And now this …
Slinking around obstacles, he crawled to the nest of shadows where the running thing had disappeared. He wasn’t hungry. He just needed to see.
Besides, he longed for the taste of living, bleeding prey …
Hunched against a burnt-brick wall, he craned his head around a corner. He halted, absolutely still, the world before his face murmuring through his whiskers …
No heartbeat, no whistling rat squeals that only he could hear.
But something moved …
He leapt at a shadowy form, claws extended. He bore the figure down, burying claws into its back, teeth into its soft fabric of its throat. The taste was wrong. The smell was wrong. He felt the first cut, then the second. He wrenched at the throat, seeking meat, the gorgeous rush of hot blood.
But there was nothing.
Another cut.
The tabby released the thing, tried to scramble away, but his hindquarters flailed, faltered. He yowled and shrieked, scratching at the scabbed cobble.
Little doll arms closed about the tabby’s throat.
The taste of blood.
Late Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand
Positioned on the great land route linking the nations south of the Carathay to Shigek and Nansur, Caraskand was an ancient and strategic way station. All those goods that merchants were loath to trust to the capricious seas—Zeumi silks, the cinnamon, pepper, and magnificent tapestries of Nilnamesh, Galeoth wool and fine Nansur wine—passed through the great bazaars of Caraskand, and had done so for thousands of years.
A Shigeki outpost in the days of the Old Dynasty, Caraskand had grown with the passing centuries, and for brief periods between the ascendancy of greater nations, had ruled her own small empire. Enathpaneah was a semimountainous land, sharing in both the arid summers of the Carathay and the rain-drenched winters of Eumarna. Caraskand sprawled across nine hills in her heart. Her great curtain walls had been raised by Triamis I, the greatest of the Ceneian Aspect-Emperors. The vast markets had been cleared by Emperor Boksarias when Caraskand had been one of the wealthiest governorates in the Ceneian Empire. The hazy towers and vast barracks of the Citadel of the Dog, which could be seen from any of the city’s nine heights, had been raised by the warlike Xatantius, Emperor of Nansur, who’d used Caraskand as his proxy capital for his endless wars against Nilnamesh. And the white-marble magnificence of the Sapatishah’s Palace, which made an acropolis of the Kneeling Heights, had been raised by Pherokar I, the fiercest and most pious of Kian’s early Padirajahs.
Although tributary, Caraskand was a great city in the way of Momemn, Nenciphon, or even Carythusal. And though she’d been the prize of innumerable wars, she was proud.
Proud cities do not yield.
Despite the proclamations of the Padirajah, the Holy War had somehow survived Khemema. The Men of the Tusk were no longer a terrifying rumour from the north. Their approach could be measured by the plumes of smoke that marred the northern horizon. Refugees crowded the gates, speaking of butchery at the hands of inhuman men. The Holy War, they said, was the wrath of the Solitary God, who’d sent the idolaters to punish them for their iniquities.
Panic seized Caraskand, and not even the reassurances of their glorious Sapatishah-Governor, Imbeyan the All-Conquering, could calm the city. Hadn’t Imbeyan fled like a beaten dog from Anwurat? Hadn’t the idolaters killed three-quarters of the Grandees of Enathpaneah? Strange names were traded in the streets. Saubon, the blond beast of barbaric Galeoth, who could loosen men’s bowels with a look. Conphas, the great tactician who had crushed even the Scylvendi with genius in arms. Athjeäri, more wolf than man, who ranged the hillsides and plundered all of hope. The Scarlet Spires, the obscene sorcerers from whom even the Cishaurim fled. And Kellhus, the Demon who walked among them as a False Prophet, inciting them to mad and diabolical acts. These names were repeated often, and carefully, as are all sounds of doom, like the gongs that marked the evening executions.
But there was no talk of submission in the streets and bazaars of Caraskand. Very few fled. A silent consensus had grown among them: the idolaters must be resisted, that was the Solitary God’s will. One didn’t flee God’s wrath, no more than a child fled the raised hand of his father.
To be punished was the lot of the faithful.
They crowded the interiors of their grand tabernacles. They wept and prayed, for themselves, for their possessions, for their city.
The Holy War was coming …
Late Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Iothiah
They’d left him in the chapel for some time, hanging from the chains, slowly suffocating. The tripods had grown dim, reduced to beds of glowering coals, so that the surrounding darkness was shaped by lines and faint surfaces of orange stone. Achamian wasn’t aware that Iyokus had joined him until the chanv addict spoke.
“You’re curious, no doubt, to know how the Holy War fares.”
Achamian didn’t move his head from his chest.
“Curious?” he croaked.
The linen-skinned sorcerer was little more than a voice in his periphery.
“The Padirajah, it seems, is a very cunning man. Rather than simply assume victory, he’d made plans beyond the Battle of Anwurat. This is the sign of intellect, you know. The ability to plan against your hopes. He knew the Holy War must cross the wastes of Khemema to continue its march on Shimeh.”
A small cough.
“Yes … I know.”
“Well, there was some question, back when the Holy War besieged Hinnereth, as to why the Padirajah refused to give battle at sea. The Kianene fleet scarce rules the Meneanor, but it’s far from impotent. The question was raised again when we took Shigek, then forgotten. Everyone assumed Kascamandri thought his fleet overmatched—and why not? For all Kian’s victories against the Empire over the centuries, very few have been at sea … It turns out everyone assumed wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Holy War decided to march across Khemema using the Imperial Fleet to bear their water. It now appears the Padirajah had anticipated this. Once the Holy War had marched far enough into the desert that it couldn’t turn back, the Kianene fleet fell upon the Nansur …”
Iyokus grinned with sardonic bitterness.
“They used the Cishaurim.”
Achamian blinked, saw red-sailed ships burning in the mad lights of the Psûkhe. A sudden flare of concern—he was beyond fear now—bid him raise his head and stare at the Scarlet Schoolman. The man seemed a ghost against shimmering white silks.
“The Holy War?” Achamian croaked.
“Nearly destroyed. Innumerable dead lie across the sands of Khemema.”
Esmenet? He hadn’t thought her name for a long while. In the beginning, it had been a refuge for him, reprieve in the sweet sound of a name, but once they brought Xinemus to their sessions, once they started using his love as an instrument of torment, he’d stopped thinking of her. He’d withdrawn from all love …
To things more profound.
“It seems,” Iyokus continued, “that my brother Schoolmen have suffered grievously as well. Our mission here has been recalled.”
Achamian stared down at him, unaware that tears had wet his swollen cheeks. Iyokus watched him carefully, standing just beyond the edge of the accursed Uroborian Circle.
“What does that mean?” Achamian rasped. Esmenet? My love …
“It means your torment is at an end …” Hesitant pause. “I would have you know, Drusas Achamian, that I was against seizing you. I’ve presided over the interrogation of Mandate Schoolmen before, and know them to be both tedious and futile … And distasteful … most distasteful.”
Achamian stared, said nothing, felt nothing.
“You know,” Iyokus continued, “I wasn’t surprised when the Marshal of Attrempus corroborated your version of the events beneath the Andiamine Heights. You truly believe that the Emperor’s adviser, Skeaös, was a Consult spy, don’t you?”
Achamian swa
llowed painfully. “I know he was. And someday soon, so will you.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps … But for now, my Grandmaster has decided these spies must be Cishaurim. One cannot substitute legends for what is known.”
“You substitute what you fear for what you don’t know, Iyokus.” Iyokus regarded him narrowly, as though surprised that one so helpless, so degraded, could still say fierce things. “Perhaps. But regardless, our time together is at an end. Even now we make preparations to join our brethren beyond Khemema …”
Hanging like a sack from the chains, his body numb from remembered agony, Achamian looked upon the sorcerer as though from an immovable place, from some hold deep within the beaten ship of his body. A place not at sea.
Iyokus had become anxious.
“I know our kind isn’t given to … religious inclinations,” he said, “but I thought I’d extend this one courtesy at least. Within a matter of days, a slave will be sent down to the cellars bearing a Trinket and a knife. The Trinket will be for you, and the knife for your friend … You have that long to prepare yourself for your journey.”
Such strange words for a Scarlet Schoolman. For some reason, Achamian knew this wasn’t another sadistic game. “Will you tell this to Xinemus as well?”
The translucent face turned to him sharply, but then unaccountably softened. “I suppose I will,” Iyokus said. “He at least might be assured a place in the Afterlife …”
The sorcerer turned, then strode pale into the blackness. A distant door opened onto an illuminated corridor, and Achamian glimpsed the profile of Iyokus’s face. For an instant, he looked like any other man.
Achamian thought of swaying breasts, the kiss of skin to skin in lovemaking.
Survive, sweet Esmi. Survive me.
Late Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand
Flushed by their atrocities, the southward-wandering Men of the Tusk gathered about the great walls of Caraskand. In immense trains, they filed down from the heights and found their fury tempered by towering fortifications. The ramparts scrawled across the surrounding hills, immense sandstone belts the colour of copper, rising and falling across the haze of distant slopes.
Unlike the walls of Shigek’s great cities, these, the Inrithi found, were defended.
Standards were planted in rocky soil. Client nobles, who’d been flung far afield by the suffering of the desert, found their patron lords. Makeshift tents and pavilions were raised. Shrial and Cultic priests gathered the faithful, and long dirges were raised for those countless thousands claimed by the desert. The Councils of the Great and Lesser Names were held, and after long rites of benediction for their survival of Khemema, the investiture of Caraskand was planned.
Nersei Proyas rode out to meet with Imbeyan at the Ivory Gate, so named because its immense barbican was constructed of white limestone rather than the reddish rock of Enathpaneah’s quarries. Through an interpreter, the Conriyan Prince demanded the Sapatishah’s surrender and made promises regarding the release of Imbeyan’s household and the lives of the city’s inhabitants. Dressed in magnificent coats of blue and yellow, Imbeyan laughed and said that what the desert had started, the stubborn walls of Caraskand would see completed.
Raised upon steep slopes for the most part, Caraskand’s walls met level ground only along their northeastern sections, where the hills yielded to several miles of alluvial flatland, choked with field and grove and peppered with abandoned farms and estates—the Tertae Plain. Here, the Inrithi built their largest camps and prepared to storm the gates.
Sappers began dredging their tunnels. Teams of oxen and men were sent into the hills to fell timber for siege engines. Outriders were dispatched to scout and plunder the surrounding countryside. Blistered faces healed. Desert-gnawed limbs were thickened with hard work and the hearty spoils of Enathpaneah. The Inrithi once again began singing their songs. Priests led processions around the vast circuit of Caraskand’s walls, brushing the ground before them with rushes and cursing the stone of the fortifications. From the walls, the heathens would jeer and cast missiles, but they were little heeded.
For the first time in months, the Inrithi saw clouds, real clouds, curling through the sky like milk in water.
At night, when the Inrithi gathered about their fires, the tales of woe and redemption in Khemema were gradually replaced by remarks of wonder at their survival and ceaseless speculation about Shimeh. Caraskand was a name often mentioned in The Tractate, enough that it seemed the great gate to the Sacred Land. Blessed Amoteu, the country of the Latter Prophet, was very near.
“After Caraskand,” they said, “we shall cleanse Shimeh.”
Shimeh. In speaking this holy name, the fervour of the Holy War was rekindled.
Masses trekked into the hillsides to hear the sermons of the Warrior-Prophet, who many believed had delivered the Holy War from the desert. Thousands scarred their arms with tusks and became his Zaudunyani. In the Councils of the Great and Lesser Names, the lords of the Holy War listened to his counsel with trepidation. The Prince of Atrithau had joined the Holy War impoverished, but he now commanded a contingent as great as any.
Then, as the Men of the Tusk prepared their first assault against Caraskand’s turrets, the skies darkened, and it began to rain. Three hundred Tydonni were killed in a flash flood south of the city. Dozens more when a sapper’s tunnel collapsed. Dried stream beds became torrents. It rained and rained, so that parched leather began to rot and mail hauberks had to be continually rolled in barrels of gravel to defeat the rust. In many places the earth became as soft and slick as rotten pears, and when the Inrithi attempted to bring up their great siege towers they found them immovable.
The winter rains had come.
The first man to die of the plague was a Kianene captive. Afterward his body was launched from a catapult over the city’s walls—as would be those who followed.
Late Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Iothiah
Mamaradda had decided he would kill the sorcerer first. Though he wasn’t sure why, the Javreh Captain found the idea of killing a sorcerer thrilling to the point of arousal. That this might have anything to do with the fact that his masters were also sorcerers never occurred to him.
He entered the chapel briskly, clenching and unclenching the Trinket his masters had given him. The sorcerer hung like some huntsman’s prize at the far end of the chamber, his battered form bathed in the orange glow of the three tripods flanking him. As Mamaradda approached he noticed that the man swayed gently to and fro, as though in some gentle draft. Then he heard the sound of scraping, high-pitched, like iron against glass.
He paused midway beneath the airy vaults, instinctively peered at the floor beneath the sorcerer—at the black-red calligraphy of the Uroborian Circle.
He saw something small crouched at the edge of the Circle … A cat? Scratching to bury piss? He swallowed, squinted. The rapid scrape-scrape-scrape whined bright in his ears, as though someone filed his teeth with a rusty knife. What?
It was a tiny man, he realized. A tiny man bent over the Uroborian Circle, scraping at the arcane paint …
A doll?
Mamaradda hissed in sudden terror, clutched for his knife.
The scraping stopped. The hanging sorcerer raised his bleary, bearded face, fixed Mamaradda with glittering eyes. A heartbeat of abject horror.
The Circle is broken!
There was an impossible muttering …
Sunlight sparkled from the sorcerer’s mouth and eyes.
Impossible lights, curved like Khirgwi blades, pranced like spider’s legs around him. Geysers of dust and shards spat from the mosaic floor. The very air seemed to crack.
Mamaradda raised his arms and howled, was blinded by a flurry of unearthly incandescence.
But then the lights were gone, and he was untouched—unharmed …
He remembered the Trinket clenched fast in his fist. Mamaradda, Shield Captain of the Javreh, laughed.
The tripods spilled, as though kicked over by s
hadows. A shower of coals took Mamaradda in the face. Several found his mouth, cracked his teeth with their heat. He dropped his Trinket, screamed over the muttering …
His heart exploded in his chest. Fire boiled outward, flaring through his orifices and his fingernails. Mamaradda fell, little more than wet skin about char.
Vengeance roamed the halls of the compound—like a God.
And he sang his song with a beast’s blind fury, parting wall from foundation, blowing ceiling into sky, as though the works of man were things of sand.
And when he found them, cowering beneath their Analogies, he sheared through their Wards like a rapist through a cotton shift. He beat them with hammering lights, held their shrieking bodies as though they were curious things, the idiot thrashing of an insect between thumb and forefinger …
Death came swirling down.
He felt them scramble through the corridors, desperate to organize some kind of concerted defence. He knew that the sound of agony and blasted stone reminded them of their deeds. Their horror would be the horror of the guilty. Glittering death had come to redress their trespasses.
Suspended over the carpeted floors, encompassed by hissing Wards, he blasted his own ruined halls. He encountered a cohort of Javreh. Their frantic bolts were winked into ash by the play of lights before him. Then they were screaming, clawing at eyes that had become burning coals. He strode past them, leaving only smeared meat and charred bone. He encountered a dip in the fabric of the onta, and he knew that more awaited his approach armed with the Tears of God.
He brought the building down upon them.
And he laughed more mad words, drunk with destruction. Fiery lights shivered across his defences and he turned, seething with dark crackling humour, and spoke to the two Scarlet Magi who assailed him, uttered intimate truths, fatal Abstractions, and the world about them was wracked to the pith.
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