Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

He wondered if he’d gone too far. But hell, if he were ru

The Emir said, “They are men given over to Allah,” and Park was sure he’d stuck his foot in it. Then Hussein went on, “But it is true, they are sometimes difficult to control.” Park breathed again. Hussein finished, “I will try to arrange a truce, then, of ten days’ time. If you fail, we fight again.”

“What if I don’t?” Park said. “What if I do what I say?” Hussein stared at him. “Do you challenge me?”

“Only this far — if I succeed, do as you agreed to do before this stupid war started: accept my settlement of your dispute with Tawantiinsuuju. Do it on the spot, right here, right now — or then, I mean.”

“You do not lack courage,” the Emir said slowly.

“Or gall,” Uthman added.

Park only waited. Now he gri

Neither the Moorish officers who escorted Park and his companions across the line of battle nor the Tawantiinsuujans who received them seemed to have much faith in the green-and-white-striped flags of truce both sides bore. The two parties hastily separated from each other; members of both kept looking back over their shoulders to make sure no foe was going for a weapon.

“Is the truce holding?” Park asked the Skrelling soldier next to him.

“So far,” the Tawantiinsuujan replied. “Who knows how far we can trust the cursed Sun-deniers, though?” Park knew the men of the Dar al-Harb were saying the same thing about Tawantiinsuuju. He also knew that telling the soldier so would do no good.

A very young Tawantiinsuujan officer tried to take charge of the newcomers as soon as they were out of air-rifle range of the front line. “Come with me,” he said. “I want to get a complete written record of everything you saw and did while under the control of the forces of the Emirate.”

“No,” Ankowaljuu said.

“Hell, no,” Park agreed.

“But you must,” the lieutenant said. “Proper procedure requires-”

Ankowaljuu said, “Aka to your proper procedure, boy. I am tukuuii riikook to the Son of the Sun. Proper procedure is what I say it is.” He produced the documents that proved he was what he claimed. The young officer’s eyes got big as he read them. He put a hand over his eyes, as if Ankowaljuu were the Son of the Sun himself. “Better,” the tukuuii riikook nodded. “Now get us moving toward Maita Kapak, so I can carry out my duties.”

Within ten minutes, Park found himself bucking along in a goodwain different from one of the Emirate’s only in the color of its canvas top and that of the accompanying soldiers’ uniforms. “I admire the efficiency,” he said to Ankowaljuu, “but I wish the ride were smoother.”

“You mean you want peace and kidneys both?” Ankowaljuu exclaimed, as if he was asking much too much.

Maita Kapak’s encampment proved far more imposing than Hussein’s. The Emir was not even caliph, commander of the faithful, merely a secular prince. The Son of the Sun, though, claimed divine descent, and lived in pomp that did its best to make the claim seem real.

Prominent as his office made him, Park might have waited weeks before gaining an audience with the ruler of Tawantiinsuuju. The words tukuuii riikook, however, melted obstacles as if by magic. The sun was not yet down when Ankowaljuu and Park were ushered into a tent just outside the Son of the Sun’s pavilion.

“His Radiance will see you shortly,” a majordomo said. “Just don one of these packs-” He handed out a pair of what looked like hikers’ backpacks. Ankowaljuu, who knew the routine, strapped on his without comment.

Park balked. “Why do I have to wear this silly thing?”

The majordomo sucked in a shocked breath. “It is a symbol that you would bear any burden for the Son of the Sun.”

“In the old days, Judge Scoglund,” Ankowaljuu said, gri

A servant stuck his head in and said, “The Son of the Sun will see his tukuuii riikook.”

Maita Kapak had been conferring with his aides. As Park came in with Ankowaljuu, he nodded to Tjiimpuu and Kwiismankuu, the only two he knew. Kwiismankuu nodded back; Tjiimpuu kept his face still. Park had no chance to speak to either of them. The servant was taking him straight to the Son of the Sun.

He followed Ankowaljuu to his knees and then to his belly as they offered the Son of the Sun their symbolic burdens. “Rise,” Maita Kapak said.

As Park gained his feet, he got his first good look at Tawantiinsuuju’s master. Maita Kapak was older than he, younger than Tjiimpuu. He bore something of a family resemblance to Tjiimpuu, in fact; considering the inbreeding of Tawantiinsuuju’s royal family and high nobility, that was not surprising. Like the foreign minister, he wore plugs in his ears. His were of gold, and almost the size of saucers. The vestigial muscles in Park’s own ears quivered at the thought of supporting so much weight.

The Son of the Sun said, “So, Ankowaljuu, why have you chosen to exercise the tukuuii riikook’s privilege?” As he spoke, he tossed his head. Park was sure the gesture was unconscious: instead of a crown, Maita Kapak wore a tassel of scarlet wool that descended from a cord round his head to cover most of his forehead. With that fly whisk so close to his face, Park would have done some head-tossing, too.

“Radiance, I present to you Judge Ib Scoglund of the International Court of Skrelleland,” Ankowaljuu said. “He has, I believe, a plan to bring us peace now, and perhaps even an enduring peace, with the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb.”

Before Park could speak, Tjiimpuu said, “Such a plan would have been easier to bring off before the fighting started. Now passions are aroused on both sides.”

“Nobody listened to me before the fighting started,” Park said. “You people and the Emir got me down here and then ignored me. I think the whole appeal to the International Court was just so you could feel righteous about the war you felt like fighting anyway. But this one’s not as much fun as Waskar’s, is it, now that you’re in? No big breakthroughs here, just a bloody fight no one is wi

“We may yet force the Muslims back,” Tjiimpuu said.

“Or we may not,” Kwilsmankuu said. Ignoring Tjiimpuu’s glare, the marshal went on, “If you have peace terms you think fair, Judge Scoglund, I will listen to them.”

“And I,” Maita Kapak said. “The prospect of enduring peace especially intrigues me. The only reason we and the Emirate did not go to war years ago was that we thought ourselves too evenly matched. So it has proved on the field. I will listen.”

“You may not like what you hear,” Park warned him.

“If not, I will send you back to the Emir and go on fighting,” the Son of the Sun said. He sounded perfectly calm and self-assured. All the Tawantiinsuujans in earshot nodded, even Ankowaljuu. If Maita Kapak said it, they would do it. So, Park thought, this is what being an absolute monarch is all about.

He began, “First, Radiance, you will have to write down and publish the tenets of the faith of Patjakamak.”

“Never! ‘Everyone is a religious kiipuukamajoo’!” Tjiimpuu and Kwiismankuu said together. They stared at each other, as if unused to agreeing.

“Your faith does not forbid it.” Park looked first to Maita Kapak, then to Ankowaljuu. “So I have been told.” Reluctantly — in this company he was of lowest rank — Ankowaijuu nodded.