The Warrior Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

  Focus! What happens?

  All is in disarray. And they’ve killed her. They’ve murdered my wife.

  I gave her to them.

  What did you say?

  I gave her to them.

  Why? Why would you do this?

  For you …

  For them.

  Something dropped within him, and he tumbled into sleep, cold water rinsing bruised and broken skin.

  Dreams followed. Dark tunnels, weary earth.

  A ridge, curved like a sleeping woman’s hip, against the night sky.

  And upon it two silhouettes, black against clouds of stars, impossibly bright.

  The figure of a man seated, shoulders crouched like an ape, legs crossed like a priest.

  And a tree with branches that swept up and out, forking across the bowl of the night.

  And about the Nail of Heaven, the stars revolved, like clouds hurried across winter skies.

  And Kellhus stared at the figure, stared at the tree, but he could not move. The firmament cycled, as though night after night passed without day.

  Framed by the wheeling heavens, the figure spoke, a million throats in his throat, a million mouths in his mouth …

  WHAT DO YOU SEE?

  The silhouette stood, hands clasped like a monk, legs bent like a beast.

  TELL ME …

  Whole worlds wailed in terror.

  The Warrior-Prophet awoke, his skin tingling against a dead woman’s cheek …

  More convulsions.

  Father! What happens to me?

  Pang upon pang, wresting away his face, beating it into a stranger’s.

  You weep.

  The Zaudunyani on the Heights of the Bull immediately recognized him as a friend of the Warrior-Prophet, and Achamian found himself in a bright reception hall blinking at ivory plaques set in glossy black marble. After several moments, an Ainoni caste-noble called Gayamakri—one of the Nascenti, the others said—arrived and escorted him down dark halls. When Achamian asked him about the white-clad warriors he saw posted throughout the palace, the man yammered on about riots and the evil machinations of the Orthodox. But Achamian only had ears for his leaping heart …

  At long last they paused before two grand doors—cherrywood beneath bronze fretting—and Achamian found himself thinking of jokes he could use to make her laugh …

  “From a sorcerer’s tent to a caste-noble’s suite … Hmm.”

  He could almost hear her laughter, almost see her eyes, wanton with love and devilry.

  “So what will it be the next time I die? The Andiamine Heights?”

  “She likely sleeps,” Gayamakri said apologetically. “Things have been especially hard on her.”

  Jokes … What could he be thinking? She would need him, fiercely if what Proyas had said was true. Serwë dead and Kellhus dying. The Holy War starving … She would need him to hold her. How he would hold her!

  Without warning Gayamakri whirled, clutched his hands. “Please!” he hissed. “You must save him! You must!” The man fell to his knees, held him with white-knuckled fervour. “You were his teacher!”

  “I-I’ll do what I can,” Achamian stammered. “On that I give you my word.”

  Tears branched across the man’s cheeks into his beard. He pressed his forehead to Achamian’s hands. “Thank you! Thank you!”

  At a loss for words, Achamian pulled the Nascenti to his feet. The man fussed with his yellow and white robes, pathetically, as though just remembering a lifetime obsession with jnan.

  “You’ll remember?” he gasped.

  “Of course,” Achamian replied. “But first I must confer with Esmenet. Alone … Do you understand?”

  Gayamakri nodded. He backed away three steps, then turned and fled down the hall.

  He stood before the tall doors, breathing.

  Esmi.

  He would hold her while she sobbed. He would speak his every thought, tell her what she’d meant to him through his captivity. He would tell her that he, a Mandate Schoolman, would take her as his wife—his wife! And her eyes would weep wonder … He almost laughed with joy.

  At last!

  Rather than knocking, he pressed through the doors the way a husband might. Gloom and the scent of vanilla and balsam greeted him. Only six scattered candles illuminated the suite, which was broad with vaulted ceilings and decked with a luxurious array of carpets, screens, and hangings. Set upon a raised dais, a great pentagonal bed dominated the room’s heart, its sheets and blankets knotted as though by passion. To the left, the panelled walls opened onto what looked like a private garden. Outside the sky was bright with stars.

  A sorcerer’s tent indeed!

  He stepped from the lane of light thrown by the doors, peering into the suite’s deeper reaches. The bed was empty; he could see that through the gauze. The doors rattled shut behind him, giving him a start.

  Where was she?

  Then his eyes found her on the far side of the room, curled up on a small couch with her back to the doors—to him. Her hair looked longer, almost purple in the gloom. Her loose gown had fallen, revealing a slender shoulder, both brown and pale. His arousal was immediate, both joyous and desperate.

  How many times had he kissed that skin?

  Kissing. That was how he would awaken her, crying while kissing her naked shoulder. She would stir, think he was a dream. “No … It can’t be you. You’re dead.” Then he would take her, with slow, fierce tenderness, wrack her with voluptuous rapture. And she would know that at long last her heart had returned.

  I’ve come back for you Esmi … From death and agony.

  He descended the landing before the doors, only to halt when she suddenly bolted upright. She looked about in alarm, then stared at him with swollen and incredulous eyes.

  For an instant, she seemed a stranger to him; he saw her with the same youthful and ardent eyes that had discovered her in Sumna so many years ago. Coltish beauty. Freckled cheeks. Full lips and perfect teeth.

  There was a breathless moment between them.

  “Esmi …” he whispered, unable to say anything else. He’d forgotten how beautiful …

  For a heartbeat she radiated abject horror, as though she looked upon a wraith. But then, miraculously it seemed, she flew to him, her small bare feet winglike with desperation.

  Then they were together, recklessly clutching one another. She felt so small, so slender in his arms!

  “Oh Akka!” she sobbed, “You were dead! Dead!”

  “No-no-no, my sweet,” he murmured, and let loose a shuddering breath.

  “Akka, Akka, oh Akka!”

  He ran a shaking hand across the back of her head. Her hair felt like silk against his palm, soothing silk. And her smell—incense soft and woman musky. “Shush, Esmi,” he whispered. “Everything will be all right. We’re together again!” Please let me kiss you.

  But she cried louder. “You must save him, Achamian! You must save him!”

  Small confusions, stirring like vermin.

  “Save him? Esmi … What do you mean?” His arms slackened.

  She thrust herself from his embrace, stumbled back in terror, as though remembering some horrible truth.

  “Kellhus,” she said, her lips trembling.

  Achamian beat at the whining fear that flared through him. “What do you mean, Esmi?”

  He could feel the blood drop from his face.

  “Don’t you see! They’re killing him!”

  “Kellhus? Yes … Of course I’ll do everything I can to save him! But please, Esmi! Let me hold you! I need to hold you!”

  “You must save him Achamian! You can’t let them kill him!”

  Flare of dread, undeniable this time. No. Must be reasonable. She’s suffered as much as I have. She’s just not as strong.

  “I won’t let anyone do anything to him. I swear it. But just … please …”

  Esmi … What have you done?

  Her face collapsed about some impossible fact. She sobbed. “He’s
… H-he’s …”

  Curious sensation—as though submerged in water with lungs emptied of air. “Yes, Esmi … He’s the Warrior-Prophet. I too believe! I’ll do everything I can to save him.”

  “No, Achamian …”

  Her face was now dead, in the way of those who must carve distances, cut wide what was once close.

  Don’t say it! Please don’t say it!

  He looked about the extravagant room, gesturing with his hands. He tried to laugh, then said, “S-some sorcerer’s tent, eh?” A sob knifed the back of his throat. “Wha-what will it be the next time I die? The Andi … Th-the Andiamine …” He tried to smile.

  “Akka,” she whispered. “I carry his child.”

  Whore after all.

  Achamian passed between the congregated Inrithi, between the signal fires of the Shrial Knights, little more than a shadow thrown by an otherworldly sun. He remembered the screams and crashing walls of Iothiah. He remembered blasting hallways through stone and burnt brick. Oh, he knew the might of his song, the thunder of his world-breaking voice!

  And he knew the bitter rapture of vengeance.

  A great tree soared into the night sky, a hoary old eucalyptus, too ancient not to be named. His first thought was to set it alight, to transform it into a blazing beacon of his wrath—a funeral pyre for the betrayer, the seducer! But he could sense the absences that encircled the man, the three Chorae the Men of the Tusk had bound to his bronze ring. And he could see that he suffered …

  Achamian crept beneath the tree, onto the mat of fallen leaves. He clutched his knees and rocked to and fro in the darkness. There she was, an impossible fact made flesh.

  Serwë dead.

  And there he was, hanging with her, limb to limb, breast to breast …

  Kellhus … Naked, slowly rolling as though the ring unravelled the long string of his life.

  How could such things come to pass?

  Achamian ceased rocking and sat still. He listened to the hemp creak in the breeze. He smelled eucalyptus and death. His body calmed, became the cold vessel of his fury and heartbreak.

  Beyond the Shrial Knights encircling the tree, thousands packed the surrounding campus, singing hymns and dirges for their Warrior-Prophet. The cry of a flute pierced the din, wandering, trailing, rising in grief-stricken crescendos, calling out the same godless prayer, the howl, almost animal in its intensity …

  Achamian hugged himself in the darkness.

  How could such things …

  Thumb and forefinger pressed hard against his eyes. Shivering. Cold. Heart like rags bundled about cold stone.

  He lifted his face, raised chin and brow to his hate. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “How? How could you betray me like this? You … You! The two people—the only two! You kn-knew how empty my life had been. You knew! I c-can’t understand … I try and I try but I can’t understand! How could you do this to me!”

  Images boiled through his thoughts … Esmenet gasping beneath the hot plunge of Kellhus’s hips. The brushing of breathless lips. Her startled cry. Her climax. The two of them, naked and entwined beneath blankets, staring at the light of a single candle, and Kellhus asking: “How did you bear that man? How did you ever bring yourself to lie with a sorcerer?”

  “He fed me. He was a warm plump pillow with gold in his pockets … But he wasn’t you, my love. No one is you.”

  His mouth was wrenched open by a soft inarticulate cry … How. Why.

  Then savagery.

  “I could break you, Kellhus. See you burn! Burn until your eyes burst! Dog! Treacherous dog! I’ll see you shriek until you gag on your own heart, until your limbs snap for agony! I can do it! I can burn hosts with my song! I can pack the anguish of a thousand men into your skin! With tongue and teeth, I can peel you to nothing! Grind your corpse to chalk!”

  He began weeping. The dark world about him buzzed and burned.

  “Damn you …” he gasped. He couldn’t breathe … Where was the air to breathe?

  He rolled his head, like a boy whose anger had been stripped hollow by hurt … He beat an awkward fist against the dead leaves.

  “Damn-you-damn-you-damn-you …”

  He looked around numbly, and wiped at his face with a half-hearted sleeve. Sniffled and tasted the salt of tears in the back of his throat …

  “You’ve made a whore of her, Kellhus … You’ve made a whore of my Esmi …”

  They swayed round in shadowy circles. The sound of laughter carried on the night wind. The dark tree seemed to exhale an endless, ambient breath.

  “Achamian …” Kellhus whispered.

  The words winded him, struck him dumb with horror.

  No … He’s not allowed to speak …

  “He said you would come.” Spoken from a dead woman’s cheek.

  Kellhus stared as though from the surface of a coin, his dark eyes glittering, his face pressed against Serwë’s, whose head had drawn back in rigor, gaping mouth filled with dusty teeth. For a moment, it seemed that he lay spread-eagle across a mirror, and that Serwë was no more than his reflection.

  Achamian shuddered. What have they done to you?

  Impossibly, the ring had ceased its ponderous revolutions.

  “I see them, Achamian. They walk among us, hidden in ways you cannot see …”

  The Consult.

  His hackles stirred. Cold sweat set his skin afire.

  “The No-God returns, Akka … I’ve seen him! He is as you said. Tsurumah. Mog-Pharau …”

  “Lies!” Achamian cried. “Lies to spare you my wrath!”

  “My Nascenti … Tell them to show you what lies in the garden.”

  “What? What lies in the garden?”

  But the shining eyes were closed.

  A grievous howl echoed across the Kalaul, chilling blood and drawing men with torches to the blackness beneath Umiaki. The ring continued its endless roll.

  Dawn light streamed over the balcony and through the gauze, etching the bedchamber in radiant surfaces and pockets of black shadow. Stirring in his bed, Proyas scowled at the light, raised an arm against it. For several heartbeats, he lay utterly still, trying to swallow away the pain at the back of his throat—the last residue of the hemoplexy. Then the shame and remorse of the previous evening came flooding back.

  Achamian and Xinemus had returned. Akka and Zin … Both of them irrevocably transformed.

  Because of me.

  A cold morning breeze tossed through the sheers. Proyas huddled, hoarding whatever warmth his blankets offered. He tried to doze, but found himself fencing with worry and dismay instead. In his boyhood, he’d cherished the luxurious laziness of such mornings. He drifted through legends and fancies, dreaming of all the great things he was destined to accomplish. He studied the shadows thrown by the morning sun and wondered at the way they crept across the walls. On cold mornings like this one, he wrapped his blankets about him, savouring them the way the elderly savoured hot baths. The warmth had never stopped short of his bones as it did now.

  Some time passed before Proyas realized someone watched him.

  At first he simply blinked, too astonished to move or shout. Both the decor and the design of the compound were Nilnameshi. Aside from extravagantly detailed imagery, the chamber possessed low ceilings propped with fat and fluted columns imported, no doubt, from Invishi or Sappathurai. Almost invisible for the morning glare, a figure reclined against one of the columns flanking the balcony …

  Proyas shot forward from the covers.

  “Achamian?”

  Several heartbeats passed before his eyes adjusted enough to recognize the man.

  “What are you doing, Achamian? What do you want?”

  “Esmenet,” the sorcerer said. “Kellhus has taken her as his wife … Did you know that?”

  Proyas gaped at the Schoolman, robbed of his outrage by something in his voice: a queer kind of drunkenness, a recklessness, but born of loss instead of drink.

  “I knew,” he admitted
, squinting at Achamian’s figure. “But I thought that …” He trailed and swallowed. “Kellhus will soon be dead.”

  He immediately felt a fool: it sounded like he offered compensation.

  “Esmenet is lost to me,” Achamian said. The sorcerer’s expression was little more than a shadow against the glare, but somehow Proyas could see its exhausted resolve.

  “But how could you say that? You don’t—”

  “Where’s Xinemus?” the Schoolman interrupted.

  Proyas raised his eyebrows, gestured with a leftward tilt of his head. “One wall over,” he said. “The next room.”

  Achamian pursed his lips. “Did he tell you?”

  “About his eyes?” Proyas looked to the outline of his feet beneath the vermilion covers. “No. I hadn’t the courage to ask. I assumed that the Spires …”

  “Because of me, Proyas. They blinded him as a way to coerce me.”

  The message was obvious. It’s not your fault, he was saying.

  Proyas raised a hand as though to pinch more sleep from his eyes. He wiped away tears instead.

  Damn you, Akka … I don’t need your protection!

  “For the Gnosis?” he asked. “Was that what they wanted?”

  Krijates Xinemus, a Marshal of Conriya, blinded for blasphemy’s sake.

  “In part … They also thought I had information regarding the Cishaurim.”

  “Cishaurim?”

  Achamian snorted. “The Scarlet Spires are terrified, did you know that? Terrified of what they cannot see.”

  “It stands to reason: all they do is hide. Eleäzaras still refuses to take the field, even though I’m told they’ve begun boiling their books out of hunger.”

  “I doubt they stray far from their latrines,” Achamian said, the old twinkle surfacing through the exhaustion of his voice, “the rot they read.”

  Proyas laughed, and an almost forgotten sense of comfort stole over him. This, he realized, was how they’d once talked, their cares and worries directed outward rather than at each other. But instead of taking heart at the realization, Proyas suffered only more dismay, understanding that what trust and camaraderie had once given them, only dread and exhaustion could now deliver.

  A long silence passed between them, fuelled by the sudden collapse of their good humour. Proyas found his gaze wandering to the trains of priapic revellers, brown-skinned and half-nude, that marched across the painted walls, their arms filled with various bounty. With every passing heartbeat it seemed the silence buzzed louder.