The Wizard from Earth (15 page)

18.

The soldiers stationed at the crossroads had been going through Matt's back-pack, splitting the food and sundries between them, when the OSV impact had occurred.  For them it was kilometers away and had a correspondingly much lower emotional effect than it had for Carrot.  They saw a line of smoke scratch the sky, heard a boom, saw clouds of dust rise from beyond the horizon.  Then one turned to the others and asked, "What the fuk was that?"

"A load of hot coals, launched from a catapult," said another.  "See the smoking path in the sky?"

"Is there a catapult that can throw a load that far and that size?"

"As you see with your own eyes, there must be.  Come on, let's finish the divvy before an officer comes and takes the whole as his 'tithe.'”

They went back to their pilfering.  Matt had harbored the hope that the sight of the explosion would unnerve the soldiers so much that he could assert wizard status and intimidate them into letting him go.  Now he realized they lacked enough imagination to be frightened.

He tried to slip away, but the chains hanging from his wrists chose to jangle, and the soldiers menaced with their swords. 

"I'm not a combatant," Matt said.  "Why have you taken me prisoner?"

"Shut up or I'll cut your tongue," a soldier replied.  "That's why!"

The others laughed and returned to 'work.'

A short time later, soldiers filed from the south, bearing lines of prisoners in chains.  All the prisoners had been disarmed, but some still wore makeshift and homemade armor, often made of wood or bags stuffed with straw.  Many, however, wore clothing fit only for farming, and their ages were too young or too old to be practical warriors.  Matt realized he wasn't the only civilian caught in the dragnet.

"The attack is canceled," the leader of the newcomers said.  "The rebels scattered before most could be trapped.  It's back to Londa now."

"Suits me fine," said the leader of the group guarding Matt.  He yanked Matt's chains.  "Come along, Blue Boy!" 

He jabbed with his short sword.  Matt jumped barely in time.  They fastened his chains to the line of prisoners and marched eastward.  More soldiers and prisoners appeared, and the combined lines stretched from east to west. 

The marchers stopped for the night, but the prisoners were not fed.  Despite passing several streams, water was sparsely rationed.  Some of the men, especially the wounded, faltered by next mid-day.  The Romans dealt with stragglers by yelling and yanking, and then out came a whip with bones tied to the tip of the lash.  If that didn't work, the prisoner was allowed to rest a little.  But then came out the whip once more, and then it was back to the line without further respite. 

On the march east, Matt passed the motionless body of a prisoner whose skin had been shredded into bleeding stripes. 

“Turn off the music,” Matt told Ivan. 

Matt had not been in battle, had not been wounded or beaten.  For what relatively minor discomfort he experienced, he had Ivan to damp the pain and regulate his body to optimum health and efficiency.  But Ivan could not do nothing to stop the toll that the march was taking on Matt's soul.

"This is what they did," he said to Ivan.  "Their little science experiment.  Spreading life to another star system must have seemed so noble and grand back then.  But this is the world they allowed to happen."

“You are speaking of the creators of the seeder probe to this planet.”

“Yeah.  The creators of one giant ethical leap backward for mankind.”

"Seeder probes are designed to control biological evolution, not social evolution.”

"Then they shouldn't have sent one here, because now they've created a world full of misery."

"I do not understand.  You said that you liked being at Fish Lake."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you like Fish Lake, then Fish Lake is not miserable.  Given that Fish Lake is part of the world, then there is a part of the world that is not miserable.  Therefore the world is not full of misery."

“You just throw the most simplistic logic – “ Matt stopped speaking out loud.  The soldiers were looking at him, fists tightening around whip handles. 

“I'm sorry, Matt.  I seem to have said something that angers you.  Please explain and I will correct my error.”

Matt subvocaled,  “No, no.  You're right, I'm sorry.  There is good and bad to this world.  But right now the bad seems to be winning.”  He gazed at the spears and swords around him and said, “And if they have their way, they'll make Fish Lake miserable too.”

The soldiers became somewhat lax by then.  When they stopped for the night, the prisoners were able to talk in the dark in whispers.

"Where are they taking us?"

"Londa, they said."

"I know that.  But after Londa, where?"

"Somewhere across the sea."

"Your knowledge abounds!"

"I'm so hungry.  When will they feed us?"

"They won't feed us until we get to Londa."

"We'll starve!"

"We're slaves of the Empire now.  We're good as dead already."

"Well, thank you, Boudica."

"How is this her fault?  Was she to know of stones that fall from the sky?"

"Did you see it?  Right in front of us!  As if the Romans planned it!"

Another voice intoned,  "They did.  They have a wizard who is capable of such deeds."

Matt immediately sat up and asked,  “What do you mean, they have a wizard?"

The voice in the dark replied,  "His name is Archimendias, or something like that.  He lives in Rome and contrives all their engines of war.  Even the soldiers respect him, and when do you see a soldier respect a scholar?”

“When he causes fire to come down from the sky,” said another.

Matt decided not to protest the misapplication of credit. 

“In the Westlands there was talk,” someone said.  “Of our own wizard here in Britan.  It was said he was coming east to assist us.”

Someone else, sharply,  “I haven't seen his works.”

"Haven't you noticed?  Not a single prisoner has died of the Plague."

"They die of exhaustion first."

Matt took advantage of the lull and said, "I have a question about a certain person.  A female warrior.  Did anyone see her?"

Matt had already tried to query satellite view, but as the time of the battle neared Herman had chosen to set beneath the horizon, and the targeting of the OSV had to be done by reckoning and calculation, while observations from others were the best Matt had of the actual events on the ground. 

Silence, and then,  "A female warrior?  Not many of those.  Women in these dark days are all over the battlefield, as nurses and weapon carriers and scouts and messengers, but still it's only a man's privilege to hack another man to bits.”

“Only because women don't want that job,” another prisoner said.

“I've known a few who do.”

Matt was losing track of matching voices with shapes in the dark, and he gruesomely supposed it didn't matter because they would all be dead soon.

Someone said,  “I can see a woman warrior as an archer, as they have the upper body strength for that.  Blue, was your woman an archer?”

“No, she carries a spear and sword,” Matt said.  “And, uh, she probably had orange hair.”

“'Probably?'  When it comes to orange hair, you have it or don't.”

Before Matt could reply, a prisoner who had kept quiet until then intervened,  “You mean, hair like the color of a bonfire, or a princing bird, or a carrot?”

Matt nodded (forgetting that it was dark) and said, “Like a carrot.”

"I saw her for a moment, in the distance.  She ran faster than a fox being chased!”

“That was her.  Do you know if she survived?”

“Hell man, I barely know if I did.  The last I saw of her, she was standing in front of the whole army, facing the Queen, and then came the falling star and landed right on top of her.  I didn't see her after that, owing to clouds of dirt and because I was too busy running for my life to look.”

“You should have run faster,” someone else said.  “We all should have.  We were too brave as patriots of Britan to run from battle, and now we shall be brave slaves in service to Rome.”

“I was no soldier and in no battle,” another said.  “I was plowing my field outside my village, when soldiers came and chained me in front of my wife and children.”

Others made grunts of assent.  Apparently it was the majority experience. 

Then the conversation went on to talk of village life they'd left behind, and then a soldier walked past and the prisoners became silent.  Matt waited until the soldier was gone and wrested with his chains.

"Ivan, you're sure there's no way you can get me out of these?"

"The shackle technology is very simple, but very robust.  It would require a metal key to turn the locking mechanism."

“You have printing capability.  So print a key.”

“My printing capability is limited to cellular replacement.  I could print a key, but it would be made of bone, and would likely break in the lock.”

“Well, let's try it just to be sure.”

“I will need to scan the lock mechanism first.  Please hold your palm over the key hole.”

Matt did so. He felt a mild tingle in the center of his palm.

“Now close your right palm.”

Again, Matt complied.  A few minutes later, Ivan said, “You may open your palm.”

Matt did so and removed the key of bone.  He inserted it into the lock and twisted.  It promptly broke.  Ivan was programmed specifically to never say, “I told you so,” and so remained silent.

“Ivan, you don't have the capability to print in metal?”

“Not at this time.  To anticipate your next question, I do not have the capability of printing a key made of triaxial graphene either.”

Matt nodded, as that had in fact been his next question.  "Well, could you form a pseudopod and insert it into the lock to see if you can turn it?"

"My mechanical capabilities are designed for interstitial penetration of cellular tissue, and cannot sustain sufficient torque for the task you have described.  I can independently upgrade my printing and mechanical capabilities, but it will take time."

“Okay, work on that.  But I assume that by 'it will take time,' you mean 'it will not be today.'”

“Yes, Matt.”

“Well, I'm sure we could think of something if we thought about it some more, but I don't see how we'd get far with all these guards watching.  I guess we'll just wait until all their backs are turned.”

“So far, since our capture, the longest instance of that has been twenty-nine seconds.”

“If we were still in the Dark Forest, that would get us to the trees.”

“Satellite view archives show that there is open grassland adjacent to the road all the way from here to Londa.”

“We've got to think of something.”

Matt lay on his side and stared at the stars and thought about what the rebel warrior had said about Carrot being in the path of the falling OSV.  It seemed like an improbable coincidence, but in hindsight he saw that it was inevitable.  Of course she would scout ahead, he had seen her do it a dozen times in their journey from Fish Lake.  And so she would be positioned exactly between armies at the wrong moment, right where and when Matt had directed Herman to target the OSV in order to drive the armies apart, stop the battle before it began, and thereby save Carrot. 

Part of Matt feared that his attempt to save her life had killed her.  But then he remembered how she had fought the soldiers who attacked their encampment.  She wasn't the type who would just stand in fear and watch a flaming meteor fall on top of her.  Would she? 

“Matt, your physiological readings indicate a state of extreme psychological agitation.  Would you care to discuss what is bothering you?”

“It's not something that just talking about it can fix.”

Ivan was silent a moment, then said, “Carrot probably survived.”

“Can you knock me out for a while?  I'm not going to get to sleep otherwise.”

His last thought that night was that maybe he shouldn't try to escape, because maybe he deserved what was happening to him.

The next day they reached Londa.  The gates were thrown open and the residents lined the main street.  The well-dressed cheered the troops.  The poorly dressed watched sullenly.  At the auction, buyers winnowed the strongest-looking slaves, and the rest, including Matt, were herded into a staging area near the docks.

Matt surveyed the town.  The walls were white, the roofs red, the streets dirt and mud.  A few buildings had signs for business, but Matt didn't see one for a publishing house.  What he did see were rows of military barracks, and beyond were more rows of tents.

“Good thing we're leaving anyway,” he said.  “The rent is probably too high.”

Ivan's 'factory' setting had been to laugh at all of his host's attempts at humor, but Matt had found it creepy and long ago had told him to stop doing it.  So Ivan was silent.