Moënghus! He named him Moënghus! My son!
What better way to gall him? What better way to gull? He had been used. Even now, thinking these very thoughts, the Dûnyain used him!
But it did not matter …
There were no codes. There was no honour. The world between men was as trackless as the Steppe—as the desert! There were no men … Only beasts, clawing, craving, mewling, braying. Gnawing at the world with their hungers. Beaten like bears into dancing to this absurd custom or that. All these thousands, these Men of the Tusk, killed and died in the name of delusion. Save hunger, nothing commanded the world.
This was the secret of the Dûnyain. This was their monstrosity. This was their fascination.
Ever since Moënghus had abandoned him, Cnaiür had thought himself the traitor. Always one thought too many, always one lust, one hunger! But now he knew that the treachery dwelt in the chorus of condemning voices, the recriminations that howled out from nowhere, calling him names, such hateful names!
She was my proof!
Liars! Fools! He would make them see!
Any shame. Any indignity. He would strangle infants in their cribs. He would kneel beneath the fall of hot seed. He would see his hate through!
There was no honour. Only wrath and destruction.
Only hate.
The hunt need not end!
The abandoned tenements fell away, and Cnaiür found himself galloping across one of Caraskand’s bazaars. Corpses, little more than sodden bundles of skin, bone, and fabric, flashed beneath. Halfway across the grim expanse, he spied the obelisks of Csokis rising above a low scarp of buildings. After passing through a complex of several mud-brick storehouses, decrepit to the point of collapse, he found an avenue he recognized and whipped his horse along a row of what looked like fire-gutted residences. After a sharp right, his mount was forced by momentum to leap an overturned piss basin, a great stone bowl that must have belonged to a nearby launderer. He felt before he heard his Eumarnan white throw a shoe. The horse screamed, faltered, then limped to a halt—apparently lamed.
Cursing the thing, he leapt to the ground and began sprinting, knowing there was no way for him to overtake the Knight-Commander now. Beyond the first turn, however, the white Kalaul miraculously yawned wide before him, criss-crossed by the water-soaked joints between paving stones and darkened by crowds of starving thousands.
At first, he didn’t know whether he should be dismayed or heartened by the sight of so many Inrithi. Most of them, he imagined, would be Zaudunyani, which might prevent Sarcellus from killing the Dûnyain outright—if that was what the man in fact intended to do. Thrusting his way between startled onlookers, Cnaiür gazed across the crowds, searching in vain for the Shrial Knight. He saw the tree, Umiaki, in the distance, dark and hunched against a hazy band of colonnades and temple facades. The sudden certainty that the Dûnyain was dead struck him breathless.
It’s over.
It seemed he’d never suffered such a harrowing thought. He frantically peered across the distances. The unobscured sun was boiling steam from the damp masses. He looked to the men crowding about him, and felt a sudden, dizzying relief. Many chanted or sang. Others simply looked to the branches reaching skyward. All seemed anxious with hunger, but nothing more.
He lives still, or there would be a riot …
Cnaiür barged his way forward, was shocked to find the half-starved Inrithi scrambling from his path. He heard voices cry out “Scylvendi!” not in salute as they had at Anwurat, but as a curse or a prayer. Soon a great train of men followed him, some jeering, others crying out in exultation. Every face, it seemed, turned to his passage. A broad lane opened before him, reaching nearly all the way to the black tree.
“Scylvendi!” the Men of the Tusk shouted. “Scylvendi!”
As before, Shrial Knights guarded the tree, only now arrayed in ranks some three or four men deep—a battle line, in effect. Mounted patrols waded through the near distance. Alone among the Inrithi, the Knights of the Tusk had refused to don Kianene garments, so they looked threadbare in their tattered gold and white surcoats. Their helms and chainmail, however, still gleamed in the sunlight.
As he approached them, Cnaiür spied Sarcellus standing with Gotian amid a clot of other Shrial officers. The forward Shrial Knights recognized him, and granted him a wide if suspicious berth as he strode toward Sarcellus and the Grandmaster. The two men seemed to be arguing. Umiaki reared behind them, branching dark across sea-blue skies. Glancing across the great mat of leaves, Cnaiür glimpsed the ring hanging beneath Umiaki’s chapped bowers. He saw Serwë and the Dûnyain slowly spinning, like two sides of a coin.
How can she be dead?
“Because of you,” the Dûnyain whispered. “Weeper …”
“But why this moment?” Cnaiür heard the Grandmaster cry over the growing thunder of the masses.
“Because!” Cnaiür boomed in his mightiest battlefield voice. “He bears a grudge no man can fathom!”
Despite the added censers the Great Names had summoned, Achamian found himself gagging at the stench of the thing. He explained how the limbs folded into a sheath, even propping the rotted head to demonstrate the way two limbs fit about a viscous eye socket. Save the odd exclamation of disgust, the assembled caste-nobles watched in mute horror. At some point, a slave had offered him an orange-scented kerchief. When he could tolerate no more, he pressed it to his face, and gestured for the hideous thing’s removal.
For several moments, astonished silence ruled the ancient council chamber. The censers hissed and steamed, fogging the nightmarish air. Smeared across the table, the thing’s residue, which resembled black mould, continued to reek.
“So this,” Conphas finally said, “is the reason we must free the Deceiver?”
Achamian stared at the man, sensing some kind of verbal trap. He’d known from the start that Conphas would be his primary adversary. Proyas had warned him, saying he’d never encountered anyone as formidable in the ways of jnan. Rather than answer, Achamian decided to draw him out, to reveal his role in these weighty matters.
I must discredit him.
“The time for playing your peers for fools is at an end, Ikurei.”
The Exalt-General leaned back in his chair. He drew lazy fingertips across the Imperial Suns stamped on the cuirass of his field armour, as though to remind Achamian of the Chorae that lay hidden beneath. It was a gesture as good as any sneer.
“You make it sound,” Proyas said, “as though he already knows about these things.”
“He does.”
“The sorcerer refers to ancient history,” Conphas replied. He’d been wearing his blue general’s cloak in the traditional Nansur fashion, thrown forward over his left shoulder. He now cast it back with a brisk motion, letting it trail across the copper carpet. “Some time ago, back when the Holy War still camped about Momemn’s walls, my uncle discovered that his Prime Counsel was in truth one of these … things.”
“Skeaös?” Proyas exclaimed. “Are you saying Skeaös was one of these skin-spies?”
“None other. Since he proved improbably difficult to restrain for someone so aged, my uncle summoned his Imperial Saik. When they insisted no sorcery was involved, I was sent to fetch the good blasphemer, Achamian here, to confirm their assessment. Things became …” He paused, then actually had the temerity to wink at Achamian. “Messy.”
“So?” Gothyelk cried in his gruff manner. “Was there any sorcery?”
“No,” Achamian replied. “And that’s the very thing that makes them so deadly. If they were sorcerous artifacts, they’d be quickly uncovered. As it stands, they’re impossible to detect … And this,” he said, turning to glare at the Exalt-General, “is precisely what these things have to do with Anasûrimbor Kellhus …
“Only he can see them.”
Several shouts rang beneath the corbelled dome.
“How do you know this?” Hulwarga asked.
Achamian stiffened, once again seeing
Kellhus and Serwë swaying beneath the black tree.
“He told me.”
“Told you?” Gothyelk growled. “When? When?”
“But what are they?” Chinjosa said.
“He’s right,” Saubon exclaimed. “This! This is the cancer that pollutes us! It’s as I said all along: the Warrior-Prophet has come to cleanse us!”
“You move too fast,” Conphas snapped. “You gloss over the most important questions!”
“Indeed!” Proyas said. “Such as why, when you knew these things were among us, you said nothing to the Council!”
“Please,” the Exalt-General replied, his brows knitted in derision. “What was I to do? For all we know, several of these creatures sit among us this very moment …” He looked to the rapt faces, mostly bearded, rising around them. “Among you on the tiers,” he called with a sweep of his hand. “Or even about this very table …”
A concerned rumble broke across the room.
“So tell me,” Conphas continued, “given the sorcerer’s own estimation of these things, whom could I trust? You heard what he said: they’re impossible to detect. I did all that I could in fact do …” He turned his sly eyes to Achamian, though he continued speaking to his fellow Great Names. “I watched, carefully, and when I at last knew who the lead agent was, I acted.”
Achamian bolted erect in his chair. He opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late.
“Who?” Chinjosa, Gothyelk, and Hulwarga cried out in near unison.
Conphas shrugged. “Why, the man who calls himself the Warrior-Prophet … Who else?”
A single jeer pealed through the air, only to be shouted down by a chorus of rebukes.
“Nonsense!” Achamian cried. “This is rank foolishness!”
The Exalt-General’s eyebrows popped up, as though amazed that something so obvious could be overlooked. “But you just said that only he could see these abominations, did you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then tell us, how does he see them?”
Caught unawares, Achamian could only stare at the man. Never, it seemed, had he come to loathe someone so quickly.
“Well, the answer,” Conphas said, “seems plain enough to me. He sees them because he knows who they are.”
Exclamations rang out.
Flummoxed, Achamian looked up across the raucous tiers, glancing from face to bearded face. Suddenly he realized that what Conphas had said moments earlier was true. Even now, skin-spies watched him—he was certain of it! The Consult watched him … And laughed.
He found himself clutching the table’s edge.
“So how,” Saubon was crying, “did he know I would prevail on the Plains of Mengedda? How did he know where to find water in desert sands? How does he know the truth in men’s hearts?”
“Because he’s the Warrior-Prophet!” someone bellowed from the tiers. “Truth-Bearer! Light-Bringer! The Salvation of—”
“Blasphemy!” Gothyelk roared, beating the table twice with his great fist. “He is False! False! There can be no more Prophets! Sejenus is the true voice of God! The only—”
“How can you say that?” Saubon said, as though mourning a wayward brother. “How many times—”
“He’s ensorcelled you!” Conphas shouted in the tones of a High Imperial Officer. “Bewitched you all!” When the uproar abated somewhat, he continued, projecting his voice with the same ringing forceful-ness. “As I said earlier, we’ve forgotten the single most important question! Who? Who are these abominations that hound us, that skulk unseen in our most secret councils?”
“Just as I said,” Chinjosa seconded. “Who?”
Ikurei Conphas looked pointedly at Achamian, daring him to answer …
“Eh, Schoolman?”
He’d been outmatched, Achamian realized. Conphas knew his answer, knew how the others would scoff and dismiss. The Consult was the stuff of children’s tales and Mandate madmen. He stared wordlessly at the Exalt-General, struggling to mask his dismay with contempt. Even with proof, they could undo him with mere words. Even with proof, they refused to believe!
The man’s eyes mocked him, seemed to say, You make it too easy …
Conphas abruptly turned to the others. “But you’ve already answered my question, haven’t you? When you said these things aren’t the issue of sorcery—or at least any sorcery that Schoolmen can see!”
“Cishaurim,” Saubon said. “You’re saying these things are Cishaurim.”
In his periphery, Achamian could see Proyas glaring at him in alarm.
Why don’t you speak?
But an exhaustion had welled through him, a numbing sense of defeat. In his soul’s eye, he saw Esmenet beseeching him, her gaze alien with heartbreaking thoughts, treacherous desires …
How could this happen?
“What else could they be?” Conphas asked, the very voice of sober reason. “You saw it.”
“Aye,” Chinjosa said, his eyes strangely hesitant. “They belong to the Eyeless Ones. The Snakeheads! There can be no other explanation.”
“Indeed,” Conphas said, his voice resonating with oratorical gravity. “The man the Zaudunyani call the Warrior-Prophet, the liar who came to us claiming the privileges of a prince, is an agent of the Cishaurim, sent to corrupt us, to sow dissension among us, to destroy the Holy War!”
“And he’s succeeded,” Gothyelk cried out in dismay. “On all points!”
Denials and lamentations shivered through the air. But doom, Achamian knew, had drawn its circle far beyond Caraskand’s walls. I must find some way …
“If Kellhus …” Proyas shouted, commanding the room with rarity of his voice. “If Kellhus is a Cishaurim agent, then why did he save us in the desert?”
Achamian turned to his former student, heartened …
“To save his own skin,” the Exalt-General snapped impatiently. “Why else? As much as you distrust my wiles, Proyas, you must believe me on this. Anasûrimbor Kellhus is a Cishaurim spy. We’ve been watching him ever since Momemn, ever since his wandering eye revealed Skeaös to my uncle.”
“What do you mean?” Achamian blurted.
The Exalt-General looked to him contemptuously. “How do you think my uncle, the glorious Emperor of these lands, identified Skeaös as a spy? He saw your Warrior-Prophet exchanging glances far out of proportion to their acquaintance.”
“He’s not,” Achamian found himself shouting, “my Warrior-Prophet!”
He looked about, blinking, as shocked by his outburst as the others around the table.
All this time! He could see them from the very beginning …
And yet, the man had said nothing. Throughout the march, throughout their endless discussions of the past and the present, Kellhus had known about the skin-spies.
Heedless of the caste-nobles’ scrutiny, Achamian gasped for breath, clutched his chest. Dread pimpled his skin. Suddenly, so many of Kellhus’s questions, especially those regarding the Consult and the No-God, made a different kind of sense …
He was working me! Using me for my knowledge! Trying to understand what it was he saw!
And he saw Esmenet’s soft lips parting about those words, those impossible words …
“I carry his child.”
How? How could she betray him?
He could remember those nights lying side by side in the darkness of his poor tent, feeling her slender back against his chest, and smiling at the press of her toes, which she always pushed between his calves when they were frigid. Ten little toes, each as cold as a raindrop. He could remember the wan yet breathless wonder that would seep through him. How could such a beauty choose him? How could this woman—this world!—feel safe in his wretched arms? The air would be warm with their exhalations, while beyond the stained canvas, across a thousand silent miles, everything would become strange and chill. And he would clutch her, as though they both plummeted …
And he would curse himself, thinking, Don’t be a fool! She’s here! She swore you’d never
be alone!
But he was. He was alone.
He blinked absurd tears from his eyes. Even his mule, Daybreak, was dead …
He looked to the Great Names, who watched him from about the table. He felt no shame. The Scarlet Spires had carved that from him—or so it seemed. Only desolation, doubt, and hatred.
He did it! He took her!
Achamian remembered Nautzera, in what seemed another lifetime, asking him if the life of Inrau, his student, was worth the Apocalypse. He’d conceded then, had admitted that no man, no love, was worth such a risk. And here, he’d conceded once again. He would save the man who had halved his heart, because his heart was not worth the world, not worth the Second Apocalypse.
Was it?
Was it?
Achamian had slept only a short while the previous night, dozing while Proyas slumbered. And for the first time since becoming a sorcerer of rank within the Mandate, there had been no Dreams of the Old Wars. He had dreamed, rather, of Kellhus and Esmenet gasping and laughing in sweaty sheets.
Sitting speechless before the Great Names, Drusas Achamian realized that he held his Heart in one hand and Apocalypse in the other. And as he hefted them in his soul, it seemed that he couldn’t tell which was the heavier.
It was no different for these men.
The Holy War suffered, and someone must die. Even if it meant the World.
They were only one small pocket of confrontation amid a thousand of such pockets scrawling across the Kalaul. But they were, Cnaiür knew, the centre all the same. Dozens of Shrial Knights milled about them, their faces blank and guarded, their eyes wide with looks of worried concentration.
Something was about to happen.
“But he must die, Grandmaster!” Sarcellus cried. “Kill him and save the Holy War!”
Gotian glanced nervously at Cnaiür before looking back to his Knight-Commander. He ran thick fingers through his short, greying hair. Cnaiür had always thought the Shrial Grandmaster a decisive man, but he seemed old and unsure now—even cowed in some strange way by his subordinate’s zeal. All the Men of the Tusk had suffered, some more than others, and some in different ways than others. Gotian, it seemed, bore his scars on his spirit.