The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  He knows . . . He knows I’ve surpassed him!

  Over the course of his return from the Jiünati Steppe, Conphas had pondered his uncle to the point of obsession. The real question, Conphas understood, was whether his uncle would be inclined to accommodate him as a tool with further uses or to dispose of him as a threat. The fact that Xerius had sent him to destroy the Scylvendi in no way diminished the possibility of disposal. The irony of murdering someone for successfully doing his bidding would mean nothing to Xerius. Such “injustices,” as the philosophers would call them, were the bread and beer of imperial politics.

  No. All things being equal, Conphas had realized, his uncle would try to kill him. The problem, quite simply, was that he had defeated the Scylvendi. Even if, as Conphas feared, his triumph did not translate into the power to overthrow his uncle, Xerius, who suspected conspiracy whenever two of his slaves farted, would simply assume he possessed that power. All things being equal, Conphas should have returned to Momemn with ultimatums and siege towers.

  But all things were not equal. The Battle of Kiyuth had been but the first step in a larger scheme to wrest the Holy War from Maithanet, and the Holy War was key to his uncle’s dream of a Restored Empire. If Kian could be crushed, and if all the old provinces could be reconquered, then Ikurei Xerius III would be remembered not as a warrior-emperor like Xatantius or Triamus but as a great statesman-emperor such as Caphrianas the Younger. This was his dream. So long as Xerius clung to this dream, Conphas realized, he would do everything in his power to accommodate his godlike nephew. By defeating the Scylvendi, Conphas had become more useful than dangerous.

  Because of the Holy War. Everything came back to the accursed Holy War.

  With Conphas’s every step, the Forum encompassed more and more of the sky. His uncle, who looked even more ludicrous now that Conphas knew what he was wearing, grew still nearer. Though his painted face seemed impassive in the distance, Conphas saw, or thought he saw, his hands momentarily clutch the sides of his crimson gown. A nervous gesture? The Exalt-General nearly laughed. He found few things more amusing than his uncle’s distress. Worms should wriggle.

  He had always hated his uncle—even as a child. But for all the contempt he bore him, he’d learned long ago not to underestimate him. His uncle was like those uncommon drunks who slurred and staggered day after day yet became lethally alert when confronted by danger.

  Did he sense danger now? Suddenly Ikurei Xerius III seemed a great riddle—inscrutable. What are you thinking, Uncle?

  The question itched so much he felt compelled to scratch it with another’s opinion.

  “Tell me, Martemus,” he said in a low voice, “if you had to guess, what would you say my uncle’s thinking?”

  Martemus was terse. Perhaps he thought conversing at such a time unseemly. “You know him far better than I, Lord Exalt-General.”

  “A most politic answer.” Conphas paused, struck by a premonition that the cause of Martemus’s anxiety went far deeper than the prospect of meeting his Emperor for the first time. When had the man ever been in awe of his betters?

  Never.

  “Should I be afraid, Martemus?”

  The General’s eyes remained riveted on the distant Emperor. He did not blink.

  “You should be afraid, yes.”

  Not caring what his observers might think, Conphas studied the man’s profile, noting yet again the classic Nansur cut of his jaw and his broken nose. “And why is that?”

  Martemus marched in silence for what seemed a long while. For an exasperated moment, Conphas felt like striking him. Why deliberate so long over answers when the decision was always the same? Martemus spoke only the truth.

  “I know only,” the General finally replied, “that were I Emperor and you my Exalt-General, I would fear you.”

  Conphas snorted under his breath. “And what the Emperor fears, the Emperor kills. I see even you provincials have a sense of his true measure. And yet my uncle has feared me since the first evening I beat him at benjuka. I was eight. He would have had me strangled—had the entire matter blamed on an unfortunate grape—had it not been for my grandmother.”

  “I fail to see—”

  “My uncle fears everybody and everything, Martemus. He’s too well schooled in our dynasty’s history not to. Because of this, only new fears incite him to murder. He scarcely notices old fears like me.”

  The General shrugged imperceptibly. “But didn’t he . . .” He trailed off, as though shocked by his own gall.

  “Have my father executed? Of course he did. But he never feared my father from the beginning. Only later, after . . . after the Biaxi faction had poisoned his heart with rumours.”

  Martemus glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “But what you’ve accomplished, Lord Exalt-General . . . Think on it! At your command every soldier here—to a man!—would lay down his life for you. Surely the Emperor knows this! Surely this is a new fear!”

  Conphas had thought Martemus incapable of surprising him, but he was taken aback by both the import and the vehemence of his reply. Was he suggesting rebellion? Here? Now?

  Suddenly he saw himself climbing the steps to the Forum, saluting his uncle, then wheeling to the thousands of soldiers assembled across the Scuäri Campus and crying out to them, imploring . . . no, commanding them to storm the Forum and the Andiamine Heights. He saw his uncle hacked to bloody rags.

  The scene left him short of breath. Could it be a revelation of some sort? A glimpse of his future? Should he . . . ? But this was rank foolishness! Martemus simply did not see the greater scheme.

  Even so, everything—the ranks falling to their knees in his periphery, the oiled backs of the ushers before him, his uncle waiting as though at the terminus of some fatally steep chute—had become nightmarish. Suddenly he resented Martemus and his baseless fears. This was supposed to be his time! His moment of exultation.

  “And what of the Holy War?” he snapped.

  Martemus scowled but kept his face toward the looming Forum. “I don’t understand.”

  Overcome by a sudden flash of impatience, Conphas glared at the man. Why was it so hard for them to see? Was this the way the Gods felt when plagued by the inability of men to grasp the grand portent of their designs? Did he expect too much of his followers? The Gods certainly did.

  But perhaps that was the point. What better way to make them strive?

  “You think,” Martemus continued, “that the Emperor is more avaricious than fearful? That his hunger to restore the Empire eclipses his fear of you?”

  Conphas smiled. The god had been appeased. “So I think. He needs me, Martemus.”

  “So you gamble.”

  The ushers had reached the monumental stair leading up to the Forum, and now they backed away to either side, bowing. The Emperor was nearly upon them.

  “And where would you place your wager, Martemus?”

  For the first time the General looked at him directly, his shining brown eyes filled with uncharacteristic adoration. “With you, Lord Exalt-General. And the Empire.”

  They had paused at the base of the monumental stair. After a sharp glance at Martemus, Conphas gestured for his bodyguards to follow with the captive, then began ascending the steps. His uncle awaited him on the highest landing. Skeaös, Conphas noted, stood at his side. Dozens of other court functionaries milled among the Forum’s columns. Everyone watched with solemn faces.

  Unbidden, Martemus’s words returned to him.

  “At your command every soldier here would lay down his life.”

  Conphas was a soldier, and as such he believed in training, provisions, planning—in short, preparation. But he also possessed, as all great leaders must, a keen eye for those fruit that ripen out of season. He knew full well the importance of timing. If he struck now, what would happen? What would—and here was the problem—all those assembled do? How many would throw their lot with him?

  “With you . . . I would place my wager with you.”

>   For all his failings, his uncle was a shrewd judge of character. It was as though the fool instinctively knew how to balance the staff against the plum, when to strike and when to soothe. Suddenly Conphas realized he had no inkling of which way many of those men who mattered most would turn. Of course Gaenkelti, the Exalt-Captain of the Eothic Guard, would stand by his Emperor—to the death, if need be. But Cememketri? Would the Imperial Saik prefer a strong emperor to a weak one? And what of Ngarau, who controlled the all-important coffers?

  So many uncertainties!

  A warm gust of wind sent leaves from some unseen grove skittering across his path. He paused on the landing immediately below his uncle, saluted him.

  Ikurei Xerius III remained as still as a painted statue. Wizened Skeaös, however, gestured for him to approach. His ears buzzing, Conphas climbed the last remaining steps. Images of rioting soldiers flashed before his soul’s eye. He thought of his ceremonial dagger, wondered whether its temper would be enough to puncture silk, damask, skin and bone.

  It would do.

  Then he stood before his uncle. His expression and his limbs stiffened in defiance. Though Skeaös stared at him with naked alarm, his uncle affected not to notice.

  “Such a great victory, Nephew!” he abruptly exclaimed. “You’ve brought glory as no other to the House Ikurei!”

  “You,” Conphas said flatly, “are too gracious, Uncle.” A momentary frown crossed his uncle’s face. Conphas had failed to kneel and kiss his uncle’s knee.

  Their eyes locked, and for an instant Conphas was startled. He’d forgotten how much Xerius looked like his father.

  All the better. He would grasp the back of his neck as though to place an intimate kiss, then punch his knife through his sternum. He would wrench the blade and halve his heart. The assassination would be quick and, Conphas realized, remarkably free of malice. Then he would cry out to his men below, command them to secure the Imperial Precincts. In the space of heartbeats the Empire would be his.

  He raised his hand for the kiss, but his uncle waved it away and jostled by him, apparently captivated by something farther down the steps. “And what’s this?” he cried, obviously speaking of the captive.

  Conphas raked his gaze across the onlookers, saw Gaenkelti and several others scrutinizing him warily. Smiling falsely, he turned to join the Emperor. “Alas, Uncle, this is the only captive I have to offer you. Everyone knows Scylvendi make atrocious slaves.”

  “And who is he?”

  The man had been thrust to his knees, and he now leaned over his nakedness, his scarred arms chained behind his back. One of the bodyguards grabbed his black mane and jerked his face to the Emperor. Though the memory of scorn haunted his expression, his grey eyes were vacant, fixed on things not of this world.

  “Xunnurit,” Conphas said, “their King-of-Tribes.”

  “I’d heard he’d been taken, but I dared not believe the rumours! Conphas! Conphas! A Scylvendi King-of-Tribes made captive! You’ve made our House immortal this day! I shall have him blinded, emasculated, and bound to the base of my throne, just like the ancient High Kings of Kyraneas.”

  “A splendid idea, Uncle.” Conphas glanced to his right and finally saw his grandmother. She wore a green silk gown crisscrossed by a form-hugging sash of blue. As always, she looked an old whore playing the coquette. But there was something in her expression. She seemed different somehow.

  “Conphas . . .” she gasped, her eyes rounded by wonder. “You left us as heir to the Empire, and you’ve returned to us as a god!”

  A collective intake of breath followed these words. Treason—or at least something the Emperor was certain to interpret as such.

  “You’re too kind, Grandmother,” Conphas said hastily. “I return as a humble slave who’s simply done his master’s bidding.”

  But she’s right! Isn’t she?

  Somehow he’d slipped from the brink of striking his uncle down to covering for his grandmother’s gaffes. Resolution. He had to stay focused!

  “Of course, my dear boy. I spoke figuratively . . .” In a way curiously obscene for one so old, she sashayed to his side and hooked his knifing arm with her own. “Shame on you, Conphas. I can understand the herd”—she glanced wrathfully at her son’s ministers—“reading scandal into my words, but you?”

  “Must you always dote on him so, Mother?” Xerius said. He had begun prodding his trophy, as though testing for muscle tone.

  By chance, Conphas caught Martemus’s gaze from where the man patiently kneeled, so far entirely unacknowledged. The General nodded dangerously.

  A familiar cool settled upon Conphas then, the one that allowed him to think and act with deliberation while other men scrambled. He looked across the seemingly endless ranks of infantrymen below. “At your command every soldier . . .”

  He detached himself from his grandmother. “Listen,” he said, “there are things I must know.”

  “Or what?” his uncle asked. Apparently he’d forgotten the King-of-Tribes. Or had his interest been a ruse?

  Uncowed, Conphas stared hard into his uncle’s painted eyes, smirked at the absurdity of his Shigeki crown. “Or we’ll shortly find ourselves at war with the Men of the Tusk. Did you know they rioted when I attempted to enter Momemn? Killed twenty of my Kidruhil?” Conphas found his eyes straying to his uncle’s soft, powdered neck. Perhaps that would be a better place to strike.

  “Ah, yes,” Xerius said in a dismissive manner. “A most unfortunate incident. Calmemunis and Tharschilka have been inciting more than just their own men. But I assure you, the matter has been concluded.”

  “What do you mean, ‘concluded’?” For the first time in his life, Conphas cared nothing what his uncle thought of his tone.

  “Tomorrow,” Xerius declared with the voice of decree, “you and your grandmother will accompany me upriver to observe the transport of my latest monument. I know, Nephew, that you’ve a restless nature, that you’re a student of decisive action, but you must be patient. This isn’t Kiyuth, and we’re not the Scylvendi . . . Things are not as they appear, Conphas.”

  Conphas was dumbstruck. “This isn’t Kiyuth, and we’re not the Scylvendi.” What was that supposed to mean?

  As though the matter were utterly closed, Xerius continued: “Is this the general you speak so highly of? Martemus, is it? I’m so very pleased he’s here. I couldn’t ferry enough of your men into the city to fill the Campus, so I was forced to use my Eothic Guard and several hundred of the City Watch.”

  Though stunned, Conphas replied without hesitation, “And dress them as my . . . as army regulars?”

  “Of course. The ceremony is as much for them as for you, no?”

  His heart thundering, Conphas knelt and kissed his uncle’s knee.

  Harmony . . . So sweet. This was what Ikurei Xerius III thought he groped for.

  Cememketri, the Grandmaster of his Imperial Saik, had assured him that the circle was the purest of geometrical forms, the one most conducive to the mending of the spirit. One must not live one’s life, he had said, in lines. But it was with circles of string that one made knots, and it was with circles of suspicion that one made intrigue. The very shape of harmony was cursed!

  “How long must we wait, Xerius?” his mother asked from behind, her voice throaty with age and irritation.

  The sun is hot, isn’t it, bitch-mother?

  “Soon,” he said to the river.

  From the prow of his great galley, Xerius stared across the brown waters of the River Phayus. Behind him sat his mother, the Empress Istriya, and his nephew, Conphas, flush from his astounding destruction of the Scylvendi tribes at Kiyuth. Ostensibly he had invited them to witness the transport of his latest monument from the basalt quarries of Osbeus downriver to Momemn. But as always there were further purposes behind any gathering of the Imperial Family. They would, he knew, scoff at his monument—his mother openly, his nephew silently. But they would not—could not—dismiss the announcement he would shortly make. The
mere mention of the Holy War would be enough to command their respect.

  For a time, anyway.

  Ever since they’d left the stone quays in Momemn, his mother had been fawning over her grandson. “I burned over two hundred golden votives for you,” she was saying, “one for each day you were in the field. And I offered thirty-eight dogs to the Gilgaöli priesthood, to be slaughtered in your—”

  “She even furnished them with a lion,” Xerius called over his shoulder. “The albino that Pisathulas purchased from that insufferable Kutnarmi trader, wasn’t it, Mother?”

  Though he could not see her, he could feel her eyes bore into his back. “That was to be a surprise, Xerius,” she said with acidic sweetness. “Or did you forget?”

  “I apologize, Mother. I quite—”

  “I had the hide prepared,” she said to Conphas, as though Xerius had not spoken. “A suitable gift for the Lion of Kiyuth, no?” She chuckled at her own conspiratorial wit.

  Xerius clenched the mahogany rail tight.

  “A lion!” Conphas exclaimed. “And an albino, no less! Small wonder the God favoured me, Grandmother.”

  “A bribe,” she replied dismissively. “I was desperate to have you back in one piece. Mad with desperation. But now you’ve told me how you defeated the brutes, I feel foolish. Trying to bribe the Gods to look after one of their own! The Empire has never seen the likes of you, my dear, sweet Conphas. Never!”

  “Whatever wisdom I possess, Grandmother, I owe to you.”

  Istriya nearly giggled. Flattery, especially from Conphas, had always been her favourite narcotic. “I was a rather harsh tutor, now that I recall.”

  “The harshest.”

  “But you were tardy all the time, Conphas. Waiting always brings out the worst in me. I could claw eyes out.”

  Xerius gritted his teeth. She knows I listen! She baits me.