The Books of the Wars Page 3

  "That is because you were not working with the right tools nor with the right technique," Toriman said amiably.

  Limpkin was beginning to get upset. "Perhaps being always on the business of war, dashing across the country from one campaign to another, you have not been able to examine the land and the common people as closely as I have.

  "I admit that, by comparison, the Caroline is in pretty fair shape; but what we are comparing it to . . . dammit, Toriman, stop grinning at me!"

  "Sorry, Limpkin." But he kept his grin.

  "The land is destitute; the collections of hovels that we call towns and cities are virtually ruled by juvenile gangs and vice lords; industry, such as it is, has maintained a steady 2.8–2.6% annual decline." He shot a frigid glance at Toriman. "And foreign wars ravage our fields, destroy our finest men, and bleed the state treasury white."

  "Why?"

  "What?"

  "I asked, why haven't these faults, which I have already outlined (so you see I am not a total dunce), been corrected by your Office."

  Limpkin was getting progressively more irritated. "We have tried. Didn't I tell you that? The cellars of the Office are glutted with copies of orders and directives to the Government, our own regional offices, to the people themselves; some of these orders are more than eighty years old! We've sent out every kind of order, used every kind of appeal, threat, or tactic that we could think of, but the letters go out and that is the last we ever hear of them. Send a man out and he comes back empty-handed or beaten to a pulp, depending upon the temperament of the people.

  "Ah, the people! The bloody-damn, sacred people! Tell them that their very lives depend upon a dam or upon the repair of a city's walls and it's like talking down an empty well. It's almost as if the men were less than men, as if"—Limpkin lifted an eyebrow—"they had lost something." Toriman smiled briefly, his face a harlequin mask of shifting light. "All right then, once again we have come upon this fact. Now what?"

  "First of all, my agitated friend, perhaps we should qualify ourselves by saying that this essence has not really been lost, but rather has been, ah, anesthetized by three millennia of simple hell. Acceptable?"

  "It seems to be your conversation."

  "All right, we don't have to go traipsing off into the Barrens or some other objectionable place looking for enchanted vials with this thing in them. All we have to do is awaken it in the citizenry."

  "Ah, there you are. Just what my Office and its counterparts have been trying for years to find. With all due respect, General, you have told me nothing that I did not already suspect, and if you can offer nothing more original and concrete than these philosophical or psychological meanderings, then we can both count the night a failure."

  Toriman took a puff on his cigar and then suddenly crushed it in an ebony ash tray on the desk. "Yes, quite right. We have had enough of cigar and brandy talk. Enjoyable, but time consuming." The General's voice shifted emphasis subtly. He heaved himself out of the chair and vanished into the shadows past the fireplace. He was back in a second, towing a wheeled frame with a map strung between its uprights. He pushed the chart in front of the fire so that the translucent vellum took on a three-dimensional aspect when view from the front.

  Limpkin studied the map. To his right in the east was the Sea and the coastline of the World. He could recognize the Maritime Republics, New Svald, and the Dresau Islands off the Talbight Estuary. Above and below this, the seacoast was pockmarked by minor nations with progressively unfamiliar names (some of which, such as Truden and Dorn, he had previously thought of as existing only in children's tales).

  He caught a reference point, the free city of Enador to the south of the Talbight Estuary, and followed the Donnigol Trace westward until it reached the southern extremity of the Caroline. Around his homeland were her neighbors and their sister nations; very comforting, but the eye could not help but notice that they comprised only a very small portion of the map.

  Ignoring the smile of satisfaction that Toriman was wearing, Limpkin got up and unabashedly gawked at the illuminated chart. The fire behind it made it look as if the World were floating on a sea of molten glass. The cartography was flawless; mountains appeared to be in relief and the rivers seemed to flow with turquoise water. Many of the countries had their national standards painted under their names: the golden eagle of the House of Raud, the winged horse and mailed fist of Toriman's own Mourne, the four stars of Svald and the seven of New Svald, and the indecipherable rune-standard of the tribes which laid claim to the heraldry from Heaven and Earth and less savory realms and deposited them on this fantastic map.

  Toriman eased back into his chair and began talking. Limpkin at once saw that his was to be a virtual lecture and the guise of dialogue would be discarded. Toriman began. "Limpkin, before you lies the concentrated knowledge of too many years spent in places that I and the other people who helped to make this map had no business being in. Rather like a partial outline of . . . "

  "Hell," Limpkin meekly offered. Torman accepted it without notice and moved on.

  " . . . of hell, although I must own that Purgatory seems like a better term; more varied, you know.

  "The map itself represents an unknown percentage of the World. Beyond its precincts lie, one would suppose, more lands and seas and oceans, but of them we have not even legends. But for all intents and purposes, this map will be more than adequate." Toriman got up from his chair again and stood before the glimmering charts; he lit another cigar and used it like a pointer. "Now, here we are. Around us, of course, are ringed our neighboring states. Direct your attention, if you please, to our northernmost province, number 18, which goes by the name of Tarbormin, I believe. Up there, in those desolate highlands, lies a lake, unnamed, from which springs a river, also unnamed. It flows down, out onto this plain"—tracing the course of an incredibly thin streak of blue with the glowing cigar—"where it crosses into our illustrious and thoroughly detestable sister state of Yuma.

  "It continues across Yuma, having acquired a name, the Tyne, and quite a bit more water, past the Armories, and finally down into the Imperial Vale where it is lost to common knowledge.

  "Once into the Vale, the Tyne becomes quite a large river. In one spot, Bloody Ford, it's almost a mile across. That name is mine, I'm afraid." Toriman's voice shifted slightly, away from the tone of absolute command. "The 42nd had been pursuing bandits and we were quite taken up in the chase until the half-men and their wild dogs set upon us." Toriman gazed off into the pulsating darkness for a moment and then returned his eyes to the map. "Forgive me, Limpkin, I will try to stick to essentials; but there are so many memories here, all either bitter or awesome ones, never beautiful, except for one." Again his eyes wandered, this time to the northern reaches of the World where the coastline dissolves into a shattered patchwork of fjords and inlets. The tight skin went slack about his face and his eye-pits fell to the cold marble floor. "Again, Limpkin, your pardon. This is almost turning into an expedition into a life I would rather forget."

  "A woman?" Limpkin questioned, hardly knowing he had said it.

  "Yes," replied Toriman in a distracted manner. Limpkin was mildly astounded that Toriman was capable of even approaching such a thing as affection.

  "And now?"

  "Dead, for this was in my youth, so very, very long ago; dead by my own hand, I suppose, but that was in the days when we still used the Plague as a tactical weapon." He. shook his head like a man rising from a heavy sleep. "The Tyne," he continued abruptly, the scarred skin again drawn tautly against the skull, the eyes flashing in their dark sockets; so sudden was the change that Limpkin instantly dropped the thought of questioning the General on a point: that the Caroline Army had never used the Plague as a weapon because of its unpredictability. "The Tyne exits the Imperial Vale here, after about six hundred miles, and curves southward until it finally reaches down to here." Toriman outlined an area near the bottom of the map. "It enters the Black Barrens where, through some ancient wizardry, or more likely radiation poisoning, the land is as sterile as an operating theater. Finally the Tyne flows into the sea, whose probing arm you can just see here along the bottom of the map; here we find our elusive goal.

  "On the western side of the delta stands the Tyne Fortress, which I told you about earlier, and on the other bank, the eastern one, lie the Yards."

  "Yards . . . ?" Once again Limpkin was totally in the dark.

  Toriman looked slightly exasperated. "No legends? Curious, the people of western Yuma certainly have enough about it." Toriman resumed his seat and picked several sheets of paper from a folder. "Briefly, the Yards are an enigmatic, to say the least, expanse of concrete situated on the banks of the Tyne delta. I have no absolutely sure information on who might have built them, for what purpose, or anything along those lines; but I can guess that the Fortress and a rather curious structure several miles upriver called Gun Hill were constructed for its defense." The General looked at the papers on the desk for a moment. "Just as an aside of no significance, all the main armament of the Fortress and what is left of Gun Hill's battery are pointed west; but all of these affairs are of great antiquity so I shouldn't think that any menace they were supposed to combat is still alive.

  "The Yards themselves are approximately four miles wide, five where they reach down to the Sea, and about nine miles long. Along the middle of this field, and running about ninety percent of its length, is a huge elevated ramp or slipway of truly titanic dimensions; this ramp runs into the Sea and drops off into an excavated trench leading to deep water. All about the Yards lie mile upon mile of rail track with what appear to be carriages for cranes still on them and in operating condition.

  "There are huge storage caverns emplaced under the surface of the concrete, which are fi
lled with more machinery and equipment; also, there are vast rooms apparently devoted to the design of—but more of that later.

  "I spent quite some time in and around the Yards—I was almost killed when I strayed into one of the Fortress' minefields. One can still trace out what must have been a complex of roads leading away from the Yards and through what I think may be the remains of a town that surrounded them. Of these ruins, there is little except for a spectacular tower located in the middle of the Delta. Its name was Westwatch; once it might have been tied to the Yards and the Fortress by several large bridges, but this is almost pure speculation.

  "So here we have four structures. The tower is but a hollow shell now, but its thousand foot height might have been used to watch for whatever the Fortress was supposed to fight. But it would be best to leave the Fortress alone, for I suspect that despite its fantastic age the equipment inside of it is still quite alive and eminently capable of accomplishing its purpose: killing. Then there is Gun Hill. Who can fathom it? Huge, incomprehensible machines which remind my military mind of nothing so much as the mounts for siege cannon." Toriman paused for a sip of wine.

  "I am astounded," mumbled Limpkin in a dazed voice. "They must have been incredible men."

  "If they were men at all. No, now don't look so surprised." Toriman's expression changed from one of complete command to one of perplexed doubt; the eyebrows arched and the lips were tightly pursed. The voice, usually so beautifully sure and commanding or reaching downward for some lost, gentle sorrow, was now halting and confused. "I know very little of those that built the Yards and the Fortress and I can only express a personal opinion of them: they were not"—the General stopped uneasily and searched for the words—"not of my kind of flesh and blood. They were different, Limpkin, and fanatically dedicated to ideals totally at odds with those I hold eternally sacred; I can only feel this, smell it in the wind that blows from Gun Hill or the Fortress, but I feel it as strongly as I feel the strength of Caltroon's walls. There is an essence inhabiting those ruins which I cannot help but feel would, if given physical substance, try to kill me. Lord, just talking about it brings a fear to my heart; can you feel it too, Limpkin?"

  Limpkin said yes, he did, but in a guarded tone, for while he knew that anything Toriman could fear should have thrown him into a panic, all he could feel was a great deal of puzzlement at the General's reaction and an irrepressible sense of worshipful pride in hearing of the great buildings. It was almost as if he had been descended from the race that Toriman now said he hated. Limpkin thought it best to try to return the conversation to its original course. "But what has this to do with us? The builders are dead, they must be, for such great power in the hands of the living could hardly have escaped the World's notice."

  Toriman brightened at this. "Quite right, Limpkin; just a personal opinion, but one which I think you will share more closely when you see the Yards for yourself. But even if you do not feel it as strongly as I when you look upon the land, you will feel a deep fear for the countries that surround it and us. And if not fear, then hate; the World is up to here with it. The World is your hell, my purgatory; it is a . . . "

  " . . . prison," Limpkin again filled in unexpectedly; Toriman's mask-face broke into something really approaching a wide grin.

  "Precisely. And when a man is unjustly condemned to a prison, what is his first desire?"

  "Why, to escape, naturally."

  "Again right. But in our case the prison, the World, is so escapeproof that the sheer weight of despair has weighed us down and killed hope itself. This is why that sleeping bit of motivation has never awakened. Even if it did, it would probably die of starvation. Despair, Limpkin, is the key. What we need is the antithesis of despair: hope."

  "Obviously, but isn't this just . . . "

  The General held up his hand. "From the brief sketch I have given you, what do the Yards sound like they were built for?"

  Limpkin thought for a moment. "A shipyard?" he asked in a cracked voice.

  Toriman's fear of a moment ago was now completely banished by this new factor. "Yes, quite, exactly. A shipyard, the obvious conclusion. And I will further confess to you that any ships that might have issued from the Yards did not sail upon any sea."

  "Meaning?"

  "The night sky . . . "

  "A starship!" Limpkin almost screamed with rage that Toriman should climax his tale with such an absurdity. "Toriman, is this your great antithesis of fear? This?"

  Again Toriman halted him with a gesture of the hand and a turning of the head. "I am dead serious. No proof, none at all, but this conclusion is inescapable."

  "But no nation, not even the whole World, could have actually built . . . " Limpkin rolled his eyes at the mere thought of the size of such a ship.

  "Why not? Someone built the Fortress and the Yards; remember, they were not crippled by the dead air of the World. Now, what I propose is that the Caroline build a duplicate; I have found quite a few fragmentary plans left, and the Yards' cellars are filled with parts. Make it the escape route, the way out of this vile prison."

  "Escape to where, if I might ask?"

  "That," said Toriman with a wave of his hand, "is a minor detail."

  "I'm afraid, General, that I have been led into too many pits of ignorance by your convoluted manner of speaking. The idea of a starship lifting us all to a, hopefully, better world is certainly intriguing, if impossible."

  "But the ship's primary purpose will not be one of simple transportation, but that of a Cause, the thing about which all the dormant hopes of our nation can crystallize.

  "And here is the trick: the ship will betray the people for their own good. Here, look at this." Toriman unfolded one of the sheets he had removed from the folder. Standing up, he laid the report aside and spread the paper out on the desk. Limpkin also rose and saw on it a beautifully executed "artist's conception" of what must be Toriman's ship.

  It was an overpowering thing; incredibly long and thin, it looked exactly as one might suppose a starship to look like. Its sharp, pointed nose hovered far above the flat expanse of the Yards; the body curved back, dolphin-like, to a pointed tail atop which grew a single vertical fin of unimagined height. The delta wings started about one-quarter of the way down the hull, slanting to a sharper angle as they grew, and finally ending in a straight dropoff at right angles to the ship.

  "Beautiful, Toriman, just magnificent. The engineer who conceived of it had the soul of an artist," said Limpkin, half joking.

  "This total plan was designed, as were most of the things for which we have no plans, by a psychologist. As a mere carrier of human freight, it would be a practical failure, but it is a lot more likely to capture the imagination of an illiterate peasant than a dun colored sphere."

  "How large will, ah, would she be?"

  Toriman turned to Limpkin. "She'll be about seven miles long, a third of a mile in diameter, and have a maximum wingspread of three and a half miles. The tail will rise about five-eighths of a mile above the hull." Toriman sipped some wine; Limpkin collapsed into his chair, trying to decide whether to laugh or pity Toriman. "Has it captured your imagination, Limpkin?" questioned Toriman solicitously.

  Limpkin could only grimace. "Are you serious about this thing? Really? Even if those of the First or some other World could build it, this World hasn't a chance."