The Books of the Wars Page 2
And then, one supposes, people just stopped writing and turned their attentions to darker things.
The age that followed this collapse, the one which we are in now, has been given many names, none of them really miserable enough: the Darkness, the Pit, the Black Years, Badtime, and so on. For the year 1483 was merely the beginning, when the first vital parts began to fail. Separating this date and the present, there lie an indeterminate number of years during which things not only failed but changed and sometimes even grew.
In man, the change consisted, I think, of a loss; of what I cannot say, but the results of it are the ghastly societies of our times.
In the World, the change was more visible, or it would be to a citizen of the First World, had he the misfortune to be alive now. Our World has been twisted, warped, and torn so utterly out of shape that it bears virtually no physical resemblance to the First World. The people and some of their stories linger on, but that is all. Just how this monstrous dislocation was accomplished is probably beyond human ken, but its fact is undeniable; the maps and statistics in First World volumes could not all be complete fabrication, yet none of them bears the slightest resemblance to any portion of the World today. . . .
Five pages here seem to be missing or censored out.
How can I sum up an uncalculated age of confusion and darkness in a few pages? I cannot. My mind reels and stumbles as each passing minute reminds me of yet another tragedy, another catastrophe that my readings have prodded from my imagination with their mindless optimism, and which my direct experience has more than confirmed the possibility of. I am sickened and humiliated that the fate of my race and my World should come to such a dreadful and apparently permanent juncture.
Fragment of a manuscript found during the opening of the Black Library at Calnarith.
I
Sir Henry Limpkin's head servant had brought him word of the proposed meeting at a little past midnight; he had been sitting in his study sometimes drowsing, but he had been fully awake when the man entered and thus did not fly into his customary rage. An Office of Reconstruction officer treasures his sleep as some do pearls, but tonight it was not to be had.
When he was told that General Toriman's batman had brought a summons to his residence, he had slipped out of his smoking jacket and into a warm sports coat even before the servant had returned with his greatcoat and boots.
A hansom cab was called, and Limpkin left as soon as it arrived at his doorstep, leaving word that Lady Limpkin was not to be disturbed and that she should not worry if he did not return by morning.
Normally it is about a twenty minute drive to General Toriman's castle on the slopes of Mount Royal, but the icy slush slowed the cab's horse considerably. In the half hour that it took to reach his destination, Limpkin had a chance to think, his concentration broken only by an occasional curse from the freezing driver above and the hard thump of the iron shod wheels hitting a pothole.
After some ten minutes of driving they came to the city walls, were identified, and passed through, leaving the North Gate behind. They took the seldom-used River Road that curves off to the northwest just past the northern extremity of the walls; after a bit of fast trotting, Limpkin could spot the lights of Caltroon against the hulking immensity of Mount Royal.
Limpkin dismissed the cab at the castle's main gate (being careful to generously tip the frozen driver) and rang for admittance. "Your business, sir?" called a voice from the high battlements. Limpkin looked up but all he could discern were three flagpoles: to the right, Toriman's personal flag with the family coat of arms; to the left, the regimental banner of the 42nd Imperial Hussars, Toriman's unit before he retired, with a tangle of battle streamers flying above it; and in the center, the black and silver of the Caroline Republic. "Sir Henry Limpkin to see General Toriman, as requested," he shouted at the bodiless voice.
A small door opened on Limpkin's left; a man appeared with a lantern and a polite, "Follow me, if you please, sir?"
Limpkin was led across the icy courtyard, through Caltroon's second wall, past the now lifeless formal gardens, and finally into the Great Keep.
Caltroon's history could be traced back almost seven hundred years to the time when it had been but a small, fortified outpost of a forgotten empire. Since then at least thirty nations and a hundred great men had added walls, fortifications, towers, and, five hundred years after Caltroon's birth, the Great Keep.
It was a place of great antiquity, where the inherited relics of a thousand defeated nations lay, where crossbow-men of Toriman's personal guard patrolled over stone-filled shafts, housing the rusting shells of ballistic missiles six centuries old. The Toriman coat of arms, brought from distant Mourne with its mailed fist and winged horse, hung beside those of the greatest men that ever strode the World in those pathetic days. Everywhere one looked, his eye would alight upon the beautiful or the awesome, never anything else. For it was an identifying characteristic of the masters of Caltroon that they should prize beauty, because their lives were so often devoid of it, and power, because without that they would soon have no life at all.
Limpkin thought of all this as he was led through the labyrinthine rooms and halls. The bloodied lance of the present and the pitted rifle of past ages hung between a piece of exquisite crystal sculpture from Bannon der-Main and an illuminated manuscript from the Black Library at Calnarith. But the dust was gathering on the beautiful and the powerful alike. The castle and its master were, by slow degrees, dying. As am I, thought Limpkin wearily, as is the Caroline Republic, as is the World. The lot of them would never actually fall, but the dust would simply keep on piling up until they were all buried.
Limpkin absently recalled that once, when he had had lunch with Toriman and several other officers and civilians from the War Office, he had remarked to the General that mankind seemed to have lost something a very long time ago. As to what it was or as to when it had disappeared, Limpkin could give no clue. And Toriman had turned to him and said that he often got the same feeling; perhaps the missing essence could be found? Perhaps. Toriman was credited with stranger feats, and Limpkin had received unofficial word that the General had been wandering around the western wastes for the past four and a half months; perhaps this meeting . . .
Limpkin quickly abandoned this line of thought as the servant opened a door and stood to one side. "The General is waiting for you in his study, sir," he murmured, and vanished into the shadows behind Limpkin.
General Toriman's study was a colossal room more reminiscent of the nave of a cathedral rather than the cozy, walnut paneled dens that one usually associates with gentlemen's studies. Its wall consisted of hardwood bookcases running the length of the room. Row upon row of finely bound volumes, richly inlaid map trays, and celestial globes of all sizes filled the walls and dotted the floors on either hand. The far wall was dominated by a huge walk-in fireplace; its fire, along with four wrought iron chandeliers, lighted the vast room with a warm, pulsating glow. Replicas of the three flags that Limpkin had seen flying from the walls stood by the fireplace, their brocaded insignia glowing in the rust-yellow light. And once again, the Toriman coat of arms, this time made of burnished steel and brass, hung directly above the mantle. The rest of the wall was paneled with a deeply stained mahogany.
As Limpkin walked into the cavernous room, he became aware of the floor: black and white checkered marble. Even a room as large as this one could have been made more pleasant by the vast quantity of books and artifacts at hand; the warm fire, the soft light and darkness, the smell of fine leathers, paper, and rare wood were all canceled out by that cold floor. Leaf through one of the volumes and a soft rustling would be heard; listen to the fire: a pleasant crackling. But walk upon the floor, with the regimental insignia of the Army graven into the black squares, and you put a frigid screen over the soft beauty of the place. Limpkin crossed the floor quickly, his steel-tipped traveling boots clanking harshly on the polished marble.
Toriman's desk was set directly in front of the fireplace; it was almost as impressive as the room itself. It was at least seventeen feet long, made of a single slab of rosewood; it was supported by four thin, almost delicate legs which, along with the border that hung down about five inches from the rosewood sheet, were richly carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Complicated but not profuse gilt moldings ran around the desk.
Turned toward the fire was a rather large, high-backed chair; it too was done in rosewood with gilt embellishments. It was upholstered in black and gold brocade. General Toriman sat there, leafing through an ancient folio with the General's crest on the covers.
Toriman was old now, almost sixty-eight, and his face showed the reflected horror and misery of a lifetime spent on the battlefield. His hair, iron gray, was combed back severely and was remarkably thick for a man of his age. His face, with its interlacing network of lines and old scars, was a marvel of shadows; his deeply set eyes sat in two dark caves, betraying their presence only by an occasional glint as they caught the firelight. His sharp nose, solid jaw and almost lipless mouth completed the cold portrait.
As he rose to greet Limpkin, one could see that his marvelous physique of latter days had deteriorated only slightly; the General still carried his bulk with the brutal grace of an Imperial Hussar. Limpkin felt as if he had moved under a thunder cloud.
The two men were not the best of friends. Toriman had no real friends, but for the past ten years they had known each other fairly well. Toriman was the first to speak, apologizing for his dragging Limpkin out on such a beastly night, but he thought that he had come upon something which he and his Office should know about as soon as possible. He motioned toward another high-backed chair, this one not quite so large, which Limpkin pulled close by the fire. A servant brought in some
wine, and the General produced a small walnut thermidor from amid the clutter of maps and documents on the desk.
When both men had settled down with their goblets and cigars, Toriman spoke. "Limpkin, I hope that you will forgive the faulty memory of an old man, but am I correct in saying that your job involves something to do with the development of the nation? I think you told me at a party once, but as I said . . . " Toriman touched a finger to his forehead; firelight glinted off a gold ring.
"Yes. 'Getting the country back on its feet' is the usual phrase. Although I am, at times, really quite confounded as to how I am to recreate a world that I know nothing about and one which might"—Limpkin's voice dropped slightly—"exist only in legend." He brightened a bit. "But, it's an easy job; most hopeless ones are. I can sit in my fine office on George Street and fire off no end of orders and plans. And the results? My dear Toriman, you can see as well as I that the Caroline Republic and the rest of the World is nothing more than a sometimes-freezing, sometimes-burning hell hole. It appears that it has, for all intents and purposes, always been so and will continue to be so, or worse, until some benevolent deity chooses to bring it to an end."
"You paint a discouragingly black picture."
"The model is black"—Limpkin paused—"a fact which the exploits of the 42nd Imperial Hussars and other elements of other armies have not helped."
Instead of being insulted Toriman only seemed to relax a little. "Correct, more or less; I offer no apologies and no excuses. Those days are dead now." Toriman drew thoughtfully on his cigar and stared into the fire. "But we can hardly allow the unalterable past to sully the plotting of a brighter future, can we?"
"Hardly. Please continue," breathed Limpkin, more relieved than anything else.
"Do you remember, once, several years ago, I had had lunch with you and several other officials? And do you remember that you had taken me aside and remarked that the trouble with the World lay not in its barren fields, but within the spirits of the men who inhabit them?"
"Yes, of course. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking of that very instance on the walk here."
"Good, fine. I have a report"—Toriman lifted a fat folder from the desk—"whose contents I will not bore you with." He dropped it with a slight smile. "In substance, though, it says almost exactly what you had suspected: something has been lost. Call it the ego, the will to power, or whatever you mean; we both know what I am talking about."
"Then I was right?" Limpkin asked a little incredulously.
"Oh, quite right. Now, don't go complimenting yourself," Toriman said, smiling, the firelight glittering off his shadow-cloaked eyes. "Many men have suspected it before. The trouble is that few could prove it and fewer still would admit it to themselves. I must confess that even I had some trouble in getting used to the idea that most of the people alive today are virtually emotional eunuchs.
"But that is true, as I said, of only most. I hope that I am not being overly vain in considering myself in the minority. And I hope that my estimation of you, Limpkin, is equally correct. But back to the report. . . ." Toriman picked up the folder once again and began leafing through it.
"This essence, which neither of us can precisely name, was probably lost long before any modern records were penned. But the legends, as far as I can tell, contain a great deal of truth. I have traveled much in the service of my country"—Limpkin thought he could detect a trace of disgust, but he chose to disregard it—"into many strange—the rabble would call them enchanted—lands and I have seen many of the relics that our fathers left behind. They are older than you or I can ever possibly imagine; their character strikes the people dumb with awe—which, of course, defines our whole problem right there. The Grayfields with its fleets of spectral aircraft, overgrown with fireweeds and vines, but as real as my hand. The Fortress at the mouth of the Tyne River—beside it even my ancient and mighty Caltroon appears to be a wooden lash-up built only yesterday."
Limpkin was amazed and somewhat frightened to find the myths of his provincial childhood suddenly acquiring awesome substance; but he also found an odd comfort in it. "Please go on."
Toriman looked into his eyes for an instant and nodded. "Go on? How far shall I go on? For every legend there are ten actual wonders. The hulks of great ships, aircraft, and machines litter the edges of the World, and not even the legends attempt to understand them."
"Just by way of curiosity, why have we not heard more of these things?"
Toriman shrugged. "Who can say? The World is an incredibly vast place, far outpacing the estimates of even the wisest geographers. It is easy for even works of the Tyne Fortress' magnitude to become lost in it.
"Our World, Limpkin, the civilized one, is but a small island. The ravages of a hundred thousand pogroms, wars, inquisitions, and 'rectifications of history' have further helped to erase any sure knowledge of the past. The might and power and skills have almost all been purged from the earth."
Limpkin nodded and then simply asked, "How did it happen?"
"What happen?"
"The end of the First Days."
"Oh? Not even the Black Libraries can tell us that, but I can make a guess as to how long ago it happened: three thousand years."
"Small wonder that traces of the old World are so hard to find. It must have been an incredible cataclysm."
"Perhaps. Some volumes in the Black Library at Calnarith hypothesize an Apocalypse of some sort, but these accounts are always submerged in so much religious rot—Second Comings and the like—as to be almost useless. But whether our loss in man occurred just before any Armageddon or, more likely, as the result of one, is irrelevant. The thing was lost and then all the horrible decline followed. Perhaps men just went to bed one night, and when they awoke they found that the night had stolen something from them.
"In some places the fall was rapid and absolute, as it is in the far west and south. In other places, here for instance, the fall was slow and agonizing. Hell, Limpkin, if I see aright, we are still sliding and won't stop until our lands are as sterile as the Black Barrens, our cities occupied by dry rot and worms, and our descendants the pets of lizards."
"And now it is you, my dear General, who is painting the black picture. Obviously, you have brought me here to present a scheme for relieving the blackness. What do you suggest?"
Toriman blew a smoke ring and lightly said, "Rebuild."
Limpkin had expected something a trifle more original. He let out a little laugh. "General, I realize that that is the way out but certain rather formidable obstacles stand in one's way."
"Overcome them." The General seemed to have sunk into a pocket of conceit arising from his very evident ignorance of the real state of the nation; Limpkin wondered, for the smallest of moments, if the man was going senile. Limpkin patiently pointed out, "My Office has been working on that problem for the past century and we have come no closer . . . "