Rogue Emperor (The Chronoplane Wars Book 3) Read online

  That noon Dear Michael preached the Sermon at the Camp. He stood on a rocky outcrop, his glorious voice so strong that only a few on the edge of the congregation had needed to use their ringmike earphones. While the wind whipped his pale hair and reddened his cheeks, he spoke of the ordeal that God had now chosen as a means to strengthen His warriors, to prepare them for the coming glory. The idolaters, he said, had seen Doomsday on the dead worlds of Ulro and Urizen, but in their folly they had rejected the true message God had vouchsafed by that revelation. The Second Coming was now truly at hand, only two generations away, and many of them would live to stand in the ranks at Armageddon.

  Before that moment at the climax of earthly time, however, they had been sent like the Israelites to dwell in the wilderness, to be tested and hardened. The idolaters in their folly had thought this exile was a punishment; they did not see how even in their blindness they did God’s work and prepared for their own overthrow and damnation,

  “Amen,” the great congregation murmured, and the sound muffled the wind itself.

  In God’s good time, Michael said, the Church Militant would return in glory and rejoicing to redeem Earth from her sin and folly and to prepare mankind for the onslaught of the Antichrist. No, they would do more: they would redeem even the suffering primitives of this and the other downtime worlds, bring them the saving news of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, so that when Judgment Day came in 2089 not only Earth but all the chronoplanes would receive their Savior.

  They stood helpless before God that day, strangers in a strange land that they would make their home. Here they would conquer the earth and subdue it, and here they would learn the lesson God had taught them through their sufferings on Earth: Christ’s warriors would win through strength, a physical strength that was only the outward manifestation of the spiritual strength within. He who struck down Christ’s enemy not only showed his spiritual strength, he increased it by the act. He who fell at the hands of Christ’s enemies redeemed his spiritual weakness by the Christ-like sacrifice of his life, by the total witnessing he made in the face of the idolaters. No one need fear for the souls of slain idolaters: they were already irretrievably in Satan’s power, and the soldier of the Church Militant was only Christ’s instrument in sending them to the damnation they had chosen when the way to salvation had been so clearly offered them.

  The Militants were weak, but they would be strong. They were few, but they would be numberless. They were castaways in the wilderness, yet they would stand in Jerusalem to wrest it from the Jews and to sing God’s praises.

  That first winter tempered them: almost two thousand died of hunger and scurvy and diarrhea. But by summer the first crops waved in the sunlight, and babies bawled lustily in the hut villages. A hundred endochronics, frightened but capable hunters, were captured and taught simple English. In return they showed the Militants how to set snares, to drive aurochs into traps, to harvest the wild bounty of the hills and streams.

  Brewster was a hunter that first year, coursing far to the north and east. By the second winter their villages were walled and secure, each hut with its big stack of firewood. Before the end of that winter, the first knotholers appeared.

  They were Yugoslavs, unbelievers with no interest in the Church Militant but trade. Dear Michael and the Elders drove bargains with them, buying arms and medicine with the Church’s hidden resources uptime. Then, inevitably, they fell under Dear Michael’s influence, converted, and served the Church out of love and duty.

  At unpredictable intervals the Agency surveyed the colony from the air, its blue helicopters chattering close overhead. Uptime contraband was carefully hidden: the rifles, the generators, the medical equipment. The Agency surveys showed only a hardscrabble colony of walled villages, small fields of grain, logged-off hillsides, and big graveyards.

  In his sermons Dear Michael promised an early end to their exile. He began to disappear; rumors were that he had returned uptime to keep contact with Militants who had escaped the Agency’s net. The ordinary soldiers of the Church, like Brewster, knew nothing of the Elders’ deliberations or plans: their job was only to serve and obey.

  Then, a year ago, he had been called into a special group. Fifty men and women assembled in a village of their own, ten kilometers from the main settlement. In the village were six men and two women whose job was to teach the fifty. The subject was Latin.

  The tutors were prisoners, endochronics taken in a raid on Ahania. They were terrified, but at last came to accept their fate. In lessons that went on for weeks, the Militants learned to speak the Latin of the first century, and to learn something of life in the Roman Empire.

  Dear Michael’s purpose was of course clear to them, though still concealed from most of the Militants: to seize the Roman Empire, convert it to Christianity two centuries before Constantine’s conversion, and to make it a power that even the International Federation and the Agency would have to respect. The IF’s tyranny would be broken; the downtime colonies would win their independence as well, under the guidance of the Church. At last Earth itself would turn from idolatry and vain attempts to escape the wrath of the Lord, and prepare itself for the last days.

  Brewster and the others would have followed Dear Michael anywhere, of course, but the thought of saving Rome itself, of embracing the first Christians and saving them from the persecution of the pagan emperors, made every breath as sweet and heady as wine. Soon, soon, they would be in Jerusalem. It was no matter that Domitian’s brother Titus had overthrown it and turned it to rubble. He had only driven the Jews from it, as Christ had driven the moneychangers from the temple, and the Church Militant would rebuild God’s City as an eternal hymn in stone.

  Over a period of three months, in small groups, the fifty Latin speakers left their village. They crossed the tidal marshes, thick with mosquitoes, to a camouflaged shed on a quiet Adriatic inlet. Three young sailors ferried them across to Italy, and guides there took them west across the Apennines. In a quiet forest clearing, an I-Screen opened up; they stepped through into twenty-first-century Italy, and within hours stepped through again into Ahania.

  “Dear Michael — that man is so smart,” Brewster said. “He planned everything. He reached the Praetorians, got them on our side. Soon as we got through, they took care of us. Sure brushed up my Latin.”

  “And in exchange you helped train them in firearms,” Pierce said quietly.

  “Of course. And the faith.” He shifted uncomfortably on the tiles. “Brother, may I please sit up? And undo this rope?”

  “In good time, Dennis.” Pierce took Aquilius aside. “It’s full light. What’s being done with the bodies?”

  “Sulpicius has called in some of the villagers to dig a grave, out across the stream.”

  “The armor, weapons — the bikes?”

  “It will all be seen to. The bicycles will be melted down. The Uzis will be buried.”

  “The villagers seem practiced in this kind of business.”

  “Praetorians are no different from tax collectors.”

  Pierce nodded. His headache was coming back. He walked back across the atrium to his prisoner.

  “Sit up, Dennis.” He helped the young man pull himself up, and undid the leather strap. “Come and sit down.” Dennis hobbled to a small stool, sagged onto it gratefully, and put his hands on his knees.

  “You spoke about Dear Michael’s perceiving your pride, and your own understanding of your errors is very encouraging. Very encouraging.”

  Brewster looked bashfully at the mosaic tiles. Pierce wanted to kill him.

  “What I want to do now, Dennis, is to find the roots of that pride, the mistaken ideas that led you into folly. Do you understand that I sincerely have your best interests at heart? That I’m here to help you and guide you, not to punish you?”

  “Yes, sir. And I’m grateful. Uh, sir, may I talk to my squad? Make sure they’re okay? Before we go on looking at my mistakes. They sure don’t deserve to suffer for my sins
.”

  “Don’t worry about them. Would you say your pride came from a sense of being in complete control in Rome?”

  “Oh, no, sir. We sure aren’t in complete control. Something went wrong just as soon as we got the emperor.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “No idea, sir. All I know is, my people was supposed to go into the idolaters’ embassy same time they got rid of the emperor, but we didn’t get the word until two, three hours later. And they gave us a tough fight. Now we’ve just got ourselves and some of the Praetorians to take over the whole city, a million people.”

  “‘Ourselves’?”

  “The Latin speakers.”

  “You see yourselves as the only important persons in this plan?”

  “No, sir! Nothing like as important as the Elders or the Crucifers. But we’re the only ones can talk to these people, to the Romans.”

  “Yet with all that you had to do, you were sent out here. Doesn’t that suggest the importance of this particular mission?”

  “Yes, sir. Anybody supported Domitian, anybody friends with the idolaters, we have to remove. Can’t give the idolaters a chance to get organized.”

  “Exactly. Their removal is vital to the plan, more vital than you may realize. Yet you had trouble with the attack on the idolaters’ embassy, and we were afraid you’d have just the kind of trouble you’ve run into here. That’s why they sent me out here, to see how you handled this.” Brewster’s eyes gleamed with tears. “Sir, I have no excuse. I’ve put Dear Michael to extra worry and trouble, just when he doesn’t need it, but I’m sure grateful he’s lookin’ after me even in this urgent time. I’m ready for chastisement.”

  Pierce wondered how much longer he could carry on the imposture. Brewster had simply assumed that anyone in Ahanian Rome who spoke English and knew his name must be a fellow Militant. The man had also assumed that his capture and interrogation were directed by Michael Martel; that rang true, given what Pierce knew about Martel. He had some general knowledge as well about the cult’s background and beliefs, but much was bound to have changed during its exile downtime. At some point he was sure to say something wrong, something that would spark Brewster’s suspicions. He wished he had thought to bring a few cartridges of interrogatory drugs; he could simply have injected the man and picked his brains systematically.

  “Chastisement will come in due time, Dennis. I don’t want simple punishment. You’re too important. But I do want — Dear Michael wants — we want you to understand what mistaken attitudes have led you into this position. You’ve already done very well, touching on your pride in being named a hunter, and then a translator. You can see how the seeds were planted. Perhaps you can do this: Tell me what your thoughts have been for the last little while, especially since Domitian was removed.”

  “Yes, sir. I was just gettin’ to that.”

  Good; they still believed in public confession. If he was lucky, he would learn all he needed. Then he could turn on the beeper in two days and the helicopter would come for him and he would be in Geneva. Pierce settled back and listened.

  Eight

  “Sir, I think I know where I really fell into error.”

  “Yes?”

  “About three weeks ago, at the demonstration.”

  “Tell me about it, Dennis.”

  “Well, Brother David got the message to General Drusus and he came out from the Praetorian camp to meet Dear Michael that night. You must’ve been there, but I didn’t see you.”

  “Just tell me what happened, Dennis. As you saw it.”

  “Well, we get Drusus up on this hilltop, out east of the city. Him and fifty soldiers, his bodyguard. And Dear Michael — ” Brewster was grinning, almost chuckling. “He had the whole show put together like the Fourth of July. Man, those endos started to doubt their idolatry about thirty seconds into the show. Flares, smoke grenades, weird noises on tape, and then Dear Michael walks out of the smoke with that PA loudspeaker built into his helmet? I tell you, sir, I was just about down on my knees, too. Couldn’t blame the endos. And Dear Michael starts talkin’ in Latin, oh, he speaks it so beautifully, I know it enough to know when somebody can really talk Latin. And old Drusus and his bodyguard just about have heart attacks when they hear that voice boomin out.”

  “Get to the point, Dennis.” Pierce was appalled: had it taken the Militants only three weeks to co-opt the Praetorian Guards, train them in modern weapons, and assassinate Domitian — all without the Agency or the embassy suspecting a thing?

  “Yes, sir. Well, when the Praetorians said they’d follow the Lord’s Word, I guess I just figured we’d won right there. And I kind of went slack. You think you can always scare the Romans into doin’ what you want, you know?”

  “Dennis, can you tell me why that’s an error?”

  “Well, sir, it leads to the sin of pride, to complacency and laziness, just like Dear Michael and Brother David always say. We got the Praetorians on our side, and I thought we’d be home free. Like, they got the power to decide who’s emperor, and now we’ve got them in our pocket. But I forgot what Dear Michael always used to say back on Albion, ‘Take nothing for granted — ’”

  Pierce knew that one. “ — because Satan lies in wait for the self-satisfied.” He allowed his voice to soar from a hiss to a roar of fury, and Brewster burst into tears.

  “Oh Lord, oh Lord, forgive me my sins and my f-fol-lies! And lead me b-back into Thy righteous ways.”

  Pierce stood over Brewster. “You thought that sixty million idolaters could be overcome with a few smoke grenades and a loudspeaker,” he snarled. “You would have walked right into Satan’s trap, Dennis, and led others with you. Dear Michael’s plans could be ruined through such impious folly, and who would be to blame?”

  “I would, I would! Oh, thank the Lord that Dear Michael saw through me and sent you to save me. Oh, sir, give me the chance to redeem myself. If you haven’t eliminated these folks here, let me do it.”

  “These folks here are no longer your concern, Dennis. Now, I know you’re a good man, and you’ve seen your errors. But you’re not the only one who’s made this mistake. It’s like a virus, spreading from one person to another. Have you talked to anyone else who thought this plan would be easy to achieve?”

  Brewster’s face froze. He looked intently at Pierce, then at Aquilius, who had stood at the entrance to the atrium during the interrogation. Then he smiled, showing rotted teeth.

  “All right, mister, just who are you?” Brewster demanded quietly. “Because you sure aren’t one of the saved.”

  For an instant Pierce considered blustering again, bullying the man back into compliance. He decided against it.

  “You must be Agency. Agency or IF, one of those Trainables. You must be.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Only idolaters believe in viruses.”

  Pierce sputtered with laughter. “Oh, of course, and you people believe in scourges from God. Stupid of me to forget.”

  “So who are you?” Brewster’s face went pale. “Where are my men?”

  “Dead,” said Pierce. “You know, Dennis, your sins of pride and arrogance really did get you into this mess.”

  “And I may pay for my sins. But we’ll destroy you,” Brewster said softly. “We’ll find you and send you back to your master Satan. God is not mocked.”

  “God is mocked every time some little bully sets himself up as a messiah. Have you ever noticed, Dennis, how the God of the Bible resembles all the Michael Martels and Jim Joneses? He can build galaxies, but he’d rather worry about our sex lives, and He’s got a neurotic need to be flattered all the time. Of course you think otherwise, but I’m sure we can agree to disagree.”

  Smiling, Pierce walked across the mosaic floor to where Brewster sat on the stool with his wrists lashed behind him. Without warning, Pierce swung his open palm into Brewster’s face, putting all his strength behind the blow. The shock of it ran up his arm and almost blinded him: He
could feel skin and muscle and bone yield and rebound under his hypersensitive hand. Brewster toppled off the stool and fell heavily on his side. The mark of Pierce’s fingers flared white on his cheek, then reddened.

  “You killed my people in the embassy, Dennis.” Pierce was aware of Aquilius stepping back involuntarily. “I don’t care how crazy you are; you killed my people. Now, did any of them survive? Did you take any prisoners?”

  Brewster’s mouth worked for a time before he finally spoke. “No prisoners. We interrogated a couple before we killed them.”

  “I’ll just bet you did. What’s next on your agenda? After you’ve killed off enough of the endos to run this place?”

  “Tell you nothing more. Oh, Lord, forgive my sins and errors. I have tried to walk in Thy path and to serve Thee in all things, and I have failed — ”

  Pierce growled in disgust. His head hurt, and Brewster’s whining grated on his nerves. The interrogation would have to be suspended for a while, to let Brewster consider his options.

  “Dennis, shut up for a minute. We’re going to let you think things over. If you cooperate with us, you’ll live. If you don’t, you’ll be just another martyr like those poor slobs you brought here to their deaths. I’m going to give you an hour or so.”

  He turned away from Brewster. “Aquilius, ask Sulpicius and Achilleus to put him somewhere — lock him in a storeroom, somewhere secure. Then we need to salvage some of the Praetorians’ gear.”

  After the slaves had dragged Brewster into a room off the kitchen, they accompanied Pierce and Aquilius outside into the yard by the back gate. Through the gate they could look across the stream to where twenty men were digging furiously in the meadow. Some of the corpses were visible in the grass, naked and pale in the morning light.

  Inside the gate stood the Praetorians’ bicycles and piles of armor and weapons. Pierce picked through the armor, looking for usable equipment. Much of it was bloodstained or damaged: one bronze breastplate, exquisitely worked with images of Mars and Venus, had been conspicuously punctured in two places. Still, he managed to assemble a complete uniform that fit Aquilius as if tailored for him.