Shimeh, it seemed, was no exception.
It wasn’t …
Separated in the pursuit, he found himself wandering the murky streets. He came upon a small market square where the escarpment of façades and cornices fell away, allowing him to see the heights of the Juterum: the Heterine Walls painted in flickering lights, the tall columns of the First Temple a motionless blue. Smoke rose from the heights’ footings to the west, great tattered curtains of it, climbing the way sand might fall through clear water. Boiling upward, it passed into and merged with the unnatural clouds, so that the whole of heaven seemed a thing of smoke spilling outward across the plane of an immense ceiling.
It wasn’t …
He looked across the abandoned kiosks sunk into the buildings before him, only to glimpse what seemed to be a tusk in the shadowy confines of one. Scowling against the press of his war-mask, he wandered past the threshold, past ropes hung with workaday pottery, shelves cluttered with wooden bowls and plates.
There it was … the size of his forearm perhaps, painted in pitch across a humble door. The crude simplicity of it struck a pang in the back of his throat. A giddiness, something like fear or expectation, made haze of his heart and limbs, the same as when his mother had brought him to temple as a child.
He raised a hand, felt the wood through the iron links about his fingertips. He caught his breath when the door swung open.
Aside from sleeping mats, the room was unfurnished—the abode of debt-slaves, perhaps. A man, a common Amoti by the look of him, sat slumped against the wall to his right, where he appeared to have bled to death. The haft of a knife lay just beyond the reach of his purple fingers. Another man, one of the Kianene they had fought across the Esharsa, lay sprawled across the floor, face downward. The floor listed toward the far wall, so that the blood spilled away, sheeting the planks, gumming about wood shavings, stretching thin claws along the grouted seams. Almost invisible in the murk, a woman and a juvenile girl cringed in the far corner, watching him with horror-round eyes.
He remembered his silver war-mask, raised it. He savoured the sudden cool across his face. The fear of the women did not diminish, though he had thought that it would. He looked down, and as though for the first time saw the blood daubed and smeared across his white and blue khalat. He raised his gauntleted hands. They too had been slicked in crimson.
Memories of savagery, of hacking death, of screams and horrified curses. Memories of Sumna, his forehead pressed against Maithanet’s knee, weeping as one reborn. How had he come so far?
Despite the rumbling drums and the distant horns, his footsteps seemed to burst across the silence. Thud. Thud. The mother wailed and rocked as he approached, began babbling something … something …
“… merutta k’al alkareeta! Merutta! Merutta!”
She desperately pawed at the blood across her lower lip and chin, then smeared
across the floor at his booted feet. A tusk?
“Merutta!” she bawled, though whether she meant “tusk” or “mercy” he could not tell.
They screamed and shrank as he reached for them. He pulled the girl to her feet, found her lightness at once terrifying and arousing. She flailed at him ineffectually, then went very still, as though his hands might be jaws. The mother bawled and beseeched, smeared tusk after tusk across the gritty floor.
No, Prosha …
It wasn’t supposed to be … Not like this.
But then, it never was.
It seemed he could smell the girl over the reek of smoke and entrails—no perfumes, at once sour and musky and clean, the smell of young promise. He turned her to the sourceless light. Cropped black hair. Brimming eyes. Swollen cheeks. By the Gods, she was lovely, this daughter of his enemy. Narrow hips. Long legs …
If he were to strike her, would he feel death at the end of his arm? If he were to grow hot upon her …
An enormous crack shivered the air, thrummed through the building’s bones.
“Run,” he murmured, though he knew she wouldn’t understand. He pulled her back, held a soiled hand out to raise the mother. “You must find a better place to hide.”
This was Shimeh.
“In this world,” Moënghus said, “there’s nothing more precious than our blood—as you have no doubt surmised. But the children we bear by worldborn women lack the breadth of our abilities. Maithanet is not Dûnyain. He could do no more than prepare the way.”
Her name arose like a pang from the darkness: Esmenet.
“Only a true son of Ishuäl could succeed,” his father continued. “For all the Thousandfold Thought’s innumerable deductions, for all its elegance, there remained countless variables that could not be foreseen. Each of its folds possesses a haze of catastrophic possibilities, most of them remote, others nearly certain. I would have abandoned it long ago, were not the consequences of inaction so absolute.
“Only one of the Conditioned could follow its path. Only you, my son.”
Could it be? A tincture of sorrow in his father’s voice? Kellhus turned from the hanging skin-spies, once again enclosed his father within the circle of his scrutiny.
“You speak as though the Thought were a living thing.”
He could see nothing in the eyeless face.
“Because it is.” Moënghus stepped between the two hanging skin-spies. Though blind, he unerringly reached out to run a finger down one of the many hanging chains. “Have you heard of a game played in southern Nilnamesh, a game called viramsata, or ‘many-breaths’?”
“No.”
“Across the plains surrounding the city of Invishi, the ruling caste-nobles are very remote, very effete. The narcotics they cultivate assure them of the obedience of their populations. Over the centuries they have elaborated jnan to the point where it has eclipsed their old faiths. Entire lives are spent in what we would call gossip. But viramsata is far different from the rumours of the court or the clucking of harem-eunuchs—far more. The players of viramsata have made games of truth. They tell lies about who said what to whom, about who makes love to whomever, and so on. They do this continually, and what is more, they are at pains to act out the lies told by others, especially when they are elegant, so they might make them true. And so it goes from tongue to lip to tongue, until no distinction remains between what is a lie and what is true.
“In the end, at a great ceremony, it is the most compelling tale that is declared Pirvirsut, a word that means ‘this breath is ground’ in ancient Vaparsi. The weak, the inelegant, have died, while others grow strong, yielding only to the Pirvirsut, the Breath-that-is-Ground.
“Do you see? The viramsata, they become living things, and we are their battle plain.”
Kellhus nodded. “Like Inrithism and Fanimry.”
“Precisely. Lies that have conquered and reproduced over the centuries. Delusional world views that have divided the world between them. They are twin viramsata that even now war through shouts and limbs of men. Two great thoughtless beasts that take the souls of Men as their ground.”
“And the Thousandfold Thought?”
Moënghus turned to him, as precisely as if he could see. “An instigator that goads them, that bleeds them even as we speak. A formula of events that will rewrite the very course of history. A great transition rule that will see Inrithism and Fanimry transformed. The Thousandfold Thought is all these things.
“Beliefs beget action, Kellhus. If Men are to survive the dark years to come, they must all act of one accord. So long as there are Inrithi and Fanim, this will not be possible. They must yield before a new delusion, a new Breath-that-is-Ground. All souls must be rewritten … There is no other way.”
“And the Truth?” Kellhus asked. “What of that?”
“There is no Truth for the worldborn. They feed and they couple, cozening their hearts with false flatteries, easing their intellects with pathetic simplifications. The Logos, for them, is a tool of their lust, nothing more … They excuse themselves and heap blame upon others. They glori
fy their people over other peoples, their nation over other nations. They focus their fears on the innocent. And when they hear words such as these, they recognize them—but as defects belonging to others. They are children who have learned to disguise their tantrums from their wives and their fellows, and from themselves most of all …
“No man says, ‘They are chosen and we are damned.’ No worldborn man. They have not the heart for Truth.”
Stepping from between his faceless captives, Moënghus approached, his expression a mask of blind stone. He reached out as though to clasp Kellhus’s wrist or hand, but halted the instant Kellhus shrank back.
“But why, my son? Why ask me what you already know?”
She clutched the crumbling walls, ducked to see past the fronds of sumac.
Something, a high wind perhaps, worried the darkling clouds that shadowed the Holy City. A corona of gold had formed along their outer rim, and sunlight showered across the slopes above the Holy War’s encampment, upon the ruined mausoleums of the ancient Amoti Kings. Even still, the sorcerer flared with impossible brilliance. His eyes bright-burning orbs. His mouth working about glaring white.
From where Esmenet watched, Achamian was no longer Achamian, but something altogether different, something godlike and all-conquering. Multiple spheres of light englobed him, each bisected with further, shielding discs. Brilliant lines webbed the slopes surrounding him, glittering geometries that sundered all but the thickest bodies and the hardest steel. The Abstractions of the Gnosis. The War-Cants of the Ancient North.
His voice—and no matter how unearthly, it remained his voice—had become a singsong mutter that descended from all directions, that tingled against her fingertips when she pressed the stone. Despite her terror and confusion, she knew that at long last she saw him, the one whose long shadow had always chilled their hopes, darkened their love.
The Mandate Schoolman.
From what she could see, the Nansur were in utter confusion. The Kidruhil had broken, dispersed into the distances, where still the far-flung lines of the Gnosis found them. The air rang with frantic alarms.
She was no fool. She knew there would be Chorae, that it was only a matter of time before the units of crossbowmen or some such fought their way through the confusion. But how long would it take? How long could he survive?
She was about to watch him die, she realized. The only man who truly loved her.
From nowhere, it seemed, golden fires rolled over him, burning the earth about his Wards to glass. Then lightning struck, brilliant spasms of it, scrawling across the glowing planes. She stumbled along the interior of the ruined wall, struggled to find a footing, then pulled herself up to look westward.
Her heart caught at the sight of the Imperial Columns, their ranks piling across the distances. Then she saw them: along the crest, standing the height of a tree above the ground, four black-robed sorcerers, wrapped in spectral bastions of stone. They sang dragons. They sang lightning, lava, and sun. Twice the concussions knocked her from her perch.
One by one the Mandate Schoolman pulled them down, each with blistering precision.
The Holy Water of the Indara-Kishauri fell sideways across the heaped earth, spiralling from souls that had become fissures. Dozens of Scarlet Schoolmen, too engrossed or startled to sing new Encircling Wards, screamed in the scalding light. Entire cadres were swept away in deluge after glittering deluge. Narstheba. Inrûmmi …
Death came swirling down.
Cishaurim were struck down with Chorae—quick, soundless flashes, like tissue cast into flame—but then so too were Schoolmen, by the Thesji Bowmen who dashed through the smoke-hazed ruin. Within heartbeats the circle was broken, and organized battle became sorcerous melee. Each Schoolman found himself warring alone with his stunned cadre, both to live and to kill. Their shouts were lost in the thunder of their destruction. The Cishaurim were everywhere among them, standing in clutches, behind broken walls, upon mounded debris—blue-burning beacons. Geysers erupted along the sheer brick surfaces, leaving deep pocks that trailed dust and gravel. Bricks fell like powdered plaster. Many of the Cishaurim, the Secondaries and Tertiaries, they killed with single Dragonheads. The Primaries they hammered and hammered, either singly or in concert, only to find themselves falling to their knees, screaming out Ward after desperate Ward.
The Scarlet Spires knew of the Nine Incandati, those Primaries whose backs could bear the most Water, but they had no inkling as to their true strength. Now the greatest of the Psûkari assailed them: Seökti, Inkorot, Hab’hara, Fanfarokar, Sartmandri … And they could not cope.
Within moments of closing with Inkorot, Sarosthenes was singing Wards only. Dazzling light crashed all about him, striking with such force that it seemed the very joists of the world must crack. His Javreh shield-bearers wailed about him, struggling to find their feet. The ghost stone cracked, was torn away in sheets. His song ran out, and all was brilliant agony.
Eleäzaras had been very near the Cishaurim’s surprise descent. Beset by Fanfarokar and Seökti, the High Heresiarch himself, he too could do no more than sing Ward after Ward. The Heresiarch hung over half-windows directly before him, his asps curved to watch the surrounding ruin, his figure bleached white by his impossible dispensations. Fanfarokar assailed him from the right, shielded in the crotches of a ruined tabernacle. The words. The words! The Grandmaster bent all his craft and cunning to the words, both silent and spoken. The world beyond his defences was rocked and blasted by deafening light. He sang and he sang to keep his narrow circle safe.
He had not the luxury of despair.
Then a moment of miraculous respite. The world went dark save for the wicked glow of the fires. Through the whoosh and crackling, Eleäzaras heard a horn, lonely and crude, crying out over the fields of ruin. All, sorcerer and Cishaurim alike, peered about in blinking confusion. Then Eleäzaras saw them, demon-red in the gloom, assembled in a long line across the broken ground: the Thunyeri, their black armour sheened in blood, their cornsilk beards tousled by the wind of great fires burning. He saw the Circumfix, black on red, pinned to the standard of Prince Hulwarga.
Men of the Tusk, come to save them.
Masses of Kianene horsemen encompassed the fields before them, line after rumbling line of them, trotting directly toward the ruined aqueduct. Waiting with butted spear and hoisted shield, the Men of the Tusk watched them, marking the standards of foes now well known. The Khirgwi tribes, bent on completing the work of the desert. The Grandees of Nenciphon and Chianadyni, who had suffered so terribly beneath the walls of Caraskand. The Girgashi of King Pilaskanda, leading some two dozen of their dread mastodons. The survivors of Gedea and Shigek under Ansacer. The long-suffering horsemen of Eumarna and Jurisada under Cinganjehoi, who time and again had driven the Inrithi before him. And beneath the Padirajah’s own banner, the fearless Coyauri, the ringlets of their mail gleaming gold where open sky found them.
All that remained of a proud and fierce nation, come for a final reckoning.
To the left of the Inrithi, over the heart of the city, smoke trailed like gauze in water, obscuring the First Temple and the Sacred Heights. Lights glowered and flickered from within, glimpses of brilliance through rags of black. Booms and thunder broke across the distances, more fell than the pulse of heathen drums.
The braided Nangaels began singing first, then the Numaineiri, one of the Warrior-Prophet’s unearthly hymns. Soon the entire Inrithi line was awash with deep warrior voices, singingWe, the sons of past sorrow,
We, the heirs of ancient trow,
Shall raise glory to the morrow,
And shall deliver fury to the now …
The Kianene quickened to the pace of crashing cymbals, rank after rank of them, roping field and pasture with dark colour. Then suddenly the cohorts were racing as though one against another. Riding at the fore, the Sapatishahs thrust their scimitars high and cried out. Their Grandees and the fiercest of their kinsmen answered, and soon all howled in outrage and injury.
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So many wrongs suffered. So many deaths unavenged.
The ground swept beneath them. Not fast enough. Not fast enough.
Men wept for awe and hatred. And it seemed the Solitary God heard them …
The Skilura Aqueduct stretched before them, a perfect line that ran from city to horizon, long tracts of it intact, arches piled across arches, and sections completely collapsed. Crowded between the ruined pilings and about the scree, ranks of the Inrithi barricaded its foundations, a wall of shields and wicked men. The distance closed. The moments thinned to impossibility. For a heartbeat, song warred with inarticulate clamour …
We shall raise glory to the morrow?
Then all the world erupted.
Lances snapped. Shields cracked. Some horses shied and reared, while others bulled through. Men stabbed and hooked. Song and cry both faltered, and shrieks claimed the sky. From the heights of the aqueduct, Inrithi archers rained incessant ruin. Others heaved blocks and stones onto the heaving masses below. Here and there, heathen burst through to the far side, where the waiting Tydonni and Ainoni knights instantly charged into them. Bloodshed and melee seethed along the length of the Inrithi line.
“Even the Dûnyain,” Moënghus said, “possess vestigial versions of these weaknesses. Even me. Even you, my son.”
The implication was clear. Your trial has broken you.
Was this what had happened beneath the black boughs of Umiaki? Kellhus could remember rising from Serwë’s corpse, the hands wrapping him in white linen. He could remember blinking at the flash of sunlight through the leafy gloom. He could remember walking when he should be dead, and seeing them in their thousands, the Men of the Tusk, crying out in astonishment and relief and exultation—in awe …