Grim lowered his eyes to the brass lock that had been hanging on the gates since the time of the last Victory. In his infancy, when he couldn’t yet distinguish causes from effects, he used to think that a war started when they smashed the lock, and not the other way round – and it seemed to him that this metallic guardian of peace was dangerously accessible to any malicious scoundrel. And there it was, right beside him …

  Grim had grown wiser since then. But today he seemed to have gone back, and the lock that had already been changed many times during his life suddenly seemed to him – as it once did in his childhood – a doomed living creature that had defended Urkaine as well as it could for many days, but now had to flip its shackle.

  ‘Thank you, lock,’ Grim whispered, feeling the absurd tears welling up in his eyes.

  In fact he realised that he wasn’t feeling sorry for the lock, but for himself – especially for himself as that little Grim who would definitely never return from the sunny gardens of childhood.

  Turning back, he walked towards the bronze horseman covered in bird droppings that soared up above the crowd. He was one of the great Orks of the past, the legendary Victor of the Tanks, Marshal Stug. A banner attached to his outstretched hand was flapping downwind. There was an inscription in Siberian on it:

  VIVAT ÜRKAINØ!

  The square was buzzing. As always in the days before a war, portraits of the Great Conduits were fluttering in the air – Genghis Khan, Stalin, Jorge the Horrible, Mahmoud II Mahdi and others. Grim had wondered before about who held these images during the festivities and where they hid them afterwards. But he had never been curious enough to follow any portrait-bearer. It was probably not safe. And basically it was clear enough without tailing anybody.

  On the roof of the Museum of the Ancestors yellow-winged crocodiles – the Orks’ gold reserves – glowed dully above the square (people said they were really only gilded, and the gold had been stolen even before the Losses’ time). Down below, masters of hand-to-hand combat were demonstrating their skill, reminding the world that the Orks still packed a wallop that could give any enemy a pain in the neck. People were flocking in from all sides – the pressure was only contained by the metal barriers and the Ganjaberserks’ truncheons whacking shoulders and backs every now and then.

  Grim spent a long time squeezing through the crowd to get a look at the mighty warriors. The crush was so dense that several times he was caught up by the current and lost the ability to choose his own direction.

  The people around him were simple and crude, and he had time to get a good whiff of all sorts of odours which could probably make up an encyclopaedia of Orkish life: there were smells of onion skins, offcuts of leather, bubblegum, bananas fried in butter, alkali soap, pigs entrails, rotten papayas, rusty iron, kvasola, sweat, stale alcohol fumes and Ancient Serpent eau de cologne. None of this was particularly pleasant, but it seemed a mere trifle when his face skidded across a butcher’s apron. Fortunately, after that final torture the crowd parted at last, and Grim could see the area where the great heroes were performing.

  There was a large sheet of red canvas hanging on the Museum of the Ancestors, with a word on it in white letters:

  HASTILUDE

  The first letter had been smeared with dirt, and one more small ‘s’ had been daubed in before ‘t’ in the same white colour. Grim guessed that it had not been added in the night by hooligans, but by the artists who painted the canvas – to lift the people’s spirits before the war and remind them that even in a bad year Urks still had time for a racy joke.

  There were three large blocks of wood, crudely painted to look like men, standing on the earth that had been trampled as hard as stone. The wooden blocks looked extremely sturdy and were bound round with iron hoops for extra strength. Grim noticed that several spares had been set up by the wall.

  Right beside them was the Tent of Heroes – a marquee hung all over with shields of various colours and with a horse’s tail on its summit. The heroes were supposed to drink volya and make love to girls inside the tent before the war – which they did with great gusto. But the design of the tent was changed before every war and this structure didn’t evoke any feelings of patriotism. The entrance to the marquee was closed off by a curtain of red bunting. Apparently the heroes were relaxing.

  Rather than reflecting the appearance of enemies, the wooden blocks expressed the torments of an artist trying to depict several faces that looked different from each other. Uniforms had been painted on two of the blocks, with some kind of crosses and stars, while the third one was wearing a genuine semi-transparent windcheater of the kind that are issued to workers in the Yellow Zone.

  The enemies, of course, looked repulsive. The crosses and stars were especially infuriating – they had probably awarded them to each other for killing Orks, whose civilisation, from ancient times, had developed along a spiritual path and hadn’t, therefore, devised the same kind of means of destruction as the calculating and materialistic upper people had.

  No matter; Manitou will be our judge.

  Grim didn’t exactly think all this – he merely realised an Ork ought to think like that (or rather, to be entirely precise, ought to understand that he ought to think like that), but these thoughts of obligation arose on the periphery of his mind and retreated into non-existence without impinging on his essential being. He was sure that the same thing was happening to everyone else in the square.

  ‘Bamboleo!’ shouted two voices in the crowd. ‘Bamboleo!’

  The first great hero emerged from the tent. Grim recognised him. It was the famous master of hammer fighting, Kink of the Rubber Mountains (that was what they used to call the immense dumps of tyres in ancient times – they had rotted away many centuries ago, but the name had remained).

  Orks in the crowd exchanged puzzled glances – for some reason, before the war Kink had been given the name ‘Bamboleo’. It didn’t carry any meaning at all that was comprehensible to an Ork and it must have been invented by the topside sommeliers. Like everything else, Grim thought gloomily.

  This kind of thing happened quite often, and everyone knew the Orkish authorities’ explanation for it: it was harder for their enemies to forget heroes’ nicknames that had been invented by their own specialists. But Grim knew that the Orks’ military astuteness extended far beyond this – it wasn’t only the names and armour of the finest warrior heroes that were invented up there every time, but also the styles of the general army uniform. For the same reason, of course – who should know better than upper people what exactly will frighten other upper people? But Orks didn’t like to talk about that.

  All right then, Bamboleo it was. This season he was wearing a bronze fireman’s helmet, a wolf skin across his shoulder, blue pantaloons with stars, and lacquered boots with spurs. They had left him his previous weapon – a weighty sledge hammer with an iron handle that had a round, rusty knob. It was a ‘tram half-axle’, manufactured in the Yellow Zone from old drawings on a scale suitable for hand-to-hand combat.

  Waving to the crowd, Bamboleo turned to the wooden enemies, took a swing and brought the weighty, round hammer crashing down on to the closest block of wood, which crunched and slumped over. Bamboleo belted it again and broke the iron hoop reinforcing the block. The third blow left the block in a really bad state. With an effort, Bamboleo threw the axle across his shoulder and walked away into the marquee with his helmet glittering, wiggling his starry backside.

  ‘Ugh, yuck,’ said an elderly Ork beside Grim, and spat, ‘why’s he twirling his backside like a woman …?’

  ‘It’s a historically authentic style – “millennium-two”,’ a confident voice responded nearby. ‘Such is the history of the world, brü …’

  A covert agent, Grim thought. That was curious, though; why were they called covert agents, if they were always saying or shouting something? It would make more sense to call them overt agents.

  Bamboleo hadn’t aroused any particular enthusiasm in the crowd – he struck mightily, of course, but this year upper people’s sommeliers had gone overboard with the design element. The historically authentic style ‘millennium-two’ didn’t speak to the Orkish heart.

  ‘Alejandro! Alejandro!’ shouted voices in the crowd.

  The voices shouting were the same ones that had previously called out for Bamboleo – a hoarse male voice and a piercing young woman’s, a long way from each other. The crowd didn’t take up the call this time either.

  Who was this Alejandro?

  A tall, thin Ork came skipping out of the marquee, wearing loose black sleeping shorts, pulled up over his stomach almost as far as his chest. Grim recognised him from the twisted silver rings in his nipples – it was Fert of the Reed Pit, a famous master of iron rod combat. But he looked so odd!

  The fur had been shaved off his cheeks, and the hair on his head had been twisted into two horns, thickly smeared with glue and curved out capriciously towards the sides. Instead of an iron rod, ‘Alejandro’ was armed with a pike borrowed from a set of railings, with bits of metallic ornamentation sticking out around the point – crooked leaves and stars. Very convenient, winding the enemy’s guts onto those must be really sweet.

  But the pike didn’t help – the Orks gave Alejandro a feeble reception and after making a few lunges with his weapon, he disappeared into the marquee. A couple of people even spat after him.

  No one came out of the tent for a long, long time. And then the square exploded in howls of greeting.

  ‘Dolt! Dolt!’

  Grim started yelling with the rest – this was a hero the crowd knew and loved. Manitou be praised – the blasphemous hand of the upper people’s stylists had left him untouched.

  Dolt looked as usual – round and shaggy, draped in a greasy leather coat, with two quivers of pointed stakes behind his back. Plucking one stake out of each quiver, he skipped over to the wooden blocks and started hammering at them grimly, making the chips fly.

  ‘Dolt!’ the Orks yelled deliriously.

  The wooden enemies sustained a series of substantial blows, then Dolt kicked them over and the crowd howled in delight.

  ‘Now, that’s our way,’ said the elderly Ork standing beside Grim, ‘that’s going at it like your Daddy done …’

  They wouldn’t let Dolt go for a long time. When he had battered his stakes into dust and splinters, and finally left, some well-built young Orks rolled new blocks over to the wall and removed the smashed ones.

  The authorities had clearly understood the mood of the crowd. Now all the Orks that came out of the tent were dressed according to Orkish custom. They were left with their Orkish names, too. The first to perform was Hern, with a gilded cross, plundered from a defiled church in ancient times and transformed into a double axe. He was followed by Fagg with an iron club, studded with super-hard nails. Then came the crowd’s favourite, Grub – a butcher with two cleavers.

  But after that the authorities went back to their cultural exchange theme and announced someone called Ziggy. Without even waiting for him to appear, the Orks started booing and whistling. Grim didn’t even bother to see who he was – he turned away and started working his elbows, and the crowd, grousing and showering him generously with punches, closed up behind his back.

  After getting a good whiff of Orkish odours for a second time, Grim broke out into freedom and set off towards the barracks. He was walking downhill now, so the way back seemed shorter.

  On the small square by the barracks building, they had already set up a large sheet of plywood. Hanging on it was a piece of grey cardboard with a diagram entitled ‘PLAN OF THE WAR’. There were numerous smaller pieces of paper hanging at the sides of the plan.

  The plan of the war looked practically the same as all the other plans of Sacred Wars that were still kept in the Museum of the Ancestors. At the centre was a circle drawn in a dotted line, representing Ürkisher Gordynka – the heart of Slava, which was temporarily occupied by the upper people. The arrow of the Orkish advance tore into it, dividing into three tongues. The left one ran into the word ‘Enemies’. The middle one ran into the word ‘Foes’. The right one ran into the word ‘Enemies’ again.

  In the diagram everything was simple, but starting from his schooldays Grim had known that in reality things weren’t like they were in the textbooks. Fighting the upper people was hard even in the times when the Orks still had an information network and firearms, because people used highly complex machines in battle and their military technologies inflicted heavy losses on the simple-hearted Orks. Over the centuries people had become stronger, but the Orks, on the contrary, had been weakened by constant treachery and betrayal, losing one technical skill after another – but even so, by some miracle they were victorious in every war, so it could only be explained by providence and the direct intervention of Manitou, which the old men always spoke about before battle.

  The sheets of paper beside the general plan contained tactical clarifications. There were soldierly insults and battle cries, arranged in convenient tables for the three lines of the main thrust – so that everyone could learn off pat the words appropriate to his place in the battle formations. There was diagram of formations by types of form, and a brief summary of intelligence already in hand. That didn’t concern Grim, as an orderly.

  The soldier on watch stopped Grim in the doorway of the barracks with an abrupt gesture. Grim was afraid he was going to get a reprimand for going absent, but the sentry held out some kind of parcel to him.

  ‘The priest left you the book as a present. It’s a pity you left. He wanted to congratulate you.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘There’s a note inside.’

  ‘How did the divination go?’ Grim asked.

  The sentry spat.

  ‘Don’t ask. Almost everyone got a “deathly queer”. And if they didn’t get a queerast, it was a wild beast or a fly. In a nutshell, the lads got a little note from Manitou – everyone should save up for a sputnik …’

  Grim squeezed through to his straw mattress, turned to face the wall and opened the parcel: he saw the iridescent blue spine of the book. Lying beside the book was a note.

  From Servant of the Spirit Goon, the Keeper of Knowledge of the Ancient Times, Preceptor of Urkaine, teacher of valiant Urks and a humble disciple of the Urkagan – to Cadet GRIM.

  It is said that he to whom the number forty-eight falls has been chosen by Manitou. It is very difficult to receive it in a divination, because it can only be determined by the divinatory sticks once in a hundred years, and this is the first time that I have seen such a thing. Everyone knows about ‘wild beast’ and ‘light’. But there is another secret meaning – it is said that you will be aided by spirits, and that you will be able to write songs and poems. It is also foretold that you will be able to ascend into the light of Manitou, for the Supreme Being will love you. The meaning of this is not clear to me, since I myself have never drawn this number.

  According to custom, the person to whom this number falls in a divination should be given the divinatory book. You can now seek answers simply by opening it at random.

  It’s a pity we didn’t get to talk.

  A soldier’s luck to you.

  Grim shrugged. It was incomprehensible but it was flattering. Then he opened passage number forty-eight and read it through again. The music of the ancient words seemed menacing and sombre. Out of all that he read, his head retained only one thing: that mind which asks questions is only a wild beast set to guard me …

  The ancient wisdom was joyless. It was as if the thick strata of time had parted and in the past Grim saw a bewildered soul that had never found the answer to a single one of its guardian beast’s questions. And how many souls like that had walked the earth? Probably many had cast into eternity beautiful lines of poetry, filled with despair and hope – and eternity had swallowed their gift indifferently, and not even a ripple had been left on its smooth surface.

  Grim’s heart suddenly felt heavy.

  For a few minutes he listened to the village Orks discussing the best way to wrap the documents round themselves to get them bloody – on their arms or their legs – and whether it was true that any such paper, with a hole in it, would be invalid.

  They agreed that it couldn’t be right, but even so it was best to leave a duplicate with your relatives – after all, you never knew what to expect from these bastards.

  ‘Tu-ke! Tu-ke!’ a gecko started calling somewhere very nearby.

  It was fine for the gecko. In the world he lived in, there wasn’t any sacred sacrifice, or ashes of the empires, or Will, or Spirit. There wasn’t even an Urkaganate, although the gecko had never once in its life travelled beyond its borders.

  CHAPTER 7

  Every knob has its flop.

  Kaya’s aggregate settings obliged her to feel pity for the doomed Orks – and who did she have to blame for their fate, apart from her own meek, fat, little friend who set her spirituality to maximum?

  The closer the war came, the more sulky she got with me. For a while she even stopped looking at me, demonstratively turning her blushing face away during our moments of tenderness. And that, of course, drove me absolutely crazy. But as soon as Kaya realised what pleasure she was giving me, she immediately stopped turning away. Naturally – that was her bitchiness.

  I think it’s clear enough just how many problems that maximum spirituality led to – but it’s not clear yet what positive payback I received in exchange.

  As I’ve already said, when she was operating in this regime, the highly complex process of information analysis and exchange in her data processing circuit continuously correlated all the meanings arising in our conversation with fragments of the ancient wisdom of mankind. No one now really understands what the people of former times believed in, but at certain moments the fragmented echoes of old teachings, flickering in her simulated stream of consciousness, were coming together in a meaningful combination, and then for an instant there rose up before me, as it were, the effulgent palace of forgotten lore.