Empire of Two Worlds

A feeling of relief passed through me. They suspected nothing of our long-term intentions. They were going to play along, although frankly I would have been happier with one legion rather than two of Rotrox rampaging about Klittmann. All those cold-minded warriors might be hard to handle, I thought.

They all tossed off their drinks and had them refilled. They were developing a kind of jovial camaraderie at the prospect of the coming campaign. Imnitrin promised he would command the two Rotrox legions himself.

“It will be a pleasure to fight alongside Becmath again,” he said, his high-pitched voice becoming congratulatory and, perhaps, slightly drunk.

“Tell me,” he continued, drinking yet more of the brew, “what will Becmath do with his enemies when he has them in his power?”

I shrugged. “Kill them, maybe, if they still oppose him.”

“Kill them? That is a mild pleasure indeed.” Imnitrin leaped to his feet. “Will he not punish them at length, taunt them and gloat over them? Where is the joy of conquest if it is not to see one’s enemies miserable? Simply to die is no great pain. Come with me, brother, and perhaps Becmath will be interested to hear how we deal with the defeated.”

He paused at the door and glanced at my Rheattite secretary. “Never mind your interpreter. I will speak Rheattite where necessary.” The secretary, who had become more faltering and fearful as the councillors had become more jovial, thankfully joined his countrymen at the rear of the room.

Imnitrin led me through seemingly endless corridors and down winding stone steps. The atmosphere began to grow dank and depressing, the light dimmer. I sensed we were approaching the dungeons of this intricate warren.

“Let us through, jailer. Let the guest see our prisoners.”

At the end of a corridor whose walls dripped moisture two Rotrox stood to attention before a vast metal door. With a jangling of chains and locks the door swung open. A faint cacophony of sighs, groans, mutterings and clinkings met my ears.

I got the impression that the dungeon was well ramified. Other corridors crossed the one we took. We sauntered down it, peering in cell after cell.

It was pretty sickening. The cells were mostly occupied by minor chiefs and notables from conquered tribes on Merame. The Rotrox were ingenious in thinking up unbearable circumstances for their victims to spend the rest of their lives in. Men — and sometimes women — wallowed in filth, in excrement. One stood up to his neck in water, another in a sort of mud that bubbled and gave off a thick stench and was intolerably hot. They hung from hooks or were entwined in intricate cutting machines that sliced their internal organs slowly and perpetually. They stared back at us with eyes long gone blank from prolonged suffering.

“Tell Becmath we will accommodate any special prisoners he wishes to send us,” Imnitrin piped cheerfully. “We can arrange special television coverage so that he can watch their agonies. Here is a prisoner of special interest to you — Dalgo, once chief of Rheatt. We have long grown bored with torturing him. We decided that he is most miserable when simply sitting in pitch darkness and brooding over the humiliation that has befallen his nation.”

He flung open an iron door and flicked a switch, at which light flooded the darkened cell. The man who sat there at a small table looked up, dazzled.

So this was Dalgo. He was broad, for a Rheattite, and his face was less effete than was usual; it was a fighter’s face. It was ravaged and lined by the time he had spent here in the Rotrox dungeons, yet somehow his shoulders were still straight and undefeated.

He said nothing. I stared at him, trying to imagine what it must have been like to have spent ten years in this place.

“I’d like to talk to him,” I said suddenly.

Imnitrin smiled. “You wish to remind him of the situation? Good! He will not attack you; he has learned what that would mean to him. I will wait down the corridor.”

He left, closing but not locking the door behind him.

“Who is there?” Dalgo said in a hollow voice. “The light hurts me.”

“My name is Klein,” I told him.

“Klein?” He seemed to be searching his mind for the name. “Ah, yes. Helper of Becmath, the Rotrox puppet who rules my country. They keep me informed, you see.”

I wondered if we were being bugged. I hesitated, then said: “Have the Rotrox never offered you a deal? Maybe you could be useful to them. They might free you if you swear loyalty to them, like I did.”

The faintest hint of a grim smile came to his lips. He turned his eyes away from the light. “I am giving them everything they want from me: pleasure at my discomfort. I have nothing else they need. I know that my country can never be freed from its oppression and for that reason alone they keep me alive. If I had hope, that would give them reason to kill me.”