Hard to Be a God

Chapter 9

Having put Budach down to sleep before his long journey, Rumata headed to his study. The effects of the sporamin were wearing off; he again felt tired and shattered, his bruises ached, and his rope-mangled wrists were swelling again. I should get some sleep, he thought. I should definitely get some sleep. And I should contact Don Condor. And I should contact the patrol airship, let them report to the Base. And I need to think about what we should do next, and whether we can do anything, and how to act if there’s nothing else to do.

A black-robed monk with his hood pulled low over his eyes was sitting in the study behind the desk, hunching in the chair, hands resting on the high armrests. Clever, thought Rumata. “Who are you?” he asked wearily. “Who let you in?”

“Good afternoon, noble Don Rumata,” the monk said, throwing back his hood.

Rumata shook his head. “Clever!” he said. “Good afternoon, worthy Arata. Why are you here? What happened?”

“Everything is as usual,” said Arata. “The army has dispersed, they are all dividing up the land, no one wants to go south. The duke is rounding up the ones he hasn’t killed yet and will soon hang my peasants upside down along the Estorian tract. Everything is as usual,” he repeated.

“I understand,” Rumata said.

He collapsed onto the couch, put his hands behind his head, and started looking at Arata. Twenty years ago, when Anton was building model weapons and playing William Tell, this man was called Arata the Beautiful, and he was then probably completely different from how he was now.

The magnificent high forehead of Arata the Beautiful didn’t have that ugly purple brand—it got there after the revolt of the Soanian shipwrights, when three thousand naked slave craftsmen, who had been driven to the Soanian shipyards from all parts of the empire and tormented until they had almost lost their instinct of self-preservation, had broken out of the port one stormy night. They rolled through Soan, leaving corpses and fires behind them, and were met in the outlying districts by the imperial infantry, encased in armor.

And of course, Arata the Beautiful had both his eyes. His right eye had popped out of its socket after a heavy strike by a baronial mace when the peasant army, twenty thousand strong, that had been chasing the baronial militias across the metropole collided in an open field with an Imperial Guard regiment five thousand strong and was cut in half with lightning speed, surrounded, and trampled under the spiked hooves of the military camels.

And Arata the Beautiful had probably been as straight as a pillar. He earned the hump and the new nickname after the Villanian War in the Duchy of Uban two seas from here. This was when, after seven years of plague and drought, four hundred thousand living skeletons massacred the noblemen with their pitchforks and poles and laid siege to the Duke of Uban—and the duke, whose weak mind had been sharpened by unbearable terror, pardoned his subjects, lowered the price of alcoholic beverages fivefold, and promised to free them all. And Arata, already seeing that everything was finished, pleaded, demanded, and implored them not to succumb to the deception but was captured by the leaders, who wanted to leave well enough alone, then beaten with iron rods and left for dead in a cesspool.

The massive iron ring on his right wrist, on the other hand, was probably already there when he was still called Beautiful. The ring had been chained to an oar of a pirate galley, but Arata broke the chain, hit Captain Egu the Seducer in the temple with it, commandeered the ship and then the entire pirate armada, and tried to create a free republic on the water. And this undertaking ended as a bloody drunken disgrace, because Arata had been young, didn’t know how to hate, and believed that freedom alone would be enough to turn a slave into a god.

This was a professional rebel, an avenger by divine grace, a figure quite rare in medieval societies. Such pikes are occasionally produced by historical evolution and released into social deep waters, so that the fat carps feeding on the bottom plankton can’t doze… Arata was the only person here for whom Rumata felt neither hatred nor pity, and in his earthling’s dreams—the feverish dreams of a man who had lived for five years surrounded by stench and blood—he often imagined himself as such an Arata, having received the high right to murder the murderers, torture the torturers, and betray the traitors for having passed through all the hells of the universe.

“Sometimes I think,” said Arata, “that we’re all powerless. I’m the eternal rebel leader, and I know that my power comes from my extraordinary survivability. But this power doesn’t change my powerlessness. My victories magically turn into defeats. My friends in battle turn to enemies—the most courageous ones flee, the most loyal ones turn traitor or die. And I have nothing but my bare hands, and I can’t reach the gilded idols behind fortified walls with my bare hands.”

“How did you get to Arkanar?” Rumata asked.

“I sailed with the monks.”

“Have you gone insane? You’re so recognizable.”

“But not in a crowd of monks. Half of the officers of the Order are simpleminded, or maimed like me. Cripples are pleasing to the Lord.” He chuckled, looking Rumata in the face.

“And what do you intend to do?” Rumata asked, lowering his eyes.

“The usual. I know what the Holy Order is; in less than a year, the people of Arkanar will start pouring out of their holes with axes to fight in the street. And I will lead them, so that they fight those they should, instead of each other and everyone around them.”

“Will you need money?” Rumata asked.

“Yes, as usual. And weapons.” He paused, then said silkily, “Don Rumata, do you remember how disappointed I was when I found out who you are? I hate priests, and it was very bitter to me that their false fairy tales turned out to be true. But a poor rebel must draw benefit from whatever circumstances he encounters. The priests say that the gods have lightning. Don Rumata, I really need lightning to break down the fortified walls.”

Rumata gave a deep sigh. After the miraculous helicopter rescue, Arata had insisted on an explanation. Rumata tried to explain about himself; he even pointed out Earth’s sun in the night sky—a tiny, barely visible star. But the rebel only understood one thing: the damned priests were right and there were gods living behind the firmament who were all-good and all-powerful. And since then, he steered each of his conversations with Rumata to one thing: God, since you exist, give me your power, for it is the best thing that you can do.

And each time Rumata kept quiet or changed the subject.

“Don Rumata,” the rebel asked, “why don’t you want to help us?”

“Wait a minute,” Rumata said. “I beg your pardon, but I would like to know how you got into the house.”

“That doesn’t matter. No one but me knows the way. Don’t try to evade the question, Don Rumata. Why don’t you want to give us your power?”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“No, we will talk about it. I didn’t summon you. I’ve never prayed to anyone. You came to me yourself. Or did you just decide to have some fun?”

It’s hard to be a god, thought Rumata. He said patiently, “You wouldn’t understand. I tried to explain to you twenty times that I’m not a god—you never believe me. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you why I can’t help you with weapons.”

“You have lightning?”

“I can’t give you lightning.”

“I’ve already heard that twenty times,” said Arata. “Now I want to know: why?”

“I repeat, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me”.

“What do you plan to do with the lightning?”

“I will incinerate every single one of the gilded bastards like bugs, destroying their whole damn race until the twelfth generation. I’ll wipe their fortresses off the face of the earth. I’ll incinerate their armies and all who defend and support them. You don’t need to worry—your lightning will only be used for good, and when only the freed slaves are left on the earth and peace reigns, I will give you back your lightning and never ask you for it again.”

Arata stopped, breathing heavily. His face had turned dark from the rush of blood. He probably already saw the duchies and kingdoms engulfed in flames, and the piles of charred bodies amongst the ruins, and the huge armies of victors, ecstatically roaring, “Freedom! Freedom!”

“No,” said Rumata, “I will not give you lightning. It would be a mistake. Try to believe me. I can see further than you.” Arata was listening, his head sunk on his chest. Rumata clenched his hand. “I will only give you one reason. It pales in comparison with the primary reason, but you will actually understand it. You are very good at surviving, worthy Arata, but you too are mortal; and if you die, if the lightning passes into other hands that are not as pure as yours, then I shudder to even think of the consequences.”

They were silent for a long time. Then Rumata got a pitcher of Estorian wine and some food from the cellar and put it in front of his guest. Arata, without lifting his eyes, started to break the bread and drink the wine. Rumata felt a strange sense of painful ambivalence. He knew that he was right, yet in some strange way, this rightness lowered him before Arata. Arata was clearly somehow superior to him—and not only to him but to all those who had come to this planet uninvited and who, full of helpless pity, watched the tumultuous bustling of its life from the rarefied heights of dry hypotheses and alien morality. And for the first time Rumata thought, There is no gain without a loss. We’re infinitely stronger than Arata in our kingdom of good and infinitely weaker than Arata in his kingdom of evil.

“You shouldn’t have come down from the sky,” Arata said suddenly. “Go back to where you came from. You’re only doing us harm.”

“That’s not so,” Rumata said gently. “At any rate, we do not harm anyone.”

“No, you do. You inspire groundless hopes.”

“In whom?”

“In me. You have weakened my will, Don Rumata. I used to only rely on myself, and now you’ve made me feel your power behind me. I used to lead every battle as if it were my last. And now I’ve noticed that I save myself for other battles, which will be decisive because you will stand beside me. Leave this place, Don Rumata. Go back to the sky and never come back. Either give us your lightning, or at least your iron bird, or even simply draw your swords and lead us.”

Arata stopped talking and reached for the bread again. Rumata kept looking at his fingers, which no longer had any nails. The nails had been torn out with a special device two years ago by Don Reba himself. You still don’t know everything, thought Rumata. You still believe that you are the only one doomed to be defeated. You still don’t know how hopeless your cause itself is. You still don’t know that the enemy isn’t so much outside your soldiers as within them. You might still overthrow the Order—the wave of peasant rebellion will throw you onto the throne of Arkanar, you will level the castles of the noblemen, you’ll drown the barons in the Strait, and the insurgents will honor you as the great liberator. And you will be kind and wise—the only kind and wise person in your kingdom. And along the way, you will begin to give away land to your associates, and what will your associates do with land without serfs? And the wheel will start spinning the other direction. And you’ll be lucky if you manage to pass away before the new counts and barons emerge out of yesterday’s loyal fighters. That has already happened, my worthy Arata, both on Earth and on this planet.

“No response?” asked Arata. He pushed his plate away and swept the crumbs off the table with the sleeve of his cassock. “Once I had a friend,” he said. “You’ve probably heard of him—Waga the Wheel. We had begun together. Then he became a bandit, the king of the night. I didn’t forgive him for his treason, and he knew it. He had helped me a lot—out of fear and self-interest—but he never did want to come back. He had his own goals. Two years ago his people gave me up to Don Reba.” He looked at his fingers and curled them into a fist. “And today I found him in the Port of Arkanar. In our business, there’s no such thing as half a friend. Half a friend—that’s always half an enemy.” He got up and pulled the hood over his eyes. “Is the gold in its usual place, Don Rumata?”

“Yes,” Rumata said slowly, “it’s in its usual place.”

“Then I will go. Thank you, Don Rumata.”

He silently walked through the study and disappeared through the door. The bolt clanged softly in the entrance hall below.

Here’s one more thing to worry about, thought Rumata. How in the world did he get into the house?