An Oblique Approach Read online

  "It first came to Michael, five days ago, in his cave in the desert. He took the thing in his hand and was transported into visions."

  Belisarius stared at the monk. Antonina, hesitantly, asked: "And you do not think it is witchcraft?"

  Michael of Macedonia shook his head.

  "I am certain that it is not a thing of Satan. I cannot explain why, not in words spoken by men. I have—felt the thing. Lived with it, for two days, in my mind. While I lay unconscious to the world."

  He frowned. "Strange, really. It seemed but a moment to me, at the time."

  He shook his head again.

  "I do not know what it is, but of this much I am sure. I found not a trace of evil in it, anywhere. It is true, the visions which came to me were terrible, horrible beyond description. But there were other visions, as well, visions which I cannot remember clearly. They remain in my mind like a dream you can't recall. Dreams of things beyond imagining."

  He slumped back in his chair. "I believe it to be a message from God, Antonina. Belisarius. But I am not certain. And I certainly can't prove it."

  Belisarius looked at the bishop.

  "And what do you think, Anthony?" He gestured at the thing. "Have you—?"

  The bishop nodded. "Yes, Belisarius. After Michael brought the thing to me, last night, and asked me for advice, I took it in my own hand. And I, too, was then plunged into vision. Horrible visions, like Michael's. But where two days seemed but a moment to him, the few minutes in which I was lost to the world seemed like eternity to me, and I was never seized by a paroxysm."

  Michael of Macedonia suddenly laughed.

  "Leave it to the wordiest man in creation to withstand a torrent like a rock!" he cried. He laughed again, almost gaily.

  "But for just an instant, when he returned from his vision, I witnessed a true miracle! Anthony Cassian, Bishop of Aleppo, silent."

  Cassian grinned. "It's true. I was positively struck dumb! I don't know what I expected when I took up the—thing—but certainly not what came to me, not even after Michael's warning. I sooner would have expected a unicorn! Or a seraph! Or a walking, wondrous creature made of lapis lazuli and beaten silver by the emperor's smiths, or—"

  "A very brief miracle," snorted Michael. Cassian's mouth snapped shut.

  Belisarius and Antonina grinned. The bishop's only known vice was that he was perhaps the most talkative man in the world.

  But the grins faded soon enough.

  "And what were your visions, Anthony?" asked Belisarius.

  The bishop waved the question aside. "I will describe them later, Belisarius. But not now."

  He stared down at the palm of his hand. The thing resting there coruscated inner fluxes too complex to follow.

  "I do not think the—message—is meant for me. Or for Michael. I think it is meant for you. Whatever the thing is, Belisarius, it is an omen of catastrophe. But there is something else, lurking within. I sensed it when I took the thing in my own hand. Sensed it, and sensed it truly. A—a purpose, let us say, which is somehow aimed against that disaster. A purpose which requires you, I think, to speak."

  Belisarius, again, examined the thing. No expression showed on his face. But his wife, who knew him best, began to plead.

  Her pleas went unheard, for the thing was already in the soldier's hand. Then her pleas ceased, and she fell silent. For, indeed, the thing was like the sun itself, now, if a sun could enter a room and show itself to mortal men. And they, still live.

  The spreading facets erupted, not like a volcano, but like the very dawn of creation. They sped, unfolding and doubling, and tripling, and then tripling and tripling and tripling, through the labyrinth that was the mind of Belisarius.

  purpose became focus, and focus gave facets form.

  identity crystallized. With it, purpose metamorphosed into aim. And, if it had been within the capacity of aim to leap for joy, it would have gamboled like a fawn in the forest.

  But for Belisarius, there was nothing; nothing but the fall into the Pit. Nothing but the vision of a future terrible beyond all nightmare.

  Chapter 2

  Dragonbolts streaked overhead. Below, the ranks of the cataphracts hunched behind their barricade. The horses, held in the rear by younger infantrymen, whinnied with terror and fought their holders. They were useless now, as Belisarius had known they would be. It was for that very reason that he had ordered the cataphracts to dismount and fight afoot, from behind a barricade built by their own aristocratic hands. The armored lancers and archers, once feared by all the world, had not even complained, but had obeyed instantly. Even the noble cataphracts had finally learned wisdom, though the learning had come much too late.

  What use was a mounted charge against—?

  Over the barricade, the general saw the first of the iron elephants advancing slowly down the Mese, the great central thoroughfare of Constantinople. Behind, he could see the flames of the burning city and hear the screams of the populace. The butchery of the great city's half-million inhabitants was well underway, now.

  The Malwa emperor himself had decreed Constantinople's sentence, and the Mahaveda priests had blessed it. Not since Ranapur had that sentence been pronounced. All that lived in the city were to be slaughtered, down to the cats and dogs. All save the women of the nobility, who were to be turned over to the Ye-tai for defilement. Those women who survived would be passed on to the Rajputs. (At Ranapur, the Rajputs had coldly declined. But that was long ago, when the name of Rajputana had still carried its ancient legacy. They would not decline now, for they had been broken to their place.) The handful who survived the Rajputs would be sold to whatever polluted untouchable could scrape up the coins to buy himself a hag. There would be few untouchables who could afford the price. But there would be some, among the teeming multitude of that ever-growing class.

  The iron elephant huffed its steamy breath, wheezing and gasping. Had it truly been an animal, Belisarius might have hoped it was dying, so horribly wrong was the sound of the creature's respiration. But it was no creature, Belisarius knew. It was a creation—a construct made of human craft and inhuman lore. Still, watching the monstrous thing creeping its slow way forward, surrounded by Ye-tai warriors howling with glee at their anticipated final triumph, the general found it impossible to think of it as anything other than a demonic beast.

  Belisarius, seeing one of the cataphracts take up a captured thunderflask, bellowed a command. The cataphract subsided. They possessed few of the infernal devices, and Belisarius was determined to make good use of them. The range was still too great.

  He stroked his grey beard. Of his youth, nothing remained save whimsy; it amused him to see how old habits never die. Even now, when all hope had vanished from the mind of the general, the heart of the man still beat as strongly as ever.

  It was not a warrior's heart. Belisarius had never truly been a warrior, not, at least, in the sense that others gave the name. No, he was of unpretentious Thracian stock. And, at bottom, his was the soul of a workman at his trade.

  True, he had been supreme in battle. (Not war, in the end; for the long war was almost over, the defeat total.) Even his most bitter enemies recognized his unchallenged mastery on the field of carnage, as the display of force coming down the Mese attested. Why else mass such an enormous army to overcome such a tiny guard? Had any other man but Belisarius commanded the Emperor's last bodyguard, the Mahaveda would have sent a mere detachment.

  Yes, he had been supreme on the battlefield. But his supremacy had stemmed from craftsmanship, not martial valor. Of the courage of Belisarius, no man doubted, not even he. But courage, he had long known, was a common trait. God's most democratic gift, given to men and women of all ages, and races, and stations in life. Much rarer was craftsmanship, that odd quality which is not satisfied merely with the result sought, but that the work itself be done skillfully.

  His life was at an end, now, but he would end it with supreme craftsmanship. And, in so doing, gut the enemy's triumph
of its glee.

  A cataphract hissed. Belisarius glanced over, thinking the man had been hit by one of the many arrows which were now falling upon them. But the lancer was unharmed, his eyes fixed forward.

  Belisarius followed the eyes and understood. The Mahaveda priests had appeared now, safely behind the ranks of the Ye-tai and the Malwa kshatriyas manning the iron elephant. They were drawn forward on three great carts hauled by slaves, each cart bearing three priests and a mahamimamsa torturer. From the center of each cart arose a wooden gibbet, and from the gibbets hung the new talismans which they had added to their demonic paraphernalia.

  There, suspended three abreast, hung those who had been dearest to Belisarius in life. Sittas, his oldest and best friend. Photius, his beloved stepson. Antonina, his wife.

  Their skins, rather. Flayed from their bodies by the mahamimamsa, sewn into sacks which bellied in the breeze, and smeared with the excrement of dogs. The skin-sacks had been cleverly designed so that they channeled the wind into a wail of horror. The skins hung suspended by the hair of those who had once filled them in life. The priests took great care to hold them in such a manner that Belisarius could see their faces.

  The general almost laughed with triumph. But his face remained calm, his expression still. Even now, the enemy did not understand him.

  He spit on the ground, saw his men note the gesture and take heart. As he had known they would. But, even had they not been watching, he would have done the same.

  What cared he for these trophies? Was he a pagan, to mistake the soul for its sheath? Was he a savage, to feel his heart break and his bowels loosen at the sight of fetishes?

  His enemies had thought so, arrogant as always. As he had known they would, and planned for. Then he did laugh (and saw his men take note, and heart; but he would have laughed anyway), for now that the procession had drawn nearer he could see that the skin of Sittas was suspended by a cord.

  "Look there, cataphracts!" he cried. "They couldn't hang Sittas by his hair! He had no hair, at the end. Lost it all, he did, fretting the night away devising the stratagems which made them howl."

  The cataphracts took up the cry.

  "Antioch! Antioch!" There, the city fallen, Sittas had butchered the Malwa hordes before leading the entire garrison in a successful withdrawal.

  "Korykos! Korykos!" There, on the Cilician coast, not a month later, Sittas had turned on the host which pursued him. Turned, trapped them, and made the Mediterranean a Homeric sea in truth. Wine-dark, from Ye-tai blood.

  "Pisidia! Pisidia!" There was no wine-dark lake, in Homer. But had the poet lived to see the havoc which Sittas wreaked upon the Rajputs by the banks of Pisidia's largest lake, he would have sung of it.

  "Akroinon! Akroinon!"

  "Bursa! Bursa!"

  At Bursa, Sittas had met his death. But not at the hands of the mahamimamsa vivisectors. He had died in full armor, leading the last charge of his remaining cataphracts, after conducting the most brilliant fighting retreat since Xenophon's march to the sea.

  "And look at the face of Photius!" shouted Belisarius. "Is it not a marvel, how well the flayers preserved it? Look, cataphracts, look! Is that not the grin of Photius? His merry smile?"

  The cataphracts looked, and nodded, and took up the cry.

  "So did he laugh at Alexandria!" cried one. "When he transfixed Akhshunwar's throat with his arrow!" The Ye-tai commander of the siege had disbelieved the tales of the garrison leader's archery. He had come to the walls of Alexandria himself to see, and scoff, and deride the courage of his warriors. But his warriors had been right, after all.

  New cries were taken up by the cataphracts, recalling other feats of Photius during his heroic defense of Alexandria. Photius the Fearless, as he had been called. Photius, the beloved stepson. Who, when his capture was inevitable, had taken a poison so horrible that it had caused his face to freeze into an eternal rictus. Belisarius had wondered, when he heard the tale, why his sensible son had not simply opened his veins. But now he understood. From beyond the grave, Photius sent him a last gift.

  The best, Belisarius saved for last.

  "And look! Look, cataphracts, at the skin of Antonina! Look at the withered, disease-ruptured thing! They have dug her up from the grave, where the plague sent her! How many of the torturers will die, do you think, from that desecration? How many will writhe in agony, and shriek to see their bodies blacken and swell? How many? How many?"

  "Thousand! Thousands!" roared the cataphracts.

  Belisarius gauged the moment, and thought it good. He scanned the cataphracts and saw that they were with him. They knew his plan and had said they would follow, even though it was an act of personal grace which would bring death to them all. He needed only, now, a battlecry. He found it at once.

  Through all the years he had loved Antonina, there was a name he had never called her. Others had, many others, even she herself, but never he. Not even the first night he met her, and paid for her services.

  "For my whore!" he bellowed, and sprang upon the barricade. "For my pustulent whore! May she rot their souls in hell!"

  "FOR THE WHORE!" cried the cataphracts. "FOR THE WHORE!"

  The captured thunderflasks were hurled now, and hurled well. The iron elephant erupted in fire and flame. The cataphracts fired a volley, and another, and another. Again, as so often before, the Ye-tai had time to be astonished at the force of the ravening arrows as they ripped through their iron armor like so much cloth. Little time, little time. Few but cataphracts could draw those incredible bows.

  Those Ye-tai in the front ranks, those who survived, then had time to be further astonished. They had been awaiting a cavalry charge, fully confident that the dragonbolts would panic the great horses. Now they gaped to see the lancers advancing like infantry.

  In truth, the cataphracts were slower afoot than on saddle. But they were not much slower, so great was their bitter rage. And the lances which ruptured chests and spilled intestines onto the great thoroughfare were every bit as keen as Ye-tai memories recalled.

  "For the whore! For the whore!"

  The front line of the Ye-tai was nothing but a memory itself as the second line pressed forward, avid and eager to prove their mettle. Most of these, following Ye-tai custom, were inexperienced warriors, vainglorious in the heedless way of youth, who had never really believed the tales of the veterans.

  They came to believe quickly. Most died in the act of conversion, however, for the mace of a cataphract is an unforgiving instructor. Quick to find fault, quick to reprove, and altogether harsh in its correction.

  The second line, thus, was shredded almost instantly. The third line held, for a time. It counted many veterans among its number, who had long since learned that cataphracts cannot be matched blow for blow. Some among them were able to take advantage of their great number to find the occasional gap in the armor, the rare opening for the well-thrust blade.

  But not many, and not for long. As wide as the Mese was, it was still a street hemmed by buildings. This was no great plain where the enemy could encircle their foe. As always, Belisarius had picked the ground for his defense perfectly. The Mahaveda, he had long known, relied too much on their numbers and their satanic weapons. But in that narrow place of death, closing immediately with their enemy so as to nullify the dragon-weapons, advantage went to the cataphracts.

  This was partly due to the strength of the cataphracts, to the awesome iron power of their armored bodies. But mostly, it was due to their steel-hard discipline. The Mahaveda had tried to copy that discipline in their own armies, but had never truly been able to do so. As ever, the Mahaveda relied on fear to enforce their will. But fear, in the end, can never duplicate pride.

  On that day of final fury, the cataphracts did not forget their ancient discipline. That discipline had conquered half the world once, and ruled it for a millenium. Ruled it not badly, moreover, all things considered. Well enough, at least, that over the centuries people of many races had come to think t
hemselves Roman. And take pride in the name.

  On Rome's final day, in truth, there were few Latins in the ranks of the cataphracts, and none from the city which gave the Empire its name. Greeks, in the main, from the sturdy yeomanry of Anatolia. But Armenians were there too, and Goths and Huns and Syrians and Macedonians and Thracians and Illyrians and Egyptians and even three Jews. (Who quietly practiced their faith; their comrades looked the other way and said nothing to the priests.)

  Today, the cataphracts would finally lose the world, after a war which had lasted decades, and would lose it to an enemy fouler than Medusa. But they would not falter in their Roman duty, and their Roman pride, and their Roman discipline.

  The third line of Ye-tai collapsed and pushed the fourth back. Incredibly—to the Mahaveda priests who watched, standing atop the skin-bearing wagons with their mahamimamsa flayers—the Byzantines were driving their way through the horde of Ye-tai. Like a sword cutting through armor, piercing straight to—

  They shrieked, then. Shrieked in outrage, partly. But mostly, they shrieked in fear. The Rajputs, the priests knew, never called the great general of the enemy by his name. They called him, simply, the Mongoose. It was an impious habit, for which the priests had reproved them often. They would have done better to listen, they realized now, watching the fangs of Belisarius gape wide.

  * * *

  "I see it worked," said Justinian. "As your stratagems usually do." The old Emperor arose from his chair and shuffled forward laboriously. Belisarius began to prostrate himself, but Justinian stopped him with a gesture.

  "We do not have time." He cocked an ear, listening for a moment to the sounds of battle which carried faintly into the dim recesses of the Hagia Sophia. The Emperor had chosen to meet his end here, in the great cathedral which he had ordered built so long ago.

  Ever the soldier, Belisarius had argued for the Great Palace. That labyrinth of buildings and gardens would be far easier to defend. But, as so often before, the Emperor had overruled him. For perhaps the only time, Justinian knew, that he had been right to do so.