hunter. It wasn’t the world’s likeliest or safest plan, but it was the best I could think of at the time.

We didn’t bother galloping—we went at the wagons’ best pace, which was still a good deal better, with each wagon lightly loaded, than Nkumai’s army of former tree climbers could make on foot. I could only hope that the enemy had got far enough westward, in the wrong direction, so that we could reach the bend before them. If we did, they’d never overtake us heading east, and we’d live to fight another day.

And if they did reach us, I had still another plan, but it was for the time when we had nothing left to lose.

As we rode southeast, there was little for me to do. Father knew his men and no one was eager to take orders from me. Instead I thought, and the subject that most often came to mind was the imposter, the all-too-true Lanik who was now out of a job.

It was an interesting speculation, what his life had been like. His creation had been bad enough for me—but for him, the first stirrings of consciousness began with someone who looked exactly like him trying to bash in his brains with a rock. And then what had the Nkumai put him through, believing he was me, before they finally caught on to what was happening? If I had been haunted by him before, in dreams, now he haunted my waking hours as I pictured the hatred they must have taught to him. You’re a monster to the men of Mueller, they must have told him. They’ll kill you if they ever know who you are. But if you work with us, we’ll install you on the throne and you can show them that you are someone to regard, with fear if not respect.

Had he actually led their armies? Perhaps. Were my memories transferred to him along with my body? If so, he would be a match for me on any battlefield, since he’d know my moves before I made them. Surely they’d keep him with them for that purpose if no other.

Whatever role he had actually played before, he was once again betrayed, unceremoniously dropped from any important role. Perhaps they’ve already killed him, I thought. Or perhaps he’s feeling as hopeless as I, knowing that there is no one more hated than he in all the West, and yet truly deserving none of the hatred at all.

I thought of Mwabao Mawa and wanted to strangle her.

No murder, I told myself. No killing. I have heard the song of the earth, and that is stronger than hate.

At such times I would ride off from the army, several kilometers ahead, and lie on the soil and speak to the living rock. Since I feared that I couldn’t control myself, I let the rock control me, restore me, bring me peace.

“They’ve set the Cramers free and they’re taking Mueller slaves,” one soldier who joined our army told us in horror. The reaction was electric—many of our soldiers had families in West Mueller, where the Cramers might be creating havoc with no one to defend our people. I was not surprised that our numbers began diminishing as soldiers slipped off to head southwest. I was even less surprised when most of our scouts failed to return. Still, we had to try to hold our army: I insisted that Father stop asking for volunteers for scouting missions.

We were only thirty kilometers from the Great Bend when the most important information of all came from someone we had never thought to see again.

“Homarnoch,” Father whispered as he saw the man madly driving a wagon along the road we had just come down. “Homarnoch! Here!” he cried, and the old doctor was soon beside us. We called a rest; the soldiers stopped on the road.

“No use,” Homarnoch said. “I’ve killed a brace of horses coming to tell you. The Nkumai didn’t take your bait. They only sent Dinte and his force to Mueller-by-the-Sea, and when you turned southeast the rest of them were ahead of you all the way. Not five kilometers off they’re waiting for you. They’ve been at the Great Bend for days.”

Father called his commanders and gave them orders to have our men prepare for a much faster march.

“We’ll fight them and win,” Harkint insisted.

“We’ll escape and survive,” Father answered, and Harkint went off in a rage.

While the preparations were going on, Homarnoch told us how and why he had come. “They were going to take everything—all our work for thousands of years. I wouldn’t have that. Not those tree-dwelling apes.”

I didn’t bother telling him that those tree-dwelling apes had given faster-than-light travel to the rest of the universe.

“So I poisoned the rads,” Homarnoch said.

Father was shocked. “Killed them!”

“They were five tons worth of iron on the hoof, Ensel, and I couldn’t let the inkers have that. So I poisoned them. Not even their fingernails’ll be worth a gram of iron in trade.”

I said nothing, but remembered a time when I had had five legs and an extra nose and still believed I was a man.

“I also got the library. The essential records. The theory. It’s all in that wagon,” he said, “and I burned the rest. With Dinte’s men in charge of the city, nobody even thought to keep me in.”

“A master stroke,” Father said. Homarnoch beamed with pride.

“Having the books with us doesn’t answer the real question,” I said. “What do we do now?”

“Harkint wants to attack,” Father said with a wry smile.

“Harkint’s a heroic ass,” I answered. “But I can see why he wants to do it. There’s nowhere else to go. Dinte’s men are between us and the sea, and there’s nothing in the north but Epson. They won’t be inclined to provoke Nkumai by taking us in.”

“Dinte’s no match for us.”

“He outnumbers us five to one. With odds like that they don’t need a competent commander.”

We sat in silence. Homarnoch mumbled something about needing to check the horses. And then Harkint came back. The troops were ready. “And what I want to know is, are we going into battle or running from it?”

“Running,” Father said. “The question is, which way.”

Harkint snorted. “I never thought the day would come when the Mueller would be a coward. I’ve followed you through everything that’s gone wrong, including harboring this Class A bastard”—meaning me—“but I’ll be damned if I’ll turn tail and run from a fight. And there’s others that feel like me.”

If he’d had any sense of the theatrical, he would have stormed off then. But he hadn’t. So Father answered. “Go through the troops then, Harkint, and ask for all who want to go with you. But tell them that the Mueller is withdrawing, and asks all men to come with him. You tell them that, and take all those who’ll go with you.”

Harkint nodded and left. I began scratching out a rough map of Mueller and the surrounding territories.

“South and west is out of the question,” Father said. “Everyone in Mueller would kill
you
, and everyone in Helper, Cramer, and Wizer would kill
me
.”

“And north is impossible,” I answered, “because Epson is too weak to protect us, and too strong for us to force them to take us in.”

“And we can’t reach the East because Nkumai’s army is in the way.”

“How desperate,” said Homarnoch lightly, looking over a sheaf of papers as he returned and stood a few meters off. “We have no hope. Let’s throw ourselves in the river and drown.”

It was time for me to broach my final, desperate plan. “There
is
a direction we haven’t tried.”

Father wasn’t slow. “Ku Kuei. But there are too many legends about the forest, Lanik. The men wouldn’t go in.”

“I’ve been through the forest. Not just around the edges. Through it.”

“And they’ll follow you anywhere.”

I laughed.

“Even if we got them in there, Lanik, what would we do? Nkumai rules the East, and the Singer armies are ruining the far north. What do we do in Ku Kuei?”

“Survive. Dinte can’t last forever.”

“You’re serious about us going there, aren’t you?” I could see that he was as afraid of Ku Kuei as anyone. Hadn’t I been? And hadn’t strange things happened in the trees, time seeming not to move, my body wearying beyond all expectation? Still, it was our only hope.

“There are legends about Schwartz, too,” I said. “Yet I went in and came out again, alive.”

“Do you think there’s still a Ku Kuei Family in there? Do you think they might have something valuable to offer?”

“The forest is strange and dangerous, even maddening. I met no one in there, Father, and I don’t expect to find anyone to help us this time. But even a faint hope is better than no hope at all.”

Father chuckled. “Lanik, I think such mad hope is the way you show despair.”

His amusement meant that he was softening. I pushed harder. “Would Dinte follow us into Ku Kuei?”

“Dinte? He believes all the legends. He closes his windows at night. He won’t cross water under a cloudy sky. He sings when the shadow of another man’s horse touches him. He’s a fool.”

“The Nkumai are not fools,” I said, “and they don’t go into Ku Kuei either. Forests are their native habitat. Ku Kuei scares everybody till their snot freezes. So if we can keep from panicking ourselves, we’ll be safe.”

More than we had expected chose to follow Harkint into battle. We formed the rest into a double column all the same, and began to march northeast. It was not a pleasant leavetaking. Some of the troops with us called abuse at Harkint’s men for abandoning the Mueller. Harkint’s men cried coward in return. The march was dismal as we went on our way, only five thousand men or so, with deserters dropping off all along the way. I couldn’t blame them, but forced those I caught to get back in line. They didn’t mind. They knew they’d get away in an hour or so, when no officer was watching.

We came to the fork in the road where escape to the north would mean following the main way left, while the smaller road east could only take us to Ku Kuei. Father’s speech was impressive. But we lost two thousand men right there, just as word reached us that Harkint’s forces had been slaughtered within a few hours of our having left. The Nkumai were close behind us, and they had rested for days while waiting for us at Great Bend—they were fresh and we were not.