Almost as much as her shrieking.
Anasыrimbor Esmenet casually dismissed the four Shrial Knights they found standing rigid in the hallway, looked around sourly at the ostentatious decor-anything but the dead Yatwerian sentry slumped across the carpet. In the Ikurei days, guests had been housed within the Andiamine Heights, something that simply wasn't possible given the greater administrative demands of the New Empire. The Guest Compound was one of the Holy Dynasty's first works, raised in the heady days before the fall of Nilnamesh and High Ainon, when Kellhus seemed to hold the world's own reins within his haloed fists. The marble, with its distinctive blue bruising, had been transported all the way from quarries in Ce Tydonn. The towering panels, each depicting heroic scenes from the Unification Wars in relief, had been drafted by Niminian himself and carved by the most renowned Nansur stonemasons.
All to the glory of the Aspect-Emperor.
She had no desire to revisit the carnage beyond the threshold. Esmenet had witnessed her fair share of death, perhaps more than any woman in the Three Seas, but she had no stomach for murdered faces.
"We'll wait here," she told the two men who had taken up positions on either side of her. As always, Phinersa's look seemed to flitter about the outskirts of her form. Captain Imhailas, on the other hand, was a study in contrast. He could stare with decisive constancy-too decisive, Esmenet sometimes thought. The man always seemed to be communicating urges he scarcely knew he possessed. Sometimes an arrogant curiosity would creep into his look, and he would press his manner to the very brink of transgression, standing almost too close, speaking in a way that was almost too familiar, and smiling at thoughts to which only he was privy. And as every prostitute knew, the only thing more threatening than eyes that had too many qualms were eyes that had too few. What had the strength to seize also had the strength to choke.
Moments afterwards, Maithanet appeared in the doorway, stepping carefully to avoid the clotted threads and buttons of blood. He was dressed plainly: no felt-shouldered vestments, no hems swaying with stitched gold, only a tunic possessing the satin gloss of a horse on parade. Ochre-coloured, it etched the contours of his limbs and torso in detail, revealing the kind of chest and shoulders that stirred some feminine instinct to climb. For the first time, it seemed, Esmenet realized how much the intimation of sheer physical strength contributed to his sometimes overawing presence.
The Shriah of the Thousand Temples was a man who could break necks with ease.
Both Phinersa and Imhailas fell to their knees, bowed as low as jnan required of them.
"I came as soon as I heard," he said. To better cultivate the distinction between the political and the spiritual organs of the Empire, Maithanet always resided in the Cmiral temple-complex, never the Imperial Precincts, when he stayed in Momemn.
"I knew you would," Esmenet replied.
"My brother-"
"Gone," she snapped. "Shortly before word of… of this… arrived. I ordered the area sealed as soon as I heard of it. I knew you would want to see for yourself."
His look was long and penetrating. It seemed to concede her worst fears.
"How, Maitha? How could they reach so deep? A mere Cult. The Mother of Birth, no less!"
The Shriah scratched his beard, glanced at the two men flanking her. "The Narindar, perhaps. They possess the skills… perhaps."
The Narindar. The famed Cultic assassins of yore.
"But you don't believe as much, do you?"
"I don't know what to believe. It was a shrewd move, that much is certain. Figurehead or not, Sharacinth was our royal road, our means of seizing control of the Yatwerians from within, or at the very least setting them at war from within…"
Phinersa nodded appreciatively. "She has become their weapon now."
Esmenet had concluded as much almost the instant she had stepped into the blood-spattered antechamber earlier that night. She was going to be blamed for this. First the rumours of the White-Luck Warrior, then the Yatwerian Matriarch herself assassinated while a guest of the Empress. The bumbling preposterousness of it mattered not at all. For the masses, the outrageousness of the act would simply indicate her fear, and her fear would suggest that she believed the rumours, which in turn would mean the Aspect-Emperor had to be a demon…
This had all the makings of a disaster.
"We must make sure no word of this gets out," she heard herself saying.
Each of the men save the Shriah averted their gaze.
She nodded, tried to press her snort of disgust into a long exhalation. "I suppose that's too late…"
"The Imperial Precincts," Phinersa said apologetically, "are simply too large, your Glory."
"Then we must go on the offensive!" Imhailas exclaimed. Until this moment, the handsome Exalt-Captain had done his best to slip between the cracks of her Imperial notice, his eyes wired open by the certainty that he would be held accountable. The security of the Imperial Precincts was his sole responsibility.
"That is true in any event," Maithanet said gravely. "But we have another possibility to consider…"
Esmenet found herself studying Sharacinth's ash-grey bodyguard, quite numb to what she was seeing. The smell of corruption was already wafting through the hall, like sediment kicked up in water. How absurd was it for them to have this discussion-this council of war-here in the presence of the very circumstantial debris they hoped to bury? People were dead, whole lives had been extinguished, and yet here they stood, plotting…
But then, she realized, the living had to forever look past the dead-on the pain of joining them.
"We must ensure this crime is decried for what it is," she said. "Few will believe us, but still, it's imperative that an Inquiry be called, and that someone renowned for his integrity be made Exalt-Inquisitor."
"One of the Patriarchs of the other Cults," Maithanet said, studying the carpets meditatively. "Perhaps Yagthrыta…" He raised his eyes to her own. "The man is every bit as rabid as his Patron God when it comes to matters of ritual legality."
Esmenet found herself nodding in approval. Yagthrыta was the Momian Patriarch, famed not only because he was the first Thunyeri to reach such an exalted rank, but because of his reputed piety and candour. Apparently, he had journeyed across the Meneanor from Tenryer to Sumna in naught but a skiff-a supreme gesture of faith if there ever was one. Best of all, his barbaric origins insulated him against the taint of the Shrial or Imperial Apparati.
"Excellent," she said. "In the meantime, it is absolutely crucial we find this Psatma Nannaferi…"
"Indeed, your Glory," Imhailas said, nodding with almost comic grandiloquence. "As the Khirgwi say, the headless snake has no fangs."
Esmenet scowled. The Captain had a habit of spouting inane adages-from some popular scroll of aphorisms, no doubt. Usually she found it charming-she was not above forgiving handsome men their quirks, particularly when she was their motive-but not on a matter as grievous as this, and certainly not in the presence of rank carnage.
"I'm afraid I've nothing new to add, your Glory," Phinersa said, his gaze ranging across the scenes of war and triumph along the walls. "We still think she's somewhere in Shigek. Think. But with the Fanim raiding the length of the River Sempis…" His eyes circled back only to flinch the instant they met her own.
Esmenet acknowledged the dilemma with a grimace. After spending years simply running, Fanayal ab Kascamandri had suddenly become aggressive, extraordinarily aggressive, effectively cutting the overland routes to Eumarna and Nilnamesh and, according to the latest reports, storming fortified towns on the river itself-using Cishaurim no less! All Shigek was in an uproar-precisely the kind of confusion the Mother-Supreme needed.
Weakness, she realized. They smelled weakness, all the enemies of the New Empire, be they heathen or Orthodox.
"Unless you issue warrants for the arrest of the High-Priestesses," Phinersa continued, "we simply will not find this Nannaferi."
Of course by "arrest" he meant torture. Esmenet fo
und herself looking to Maithanet. "I need to consider that… Perhaps if our Exalt-Inquisitor is disposed to blame Sharacinth's murder on some kind of feud within the Cult, it might provide the pretext we need."
The Shriah of the Thousand Temples pursed his lips. "We need to proceed cautiously. Perhaps, Empress, we should consult the Aspect-Emperor."
Esmenet felt her look harden into a glare.
Why? she found herself thinking. Why doesn't Kellhus trust you?
"Our immediate priority," she declared, pretending he had not spoken, "is to prepare for the eventuality of riots. Phinersa, you must recruit infiltrators. Imhailas, you must assure that the Precincts are secured-I will not have this happen a second time! Tell Ngarau that we are to be provisioned for the possibility of a siege. And contact General Anthirul. Have him recall one of the Arcong Columns."
For a moment all of them stood as motionless as the dead.
"Go! Both of you! Now!"
Startled into action, the two men hastened back the way they had come, the one tall and flashing in his ceremonial armour, the other dark and fluid in his black-silk robes. Esmenet found herself nagged by the certainty that Phinersa had momentarily glanced at Maithanet for confirmation…
So many looks. So many qualms. It was always the complexities that overwhelmed us. It was always the maze of others that robbed us of our way.
My little boy is dead.
But she squelched her misgivings, stared at the Shriah of the Thousand Temples squarely. "Skin-spies," she said. She suddenly found herself dizzy with exhaustion, like a water-bearer balancing one bowl too many. "You think skin-spies did this."
Anasыrimbor Maithanet replied with uncharacteristic reluctance. "I find this turn… incalculable."
A memory struck her then, not so much of an event as of a feeling, the murky sense of being harassed and hemmed in, the tightness of breath that belonged to the besieged. A memory of the First Holy War.
For an instant, she thought she could smell the septic reaches of Caraskand.
"Kellhus told me they would come," Esmenet said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Condia
Damnation follows not from the bare utterance of sorcery, for nothing is bare in this world.
No act is so wicked, no abomination is so obscene, as to lie beyond the salvation of my Name.
— Anasrimbor Kellhus, Novum Arcanum
Spring, 20 New Imperial Year (4132 Year-of-the-Tusk), Condia
In Sakarpus, leuneraal, or hunched ones (so-called for their habit of stooping over their scrolls), were so despised that it was customary for Horselords and their Boonsmen to bathe after their dealings with them. The Men of Sakarpus considered weakness a kind of disease, something to be fended with various rules of interaction and ritual cleansings. And no men were so weak as the leuneraal.
But Sorweel's new tutor, Thanteus Eskeles, was more than a hunched man. Far more. Were he merely a scholar, then Sorweel would have had the luxury of these rules. But he was also a sorcerer-a Three Seas Schoolman! — and this made things… complicated.
Sorweel had never doubted the Tusk, never doubted that sorcerers were the walking damned. But try as he might, he could never square this belief with his fascination. Through all his innumerable daydreams of the Three Seas, nothing had captivated him quite so much as the Schools. What would it be like, he often wondered, to possess a voice that could shout down the World's Holy Song? What kind of man would exchange his soul for that kind of diabolical power?
As a result, Eskeles was both an insult and a kind of illicit opportunity-a contradiction, like all things Three Seas.
The Mandate Schoolman would join him each morning, usually within a watch of the march getting underway, and they would while away the time with drill after laborious language drill. Though Eskeles encouraged him to believe otherwise, Sorweel's tongue balked at the sound and structure of Sheyic. He often went cross-eyed listening to Eskeles drone. At times, he feared he might slump unconscious from his saddle, the lessons were so boring.
Once he enlisted Zsoronga to hide him in the middle of his retinue, he came to dread the sorceror's appearance so. The Successor-Prince promptly betrayed him, but not before having his fill of laughing at the sight of the Schoolman riding on his burrow craning his neck this way and that. Old Obotegwa, he explained, was growing weary speaking for two men.
"Besides," he said, "how can we be sure we're talking to each other at all? Perhaps the old devil makes it all up so he can laugh himself to sleep."
Obotegwa simply winked and grinned mischievously.
Eskeles was a strange man, obese by Sakarpi standards, but not so fat as many Sorweel had seen in the Ordeal. He never seemed to get cold, despite wearing only a red-silk tunic with his leggings, one cut to expose the black fur that crawled from his belly to his beard, which even oiled and plaited never quite seemed under control. He had an affable, even merry face, high cheeks beneath pig-friendly eyes. This, combined with a lively, even careless manner, made him exceedingly difficult to dislike, despite his sorcerous calling and the brownish tinge of his Ketyai skin.
At first Sorweel could scarcely understand a word he said, his accent was so thick. But he quickly learned how to listen through the often bizarre pronunciations. He discovered that the man had spent several years in Sakarpus as part of a secret Mandate mission posing as Three Seas traders.
"Dreadful, dreadful time for the likes of me," he said.
"I suppose you missed your Southron luxuries," Sorweel jeered.
The fat man laughed. "No-no. Heavens, no. If you knew what me and my kind dreamed each night, your Glory, you would understand our profound ability to appreciate the simplest of things. No. It was your Chorae Hoard… Quite extraordinary really, dwelling in the vicinity of so many Trinkets…"
"Trinkets?"
"Yes. That's what we Schoolmen like to call them-Chorae, that is. For much the same reason you Sakarpi call Sranc-what is it? Oh, yes, grass-rats."
Sorweel frowned. "Because that's what they are?"
Despite his good humour, Eskeles had this sly way of appraising him sometimes, as if he were a map fetched from the fire. Something that had to be read around burns.
"No-no. Because that's what you need them to be."
Sorweel understood full well what the fat man meant-men often used glib words to shrink great and terrible things-but the true lesson, he realized, was quite different. He resolved never to forget that Eskeles was a spy. That he was an agent of the Aspect-Emperor.
Learning a language, Sorweel quickly realized, was unlike learning anything else. At first, he thought it would be a matter of simple substitution, of replacing one set of sounds with another. He knew nothing of what Eskeles called grammar, the notion that a kind of invisible mechanism bound everything he said into patterns. He scoffed at the sorcerer's insistence that he first learn his own tongue before venturing to learn another. But the patterns were undeniable, and no matter how much he wanted to dispute the fat man and his glib I-told-you-so smile, he had to admit that he could not speak without using things such as subjects and predicates, nouns and verbs.
Though he affected an attitude of aloof contempt-he was in the presence of a leuneraal, after all-Sorweel found himself more than a little troubled by this. How could he know these things without knowing them? And if something as profound as grammar could escape his awareness-to the point where it had simply not existed-what else was lurking in the nethers of his soul?
So he came to realize that learning a language was perhaps the most profound thing a man could do. Not only did it require wrapping different sounds around the very movement of your soul, it involved learning things somehow already known, as though much of what he was somehow existed apart from him. A kind of enlightenment accompanied these first lessons, a deeper understanding of self.
None of which made the lessons any less boring. But thankfully even Eskeles's passion for Sheyic would begin to wane by midafternoon, and his disciplined insist
ence on the drills would lapse. For a few watches, at least, he would let the young King indulge his curiosity about more sundry things. Sorweel spent much of this time avoiding the topics that really interested him-sorcery because he feared it sinful, and the Aspect-Emperor for reasons he could not fathom-and asking questions about the Three Seas and the Great Ordeal.
So he learned more details about the Middle-North and its peoples: the Galeoth, the Tydonni, and the Thunyeri. The Eastern Ketyai: the Cengemi, the Conriyans, and the Ainoni. And the Western Ketyai: primarily the Nansur, the Shigeki, the Kianene, and the Nilnameshi. Eskeles, who, Sorweel was beginning to realize, was one of those vain men who never seemed arrogant, discussed all these peoples with the confidence and wicked cynicism of someone who had spent his life travelling. Each nation had its strengths and weaknesses: the Ainoni, for instance, were devious plotters but too womanish in their affect and attire; the Thunyeri were savage in battle but about as sharp as rotten fruit-as Eskeles put it. Sorweel found all of it fascinating, even though the sorcerer was one of those men whose animate enthusiasm actually seemed to deaden rather than liven the subject matter.
Then, one afternoon several days into his instruction, Sorweel summoned enough courage to mention the Aspect-Emperor. He related-in a form abbreviated by embarrassment-the story Zsoronga had told him about the emissaries cutting their own throats before the Zeьmi Satakhan. "I know he's your master…" he ended awkwardly.
"What about him?" Eskeles replied after a thoughtful pause.
"Well… What is he?"
The sorcerer nodded in the manner of those confirmed in their worries. "Come," he said cryptically, spurring his mule to a trot.
The Kidruhil typically rode near the forward heart of the Great Ordeal, where they could be sent in any direction given the unlikely event of an attack. But word of Sranc activity to the west had led to their redeployment on the extreme left flank. This meant the sorcerer and his ward need press neither hard nor far to ride clear of the slow roping columns. Looking absurd on his mule-his legs straight rather than bent, his girth almost equal to his mount's-Eskeles pressed along the shoulders of a long low knoll. Sorweel followed, alternately smiling at the sight of the man and frowning at his intentions. Beyond the crest of the knoll, the farther plains sloped up into the horizon, bone-coloured for the most part but shot with whorls of grey and ash black. The green of the more lush lands to the south had become little more than a haze.
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