“I am the voi—!”
“Pfah! You are scarcely a child! I am older than your languages, your histories, your duping Tusk! I am older than the names you give your tapeworm Gods! The soul that now regards you has witnessed Ages, mortal!” Deep laughter echoed down the ramparts, offensive for its sincerity. “And you would presume to be its Judge?”
Serene of mien and pose, the Holy Aspect-Emperor paused in the manner of those awaiting an interruption to end. All across Ûgorrior, Men of the Ordeal caught their breath, for he seemed to glow in the instant, in a manner too profound for eyes. There he stood, the Warrior-Prophet, overshadowed by monstrous stoneworks, scorned as a child … and yet it was he who was the mightier by far.
He shrugged, raised his palms from his thighs. A nimbus of gold flashed about his outstretched fingers.
“I am,” he said, “but the vessel of the Lord.”
Cet’ingira cackled for what seemed a long time. “Oh, you are far, far more Anasûrimbor …”
There was a great thrum of bow-strings. Myriad negations of Creation pocked the open air, rising from points across the black ramparts and falling on a menagerie of arcs, climbing, falling, converging on the circle the Nonman had scorched upon the earth … striking as a furious hail.
But the Holy Aspect-Emperor was no longer there.
Cet’ingira snapped his gaze skyward, to a point just above the white stab of the sun …
For it was upon this angle that the Ciphrang fell roaring.
Shrieking, they plummeted, falling from the sun’s blinding white well, Ciphrang summoned from across the Hells, bound with cruel and subtle sorceries to the agony of the Created. Puskarat, Mother of Perversions; foul Hish, the Great-Jawed Glutton, who shambled as a living heap of fire and putrescence; and monstrous Hagazioz, the Feathered Worm of the Pit, a Godling the size of two galleys set end upon end; mighty Kakaliol, Reaper-of-Heroes, armoured in the glory of the damned; and appalling Urskrux, the vulturous Father-of-Carrion, whose vomit was pestilence—and two dozen other malformed demons from the abyss, slaves of the Daimos, arcane puppets of Iyokus and his Daimotic confreres. The Ciphrang hooked wide their folded wings, scooped wind to slow their descent. They swooped over Gwergiruh, screeching in a chorus that clutched the throat and clawed the ears, plucking every tone on the scale of human terror. A heartbeat saw them over the Oblitus, sailing to the root of the High Horn, where they fell shrieking upon the High Cwol, dropped as balls of iron through floors, igniting interlocking Wards …
The Men of the Ordeal stood dumbstruck, blinking, peering after glimpsed monstrosities, watching the blossoms of fire erupt across the High Cwol above the shoulder of Corrunc. One soul whooped … and the whole of Ûgorrior boomed in reply, a roar that was almost a collective scream, such was the passion vented.
It was happening. It was finally happening!
Somewhere deep in Golgotterath, bestial arms hammered gongs, and a cacophonous racket made hash of the skies. Their deception spent, the Ursranc surged onto the heights of Golgotterath’s walls, armoured in hauberks of black scale, their cheeks branded with Twin Horns, hooting in their corrupt tongue. But the holy ghus sounded also, so deep as to roll under all other sounds. Archers and crossbowmen burst from the forward ranks of each of the three great Trials: Agmundrmen for the Sons of the Middle-North; Eumarnans for the Sons of Kyraneas; and Antanamerans for the Sons of Shir. In what appeared an act of reckless lunacy they dashed out exposed onto the dust, and before their unruly Foe could organize, they nocked their shafts and bolts, raised their weapons—released …
The gold-fanged parapets seethed with activity, bristled with black iron. Howling white faces crowded the embrasures—but nary a shaft fell upon them. Without exception, the shafts and bolts fell short, clattering across the sheer faces and squat foundations of Corrunc, Domathuz, and Gwergiruh. White lights flared across the fortifications, implosions. And a sound climbed into the collective bewilderment, one unlike any heard by Mannish ears, like a thousand mastodons charging across the drum-skins of Soul and World …
Wards cracking, unravelling, dissolving.
Golgotterath had been raised with ensorcelled stone. Fell Quyan sorceries strapped and permeated the fortifications, some binding structure, others set like springs primed to burn and concuss, and many more applied like coats of arcane lacquer, shielding exposed faces from the violence of Cants. The Chorae Hoard rained upon and across them, each sparking a violent dissolution, explosions of salt. Blocks cracked. Joists groaned. The Ursranc on the parapets were thrown from their feet.
The Schoolmen had already begun their muttering song at the command of their Exalt-Magus, Anasûrimbor Serwa, the Witch Most Holy. Even as the bowmen fled back into the great phalanxes, hundreds of Triunes stepped from them, climbing into the vacant heights—the greatest concentration of sorcerous might the World had ever seen. One thousand Schoolmen, their faces—and thus the telltale light of their singing—obscured by deep cowls. One thousand Kites, as the Ordealmen had come to call them, fairly every sorcerer of rank the Major Schools of the Three Seas could muster.
The Mandati under Apperens Saccarees, their red billows monkish for their simplicity; the Imperial Saik under Temus Enhorû, their gold-trimmed gowns as black as ink, glossed with deep shades of violet, scored with the white of reflected sunlight; the Mysunsai under Obwë Gûswuran, their garb eclectic save for their cowls, which resembled those of Amoti shepherds, white striped with sky-blue; the decimated Vokalati, their white-and-violet numbers dwindled to a mere handful for the travesty of Irsûlor; the Scarlet Spires under Girûmmû Tansiri, their garb an iridescent play of crimson upon crimson, like blood upon autumnal leaves; and of course the Nuns, the Swayali Sisterhood, the most numerous and certainly the most bewitching in their gleaming saffron gowns, their voices complicating the ponderous, masculine chorus with a high-drawn, feminine keen.
One thousand Schoolmen, the greatest concentration of sorcerous might the World had ever seen. As one, they unfurled their silk billows, became as flowers in the gleaming sun.
The Men below roared in jubilation.
Brilliant explosions pimpled the distant ramparts of the High Cwol.
The Scylvendi assassins watched from afar upon the Occlusion, breathless for awe and dread.
The Triunes formed three lines at the fore of each phalanx, tentacular blooms hanging the height of mighty oaks. Their skulls cauldrons of light, the witches and sorcerers began singing in unison …
“Imrima kukaril ai’yirarsa …”
A sudden breeze whipped their hair about their faces, tugged at the extremities of their billows. Chaos and terror ruled the black walls and towers before them.
“Kilateri pir mirim hir …”
And as one the Schoolmen paused, inhaled, and blew, puffed as a child might blowing fluff from a dandelion …
A great gust of air exploded before them, blasting the hard floor of Ûgorrior, scooping vast quantities of sand and dust, tossing it into a vast pluming curtain that boiled upward and outward. Within heartbeats, Golgotterath’s savage defenders could see naught but grey. Even their fellows had been reduced to ragged silhouettes in the murk. The Ursranc howled in frustration and terror, for they knew the Schoolmen had merely begun their catastrophic song.
Vile angel.
It knows not this place. The animals scurry from its smoking onslaught, squealing and grunting. Kakaliol shrieks for agony and fury, stamps them like rats beneath its horned feet, lays its lash upon them, lays them out as burning bundles, blistered pulps, flesh like paper thrashing in the flame.
Surcease! it screams.
The galling implacability, the needling obstinance, the knifing reality, cutting and cutting and cutting, sawing them, it, as a carpenter might, joint from joint, limb from limb, over and over and over again. What torment was the World—what shrieking agony! Pricking it point by point, every thimble of diabolical substance, pinning it to these monstrous solidities, these pealing, stabbing, details …
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Surcease! the Carrion Prince bellows to the Blind Slaver within. Surceeease!
After your task is complete …
Blind worm! How I shall care for thee! Love and invert thee!
I fear more horrific souls have claimed me.
I shall kindle a furnace in thine heart! Sup on thi—!
Discharge your obligation!
Vile angel.
It screams, for the Slaver has spoken a word and the sharp-sharp needles of this World have answered. Kakaliol, the great and dreadful Reaper-of-Heroes, Seducer-of-Thieves, screams sulphur, weeps pitch for fury, and punishes the pageant of soulless meat, visits destruction on the mewling animals that scurry and squeal from its path. It stalks the great corridor, a crimson light in the smoking dark, trailing sizzling ruin in its wake. The flesh now flees before it, gibbering and yammering as if it were real. A different flesh replaces it, far greater in height and girth, draped in clanking gowns of iron. Bellowing they fall upon Kakaliol, spear and cudgel its scaled limbs, but they too fall away, puling hoarse and glutinous, burning and broken.
And it strides forward, stone cracking beneath its feet …
Vile angel.
The meat lies smashed and smoking about it. Nothing opposes it—save a lone hooded figure occupying the centre of the grand hall …
Beware … the Blind Slaver whispers.
A roar shivers up through rotted stone.
At last … Kakaliol croaks on a poisonous fume.
A soul.
Helplessness was fury for Men.
“She is your wife!” Esmenet cried.
Words meant to scratch the heart.
The old Wizard gazed at her incredulous. Despite everything he had endured, despite all the deprivations and indignities of the trail, it seemed nothing compared to the night he had suffered: the slurry of the watches, slipping into slumber only to be yanked clear, riven by alarm, gazing helpless as Mimara, stumbling to and fro to discharge Esmenet’s commands, sometimes barked, sometimes gentle, fetching water, boiling water, cleansing rags, wringing and applying, always confused, always anxious, always out of place, an interloper, always averting his eyes for no good reason, save the contradiction of the girl’s posture, whorish and natal, the lustful and lascivious turned inside out, transformed into something too round, too deep, not to pain the flat hearts of men, force unwanted wisdom upon them, knowledge of the primal, feminine toil that stood at the very origin of life, the mealy divinity, swollen and bleeding and anguished beyond masculine comprehension …
A World ending. A life beginning.
“I’ll be right back,” he explained. “I just-just need to see.”
Something was wrong. With Mimara, Esmenet was nothing but reassuring, cooing encouragement as the seizures waxed in cruelty, then telling stories of her own travails in the lulls between, especially regarding the birth of her beloved first, Mimara herself. She cajoled her terrified daughter, made her laugh and smile with whimsical appraisals of her fetal obstinance. “Two days!” she would cry, her look one of laughing adoration. “Two days you denied me! ‘Mimara!’ I would cry, ‘Please, my Sweet! Please be born!’ but, noooo …”
But for every indulgence she afforded her daughter, she exacted some penance from him, the man who had quickened her womb, the man she still loved. Several times now, at the grinding pinnacle of some particularly torturous seizure, she had all but stabbed him with her eyes, so hateful was her look. And each time, it seemed Achamian could read the movements of her soul as plainly as he could his own …
If she dies …
The stakes were mortal—he knew as much. The stakes were always mortal where childbirth was concerned. And for all the times Esmenet contradicted her daughter’s tearful protestations that something was wrong, it was plain that she too believed as much. Her daughter’s travail was too taxing, her seizures too ferocious …
Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
And this made Drusas Achamian a murderer in waiting.
“I need you here!” Esmenet spat in reply, her indignation imperial. “Mimara needs you!”
As was often the case in familial feuds, exhaustion had become indistinguishable from selfish will.
“Which is why I’ll return!”
Esmenet blinked, obviously shocked. An answering wildness animated her look, but only for a heartbeat. At the draw of a single oar, she became remote, cool—looking down far more than up, as if he were but another petitioner begging favour at the foot of the Blessed Empress.
“You need to change out of that filth,” she said. “I need you to be clean …”
“I’m informing,” the furious old Wizard replied, “not begging your permission, Emp—!”
And with that, they found themselves standing in a different future, one where Esmenet had struck him. Hard enough to bloody his mouth …
So much lay between them. A lifetime bound by common desperations, the half-mad ferocity of souls that have nothing but each other. And then a second lifetime, constant in the manner of ascetics and potentates, bound by nothing save that continuity, be it the wilds of Hûnoreal, or the splendours of the Andiamine Heights. A new lifetime condemned to dwell in the ruins of the old.
And now here they stood … reunited in turmoil at long last.
Achamian wiped his mouth across a filthy sleeve.
“You owe me this,” Esmenet said softly.
“I fear you are the debtor,” he replied on a momentary glare.
“You owe me your life!” she exclaimed. “Why do you think Kellhus suff—?”
“Mother!”
It was Mimara, her voice frayed to the hemp for grunting and screaming. Both of them flinched for the realization that she lay watching.
“Leave him, Mother … Let him be …”
She had sensed it as well, Achamian realized. The smell of sorcery borne on a different wind.
“Mim …”
“Someone, Mother …” the girl gasped, at once irked and beseeching. “Someone must see.”
It fell upon their skin, seized them hair by hair. It rose from the nethers of their gullet, steamed from the margins of their sight. It fell as mist from the heavens, shivered up as tremors from the sands. It twisted hearing, bewildered heartbeats. It cracked thought wide open, allowed the ink of madness to seep in …
And it wrung light and destruction from vacant air.
Sorcery.
The Triunes advanced into the roiling veils they had swept into the air, vanished one by one. Not a soul among them hesitated. The long months fencing with the Horde had taught them how to estimate shrouded locations and distances, how to count off paces in the air. Their enemies screeched and clamoured across immovable walls, their positions fixed, known, while they ranged high and low, all but invisible.
They could scarcely see one another in the murk; their billows transformed them into octopus shadows, their cowls concealed their light. Their singing seemed stolen from their lips, their lungs, and braided into the greater, choral impossibility. Each sang Ward after Ward, sheathing themselves and their Triune brothers in ethereal defenses, either abstract or metaphoric. Each silently counted the counterfeit steps taken …
Missiles fell as an indiscriminate hail, but more about them than upon. Each could sense the arc of Chorae through the air, small holes of nothingness whipping from obscurity into nowhere. One struck a Mysunsai sorcerer-of-rank, the bent-backed Keles Musyerius, upon his cowled head, and he simply dropped, salted to the pith, shattered across the ground. Three others were superficially salted by Chorae striking their billows, and had to be born back to the Ordeal by their comrades. The yammering parapets drew near, the sounds preposterously close, and more disconcerting still, falling from above, so colossal were Golgotterath’s defenses. Spears and javelins joined the violent downpour. Great, iron-tipped bolts cracked against the Wards of many. But the Triunes continued their blind advance, converging upon the one thing they could clearly sense in the swirling grey monotony: th
e fallen Trinkets of the Chorae Hoard, strewn about the base of the very stoneworks they had exposed and weakened …
The great cloud they had cast into the eyes of their enemy dissipated, enough for the defenders to discern their congregating shadows. The barrage of missiles concentrated, became a hellish racket. Seventeen Schoolmen toppled, flopped to earth, salted. Fifty-three others had to be carried back, some shrieking, thrashing, others immobile …
The massed remainder struck.
For the Men of the Ordeal, the gold-fanged crowns of Corrunc and Domathuz where the first structures to resolve from the screens of grey, little more than battlemented silhouettes against the far more enormous bulk of the Horns. They glimpsed the Ursranc clustered like white-skinned termites along the crest, frantically casting spears and loosing slings and bows at the unseen Schoolmen below. The sorcerous unison abruptly dissolved into a many-voiced clamour, one that swatted ears for booming urgency. Substance itself croaked in hellish tongues, including their own flesh. Lights flashed in rapid succession from the murk, white upon white … blue, crimson-violet, each revealing the mangled shadows of the Schoolmen and their billows. Clacking thunder tingled across bare and bearded cheeks, resounded over the whole of Shigogli.
And though many cheered, many more caught their breath, for they saw the summit of Corrunc slouch. The parapets dipped to the right, as though in mocking obeisance to the north, then simply toppled, first outward, then straight downward, as the evil bastion slumped into its own obliteration. The shock wave bulged, then blew out the last of the obscuring haze, revealing the Scarlet Schoolmen and the Mandati hanging about the crashing surf of Corrunc’s destruction, their Anagogic and Gnostic Wards pelted luminous for showering debris.
The Ursranc of Golgotterath shrieked and wailed across the adjoining turrets. The Sons of Shir cheered and bellowed like beasts, brandished spear and sword. Horns screeched through the residual rumble, and the swart Men of Ainon, Sansor, Conriya and Cengemis surged out across Ûgorrior …