The Fallen World

The House Wars - Part 2

     They were now in an area of the city from which all the civilians had fled, leaving it entirely to the military, and the three wizards saw doorways standing open, the homes beyond having been converted into barracks, mess rooms, infirmaries and ‘pleasure houses’. Thomas wasn’t surprised to see that each home, consisting of three or four small rooms, was only about the same size as their bedchamber back at the Konnen mansion. The city had evidently been designed by the noble families themselves who simply didn’t think that their servants and their families needed more room than that.

     The wizard was shocked. Most of the world’s people thought of the Agglemonians as having been good, decent people who hadn’t so much conquered the rest of the continent as seduced them into wanting to join the Empire so that they could share the benefits and high standard of living that the Agglemonians themselves enjoyed. The Agglemonians he’d always imagined would never have built a city like this, so shockingly divided into masters and servants, but then he remembered that Kronosia had been built in the last days of the Empire when everything had been falling apart. It had been this polarisation into classes that had hastened, if not actually caused, the fall.

     The empty, doorless airlocks separating Rautha segment from Leto segment, almost hidden behind a barricade of wooden doors, furniture and large, heavy ornaments, all skillfully tied together with thick rope, were in view ahead of them when the Captain called a halt and waited for a more senior officer to come out and meet them. The officer appeared a few moments later, emerging from a home that, from the brief glimpse they got as the door was open, had been converted into a command post. He wore a very impressive uniform of slennhide and leather covered with gold braid and the longhorn cattle emblem of the Agglemonian Empire above his breast pocket. His hair was short and curly, brown but greying around the temples, and his eyes were bright and intelligent, while at the same time hard and cruel. An orderly followed behind him, carrying a helmet in his hand.

     The Captain stood stiffly at attention as he stopped before him. “Red platoon returning from R and R and reporting for duty, Sir!” he said.

     The other officer merely nodded in reply, and then moved down the lines of men, giving them a cursory, glancing ‘inspection’. His interest quickened when he came to the three wizards, though, and all the other soldiers froze as rigid as statues as if sheer willpower would keep the officer’s attention from falling on them.

     He examined them closely for a few moments, his attention lingering longest on Jerry and Lirenna as if fascinated by their physical differences from humans. “So you’re the wizards,” he said at last in a neutral voice. “My name is General Sejanus, and you’ll be taking your orders from me. What are your names?”

     They identified themselves, each of them adding a respectful ‘Sir’ when they’d finished speaking.

     Sejanus nodded in satisfaction. “Good,” he said. “Wait for me in my command post.” He indicated the doorway from which he’d just emerged.

     The three wizards made their way over to it while the General issued orders to the soldiers behind them. The largest room in the command post contained two bored looking clerks in military uniform sitting behind desks on which a couple of neat piles of paper lay; situation reports by the look of them. A chart on the wall behind them contained a list of about twenty five platoons, all named after colours, along with figures giving various statistics. The total number of men in each platoon, the number currently fit to fight. The number of wounded, their operational status and, if operational, the positions at which they were deployed. The clerk sitting directly beneath it, whose job it was, presumably, to keep it constantly up to date, seemed to be half asleep and Thomas gathered that the war was going rather slowly at the moment.