Warlord

before regaining control; it was as if he was a disembodied pair of eyes and ears with the power of flight. Cautiously, he swooped downward. The beautiful ancient buildings lay tumbled, or burning, or shattered in zones of overlapping circles out from the center of the fading ball of flame. He moved until the radius of complete destruction was behind him, watching like a god as little swooping vehicles came to collect the wounded; hideously burned figures writhed or lay still, and the ground-cars that had zipped along the roadways of turf were tumbled like toys, some driven through the fronts of houses.

There must have been a wind like a hurricane, he thought; the scene matched the description of the terrible storms of the far southern Zanj Sea. Fire like the heart of a star, then a killing wind. Raj had received the rudiments of a classical education, despite the pragmatism of his country- gentry family. There was only one thing that fit that description: fusion bomb, the agency of the Fall.

Then other flying cars touched down. He grunted in shock as he recognized the blazon on their sides-a double lightning flash, with the numerals 591 between-the insignia of the 591st Provisional Brigade. The barbarians who held the Old Residence, the original seat of planetary government, on the other side of the Midworld Sea. But those aren't barbarians, he thought dazedly, as the hatches opened and troops stormed forth. He could recognize their arms and armor, too. The clockwork and compressed-air automatons that lined the walls of the Hall of Audience were formed in that shape, and bore such arms. Lines of fire stitched back and forth as other troops in similar gear but bearing the insignia of the Federation Guards charged to meet them.

enough. The voice interrupted him as he watched the Brigade troops smash the last resistance and move on to sack a huge structure whose foundation outlines matched those of the Governor's Palace he knew. His viewpoint moved without his willing it, and locked on the face of a man lying with half his chest burned away despite his powered battle-armor; the mouth worked behind the visor, but nothing came out of it but clotted blood.

next.

There was a silent snap, and he was back in his original position. The city was intact again, unscarred by the fusion bomb, but as he looked more closely he could see that the outskirts had been abandoned, overgrown with green Terran vegetation and the reddish brown-green of native plants. Fewer of the flying eggs zipped by. . This time the attack was from the sea, in giant square vessels that floated on flexible skirts in billowing clouds of mist. Impossibly fast, the ships drove up from the sea to the land; laser fire stabbed out from them, and flashes that ended in explosions where oddly slender cannon pointed. Then ramps dropped, and armored soldiers poured out into the streets. The resistance was even less this time, and the attackers less disciplined; they began to loot and rape almost immediately. He recognized their insignia as well; 3rd Cruiser Squadron, the overlords of the Southern territories. Angry puzzlement grew at the back of his mind; even the Brigade considered the Squadron to be savages, and they had trouble maintaining flintlock shotguns, much less unFallen technology.

Again the swoop, and a lock on a man with visor raised who directed resistance from behind a barricade of wrecked vehicles. A flash, and there were only body-parts mixed inextricably with metal and synthetics.

next.

Again Raj found himself back at his starting point. The city was almost completely overgrown except for a core around the Palace, and that was being disassembled for building material. A checkerboard of farm fields and dirt roads stretched around; walls of rubble on dirt mounds protected the core, and a beaten pathway stretched down to improvised docks where sailboats lay. The broadest road stretched south and east; he estimated distances with an officer's trained eye, triangulating off hills he recognized. Yes, that was the course of the Great River Way, the main highway out of East Residence. Far smaller, and without the superb stone-block paving. . and there was an army marching up it, fighting its way through the overgrown ruins. He swooped lower.

Colonists, this time: dark men, many in billowing robes, bearded, with the green crescent flag of Islam at their head, alongside the scarlet peacock of the Settlers, the family that claimed to have led the first humans from Terra to Bellevue. Few of the beam weapons this time, and they were being sparingly used. Raj frowned, directing his attention from one unit to the next. Odd, he thought. The Colonists were mortal enemies of the Civil Government-had been the first to rebel after the Fall, in fact-but they were civilized, in their fashion. This looked like a mob, and a badly equipped one. No cavalry at all, not a single riding dog even for the officers; ox-drawn guns, but so primitive! Muzzle loaders all, that looked to have been cobbled up out of some sort of tubing, and the footmen carried everything from spears to matchlocks. Their opponents wore the blue and crimson of the Civil Government, but were no better armed and far less numerous.

Raj relaxed slightly, felt his stomach muscles unclench: he could understand this fight, at least. Much like a gigantic brawl, with numbers overwhelming position. The lock on a single commander was expected, this time: a tall elderly man with a hook where his left arm should have been, wearing a primitive version of the Governor's diadem and wielding an energy-weapon in his right hand. It failed, and a wave of Colonists swarmed over him, hacking and stabbing. A minute later and a spear surged up out of the ruck with the man's head on the end.

next.

The ruins were mostly gone, the odd exotic materials of the unFallen weathered into the soil- unable to bear the corruption of the Fallen world, his childhood catechism reminded him- and the central core of the Palace was as he knew it, but shining in new blue limestone, without the patina of centuries. He could see a few of the familiar street patterns, and a bulky stone barn-like structure with the Star on its roof, right where the Temple stood in Raj's own time. A naval battle was raging out on the harbor; galleys only, many open-decked like giant rowboats, not a steamer in sight. There were dozens of flags beside the Civil Government's; Brigade, Squadron, a wild variety of tribal blazons, even the clenched fist with single upright finger of the Skinners, and they were wild nomads on the steppes of the far north. Cannon roared, vomiting a fog of smoke that lay like a dirty carpet on the bright blue of the harbor; ships burned; wreckage floated, some of it still living and moving, until the tentacled mouths of downdraggers sucked them under.

Raj's vision locked on the poopdeck of the largest galley. A man lay there, head cradled in the arms of a subordinate, wearing the insignia of a Civil Government Fleet Admiral. Not much was left of his legs beneath the tourniquets, but he was still trying to give orders when he yawned and slumped into unconsciousness.

next.

East Residence was half-built, and men were laying the foundations of the Temple. Or had been; now they were trying to hold walls that were closer to the Palace than the ones Raj knew, but well-made and of stone. Trying and failing. The banners of the Colony waved over a gate; it swung open and troops poured through on dogback, but the animals were small, no more than six hundred pounds. Like a dream, Raj thought; half-familiar but distorted. The Colonists charged against a line of Civil Government infantry armed with muzzle- loading rifles, percussion models. They had time for a single volley, and then the dogs were snarling and rearing at the line of bayonets.

A counter-attack about- Raj began; then he saw the column of Civil Government riders pouring down the street behind their infantry. The Governor's banner was at the fore, a Mercator-projection world map, and another that looked something like the sandlion flag of the Descott hills; beneath it was a man whose face had the cast of Raj's home district, square, hook-nosed, brown-skinned, and black of hair and beard. The column crashed into the enemy in a saber-swinging melee. The swooping focus centered on the Descott man's face just as a Colonist trooper fired a pistol loaded with buckshot into it.

next.

The disorientation was worse again, as the city grew more familiar. The Inner Walls were complete, as were the Temple, and all of the Palace except the Long Galleries and their gardens. Noblemen's estates stood outside the Inner Walls, with no trace of the workshops and slum tenements that should cover that ground; the harbor was full of sails, with a few tall, thin smokestacks of uncouth design. The walls were under siege, though: a formal affair, zigzag trenches and revetments, with heavy guns pounding the crumbling ramparts and little return fire. Columns of smoke rose from the East Residence streets; mobs moved through them, and the soldiers struggling toward the perimeter seemed to be having more trouble with their own people than the enemy. Outside the wall were the camps of the attackers; a huge, neatly laid out rectangle around a giant pavilion that bore the Settler's flag, surrounded by field-works; a series of clumps and unit-lines for the Brigade, a sprawl of tents and brush shelters for the Squadron. And odds and sods from everywhere; Skinners on lean hounds with their two-meter rifles-but muzzle-loaders, not the ones he was used to. The dogs were full-size this time, many of breeds he could identify,