The Great Ordeal: Book Three (The Aspect-Emperor Trilogy)

by R. Scott Bakker

  The ashes of Cu’jara Cinmoi.

  As the Captain leads them ever deeper into the dead North, they finally come upon the trail of the Great Ordeal: field upon field of burnt and hewn Sranc. Mimara asks Achamian how he could still doubt Kellhus. Was this not proof that he waged war against Golgotterath? This, combined with the truth of the Qirri, proves too much for the old Wizard, and that evening he denies Cleric’s dispensation of the cannibal ash. Mimara awakens to cries in the night, finds the Captain and the Nonman binding and gagging the Wizard. She throws herself at them, only to be seized by Galian and the others, who immediately set about stripping her clothes. The Captain falls upon them in a fury, killing one, raging at the others, telling them that damnation awaits any who harm her. The Judging Eye opens, and she sees what sin has made of Lord Kosoter, something infernal for the numberless atrocities he has committed. So it seems that a wheezing demon falls to its knees at her feet, calling her Princess-Imperial, and imploring that she save them from damnation.

  The Captain is not simply a Zaudunyani fanatic, he is an agent of the Aspect-Emperor, one of her stepfather’s countless slaves. But as inclined as he is to worship her, he possesses no inclination to heed her. He refuses to release Achamian—or to reveal the nature of his mission. All she knows is that it involves following through on Achamian’s quest. Even with the old Wizard bound and gagged, they continue the trek to the Library of Sauglish and the legendary Coffers.

  The surviving Skin Eaters find themselves divided along the line of this revelation. Galian and his cohorts—those who care nothing for matters of faith—become more and more mutinous. Only their awe of Cleric—and craving for Qirri—seem to constrain them. They make no secret of their carnal designs. With Achamian incapacitated, the crazed Captain has become her sole refuge. So she plies the man as they march ever nearer the ancient Library, searching for some weakness, something she can use to win Achamian’s freedom. When the man proves immovable, she turns to Cleric, going so far as to shave her hair in an attempt to seduce him—anything that might change their dismal fortunes.

  This is how she learns the astonishing truth of his identity. Cleric is none other than Nil’giccas, the last of the Nonman Kings.

  She dares tell Achamian as much. Taking advantage of darkness and preoccupation, she crawls to a point behind where the old Wizard lays trussed and gagged. She tells him of the child—his child—in her womb. She tells him of her love … her hope.

  The Captain discovers her, whips her with his belt before the leering others. But in doing so, he simply reminds her who she has always been: someone who cannot be broken for violence alone, someone who always has “one sip remaining.” The following morning, the Judging Eye opens, reveals the degrees of damnation awaiting each of her captors—none more than the Captain. And she understands that the tragedy of their circumstance dwarfs her own.

  Though her silence gulls the scalpers into thinking her broken, their eventual arrival at the Library of Sauglish finds her strong, resolved in a manner she had never known.

  Fearing treachery, the Captain bids Cleric accompany Achamian to the Library alone while he and the others hang back, holding Mimara as surety. As much as the prospect of leaving Mimara behind terrifies the old Wizard, he cannot but see the arrangement as a profound opportunity, given what Mimara has told him of Cleric. Seswatha was an ancient friend of Nil’giccas, the King of Ishterebinth: perhaps he can use his knowledge of the ancient Sohonc Grandmaster to prise the Erratic from the Captain’s homicidal influence. So they depart, and Mimara finds herself stranded with the last four surviving Skin Eaters aside from Lord Kosoter—Sarl, Pokwas, Xonghis, and Galian—as well as the sole surviving member of the Stone Hags, Koll.

  Achamian plies the Nonman as they pick their way through the wooded ruins of Sauglish, bidding him time and again to recall who he really is: Nil’giccas, the Last Nonman King, anything but Cleric, the slave he has become. Too late does he realize his mistake: tragedy and farce, atrocity and slaughter: only these can make an Erratic remember. By declaring Seswatha’s ancient love in Seswatha’s own voice, Achamian has simply whetted the ageless Nonman’s appetite for loss. When they at last reach the ruined Library, they find the entrance to the legendary treasury of the Sohonc destroyed. If the surrounding blight were not sign enough, the smell and the spoor are unmistakable: Wracu …

  A Dragon has made a den of the Coffers.

  Mimara remains with the Captain in the camp, watching apprehensively as Galian, emboldened by Cleric’s absence, begins baiting his legendary leader. The surviving scalpers, it seems, have been plotting mutiny for some time, biding their time, waiting for this very opportunity. Horrified, she watches them cut down Lord Kosoter, a man she had thought immortal for sheer ferocity. The last of the Skin Eaters turn to her …

  Cleric and the old Wizard, meanwhile, dare enter the ruined maw of the Coffers, where they find Wutteät, the famed Father of Dragons, coiled about a great heap of Far Antique treasure. Achamian attempts to bargain with the Wracu, offering to exchange Truth for the map to Ishuäl.

  “TURN FROM THIS PLACE,” the beast croaks. “TURN! COME TO ME WHEN THE WORLD HAS TRULY ENDED.”

  As the leader of the mutiny, Galian is the first to assault Mimara. He tears her clothing away, promises to kill the unborn infant in her womb …

  Achamian and Cleric assail the undead Dragon in tandem—Man and Nonman, as in days of ancient old. The Coffers become a furnace of killing light.

  No more than a league distant, the Judging Eye opens, and Mimara apprehends the extent of Galian’s damnation, the eternity of torment that awaits his final heartbeat. She tells him what she sees, and he hesitates for the certainty of her warning, the pity in her gaze. Then he is flopping across the humus, writhing about the knife in his back. Mimara looks up and sees that Koll, the sole, travel-wasted survivor of the Stone Hags, has saved her.

  Together, Achamian and Cleric drive Wutteät roaring from the Coffers, fleeing like a moth afire into the skies. Thinking their triumph might seal some compact between them, Achamian once again appeals to the Nonman Erratic, to Nil’giccas, but the Last Nonman King has already forgotten. Cleric turns his fearsome sorceries upon the old Wizard.

  Stunned, Mimara watches Koll battle Galian’s confederates, Xonghis and Pokwas. Sarl retreats, hugging his beloved Captain’s severed head, cackling and crooning nonsense. Koll, she realizes, is not Koll at all, but Soma—or, rather, the skin-spy that had replaced him so very long ago.

  An agent of the Unholy Consult has saved her … Why?

  Cleric hammers Achamian with ancient and inhuman sorceries, howling out his final, cryptic sermon as he does so. The Last Nonman King wants only to die, the old Wizard realizes, for he attacks only, and raises no sorcerous defenses. The antique Hero has given Achamian a choice: kill him, or be killed.

  Between Xonghis and Pokwas, the thing called Koll is overmatched, but the two scalpers have overlooked Mimara, who is nowhere near as helpless as she appears. Using their distraction, she kills the two scalpers with Galian’s sword. One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.

  Heartbroken, Achamian strikes Nil’giccas from the sky above him.

  Mimara runs to where the thing called Koll lies, demanding to know why it has saved her. But Sarl falls upon the thing with his knife, cackling about the bounty for “spiderfaces”. The forest burns about the sordid scene.

  The old Wizard returns to the scalper camp in horror and dismay, only to be overjoyed to find Mimara alive. Together they flee to the Library of Sauglish. They raise a bier to provide Nil’giccas a proper funeral. As the Last Nonman King’s body burns, they ransack the Coffers, find the ancient map described in Achamian’s dreams, the map to Ishuäl—the hidden stronghold of the Dûnyain, the birthplace of the Holy Aspect-Emperor.

  They gather the ashes of Nil’giccas to replenish their supply of Qirri, then set out on the final leg of their journey. Now far from the lodestone of the Great Ordeal, they are once
again beset by Sranc. They persevere, gain the Demua Mountains, and at last surmount the glacier overlooking the vale of the Dûnyain. At long last, they see it, Ishuäl …

  Itself a gutted ruin.

  The Great Ordeal

  Once the victim of forces beyond his comprehension, Sorweel now finds himself the agent of such forces as well. He remains a victim so far as he remains the “guest” of the Aspect-Emperor, the demon who murdered his father, conquered his city, and plundered the famed Chorae Hoard. But he has become an agent through the occult ministrations of his slave, Porsparian, who had rubbed the spit of Yatwer, the Dread Mother of Birth, across his cheeks and so rendered his sedition invisible to the Anasûrimbor. But now that Sorweel can hide his heart, what should he do?

  Leaving the Pale of Sakarpus behind, the Great Ordeal marches into the arid emptiness of the Istyuli Plains. Not a single Sranc opposes them.

  Aimless, Sorweel gives himself over to the camaraderie of the Scions. Though Sheyic, the common tongue of the host, defeats him, he is a young warrior among young warriors—even more, a young hostage among young hostages—and the language of boyish, martial yearning transcends all tongues. If he cannot avenge his father or fathom the Dread Mother’s design, then he will ride out and test himself with his new comrades.

  He will ride in his enemy’s war.

  Exalt-General Proyas, meanwhile, confers with Kellhus, who informs him the time has come for the Great Ordeal to break up to facilitate foraging. Even more alarmingly, he reveals that the New Empire crumbles in their absence. With all his power concentrated in the Great Ordeal, his old enemies grow ever more bold. To assure the Ordealmen suffer no distractions, no fear for the loved ones they have left behind, he declares an embargo on all sorcerous communications with the Three Seas.

  Henceforth, the Great Ordeal marches both divided and alone.

  The Scions ride out to the southwest of the Army of the Middle North, tasked with securing game—a mission the young hostages bemoan for its safety. Nevertheless, Sorweel’s knowledge of the Istyuli allows them to track and destroy a wandering Sranc clan. They discover and begin following a great elk trail shortly thereafter, only to find the herd that authored it butchered across the plain. Eskeles, who continues to teach Sorweel the rudiments of Sheyic on the trail, recognizes the carnage as the consequence of a Hording, a massing of Sranc. But only Sorweel, relying once again on his knowledge as a native of the plains—and impossible communications with the Dread Mother—can see the true significance of the slaughter. The Consult, he tells the wondering Mandate Schoolman, prepares an ambush. Days later, they find an entire legion of Sranc hidden to the south of the Great Ordeal.

  Now divided into four armies, the host plumbs the great, vacant heart of the Istyuli. The outriders begin returning with tales of Sranc congregating just over the northern horizon, a vast and raucous Horde strewn across the path of all four armies, growing ever more numerous as clan after clan joins its inchoate retreat. Soon all the Ordealmen can see the great, bilious clouds of dust the creatures have kicked across the horizon: the Shroud. Soon all can hear the shrieking cacophony from afar.

  Kellhus, meanwhile, begins meeting with Proyas in his private chambers, where he confesses to things that have long troubled the Exalt-General’s heart. Achamian, he tells the Believer-King, was right about him all along.

  As the Scions race back to warn the Great Ordeal, Sorweel at last confides in Zsoronga, who has been wary of him ever since the Aspect-Emperor declared him one of the Believer-Kings. Sorweel tells his friend about Porsparian—and more importantly, about Yatwer, the Mother of Birth—begging for whatever insight he has to offer. Zsoronga tells him he is Narindari, a divine assassin sent to murder Anasûrimbor Kellhus.

  Sorweel is denied the luxury of ruminating on his friend’s mad assertion. The Scions push their ponies to the limits of endurance in an attempt to reach the Great Ordeal ahead of the Consult Legion. The Scions find themselves fleeing across treacherous ground through the darkness, their numbers dwindling as more and more of their exhausted mounts fail. When Eskeles is thrown, Sorweel leaps from his pony to assist the portly Mandate Schoolman. Sranc overrun them, cluster about the sorcerer’s Wards. Eskeles panics, but Sorweel remains calm, instructs the man to find some means of warning Anasûrimbor Kayûtas and the Army of the Middle-North. The sorcerer casts a Bar of Heaven, revealing the Legion to the embattled Norsirai, and so saving a mighty fraction of the Great Ordeal.

  The following morning Sorweel and Zsoronga swear an oath to be as brothers, boonsmen until death. Kayûtas declares him a hero, saying that his actions had saved the Army of the Middle-North from almost certain destruction. What Zsoronga said earlier was true, the young Believer-King realizes: the Dread Mother of Birth positioned him within the Great Ordeal. In typical Anasûrimbor fashion, Kayûtas follows his praise with the demand that he kill his slave, Porsparian. The Great Ordeal is running out of food, the man explains, and the Aspect-Emperor has commanded that his Believer-Kings put down all their noncombatant servants and slaves.

  Sorweel bids Porsparian to follow him into the grisly tracts of dead Sranc, planning to release rather than murder him. But it is the old Shigeki who leads him into the bloody wrack. The slave clears a pocket of turf, then begins unearthing bones from the soaked muck: a skeleton that takes on the ghostly image of the Mother herself. Skeletal hands reach into a vacant womb and draw out a strange pouch, which Sorweel takes in trembling hands. Porsparian throws himself upon a spear before the youth can question him.

  Sorweel investigates the leather pouch in his tent later that evening, knowing what it contains even before he draws it open: a Chorae. Zsoronga had called him Narindari, an assassin of the Gods.

  Every assassin needs a weapon.

  Later that night he seeks out Anasûrimbor Serwa, the Grandmistress of the Swayali, on the pretext of thanking her for saving him. She cannot see that he lies, nor can she sense the Chorae within the pouch the Mother of Birth has given him. He departs knowing that in the entire World, he alone possesses the means both to deceive—and to kill—the Aspect-Emperor.

  The Great Ordeal continues crawling north toward the ever-withdrawing Horde. The desolation of the Istyuli gradually gives way to the knuckled landscape of ancient Sheneor, a High Norsirai nation prominent in the Holy Sagas, and the Ordealmen rejoice for finally reaching the outskirts of scripture. At the behest of their Aspect-Emperor, the Schools begin what comes to be called the Culling, drawing up in long lines and floating out over the masses of the Horde, killing and burning as many of the obscene creatures as they possibly can. The slaughter is great, but as the Horde withdraws, it scoops up ever more clans: the Culling can do little more than slow the foul mustering of their foe.

  Summoned to the Umbilicus, Proyas finds Kellhus preparing to receive an embassy of Nonmen from Ishterebinth. Claiming to speak for Nil’giccas, King of Ishterebinth, the emissary declares that his people will add their voice and shield to the Great Ordeal, but only if Kellhus manages to retake the ancient fortress of Dagliash, and sends them three hostages according to the ancient Law of Niom: a son, a daughter, and an enemy, one who can gainsay any deception.

  Sorweel learns that he is to be that third hostage the following morning, a “false enemy,” Serwa assures him. The news so dismays Zsoronga that he refuses to believe it at first, arguing that the Dread Mother will find some way to keep Sorweel near the Aspect-Emperor. But the Goddess fails to intercede. Swearing to return, Sorweel charges his friend with keeping Her gift, the Chorae-concealing pouch, safe while he is gone.

  Serwa must rely on Metagnostic Cants of Translocation to convey herself, Sorweel, and her eldest brother to Ishterebinth in a swift and safe manner. Her diluted blood, however, means that she, unlike her father, must sleep several watches between each casting. And so they cross the ruined breadth of ancient Kûniüri, stepping from horizon to horizon in blinding flashes of sorcerous light, but only twice daily. Sorweel comes to know both brother and sist
er in the intervals between, waiting for Serwa to muster her strength for their next leap across horizons. He is unnerved by the sheer number of facts arguing the righteousness of Anasûrimbor Kellhus and his cause. Even more, he begins to fear his burgeoning passion for the man’s extraordinary daughter.

  The Great Ordeal, meanwhile, continues its northward march. As it climbs toward the flank of the Neleöst, the preponderance of Sranc in the retreating Horde shifts from the east, the flank occupied by the Army of the Middle-North, to the west, the flank occupied by the Army of the South under King Sasal Umrapathur of Nilnamesh. Such are the numbers of Sranc drawn from the northeastern plains of the High Istyuli that the Aspect-Emperor deploys Saccarees and the Mandate to reinforce Umrapathur, thus stoking the jealousy of Carindûsû, Grandmaster of the Vokalati. When the retreating Horde is backed against the quick waters of the River Irshi, King Umrapathur occupies the ruined stronghold of Irsûlor, trusting to its heights to hold back the masses that now fairly encircled the Army of the South. Carindûsû leads his School north, thinking that together the Vokalati and the Mandati could drive the trapped Sranc multitudes to their death in the River Irshi. But rather than implode before the line of sorcerous destruction, the Sranc surge toward it, race through and around it. The whole horizon seems to fall screaming upon Irsûlor. The sorcerers cease their fruitless advance, begin racing back to defend King Umrapathur and the imperilled Army of the South. But they are too late: knowing the Irshi would force the Horde to strike, the Consult unleash a Bashrag legion they had concealed. Irsûlor is already an island of armoured humanity in a Sranc ocean when the Bashrag shatter the line. Sranc leap screaming in their wake. The Men of the Ordeal are broken into battling pockets that are utterly consumed one by one.