expectantly toward him made up most of the crowd, he spoke again.
“Now, I fear I have some unpleasant news.”
The crowd sobered; an uneasy hush fell.
“Oh, it’s not all bad. The war is over, and with the help of the gods we won. A few northern stragglers remain to be mopped up but nothing significant. However, the world may not be quite as you have imagined it to be at the war’s end — those of you who have thought about it at all.”
“Firstly, due to the withdrawal of the gods, some of the laws of magic may have changed. I’m no magician, I can’t say anything very definite about it, but my advisors tell me that magic we have taken for granted may no longer work. What this means remains to be seen.”
“For most of you, that’s a minor detail, though. Far more important for all of you is that, whatever you may have expected, the end of the war does not mean that you will all be going home to our motherland of Old Ethshar. You can’t.”
Gor apparently had not intended to stop there, but the hubbub was such that he had no choice. He held out his arms and waited for the crowd to quiet somewhat before continuing.
“There are two reasons that Azrad, Anaran, and myself will not be leading you home. Firstly, there is simply no room for the three million men and women who now occupy the camps and battlefields. The eastern half of Ethshar — yes, fully half — was destroyed by the demonic invasion and is now uninhabitable. In the remainder — well, you all know that this war has dragged on for generation after generation and that our defenses were sound. Despite the ravages of war, the population of our old homeland has increased steadily, and there is simply no room for more.”
He paused; the crowd waited expectantly.
“That’s the first reason. The second has been carefully kept secret for years, lest it damage morale and aid the enemy. Now that that enemy is destroyed, the time has come to reveal the truth. Ethshar is no more.”
Gor paused again, as if expecting a loud response, but received only a puzzled silence.
He said, “Or rather, I should say, Old Ethshar is no more. The government collapsed almost a hundred years ago, and where the Holy Kingdom of Ancient Ethshar once was — or at least the western half of it — there are now dozens of squabbling little fiefdoms, each claiming to be the rightful government of the country, and therefore our superiors. We in the military have refused to acknowledge any of these factions and, instead, have been operating independently — Azrad, Anaran, myself, and, until his death, Terrek have answered to no one but ourselves. We four were chosen, not by the civilian government as we led you to believe, but by the commanders who came before us. We have traded with the small kingdoms that were once Old Ethshar for the supplies we need and have defended them against the northerners, but have never heeded their authority. We are the government of Ethshar — not of the Old Ethshar that was once our people’s homeland, but of the new Ethshar, the Hegemony of Ethshar, all the lands that have been taken and held by our victorious armies. All the lands that lie outside the old borders — all the lands outside the borders now that the Empire is destroyed — are ours. Are yours! Captured with your strength and your blood and your courage, they belong to you, not to the cowards who stayed behind and couldn’t even hold their own nation together!”
This was apparently intended to evoke a cheer, but the response was feeble and quick to die, as each individual in the crowd tried to absorb what had been said, evaluate it, and guess what it meant for him or her, what place he or she might hold in the new order.
Valder wondered if it actually was a new order, when in fact the generals had been running everything for centuries anyway.
“There is much to be done,” Gor went on, hiding any disconcertment he might feel at the lukewarm response. “This stronghold is to become our new northwestern capital, one of three, to be called Ethshar of the Rocks. I fully expect that in our lifetimes, now that the demands of the war are gone, it will grow into a great and beautiful city.”
An uneasy murmur seemed to be bubbling up here and there in the crowd.
“Of course, the army will be disbanded as quickly as possible, save for a small contingent to keep the peace and defend against any marauding northern survivors. My staff will remain in authority temporarily, but will be converted from a military establishment to a civilian government. The rest of you will be discharged as fast as you can be — with full pay, of course! After that, you will be free to do as you please, to stay here and help build our new city or to go where you like and do what you will. For those who wish to take up farming or other settled tasks, all the lands in the Hegemony not already privately owned, all the plains that reach from this ocean to the Great River, will be free to any family that wants them. You need merely find your new home, claim it, and use it — only claims by those who actually work the land will be recognized, as we need no landlords or other parasites.”
Valder tried to digest this. How did one go about becoming a wine merchant? Would he need to claim a vineyard somewhere? He was not interested in growing the grapes and making the wine, merely in selling it. Would he be free to do that under the revamped regime?
And what would he do with Wirikidor? A merchant did not need a sword.
That was nothing to worry about, he told himself. He could just put Wirikidor away somewhere and forget about it, live a normal life — a normal life that would go on indefinitely. He would never be called upon to kill twenty more men, not in peacetime.
He was so involved with consideration of his own future that he paid no attention to the crowd around him, which was restive and uneasy.
“That’s all,” Gor announced. “I’ve said what I came to say. If you have any questions, ask your superiors. We aren’t keeping any more secrets. And as quickly as the change can be made, we will no longer be the Western Command of the Holy Kingdom of Ethshar, but an integral part of the new Hegemony of Ethshar, and I will no longer be a general, but rather overlord of the city of Ethshar of the Rocks. After centuries, peace has come! The war is over, and victory is ours!”
Even Valder, lost as he was in his own musings, noticed that the crowd was still so unsettled and confused by the news that this surefire applause line received only a brief, half-hearted cheer.
CHAPTER 18
For three days after the self-proclaimed overlord’s speech, the busiest man in the Fortress was the paymaster. Hundreds of soldiers took Gor at his word and mustered out as fast as they could get through the red tape, each one collecting his back pay — less a fee for early discharge, of course, a fee carefully calculated to keep the treasury solvent without letting anyone feel seriously cheated. It came to a single silver piece, which Valder had to admit was reasonable enough, and the cash settlements were reportedly being made promptly and honestly.
When Valder attempted to collect his pay and go, however, he was refused. Enlisted men were free to go, but as yet officers and special services people were being asked to wait.
Valder thought about just packing up and leaving anyway. He doubted that anyone, in this chaotic new peace, would care about a deserter. However, he had a goodly sum owed to him; whatever its other drawbacks, assassination paid well. He knew he would need money to set himself up in the wine business, and so he waited.
In doing so he was operating on the assumption that he actually intended to become a wine merchant, but now that the prospect was an immediate reality, rather than a vague plan for the distant future, he was having second thoughts. What did he know about being a merchant?
Whatever he might do, however, he would almost certainly want money and he saw no harm in waiting a few more days to collect it. Tandellin, too, was staying, for the moment; he had not yet decided what to do with himself; as he explained it, “Why give up free room and board?” Sarai, too, was staying, and somehow, with the arrival of peace, it became implicitly accepted that Tandellin and Sarai would be married when they got around to it.
Valder remained uneasy about staying in the Fortress, however. He tried to reassure himself as he watched the men and women trickling away down the hillside, leaving the inner corridors ever less crowded. He
