S. Stirling - Against the Tide of Years

He stepped forward, parting the ranks of his guards until he stood alone in an open stretch of rooftop; that would have been impossible, were they not so shaken. There he had to grab at his hat; a great wind was coming downward from the thing, as if a mighty storm blew. Closer, he could see that below the sleek gray shape was another, this shaped like a boat with windows cut into its hull… and it was made of wicker. That reassured him, despite the alienness of every detail.

He cupped his hands and shouted upward: "If you come in peace, from whom do you come?" He spoke Akkadian, which all educated men learned.

"we send an emissary! greet him in peace, according to the laws of gods and men!"

Another door opened in the boatlike structure, this one in the bottom, and he could see the shapes of men there. Suddenly the thing snapped into perspective. A man came out of the hole, dangling in a canvas chair at the end of a rope; another rope uncoiled beneath it, striking the pavement near the king.

"Please take the rope and steady it!"

The bellowing made it hard to distinguish voices, but if that was a man's voice, it was another man than the first. And it spoke Akkadian. He looked behind him and signaled two guardsmen forward. They laid down their spears and shields gingerly and came forward to take the rope. It was perfectly ordinary cord, thumb-thick, woven of fiber; perhaps that reassured them. They grasped it firmly and pulled in lengths hand over hand as the man in the canvas seat was lowered down.

Ah, thought Tudhaliyas dazedly. That is to prevent him swaying back and forth like a plumb bob.

The canvas seat came within a few feet of the rooftop, and Tudhaliyas saw a man like other men-he felt disconcerted and obscurely angry, a part of his fear flowing away. The man hopped out, and the two guardsmen released the rope with a yell as it burned through their fingers. Looking up, the king saw that the thing had bounced upward a little, bobbing in the air like a feather.

The man was of medium height, dressed in a ceremonial robe and hat of the type men wore in Kar-Duniash or Assyria. His accent was of Babylon, though, as he advanced two steps and went down in a smooth prostration.

"O King, My Sun, live forever!" he cried.

Tudhaliyas' eyebrows shot up of their own accord. That was the accent of the God-voice that had bellowed down over the city.

"Who are you?" he blurted. "You may rise," he added automatically.

"O Great King, your slave is Ibi-Addad, son of Lakti-Marduk, a servant of your brother Great King Kashtiliash of Kar-Duniash, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Universe, to whom there is no rival."

This is madness, thought Tudhaliyas. Nothing so… so real could have come out of that thing. And…

"King Kashtiliash?" he blurted. "What of his father, Shagarakti-Shuriash?"

"Alas, O King, the father of King Kashtiliash has been gathered to his fathers."

The sun fell across their faces. The thing was soaring upward once again, turning and droning away to the south. Tudhaliyas felt some self-possession return as it departed.

"You will explain this to me, servant of the king my brother," be said sharply.

Ibi-Addad sighed. "O King, may the gods make your days many, that is going to be a difficult task."

The cannon still reeked a little of sulfur and death. Kathryn Hollard stood by it with one hand on a barrel, the metal still warm from discharge, watching as the long line of captives shuffled out of the area beyond the barricade. She felt sandy-eyed and exhausted after the night's fighting, but still far too keyed up to think of food or sleep. Columns of smoke still rose, but they were under control now, and none were too near. The reek of burning lay across the city, mingling with the usual stench.

She did take a swig from her canteen and handed it to Prince…

No, she thought. He's the king now.

… King Kashtiliash where he stood at her side. A few of his entourage were shocked at the informality; she could hear them gasp.

She would have laughed, if it hadn't been for the endless chain of civilians shuffling forward to surrender. Each one passed through a corridor of spearmen, stopping at the end to bare an arm for the inoculation-this station was manned by one of Clemens's retrained dancing girls-many moaning or sobbing as they did so, still convinced that it was a device of demons. Others came from the riot-torn districts on stretchers, the pox pustules clear on their faces.

Kathryn swallowed slightly; she'd gotten used to the butcher-shop horrors of the battlefield, somewhat, but this was something completely different.

Kashtiliash caught her look and walked a little aside, signaling her to follow with a slight movement of his head.

"You did very good work last night," he said. "If I had had to use only my own forces, many more would have died."

She shrugged, with a weary smile. "The First Kar-Duniash is your own, Lord King," she said.

"They are as you made them, and they did well," Kashtiliash said, sighing and rubbing his fingers across his brow. "Would that this had not been necessary."

"Amen," she said.

"It is strange," he said meditatively. "If I thought of it at all, before you-your people-came to the Land, I thought of Kar-Duniash as the center of the world."

"Everyone does that," Kathryn Hollard said.

Kashtiliash shook his head. "No, but we had reason. No realm we knew was more ancient than the land of Sumer and Akkad, or richer, or more learned, or more skilled in all the arts and knowledge. Oh, perhaps Egypt, yes… Mitanni was a thing of a day, the Hittites rude hillmen who learned from us, the Assyrians our onetime vassals. Of the world we knew, we were the center."

He sighed. "And now I must see us as you Nantukhtar see us- poor, ignorant, dirty, diseased. I have more of the English than you might think, and I have heard your brother and the asu Klemn's speak, and heard reports of what your soldiers and wisemen say. Locals, is that not the word? As we might term a hill-tribe, or a band of the truffle-eating Aramaeans."

"Lord Prince… Kash…"

"No, my Kat 'ryn, I do not say you regard me so-although they say that Ishtar gives blindness along with love. But it is not only that you Nantukhtar think of us so, but that it is so, which karks me. I have listened; your physicians can cure so many illnesses that we suffer; in your land no man goes hungry, and even peasants live like nobles; you have arts that make ours look like some child's fumbling, when he pinches out a little clay ox from the dirt of the fields; and you command a power that can kick apart our proudest cities like a hut of reeds."

"Kash… we just have a longer history. If we see further, it's because we stand on the shoulders of giants-your peoples' not least among them."

The Babylonian was silent for a long moment, then he nodded. "I have thought this also; it keeps my heart from bitterness."

"And we grow and beget and suffer and die too," she said.

"That also." His hand clenched on the hilt of his sword. "I swear by my father, and by the gods of the land, that I will not leave my kingdom and people poor and ignorant and powerless, not while there is strength in my hands."

Kathryn Hollard felt a sudden cold chill. It was only a little way from that oath to resentful hatred for the Republic and all its works…

"I'll help," she heard herself say. "All that I can."

He smiled. "That is very good. And now that I am king… many things may be arranged more as we desire them."

May-August, Year 10 A.E.

"Yes, sir. We're ready to move out from the bridgeheads on the upper Euphrates. Once Hangalibat is secured-it's still pretty chaotic up here, Chief-we can get in direct contact with the Hittites. From what Councilor Arnstein's saying, things are going pretty well there."