Late Spring, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn
Emperor Ikurei Xerius III paced, wringing his hands. After the debacle in the garden he’d begun shaking uncontrollably. He could go no farther than his imperial apartments. Conphas and Gaenkelti, the Captain of his Eothic Guard, stood silently in the room’s centre, watching him. Xerius paused by a lacquered table, swallowed a deep draught of liquored anpoi. He smacked his lips and gasped.
“You have him?”
“Yes,” Gaenkelti replied. “He’s been taken to the galleries.”
“I must see him.”
“I advise against this, God-of-Men,” Gaenkelti replied carefully.
Xerius paused, stared hard at the massive Norsirai Captain. “Against? Is there sorcery here?”
“The Imperial Saik say no. But this man has been . . . trained.”
“What do you mean ‘trained’? Spare me your riddles, Gaenkelti! The Empire has been humiliated this day. I’ve been humiliated!”
“He was . . . hard to take. Three of my men are dead. Four more have broken limbs—”
“Surely you jest!” Conphas cried. “Was he armed?”
“No. I’ve never seen the like. If we hadn’t had extra guards assigned for the audience . . . As I said, he’s been trained.”
“You mean,” Xerius said, his face stricken by terror, “that during all this time, all these years, he could have killed . . . killed me?”
“But how old is Skeaös, Uncle?” Conphas asked. “How could this be? It must be sorcery.”
“The Saik swear it’s not,” Gaenkelti repeated.
“The Saik!” Xerius spat, turning for more anpoi. “Blasphemous rats. Scuttling around the palace. Plotting, always plotting against me. We need independent confirmation.” He took another deep drink, coughed. “Send for one of the other Schools . . . The Mysunsai,” he continued, his voice pinched.
“I’ve already done so, God-of-Men. But I believe the Saik in this instance.” Gaenkelti grasped the small, rune-covered sphere that rested against his breastplate—a Chorae, the bane of sorcerers. “I hung this before his face after he’d been subdued. There was no fear. There was nothing in that face.”
“Skeaös!” Xerius cried to the engraved ceilings, reaching again for the anpoi. “Slavish, damnable, shuffling Skeaös! A spy? A trained assassin? He trembled whenever I addressed him directly—did you know this? Trembled like a fawn. And I’d say to myself: ‘The others call me a God, but Skeaös, ah good Skeaös, he knows I’m divine. Skeaös alone has submitted . . . ’ And all the while he dripped poison in my ear. Whetted my appetite with his tongue. Gods of damnation! I’ll see him skinned! I’ll wring truth from his broken frame! Blast him with agony!” With a roar Xerius heaved and overturned the table. Glass and gold crashed and clattered across the marble.
He stood silently, his chest heaving. The world buzzed around him, impenetrable, mocking. Everywhere the shadows clamoured. Great designs were afoot. The Gods themselves moved—against him.
“What of the other, God-of-Men?” Gaenkelti dared ask. “The Atrithau Prince who led you to suspect Skeaös?”
Xerius turned to his Captain, his eyes still wild. “The Atrithau Prince,” he repeated, shuddering at the recollection of the man’s composed expression. A spy . . . and with a face that bespoke utter ease. Such confidence! And why not, when the Emperor’s own Prime Counsel was one of his own? But no more. He would visit him with terror soon enough.
“Watch him. Scrutinize him like no other.”
He turned to Conphas, studied him briefly. For once it seemed as though his godlike nephew was perturbed. The small satisfactions—he had to cling to these through the night to follow.
“Leave us for now, Captain,” he said, recovering himself. “I’m pleased by your conduct. See to it that Grandmaster Cememketri and Tokush are summoned to me immediately. I would speak to my sorcerers and my spies. And my augurs . . . Send Arithmeas as well.”
Gaenkelti knelt, touched his forehead to the carpeted floor, and withdrew.
Alone with his nephew, Xerius turned his back to him and walked to the open portico on the far side of the chamber. Outside it was dusk, and the Meneanor Sea heaved darkly against the grey horizon.
“I know your question,” he said to the figure behind him. “You wonder how much I’ve told to Skeaös. You wonder if he knows all that you know.”
“He was with you always, Uncle. Was he not?”
“I may be fooled, Nephew, but I am not a fool . . . But this is moot. We’ll know all that Skeaös knows soon enough. We will know whom to punish.”
“And the Holy War?” Conphas asked cautiously. “What of our Indenture?”
“Our own house, Nephew. First, our own house . . .”
Or so your grandmother would say.
Xerius turned his profile to Conphas, paused in thought. “Cememketri has told me that a Mandate sorcerer has joined the Holy War. Summon him . . . yourself.”
“Why? Mandate Schoolmen are fools.”
“Fools can be trusted precisely because they are fools. Their agendas rarely intersect with your own. These are great matters, Conphas. We must be certain.”
Conphas left him alone with the dark sea. One could see far from the summit of the Andiamine Heights, but never, it seemed, far enough. He would ply Cememketri, Grandmaster of the Imperial Saik, and Tokush, his Master of Spies. He would listen to them squabble with each other, learn nothing from them. And then he would go down to the galleries. See “good” Skeaös himself. Dole out the first wages of his transgression.
The journey from the encampment to the Andiamine Heights held something of a nightmarish quality for Achamian. But such was Momemn after dark—something of a nightmare. The air was so pungent it had taste. Several times he glimpsed a tall finger of stone—the Tower of Ziek, he supposed—and for a short time, as they passed near the temple-complex of Cmiral, he could see the great domes of Xothei arched like black bellies beneath the sky. But otherwise he found himself submerged in a chaotic warren of avenues hedged by ancient tenements and punctuated by abandoned bazaars, canals, and cultic temples. Complex by daylight, Momemn was labyrinthine by night.
The troop of torch-bearing Kidruhil formed a glittering thread through the darkness. Iron-shod hoofs clattered against the stone and muck, drawing frightened, pasty faces to nearby windows. In full ceremonial armour, Ikurei Conphas himself rode beside him—aloof.
Achamian found himself glancing periodically at the Exalt-General. There was something unnerving about the man’s physical perfection, something that made Achamian acutely self-conscious of his own portly frame, almost as though through Conphas, the Gods had revealed the cruel humour behind the accumulated flaws of more common men. But it was more than his appearance that unsettled. There was an air about the man—something too self-assured to qualify as arrogance. Ikurei Conphas, Achamian decided, was possessed either of a terrible strength or a frightening lack.
Conphas! It still beggared belief. What could the Ikureis want of him? Achamian had given up asking the Imperial Nephew. “I have been sent to fetch,” the man had said blankly, “not to banter.”
Whatever the Emperor wanted, it was important enough to make an errand boy of the Imperial Nephew.
From the first, the summons had filled Achamian with a sense of tight-lipped foreboding. The heavily armoured Kidruhil had spilled through the avenues of the Conriyan camp as though executing an assault. Several moments of jostling and angry words by firelight passed before it became clear that the Nansur had come for him.
“Why would an Emperor summon me?” he’d asked Conphas.
“Why summon any sorcerer?” the man had replied impatiently.
This response had angered him, had reminded him of the officials from the Thousand Temples whom he’d plied for details of Inrau’s death. And for an instant, Achamian had understood just how insignificant the Mandate had become in the great scheme of the Three Seas. Of the Schools, the Mandate was the besotted fool whos
e bloated claims became more and more desperate as the night waxed. And like any other embarrassment, the powerful religiously avoided desperation.
Which was why this request was so unsettling. What could an Emperor want with a desperate fool like Drusas Achamian?
As far as he could tell, only one of two things could induce a Great Faction such as the Ikureis to call on him. Either they had encountered something beyond the abilities of their own School, the Imperial Saik, or the mercenary Mysunsai to resolve, or they wished to speak of the Consult. Since no one save the Mandate believed in the Consult any more, it had to be the former. And perhaps this wasn’t as implausible as it seemed. If the Great Factions commonly laughed at their mission, they still respected their skills.
The Gnosis made them rich fools.
Eventually, they passed beneath a looming gate, rode through the outer gardens of the Imperial Precincts, and came to the base of the Andiamine Heights. The relief Achamian had anticipated, however, was nowhere to be found.
“We’ve arrived, sorcerer,” Ikurei Conphas said curtly, dismounting with the ease of a man bred to horses. “Follow me.”
Conphas ushered him to a set of iron-bound doors that seemed ancillary to the rest of the immediate structure. The palace, its marble columns shimmering in the countless torches that ringed its perimeter, climbed the rambling heights above them. Conphas hammered on the doors, and they were pried open by two Eothic Guardsmen, revealing a long passageway illuminated by candles. Rather than climbing the Heights, however, it led to their buried heart.
Conphas strode through, but he paused when Achamian hesitated.
“If you’re wondering,” he said with a small, wicked smile, “whether this passage leads to the Emperor’s dungeons, it does . . .” The candlelight glossed the intricate reliefs stamped into his breastplate—the many suns of Nansur. Underneath the breastplate, Achamian knew, lay a Chorae. Most nobles of rank wore them, their totems against sorcery. But Achamian did not need to infer its presence—he could feel it.
“I’d surmised as much,” he replied, standing at the threshold. “The time has come, I think, for you to explain my purpose here.”
“Mandate sorcerers,” Conphas said ruefully. “Like all misers, you assume that everyone is after your hoard. What do you think, sorcerer? That I’m so stupid as to publicly barrel through Proyas’s camp just to abduct you?”
“You belong to the House Ikurei. That’s cause for apprehension enough, don’t you think?”
Conphas studied him for a moment—a tax-farmer’s look—and apparently understood that Achamian could not be bullied by mockery or rank. “So be it, then,” he said abruptly. “We’ve discovered a spy in our midst. The Emperor needs you to verify that sorcery was not involved.”
“You don’t trust the Imperial Saik?”
“No one trusts the Imperial Saik.”
“I see. And the mercenaries—the Mysunsai—why not use them?”
Again the man smiled condescendingly—much more than condescendingly. Achamian had seen many such smiles before, but they had always seemed shrill somehow, polluted by small despairs. There was nothing shrill about this smile. His perfect teeth flashed in the candlelight. Predatory teeth. “This spy, sorcerer, is most uncanny. Perhaps beyond their limited talents.”
Achamian nodded. The Mysunsai were “limited.” Mercenary souls were rarely gifted ones. But for the Emperor to send for a Mandate sorcerer, to distrust not only his own magi but the mercenaries as well . . . They’re terrified, Achamian realized. The Ikureis are terrified. Achamian scrutinized the Imperial Nephew, searching for any sign of deception. Satisfied, he crossed the threshold. He winced when he heard the doors grate shut behind him.
The hallway rushed by them, swallowed by Conphas’s long martial strides. Achamian could almost feel the Andiamine Heights pile above them. How many people, he wondered, had walked this hall never to return?
Without warning Conphas spoke: “You’re a friend of Nersei Proyas, no? Tell me: What do you know of Anasûrimbor Kellhus? The one who claims to be a Prince of Atrithau.”
A physical jolt accompanied this question, and for a heartbeat Achamian had to struggle to maintain their brisk pace.
Is Kellhus somehow involved in this?
What should he tell him? That he feared the man might be a harbinger of the Second Apocalypse? Tell him nothing.
“Why do you ask?”
“No doubt you’ve heard the outcome of the Emperor’s meeting with the Great Names. In no small measure, it was a result of the cunning of that man.”
“His wisdom, you mean.”
Momentary wrath disfigured the Exalt-General’s expression. He tapped his breastplate twice below his neck, precisely where, Achamian knew, his Chorae lay hidden. The gesture calmed the man somehow, as though reminding him of all the ways that Achamian could die.
“I asked you a simple question.”
The question was anything but simple, Achamian thought. What did he know of Kellhus? Precious little, save that he was perhaps as awed by who the man was as he was terrified by who the man might be. An Anasûrimbor had returned.
“Does this,” Achamian asked, “have anything to do with your ‘uncanny spy’?”
Conphas came to an abrupt halt and scrutinized him. Either he was astounded by some hidden idiocy in this question or he was making a decision.
They truly are terrified.
The Exalt-General snorted, as though amazed he could worry about what a Mandate Schoolman might make of the Empire’s secrets. “Nothing whatsoever.” He smirked. “You should comb your beard, sorcerer,” he added as they continued down the passage. “You’re about to meet the Emperor himself.”
Xerius left Cememketri’s side and looked hard into the face of Skeaös. Blood clotted one ear. Long wisps of white hair framed his veined forehead and sunken cheeks, made him look wild.
The old man was naked and chained, his body bowed outwards along a wooden table curved like half of a broken wheel. The wood was smooth—polished by many such chainings—and dark against the Counsel’s pale skin. The chamber had low vaulted ceilings and was illuminated by shining braziers scattered randomly through its recesses. They stood in the heart of the Andiamine Heights, in what had through the ages come to be called the Truth Room. Along the walls, in iron racks, stood the implements of Truth.
Skeaös watched him without fear, blinked the way a child, awakened in the dead of night, might blink. His eyes glittered from his wizened face, turned to the figures that accompanied his Emperor: Cememketri and two other senior magi, wearing the black-and-gold robes of the Imperial Saik, the Sorcerers of the Sun; Gaenkelti and Tokush, still dressed in their ceremonial armour, their faces rigid with fear that their Emperor, inevitably, would hold them responsible for this outrageous treachery; Kimish, the Interrogator, who saw points of pain instead of people; Skaleteas, the blue-robed Mysunsai summoned by Gaenkelti, his middle-aged face openly perplexed; and of course, two blue-tattooed crossbowmen of the Eothic Guard, their Chorae aimed at the Prime Counsel’s sunken chest.
“Such a different Skeaös,” the Emperor whispered, clasping his trembling hands.
A soft chuckle escaped the Prime Counsel.
Xerius beat down the terror that moved him, felt his heart harden. Fury. He would need fury here.
“What say you, Kimish?” he asked.
“He’s already been plied, briefly, God-of-Men,” Kimish answered plainly. “According to protocol.” Was there excitement in his tone? Kimish, alone out of those gathered, would care nothing for the fact that it was an Imperial Counsel on the table. He cared only for his trade. The politics of this outrage, the dizzying implications, would, Xerius was certain, mean nothing to him. Xerius liked this about Kimish, even if it irritated him at times. It was a becoming trait for an Interrogator.
“And?” Xerius asked, his voice almost cracking. His every passion seemed amplified, hinged upon the possibility of precipitous transformations. Annoyance to fury.
Small hurt to agony.
“He’s unlike any man I’ve seen, God-of-Men.”
What did not become Kimish, Xerius had decided, was his penchant for drama. Like a storyteller, he spoke in gaps, as though the world was his chorus. The heart of the matter was something Kimish jealously guarded, something provided according to the rules of narrative suspense, not necessity.
“Finding answers is your trade, Kimish,” Xerius snapped. “Why must I interrogate the Interrogator?”
Kimish shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better to show than to say,” he said, grasping a small set of pliers from the rack of tools beside the Counsel. “Watch.”
He knelt and grasped one of the Counsel’s feet in his left hand. Slowly, with the boredom of a craftsman, he wrenched out a toenail.
There was nothing. No shriek. Not even a shudder from the old frame.
“Inhuman,” Xerius gasped, backing away.
The others stood dumbstruck. He turned to Cememketri, who shook his head, and then to Skaleteas, who said, blankly, “There’s no sorcery, here, God-of-Men.”
Xerius whirled to face his Counsel. “What are you?” he cried.
The old face grinned. “More, Xerius. I am more.” It was not Skeaös’s voice but something broken, like many voices.
The ground wheeled beneath Xerius’s feet. He steadied himself by clutching Cememketri, who involuntarily shrank from the Chorae swinging about his neck. Xerius looked into the sorcerer’s sneering face. The Imperial Saik! His thoughts howled. Convoluted. Arcane in deed and desire. Only they had the resources. Only they had the means . . .
“You lie!” he cried to the Grandmaster. “This must be sorcery! I feel it! I feel its poison in the air! This room reeks of it!” He thrust the terrified man to the ground. “You’ve bought this slave!” he shrieked, gesturing to the ashen-faced Skaleteas. “Eh, Cememketri? Unclean, blasphemous cur! Is this your doing? The Saik would be the Scarlet Spires of the West, no? Make a puppet of their Emperor!”
Xerius stopped short, yanked from his accusations by the sight of Conphas at the entrance. The Mandate sorcerer stood at his side. Cememketri’s attendants hastily pulled the Grandmaster to his feet.
The Darkness That Comes Before Page 54