The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  Jnan, they called it. A mark of caste and cultivation.

  Cnaiür had weathered the farce as best he could, but—inevitably, it now seemed—they soon cast their nets about him as well.

  “Tell me, Scylvendi,” Lord Gaidekki had asked, flushed with drink and daring, “those scars of yours, do they reflect the man or the man’s measure?”

  “How do you mean?”

  The Palatine of Anplei grinned. “Well, I should think that if you, say, killed Lord Ganyama here, he would deserve two scars at the most. But if you were to kill me?” He looked to the others, his eyebrows raised and his lips drawn down, as though speaking in deference to their learned opinions. “What? Twenty scars? Thirty?”

  “I suspect,” Proyas said, “that Scylvendi swords are great levellers.”

  Lord Imrotha laughed too hard at this.

  “Swazond,” Cnaiür said to Gaidekki, “measure foes, not fools.” He stared impassively at the startled Palatine, then spat into the fire.

  But Gaidekki was not easily intimidated. “So what am I?” he asked dangerously. “Fool or foe?”

  In that moment, Cnaiür recognized yet another hardship he would have to suffer in the months to come. The perils and deprivations of war were nothing; he had shouldered them his entire life. The disgrace of consorting with Kellhus was a hardship of a different order, but something he could endure in the name of hate. But the degradation of participating day after day in the peevish unmanly ways of the Inrithi was something he had not considered. How much must he suffer to see vengeance done?

  Thankfully, Proyas deftly pre-empted his reply to Gaidekki, declaring the council at an end. Too disgusted to bear their farewell fencing, Cnaiür had simply marched from the pavilion into the night.

  He let his gaze wander as he walked. The moon was full and bright, smudging silver across the back of charging clouds. Moved by a peculiar melancholy, he looked to the stars. Scylvendi children were told that the sky was a yaksh, impossibly vast and pricked by innumerable holes. He remembered his father pointing skyward once. “See, Nayu?” he had said, “see the thousand thousand lights peeking through the leather of night? This is how we know that a greater sun burns beyond this world. This is how we know that when it’s night, it is truly day, and that when it’s day, it is truly night. This is how we know, Nayu, that the World is a lie.”

  For Scylvendi, the stars were a reminder: only the People were true.

  Cnaiür paused. The dust beneath his sandals still shed the sun’s heat. Throughout the immediate darkness, the silence seemed to hiss.

  What was he doing here? Among Inrithi dogs. Among men who scratched breath upon parchment and sustenance from dirt. Among men who had sold their souls into bondage.

  Among the cattle.

  What was he doing?

  He raised his hands to his brows, drew his thumbs across his eyes. Squeezed.

  Then he heard the Dûnyain’s voice drifting through the dark.

  With his eyes pinched shut, he felt a youth once again, standing in the heart of the Utemot encampment, overhearing Moënghus talk to his mother.

  He saw Bannut’s bloodied face, grinning rather than grimacing as he strangled him.

  Weeper.

  Running fingernails across his scalp, he continued walking. Through a screen of dark camps, he glimpsed the Dûnyain’s firelight. He saw the bearded Schoolman, Drusas Achamian, sitting, leaning forward as though straining to listen. Then he saw Kellhus and Serwë, fire-bright against the surrounding murk. Serwë slept, her head upon the Dûnyain’s lap.

  He found a place beside a wain where he could watch. He crouched.

  Cnaiür had intended to scrutinize what the Dûnyain said, hoping to confirm any one of his innumerable suspicions. But he quickly realized that Kellhus was playing this sorcerer the way he played all the others, battering him with closed fists, beating his soul down paths of his manufacture. Certainly it did not sound like this. Compared with the banter of Proyas and his Palatines, what Kellhus said to the Schoolman possessed a heartbreaking gravity. But it was all a game, one where truths had become chits, where every open hand concealed a fist.

  How could one determine the true intent of such a man?

  The thought struck Cnaiür that Dûnyain monks might be even more inhuman than he had thought. What if things such as truth and meaning had no meaning for them? What if all they did was move and move, like something reptilian, snaking through circumstance after circumstance, consuming soul after soul for the sake of consumption alone? The thought made his scalp prickle.

  They called themselves students of the Logos, the Shortest Way. But the shortest way to what?

  Cnaiür cared nothing for the Schoolman, but the sight of Serwë asleep with her head upon Kellhus’s thighs filled him with uncharacteristic fear, as though she lay within the coils of some malevolent serpent. Scenarios flashed through his soul: of stealing away with her in the dead of night; of grabbing her, peering so hard into her eyes that her centre would be touched, then telling her the truth of Kellhus . . .

  But these glimpses gave way to fury.

  What kind of fawn-hearted thoughts were these? Always straying, always wandering across the trackless and the weak. Always betraying!

  Serwë frowned and fidgeted, as though troubled by a dream. Kellhus absently stroked her cheek. Unable to look away, Cnaiür beat his fists against the dust.

  She is nothing.

  The Schoolman departed a short time after. Cnaiür watched Kellhus steer Serwë to their pavilion. She was so like a little girl when roused from sleep: body swaying, head bowed, watching her feet through pouting lashes. So innocent.

  And pregnant, Cnaiür now suspected.

  Several moments passed before the Dûnyain reappeared. He walked to the fire, began dousing it by prodding the pit with a stick. The last licks of flame winked out, and Kellhus became an eerie apparition etched by the orange pool of coals at his feet. Without warning, he looked up.

  “How long were you intending to wait?” he asked in Scylvendi.

  Cnaiür pulled himself to his feet, beat the dust from his breeches. “Until the sorcerer was gone.”

  Kellhus nodded. “Yes. The People despise witches.”

  Despite the Dûnyain’s proximity, Cnaiür stood near enough the coals to feel their arid heat. Ever since Kellhus had swung him over the precipice that day in the mountains, he’d found himself battling a strange bodily shyness whenever the man loomed next to him.

  No man cows me.

  “What do you want from the man?” he asked, spitting into the coals.

  “You heard. Instruction.”

  “I heard. What do you want from him?”

  Kellhus shrugged. “Have you even asked yourself why my father has summoned me to Shimeh?”

  “You said you didn’t know.” So you said.

  “But to Shimeh . . .” Kellhus looked at him sharply. “Why Shimeh?”

  “Because that’s where he dwells.”

  The Dûnyain nodded. “Indeed.”

  Cnaiür could only stare. There was something Proyas had said to him earlier this night . . . He had asked the man about the Scarlet Spires, about the School’s reasons for joining the Holy War, and Proyas had replied as though startled by his ignorance. Shimeh, he had said, was the home of the Cishaurim.

  The words were pasty in his mouth. “You think Moënghus is Cishaurim?”

  “He summoned me by sending dreams . . .”

  Of course. Moënghus had summoned him using sorcery. Sorcery! He’d said as much himself when Kellhus first mentioned the dreams. But then why had the connection escaped him? Only the Cishaurim practised sorcery among the Fanim. Moënghus simply had to be Cishaurim. He knew this, but—

  Cnaiür scowled. “You said nothing to me! Why?”

  “You didn’t want to know.”

  Was that it? Had he hidden from this knowledge? All this time Moënghus had been little more than a shadowy destination, at once elusive and compelling, like the
object of some obscene carnal urge. And yet he had never truly asked Kellhus anything about him. Why?

  I need know only the place.

  But such thoughts were foolishness. Juvenile. Great hunger yielded no feasts. So the memorialists admonished headstrong Scylvendi youths. So Cnaiür himself had admonished Xunnurit and the other chieftains before Kiyuth. And yet here, on the deadliest pilgrimage of his entire life . . .

  The Dûnyain watched him, his expression expectant, even sorrowful. But Cnaiür knew better, knew something not quite human studied him from behind his all-too-human face.

  Scrutiny, so utter, so exacting, it was palpable.

  You can see me, can’t you? See me looking back at you . . .

  Then he understood: he hadn’t asked Kellhus about Moënghus because asking betokened ignorance and need. He might as well bare his throat to a wolf as display such deficits to a Dûnyain. He hadn’t asked about Moënghus, he knew, because Moënghus was here, in his son.

  He could not say this, of course.

  Cnaiür spat. “I know little of the Schools,” he said, “but I do know this: Mandate Schoolmen do not reveal the secrets of their practice—to anyone. If you wish to learn sorcery, you’re wasting your time with that sorcerer.”

  He’d spoken as though Moënghus had not been mentioned. The Dûnyain, however, did not bother feigning puzzlement. They both stood, he realized, in the same dark place, the same shadowy nowhere beyond the benjuka plate.

  “I know,” Kellhus replied. “He told me of the Gnosis.”

  Cnaiür kicked dust across the coals, studied the scatter of black over the pitted glow. He began walking to the pavilion.

  “Thirty years,” Kellhus called from behind. “Moënghus has dwelt among these men for thirty years. He’ll have great power—more than either of us could hope to overcome. I need more than sorcery, Cnaiür. I need a nation. A nation.”

  Cnaiür paused, looked skyward once again. “So it’s to be this Holy War, then, is it?”

  “With your help, Scylvendi. With your help.”

  Day for night. Night for day. Lies. All lies.

  Cnaiür continued walking, striding between barely visible guy ropes to the canvas flaps.

  To Serwë.

  For several moments the Emperor stared at his old Counsel in stunned silence. Despite the late hour, the man still wore the charcoal silk robes of his station. He’d breathlessly entered Xerius’s private apartment only moments earlier, as his body-slaves were preparing him for bed.

  “Could you kindly repeat what you just said, dear Skeaös. I fear I misheard you.”

  His eyes downcast, the old man said, “Proyas has apparently found a Scylvendi who’s warred against the heathen before—inflicted a crushing defeat upon them, actually—and has now proposed to Maithanet that he’ll be a suitable replacement for Conphas.”

  “Outrage! Impertinent, overweening Conriyan dog!” Xerius swung his palms through the scrambling crowd of prepubescent slaves. A young boy skidded prostrate across the marble floor, wailing and shielding his face. There was the clash of spilled decanters. Xerius stepped over him, confronting old Skeaös. “Proyas! Was there ever a more grasping man alive? Thieving, black-hearted wretch!”

  Skeaös stuttered a hasty reply. “Never, God-of-Men. B-but this is unlikely to interfere with our divine purpose.” The old Counsel was careful to keep his gaze firmly fixed on the floor. No one may look the Emperor in the eye. This, Xerius thought, was why he truly seemed a God to these fools. What was God but a tyrannical shadow in one’s periphery, the voice that could never fall within one’s field of vision? The voice from nowhere.

  “Our purpose, Skeaös?”

  Dreadful silence, broken only by the child’s whimper.

  “Y-yes, God-of-Men. The man is a Scylvendi . . . A Scylvendi leading the Holy War? Surely this is little more than a joke.”

  Xerius breathed deeply. The man was right, wasn’t he? This was but one more way for the Conriyan Prince to gall him—like the raids down the River Phayus. And yet he still found himself troubled . . . Something odd about his Prime Counsel’s manner.

  Xerius valued Skeaös far above any other of his preening, lapdog advisers. In Skeaös he found the perfect marriage of subservience and intellect, of deference and insight. But lately he had sensed a pride, an illicit identification of counsel and edict.

  Studying the frail form, Xerius felt himself calm—the calm of suspicion. “Have you heard the saying, Skeaös? ‘Cats look down upon Man, and dogs look up, but only pigs dare look Man straight in the eye.’”

  “Y-yes, God-of-Men.”

  “Pretend that you are a pig, Skeaös.”

  What would be in a man’s face when he looked into the countenance of God? Defiance? Terror? What should be in a man’s face? The aged, clean-shaven face slowly turned and lifted, glimpsed the Emperor’s eyes before turning back to the floor.

  “You tremble, Skeaös,” Xerius muttered. “That is good.”

  Achamian sat patiently before a small breakfast fire, sipping the last of his tea, listening absently as Xinemus briefed Iryssas and Dinchases on the morning agenda. The words meant little to him.

  Since meeting Anasûrimbor Kellhus, Achamian had fallen into a funk of obsessive brooding. No matter how hard he tried, he could not fit the Prince of Atrithau into anything that resembled sense. No less than seven times had he prepared the Cants of Calling to inform Atyersus of his “discovery.” No less than seven times had he faltered mid-verse, trailing into murmurs.

  Of course the Mandate had to be told. News that an Anasûrimbor had arrived would send Nautzera, Simas, and the others into an uproar. Nautzera in particular, Achamian knew, would be convinced that Kellhus marked the fulfilment of the Celmomian Prophecy—that the Second Apocalypse was about to begin. Though every man occupied the centre of whatever place he found himself, men such as Nautzera believed they occupied the centre of their time as well. I live now, they would think without thinking, therefore something momentous must happen.

  But Achamian was not such a man. He was rational and as such, compelled to be sceptical. The libraries of Atyersus were littered with proclamations of impending doom, every generation just as convinced as the last that the end was nigh. Achamian could think of no delusion more dogged and few conceits more worthy of scorn.

  The arrival of Anasûrimbor Kellhus simply had to be a coincidence. In the absence of any supporting evidence, he decided, reason compelled him to adopt this conclusion.

  The missing thumb of the matter, as the Ainoni say, was that he could not trust the Mandate to likewise withhold judgement. After centuries of starving for crumbs, they would, Achamian knew, fall into a frenzy over a scrap such as this. So the questions cycled through his soul, and more and more, he began to fear the answers. How would Nautzera and others interpret his tidings? What would they do? How ruthless would they be in the prosecution of their fears?

  I gave them Inrau . . . Must I give them Kellhus too?

  No. He had told them what would happen to Inrau. He had told them, and they had refused to listen. Even his old teacher, Simas, had betrayed him. Achamian was a Mandate Schoolman as they were. He dreamed the Dream of Seswatha as they did. But unlike Nautzera and Simas, he had not been gouged of his compassion. He knew better. And more important, he knew Anasûrimbor Kellhus.

  Or at least something of him. Enough, perhaps.

  Achamian set down his bowl of tea then leaned forward, elbows on knees. “What do you make of the newcomer, Zin?”

  “The Scylvendi? Quick-witted. Bloodthirsty. And catastrophically loutish. No slight goes unpunished with that one, if only because he bristles at everything . . .” He cocked his head, adding, “Don’t tell him I said that.”

  Achamian grinned. “I mean the other one. The Prince of Atrithau.”

  The Marshal became uncharacteristically solemn. “Truthfully?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation.

  Achamian frowned. “Of course.”

  “I think
there’s something”—he shrugged—“something about him.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, there’s the name, which made me suspicious at first. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you—”

  Achamian raised a hand. “After.”

  Xinemus breathed deeply, shook his head. Something about his manner made Achamian’s skin tingle. “I don’t know what to think,” he said finally.

  “Either that or you’re afraid to say what you think.”

  Xinemus glared at him. “You spent an entire evening with him. You tell me: have you ever met a man like him?”

  “No,” Achamian admitted.

  “So what makes him different?”

  “He’s . . . better. Better than most men.”

  “Most men? Or do you mean all men?”

  Achamian regarded Xinemus narrowly. “He frightens you.”

  “Sure. So does the Scylvendi, for that matter.”

  “But in a different way . . . Tell me, Zin, just what do you think Anasûrimbor Kellhus is?”

  Prophet or prophecy?

  “More,” Xinemus said decisively. “More than a man.”

  A long silence ensued, filled only by the shouts of some distant commotion.

  “The fact is,” Achamian finally ventured, “neither of us knows anything—”

  “What’s this now?” Xinemus exclaimed, staring over Achamian’s shoulder.

  The Schoolman craned his neck. “What’s what?”

  At first glance, it appeared that a mob approached. Crowds jostled through the narrow lane while clots of men filtered through the surrounding camps. Men trudged through firepits, pulled down laundry lines, knocked ad hoc chairs and grills aside. Achamian even saw a pavilion half-collapse as the men streaming around it barged through its guy ropes.

  But then he glimpsed a disciplined formation of crimson-clad soldiers filing through the heart of the multitude and in their midst a rectangle of bare-backed slaves carrying a mahogany palanquin.

  “A procession of some kind,” Xinemus said. “But who would . . .”

  His voice trailed. They had both glimpsed it at the same time: a long crimson banner capped by the Ainoni pictogram for Truth and bearing a coiled, three-headed serpent. The symbol of the Scarlet Spires.