The Dance of Time: Chapter Thirty

The Thar desert

    Belisarius finally managed to force his eyes somewhere else. Staring at the empty well wouldn’t make it fill up.

    Not that he found the sight of the desert any prettier.

    “So, I gambled and lost,” he said to Ashot and Abbu, standing next to him.

    Ashot was still scowling down into the well. Abbu was scowling at the desert, his eyes avoiding the general’s.

    “It’s not your fault, Abbu.”

    The old bedouin grimaced. “This well was one of the best!” he protested. “I was worried about the last one. And another one some twenty miles farther. Not this one!”

    Finally, Ashot straightened up. “Wells are finicky in a desert like this. If the water table was reliable, we wouldn’t have had to dig our own. There’d have been wells already here.”

    The Armenian cataphract wiped the dust off his face with a cloth. “What do we do now, general? We don’t have enough water left to make the crossing to the next well. Not the whole expedition, for sure. A few dozen could make it, maybe, if they took all the water we still have.”

    “For what purpose?” Belisarius demanded. Not angrily, just wearily.

    He leaned over the well again, gauging the dampness at the very bottom. There wasn’t much.

    There were two decisions to be made. One was obvious to probably everyone. The other was obvious to him.

    “No,” he said. “We’ll send a very small force—five men—with all the water they need to cross the rest of the Thar without stopping. They might be able to reach Ajmer in time to bring a Rajput relief expedition, if Rana Sanga’s already gotten the word there.”

    Ashot winced. Abbu shook his head.

    “That’s a lot of ‘ifs,’ general,” said the Armenian. “If they can cross in time. If the Rajputs are already prepared. If they’ll listen to a handful of men in the first place. If they can get back in time with water before the rest of us are dead.”

    “The first ‘if’ is the easiest, too,” Abbu added. “And it stinks. Five men, crossing as fast as they can... It would still take them at least five days. Another week—at least—before they could get back with enough water to make a difference. That’s twelve days, general, at best.”

    Belisarius had already figured out the deadly arithmetic. If anything, Abbu was being optimistic—one of the few times Belisarius could ever remember him being so. Belisarius himself thought the minimum would be two weeks.

    In the desert, in the hot season, a man without water could not survive for more than two days before he started to die. And he died quickly, thereafter. Maybe three days, depending on the temperature. That assumed he found shelter from the sun and didn’t exert himself. If he did, death would come much sooner.

    If the Roman expedition shared all their remaining water evenly—and gave none to the horses—they’d run out in three days. At most, the moisture still seeping into the bottom of the well might provide them with another day’s water. Then...

    They might last a little over a week, all told. Not two weeks, certainly. Probably not even twelve days.

    There was no way to go back or to go forward, either. The last well was four days behind them, and it would be almost dry anyway after their recent use of it. The next well was at least two and a half days’ travel, according to Abbu, for a party this size. Since they had to water the horses also, while traveling, they’d run out within the first day. The last two days they’d be without water.

    So would the horses.

    They’d never make it. Not in the Thar, in the hot season.

    “I understand the arithmetic,” Belisarius said harshly. “It’s still our only chance.”

    The second decision, then.

    “You’ll lead the party, Ashot. Abbu, you go with him. Pick three of your bedouin for the remaining men.”

    Ashot’s eyes widened, a little. Abbu’s didn’t.

    “You’re not going yourself?”

    “No. I’ll stay here with the men.”

    “But—”

    “Be off, Ashot. There’s no time to waste. And there will be no argument. No discussion at all.”

    He turned and started walking away from the well.

    Are you sure? asked Aide, uncertainly.

    Yes. These men have been with me for years. I’m not leaving them to die. Not that, whatever else.

    Aide said nothing. His own survival was not at stake. There were things that could destroy Aide, Belisarius knew, although the jewel had always been reticent about explaining exactly what they were. But merely being without water for a few weeks—or even a few years—was not one of them.

    When Ashot returned, most likely he would find Aide in a pouch hanging from a corpse’s neck. But the jewel would be as alive as ever.

    Working through Ousanas would be the easiest for you, I think, Belisarius mused. But he’s probably not influential enough. You might try Rao, although there might be the same problem. The best would be Damodara, if you could reach him.

    I don’t want to talk about it.

    I understand. Still—

    I don’t want to talk about it.

 

---

 

    Ashot and Abbu left after sundown. Once they were gone, Belisarius addressed his bucellarii and the remaining Arab scouts.

    “We don’t have much of a chance, men. But it’ll be improved if we set up good shelters from the sun. So let’s work on that tonight. Also, we want to eat as little as possible. Eating uses up water, too.”

    One of the cataphracts asked: “Are you going to set up a rationing system?”

    Several of the Arabs who heard the question started shaking their heads.

    “No,” said Belisarius firmly. “Once we make an even division of what’s left, drink whenever you’re thirsty. If fact, after a few hours, drink something even if you’re not thirsty.”

    That cataphract and a few others seemed confused. Apparently, they didn’t have much experience with the desert.

    “Rationing water as a way of staying alive in the desert is a fable,” Belisarius explained. “It does more harm than good. You’re only going to live as long as your body has enough water, no matter what you do. All rationing does is weaken you quicker. So drink as much as you want, whenever you want. The bigger danger, actually, is that you won’t drink often enough.”

    One of the bedouin grunted his agreement. “Listen to the general.”

    “Oh, sure,” said the cataphract hastily. “I was just wondering.”

 

---

 

    Later that night, after the camp was made, Aide spoke for the first time since the decision had been made.

    They seem so confident.

    They’re not, really. But since I stayed with them, they have a barrier to fear.

    Yes. I understand. I always wondered.

    Wondered what?

    Why Alexander the Great poured onto the sand a helmet full of water that one of his soldiers had offered him, in that terrible retreat from India through the desert. It just seemed flamboyant, to me.

    Belisarius smiled. Well, it was flamboyant. But that was the nature of the man. I’d have just told the soldier to return the water to the common share. That difference aside, yes, that’s why he did it. His men might have died anyway. But by refusing the water, Alexander made sure they didn’t panic. Which would have killed them even quicker.

    I understand now.

    We still need to talk about the future. Your future. If you can reach Damodara—

    I don’t want to talk about that.

    After a while, he added: I’m not ready.

    I understand. We have some days yet.

 

---

 

    Meeting Raghunath Rao in the flesh was perhaps the oddest experience Antonina had ever had. That was not so much because she already knew a great deal about him, but because of one specific thing she knew.

    In another world, another future, another time, another universe, she had met the man. Had known him for decades, in fact, since he’d been Belisarius’ slave.

    In the end, she’d been murdered by the Malwa. Murdered, and then flayed, so her skin-sack could serve as another trophy. In his last battle in that universe, Belisarius had rescued her skin, and taken it with him when he leapt into a cauldron.

    She knew the story, since her husband had told her once. And she also knew that it had been Rao who washed the skin, to cleanse it of the Malwa filth, before her husband took it into the fire.

    What did you say to a man who once washed your flayed skin?

    Nice to finally meet you?

    That seemed... idiotic.

    But the time had come. Having exchanged greetings with the Empress of Andhra, Antonina was now being introduced to her consort.

    Rao bowed deeply, then extended his hands.

    She clasped them, warmly.

    “It’s nice to finally meet you,” she said. Feeling like an idiot.

 

---

 

    “Use the mortars,” Kungas commanded. “As many as we’ve got.”

    “We’ve got a lot of mortars,” Kujulo pointed out.

    “I know. Use all of them.”

    Kungas pointed at the Malwa army scrambling away from the pass. Obviously, whatever else they’d expected, they hadn’t thought Kungas would come plunging out of the Hindu Kush with twenty thousand men. Like a flash flood of steel.

    “They’re already panicked. Pound them, Kujulo. Pound them as furiously as you can. I don’t care if we run out of gunpowder in a few minutes. Mortars will do it.”

 

---

 

    Less than an hour later, the way out of the Peshawar Vale was clear. The Malwa army guarding Margalla pass had broken like a stick. Splintered, rather, with pieces running everywhere.

    “No pursuit,” Kungas commanded. “It’ll take the Malwa days to rally them. That gives us time to reach the headwaters of the Sutlej before an army can reach us from Multan.”

    Kujulo cocked his head. “You’ve decided, then?”

    “Yes. We’ll take the gamble. I want that bitch dead. With us coming behind her, right on her heels, we can drive her into the trap.”

    “What trap?”

    “The one Belisarius will be setting for her.”

    Kujulo cocked his head the other way. Kungas had to fight down a chuckle. With the plume on his helmet, he reminded the king of a confused bird.

    “Ah. You’ve been told something.”

    “No,” said Kungas. “I’m just guessing.”

    His head still cocked, Kujulo winced. “Big gamble. Based on a guess.”

    “Kushans love to gamble.”

    “True.”

 

---

 

    After Kujulo left to organize the march, Kungas summoned the Ye-tai deserters. They’d been standing nearby, garbed in their fancy new uniforms. Irene had had them made up quickly by her seamstresses, substituting flamboyance where time hadn’t allowed good workmanship.

    The armor, of course, was the same they’d been wearing when they arrived in Peshawar. The well-worn and utilitarian gear looked especially drab, against that colorful new fabric and gaudy design.

    “You’re promoted,” he told the squad leader. “I think we’ll use Greek ranks for the Royal Sarmatian Guards. That’ll make you sound exotic. Exciting.”

    “Whatever you say, Your Majesty.”

    “You’re a tribune. The rest are hecatontarchs.”

    The squad leader pondered the matter, briefly.

    “What do those titles mean, exactly? Your Majesty.”

    “I’d say that’s up to you, isn’t it? Get me some deserters. Lots of them.” He waved a hand at the low hills around them, much of their slopes now it shadowed by the setting sun. “They’ll be out there.”

    “Ye-tai only?”

    Kungas shrugged. “You won’t find many other than Ye-tai bold enough to come in. But it doesn’t matter. Anyone who’s willing to swear his mother was Sarmatian.”

 

---

 

    After the king left, the tribune turned to his mates.

    “You see?” he demanded.

 

---

 

    When the Emperor of Malwa reached the door leading into the inner sanctum of the imperial palace—the ultimate inner sanctum; the real one—he paused for a moment, his lips tightly pursed.

    That was partly because he’d have to submit to a personal search, the moment he entered, at the hands of Link’s special Khmer guards. It was the only time the divine emperor suffered such an indignity. As the years had passed, Skandagupta found that increasingly distasteful.

    But that was only part of the matter, and probably not the largest part. The emperor hadn’t come down here in well over a year. Entering the inner sanctum below the palace was always disturbing, in a way that dealing with Malwa’s overlord through one of the Great Ladies who served as its sheath was not.

    He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because the machines in the chambers beyond were completely unfathomable. A cold, metallic reminder that even the Malwa emperor himself was nothing but a device, in the hands of the new gods.

    He wasn’t even sure why he had come, this day. He’d been driven simply by a powerful impulse to do so.

    Skandagupta was not given to introspection, however. A few seconds later, he opened the door.

    There was no lock. He’d had to pass through several sets of guards to get down here, and the chamber immediately beyond the door had more guards still. Those quiet, frightening special assassins.

 

---

 

    The personal inspection was brief, but not perfunctory in the least. Feeling polluted by the touch of the guards’ hands, Skandagupta was ushered into the inner sanctum.

    Great Lady Rani was there to greet him. She would be Great Lady Sati’s replacement, if and when the time came. Standing against a nearby wall, their heads submissively bowed, were the four Khmer women who attended her, simultaneously, as servants, confidants—and, mostly, tutors. They were trained in the cult’s temple in far-off Cambodia, and then trained still further by Link itself once they arrived in Kausambi.

    “Welcome, Emperor,” said Great Lady Rani, in that eight-year-old girl’s voice that was always so discordant to Skandagupta.

    No more so than Sati’s had once been, of course. Or, he imagined, Holi’s in times past, although he himself was not old enough to remember Holi as a small girl. Link’s sheaths, once selected, were separated from the dynastic clan and brought up in ways that soon made them quite unlike any other girls. Link would not consume them until the time came, once their predecessor had died. But the overlord communed with them frequently beforehand, using the machines—somehow—to instill its spirit into their child’s minds. By the time they were six, they were no longer children in any sense of that term that meant anything.

    “What may I do for you?”

    The Emperor didn’t answer for a moment, his eyes moving across the machines in a corner. He did not understand those machines; never had, and never would. He did not even understand how Link had managed to bring them here from the future, all those many years ago. Malwa’s overlord had told him once that the effort had been so immense—so expensive, in ways of calculating cost that Skandagupta did not understand either—that it would be almost impossible to duplicate.

    “What may I do for you?” she repeated.

    The Emperor shook his head impatiently. “Nothing, really. I just wanted...”

    He couldn’t find the conclusion to that sentence. He tried, but couldn’t.

    “I just wanted to visit, ” he finally said, lamely. “See how you were.”

    “How else would I be?” The eyes in the eight-year-old face belonged to no woman at all, of any age. “Ready, as I have always been.”

    Skandagupta cleared his throat. “Surely it won’t come to that. Not for many years. Great Lady Sati is still quite young.”

    “Most likely. But nothing is certain.”

    “Yes. Well.”

    He cleared his throat again. “I’ll be going, now.”

 

---

 

    When he reached the landing of the stairs that led down to the inner sanctum, he was puffing heavily from the climb. Not for the first time, wishing he could make the trip in a palanquin carried by slaves.

    Impossible, of course. Not only was the staircase much too narrow, but Link would have forbidden it anyway.

    Well, not exactly. Link would allow slaves to come down to the inner sanctum. It had done so, now and then, for an occasional special purpose.

    But then the Khmer assassins killed them, so what was the point? The emperor would still have to climb back up.

 

---

 

    He was in a foul mood, therefore, when he reached his private audience chamber and was finally able to relax on his throne.

    After hearing what his aides had to report, his mood grew fouler still.

    “They blew up the tunnels again?” Angrily, he slapped the armrest of the throne. “That’s enough! Tear down every building in that quarter of the city, within three hundred yards of Damodara’s palace. Raze it all to the ground! Then dig up everything. They can’t have placed mines everywhere.”

    He took a deep breath. “And have the commander of the project executed. Whoever he is.”

    “He did not survive the explosion, Your Majesty.”

    Skandagupta slapped the armrest again. “Do as I command!”

 

---

 

    His aides hurried from the chamber, before the emperor’s wrath could single out one of them to substitute for the now-dead commander. Despite the great rewards, serving Skandagupta had always been a rather risky proposition. If not as coldly savage as his father, he was also less predictable and given to sudden whims.

    In times past, those whims had often produced great largesse for his aides.

    No longer. The escape of Damodara’s family, combined with Damodara’s rebellion, had unsettled Skandagupta in ways that the Andhran and Persian and Roman wars had never done. For weeks, his whims had only been murderous.

    “This is madness,” murmured one aide to another. He allowed himself that indiscretion, since they were brothers. “What difference does it make, if they stay in hiding? Unless Damodara can breach the walls—if he manages to get to Kausambi at all—what does it matter? Just a few more rats in a cellar somewhere, a little bigger than most.”

    They were outside the palace now, out of range of any possible spies or eavesdroppers. Gloomily, the aide’s brother agreed. “All the emperor’s doing is keeping the city unsettled. Now, the reaction when we destroy an entire section...”

    He shook his head. “Madness, indeed.”

    But since they were now walking past the outer wall of the palace, the conversation ended. No fear of eavesdroppers here, either. But the long row of ragged heads on pikes—entire rotting bodies on stakes, often enough—made it all a moot point.

    Obey or die, after all, is not hard to understand.

 

---

 

    Abbu returned the next day, with his Arab scouts.

    “Ashot stayed behind, with the Rajputs,” he explained tersely. “Just keep out of the sun and don’t move any more than you must. They’ll be here tomorrow. Thousands of camels, carrying enough water to fill a lake. We won’t even lose the horses.”

    Belisarius laughed. “What an ignominious ending to my dramatic gesture!”

    Now that salvation was at hand, Abbu’s normally pessimistic temperament returned.

    “Do not be so sure, general! Rajputs are cunning beasts. It may be a trap. The water, poisoned.”

    That made Belisarius laugh again. “Seven thousand Rajputs need poisoned water to kill five hundred Romans?”

    “You have a reputation,” Abbu insisted.