On The Steps Of The Palace

by Australis

4/Leela. A leader alone in the ruins of his country, meets a traveller and his companion, and finds the strength to start again. Note: written for an anthology, but not accepted. But I thought it was pretty good anyway, so here it is .

On The Steps Of The Palace by Australis

The magazine had made the appointment for the interview months before, but with his frail health and many years, it was only now that the Ministry of Information and History approved anyone seeing him in person. The notice of the appointment descended on my desk like a thunderclap, causing me to scramble to make it on time.
"Citizen Andors is available today at The Garden of Soldiers from the noon hour", a Ministry official told me, his disapproval apparent. "Be advised there have been threats against his life from all quarters, and all visits are strictly monitored."
"That will be fine", I stammered. I confess to a slow roil of apprehension in my belly. Even after all this time, Andors still had the name, the reputation, the contacts…
But I had to go. I had questions, and my reputation. And a story to get.

The Garden was the epitome of peace that last day. I'd heard many stories, but they didn't do justice to the tranquillity, the sheer serenity we willingly gave to old warriorrs. He sat by himself, under a janto tree, smiling as he looked up at the light bouncing through the leaves.
"Citizen Andors?" It had to be him, but the old man smiling up through the leaves seemed so at odds with his reputation.
"Ah, you must be Journalist Benor!" He slowly rose, and extended a hand to shake, his grip firm and dry and not quite as strong as I'd expected. "Come, sit with me here! I'm sure there are many questions, and I'd rather answer them here than anywhere else!"

So we sat under the tree, and got the formalities, about family and work and the outside world, out of the way. And I finally got to ask the question I had waited to ask for a long time.
"You turned away from the way you used to conduct war towards what we now call The Great Revolution. Why?"
"A man turned my life around. He… just appeared, back at the end of the Teslyn Uprising. A traveller, no, two travellers. She saved me from my injuries. But he didn't just saved my physical life. He saved me from the worst of myself. And his first words to me" – and here he smiled – "were the oddest I'd ever heard…"

He lay in the ruins of his palace, his city, his land. Everything lost. All the loyalists were dead or gone. All the power, gone. All the weapons depleted or gone. Just one gun, in his hand. And there were still a few stalking him, he could hear faint sounds far below.
And then an unknown sound, a grinding roar coming from nowhere and everywhere that grew and grew down the hallway. Troopers getting close? He gripped the gun tighter and prepared to sell his life.
Then an odd sensation, like a buzzing behind his ears. He could hear them speaking in no tongue he had heard before… but he understood it.
"You have to understand that this was all pointless. The K'Treyans had one of the most advanced worlds of their time, and yet they threw it away for the needs of power and control. These are the consequences of war." A deep and resonant voice.
"But war is noble." A female voice. Odd. The Teslyn didn't have female troopers. "Men and women should prove themselves, with blade and skill."
"War is rarely noble. I'd much rather prove myself with mind and art and so many other qualities. It … " The stranger stopped, because he saw the man, and the weapon pointed at him.
"This gun is far from empty. I have no fear of using it." Without fear, the stranger walked forward, slowly reaching into the pocket of a voluminous coat and pulling out… a crumpled bag.
"I'm sure that's true. But wouldn't you rather have a jelly baby?"
The man extended a tentative hand, reached in and pulled out a soft, red shape that he put in his mouth, following the traveller's lead.
"It tastes… sweet…" he croaked, then collapsed against the wall.

It was an hour later.
"All the Sevateem have medical skills. We are so often injured in the field that it became part of our training."
"Ahhh, primitive triage, what a wonderful idea," her companion said.
"You have my thanks… Leela." He gave a wry smile. "Though I would have thought your friend would have been the more skilled."
"Not that kind of Doctor, I'm afraid." He grinned. "A jack of all trades. Well, a master of all trades, too. But Leela's hand is much steadier than mine. You haven't introduced yourself, by the way."
The man's face took on a look both hunted and defiant. He squared his jaw and said, "I'm Leader Andors."
"Aaaahhhhh." The Doctor's bass rumble spoke volumes.
Andors gave a grim smile. "I thought you would have heard of me."
"Yes, and not much that's favourable." The Doctor extended a hand and helped Andors to his feet. "Have you looked out there lately?"
They walked to a window, looked out upon the city, the ruins, the bodies…
"Do you see what you've created?" the Doctor asked, his tone neutral. "A place of ruins."
"It was to be a better world!"
"But there was war without and revolution within. All you could see was glory and power and feeding the hunger for them."
"It was going to be better!" Andors' anger burned up through his pain and fatigue. "I had all the answers!"
"Ahhhhhh, humans. Always thinking you have all the answers. But you don't understand the question. Or you're possibly thinking of a different one."
Andors turned and looked around.
"Where's Leela? I didn't hear her leave."
"A very stealthy young lady, when she wants to be. I think it would be a good idea if we…"
The words faded on the Doctor's lips as three heavily armed men entered the room. The man in the lead swaggered behind his rifle.
"Don't even think of it, former Leader. The floor's the best place for the gun." Andors dropped it, let it clatter. "There is a great bounty for you. Of course, it said 'dead or alive', perhaps dead might be easier…" and he raised his weapon.
Andors couldn't quite grasp what happened next. There was a blur, and two of the troopers dropped suddenly. And the lead man had Leela and her knife right at his throat.
"NO!" The Doctor's bark was loud and carried deep authority. Leela hesitated and looked at him. "No killing. Not even the likes of these." She nodded slightly, unhappily.
Belying his injuries, Andors scooped up his pistol in one graceful move and pointed it at the lead trooper's head.
"I do believe 'dead or alive' cuts both ways." But before he could fire, the Doctor's hand closed on his arm. The strength was irresistible, and the arm forced down.
"No killing also applies to you," the Doctor growled, and turned to the trooper.
"I do think you should take my advice and run away. As fast and as far as possible. Do not look back. You may not like what you see." Andors noted the voice, under the jokey tone, was used to command and obedience. Whoever he was, this Doctor was impressive.
The trooper helped his injured fellows to their feet, as Leela waited, poised for one wrong move. And they really didn't look back, jangling and rattling down the stairs. Soon Andors and the Doctor saw them crossing the courtyard below, still running as if pursued.
"What would he have seen if he looked back, Doctor?"
"Oh, a ruined palace. And it used to be such a fine building! I know I wouldn't like to see it." And he grinned again.

They sat on the steps outside the palace, watching the hazy, smoky sunset, and Leela practicing knife throwing.
"Look at your warrior woman, Doctor. If I had a battalion of her, I could take this land tomorrow."
The Doctor gave his great, toothed grin. "I daresay you could. But then you'd have to keep her and her sisters under control. Not a task I would relish."
"Ah, but it would be a world worth creating."
"And worth dying for?"
"No point in dying. To rule, to shape the future, that is why I'm here. By the sword if I must."
"One of the great books, on a planet I visit, said, 'They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift a sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more.'"
Andors snorted. "What kind of philosophy is that? It only means your enemies who have not made ploughshares will simply take you and all the fine produce you have created."
For once the Doctor's look was cold. "You sit here in a land ruined by your hand, and tell me that? Your enemies seem to have taken all you had, and left you with the produce of your ploughshare."
"Words, Doctor. I will rebuild. And next time I'll get it right."
"Next time, next time… always a next time."
Andors' ire flared. "Pah! What would you know of war?!"
The Doctor leaned close, his eyes now steel and winter frost.
"I have seen a thousand worlds, falling to foes that had no mercy. I watched ten thousand sunships die in the Karandona Cluster, and I couldn't stop them. I have seen war fought over the same tiny piece of ground century after century, the weeds nourished by so much blood they grow tall and thick."
"But you have never fought! No warrior, you."
The Doctor hesitated for a moment… was that a flicker of doubt? "I tried to stop the enemy of my people at the moment of their inception, and failed. Now I fear this will lead to a great war that will only end when one or both of us are dead."
"While you travel ever on in your spaceship?"
"On the day that it truly becomes war, I will be there, with my people." He unbent from his tense pose. "See, I acknowledge my responsibilities." He gestured at Leela. "She is one of them. Her people were what they became because of me. Now I try and put it right."
"You can't save everyone."
The grin returned. "Oh, there's always time!"

The stars wheeled overhead as Leela slept and the men talked on.
"No matter what humanity creates," the Doctor said, " the best governments, the best churches, the best armies, they always stumble on two things: greed and fear."
"If that was true, we'd never get anywhere."
The Doctor looked pointedly around them. "If it wasn't true, humanity would be spread right across the galaxy and not feared by the population of many worlds."
"Some people only react to fear."
"No! You have to reach people, each individual, through their heart and their mind, not their greed, not their fear! Andors, greatness is in you, and you can't see it.
"Let me give you just a few more words, from another holy text. The Book of the Tin Vagabond says, 'There are many ways to war, but only one to peace, and that is, you must first lay down your weapons.' Not 'them' or 'all'. You. And first."

And now the sun was high of the horizon as they prepared to take their leave. They had argued most of the night, and the former Leader was beginning to see the world through the eyes of others, what it must be like to be an ordinary man…
"There is a town three days' walk from here. I'll go there, see if anyone remains or remembers. Well, not remember too much, I hope."
The Doctor shook his hand. "You should think on all we have talked about."
"Yes. Perhaps. But you haven't quite convinced me."

The Doctor looked around, at all the devastation, thoughtful for a moment.
"If we died here, today, right now, and they dug our bones up in a thousand years, no one could tell if we were friend or foe. No one would care. But they would care about the civilisation left behind. You have the chance to shape that."
Andors threw his hands up in despair. "But… I have nowhere to start from! I've lost everything!"
That toothy grin. "So the only way is up. And you aren't carrying the past anymore. It's all new. Remember this. What people want is a leader who acknowledges them, not as toys or pawns, but living, breathing people, part of his world, and he part of theirs."
There was a long silence as Andors thought about this.
"You're right."
"Good man! You'll get it right, I'm certain."
The last Andors saw of the Doctor was a cheerful wave as he and Leela re-entered the palace. A few minutes later, that grinding roar, then a deeper silence.
He squared his shoulders and began walking to his future.

The afternoon light was gentle in The Garden. I put down the pen and flexed my hand, paused the recorder.
"So the man, the Doctor, left you there?"
"Yes, but he'd given me the tools to remake the world. And to get it right."
"And that was the beginning of the Great Revolution of Peace?"
"Yes. It would never have happened, if I had not sat on the steps of the palace and listened to the words of a wise, wise man. From there, I was able to use two of my few real talents, speaking and persuasion, and convinced some that we needed, beyond any doubt, to do this. They wanted to make me Leader again, but I said enough was enough, choose a… better leader. I was the past. The ideas were the future, and the saving, of our people."
"Yes. Yes, they were."
I was about to ask another question, when I heard something, that clashed with the tranquillity. A commotion at the gate. Slogans being chanted, and the sound was ugly…
"Who is that?" I asked. Andors raised his head, and squared his jaw, the same way I'd seen him do in so many pictures.
"People with long memories and little forgiveness. They have come forcompensation for the old days."
"But that's all past! We are at peace, thanks to you! We have been for years!"
Andors smiled. "For some people, the past is never over. It's alright. This price I'm ready to pay. Ha, I was wrong in something I said to the Doctor. Sometimes there is a point to dying. Then perhaps they can let the past go." His smile was tired but gentle. "One last lesson."

I was frozen to the spot as he walked to the gate, towards the sound of retribution. It grew louder. Then the gunshots, thunderous among the peaceful trees.
I moved toward where he fell, then began running…

THE END