When he died, things changed. People like Slobodan Milosevich began to harp on Serb Nationalism. He had his counterparts in Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and the other sub-states that had once enjoyed a reasonable prosperity as Yugoslavia. Manipulators of media began to play with memory, revise history. It's so easy when, like the Milosevich family, you have a near-monopoly on TV, radio, film and print.
I had the germ of an idea for a novel. I would create an alternate world, an earthlike place with technology at pre World War One levels. I don't know if this can be called a fantasy novel.
It has no wizards and very little magic. It just is what it is, an Alternate World. In this world, called Freeth, there are different geographies which lead, in turn, to different political destinies. I worked at the craft of what is called World Building.
This novel has gotten so huge that I now see it as a series of books, with a prequel and a sequel. So begins THE SHADOW STORM: BOOK ONE. I will post a few chapters and see if I can draw any readers.
The Shadow Storm
By Art Rosch February ã18,
2014
“In
the mists, there are unseen friends.
And in my friends, there are unseen
mists.”
From the
Matanyata of Raya
A Little History
A
statesman is a rare creature. The term
"statesman" evokes an aura of moral authority, gravitas and
self-sacrifice. Occasionally someone
arises who uses power for unselfish purposes, or yokes himself to higher
goals. This is a statesman.
Osskar
Skolov, President of the fledgling Kesh Republic, was a statesman. Even his enemies granted him that
stature. He had spilled plenty of blood
but he had never betrayed a friend and he always did what he said he would
do. A man of power who keeps his
promises earns respect all over the world.
Osskar
had united the many warring fiefdoms of the peninsula called Keshicstan. The multiple histories of Keshicstan differ
in detail depending upon who is telling them.
The four Nations of the Kesh have vied with one another for thousands of
years. Skolov's dream had been to unite the fractious tribes of the Kesh into a
political whole. It took arduous
struggle but he had succeeded in forging a new State. The Kesh Republic endured; a single generation had now passed.
The Republic was twenty eight years old.
It was a united Keschicstan's first democratic form of government.
Some
hoped for the republic’s collapse.
Among them were reactionaries from what had become the Four
Autonomies. They wished for a
restoration of their ancient empires.
These empires were mostly imaginary.
The only true chord of history running the length and breadth of
Keshicstan was one of raids and blood feuds.
The
nations who occupied Keshicstan were like four fingers runninng up the Kesh
Peninsula from the Vorget Ocean to the towering ranges of the Sarkadian
Mountains. The four nations, now called
The Four Autonomies, were the Kumysh, the Paltysh, the Lobanski and the Drugestni.
The animosities among the Kesh were fueled
by tribalism, religion and greed. Blood
feuds still raged among the clans in the mountains. Bickering between followers of The Adoration, The Schism and the
Goom were always spilling rivers of blood. Yet the tireless efforts of Skolov
and his inner circle had bonded these ancient rivals into a modern
republic. Now menaced by huge empires,
the Kesh were more frightened of the Klute, the Reverence and the Triple Culture
than they were of each other. There
were still terror groups plotting to
restore the "Old Kumyshia" or whatever state was being touted by
their revisionist historians. The
rational Center, federalists and republicans, wished desperately that the
fringe elements would disappear.
They never
did. Crazed longings for the days of
the Paltysh Empire, or the Drugestni Kingdom, haunted the political landscape
of the Kesh like the stink from an old paint job.
Osskar
Skolov had played upon these fears and suppressed these false memories, bandying
his motto everywhere: “Solidarity is
Survival.”
Skolov
had begun life as a simple soldier. In
the immense eastward reaches of the powerful Klute Hegemony, a civil war had
raged between followers of the two ‘Glavniks’, the hereditary rulers of the Klute. Prince Igor was the son of Glavnik Pyotr,
and he claimed succession when his father was poisoned. Prince Iossip was Igor’s uncle, and was
widely accused of doing the poisoning.
Uncle and nephew split the Hegemony into the White and the Purple Klute and
war had raged across a continent.
Osskar
Skolov had been leader of a band of Kesh Comitadji. This term, Comitadj, attaches itself to young men from the
mountains who take up the life of nomadic mounted warriors. In the traditions of the Kesh, a Comitadj
becomes a protector of the powerless in times of invasion and oppression. Various governments utlilize bands of
comitadji in time of war as guerillas and scouts. They are mounted privateers of the border regions, for sale to
the highest bidder. In times of peace
they are bandits; in times of war they are heroes.
Osskar Skolov sold
his services to Igor, and it was Igor who won the civil war, to become the new
Glavnik.
Skolov,
however, built a mobile and powerful army around his core of fierce Comitadji.
In the confused aftermath of the civil war he managed to wrest the Kesh
Peninsula away from the influences of all its sponsors and oppressors. By doing so, he had turned the very
geography of Keshicstan into an economic threat pointed at the hearts of the
great empires. The peninsula is shaped like a bulb, with its socket screwed
into the Sarkadian Range. In the north,
the land butts into the Glazrov sea.
This narrow choke point is called The Bolkar Strait. At its narrowest point it is twenty four miles
across. On clear days one can see the
bluffs of the continent of Evra pushing into the sea like the paws of giant
lions.
When
the Klute civil war ended, the new Glavnik was filled with wrath. Igor scourged his officer corps, impaled
hundreds of his advisors, butchered the peoples of whole cities that he
considered disloyal. None of these savage measures could prevent a new Kesh
Republic from being established. Igor
wanted Keshicstan! It was a natural
extension of the Klute lands, the westward terminus of the continent of
Tauernoy. If he controlled the
peninsula, he controlled the Bolkar and
Skora Straits. If he controlled the
Straits he could strangle the entire world. He had anticipated an expansion
into the Peninsula, but the war had exhausted his treasury and decimated his
armies.
He
was not the only monarch on Freeth who wanted the resources and the strategic
advantages of dominating the lands of the Kesh. Every nation with a powerful army cast its eyes on Keshicstan,
planning and waiting.
In
the meantime, for twenty eight years, Osskar Skolov had held a precarious
balance, fending off enemies from both within and outside his very important
Republic.
One: Commander
For some months,
Anton Shariev was afraid that his boss was losing his mind.
One
day Osskar Skolov arrived at work wearing sporting clothes, as if he were out
for a game of Holes. To everyone who
knew him, this was astonishing. Osskar
never appeared in public wearing anything besides his trademark uniform. It didn’t matter whether he was working,
hunting or dancing with diplomats' wives.
He wore a version of his uniform.
They were all of the same design. Only the fabrics and colors changed.
Skolov was totally identified with that
uniform. It consisted of an officer's
tunic, a a cylindrical cap of black lamb's wool and an over-the-shoulder style
of belt. The flared wings of his cavalryman's trousers were tucked into knee
high riding boots. Sometimes he
holstered a giant revolver that people called an “Osskar”. Seeing him dressed otherwise was
shocking. Osskar in his uniform WAS the
Kesh Republic.
Recently, Anton had seen a glassy-eyed mania
creeping into Skolov’s manner. His
behavior was becoming more and more odd, by small increments. Only someone who
knew Osskar well would perceive these subtle shifts; it took Anton some time to
admit to himself that the Great Man's mind was drifting off center. This filled him with dread. If Skolov's judgment grew clouded he could
destroy everything they had fought so hard to achieve.
Anton
was shocked when his friend appointed a Personal Historian. It just wasn't in Osskar's nature. It seemed utterly wrong, as if The Commander
had been overcome by an evil and capricious djinn. He was a man who knew how to laugh at himself, a man without
pomposity or grand pretensions. The
Historian, a dry professor by the name of Ruslam Jeloof, followed Skolov all
day long, listening to the Great Man’s stories. Anton had heard tidbits of these stories as he went about his
work. Lately he had discerned outright
lies, fabrications that weren't remotely necessary to add luster to the career
of Osskar Skolov. Meanwhile, Jeloof
took notes, which he later digested into a daily log. He read this log to
Skolov first thing every mornng.
Early
on the Tenth of Moricarry, Shariev was
to brief Skolov on the fortifications in the north. War was inevitable.
Sooner or later, the Klute armies
would come pouring through the passes.
The guns, the tunnels, the obstacles, would not stop the Klute but they
would slow them down while mobile Kesh columns converged on the major points of
penetration. That was the plan,
anyway. Much depended on the Triple
Culture's dreadnoughts bottling up the Glavnik's new navy as it attempted to pass
the Bolkar Straits.
Anton
Shariev, Minister of Defense, knew from long experience that war plans were
like blueprints for buildings that will shortly topple.
Skolov’s office
was modest. The windows looked onto the
south side of the Kavalanski Palace, where two rivers, The Droon and the
Sabich, flowed under the city's many bridges.
The walls held decorations and souvenirs from his career as a
Comitadj. Weapons and bombs from seven
failed assassination plots sat atop file cabinets and small tables. A pair of crossed sabers hung behind the
desk, their gleaming blades inscribed with the gnarled tree branch patterns of
Old Lobanski script.
The
boss’s work area was littered with official papers and folders tied with blue
and red ribbons. Skolov leaned back in his big leather armchair, feet on the
desk. The palace was virtually
deserted. Two of Osskar’s trusted
bodyguards, Kwerk and Ayatov, were posted just outside the door. Historian Jeloof was perched on a stool in
one corner of the small office, with a pencil dangling idly between two middle
fingers. Early sunlight split into
bands of light and shadow as it flowed through venetian blinds.
Shariev
entered this scene, running early, as usual.
Jeloof was about to read the notes from the previous day. Skolov was relaxed and smiling, his great
mane of silvery hair standing straight up from his wide brow. Shariev felt the palpable charm of his
leader. There was, however, something
alarmingly brittle about this man, on this day. With a feeling as though he had fallen down a mineshaft, Shariev
truly admitted to himself: he looks crazy. His smile is too broad, too
glowing. It isn’t the Osskar that I
know.
To
a less acute observer, this bouyancy would pass for magnetism. To Anton Shariev, it had a euphoric quality
that undermined Skolov’s natural gravitas.
At sixty, he looked forty. He
was known for his clarity and candor.
He had written nine masterful works on statecraft and military strategy.
He was both an intellectual and an athlete.
His shoulders were massive, bulging out of the sports shirt that he
should not be wearing.
This
may have explained why Shariev felt a tingle of subliminal alarm as he entered
the room. Skolov just wasn’t Skolov any
more. He wore spats, knee length socks
over puffy woolen sport pants, suspenders and a sports shirt. He lolled with his feet elevated on his
desk. His shoes were fixed with the
short gleaming steel spikes of Holes players.
Anton wondered briefly if he might be looking at one of Skolov’s
doubles. He dismissed the thought. Anton knew the real article.
With
his palms turned upward, Skolov gestured expansively when he saw his
friend. “Aha! Colleague Anton! You’re a bit early but it’s a pleasure to see
you, even with your long gloomy face."
He looked at the historian.
"The Worrier, that's what I call him." He turned back to
Shariev. "Always worrying,
especially in the morning. Look out the
windows, look at the world! The sun is
rising, birds are singing! Who cares if
the carrion eaters of the Empires are gnawing at our frontiers? This is a permanent condition. Call it our Hot Peace. Eh! That's
good! Hot Peace." He turned to make sure the historian was
making a note of this catchy term.
Jeloof was dutifully writing in his tablet.
Skolof
twined the fingers of his hands, turned them inside out, extended his arms and
cracked his knuckles with loud pops.
"Aah,"
he sighed. His hands had taken a fair
share of shrapnel. His right pinky
finger was lopped off at the first joint.
Scar tissue covered his palms.
"I
was just about to hear what Colleague Jeloof gleaned from yesterday’s
proceedings," said Skolov.
"Go ahead, read your notes."
“Sir,”
Jeloof said respectfully. “I have only
three paragraphs of notes. It was
an ordinary day. You spent three hours with Citizen Vridilov
discussing his difficulties in designing a workable flying machine. There's not much else of distinction beyond
your regular administrative duties."
The
smile on Skolov’s face disappeared. He
stood abruptly, using his body to push his chair backwards so that it hit the
wall with a padded thunk! He reached to
one of the pair of antique sabers and withdrew it from its clip on the
wall. He strode with exuberant purpose
to the side of the tall thin man with his pencil and clipboard. Terrified, Jeloof retreated into a corner of
the office, dodged forward, dodged back, slunk along the inner wall, but could
not evade his employer. Skolov stabbed
into the right cheek of Jeloof’s rangy buttocks. His raised voice sounded rough and splintered.
“There are no
ordinary days in the life of Osskar Skolov!
Maybe this will give you something to write about!”
There
was a shocked silence in the office.
This was an insane autocratic gesture in the style of some medieval
Klute despot like Igor the Awful.
Shariev stood there,
stunned.
Blood
spilled down the leg of Jeloof’s trousers.
The historian’s face went from pale to scarlet. He looked over his shoulder at the bleeding
wound and began to weep. His tears reminded Shariev of his own
adolescent daughter after a tiff with her boyfriend. Jeloof was standing directly beneath the other saber that hung
clipped to the wall. He then did the
unthinkable. He took the sword into his
hands and slammed it down on Skolov’s head with firm and utter finality. Osskar barely had time to raise the other
sabre to his waist before the fatal blow had fallen. The Commander had not considered the dry twig of a man to be
capable of holding a sword. He had not
braced for a counterstroke, he had simply stood panting, enraged. Now he was dead.
It
took about five seconds for Kwerk and Ayatov to enter the office, assess the
situation, and shoot Jeloof full of holes. They were so surprised, so numb with
shock that it was easy for Shariev to draw his own pistol and kill both
bodyguards. Kwerk died instantly with a
shot through the heart. Ayatov took a
bullet in the arm and a fatal shot in the temple.
Shariev
was now alone in the Commander’s office with four corpses. He was
deafened. Smoke filled the air and the
smell of discharged firearms burnt his nose.
He was thinking at incredible speed.
He could feel his pulse in his ears, and the walls of the room seemed to
twist and buckle for a moment. Shariev
deposited his shame, grief and terror into a remote vault in his psyche. It took great effort. There was no time to be emotional.
If
word gets out that Skolov is dead, murdered, the Kumysh will blame it on
everyone else and begin a secession bill in their legislature. The other Autonomies will follow suit and
street fighting will begin between the separatists and the unionists.
Keshicstan will implode and the empires will take advantage of the chaos to
invade from every quarter. These months
were desperately needed by the Keshic military to complete its
preparations. Without Skolov, there
would be no Army Of The Republic.
Skoloff commanded loyalty in his person as The Great Comitadj. He had Besha affliations with every
clan; every hetman in every peak and
valley owed a debt to Osskar. As Prime
Minister in the Demyat, Osskar was transferring loyalty piecemeal to the Kesh
Republic. It was a long and gradual
work. If he died without a strong
successor, officers and soldiers from the Four Autonomies would return to their
homelands and resume the blood feuds that had burned for a thousand years. Then Igor and The Klute would come flooding
through the mountain passes to pick off one army after another. Morthone Friedrich could not allow this to
happen. The Triple Culture and its
allies would be at war with the Klute and its allies, and all of Freeth would
be at war.
It
would be the first true world war on the planet. The largest battle would be for control of the peninsula,
Keshicstan. By the time it was over,
The Republic would be a wasteland.
Anton
opened the door carefully. It was just
past five in the morning. No one was in
the Kavalanski Palace. This baroque
monstrosity, residence of former Kings, had been converted into the hub of the
Republic’s government. A few janitors
patrolled the lower floors, stacking the furnaces with coal.
Anton
would now have to act with great cunning if he was to keep Skolov’s death
secret. He conjured a map of
deployments of all the military formations that would be involved in this
struggle.
The
Triple Culture, by treaty, would be obliged to defend the Kesh Republic. This defense could end up looking like an
occupation; if they came, the Morthone's troops would never leave. The Morthone’s navy was prepared to deploy
in an arc across the Bolkar Straits to blockade Klute shipping. This would force Igor's army to come across
the Sarkadian Range. But Friedrich's
fleet was only powerful on paper. Many
of The Culture’s dreadnoughts were berthed at Zyle Harbor for refitting. Shariev anticipated the emergence of a
viable aircraft, or an underwater torpedo boat. These things were in the works, still visions on the draft tables
of engineers and designers. This was a
time of innovation, many of which would be frightful.
In
a tangle of cross-alliances, as economic and historical grievances erupted,
twenty nations would soon be
fighting one another. Most of that
fighting would be around and within Keshicstan.
There
was a key to Skolov’s office in his desk drawer. Shariev found it and left the office, locking it behind him. He went down the corridor of what had once
been royal parlors and bedrooms, now utilized as offices. He found a supply
closet and extracted a large roll of brown wrapping paper and several rolls of
tape. He took a box of cleaning rags
under one arm and hurried back to the Commander’s office.
Working
frantically, Shariev cleaned up the blood, rolled bodies in carpets, opened the
window to air the smoke from the room.
Dawn was breaking over Kacedon’s spires and minarets. The Anwars were calling to Ayubah, the
Masters were ringing steeple bells and the Acolytes were sweeping burnt incense
coals in front of their iconostases.
Sweat
poured from Shariev’s body. He needed
time. Six months at least for the new
defense perimeters to be completed. The
Klute Civil War had been followed by the Independence War. Twenty eight years ago a vicious war had
been fought. It had never really
stopped. It had gone into remission,
like a cancer. Continual outbreaks and
alarms disturbed the repose of the continents Evra, Skora and Tauernoy.
The treaty of
alliance with Friedrich and the Triple Culture protected the new Kesh
Republic. It came with a heavy a
price. Tariffs had been lifted. Trade agreements forced Osskar to lay a
burden of heavy taxation on the citizens of the Republic.
In return, fleets
of dreadnoughts and cruisers flying the tricolor of Friedrichs’ realms
patrolled the Bolkar and Skora Straits.
They ranged up and down the coast of Evra and parried warily with their
de-facto enemy, the Klute Imperial War Marine.
As for ground forces, the Morthone’s divisions were still far away. If they came to the defense of the Kesh, it
would take weeks for them to deploy.
They might not come at all, if Glavnik Igor could break the blockade of
the straits. Then Igor could stall
Culture troop movements and send his client armies into the Culture’s vassal
states.
Time, time,
Shariev needed time.
He could not even
mourn the loss of his mentor and friend Osskar Skolov. He couldn’t indulge in the grief and shame
of being forced to murder Kwerk and Ayatov, loyal soldiers who did not deserve
such a fate. A spasm of emotion was
swallowed up in the moment’s urgency. He needed to restore the office. There were rugs in the storeroom. He must get two to replace the bloodied
shrouds he was now using to transport the bodies. He found what he needed, a large wheeled cart, and brought the
new rugs into the office. He moved
furniture, straining to shift the Commander’s massive desk a few inches at a time. Then he put the bodies on the cart and
rolled it to the service elevator.
There were four rug-and-paper wrapped bundles, six feet long, tied with
beige twine. The elevator rose with
infuriating slowness, groaning on its cables.
At last the chamber came even with the steel crosses of the folding
gate. Shariev grasped the handle,
accordianed the gate open, and clumsily moved the cart into the interior. It was now quarter till six. Within the hour, employees of the various
ministries would be arriving for work.
Shariev
pressed the button to take him to the basement, to the boiler rooms. The elevator clanked and creaked, shuddering
its way downward. The defense minister
mopped his brow with a clean rag. He
examined himself. He was covered in blood
and bits of bone. He would need
clothing. He took the minutes of
labored descent to think through his next moves. First and most obvious was to activate Skolov’s best double, a
man named Felix Birel. This man had
been surgically altered and trained for years. Shariev would have great need of
Birel in the coming days. He would also
need to contact the Chief of the War Staff, Iosef Surijatsky. He could confide in Iosef, but instinctively
he wanted to hide the truth for as long as possible.
To
the east, Igor the Fifth, “The Glavnik”, maneuvered and prepared his armies,
the forces of The Klute Hegemony. To
the southwest, across the Skora Straits, the Party of Reverence threatened the
Republic. Their military was second
rate, their equipment out of date.
Nonetheless, divisions had to be stationed to keep them from
landing. To the northwest, the Triple
Culture maintained its friendly ties with the Kesh only so long as it was
cheaper to buy from them than to conquer them.
If a power vacuum occurred on the peninsula, the three empires would
rush in like three great rivers, each waving the standard of its religion,
proclaiming war for the greater glory of whatever God happened to apply. No
matter that Friedrich was an ally. He
would bring his armies to “defend” the Kesh, and then never leave. None of the empires could afford to let the
other dominate the peninsula. The Land
of the Kesh was a geo-strategic fulcrum.
Part of the reason for Osskar’s success was the fact that so long as he
restrained the Four Autonomies and held The Republic together, a balance of
power obtained and the empires could relax.
None wanted any of the others to have Keshicstan.
This
armed stability could go on for decades, perhaps generations, but for one
obsessive ruler, Glavnik Igor. He
seethed with rage towards Skolov for thwarting his annexation of the
peninsula. It was a personal affront.
Osskar
Skolov’s very existence had acted as a dyke to hold back the tides of war.
Shariev
gripped the front of his waistcoat and tore at his lapels in a gesture of
agony. He needed some way to vent the
emotion that was being so tightly held in check. His fingernails dug through the black woolen material until they
scratched his ribcage. A silent sob
twitched his shoulders like a hiccup.
No more, no more,
he told himself. I can’t grieve
now. I have other things to do. Memories of Osskar flooded through him:
Osskar pretending to feel no pain as a bullet was removed from deep within his
thigh. Osskar laughing with his head
thrown back, a bottle of raki glinting in the campfire light. Osskar with his brows knit over a map as he
worked out escape from a hopeless encirclement. In spite of his attempt at self control, Shariev’s shoulders
trembled and he winced with the salt sting of tears. His face was filthy. The
lines of tears made clean narrow stripes across his cheeks.
Goddammit! This was a nightmare! A nightmare! Of all the things Skolov had done, and done wisely, he had
dallied over the most crucial: a smooth transfer of authority. He, Shariev, had urged this for years upon
the Commander. Who will succeed you? he
implored. What if something should happen? The Constitution provided, upon the loss of
a Prime Minister, an interim government headed by the Cabinet, with Shariev as
its de facto head. After a period of
ten weeks, a general election would be held.
During that ten weeks, all registered parties would campaign, form
coalitions, jockey for position, and the resulting party or coalition with the
greatest number of elected representatives to the Demyat would establish its
leader as the new Prime Minister. As
things stood right now, the next Prime Minster would be the industrialist Zemso
Borenko. This revanchist lunatic was a
Kumysh, and behind his rhetoric of reconciliation hid the old dream of
secession and Kumysh grandeur. His
policies would lead to invasion, disintegration of the Republic, and a wider
war over the carcass of the peninsula.
Osskar
could not let himself believe in such an outcome. He would laugh and flex his shoulder muscles, stretching the
fabric of his tunic as if to demonstrate his excess of vitality. “Anton, there’s time. Who can succeed me? Be realistic! Who! There IS no other
Osskar Skolov. I’m going to have to
create one! And I haven’t found the
proper clay, as yet. I’m not god, I
can’t make a successor out of nothing.
You don’t want the job! Neh? You are a behind-the-scenes type. Maybe…maybe, if Surijatsky were less
eccentric, I could see it. But no…..we
must wait. There is time. Borenko is nothing but a joke, yes, a
dangerous joke, but it would take a lot to bring him to power. I have my eye on young Vlahos. I know, I know, he’s a stripling! But I see the potential in him. Think about it. Another five years and young Alyosha’s beard will start to have
some grey in it. Then he will be taken seriously by the old Comitadji.”
In hindsight
Shariev understood that a mental illness had laid hold of Osskar. It had come slowly at first. In the last two months things had accelerated,
the Commander’s behaviour had become subtly out of tune. How little was understood about the
mind! A new science was emerging,
Psychodynamics, but it was still primitive.
What could he, Anton, have done?
His mind swung wildly with strange emotion. Could I have suggested that Osskar see Professor Zuring and go
into treatment?
The
thought was so absurd that he laughed with his mouth closed, and a cloud of
snot dripped from his nostril and spread through his moustache. He wiped his face with the rag he held. Perhaps I need a few sessions with the
doctor myself, he thought miserably.
The
elevator settled with a bump. Shariev
slammed the screen aside and rolled the cart out into the subterranean vastness
of the Kavalanski Palace.
There
were pillars receeding into the smoky distance. A caged gas light shone feebly, every twenty feet. This part of the palace had not yet been
electrified. There was a rumble, as of
machinery, furnaces, vents being opened and closed. There was no complete map of the palace’s subterranean
layers. It was riddled with tunnels,
legacy of Kavalanski paranoia. Anton
set off towards a sound of muted roaring, seeking the heat of the great
boilers.
He
got about fifty yards when a convergence of two walls became a corridor. Only a few paces down this corridor there
was a steel door. It was slightly
ajar. He looked through into a spacious
chamber, lit with kerosene lamps, fitted with a spider of colossal vents
working their way up into the palace.
He saw an old man seated on a stool, smoking a pipe whose stem was so
long that its bowl rested on the floor.
Next to him, a vast pile of coal rose to the ceiling. A giant furnace roared behind its closed
iron gate at the far side of the chamber. The man wore the white skullcap of a
Lobanski Mountain Man. This spectral
figure looked up and met the eyes of Anton Shariev. He rose, lifting the pipe with him, leaning it against a niche
where old furniture lay stacked.
The
man was tall, with a face like a predator. A sparse beard of white stubble covered his chin and upper
lip. He touched a finger to his
skullcap respectfully, but without subservience. “Minister”, the man spoke, “what are you doing here?” He
approached Shariev, walking with a pronounced limp. Anton did a lightning assessment. This man was a Lobanski, displaced from his mountains and his
flocks, serving as a janitor in the Kavalanski Palace. He had fought bravely, saved someone’s life
in his career as a bandit, a Comitadj.
As his reward he had been given a sinecure, a job in the palace, an
apartment and a stipend.
Shariev
would have to bestow his trust on this man.
He rolled the cart through the door.
“There has been some difficulty,” he explained vaguely. “I need to burn these parcels.”
“Certainly,”
the man rumbled. His voice had the
thickness of one who speaks little. He
examined the trussed beige packages, and his nostrils opened and closed, opened
and closed. Shariev knew the man
smelled blood.
“Difficulty
indeed,” the Lobanski said sardonically, darting a keen glance at the
minister. He displaced Shariev at the
handle of the cart and rolled it towards the furnace. “You need to dispose of some awkward refuse.”
Gratefully,
Shariev let the man take the burden..
He mopped his brow once more then joined the janitor at the door to the
furnace. The man opened the
wrought-iron hatch. It gave a poignant
squeak and revealed its well-tended and relentless fire. In the light of the flames, Shariev’s torn
and bloody clothing was visible,. The
hill man looked him up and down, shrugged, and pulled at the first
package. Shariev felt a dreadful sense
of lese majeste, that he was consigning the Commander, the Leader of the
Solidarity, to an anonymous furnace fire, that the Prime Minister's smoke would
go up and out the chimney of the Kavalanski, that the heat from his bones and
tissues would be distributed to a hundred radiators heating a hundred
rooms.
The
old Comitadj lifted one end of the first bundle, and Shariev took the other
side. Together, they fed it into the
flames. Indifferent to its fuel, the
furnace roared briefly, then settled to its steady crackling.
Before
Shariev could designate the second rug-wrapped tube, the old Lobanski pulled at
the one containing Skolov. It was damp
with blood, and part of the paper ripped, revealing a hand. The hand was uniquely distinctive. It was missing part of its little
finger. Its old cuts and burns belonged
to one man and only one man and that man was famous enough so that his hand
told his identity.
The
janitor dropped the package back onto the cart, and in a swift and practiced
movement pulled a dagger from his belt
and held its gleaming blade to the throat of Anton Shariev.
“I
want to know what’s going on here!” the man bellowed. “I invoke K’nuun. Why is the President’s body being fed to the
furnace? Who has killed him!”
The
K’nuun was the ancient tribal code of the Kesh, an oral tradition that every
Kesh male learned from birth. To invoke
K’nuun meant that one of two responses was demanded: the absolute truth, or,
the phrase “The K’nuun is not within reach.”
The latter was only permitted if the truth put the speaker’s family in
danger of blood revenge.
Slowly,
Shariev raised his right hand and held it under the Lobanski’s nose.
“Do
you smell gunpowder?” he asked. The
blade's point was drawing blood from the area near his jugular.
The
Lobanski nodded. “Gunpowder. Go ahead.”
“The
President was killed by a sword. His
bodyguards killed his killer, then I killed his bodyguards. It’s gruesome, but you can examine his body
and see if I speak true.”
The pressure on the blade slackened. The old mountan man thought for a moment. “I see. You must keep the President’s death a secret. He is the only man who commands the loyalties of all the Autonomies. If his murder is made known, the Republic is weakened and becomes fair game for the Empires. And the Empires have been rattling their sabers, itching to get back into a war.”
The pressure on the blade slackened. The old mountan man thought for a moment. “I see. You must keep the President’s death a secret. He is the only man who commands the loyalties of all the Autonomies. If his murder is made known, the Republic is weakened and becomes fair game for the Empires. And the Empires have been rattling their sabers, itching to get back into a war.”
The
dagger came away from Shariev’s throat.
By the flickering light, the Defense Minister saw the old man straighten
his body proudly, draw himself up to his considerable height.
“Then
I must die too,” he said, smiling broadly.
“I could give you my word to keep this secret, but we both know that
secrets are like blood: they appear at the first scratch. I will die for the
Kesh. Not for the Republic. Excuse me, sir, but the Republic can screw
itself. I’m too old to change my
ways. I am a Lobanski first, a Kesh
second. This is a far better death than
I had hoped. Even my grand-daughters
have been taunting me: ‘grandpa, why
are you still alive?’ I have outlived
most of my sons and even some of my grandsons.
I am stoking a furnace, exiled from my flocks, my horse and my saber,
because of a war wound that never healed.
You have brought me a good death, worthy of a Comitadj.”
Shariev
stepped back from the heat of the fire.
“You will die a warrior, and when it can be known, I will add your tale
to your Besha’s K’nuun. I will see to
it that your family is cared for.” The
Besha was the man’s clan affiliation.
The
Lobanski examined Shariev. “You are of
my size. You will need my clothes. I
will go into the furnace at the side of Osskar Skolov. He was a great man, the greatest of the
Comitadji.”
Shariev
sagged into the man’s arms with exhaustion and relief. “You are my brother,” he wept into the
Lobanski’s bony shoulder. The Lobanski
wept back, squeezing him tight.
“You are my
brother in the K’nuun. Let us
respectfully cremate the Commander and then you can slit my throat and make
steam of my blood. My smoke will mingle
with The Commander's smoke.”
Before
enacting the ritual death of the Lobanski, Shariev became his brother. He
learned his name, his tribe, his clan, his Besha, and the man learned that of
Shariev. The old warrior, whose name
was Leet Krvash, showed Shariev a tunnel out of the palace of which he had been
unaware. It would take him to a decayed
gazebo in Vronsky Park, where he could slip quietly into the city.
Krvash shed his
clothes. He stood proudly in his faded
set of long johns. He washed himself in
a bucket of warm water, took one final drag from his pipe. He looked exultant. He wept with joy.
“This
is a death that means something! I
thought I would rot here, getting so old that I would not be able to straighten
my limbs, and then my daughters would lay me on a bed in my village and smother
me in my sleep. Which is only
proper! I would have been an
embarrassment! This is a unique death:
a warrior’s death.” He knelt on a great
pile of rags gathered from around the boiler room. Shariev, too, had shed his clothes and put them into the fire,
along with the bodies of Kwerk, Ayatov, Jeloof and Osskar Skolov. He circled behind Leet’s back, grasped his
forehead but refrained from pulling the head back or touching the hair. That was not the way to slit a throat. He allowed Leet Krvash to adopt the Pride
Posture, The Warrior's Way. When the
man was set, Anton passed Leet’s blade across his throat. The blood flowed like an apron across the
Lobanski's torso. It spilled onto the
rags. Leet Krvash sighed, dropped to
his knees and fell forward.
Shariev
fed him into the flames with the prayer called The Cry For Redemption, from the
Schismatic Rite. When it was all done,
everything cleaned up, he donned the clothes of Leet Krvash and went down the
long, fetid tunnel that led from the Kavalanski Palace.
He
wondered, as he cautiously pushed up the planks of the gazebo’s floor, how many
more people he would have to kill with his own hands before this horrible
business was done.