“Well, that was no picnic, I can tell you! No air, no food, no space…”
The sea-lashed platform of the North Fortress passed by beneath us.
“I mean,” said Half-and-Half, “you’re a vigorous-looking young man. Never mind food or drink. Imagine going for a whole century without sex!”
I informed him – rather stiffly – that the Pristine Guard was a celibate order.
“Celibate eh?” he said. “Well, well. So virgin soldiers are back in vogue again are they? Still, there’s certainly something in the idea, I must admit. The virgin soldiers always were the most ruthless fighters. They long for release all the time, I suppose!”
I declined to reply to this nonsense. Half-and-Half was clearly a master of establishing the upper hand. I was determined to prove to him that he had met his match.
But my silence did little to discourage him. He laughed and continued his train of thought.
“In fact,” he said, “I’ve heard it said that death is the ultimate orgasm, though I’m afraid I just have to struggle by with the ordinary kind.”
Again I didn’t respond. And we sat for some time in silence.
But over the coast of Anachromia, as we looked down on the thousands upon thousands of grey sea-lions that covered the beaches, the Immortal Warrior chuckled.
“So the Emperor thinks he can make use of me, does he? Doesn’t he know how I got my name? I’m Half-and-Half! Whoever I serve, whoever I have dealings with, I do them just as much harm as I do good and just as much good as harm.”
“I think His Majesty is sufficiently confident in his own authority,” I said, dryly, “to believe that he can channel your capabilities in the right direction.”
(After all, His Majesty’s armies made use of all kinds of technologies and weapons which could be used against us just as effectively as they could be used in our defence. The trick was to ensure you were in control.)
“Well,” said Half-and-Half, “I wish I had a penny for every time someone managed to convince themselves that they could ‘channel me in the right direction’!”
He made a small exasperated gesture. “It can’t be done! Why can’t these kings and emperors get that through their heads? I’m the love-child of an angel and a demon, I’m light and darkness in exactly equal proportions. Don’t they tell the story any more? There was an illicit union between good and evil at the beginning of time – and I was the result. I’m immortal, I’m full of hybrid vigour, but I’m a moral zero. It’s just not negotiable, it’s a law of the universe like the speed of light. You can imprison me or make me General-Supreme, in the end it’ll make no odds. You might just as well let me sit on the sea-shore and count shells.”
The Immortal Warrior snorted, giving a glance down at the bare Anachromian Ridge as it fell behind us. In the rocks down there, so I’d heard, were remnants of cities so old that they’d fossilised, become part of the bones of the Earth itself. Yet, if the stories about him were true, Half-and-Half had existed even then, sometimes disappearing for years or even centuries, but always reappearing in some new guise.
Now his chains clinked.
“Not that I’m complaining,” he said. “If your Emperor has managed to persuade himself he can use me, that’s fine with me. I have no desire to spend another hundred years under that damned rock.”
“Things have changed since you were last at large,” I said. “This is a scientific age. No one will take seriously all this talk of demons and angels.”
His merry, mocking eyes turned back to my face. “It was a scientific age when they locked me up,” he said, “but they still believed in Eninomesis.”
“That has not changed,” I said, quietly and firmly.
“You still believe in the prophet Enino and how he descended to the ultimate Core in a wheel of light?”
“Of course,” I said.
He smiled.
“But that’s different,” I added.
“Is it? Oh, I see.”
In spite of his chains he gave a dismissive shrug and looked away.
But he didn’t remain silent for long. “Did you know I was with Enino for a while?” he asked. “He was another one who thought he could reform me. A vain man, he was. Do you know how I remember him best? In front of the mirror with a pair of tweezers! He had this incredibly vigorous growth of nostril hair, and…”
“Silence!” I interrupted him. “Show respect to the Holy Prophet or I will have you gagged.”
“Fair enough,” said Half-and-Half with his shrug and his mocking smile, looking back out of the window.
“I am the son of an angel and a demon,” he repeated very quietly to himself, rather as a child will mutter defiantly when it has been told off. “The Norse knew me as Loki. The Chinese called me the Monkey King. One way or another, though, I seem to keep on getting buried under mountains.”
He looked round at me slyly. “The American Indians, they knew me very well. They weren’t preoccupied with Progress like you urban people are, so they found me less of a problem. They gave me lots of different names…”
I drew in breath. “I really do not wish to hear the names that extinct or imaginary races are supposed to have called you. I merely repeat: this is a scientific age.”
He looked at me. “A scientific age eh?”
His eyes were bright and fierce under his dark brows. “But my immortality is a fact, isn’t it?” he said. “I’ve just lived for a hundred years without food or air or drink. How does your science explain that?”
“Well…” I began, and found myself stumbling. “Well, there are plenty of theories… To do with parachemistry at the subatomic level. To do with non-local forces… Apparently there are spores in space which display a similar ability to reconstruct, and to…”
“Yes, yes,” said Half-and-Half impatiently, “but do you actually understand any of this?”
“Well, it’s not an area in which I really – um – have any specialist knowledge,” I began, “but…”
Half-and-Half laughed. “No, I thought not!” he said.
He settled back in his seat, winking at me jovially, as if I’d just failed to pull off an ingenious joke at his expense.
We were crossing the Ontibian Alps when he spoke again.
“I suppose you’re furious with me for selling out to the Hippolytanians all those years ago?” he asked. “I’ve noticed your type never forgives that sort of thing.”
I remained silent and looked away.
He nodded. “I thought so. A fine young, tight young virgin soldier like you!”
“Thousands died as a result of your treachery,” I said quietly.
“So they say. The Battle of the Mill was lost without me and thousands of Imperial soldiers died who might otherwise have lived.”
He shrugged, clinking. “Of course if it had been thousands of Hippolytanians who had died, you’d have called me a hero. But I saved Hippolytanian lives.”
The Immortal Warrior made a small, contemptuous gesture. “You’re all such babies aren’t you? I’ve been around since the beginning of time. I’ve seen nations come and go, I’ve seen religions and political systems come and go that were supposed to be the answer to everything. I’ve seen whole continents come and go. How could you possibly expect it to mean anything to me when you draw one of those stupid lines across a map and say it’s good to kill the people on one side of it and bad to kill the people on the other? Listen, I’m a mercenary. I fight in my own interests. And the Hippolytanians offered me a better deal.”
He looked at me, his fierce, angry eyes mocking my own suppressed rage.
“And what do you fight for, Cardinal-Major Illucian?” he asked me.