Songs of the Dying Earth

“Sometimes it is necessary to think in silence,” he said, as he returned the vial to its shelf, “and this narcotic will guarantee my peace for some hours.”

“Very effective,” Vespanus observed.

Ambius contemplated the supine figure of his wife. “I fear that six years in a glass bowl has given her an unshakable prejudice against me,” he said.

“That would appear to be the case,” Vespanus said. “Would it help if I conducted a private conversation with her?”

Ambius gave him a doleful look. “Do you think it would help?” he asked.

Vespanus shrugged his most hopeless shrug. “Truth to tell, I believe it would not.”

Vespanus went to the buttery and helped himself to bread, cheese, and liquor. He wondered if he might, that evening, hurl himself from the Onyx Tower into the Dimwer and survive, perhaps with the help of Hegadil, and then be carried to freedom by the current.

Unlikely, he thought. The defenders of the castle would only be the first to shoot at him.

He considered those Calabrandene engineers with their alidades and dividing engines, and the smug smiles that had been reported on the faces of the Exarch’s magicians. He considered how the Basileopater and the Exarch had dismissed him as insignificant, and how all his schemes for the defense of the castle had come to nothing.

“Even their sandestins are stronger than mine,” he muttered, which led his thoughts to consideration of the nature of the sandestins, their ability to travel freely in the chronosphere, to visit Earth in any eon from its fiery birth to its long icy sleep beneath the dim stars and dead sun. Then he considered how this ability to travel in time had affected their psychology, had made the sandestins and their lesser cousins, the madlings, extraordinarily accepting of whatever environment in which they found themselves. So different, so wildly diverse, were the scenes which a sandestin could view during the course of its existence, that Vespanus supposed they had no choice but to accept the world with a literalness that, in a human, would prove a serious handicap…

As he considered this, along with thoughts of the engineers and the smug smiles of the enchanters, his mind alighted upon an idea that had him sitting up with a start. He spat out his mouthful of cheese, then liberated Hegadil from his thumb-ring.

“I desire you to visit again the sandestin beneath the platform,” he said, “and inquire if it has been instructed to prevent you from adding to, rather than subtracting from, the structure.”

“I will ask,” Hegadil said.

He was back a moment later.

“Quaad has not been so instructed,” Hegadil said.

“Into the ring, now!” Vespanus said. “For I must visit the Protostrator.”

From the Onyx Tower, Ambius was watching the enemy platform, where the first of the Projectors, still in its cradle, was being dragged into position.

“I have an idea,” he said.

At Vespanus’ instruction, Hegadil slowly added to the substance of the platform, raising the side facing the castle until the platform sloped, very slightly, with the muzzles of the Projectors raised somewhat above their intended angle. The sandestin Quaad observed these actions and—as Hegadil was not undermining anything—did not act.

When the sickly sun began its daily crawl above the eastern horizon, Vespanus and Ambius saw that both armies had been fully deployed, ready to storm the castle once it had been sufficiently reduced. The Exarch’s banner floated above the platform, amid his great Projectors. On the other side of the castle, the Basileopater of Pex stood before a snow-white pavilion, his elite guard ranked before him.

“Any moment now,” Ambius said, and before the last word had passed his lips, the Projectors fired, and the Halcyon Detonation soared over the castle’s towers to explode amid their allies of Pex. The Basileopater’s pavilion vanished in a great sheet of flame and dust. Salvo followed salvo, one enormous thunderclap detonation after another. The Basileopater’s army dissolved beneath a brilliant series of flame-flowers.

Nor did the Exarch or his forces observe this, for Vespanus, utilizing the magics that had served him as an architect, had built an illusory castle wall in front of the genuine wall, one identical to the original. As the Projectors fired round after round, Vespanus created illusory explosions against the wall, along with encouraging floods of debris. To the Exarch, it would look as if he was slowly but surely blasting Castle Abrizonde into the dust.

Vespanus delighted in this glorious demonstration of his art. Let them disregard him again, he thought, and he would serve them likewise!

It was nearly half an hour before word at last reached the Exarch that his plan had miscarried. The Projectors ceased their fire. The Exarch was seen storming about on the platform, lambasting his magicians and thrashing his engineers with his wand of office.

From the army of Pex, nothing was heard except the sounds of cries and wailing.

Thus it stood for the balance of the day. At midafternoon, a twk-man flew to Ambius.

“I bring a message from the Logothete Terrinoor, who now commands the army of Pex,” said the new arrival. “The Logothete and the army of Pex burn with a desire to avenge the death of their lord at the hands of the treacherous Calabrandene,”

“I am interested in any proposal the Logothete may offer,” said Ambius.

“The Logothete proposes to attack the Exarch in the middle of the night,” said the twk-man, “but in order to accomplish this, he will have to pass the army beneath the walls of the castle. May he have your permission?”

Ambius could not conceal his expression of grim triumph. “He may,” he said. “But if there is treachery, we will defend ourselves.”

The twk-man, refreshed with a gift of salt, carried this message back to the Logothete. Thus it was that, in the dead of night, Ambius and Vespanus watched the army of Pex move in silence past the castle and march in silence toward the army of Calabrande. The Calabrandene had scouts and sentries on the perimeter of their camp, so they were not caught entirely unawares, but the soldiers of Pex were filled with fury at the death of their lord, and their charge carried far into the enemy works. The night was filled with the ferocious sound of snaffle-irons and swords, and brilliant with the flashes of deadly spells.

“Look!” said Ambius. “They carry away the Projectors!”

The attackers had detailed soldiers and beasts of burden to drag the Projectors from their platform to their own camp. These great objects were carried off with great labor as the army of Pex was driven slowly back from the enemy works, and as the great weapons passed the castle, a Calabrandene counterattack drove the army of Pex back, and suddenly there was fighting in front of the very gates of Castle Abrizonde.

“Shoot!” Ambius cried to his soldiers. He drew his sword. “Drive them all away! If we can mount the Projectors on the walls of the castles, we will be invulnerable!”

The soldiers of the Protostrator fired from the castle walls into the mass of warriors below, boom-rocks and poisoned arrows raining down at the two armies locked in their own desperate combat. The invaders reeled in confusion.

“To me, soldiers!” Ambius cried. He drew his sword. “We must sally!”

Again, Vespanus was surprised at the martial vigor of Ambius. His orders were prompt, vigorous, and effective—and they were obeyed. The gates of the castle were flung open, and the Protostrator led out the greater part of his garrison. This attack, being unexpected, drove away the forces of both Pex and Calabrande, and left the Projectors abandoned on the field. Ambius did his best to organize his forces to drag at least one of the Projectors into the fortress, but both Calabrande and Pex constantly counterattacked, and the fighting waxed and waned beneath the walls. Vespanus, lacking any skills that would be of use, watched from the battlements, and heard at last a cry of dismay from the defenders of Abrizonde.

Back through the gate came the garrison, much reduced, bearing the body of Ambius, the Protostrator, who had been severely wounded. Now Vespanus, in the absence of any other authority, began to call out orders. Soldiers on the walls poured down a fire that kept the plain clear.

Gradually the fighting died away. The morning revealed the five Projectors abandoned beneath the walls of the castle, some toppled from their cradles, the others with their muzzles pointed in random directions. It was clear that the castle’s defenders could prevent either army from claiming these prizes.

As the morning wore on, Vespanus from the Onyx Tower observed the two armies, now at enmity, begin their mutual, miserable retreat to their homelands.

At noon, one of the soldiers reported to him.

“The Protostrator is dead,” he said.

“On the contrary,” said Vespanus. “The Protostrator is alive, for I am he.”

The soldier—one of those, Vespanus recalled, chosen for his lack of ambition and general subservience—merely bowed, and then withdrew.

Vespanus gazed over the battlements for a moment, considering his next action, and then descended to the courtyard on his way to the quarters of the Protostrator. Word of his elevation had preceded him, and Vespanus was gratified that the soldiers he passed saluted him as their commander. Once at Ambius’s door, Vespanus tried to disengage the traps that Ambius had left behind—and managed to dodge a bolt of orange fire at only the last second. Having finally got the door open at the cost of a singed sleeve, he advanced to the Protostrator’s study and approached the Protostrate in her crystal bottle. He took a chair to a place near the shelf and sat. For a moment, he and Amay contemplated each other through the gleaming crystal. At length, he began to speak.

“You will rejoice with me, I’m sure, in the defeat of the enemy and the safety of the castle,” he said, “as you will mourn with me the death of your husband.”

She bowed her head, then raised her chin and said, “While hysterical laughter and bitter tears are both reasonable options in the current situation, I believe I shall decline both.”

“As you think best,” Vespanus said gravely.

“I wonder if I may beg of you a favor,” said Amay. “Could you take one of those bronze nymphs from the shelf yonder and give this bowl a sharp rap?”

“To what end?”