The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  What was happening?

  She lifted her head, felt knives probe the back of her eyes. Headless pillars flashed by, and the dancing line of an amputated wall. Ruins of some kind, and beyond, the dark avenues of an olive grove. Olive groves? Had they come so far already?

  She looked back and was surprised by the absence of their riderless horses. Then, through thin skirts of dust, she saw a large cohort of horsemen darkening the near distance. The Kidruhil, hard faces intent on the chase, longswords waving and flashing beneath the sun.

  They spilled around and through the ruined temple.

  She felt a giddy sense of weightlessness, then slammed into Kellhus’s back. The horse began kicking upward across a steep incline. She glimpsed the chalky remnants of a wall behind them.

  “Fuck!” she heard the Scylvendi roar. Then: “Kellhus! You see them?”

  Kellhus said nothing, but his back arched and his right arm jerked up as he heaved the horse in a different direction. She glimpsed his bearded profile as he glanced to his left.

  “Who are they?” he called.

  And Serwë saw another surge of horsemen, more distant but sweeping toward them across the same slope. Kellhus’s horse yanked them at a tangent up the incline, kicking up gravel and dust.

  She looked back to the Kidruhil below and watched them leap the ruined wall in staggered ranks. Then she saw another party, three horsemen, erupt from a stand of trees then veer to intercept them on their way up the hill.

  “Kellllhuuss!” she cried, struggling against the ropes to secure his attention.

  “Still, Serwë! Sit still!”

  One of the Kidruhil toppled from his mount, clutching an arrow shaft in his chest. The Scylvendi, Serwë realized, remembering the doe he’d killed. Without pause, however, the other two galloped passed their fallen comrade.

  The first reined parallel to them, raised a javelin. The slope levelled and the horses gathered speed. The Kidruhil hurled the shaft across the mottled blur of ground and grasses.

  Serwë winced.

  But somehow Kellhus reached out and seized it from the air—as though it were a plum hanging from a tree. In a single motion, he twirled the javelin and flung it back, where it punctured the man’s astonished face. For a grisly moment Serwë watched the man teeter in his saddle, then slump to the rushing ground.

  The other simply took his place, reining closer as though intending to ram them, his longsword raised to strike. For an instant, Serwë met his eyes, bright against his dusty face, mad with murderous determination. Baring clenched teeth, he struck—

  Kellhus’s blow snapped through his body like the bowstring of some great siege engine. His sword flickered across the intervening space. Dropping his weapon, the Kidruhil glanced down. Bowel and bloody slop gushed across his pommel and thighs. His horse shied away and cantered to a halt.

  Then they were pounding down the far side of the summit, and the ground disappeared.

  Their horse shrieked and stumbled to a gravelly stop behind Cnaiür’s mount. Before them yawned a steep drop, nearly three times the height of the trees that crowded its base. Not sheer, but far too steep for horses. A patchwork of dark groves and fields stretched into the hazy distance beyond.

  “Along the crest,” the Scylvendi spat, yanking his horse about. But he paused when Kellhus’s mount screamed once again. Before Serwë knew what was happening, her arms had been cut free and Kellhus had vaulted to the ground. He hoisted her from the saddle and steadied her as she struggled to find her legs. “We’re going to slide down, Serwë. Can you do that?”

  She thought she would vomit. “But I can’t feel my han—”

  Just then the first of the Kidruhil leapt over the summit.

  “Go!” Kellhus shouted, almost shoving her over the rounded edge. The dusty earth broke beneath her feet and she began skidding down, but her screams were drowned by shrieks. A horse tumbled and thrashed in an avalanche of dust beside her. Clawing, scraping with fingers she could barely feel, she brought herself to a stop. The horse continued falling.

  “Move, wench, move!” the Scylvendi cried from above. She watched him half pedal, half skid past her, trailing a streamer of dust into the giddy emptiness below. She risked a hesitant step, then she was falling again. She struggled, trying to keep her feet braced below her and her back to the slope, but she hit something hard and bounced outward in an explosion of sand, flailing at open air. Somehow she landed on her hands and knees, and for a moment, it seemed she might brake her descent, but another rock caught her left foot, jerked her knee to her chest, and she plummeted, battered and scraped, rolling headlong through a cloud.

  Amid the rattle of falling stones, she stopped, and the Scylvendi was cradling her head. The concern in his look bewildered her. “Can you stand?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” she gasped.

  Where’s Kellhus?

  He eased her to a seated position, but his concern was already elsewhere.

  “Stay,” he said brusquely. “Don’t move.” He was drawing his sword even as he stood.

  She looked up the slope and immediately became dizzy. She saw a cloud of dust toppling down and realized that it was Kellhus hastening his descent by making leap after sliding leap. Then the pain in her side struck her, something sharp agonizing her every breath.

  “How many?” Cnaiür asked Kellhus as he skidded to a halt.

  “Enough,” he said, seemingly unwinded. “They won’t follow us down this way. They’ll go around.”

  “Like the others.”

  “What others?”

  “The dogs that surprised us when we first broke for the summit. They must have started down the moment we veered away from them, because I glimpsed only the stragglers—over there, to the right . . .”

  Even as Cnaiür said this, Serwë heard the rumble of hooves through the screen of hardwoods.

  But we have no horses! No way to flee!

  “What does this mean?” she cried, gasping at the flare of pain that punished her.

  Kellhus knelt before her, his heavenly face blotting out the sun. Once again she could see his halo, the shimmering gold that marked him apart from all other men. He’ll save us! Don’t worry, my sweet, I know He will!

  But he said, “Serwë, when they come, I want you to close your eyes.”

  “But you’re the promise,” she said, sobbing.

  Kellhus brushed her cheek, then wordlessly withdrew to take his place at the Scylvendi’s side. She glimpsed flashes of movement beyond them, heard the neigh and snort of fierce warhorses.

  Then the first stallions, caparisoned in mail skirts, stamped from shade into sunlight, bearing riders in white-and-blue surcoats and heavy hauberks. As the horsemen closed in a ragged semicircle, Serwë realized they possessed silver faces, as passionless as those of the Gods. And she knew they had been sent—sent to protect him! To shelter the promise.

  One drew closer than the others and pulled his helm from a shock of thick black hair. He tugged at two straps, then pulled the silver war mask from his stocky face. He was surprisingly young, and he sported the square-cut beard so common to the men of the Eastern Three Seas. Ainoni maybe, or Conriyan.

  “I’m Krijates Iryssas,” the young man said in heavily accented Sheyic. “These pious but dour fellows are Knights of Attrempus and Men of the Tusk . . . Have you seen any fugitive criminals about?”

  Stunned silence. At last Cnaiür said, “Why do you ask?”

  The knight looked askance at his comrades then leaned forward in his saddle. His eyes twinkled. “Because I’m dying for the lack of honest conversation.”

  The Scylvendi smiled.

  PART V:

  The Holy War

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MOMEMN

  Many have condemned those who joined the Holy War for mercenary reasons, and doubtless, should this humble history find its way into their idle libraries, they will blast me as well. Admittedly, my reasons for joining the Holy War were “mercenary,” if
by that one means I joined it in order to procure ends outside of the destruction of the heathen and the reconquest of Shimeh. But there were a great many mercenaries such as myself, and like myself, they inadvertently furthered the Holy War by killing their fair share of heathen. The failure of the Holy War had nothing to do with us. Did I say failure? Perhaps “transformation” would be a better word.

  —DRUSAS ACHAMIAN, COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR

  Faith is the truth of passion. Since no passion is more true than another, faith is the truth of nothing.

  —AJENCIS, THE FOURTH ANALYTIC OF MAN

  Spring, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn

  “Remember what I said,” Xinemus muttered to Achamian as an aging slave led them into Proyas’s immense pavilion. “Be formal. Be cautious . . . He’s seeing you only to shut me up, nothing more.”

  Achamian frowned. “How times have changed, eh, Zin?”

  “You wielded too much influence over him as a child, Akka, left too deep a mark. Zealous men often confuse purity with intolerance, particularly when they’re young.”

  Though Achamian suspected matters were a great deal more complicated, he said only, “You’ve been reading again, haven’t you?”

  They followed the slave through a succession of embroidered flaps, turning left, then right, then left again. Though Proyas had arrived several weeks earlier, the administrative chambers they passed through seemed haphazardly arranged and, in some cases, only half unpacked. Achamian found this troubling. Normally, Proyas was fastidious to a fault.

  “Turmoil and crisis,” Xinemus said by way of explanation. “Ever since his arrival . . . He has more than half his staff out in the field, counting chickens.”

  Counting chickens, Achamian recalled, was a Conriyan turn of phrase for futile endeavours.

  “Things are that bad?”

  “Worse. He’s losing this game the Emperor plays, Akka. You’d do well to remember that too.”

  “Perhaps I should wait, wait until—” Achamian began saying, but it was too late.

  The old slave halted at an entrance to a much larger enclosure, swept his hand in a flourish that revealed a darkened armpit. Enter at your peril, his expression said.

  The room was cooler, more dim. Censers hazed the interior with the scent of aromatic woods. Carpets lay scattered about a central fire, making the ground a cozy jumble of Ainoni pictograms and stylized scenes drawn from Conriyan legend. Reclined among cushions, the Prince watched from the far side of the shining hearth. Achamian immediately fell to his knees, bowing. He glimpsed a filament of smoke spiralling from a tiny coal thrown by the fire.

  “Rise, Schoolman,” Proyas said. “Take a cushion by my hearth. I won’t ask you to kiss my knee.”

  The Crown Prince of Conriya wore only a linen kilt embroidered with the insignia of his dynasty and nation. A close-cropped beard, now the fashion of young nobles in Conriya, outlined his face. His expression was blank, as though he struggled to suspend judgement. His large eyes were hostile, but not hateful.

  I won’t ask you to kiss my knee . . . Not a very promising beginning.

  Achamian took a deep breath.

  “You have honoured me beyond estimation, my Prince, by granting me this audience.”

  “Perhaps more than you know, Achamian. Never in my life have so many men clamoured for my ear.”

  “Regarding the Holy War?”

  “What else?”

  Achamian winced inwardly. For an instant he found himself at a loss for words. “Is it true you raid the valley?”

  “And farther . . . If you think to upbraid me for my tactics, Achamian, think again.”

  “What do sorcerers know of tactics, my Prince?”

  “Far too much, if you ask me. But then everyone and his cousin is an authority on tactics of late, eh, Marshal?”

  Xinemus glanced apologetically at Achamian. “Your tactics are impeccable, Proyas. It’s the proprieties I worry about.”

  “And what would you have us eat? Our prayer mats?”

  “The Emperor closed his granaries only when you and the other Great Names started looting.”

  “But what he gave us was a pittance, Zin! Enough to prevent riots. Enough to control us! Not a grain more.”

  “Even still, raiding Inrithi—”

  Proyas scowled and waved his hands. “Enough! You say this, while I say that, over and over again. For once I’d rather hear Achamian speak! Did you hear that, Zin? You’ve irritated me that much . . .”

  From Xinemus’s grave look, Achamian gathered Proyas was not joking.

  So changed . . . What’s happened to him? But even as he asked this, Achamian recognized the answer. Proyas suffered, as all men of high purpose must, the endless exchange of principles for advantages. No triumph without remorse. No respite without siege. Compromise after anxious compromise, until one’s entire life felt a defeat. It was a malady Mandate Schoolmen knew well.

  “Achamian . . .” Proyas said when he did not immediately speak, “I have a nation of migrants to feed, an army of bandits to restrain, and an Emperor to outwit. So let’s dispense with the niceties of jnan. Just tell me what you want.”

  Proyas’s face was a battleground of expectancy and impatience. He wanted to see his old tutor, Achamian guessed, but he did not want to want this. This was a mistake.

  Involuntary intake of breath. “I wonder whether my Prince still recalls what it was I taught him those many years ago.”

  “Those recollections, I fear, are the only reason you’re here.”

  Achamian nodded. “Does he recall what it means to think in terms of possibilities?”

  Impatience regained the heights of Proyas’s expression. “You mean to think ‘as if’?”

  “Yes, my Prince.”

  “As a child I tired of your games, Achamian. As a man I simply have no time for them.”

  “This is no game.”

  “Isn’t it? Then why are you here, of all places, Achamian? What business could the Mandate have with the Holy War?”

  This was the question. When one warred with the intangible, convolutions were certain to abound. Any mission without purpose, or with a purpose that had evaporated into abstraction, inevitably confused its own means as its end, took its own striving as the very thing striven for. The Mandate was here, Achamian had realized, to determine whether it should be here. And this was as significant as any Mandate mission could be, since it had become every Mandate mission. But he could not tell Proyas this. No, he had to do what every Mandate agent did: populate the unknown with ancient threats and seed the future with past catastrophes. In a world that was already terrifying, the Mandate had become a School of fear-mongers.

  “Our business? To discover the truth.”

  “So you would lecture me on truth rather than possibilities . . . I’m afraid those days have passed, Drusas Achamian.”

  You called me Akka, once.

  “No. My lecturing days are over. The best I can manage now, it seems, is to remind people of what they once knew.”

  “There are many things I once claimed to know but no longer care to. You must be specific.”

  “I would merely remind you, my Prince, that when we’re most certain, we’re most certain to be deceived.”

  Proyas smiled menacingly. “Ah . . . you would challenge my faith.”

  “Not challenge—merely temper.”

  “Temper, then. You’d have me ask new questions, consider troubling ‘possibilities.’ And what, pray tell, are these troubling possibilities?” The sarcasm was naked now, and it stung. “Tell me, Achamian, how great a fool have I become?”

  In that instant, Achamian understood the depth to which the Mandate had been crippled. Not only had they become preposterous, they had become stale, a matter of rote. How does one recover credibility from such an abyss?

  “The Holy War,” Achamian said, “might not be what it seems.”

  “Not what it seems?” Proyas cried with mock astonishment—a rebuke
for a teacher who had fatally stumbled. “For the Emperor the Holy War is a lecherous means to restore his Empire. For so many of my peers, it’s simply a venal instrument of conquest and glory. For Eleäzaras and the Scarlet Spires, it’s a vehicle for some arcane who-knows-what. And for so many others it’s merely a cheap way to redeem a squandered life. The Holy War not what it seems? There hasn’t been a night, Achamian, when I haven’t prayed you’re right!”

  The Crown Prince leaned forward and poured himself a bowl of wine. He offered none to Achamian or Xinemus.

  “But prayers,” Proyas continued, “are never enough, are they? Something will happen, some treachery or small atrocity, and my heart will cry, ‘Fie on this! Damn them all!’ And do you know what, Achamian? It’s a possibility that saves me, that drives me to continue. What if? I ask myself. What if this Holy War is in fact divine, a good in and of itself?”

  His breath hung on these last words, as though no breath could follow them.

  What if . . .

  “Is that so hard to believe? Is that so impossible—that despite men and their rutting ambitions, this one thing, this Holy War, could be good for its own sake? If it is impossible, Achamian, then my life has as little meaning as yours . . .”

  “No,” Achamian said, unable to muzzle his anger, “it’s not impossible.”

  The plaintive fury in Proyas’s eyes dulled, became waxy with regret. “I apologize, old tutor. I didn’t mean to . . .” He interrupted himself with another draught of wine. “Perhaps now is not such a good time to peddle your possibilities, Achamian. I fear the God tests me.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  Proyas glanced at Xinemus. A worried look.

  “There’s been a massacre of innocents,” he said. “Galeoth troops under Coithus Saubon cut down the inhabitants of an entire village near Pasna.”

  Pasna, Achamian recalled, was a town some forty miles up the River Phayus, famed for its olive groves.