Treason Read online

"Then you must be insane. There's nothing believable about my story."

  "I have known you long enough to know when you tell the truth. I don't want you drawn and quartered tomorrow. Come with me."

  "You don't think you can get me out of this prison, do you?"

  "I can with help."

  She held my hand and led me through the corridors. She squeezed once when we reached steps going up, twice when the steps went down. We were as soundless as feet can be, and I, for one, didn't breathe. It was easier that way. My eyes were healing well; already they had their round shape; but it would take time for the nerves to heal properly, for vision to be fully restored. It was frightening to be blind and moving, like that dark night crawling along wet slick branches in Nkumai. That night I never knew what lay ahead. Nor did I this night-- but tonight someone held my hand and led the way. Tonight I trusted my life not to my instincts, but to a woman whom I had~ always thought of as being a little flighty. Loyal, of course, and wonderfully exuberant in making love, but not dependable. I was wrong, obviously. We met no one on the way.

  We stopped.

  "What are we waiting for?"

  "Quiet," she said, and I was quiet. After a few minutes I could hear the distant shuffle of footsteps. An old man, I decided from the sound. And then he was close and I felt arms going around me and an iron grip holding me and hot tears on my neck.

  "Father," I whispered.

  "Lanik, my son, my son," he said, and I wasn't afraid anymore.

  "You believe me."

  "You're my single hope." Always the old bastard regarded me as his hope, as if he had first claim on my loyalty before even myself. Well, he did.

  "Four much smaller hopes tomorrow," answered.

  He only held me tighter. "There are times when an honest ruler has to abdicate, and this is that time. They won't cut you up. I knew you'd never betray me, not permanently, anyway."

  "Not even temporarily," I said. "But now let's get moving before somebody notices that you're holding court down here."

  "We can't go yet," Father said. "We have to wait.

  "Why?"

  "Changing of the guard at dawn," he said. "We hope they'll be distracted."

  "The guard? You're afraid of the guard? Can't you just hide me and command them to let you through?"

  Saranna answered. "It's not that simple. Your father doesn't command the guard."

  "Well, who the hell does?" I whispered.

  "Ruva," said Father.

  I raised my voice. "The Turd rules in your palace!"

  "Quiet. Yes, she does, she and Dinte. They were plotting it before you left the palace, and once you were gone they made their move. I could have blocked them, I suppose, but I couldn't afford to kill my only heir, as I thought, and so I went along, pretending I didn't notice how my prerogatives were usurped, how my friends' offices became sinecures and the real power seemed to gather in much younger hands."

  "My mother tried to warn the court," Saranna said.

  "I had to sign her death warrant."

  "Why did you sign it?" I asked.

  "For the reason I signed yours," said my father. "She escaped and is living in exile in the north. In Brian, I believe. Her agents smuggled out half the fortune. It stopped when Ruva found the leak."

  "I see," I said.

  "When we heard you were commanding the Nkumai invaders, I was overjoyed. I used my influence, such as I have, to put our stupidest commanders, including Dinte, in the key positions. I opened the doors to the enemy. Thinking, of course, that you were coming to liberate me and the people from that ass I had the misfortune to many and that child your mother claimed was also mine."

  "It wasn't me."

  "I knew it couldn't be you when we heard how the armies were destroying everything. You're too wise for that. I knew it was a fraud. But then there were so many witnesses." He sighed. "I betrayed my own Family, thinking I was opening the door for my son to save me from my wife and our monstrous little whelp Dinte. Now the enemy ravages from Schmidt to Jones and it's only a matter of time before they cross the river and take this city. They'll surely do it soon. The rains will make the river impassable in a few more weeks." Suddenly he wept again. "I dreamed of your homecoming, Lanik. Dreamed that you'd come in triumph and lead these people into battle. You could have led my army to defeat the Nkumai. They must have known it. That's why they destroyed the people's love for you. Now we can only run."

  "Good enough," I said. "Let's start running."

  "The changing of the guard," Saranna whispered.

  "No," I said. "Dinte and Ruva are surely watching you. They probably left me unguarded just so you'd try this and get yourselves killed. You'd better go back upstairs, both of you, and pretend you had nothing to do with this."

  "Not this time," Saranna said.

  "We have to leave with you," Father said. "Things are intolerable here. We have a few hundred loyal men that I've already assigned to duty in the north. They're expecting us. They'll rally to us."

  "To you, you mean. Not a soul alive would rally to me. But we're not going to wait for the changing of the guard."

  "Then we'll be caught. Every gate is watched closely."

  I could see the flicker of Saranna's torch now. My vision was returning. "I'll create a diversion. The postern gate."

  "It's heavily guarded."

  "I know. Take me near there, but keep me out of sight. I can see faintly, and I should have full vision soon, but in the meantune I couldn't defend myself against a gnat. Once I'm there, you two be ready to spring for the water gate. I'll join you there."

  "'Blind?"

  "I know the way blindfolded. And by then no one will be looking for me.',

  "What kind of diversion can you creater, Father asked doubtfully.

  In answer I opened my shirt and showed them my chest. "Do you remember what grew here when you sent me away, Father?"

  He remembered.

  "It will never grow back. The Schwartzes cured me, as I told you. If they could manage that, don't you think they could teach me other things as well?"

  Saranna's hand brushed down my chest, like the dream I had lived through a hundred nights on the Singer ship.

  "Let's go," I said.

  They led me up the stairs and ramps and corridors that would take us to the postern gate. They left me in the window well over the palace door, where, if I could have seen, I would have scanned the courtyard before the postern gate in the palace walls. As it was I could see shapes, dimly; though torches were only bright sparks of light, I could see the flames dance.

  There was so much dead rock around that I was hampered, but I soon found the voice of the rock. Much was new; the soil, unlike the sand, had too much life in it. It was a barrier, not a channel. But at last I found the voice of the living rock. I explained my purpose, I asked for help, and the rock complied.

  I couldn't really see it happen. I could only hear the grinding of dead stones as the earth heaved under them and cast them from their piles onto the ground. There were shouts as the men from the postern gate ran to the breach in the wall. The earth kept heaving, and some were thrown to the ground. Others foolishly ran too close to where the walls were dancing, where great blocks of stone toppled from their place and crashed into the earth.

  I lowered myself from the window and walked the other way, toward the water gate. Saranna and Father and four soldiers leading seven horses waited in the shelter of a wall.

  "What did you do?" Father asked, in awe. "It was like an earthquake."

  "It was an earthquake," I said. "Just a little one. Big ones take a committee." Then I strode toward the gate. In the gathering light of predawn I could see again, though things were blurry, and with relief I noticed that the gate was unguarded-- the soldiers had run off to the breach in the wall.

  Unguarded, and so we passed through, Father and Saranna first, and then the soldiers. Which is why I was last and still unarmed when Dinte emerged from the shadows.

  I saw the gli
nt of torchlight reflected in steel. "How unequal we are," I said. "A mark of your courage."

  "I wanted to have no doubt of the outcome," he said.

  "Then you should have picked a different target," I answered. It was a simple thing to make sweat and oil seep out of his hands, so the hilt became slippery.

  He trembled; he couldn't hold the sword; it slipped out of his hand, and he looked at it there on the ground, horror in his eyes. He tried to pick it up. It slid again from his fingers. He rubbed his palms frantically on his tunic, leaving dark stains. Did he think he could dry his hands that easily? He tried again to pick up the sword, this time with both hands. He cradled it, then tried to lunge at me; I easily slapped it out of his hands. And this time it was I who picked it up.

  It would have been pure justice if I killed him, but he was screaming for help and he was my father's son, so I merely slit his throat from ear to ear and left him silent and bleeding on the ground. He'd regenerate and recover, as I had from the same wound more than a year ago. But at least he'd know that next time when he came for me, held have to bring some friends.

  I passed through the gate, still holding the sword, and mounted the horse they held for me. I said nothing of my reason for delay. If Father had heard Dinte's voice, if he guessed what had happened inside the gate, he said nothing about it.

  We rode north all day, and at night came to a military outpost that had once guarded Mueller's northern frontier in the old days, when Epson had been powerful and Mueller a peaceful farming Family with some strange breeding practices. The outpost was run down, but a quick count made me estimate three hundred or more horses, which meant there'd be as many men at least.

  "Are you sure they're friends?" I asked.

  "If not, we haven't much hope anyway," Father answered.

  "Either way, it would be better if you had this sword, and not I."

  I handed it to him. He looked at it and nodded. "Dinte's."

  "He'll recover," I said.

  "Too bad," Saranna said gruffly.

  "Maybe he'll do us a favor and die on his own," I said. But I was sure the wound was one he could recover from.

  Then we were at the outpost gates and the soldiers let us in and cheered Father, and he explained (very roughly) that it was an imposter and not I leading the Nkumai. I don't know how many believed him. But they were courageous men and loyal to Father; most cheered and none protested.

  "You're brave," he told them, "brave and worthy, but three hundred men are not enough." He ordered them to go back to their homes and bring as many loyal men as they could find. Wisely, he urged them not to mention that I was with him. Let them rally to the king, not to someone most would surely think of as a traitor.

  As the three hundred soldiers rode out to bring an army to us, we changed horses for the fifth time that day and rode on north into the darkness.

  "You must have been planning this for months," I said.

  "We weren't planning on you," Father said, "but we knew that sometime soon I'd have a crisis with my dear younger son and would have to be free to call on the loyal troops. We planned for contingencies."

  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 held 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 youre 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 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 withmy 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 he 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.