The helicopter banked and turned.
“There it is now sir,” the pilot said.
Gannets and petrels swirling around it, spray lashing its basalt cliffs, the bleak sea-mountain of Gendlegap came into view. I steeled myself for my imminent encounter with the legendary Half-and-Half, the island’s solitary prisoner. What state would he be in after a century of solitary confinement? How would I react when I first saw him? How would I keep my composure when he first opened his mouth to speak?
The helicopter descended towards the landing pad and the little windswept reception party came into view among the concrete buildings huddled at the island’s desolate peak. It was a great honour, of course, to have been chosen by the Emperor for this mission but my feelings now were very mixed indeed.
More than anything else, I wondered how I could look a man in the eye that had betrayed the Empire so wantonly to our enemies. This was the most famous traitor in our history, after all. And I was a devout Eninometic. Treachery, to me, was the one unforgivable sin.
The helicopter settled. I adjusted my uniform, fastening the top button of my white jacket and straightening my medals. Then I nodded to Sergeant Tobias. He opened the door. With a cold blast, the Antarctic winds swept in, and a band struck up, somewhat shakily, the Imperial Anthem.
I stepped out into the gale. The governor saluted. I inspected a small guard of honour. The governor introduced his staff officers to me in rank order, and began a speech of welcome.
“Major-Cardinal Illucian, may I say…” and here he stumbled over his words, “may I say how honoured we are…”
Major-Cardinal Illucian. Yes, that was me. I was only thirty years old but I was a high-ranking officer of the Pristine Guard, dedicated by solemn vow to the service of His Imperial Majesty, and to the Holy doctrine of Eninomesis.
The Guard demanded great sacrifices. My home, such as it was, consisted of two small whitewashed rooms which I inhabited alone. I didn’t smoke, or drink, or eat meat. Every time I went out into the City and saw the colour and the cheerful bustle of ordinary sinful human life, I felt a pang of regret and of longing.
But someone had to bear the extra burdens that others shirked, I always told myself. Otherwise the Empire itself would surely fall and all this colourful life would come to an end, like a kite tumbling from the sky when its cord has been severed.
And, let me be honest, there were compensations, moments of quiet pride, moments such as this one, when the whole garrison of Gendlegap visibly quailed before me, the Pristine officer, stern and austere in my uniform of immaculate white.
“We haven’t seen him for nearly ten years,” the governor told me, as he led the way down the narrow spiral staircase. “There has been no occasion for it, not since those academicians came to interview him about his immortality. Of course we monitor him constantly. He goes into a kind of suspended animation. There is no body-warmth, no nervous activity, no breathing…”
The Immortal Warrior was incarcerated a hundred feet down in the solid rock. The only access to him were these stairs cut through the grim black basalt and sealed by a series of eight iron doors, the seventh of which the governor was now unlocking.
Cold arc lights illuminated the descending steps beyond the door. I followed the governor through. Behind us came my sergeant, Tobias, and three of the garrison soldiers.
“Well, I assume there is no breathable air in there,” I observed, “if it is ten years since it was last opened.”
“Indeed, your Holiness. But the strange thing – the uncanny thing really – is that he springs to life at once when we disturb him. His nervous system has completely shut down, yet he responds instantaneously to a change in the outside world!”
I shrugged. “I suppose there is very little about Half-and-Half that can be explained,” I said, “his origins, his shape-shifting, his apparently magical powers…”
In times past, pieces of the Immortal Warrior had even been cut off and examined by science: a finger, a hand, a leg. But as soon as they are separated from him, his tissues disintegrate completely, only to reappear later, re-formed in some mysterious way, inexplicably re-united to Half-and-Half himself.
“A complete mystery, your Holiness,” the governor agreed, opening the last of the eight doors. “Of course, he himself is full of fanciful explanations if you give him half a chance.”
“I have no intention of doing so,” I said coolly.
But I was not quite as calm as I appeared. As the door of his cell came into view, I confess I experienced a moment of pure childish dread at the prospect of facing this being who could be burnt in furnaces, torn into a hundred pieces, and still not be destroyed.
“He is not invincible,” I reminded myself, “even if he is immortal. He can be chained. He can be held. He can make mistakes…”
He could certainly make mistakes. Or otherwise he would never have allowed himself to fall back into the hands of the Old Emperor, after he had betrayed him so treacherously to the Hippolytanians at the Battle of the Mill.
The light sprang on as the enormous door swung open.
Laden with chains, the prisoner of Gendlegap squatted in the corner of a tiny metal-lined cell that looked and smelled like an empty water-tank. His head was between his knees. He was as angular and motionless as a dead spider.
Half-and-Half the magical warrior, Half-and-Half the traitor: for several generations, every child in the Empire had been told the story of his exploits and his disgrace. But how many expected ever to stand there in that cell, faced with the mysterious Warrior himself?
He was quite small, dark-haired, swarthy. I had seen pictures of him of course and should not have been surprised. And yet somehow it was hard to believe that this ordinary-looking prisoner, with the rough skin of a middle-aged bricklayer or peasant, could have been the same one who over a century ago struck terror into the barbarian armies with his shape-shifting illusions.
Just barely perceptibly, Half-and-Half moved. He was alert, he was listening, though his head was weighed down by the heavy iron collar round his neck.
I cleared my throat. I felt suddenly ridiculous stooping there next to the governor in that tiny tank-like space.
“Prisoner Half-and-Half,” I began, “His Imperial Majesty has asked me to convey to you this message. In exchange for your assistance in his current wars, he would be willing to grant you, temporarily, your freedom. Depending on your conduct during the period of these wars, His Majesty would also be willing to contemplate in due course granting you a full pardon for the crimes committed by you in the service of His great-grandfather.”
There was a long silence. Then very suddenly Half-and-Half sat up and looked straight at us. His eyes were very bright, full of energy and cunning and wit, and on his lips there was a faint teasing smile.
Well, I am a soldier of the Pristine Guard. I have looked death in the face many times. But it was a struggle now – why not admit it? – to keep myself from lowering my gaze.
“Speak, damn you!” I thought, “Speak!”
At last he nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, and his voice was quite ordinary and human. “Yes, I will speak with the Emperor.”
“You will agree to his terms?”
“I will speak to him.”
“But we need to discuss the terms of your service before we can…”
The prisoner made a small gesture of impatience, with a right hand laden with heavy rings of black iron. “I said I would speak to the Emperor.”
As the helicopter lifted, Half-and-Half twisted his chained body to look back at the rock where he had languished for so long. Then he turned to me with that clever, mischievous smile.