After the Downfall

Now he knew exactly how true that was. He sure as hell did. And what good did knowing do him? No good at all. He couldn’t think of one goddamn thing that did him any good at all.

“I think it is time for us to show the Lenelli what we have, time to show them they would do better to leave us alone,” Zgomot said.

“Whatever you want, Lord,” Hasso answered. Two days after Drepteaza turned him down, he still had trouble giving a damn about anything.

“All right, then.” By the Lord of Bucovin’s tone, he hoped it was all right, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Also by his tone, he hoped Hasso wouldn’t notice. What he said next explained why: “I shall send you to the west, Hasso Pemsel. This gunpowder is your … stuff. You know more about it than we do. You will use it best against the enemy.”

“I do that,” Hasso agreed. Will I do that? Or will I see whether Bottero and Velona – oh, Velona! – will take me back after all? Lying in Velona’s arms, he would forget about Drepteaza. Lying in Velona’s arms could make you forget your own name – but you’d sure be happy while you were forgetting.

“Rautat and some of the others who have worked with you will go along,” Zgomot said. “They will learn from you and see how you do what you do. Then they will be able to do it for themselves.”

Did that mean, Then we won’t need you anymore? Maybe. Or maybe Lord Zgomot suspected Hasso knew more than he was telling. Hasso did, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Zgomot suspected – the native was one sharp cookie. The German was damn sure Zgomot meant, Rautat and the others will keep an eye on you. It made sense from the Lord of Bucovin’s point of view. Hasso could be dangerous for Bucovin, or he could be dangerous to Bucovin.

He nodded now, as if blissfully unaware of everything Zgomot had to be worrying about. “Whatever you want, Lord,” he repeated. He wasn’t about to argue, not when Zgomot was letting him leave the palace, leave Falticeni, and get somewhere near the Lenelli once more.

The roads dried out enough for him to move with a wagon a few days later. The wagon carried jars full of gunpowder. He finally had fuses that worked well enough. Considerable experiment had shown that cord soaked in limewater and gunpowder did the job – better than anything else he’d found, anyhow.

“I want to see the Lenelli when things start going boom,” Rautat said as they left Falticeni. He and Hasso rode horses; Hasso wasn’t about to try to drive the wagon, an art about which he knew less than he did about Egyptian hieroglyphics. Rautat went on, “The noise will be plenty to scare them all by itself.”

“Once, maybe. Maybe even twice. After that? No,” Hasso said.

Catapults. His thoughts came back to them again. The Lenelli – and the Bucovinans, imitating them as usual – used them as siege engines, but not as field artillery. He wondered whether the natives or the renegades in Falticeni could flange up something that could travel with an army and would let him fling jars of gunpowder two or three hundred meters. Load them with scrap metal and rocks along with the powder, the way he had with these, and they’d make pretty fair bombs. In the meantime…

In the meantime, he’d have to lay mines and set them off with fuses. He whistled tunelessly. That might not be a whole lot of fun. How was he supposed to get away again afterwards?

Why didn’t you think of these things sooner? he asked himself.

One obvious way around the problem was to use an expendable Bucovinan to touch off the fuses. The poor son of a bitch would probably even think it was an honor. The natives hated the Lenelli the way … Hasso didn’t like completing the thought, but he did: the way the Russians hated us.

After Muresh and the calculated frightfulness of the winter attacks – and after years of similar things – the Bucovinans had their reasons for hate like that. And the Germans had given the Russians plenty of reasons of that sort, too. Looking back, Hasso could see it plain enough. Well, the Ivans got their revenge when the pendulum of war swung back toward the west.

Why am I helping this folk against that one, when I’m more at home over there? Hasso wondered. Was that why the Omphalos stone brought him to this world? He had trouble seeing how it could be.

Then the landscape started looking more familiar. “Somewhere not far from here, you catch me,” he said to Rautat.

“That’s right.” The Bucovinan nodded. “We’re only a little ways away from the battlefield. If you know how hard we worked to open up a gap in our line to make you aim your horses there without having it look like we wanted you to…”

“Nicely done,” Hasso said. “You fool the Lenelli. You fool me, too.”