Eric Flint: Destiny's shield

Baresmanas turned his head, staring back at the fire. And now, for the first time since he learned of the Malwa butchery of Mesopotamia, could see the enemy roasting in the flames.

Belisarius.

It was the most beautiful cathedral Justinian had ever seen. More beautiful, and more majestic, than he had even dreamed. The capstone to his life. The Hagia Sophia that he had planned to build.

The Mese, the great central thoroughfare of Constantinople, began at the Golden Gate and ended at the base of the cathedral. Down its entire length-here in scatters; there, mounded up in piles like so much offal-were the bodies of the plague victims.

Half the city was dead, or dying. The stench of uncollected rotting bodies mingled with the sickly smell of burning cadavers to produce a thick miasma, hanging over Constantinople like a constant fog. The same miasma that he had seen hanging over Italy, and North Africa, and every province which Belisarius had reconquered for him.

Justinian the Great. Who, in the name of restoring the greatness of the Roman Empire, had bankrupted the eastern half to destroy the western. And left the entire Mediterranean a war-ravaged breeding ground for the worst plague in centuries.

Justinian the Great. Who, more than any other man, caused the final splintering of Greco-Roman civilization.

Justinian jerked erect in his chair.

"No more," he croaked. "I can bear it no longer."

He leaned forward and extended his arm, shakily. In the palm of his hand rested a shimmering, glowing object. A jewel, some might have called it. A magical gem.

Belisarius took the "jewel" from Justinian and replaced it in its pouch. A moment later, the pouch was once again suspended from his neck.

The "jewel" spoke in his mind.

He is not a nice man.

Belisarius smiled crookedly.

No, Aide, he is not. But he can be a great man.

The crystalline being from the future exuded skepticism.

Not sure. Not a nice man, at all.

"Are you satisfied, Justinian?" Belisarius asked.

The former emperor nodded.

"Yes. It was everything you said. I almost wish, now, that I had never asked for the experience. But I needed-"

He made a vague motion with his hand, as if to summon up unknown words.

Belisarius provided them:

"You needed to know if your suspicions were warranted, or not. You needed to know if the elevation of my stepson to the imperial throne stemmed from motives of personal ambition and aggrandizement, or-as I claimed at the time-from the needs of the war against the Malwa."

Justinian lowered his head. "I am a mistrustful man," he muttered. "It is rooted in my nature." He opened his mouth to speak again. Clamped it shut.

"There is no need, Justinian," said Belisarius. "There is no need."

The general's smile grew more crooked still. He had had this conversation once before, in a nightmare vision. "It would take you hours to say what you are trying to say. It will not come easily to you, if at all."

Justinian shook his head. "No, Belisarius. There is a need. For my sake, if not yours." Harshly: "I sometimes think losing my eyes improved my vision." He took a deep breath. Another. Then, like a stone might bleed:

"I apologize."

The third occupant of the room chuckled. "Even in this," he said, "you are still arrogant. Do you think you are the world's only sinner, Justinian? Or simply its greatest?"

Justinian swiveled his head.

"I will ignore that remark," he said, with considerable dignity. "And are you certain, Michael of Macedonia? Of this-creature-you call the Talisman of God?"

"Quite certain," replied the stony voice of the monk. "It is a messenger sent by the Lord to warn us all."

"Especially me," muttered Justinian. The blind man rubbed his mangled eye-sockets. "Has Theodora-?"

"No," replied Belisarius. "I offered, once, but she declined. She said she preferred to take the future as it comes, rather than seeing it in a vision."

"Good," stated Justinian. "She does not know about the cancer, then?"

It was Belisarius' turn to jerk erect in his chair, startled. "No. Good God! I never thought of that, when I offered to give her the jewel."

"Seventeen years," stated Justinian. His voice was very bleak. "She will die, then, from cancer."

The Macedonian cleared his throat. "If we succeed in defeating the Malwa-"

Justinian waved him off. "That's irrelevant, Michael. Whatever other evils the Malwa will bring, they are not responsible for cancer. And don't forget-the vision which the jewel gave me was of the future that would have been. The future where the Malwa were never elevated to world mastery by this demonic power called Link. The future where I remained emperor, and we reconquered the western Mediterranean."

He fell silent, head bowed. "I am right, Belisarius, am I not?"

Belisarius hesitated. He cast his thoughts toward Aide.

He is right, came the reply. Aide forestalled the next question:

And there is no cure for cancer. Not, at least, anything that will be within your capability for many, many years. Centuries.

Belisarius took a deep breath.

"Yes, Justinian. You are right. Regardless of what else happens, Theodora will die of cancer in seventeen years."

The former emperor sighed. "They burned out my tear ducts, along with my eyes. I damn the traitors for that, sometimes, even more than my lost vision."

Shaking himself, Justinian rose to his feet and began pacing about the room.

The plethora of statuary which had once adorned his room was gone, now. Theodora had ordered them removed, during Justinian's convalescence, worried that her blind husband might stumble and fall.

That fear had been quickly allayed. Watching the former Emperor maneuver through the obstacles littering the floor, Belisarius was struck again by the man's uncanny intelligence. Justinian seemed to know, by sheer memory, where every one of those potential obstructions lay, and he avoided them unerringly.

But the obstacles were no longer statuary. Justinian had no use, any longer, for such visual ornament. Instead, he had filled his room with the objects of his oldest and favorite hobby-gadgets. Half the floor seemed to be covered by odd contrivances and weird contraptions. Justinian even claimed that his blindness was an asset, in this regard, since it forced him to master the inner logic of his devices. Nor could Belisarius deny the claim. The general stared at one of the larger mechanisms in the room, standing in a corner. The device was quiescent, at the moment. But he had seen it work. Justinian had designed the thing based on Belisarius' own description of a vision given to him by Aide.

The first true steam engine ever built in Rome-or anywhere in the world, so far as he knew. He had not seen its like even during his long visit to Malwa India. The thing itself was not much more than a toy, but it was the model for the first locomotive which was already being planned. The day would come when Belisarius would be able to shuttle his troops from one campaign to another in the same way he had seen Aide describe in visions. Visions of a terrible carnage in the future which would be called the American Civil War.

A voice drew him back to the present.

"Seventeen years," mused Justinian sadly. "Whereas I, according to the jewel, will live to a ripe old age." Pain came to his ravaged face. "I had always hoped she might outlive me," he whispered. Justinian squared his shoulders.

"So be it. I will give her seventeen good years. The best I can manage."

"Yes," said Belisarius.

Justinian shook his head. "God, what a waste. Did the jewel ever show it to you, Belisarius? That future that would have been, had the Malwa never risen? The future where I had you ravage the western Mediterannean in the name of reconstituting Roman glory? Only to see half the Empire die from the plague while I used the royal treasury to build one grandiose, useless monument after another?"