“One last thing, Exalt-General.”
Conphas turned, lids low, eyebrows raised. “Yes?”
“You’ve heard of the attempt on Prince Kellhus’s life?”
“You mean there’s another sober man in this world?”
Proyas smiled sourly. For a moment, real hatred flashed in his eyes.
“Prince Kellhus tells me the man who tried to kill him was Nansur. One of your officers, in fact.”
Conphas stared at the man blankly, realizing he’d been duped. All those questions … Proyas had asked them in order to implicate him, to see whether he had motive. Conphas cursed himself for a fool. Fanatic or not, Nersei Proyas was not a man to be underestimated.
This is becoming a nightmare.
“What?” Conphas said. “You propose to arrest me?”
“You propose to arrest Prince Kellhus.”
Conphas grinned. “You would find it hard to arrest an army.”
“I see no army,” Proyas said.
Conphas smiled. “But you do …”
Of course there was nothing Proyas could do, even if the assassin had survived to name Conphas directly. The Holy War needed the Empire.
Even still, there was a lesson to be learned. War was intellect. Conphas would teach this Prince Kellhus that …
His loitering Kidruhil snapped to attention as Conphas exited the pavilion. As a precaution he’d taken some two hundred of the heavily armoured cavalrymen as an escort. The Great Names were scattered from Nagogris on the edge of the Great Desert to Iothiah on the Sempis Delta, and Skauras had landed raiders on the North Bank to harry them. Risking death or capture clearing up a matter such as this wouldn’t do. So far, the problem of Anasûrimbor Kellhus remained more theoretical than practical.
As his attendants fetched his horse, the Exalt-General looked for Martemus, found him milling among the troopers. Martemus had always preferred the company of common soldiers to that of officers, something that Conphas had once thought quaint, but now found annoying—even seditious.
Martemus … What’s happened to you?
Conphas mounted his black and rode over to him. The taciturn General watched him, apparently without apprehension.
Like a Scylvendi, Conphas spat on the earth beneath the shod hooves of Martemus’s horse. Then he glanced back at Proyas’s pavilion, at the embroidered eagles splayed in black across the weathered white canvas, and at the guards who eyed him and his men suspiciously. The Eagle and Tusk pennant of House Nersei lolled in the lazy breeze, framed by the faint escarpments of the South Bank.
He turned back to his wayward General.
“It appears,” he said in a fierce voice that wouldn’t carry, “that you aren’t the only casualty of this spy’s sorcery, Martemus … When you kill this Warrior-Prophet, you’ll be avenging many, very many.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IOTHIAH
… the ends of the earth shall be wracked by the howls of the wicked, and the idols shall be cast down and shattered, stone against stone. And the demons of the idolaters shall hold open their mouths, like starving lepers, for no man living will answer their outrageous hunger.
—16:4:22 THE WITNESS OF FANE
Though you lose your soul, you shall win the world.
—MANDATE CATECHISM
Late Summer, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Shigek
Xinemus didn’t particularly like the man, and had never trusted him, but he’d nonetheless been trapped into speaking with him. The man, Therishut, a baron of dubious reputation from Conriya’s frontier with High Ainon, had intercepted him as Xinemus made his way from a planning session with Proyas. Upon seeing Xinemus, the man’s thinly bearded face had brightened with his best “oh-how-fortuitous” look. It was in Xinemus’s nature to be patient with even those he disliked, but distrust was a different matter altogether. And yet, it was the small indignities that the pious man must endure over all.
“I seem to remember, Lord Marshal,” Therishut said, hastening to match his pace, “that you have an affinity for books.”
Ever polite, Xinemus nodded, and said: “An acquired taste.”
“Then you must be excited that the famed Sareotic Library, in Iothiah, was taken intact by the Galeoth.”
“The Galeoth? I thought it was the Ainoni.”
“No,” Therishut replied, drawing his lips into a strange upside-down smile. “I’ve heard that it was the Galeoth. Men of Saubon’s own household in fact.”
“Indeed,” Xinemus said, impatiently. “Well enough then …”
“I see you’re busy, Lord Marshal. No bother … I’ll send one of my slaves to arrange an audience.”
To bump into Therishut was annoying enough, but to actually suffer through a formal visit?
“I’m never too busy for a Baron of the Land, Therishut.”
“Good!” the man nearly squealed. “Well then … Not long ago, a friend of mine—well, I should say he’s not yet my friend, but I … I …”
“He’s someone you hope to curry favour with, Therishut?”
Therishut’s face both brightened and soured. “Yes! Although that sounds rather indelicate, don’t you think?”
Xinemus said nothing, but walked on, his eyes firmly fixed on the top of his pavilion amidst the jumble of others in the distance. Beyond, the hills of Gedea were pale in the haze. Shigek, he thought. We’ve taken Shigek! For some strange reason, the certainty that soon, impossibly soon, he’d set eyes on Holy Shimeh seized him. It’s happening … It was almost enough to make him be kind to Therishut. Almost.
“Well, this friend of mine who’d just returned from the Sareotic Library asked me what ‘gnosis’ was. And since you’re the closest thing to a scholar I know, I thought you could help me help him. Do you know what ‘gnosis’ is?”
Xinemus stopped and eyed the small man carefully. “Gnosis,” he said carefully, “is the name of the old sorcery of the Ancient North.”
“Ah yes!” Therishut exclaimed. “That makes sense!”
“What interest does your friend have in libraries, Therishut?”
“Well, you know there’s a rumour that Saubon might sell the books to raise more money.”
Xinemus hadn’t heard this rumour, and it troubled him. “I doubt the other Great Names would countenance that. So what, your friend has already begun taking inventory?”
“He’s a most enterprising soul, Lord Marshal. A good man to know if one’s interested in profits—if you know what I mean …”
“Merchant-caste dog, no doubt,” Xinemus said matter-of-factly. “Let me give you some advice, Therishut: heed your station.”
But rather than take offence at this, Therishut smiled wickedly. “Surely, Lord Marshal,” he said in a tone devoid of all deference, “you of all people.”
Xinemus blinked, astonished more by his own hypocrisy than by Baron Therishut’s insolence. A man who sups with a sorcerer castigating another for currying favour with a merchant? Suddenly the hushed rumble of the Conriyan camp seemed to buzz in his ears. With a fierceness that shocked him, the Marshal of Attrempus stared at Therishut, stared at him until, flustered, the fool mumbled insincere apologies and scurried away.
As he walked the remaining distance to his pavilion, Xinemus thought of Achamian, his dear friend of many, many years. And he thought of his caste, and was faintly shocked by the hollow of uneasiness that opened in his gut when he recollected Therishut’s words: You of all people.
How many think this?
Their friendship had been strained of late, Xinemus knew. It would do them both some good if Achamian spent several days away.
In a library. Studying blasphemy.
“I don’t understand,” Esmenet said with more than a little anger.
He’s leaving me …
Achamian heaved a burlap sack of oats across his mule’s back. His mule, Daybreak, regarded her solemnly. Beyond him, the largely deserted encampment crowded the slopes, pitched among and between small stands of black willows and cottonwoods.
She could see the Sempis in the distance, shining like obsidian inlay beneath the punishing sun. Whenever she glanced at the hazy South Bank, dark with vegetation, she could feel the heathen watching.
“I don’t understand, Akka,” she repeated, plaintively this time.
“But, Esmi …”
“But what?”
He turned to her, obviously irritated, distracted. “It’s a library. A library!”
“So?” she said hotly. “The illiterate are not—”
“No,” he snapped, scowling. “No! Look, I need some time alone. I need time to think. To think, Esmi, think!”
The desperation in his voice and expression shocked her into momentary silence.
“About Kellhus,” she said. The skin beneath her scalp prickled.
“About Kellhus,” he replied, turning back to his mule. He cleared his throat, spit into the dust.
“He’s asked you, hasn’t he?” Her chest tightened. Could it be?
Achamian said nothing, but there was a subtle heartlessness to his movements, and almost imperceptible blankness to his eyes. She was learning him, she realized, like a song sung many times. She knew him.
“Asked me what?” he said finally, tying his sleeping mat to the pack saddle.
“To teach him the Gnosis.”
For the past three weeks, since following the Conriyan column into the Sempis Valley, through the madness of the occupation—ever since the night with the Wathi Doll—a strange rigidity had seemed to haunt Achamian, a tension that made it impossible for him to love or laugh for anything more than moments. But she’d assumed his argument with Xinemus and their subsequent estrangement had been the cause.
Several days earlier she’d confronted the Marshal on the issue, telling him of his friend’s apprehensions. Yes, Achamian had committed an outrage, she explained, but he’d erred out of foolishness not disrespect.
“He tries to forget, Zin, but he cannot. Every morning I cradle him as he cries out. Every morning I remind him the Apocalypse is over … He thinks Kellhus is the Harbinger.”
But Xinemus, she could tell, already knew this. He was patient in tone, word, manner—everything save his look. His eyes had never truly listened, and she’d known something deeper was wrong. A man like Xinemus, Achamian had told her once, risked much keeping a sorcerer as a friend.
She’d never pressed Achamian with anything more than warm reminders, like “He worries for you, you know.” The hurts of men were brittle, volatile things. Achamian liked to claim that men were simple, that women need only feed, fuck, and flatter them to keep them happy. Perhaps this was true of certain men, perhaps not, but it certainly wasn’t true of Drusas Achamian. So she’d waited, assuming that time and habit would return the two old friends to their old understanding.
For some reason, the notion that Kellhus, and not Xinemus, lay at the root of his distress never occurred to her. Kellhus was holy—she harboured absolutely no doubt about that now. He was a prophet, whether he himself believed it or not. And sorcery was unholy …
What was it Achamian had said he would become?
A god-sorcerer.
Achamian continued to fuss over his baggage. He hadn’t said anything. He didn’t need to.
“But how could it be?” she asked.
Achamian paused, stared at nothing for several heartbeats. Then he turned to her, his face blank with hope and horror.
“How could a prophet speak blasphemy?” he said, and she knew that for him this was already an old and embittered question. “I asked him that …”
“And what did he say?”
“He cursed and insisted he wasn’t a prophet. He was offended … hurt even.”
I’ve a talent for that, his tone said.
A sudden desperation welled in Esmenet’s throat. “You can’t teach him, Akka! You mustn’t teach him! Don’t you see? You’re the temptation. He must resist you and the promise of power you hold. He must deny you to become what he must become!”
“Is that what you think?” Achamian exclaimed. “That I’m King Shikol tempting Sejenus with worldly power like in The Tractate? Maybe he’s right, Esmi, did you ever consider that? Maybe he’s not a prophet!”
Esmenet stared at him, fearful, bewildered, but strangely exhilarated as well. How had she come so far? How could a whore from a Sumni slum stand here, so near the world’s heart?
How had her life become scripture? For a moment, she couldn’t believe …
“The question, Akka, is what do you think?”
Achamian looked to the ground between them.
“What do I think?” he repeated pensively. He raised his eyes.
Esmenet said nothing, though she felt the hardness melt from her gaze.
Achamian shrugged and sighed. “That the Three Seas couldn’t be more unprepared for a Second Apocalypse … The Heron Spear is lost. Sranc roam half the world, in numbers a hundred—a thousand!—times greater than in Seswatha’s day. And Men hold only a fraction of the Trinkets.” He stared at her, and it seemed his eyes had never been so bright. “Though the Gods have damned me, damned us, I can’t believe they would so abandon the world …”
“Kellhus,” she whispered.
Achamian nodded. “They’ve sent us more than a Harbinger … That’s what I think, or hope—I don’t know …”
“But sorcery, Akka …”
“Is blasphemy, I know. But ask yourself, Esmi, why are sorcerers blasphemers? And why is a prophet a prophet?”
Her eyes opened horror-wide. “Because one sings the God’s song,” she replied, “and the other speaks the God’s voice.”
“Exactly,” Achamian said. “Is it blasphemy for a prophet to utter sorcery?”
Esmenet stood staring, dumbstruck.
For the God to sing His own song …
“Akka …”
He turned back to his mule, bent to retrieve his satchel from the dust.
A sudden panic welled through her. “Please don’t leave me, Akka.”
“I told you, Esmi,” he said, without turning his face to her, “I need to think.”
But we think so well together!
He was wiser for her counsel. He knew this! Now he confronted a decision unlike any other … So why would he leave her? Was there something else? Something more he was hiding?
She glimpsed him writhing beneath Serwë … He’s found a younger whore, something whispered.
“Why do you do this?” she asked, her voice far sharper than she had wished.
An exasperated pause. “Do what?”
“It’s like a labyrinth with you, Akka. You throw open gates, invite me in, but refuse to show me the way. Why do you always hide?”
His eyes flashed with inexplicable anger.
“Me?” he laughed, turning back to his task. “Hide, you say?”
“Yes, hide. You’re so weak, Akka, and you need not be. Think of what Kellhus has taught us!”
He glanced at her, his eyes poised between hurt and fury. “How about you? Let’s talk about your daughter … Remember her? How long has it been since you’ve—”
“That’s different! She came before you! Before you!”
Why would he say this? Why would he try to hurt?
My girl! My baby girl is dead!
“Such fine discriminations,” Achamian spat. “The past is never dead, Esmi.” He laughed bitterly. “It’s not even past.”
“Then where’s my daughter, Akka?”
For an instant he stood dumbstruck. She often baffled him like this.
Broken down fool!
Her fingers started shaking. Hot tears spilled across her cheeks. How could she think such things?
Because of what he said … How dare he!
He gaped at her, as though somehow reading her soul. “I’m sorry, Esmi,” he said vaguely. “I shouldn’t have mentioned … I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
His voice trailed away, and he again turned to his mule, began angrily cinching straps. “You don’t un
derstand what the Gnosis is to us,” he added. “More than my pulse would be forfeit.”
“Then teach me! Show me how to understand!”
This is Kellhus! We discovered him together!
“Esmi … I can’t talk to you about this. I can’t …”
“But why?”
“Because I know what you’ll say!”
“No, Akka,” she said, feeling the old whorish coldness. “You don’t. You’ve no idea.”
He caught the rough hemp cord hanging from his mule’s crude bridle, momentarily fumbled it. For an instant, everything about him, his sandals, his baggage, his white-linen robe, seemed lonely and poor. Why did he always look so poor?
She thought of Sarcellus: bold, sleek, and perfumed.
Shabby cuckold!
“I’m not leaving you, Esmi,” he said with a queer kind of finality. “I could never leave you. Not again.”
“I see but one sleeping mat,” she said.
He tried to smile, then turned, leading Daybreak away at an awkward gait. She watched him, her innards churning as though she dangled over unseen heights. He followed the path eastward, passing a row of weather-beaten round tents. He seemed so small so quickly. It was so strange, the way bright sun could make distant figures dark …
“Akka!” she cried out, not caring who heard. “Akka!”
I love you.
The figure with the mule stopped, distant and for a moment, unrecognizable.
He waved.
Then he disappeared beneath a stand of black willows.
Intelligent people, Achamian had found, were typically less happy. The reason for this was simple: they were better able to rationalize their delusions. The ability to stomach Truth had little to do with intelligence—nothing, in fact. The intellect was far better at arguing away truths than at finding them. Which was why he had to flee Kellhus and Esmenet.
He led his mule along a path bounded to his right by the black expanse of the Sempis and to his left by a line of gigantic eucalyptus trees. Save for the odd flash of warmth between limbs, the half-canopy sheltered him from the sun. A breeze seeped through his white linen tunic. It was peaceful, he thought, to at long last be alone …
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