In the Heart of Darkness(70)

For the first time, Great Lady Holi spoke.



"Come closer, young man. My eyes are old and poor. I wish to see your face better."



Her Greek was also perfect, and unaccented.



Belisarius did not hesitate, not, any least, any longer than necessary to gauge the proper distance to maintain. He arose from his cross-legged position on the cushion—he, too, had learned the "lotus"—and took two steps forward. Just before the line of tulwars, he knelt on one knee, bringing his eyes approximately level to those of the old woman seated a few feet away.



The Great Lady Holi leaned forward. A hand veined with age reached up and lifted her veil. Dark eyes gazed directly into the brown eyes of Belisarius.



Empty eyes. Dark, not from color, but from the absence of anything within.



"Is it true that you plan to betray Rome?"



There was something strange about those words, he sensed dimly. An odd, penetrating quality to their tone. He could feel the words racing down pathways in his body—nerves, arteries, veins, muscle tissue, ligaments.



"Do you plan to betray Rome?"



He was giving himself away, he realized. (Dimly, vaguely, at a distance.) The—intelligence?—behind those words was inhuman. It was reading his minute, involuntary reactions in a way no human could. No man alive could lie well enough to fool that—thing.



But it was the eyes, not the voice, which held him paralyzed. Not from fear, but horror. He knew, now, the true nature of hell. It was not fire, and damnation. It was simply—



Empty. Nothing.



As so often before in his life, it was Valentinian who saved him. Valentinian, and Anastasius, and Maurice, and countless other such veterans. Coarse men, crude men, lewd men, rude men. Brutal men, often. Even cruel men, on occasion.



But always men. Never empty, and never nothing.



General Belisarius smiled his crooked smile, and said, quite pleasantly:



"Fuck Malwa."



Then, still kneeling, drove his right bootheel straight back into the face of Nanda Lal. He was a powerful man, and it was a bootheel which had trampled battlefields underfoot. It flattened the spymaster and obliterated his nose.





Chapter 13




Belisarius used the impact to lunge upright. Ahead of him, the six eunuchs also began uncoiling. Grunting with the effort, they gathered their haunches and started to rise. The tulwars were already drawing back for the death strokes.



Belisarius ignored them. The eunuchs formed an impassable barrier—well over a ton of sword-wielding meat stood between him and any chance of killing Link. But they were much too ponderous to pose an immediate threat to his escape.



He could not hear the assassins, but he knew they were coming. Belisarius took two quick steps to his left. The servant standing there was paralyzed with shock. The general seized the man by his throat and hip, pivoted violently, and hurled him into the oncoming assassins.



The servant, wailing, piled into three of the assassins charging forward. His wail was cut short abruptly. The fourth assassin dealt with the obstacle by the simple expedient of slashing him down. As he raced toward the nearest window, Belisarius caught a glimpse of the servant's dying body, still entangling three of the assassins. The knife which ended his life, though lacking the mass of a sword, had still managed to hack halfway through the servant's neck. The edge of that blade was as razor sharp as the man who wielded it.



Belisarius reached the window. There was no time for anything but a blind plunge. He dove straight through the silk-mesh screen, fists clenched before him. The silk shredded under the impact. Belisarius sailed cleanly through the window. He found himself plunging through the night air toward the surface of the Jamuna. The assassin's hurled knife missed him by an inch. Belisarius watched the knife splash into the river. Less than a second later, he followed it in.





Ousanas rose from the shrubbery in the alley, took two quick steps, uncoiled. Quick shift, javelin from left hand to right. Uncoiled.



The sounds coming from the barge had not been loud, but they had been unmistakeable. Unmistakeable, at least, to men like Ousanas and the four Ye-tai gambling on the wharf. The Ye-tai were already scrambling to their feet, drawing swords.



The two Malwa kshatriyas standing guard at the top of the ramp, however, were a more sheltered breed. They, too, heard the sounds. But their only immediate response was to frown and turn away from the side of the barge. They stood still, staring at the doorway leading into the interior.



Ousanas' javelins caught them squarely between the shoulder blades. Both men were slain instantly, their spines severed. The impact sent one of the kshatriya hurtling through the doorway into the barge. The other Malwa struck the doorframe itself. There he remained. The javelin, passing a full foot through his body, pinned him like a butterfly.