The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  Sooner or later, however, either someone would call up to her from the street or one of her regular patrons would knock at the door, and things would sour. Achamian would become grim, grab his cloak and satchel, and invariably go get drunk at some dingy tavern. Usually she would spy him from the sill when he returned, walking alone through the endless press of people, an aging, slightly rounded man who looked as though he’d lost his purse gambling. Every time, without exception, he would already be watching her when she saw him. He would wave hesitantly, try to smile, and a pang of sorrow would strike her, sometimes so hard she would gasp aloud.

  What was it she felt? Many things, it seemed. Pity for him, certainly. In the midst of strangers, Achamian always looked so lonely, so misunderstood. No one, she would often think, knows him the way I do. There was also relief that he’d returned—returned to her, even though he had gold enough to buy far younger whores. A selfish sorrow, that one. And shame. Shame because she knew that he loved her, and that every time she took custom it bruised his heart.

  But what choice did she have?

  He would never come up to their room unless he saw her on the sill. One time, after being beaten by a particularly nasty fiend who claimed to be a coppersmith, she’d simply crawled into bed and wept herself to sleep. She awoke before dawn and hastened to the window when she realized Achamian hadn’t returned. She huddled there for hours, waiting for him, watching the sun bronze the sea and then lance through the misty city. The first potters’ wheels growled to life on the adjoining street, and the first trails of kiln and cooking smoke twined above rooftops into bluing sky. She cried softly. But even then she let one breast fall free from her blankets, as though she were a nursing mother, and allowed one long pale leg to hang down against the cold brick so that those looking up might glimpse the shadowy promise between her knees.

  And then finally, as the sun began to warm her face and bare shoulder, she heard a tap at the door. She flew across the room and wrenched it open, and there was the dishevelled sorcerer. “Akka!” she cried, tears spilling from her eyes.

  He glanced at her and then to the empty bed, told her he’d fallen asleep outside her door. And she had known then that she truly loved him.

  Theirs was a strange marriage, if it could be called that. A marriage of outcasts sanctified by inarticulate vows. A sorcerer and a whore. Perhaps a certain desperation was to be expected of such unions, as though that strange word, “love,” became profound in proportion to the degree one was scorned by others.

  Esmenet wrapped her shoulders in her arms. She studied Achamian with an impatient sigh. “What?” she asked wearily. “What do you find difficult, Akka?”

  Achamian turned his injured eyes away, said nothing.

  When he had learned what the coppersmith had done, he’d been outraged. He fairly dragged her to several smithies, demanding she identify the man. And though she protested, claimed that such assaults were simply part of the custom she collected from the street, she was secretly thrilled, and part of her hoped that he would burn the man to cinders. For the first time, perhaps, she understood Achamian could do that, and had done it in the past.

  But they had never found the man.

  She suspected that Achamian had continued prowling the smithies, looking for someone who fit her description of the man. And she had no doubt that Achamian would have murdered him if he’d found him. He had continued talking about him long after the incident, pretending to be gallant when in fact, or so Esmenet had suspected, some small part of him wanted to murder all of her custom.

  “Why do you stay here, Achamian?” she asked, a small hostility in her voice.

  He looked at her angrily, and his question was plain: Why do you still sleep with them, Esmi? Why do you insist on remaining a whore while I stay with you?

  Because sooner or later you’ll leave me, Akka . . . And the men who feed me will have found different whores.

  But before he could speak, there was a shy knock at her door.

  “I’ll leave,” Achamian said, standing.

  A bolt of terror passed through her. “When will you be back?” she asked, struggling not to sound desperate.

  “After,” he said. “After . . .”

  He offered her the blanket, which she took in knotted hands. She had clenched everything with a strange fierceness lately, as though daring small things to be glass. She watched him answer the door.

  “Inrau,” Achamian said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve learned something important,” the young man said breathlessly.

  “Come in, come in,” Achamian said, ushering the priest to his stool.

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t that careful,” Inrau said, avoiding both of their looks. “I may have been followed.”

  Achamian studied him a moment, then shrugged. “Even if you’ve been followed, it’s no matter. Priests have a penchant for prostitutes.”

  “Is this true, Esmenet?” Inrau said with a nervous smile. Her presence, Esmenet knew, made him uncomfortable. And like many kind men, he attempted to cover for his embarrassment with strained humour.

  “They’re much like sorcerers that way,” she said wryly.

  Achamian shot her a look of mock indignation, and Inrau laughed nervously.

  “So tell us,” Achamian said, his eyes betraying his smile. “What have you learned?”

  A look of childlike concentration flashed across Inrau’s face. He was dark-haired and slender, clean-shaven, with large brown eyes and feminine lips. He possessed, Esmenet thought, the attractive vulnerability of young men in the shadow of the world’s bitter hammers. Such men were highly prized by whores, and not only because they tended to pay for damage done as much as for pleasure received. They offered compensation of a different sort. Such men might be safely loved—the way mothers love tender sons.

  I can see why you fear for him so, Akka.

  Gathering his breath, Inrau said, “The Scarlet Spires has agreed to join the Holy War.”

  Achamian knitted his brow. “This is a rumour you’ve heard?”

  “I suppose.” He paused. “But I was told by an Orate from the College of Luthymae. I guess Maithanet made his offer some time ago. In order to demonstrate that it wasn’t frivolous, he actually sent six Trinkets to Carythusal—as a gesture of goodwill. Since the Luthymae have great powers over the dispensation of Chorae, Maithanet was compelled to give them an explanation.”

  “So it’s true, then?”

  “It’s true.” Inrau looked at him the way a hungry man who has found a foreign coin might look at a money-changer. How much is this worth?

  “Excellent. Excellent. This is indeed important news.”

  Inrau’s elation was contagious, and Esmenet found herself smiling with him.

  “You’ve done good, Inrau,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Achamian added. “The Scarlet Spires, Esmi, is the most powerful School in the Three Seas. Rulers of High Ainon since the last Scholastic War . . .” But too many questions seemed to crowd his thoughts for him to continue. Achamian had always been inclined to give fatuous explanations—he knew full well that she knew of the Scarlet Spires. But Esmenet forgave him this. In a sense, his explanations were a measure of his desire to include her in his life. In so many ways, Achamian was utterly unlike other men.

  “Six Trinkets,” he blurted. “A most extraordinary gift! Priceless!” Is that why she loved him? The world seemed so small—so sordid—when she was alone. And when he returned it seemed as though he bore the entire Three Seas upon his back. She led a submerged life, a life catacombed by poverty and ignorance. Then this soft-hearted, portly man would arrive, a man who looked even less like a spy than he did a sorcerer, and for a time the roof of her life would be torn away, and sun and world would come pouring in.

  I do love you, Drusas Achamian.

  “Trinkets, Esmi! For the Thousand Temples they’re the very Tears of God. To give six of them to a School of blasphemers! Remarkable.” He combed his b
eard as he thought, his fingers tracing its five silver streaks and then tracing them again.

  Trinkets. This reminded Esmenet that despite the wonder, Achamian’s world was exceedingly deadly. Ecclesiastical law dictated that prostitutes, like adulteresses, be punished by stoning. The same, she reflected, was true of sorcerers, except there was just one kind of stone that could afflict them, and it need touch them only once. Thankfully, there were few Trinkets. The world, on the other hand, was filled with stones for harlots.

  “Why, though?” Inrau asked, a measure of grief now in his voice. “Why would Maithanet pollute the Holy War by inviting a School?”

  How difficult this must be for him, Esmenet thought, to be pinned between men like Achamian and Maithanet.

  “Because he must,” Achamian replied. “Otherwise the Holy War would be doomed. Remember that the Cishaurim reside in Shimeh.”

  “But Chorae are as lethal to them as they are to sorcerers.”

  “Perhaps . . . But that makes little difference in a war such as this. Before the Holy War could bring their Trinkets to bear on the Cishaurim, it would have to overcome the hosts of Kian. No, Maithanet needs a School.”

  Such a war! Esmenet thought. In her youth, her soul had quickened whenever she heard stories of war. And even now, she commonly plied the soldiers she pleasured for stories of battle. For a moment, she could almost see the tumult, see swords flash in the light of sorcerous fire.

  “And the Scarlet Spires,” Achamian continued. “There could be no better School for him to—”

  “No School more hateful,” Inrau protested.

  The Mandate, Esmenet knew, reserved a special hatred for the Scarlet Spires. No School, Achamian had once told her, more begrudged the Mandate their possession of the Gnosis.

  “The Tusk doesn’t discriminate between abominations,” Achamian replied. “Obviously Maithanet made his overture for strategic reasons. There’s talk that the Emperor already moves to make the Holy War his instrument of reconquest. By allying himself with the Scarlet Spires, Maithanet need not depend on the Emperor’s School, the Imperial Saik. Think of what the House Ikurei would make of his Holy War.”

  The Emperor. For some reason, his mention drew Esmenet’s eyes to the two copper talents resting on her table, one askew upon the other, with their miniature profiles of Ikurei Xerius III, the Emperor of Nansur. Her Emperor. Like all the inhabitants of Sumna, she never really thought of him as her ruler, even though his soldiers provided her with almost as much custom as the Shrial Priests. The Shriah was too near, she supposed. But then, not even the Shriah meant much to her. I am too small, she thought.

  Then a question occurred to her.

  “Shouldn’t—” Esmenet began, but she paused when the two men looked at her strangely. “Shouldn’t the question be, Why have the Scarlet Spires accepted Maithanet’s offer? What could induce a School to join a Holy War? They make for odd bedfellows, don’t you think? Not so long ago, Akka, you feared that the Holy War would be declared against the Schools.”

  There was a moment of silence. Inrau smiled as though amused by his own stupidity. From this moment on, Esmenet realized, Inrau would look upon her as an equal in these matters. Achamian, however, would remain aloof, the judge of all questions. As was proper, perhaps, given his calling.

  “There are several reasons, actually,” Achamian said at length. “Before leaving Carythusal, I learned that the Scarlet Spires has been warring—secretly—against the sorcerer-priests of the Fanim, the Cishaurim. Warring for ten bitter years.” He momentarily bit his lip. “For some reason, the Cishaurim assassinated Sasheoka, who was then Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires. Eleäzaras—Sasheoka’s pupil—is Grandmaster now. He was rumoured to be close to Sasheoka, close in the manner of Ainoni men . . .”

  Inrau said, “So the Scarlet Spires—”

  “Hopes to avenge itself,” Achamian said, completing his protege’s thought, “to conclude their secret war. But there’s more. None of the Schools understands the metaphysics of the Cishaurim, the Psûkhe. All of them, even the School of Mandate, are terrified by the fact that it cannot be seen as sorcery.”

  “Why does not seeing terrify you so much?” Esmenet asked. This was but one of many small questions she had never dared ask.

  “Why?” Achamian repeated, suddenly very serious. “You ask this, Esmenet, because you’ve no idea of the power we wield. No inkling of how far out of proportion it is to the frailty of our bodies. Sasheoka was slain precisely because he could not distinguish the work of the Cishaurim from the works of the God.”

  Esmenet scowled. She turned to Inrau. “Does he do this to you?”

  “You mean fault the question rather than answer?” Inrau said wryly. “All the time.”

  But Achamian’s expression darkened. “Listen. Listen to me carefully. This isn’t a game we play. Any of us—but especially you, Inrau—could end up with our heads boiled in salt, tarred, and posted before the Vault-of-the-Tusk. And there’s more at stake than even our lives. Far more.”

  Esmenet fell silent, faintly shocked by the reprimand. There were times, she realized, when she forgot the depths of Drusas Achamian. How many times had she held him after he’d awakened from one of his dreams? How many times had she heard him mutter strange tongues in his sleep? She glanced at him and saw that the anger in his eyes had been replaced by pain.

  “I don’t expect either of you to understand the stakes involved. I even grow tired of listening to myself prattle on about the Consult. But something is different this time. I know it pains you to consider this, Inrau, but your Maithanet—”

  “He’s not my Maithanet. He doesn’t belong to anyone, and that”—Inrau hesitated, as though troubled by his own ardour—“that’s what makes him worthy of my devotion. Perhaps I don’t fully understand the stakes, as you say, but I know more than most. And I worry, Akka. I honestly worry that this is simply another fool’s errand.”

  As Inrau said this, he glanced—involuntarily, Esmenet supposed—at the serpentine mark of the whore tattooed across the back of her hand. She bundled her fists under crossed arms.

  Then, unaccountably, the real mystery behind these events struck her. She looked at each man in turn, her eyes wide. Inrau glanced down. Achamian, however, watched her keenly.

  He knows, Esmenet thought. He knows that I have a gift for these things.

  “What is it, Esmi?”

  “You say that the Mandate only just learned of the Scarlet Spires’ war against the Cishaurim?”

  “Yes.”

  She found herself leaning forward, as though these words were something best whispered. “If the Scarlet Spires can keep such a thing secret from the Mandate for ten years, Akka, then how is it that Maithanet, a man who has only recently become Shriah, knows?”

  “What do you mean?” Inrau asked with alarm.

  “No,” Achamian said thoughtfully. “She’s right. There’s no way Maithanet would even approach the Scarlet Spires unless he knew the School warred against the Cishaurim. It would be too absurd otherwise. The proudest School in the Three Seas joining a Holy War? Think about it. How could he know?”

  “Perhaps,” Inrau offered, “the Thousand Temples simply stumbled across the knowledge—like you did, only earlier.”

  “Perhaps,” Achamian repeated. “But unlikely. At the very least this demands we watch him more closely.”

  Esmenet shivered yet again, but this time with exhilaration. The world turns about people such as these, and I’ve just joined them. The air, she thought, smelled of water and flowers.

  Inrau looked momentarily at Esmenet before turning his plaintive eyes to his mentor. “I can’t do what you ask . . . I can’t.”

  “You must get closer to Maithanet, Inrau. Your Shriah is altogether too canny.”

  “What?” the young priest said with half-hearted sarcasm. “Too canny to be a man of faith?”

  “Not at all, my friend. Too canny to be what he seems.”

  Late Spring, 4110 Y
ear-of-the-Tusk, Sumna

  Rain. If a city was old, really old, the gutters and pools would always glitter black, sodden by the detritus of ages. Sumna was ancient, her waters like pitch.

  Hugging himself, Paro Inrau scanned the dark courtyard. He was alone. Everywhere he could hear the sound of water: the dull roar of rain, the gurgle of eaves, and the slap of gutters. Through the wash, he could hear the supplicants wail. Arched into shapes of pain and sorrow, their song rang across the wet stone and cupped his thoughts in stretched notes. Hymns of suffering. Two voices: one pitched high and plaintive, asking why we must suffer, always why; the other low, filled with the brooding grandeur of the Thousand Temples and bearing the gravity of truth—that Men were at one with suffering and ruin, that tears were the only holy waters.

  My life, he thought. My life.

  Inrau lowered his face, tried to grimace away his weeping. If only he could forget. If only . . .

  The Shriah. But how could it be?

  So lonely. Around him, Ceneian stoneworks loomed, piled away into the dark vastness of the Hagerna. He slid to a crouch and rocked against the wet stone. Fear this encompassing gave one no direction to run. He could only shrink inside, try to weep himself away into nothing.

  Achamian, dear teacher . . . What have you done to me?

  When Inrau thought of his years at Atyersus, studying under the watchful eyes of Drusas Achamian, he remembered those times he’d gone out with his father and uncle to cast nets far from the Nroni shore, those times when the clouds had grown dark and his father, heaving the silvery fish from the sea, had refused to return to the village.