David Drake: An oblique approach

Belisarius and Antonina laughed.

“A quick-witted Stylite!” cried the general. “My day is made, even before the sun rises.”

Suddenly solemn, Cassian shook his head.

“I fear not, Belisarius. Quite the contrary. We did not come here to bring you sunshine, but to bring you a sign of nightfall.”

“Show him,” commanded Michael.

The bishop reached into his cassock and withdrew the thing. He held it forth in his outstretched hand.

Belisarius stooped slightly to examine the thing. His eyes remained calm. No expression could be seen on his face.

Antonina, on the other hand, gasped and drew back.

“Witchcraft!”

Anthony shook his head. “I do not think so, Antonina. Or, at least, not the craft of black magic.”

Curiosity overrode her fear. Antonina came forward. As short as she was, she did not have to stoop to scrutinize the thing closely.

“I have never seen its like,” she whispered. “I have never heard of its like. Magic gems, yes. But this-it resembles a jewel, at first, until you look more closely. Or a crystal. Then-within-it is like-”

She groped for words. Her husband spoke:

“So must the sun’s cool logic unfold, if we could see beneath its roiling fury.”

“Oh, well said!” cried Cassian. “A poetic general! A philosophical soldier!”

“Enough with the jests,” snapped Michael. “General, you must take it in your hand.”

The calm gaze transferred itself to the monk.

“Why?”

For a moment, the raptor glare manifested itself. But only for a moment. Uncertainly, Michael lowered his head.

“I do not know why. The truth? You must do it because my friend Anthony Cassian said you must. And of all men that I have ever known, he is the wisest. Even if he is a cursed churchman.”

Belisarius regarded the bishop.

“Why then, Cassian?”

The bishop gazed down at the thing in his palm, the jewel that was not a jewel, the gem without weight, the crystal without sharpness, the thing with so many facets-and, he thought, so many more forming and reforming-that it seemed as round as the perfect sphere of ancient Greek dreams.

Anthony shrugged. “I cannot answer your question. But I know it is true.”

The bishop motioned toward the seated monk.

“It first came to Michael, five days ago, in his cave in the desert. He took the thing in his hand and was transported into visions.”

Belisarius stared at the monk. Antonina, hesitantly, asked: “And you do not think it is witchcraft?”

Michael of Macedonia shook his head.

“I am certain that it is not a thing of Satan. I cannot explain why, not in words spoken by men. I have- felt the thing. Lived with it, for two days, in my mind. While I lay unconscious to the world.”

He frowned. “Strange, really. It seemed but a moment to me, at the time.”

He shook his head again.

“I do not know what it is, but of this much I am sure. I found not a trace of evil in it, anywhere. It is true, the visions which came to me were terrible, horrible beyond description. But there were other visions, as well, visions which I cannot remember clearly. They remain in my mind like a dream you can’t recall. Dreams of things beyond imagining.”

He slumped back in his chair. “I believe it to be a message from God, Antonina. Belisarius. But I am not certain. And I certainly can’t prove it.”

Belisarius looked at the bishop.

“And what do you think, Anthony?” He gestured at the thing. “Have you-?”

The bishop nodded. “Yes, Belisarius. After Michael brought the thing to me, last night, and asked me for advice, I took it in my own hand. And I, too, was then plunged into vision. Horrible visions, like Michael’s. But where two days seemed but a moment to him, the few minutes in which I was lost to the world seemed like eternity to me, and I was never seized by a paroxysm.”

Michael of Macedonia suddenly laughed.

“Leave it to the wordiest man in creation to withstand a torrent like a rock!” he cried. He laughed again, almost gaily.

“But for just an instant, when he returned from his vision, I witnessed a true miracle! Anthony Cassian, Bishop of Aleppo, silent.”

Cassian grinned. “It’s true. I was positively struck dumb! I don’t know what I expected when I took up the- thing — but certainly not what came to me, not even after Michael’s warning. I sooner would have expected a unicorn! Or a seraph! Or a walking, wondrous creature made of lapis lazuli and beaten silver by the emperor’s smiths, or-”

“A very brief miracle,” snorted Michael. Cassian’s mouth snapped shut.

Belisarius and Antonina grinned. The bishop’s only known vice was that he was perhaps the most talkative man in the world.

But the grins faded soon enough.

“And what were your visions, Anthony?” asked Belisarius.

The bishop waved the question aside. “I will describe them later, Belisarius. But not now.”

He stared down at the palm of his hand. The thing resting there coruscated inner fluxes too complex to follow.

“I do not think the- message — is meant for me. Or for Michael. I think it is meant for you. Whatever the thing is, Belisarius, it is an omen of catastrophe. But there is something else, lurking within. I sensed it when I took the thing in my own hand. Sensed it, and sensed it truly. A-a purpose, let us say, which is somehow aimed against that disaster. A purpose which requires you, I think, to speak.”

Belisarius, again, examined the thing. No expression showed on his face. But his wife, who knew him best, began to plead.

Her pleas went unheard, for the thing was already in the soldier’s hand. Then her pleas ceased, and she fell silent. For, indeed, the thing was like the sun itself, now, if a sun could enter a room and show itself to mortal men. And they, still live.

The spreading facets erupted, not like a volcano, but like the very dawn of creation. They sped, unfolding and doubling, and tripling, and then tripling and tripling and tripling, through the labyrinth that was the mind of Belisarius. purpose became focus, and focus gave facets form. identity crystallized. With it, purpose metamorphosed into aim. And, if it had been within the capacity of aim to leap for joy, it would have gamboled like a fawn in the forest.

But for Belisarius, there was nothing; nothing but the fall into the Pit. Nothing but the vision of a future terrible beyond all nightmare.

Dragonbolts streaked overhead. Below, the ranks of the cataphracts hunched behind their barricade. The horses, held in the rear by younger infantrymen, whinnied with terror and fought their holders. They were useless now, as Belisarius had known they would be. It was for that very reason that he had ordered the cataphracts to dismount and fight afoot, from behind a barricade built by their own aristocratic hands. The armored lancers and archers, once feared by all the world, had not even complained, but had obeyed instantly. Even the noble cataphracts had finally learned wisdom, though the learning had come much too late.

What use was a mounted charge against-?

Over the barricade, the general saw the first of the iron elephants advancing slowly down the Mese, the great central thoroughfare of Constantinople. Behind, he could see the flames of the burning city and hear the screams of the populace. The butchery of the great city’s half-million inhabitants was well underway, now.

The Malwa emperor himself had decreed Constantinople’s sentence, and the Mahaveda priests had blessed it. Not since Ranapur had that sentence been pronounced. All that lived in the city were to be slaughtered, down to the cats and dogs. All save the women of the nobility, who were to be turned over to the Ye-tai for defilement. Those women who survived would be passed on to the Rajputs. (At Ranapur, the Rajputs had coldly declined. But that was long ago, when the name of Rajputana had still carried its ancient legacy. They would not decline now, for they had been broken to their place.) The handful who survived the Rajputs would be sold to whatever polluted untouchable could scrape up the coins to buy himself a hag. There would be few untouchables who could afford the price. But there would be some, among the teeming multitude of that ever-growing class.