In the Heart of Darkness

True, he spent a minute reminding his audience that Skandagupta was 'a very moon among kings, beloved of the gods, and the sun of valor.'

Then, another minute, pointing out that the Emperor's stride 'was beautiful like the gait of a choice elephant,' and that he 'displayed the strength and prowess of a tiger of irresistible valor.'

Moving on to the Emperor's more spiritual side, Venandakatra spent another minute dwelling on 'the reverberations of the kettle-drums which have become the reverberation of the Law of Piety' and similar descriptions of Skandagupta's justice and devotion.

Now, alas, he veered for several minutes onto the field of the Emperor's prodigious intellect, during which time the awestruck audience discovered that Skandagupta 'puts to shame all others by his sharp and polished intellect and choral skill and musical accomplishments. He alone is worthy of the thoughts of the learned. His is the poetic style which is worthy of study.'

Fortunately, he did not quote the poetry.

Venandakatra's peroration, now coming to a close, ascended rapidly toward the heavens. The Emperor, he reminded everyone, was:

Adhiraja, super-king.

Rajatiraja, supreme king of kings.

Devaputra, son of heaven.

Mahati devata, great divinity in human shape.

Then, casting all false modesty aside:

Achintya Purusha, the Incomprehensible Being.

Paramadaivata, the supreme deity.

'All that,' mused Garmat, peering at the Emperor on his throne, 'in such a fat little package. Who would have guessed?'

Belisarius managed not to smile. His struggle was made easier by Venandakatra's ensuing words, which focussed on the subject of Ranapur. Soon enough, it became apparent that this was the real point of his peroration. The actual siege itself, the Vile One dispatched with a few sentences, which, by Malwa standards, was a studied insult to the military officers. The focus of Venandakatra's treatment, however, was on Ranapur's punishment.

Belisarius listened for a few minutes, fascinated despite himself. Not so much by the speech itself, which consisted of an interminable, protracted, loving description of the tortures inflicted on Ranapur's residents, but by the fact that the Malwa would boast of them so publicly. Even the most vicious Roman emperors had always drawn a veil over the details of their crimes.

After a time, he blanked the words from his mind. He had already heard a description of the Malwa atrocities-not from the smiling lips of the Vile One, but from the pale, tight-jawed mouth of Menander. He knew of the impalings, the burnings; the people ripped apart by yoked oxen, fed to tigers, trampled under elephants; and the Emperor's particular delight, the men and women whose arms and legs had been torn off by a specially trained war elephant. That elephant, he had heard, had been a personal gift to the Emperor from Venandakatra himself.

He focussed inward, summoned Aide.

Is such incredible cruelty the doing of this thing you call Link?

The answer was immediate, and contained none of the uncertain fumbling which so often characterized Aide's replies.

No. Link is not cruel. Link is a machine. Cruelty means nothing to it. Only results.

Do the 'new gods' demand it, then?

A bit of hesitation. Just a bit.

We-do not think so. They are-too cold. They, also, seek only results. But-

The thought faceted, broke into fragments. Belisarius caught enough of a glimpse to understand.

Yes. They seek only results, and take no personal pleasure in cruelty. But results can be achieved through many different means. And this is the means they will naturally take. Their instinctive response to resistance: kill, butcher, rule by terror.

Yes.

And the 'Great Ones'? What is their instinctive response, when they seek results and others resist their goals?

Silence. Then, much more uncertainly:

Hard to explain. They are even colder, in their way. They simply accept resistance, and seek to channel it. That is why they created us, perhaps, who are the coldest of all beings. We are intelligent, unlike computers. But, like computers, we are not alive.

Very uncertainly:

At least, we do not think we are alive. We are not sure.

Aide fell silent. Belisarius knew he would get nothing more, for the moment. He pondered the exchange, until Garmat drew him back into the present.

'He's wrapping it up,' whispered the Axumite.

'In this divine work,' cried out Venandakatra, 'the great God-on-Earth drew to his side all the powers of the Universe. Even at the moment when the forces of evil thought to triumph, he caused to fall upon them the wrath of foreign allies. And so was demonic rebellion shattered!'

Venandakatra made a small motion with his hand. Four burly officials staggered forward, carrying a chest. They set the chest before Belisarius. Three of them stepped away.

Venandakatra pointed to the chest dramatically.

'Great is the reward for those who please the God-on-Earth!'

The fourth official grasped the lid of the chest and swung it open, exposing its contents for all to see. Then he too stepped aside.

A gasp rose from the guards and officials close enough to see. The chest was filled to the brim with gold coins, pearls, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and beautifully carved jade.

Belisarius found it hard not to gasp himself. He had never suffered the vice of greed, though he was practical enough to prefer wealth to poverty. But he was still stunned by the gift. The contents of that chest were, quite literally, a king's ransom.

A king's bribe, rather.

For an instant, he struggled, though not with greed. Until he was certain he had vanquished that rush of anger, he kept his head down; staring blindly into the chest, as if dazzled by his sudden fortune.

As so often, in such battles, humor was his chosen weapon. Belisarius reminded himself that, if greed had never been his vice, he was given to a different mortal sin. A sense of honor, in itself, was not a sin. But vanity about that honor was.

He remembered the flushed and angry faces of Couzes and Boutzes, two young generals whose courage had been insulted by a Persian nobleman. At the time, he had wondered why any sane man would care what a Persian peacock-an enemy, to boot-thought of his courage.

So why should I care what a Malwa peacock thinks of my honor?

He raised his head, smiling broadly. He rose, bowed to Venandakatra, and prostrated himself before the Emperor. By the time he resumed his seat, the pavilion was buzzing with gratified noise from the assembled Malwa elite.

'There's going to be something else,' murmured Garmat, his lips barely moving.

Belisarius' nod was hardly more than a twitch.

'Of course,' he murmured back. 'First the bribe. Then-the test.'

He sensed a stirring in the back of the crowd. A little eddying motion, as if people were forcing their way forward. Or being forced forward.

He knew the nature of the test, then, even before Venandakatra spoke. A new fury threatened to overwhelm him, but he crushed it at once. The only sign of his rage was that the next words he spoke to Garmat were spoken in Arabic instead of Ge'ez.

'Why is it, I wonder, that cruel people always think they have a monopoly on ruthlessness? '

For a moment, he and his friend Garmat gazed at each other. Garmat said nothing, but Belisarius recognized that slight curl in his lips. Garmat, too, had a sense of humor, as did most Axumites. But he also had that fine