The Warrior Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

CHAPTER NINE

  HINNERETH

  One can look into the future, or one can look at the future. The latter is by far the more instructive.

  —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

  If one doubts that passion and unreason govern the fate of nations, one need only look to meetings between the Great. Kings and emperors are unused to treating with equals, and are often excessively relieved or repelled as a result. The Nilnameshi have a saying, “When princes meet, they find either brothers or themselves,” which is to say, either peace or war.

  —DRUSAS ACHAMIAN, THE COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR

  Early Summer, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn

  Song and myriad glittering torches greeted Ikurei Xerius III as he passed through curtains of wispy linen and into the palatial courtyard. Only in light must the Emperor be seen. There was a rustle of fabric as the throngs fell to their knees and pressed their powdered faces against the lawns. Only the tall Eothic Guardsmen remained standing. With child-slaves holding the hem of his gown, Xerius walked among the prostrated forms and savoured, as he always did, this loneliness. This godlike loneliness.

  He summons me! Me! The insolence!

  He mounted the wooden steps and climbed into the Imperial Chariot. A call was given for all to rise.

  Xerius held out his white gloved hand, idly wondering whom Ngarau, his Grand Seneschal, had chosen to hand him the reins—an honour of great traditional significance, but beneath the Emperor’s practical notice. Xerius trusted the judgement of his Grand Seneschal implicitly … As he’d once trusted Skeaös.

  A pang of horror. How long would that name cut like glass? Skeaös.

  He barely noticed the boy who handed him the reins. Some young scion of House Kiskei? No matter. Xerius was typically graceful even when distracted—a trait inherited from his father. His father might have been a craven fool, but, oh, how he’d always looked the Great Emperor.

  Xerius passed the reins to his Charioteer and numbly signalled the advance. The team started at the snap of the Captain’s whip, then began prancing forward, drawing the gold-panelled chariot behind them. The censers affixed to the runners rattled, trailing streamers of blue incense. Jasmine and sweet sandalwood. The Emperor must be spared the disconcerting smells of his capital.

  Observed by hundreds of painted and ingratiating faces, Xerius stared firmly forward, his stance statuary, his look remote and haughty. Only a select few received the nod of imperial acknowledgment: his bitch-mother, Istriya; old General Kumuleus, whose support had assured him the Mantle after his father’s death; and of course his favourite augur, Arithmeas. The intangible gold of Imperial favour was something Xerius hoarded jealously, and he was shrewd in its dispensation. Daring may be required to make the climb, but thrift was ever the key to holding the summit.

  Another lesson Xerius had learned from his mother. The Empress had steeped him in the bloody history of his predecessors, tutored him with endless examples of past disaster. This one too trusting, that one too cruel, and so on. Surmante Skilura II, who’d kept a bowl of molten gold at his side to fling at those who displeased him, had been too cruel. Surmante Xatantius, on the other hand, had been too martial—conquest should enrich, not bankrupt. Zerxei Triamarius III had been too fat—so fat he needed slaves to brace his knees when he rode his horse. His death, Istriya had chortled, had been as much a matter of aesthetic decency as anything else. An emperor must look a God, not an overstuffed eunuch.

  Too much of this and too much of that. “The world doesn’t constrain us,” the indomitable Empress had once explained, batting her harlot eyes, “so we must constrain ourselves—like the Gods … Discipline, sweet Xerius. We must have discipline.”

  Something he possessed in abundance, or so Xerius thought.

  Outside the courtyard, files of heavy cavalrymen, elite Kidruhil, positioned themselves before and after the Imperial Chariot, and flanked by running torch-bearers, the shining procession wound down the Andiamine Heights toward the dark and smoky troughs of Momemn. Moving slowly so the torch-bearers could keep pace, it clattered through the Imperial Precincts and onto the long, monumental avenue that joined the palace compounds to the temple-complex of Cmiral.

  Numerous Momemnites stood in shadowy clots along the avenue, straining for a glimpse of their divine Emperor. Obviously word of his short pilgrimage had spread throughout the city. Turning left and right, Xerius smiled and raised his hand in salute after leisurely salute.

  So he wants this to be public …

  At first, he could see little beyond the runners and their glittering torches, nor could he hear much over the sound of hooves clopping across cobble. The farther they travelled, however, the more congested the processional avenue became. Soon slaves and caste-menials jostled within spitting distance of the torch-bearers, their faces clearly illuminated, and Xerius realized that they actually jeered and laughed each time he saluted them. For a moment he feared his heart might stop. He clutched the shuddering runners to steady himself. That he could make such a fool of himself!

  Despite the streaming censers, the air took on the distinct odour of shit.

  Within moments, it seemed, hundreds had become thousands, and as their numbers grew, so did their gall. Soon the air shivered with the thunder of multitudes. Horrified, Xerius watched the torchlight sort through face after unwashed face, each turned to him, some watching in silent accusation or contempt, some sneering, others shouting or howling in spittle-flecked rage. The procession trundled on, as yet unimpeded, but the sense of bristling pageantry had evaporated. Xerius swallowed. Cold sweat snaked between his clothes and skin. He turned his eyes resolutely forward, to the stiff backs of his cavalrymen.

  This is what he wants, he told himself. Remember, be disciplined!

  Officers bawled urgent commands. The Kidruhil drew their clubs.

  The procession found brief respite crossing the bridge over the Rat Canal. Xerius saw pleasure barges anchored in the black waters, drifting in torch-illumined fogs of incense. Rising from their cushions, caste-merchants and concubines lifted clay wafers, blessing-tablets to be broken in his name. But their looks, Xerius could not help but notice, turned away long before his passage was complete—to the awaiting mobs.

  The unruly Momemnites once again engulfed the procession. Women, the old and the infirm, even children, all shouting now, all brandishing fists … Glancing down, Xerius saw a poxed man rolling a rotted tooth on his tongue, which he spit as the Imperial Chariot passed. It fell somewhere beneath the wheels …

  They truly abhor me, Xerius realized. They hate me … Me!

  But this would change, he reminded himself. When all was finished, when the fruits of his labour had become manifest, they would hail him as no other emperor in living memory. They would rejoice as trains of heathen slaves bore tribute to the Home City, as blinded kings were dragged in chains to their Emperor’s feet. And with shielded eyes they would gaze upon Ikurei Xerius III and they would know—know!—that he was indeed the Aspect-Emperor, returned from the ashes of Kyraneas and Cenei to compel the world, to force nation and tribe to bow and kiss his knee.

  I will show them! They will see!

  The immense plaza of Cmiral opened before him, and the thunder of Momemn’s masses reached its crescendo, stealing his breath, numbing him with sound and implication. The forward Kidruhil halted, milled in momentary confusion. Xerius saw one cavalryman’s horse rear. The Kidruhil who followed galloped ahead to secure the flanks. All flourished their clubs, waving them in warning, striking any who came too near. Beyond their small perimeter of gleaming armour and torchlight the world was dark riot. Impoverished humanity, roaring fields of them, from the temple-compounds to the left and right to the great basalt pillars of Xothei ahead.

  Xerius clenched the chariot’s forward rail until his knuckles whitened and his hands ached. All of them … Over and over, crying that name …

  Dread, dizziness, and a sense of inner falling.

  Has he incited the
m against me? Is this to be an assassination?

  He watched as his Kidruhil clubbed first a sliver, then a wedge into the mobs. Suddenly he grinned, gritted his teeth in fierce pleasure. This was how the Gods affirmed themselves: with the blood of mortals! The crowd surged against the forward Kidruhil, and the thunder seemed redoubled. Several shining horsemen stumbled and vanished. More horsemen rushed forward. Clubs rose and fell. Swords were drawn.

  The Charioteer steadied his team, glanced nervously at him.

  You look an Emperor in the eye?

  “Go!” Xerius roared. “Into them! Go!”

  Laughing, he leaned from the runners and spat upon his people, upon those who cried another’s name when Ikurei Xerius III stood godlike in their midst. If only he could spit molten gold!

  Slowly, the chariot trundled ahead, lurching and throwing him forward as the wheels chipped over the fallen. His stomach burned with fear, his bowels felt loose, but there was a wildness in his thoughts, a delirium that exulted in death’s proximity. One by one the torch-bearers were pulled under, but the Kidruhil stood fast, battling their way ever forward, hacking their way among the masses, their swords rising and falling, rising and falling, and it seemed to Xerius that he punished the mongrels with his arm, that it was he who reached forward and chopped them to the ground.

  Laughing maniacally, the Emperor of Nansur passed among his people, toward the growing immensity of temple Xothei.

  Finally the decimated procession reached the ranks of Eothic Guardsmen arrayed across Xothei’s monumental steps. Deafened, afflicted by the torpor of dreams, Xerius was guided from the chariot onto the raised wooden walkway that led to the temple’s great gate. The Emperor must always be seen standing above mere men. He viciously grabbed one of the captains by the arm.

  “Send word to the barracks! Hack this place to silence! I want my chariot to skid across blood when I return!”

  Discipline. He would teach them.

  Then he strode toward Xothei’s gate, stumbled for a moment on the hem of his gown, felt his heart stop beating for fury as laughter coloured the ambient roar. He glanced for an instant across what seemed an ocean of anger and rapture. Then, gathering his gown, he very nearly fled up the walkway. The temple’s massive stonework encompassed him. Shelter.

  The doors were ground shut behind him.

  His legs folded beneath him. A moment of hushed bewilderment. The cold floor against his knees. He placed a trembling hand to his forehead, was surprised by the sweat that ran between his fingers.

  Foolishness! What would Conphas think?

  Ringing ears. Airy darkness. Around him, that name shivered up from the stone.

  Maithanet.

  A thousand thousand voices—or so it seemed—crying like a prayer the name that Xerius spat as a curse.

  Maithanet.

  Feeling winded, he walked unsteadily across the antechamber, paused. Few of the great lamp wheels had been set alight. Pale circles of light were thrown across the vast temple floor, across the rows of faded prayer tile. Columns as thick as netia pine soared into gloom. The hymnal galleries above were barely discernible in the dark. During times of official worship this floor would billow with clouds of incense, making the temple’s recesses vague and ghostly, smearing the points of lamplight with haloes so that it seemed to the faithful that they stood at the very juncture of this world and the Outside. But now the place was cavernous and bare. Beneath the memory of myrrh, it smelled like a cellar. It was the juncture of nothing—only a pocket of peace purchased by dead stone.

  In the distance, Xerius could see him, kneeling in the centre of the great hemisphere of idols.

  There you are, he thought, feeling some solidity return to his hollow limbs. His slippers whispered as he walked across the floor. Unconsciously, his hands strayed across his vests and gown, smoothing, straightening. His eyes flitted across the friezes etched into the columns: kings, emperors, and gods, all rigid with the supernatural dignity of figures in stone. He came to a stop before the first tier of stairs. The tallest, centre dome gaped above him.

  He stared for several moments at the Shriah’s broad back.

  Face your Emperor you fanatic ingrate!

  “I’m pleased you’ve come,” Maithanet said with his back still turned to him. The voice was rich, enfolding. There was no deference in the tone. Jnan held Shriah and Emperor equal.

  “Why this, Maithanet? Why here?”

  The broad back turned. Maithanet was wearing a plain white frock with sleeves that ended mid-arm. For an instant he appraised Xerius with glittering eyes, then he raised his head to the distant sound of the mob, as though it were the sound of rain prayed for and received. Xerius could see the strong chin beneath the black of his oiled beard. His face was broad, like that of a yeoman, and surprisingly youthful, though nothing about the man’s manner spoke of youth. How old are you?

  “Listen!” Maithanet hissed, raising his hands to the resonant sound of his name. Maithanet-Maithanet-Maithanet …

  “I am not a proud man, Ikurei Xerius, but it moves me to hear them call thus.”

  Despite the foolish dramatics, Xerius found himself awed by the man’s presence. The giddiness of moments before revisited his limbs.

  “I haven’t the patience, Maithanet, for games of jnan.”

  The Shriah paused, then smiled winningly. He began walking down the steps. “I’ve come because of the Holy War … I’ve come to look into your eyes.”

  These words further disconcerted the Emperor. Xerius had known, before coming here, that the stakes of this meeting could be high.

  “Tell me,” Maithanet said, “have you sealed a pact with the heathen? Have you vowed to betray the Holy War before it reaches the Sacred Land?”

  Could he know?

  “I assure you, Maithanet … No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m injured, Shriah, that you would—”

  Maithanet’s laughter was sudden, loud, reverberant enough to fill even the hollows of great Xothei.

  Xerius fairly gasped. The Writ of Psata-Antyu, the code governing Shrial conduct, forbade laughing aloud as a carnal indulgence. Maithanet, he realized, was giving him a glimpse of his depths. But for what purpose? All of this—the mobs, the demand to meet here in Xothei, even the chanting of his name—was a demonstration of some kind, terrifying in its premeditated lack of subtlety.

  I’ll crush you, Maithanet was saying. If the Holy War fails, you’ll be destroyed.

  “Accept my apology, Emperor,” Maithanet said lightly. “It would seem that even a holy war may be poisoned by”—a pained smile—“false rumours, hmm?”

  He tries to cow me … He knows nothing, so he tries to cow me!

  Xerius remained silent, wrathful. He’d always possessed, he thought, a greater facility for hatred than Conphas. His precocious nephew could be vicious, savage even, but he inevitably slipped back into that glassy remoteness that so unnerved those in his company. For Xerius, hatred was something as enduring as it was implacable.

  Such a strange habit, he suddenly realized, these momentary inquiries into his nephew’s nature. When had Conphas become the rule he used to measure the cubits of his own heart?

  “Come, Ikurei Xerius,” the Shriah of the Thousand Temples solemnly said, as though the gravity of what would ensue might forever mark their lives. And for an brief instant, Xerius grasped the gift of character that had hurtled this man to such heights: the ability to impart sanctity to the moment, to touch people with awe as though it were bread drawn from his own basket.

  “Come … Listen to what I say to my people.”

  But over the course of this brief exchange, the sounds of thousands chanting Maithanet’s name had transformed, hesitantly at first, but with greater certitude with each passing moment. Changed.

  Into screams.

  Obviously, the nameless Captain had executed his Emperor’s instructions with blessed alacrity. Xerius grinned his own winning grin. At last he felt a match for thi
s obscenely imposing man.

  “Do you hear, Maithanet? Now they call out my name.”

  “Indeed they do,” the Shriah said darkly. “Indeed they do.”

  Late Summer, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Hinnereth, on the coast of Gedea

  As though crowded by an antipathy to the sea, the land folded as it approached the broken coasts of Gedea. Since the coastal plains were narrow or nonexistent, save the alluvial flatlands surrounding Hinnereth, it seemed the land itself had conspired to bring the Holy War to the ancient city. As the first cohorts descended the terraced hills, Hinnereth sprawled before them, huddled against the Meneanor, a warren of mud and baked-brick structures enclosed by sandstone fortifications. The mournful wail of horns pierced the salty air, rang from hill to sea, and pronounced the city’s doom. Column after column wound down from the hills: the turbulent swordsmen of the Middle-North, the long-skirted knights of Conriya and High Ainon, the veteran infantrymen of the Nansurium.

  Hinnereth was an old prize. Like all lands falling between great, competing civilizations, Gedea had been a perpetual tributary, little more than an anecdote in the chronicles of her conquerors. Hinnereth, her only city of note, had seen innumerable foreign governors: Shigeki, Kyranean, Ceneian, Nansur, and most recently, Kianene. And now the Men of the Tusk would cut their names onto that list.

  The Holy War dispersed into several different camps around the fields and groves outside of Hinnereth’s walls. After conferring, the Great Names sent an embassy of thanes and barons to the gates demanding unconditional surrender. When the Fanim of Ansacer ab Salajka, the Kianene Sapatishah of Gedea, chased them away with arrows and ballistae, thousands were sent into the fields to harvest the wheat and millet secured the week previous by the advance forces of Earl Athjeäri, Palatine Ingiaban, and Earl Werijen Greatheart. Thousands more were sent into the hills to hew down trees for rams, towers, catapults, and mangonels.